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Koran i progress. Po povodu umstvennogo probuzhdeniia sovremennykh rossiiskikh musul’man [i.e. The Koran and Progress: On the Intellectual Awakening of Contemporary Russian Muslims]

OSTROUMOV, Nikolai Petrovich

Item #2885

Tashkent: A. L. Kirsner, 1901. [2], 248, 6 pp. 21×16.5 cm (81⁄4×61⁄2 in). Modern half-leather binding with gilt lettering on the spine and speckled edges. Binding slightly rubbed; title page restored along the inner margin; minor soiling; otherwise a very good, clean copy.

A lifetime edition of one of the principal works on Islam by Nikolai Petrovich Ostroumov (1846–1930), Russian missionary, orientalist, ethnographer, and longtime scholar of Central Asia. A student
of Nikolai Ilminsky, Ostroumov settled in Tashkent in 1877 and subsequently served as director of the Turkestan Teachers’ Seminary and Tashkent Men’s Gymnasium and, from 1883 to 1917, as editor of Turkestanskaia tuzemnaia gazeta. His scholarship on Islam was closely connected with his Orthodox missionary and educational activity in Russian Turkestan.

The book gives a detailed account of the Koran, including the origin and history of its text, its external form, contradictions and the doctrine of abrogation, Koranic theology, its treatment of the Christian Trinity, monotheism, morality, and the relationship between Islam and contemporary ideas of progress. It was one of Ostroumov’s most substantial works on the Koran and brought together subjects he had been addressing since his earlier Chto takoe Koran? [What Is the Koran?] of 1883. Ostroumov argues that a better knowledge of the Koran was necessary for understanding the Muslim population of the Russian Empire and for avoiding conflicts caused by European officials’ ignorance of Islamic religious norms. At the same time, the work reflects his missionary perspective and his broader concern with what he termed the intellectual “awakening” of contemporary Russian Muslims.

Worldcat shows one copy at University of Chicago.

Price: $1,750.00