Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828-1910)
On God, the afterlife and Islam. 1908
Autograph letter signed ('Lev Tolstoy') to Fridun Khan Badalbekov, [Yasnaya Polyana], 28 December 1908.

In Russian, with a book title quoted in English. Two pages, 257 x 203mm. Provenance: Sotheby's, 8 December 2009, lot 256. [With:] Portrait photograph of Tolstoy, on a postcard, thought to be the last portrait of him before his death.

On Tolstoy's understand of 'God', the afterlife and Islam. Tolstoy replies to a letter from a student, of Persian origin, about his understanding of the word 'God', first by sending (no longer present) his book Kruga Chteniya (The Circle of Reading, 1908), 'which brings together thoughts about God with which I agree'. He goes on to give in strikingly direct terms his views on the nature of God, on the afterlife and on Islam, concluding with an approving reference to Babism:

In my opinion, in order not to have a false idea of ​​God, one must first of all get rid of the idea of ​​God as a person, which is accepted in both Church Christianity and Mohammedanism.

For me, the closest understanding of God that meets the requirements of both the mind and heart of man is that which is expressed in 1 John, ch. IV, verses 7, 12, 16, namely, that God is love, so as far as a person has love in him, so much God lives in him, and so much such a person can understand God. This idea is more or less clearly expressed in all religions, as well as in the Mohammedan.

To the second question about what awaits us behind the grave, I can only answer that, when we die, we go there, that is, to the God from whom we came into life. But this God, to whom we are returning, is love, and therefore, when we die, we cannot expect anything but good.

I answer the third question by the fact that Islam, in my opinion, contains, like all religions: Brahminism, Buddhism, Confucianism, etc., great, eternal truths, but, like all religions, mixed with superstitions, gross perversions of truth by rituals and deceptions. The excellent book of sayings of Mohammed (The Sayings of Mubammad, edited by Abdulah Al-Mamun Al-Suhrawardy), published in London, helped me a lot to form a concept of Islam. The teachings of the Babists, which passed into Bagaism (Baga-Ulla), which arose from Mohammedanism, is one of the highest and purest religious teachings.

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