It would appear that not until after the promulgation of the edict of religious toleration in 1905 throughout the Russian empire and the active Muslim propaganda that followed it, were cases observed of Russians being converted to Islam, and those that have occurred are ascribed to the strong attraction of the material help offered by the Tatars to such converts and the influence of the moral strength of the Muslims themselves. [792] Not that the Tatars in Russia had been altogether inoperative in promoting the spread of Islam during the preceding centuries. The distinctly Hellenic type of face that is to be found among the so-called Tatars of the Crimea has led to the conjecture that these Muhammadans have absorbed into their community the Greek and Italian populations that they found settled on the Crimean peninsula, and that we find among them the Muhammadanised descendants of the indigenous inhabitants, and of the Genoese colonists. [793] A traveller of the seventeenth century tells us that the Tatars of the Crimea tried to induce their slaves to become Muhammadans, and won over many of them to this faith by promising them their liberty if they would be persuaded. [794] Conversions to Islam from among the Tatars of the Crimea are also reported after the proclamation of religious liberty in 1905. [795] A brief reference may here be made to the Tatars in Lithuania, where small groups of them have been settled since the early part of the fifteenth century; these Muslim immigrants, dwelling in the midst of a Christian population, have preserved their old faith, but (probably for political reasons) do not appear to have attempted to proselytise. But they have been in the habit of marrying Lithuanian and Polish women, whose children were always brought up as Muslims, whereas no Muhammadan girl was permitted to marry a Christian. The grand dukes of Lithuania in the fifteenth century encouraged the marriage of Christian women with their Tatar troops, on whom they bestowed grants of land and other privileges. [796]