page_title: Islam in Europe
section_title: Russia and Ukraine
hierarchical_section_title: Islam in Europe / History / Eastern Europe / Russia and Ukraine
caption_attribution_description: The first mosque in Slovenia, built probably in autumn 1916, pulled down after World War 1.
context_page_description: Islam is the second-largest religion in Europe after Christianity. Although the majority of Muslim communities in Europe formed recently, there are centuries-old Muslim societies in the Balkans.
  Islam entered southern Europe through the expansion of "Moors" of North Africa in the 8th–10th centuries; Muslim political entities existed firmly in what is today Spain, Portugal, Sicily and Malta for several centuries. The Muslim community in these territories was converted or expelled by the end of the 15th century by Christian polities. Islam expanded into the Caucasus through the Muslim conquest of Persia in the 7th century. The Ottoman Empire expanded into southeastern Europe, invading and conquering huge portions of the Serbian Empire, Bulgarian Empire, and all the remaining Byzantine Empire in the 14th and 15th centuries. Over the centuries, the Ottoman Empire also gradually lost almost all of its European territories, until the empire collapsed in 1922. Some Balkan countries continue to have large populations of native Muslims, though the majority are secular.
  The term "Muslim Europe" is used for the Muslim-majority countries of Albania, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
context_section_description: In the mid-7th century AD, following the Muslim conquest of Persia, Islam spread into areas that would later become part of Russia. There are accounts of the trade connections between Muslims and the Rus', apparently people from the Baltic region who made their way towards the Black Sea through Central Russia. During his journey to Volga Bulgaria in 921–922, Ibn Fadlan observed the Rus', claiming that some had converted to Islam. "They are very fond of pork and many of them who have assumed the path of Islam miss it very much." The Rus' also relished their nabidh, a fermented drink which Ibn Fadlan often mentioned as part of their daily fare.
  The Mongols began their conquest of Rus', of Volga Bulgaria, and of the Cuman-Kipchak Confederation (parts of present-day Russia and Ukraine) in the 13th century. After the Mongol empire split, the eastern European section became known as the Golden Horde. Although not originally Muslim, the western Mongols adopted Islam as their religion in the early-14th century under Berke Khan, and later Uzbeg Khan established it as the official religion of the state. Much of the mostly Turkic-speaking population of the Horde, as well as the small Mongol aristocracy, became Islamized (if they were not already Muslim, like the Volga Bulgars) and became known to Russians and Europeans as the Tatars. More than half
  of the European portion of what is now Russia and Ukraine came under the suzerainty of Muslim Tatars and Turks from the 13th to the 15th centuries. The Crimean Khanate became a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire in 1475 and subjugated what remained of the Great Horde by 1502. The Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible conquered the Muslim Khanate of Kazan in 1552.
caption: Log pod Mangartom Mosque, the only mosque ever built in Slovenia - constructed in the town of Log pod Mangartom during World War I
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