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Russian Roads to Mecca: Religious Tolerance and Muslim Pilgrimage in the Russian Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Daniel Brower
Daniel Brower*
Affiliation:
The Department of History, University of California, Davis
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Extract

The Russian empire provided Islam a sheltered but precarious place within its borders. Sporadic efforts at forced conversion to Orthodoxy ended in 1773 with Catherine II's edict of religious tolerance, which officially acknowledged the existence of the Muslim community and allowed the free practice of its essential religious rites. Among these, pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj) was one of the most sacred. But distrust of Islam and fear of Muslim revolt, fed by an almost paranoid apprehension of pan-Islamic solidarity, were deeply embedded in tsarist policies and attitudes toward pious Muslims.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 55 , Issue 3 , Fall 1996 , pp. 567 - 584
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1996

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References

I wish to thank Barbara Metcalf and Edward Lazzerini for their thoughtful comments. Research for this article was supported in part by a grant from the International Research and Exchanges Board, with funds provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the United States Department of State.

1. Metcalf, Barbara Daly, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900 (Princeton, 1982), 3–15.Google Scholar

2. Intellectual debates and reform movements among Tatar Muslims are discussed in Rorlich, Azade-Ayse, The Volga Tatars: A Profile in National Resilience (Stanford, 1986), chaps. 6 and 7Google Scholar. Other studies of Muslim peoples briefly mention the religious administration in their areas (e.g., Fisher, Alan, The Crimean Tatars [Stanford, 1978], 96–98)Google Scholar. The movement for Muslim unity (pan-Islamism) is studied in its secular form in Zenkovsky, Serge, Pan-Turkism and Islam in Russia (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), chap. 3.Google Scholar Edward Lazzerini provides a general view of the reform (jadid) movement in the empire in “The Jadid Response to Pressure for Change,” in Jo-Ann Gross, ed., Muslims in Central Asia (Durham, 1992), 151–66.

3. “Po voprosu o preobrazovanii upravleniia musul'manskoi very,” 1875, Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv (RGIA), f. 821, op. 8, d. 611 (1870–75), 11. 49–50.

4. The most explicit statement of this policy is contained in Kaufman's lengthy analysis of the procedures to be used in dealing with Muslim religious property, “O zemliakh vakufnykh,” RGIA, f. 821, op. 8, d. 612, 11. 6–9.

5. “O poriadke vydachi zagranichnykh pasportov russko-poddannym musul'manam, otpravliaiushchimsia v Mekku,” in Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Respubliki Uzbekistana (TsGARU), f. 1, op. 11, d. 1, 11. 23–24.

6. “Po vozbuzhdennomu voprosu o priniatii mer k ogranicheniiu chisl bogomoltsev musul'man,” in Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi voenno-istoricheskii arkhiv (RGVIA), f. 400, op. 1, d. 321, 11. 2, 14–16.

7. Cited in a decree of 25 February 1881, from the Department of the Police, Ministry of Internal Affairs, in Krichinskii, Arslan, ed., Dokumenty po russkoi politihi v Zakavkaz'e (Baku, 1920) 1: 107–8Google Scholar. I am indebted to Edward Lazzerini for this citation.

8. William Roff, “Sanitation and Security: The Imperial Powers and the Nineteenth-Century Hajj,” Arabian Studies 6 (1982): table 1, 150.

9. “Poezdki magometan v Mekku i Medinu,” RGIA, f. 821, op. 8, d. 1174, 11. 17–18.

10. Very approximate figures on numbers of pilgrims are found in “Zapiski Russkogo konsula v Bagdade po voprosu o palomnichestve musul'man,” in ‘To voprosu o bor'be s chumoiu,” RGIA, f. 560, op. 22, d. 206, 11. 14–15; “O poriadke vydachi zagranichnykh pasportov,” TsGARU, f. 1, op. 11, d. 1, 1. 5; and “Zapiski o palomnichestve musul'man,” 3 November 1896, in “Poezdki magometan v Mekku i Medinu, “

11. 130–34; “Palomnichestvo v Mekku i Medinu,” in Materialy po musul'manstvu 5 (Tashkent, 1899): 6–8. “O poriadke vydachi zagranichnykh pasportov,” 1. 5.

12. “Vedomost’ o chisle pasportov,” Kantseliariia Glavnonachal'stvuiushchego na Kavkaze, 15 March 1887, RGIA, f. 821, op. 8, d. 1071, 1. 8.

13. Cited in “Zapiski o palomnichestve musul'man,” 11. 136, 202.

14. Information from dispatches sent in the latter part of the century by the consuls in Jeddah and Baghdad appeared in several lengthy ministerial reports at the end of the century: “Zapiska Russkogo konsula v Bagdade po voprosu o palomnichestve musul'man,” in “Po voprosu o bor'be s chumoiu,” 11. 14–15; “O poriadke vydachi zagranichnykh pasportov,” 1. 5; and “Zapiski o palomnichestve musul'man, “ 130–34.

15. “O poriadke vydachi zagranichnykh pasportov,” 1. 14.

16. Dispatches of the Asian Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 21 October 1885, in “Poezdki magometan v Mekku i Medinu,” 11. 53–55.

17. Ibid., 1. 18.

18. Ibid., 1. 42.

19. Austin Jersild, “Who Was Shamil? Russian Colonial Rule and Sufi Islam in the North Caucasus,” Central Asian Survey 14 (1995): 215.

20. “Zapiski o palomnichestve musul'man,” 11. 134–35.

21. See Manz, Beatrice, “Central Asian Uprisings in the Nineteenth Century: Ferghana under the Russians,” Russian Review 46 (July 1987): 267–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22. “Raport,” Military procurator of the Turkestan military district court, 21 August 1898, in “Raznorodnye perepiski o russkikh Sredne-aziatskikh vladeniiakh,” Chancellery of the Ministry of Finances, RGIA, f. 560, op. 28, d. 173, 1. 43. Sergei Witte's insatiable curiosity about Turkestan affairs at the turn of the century brought into his chancellery files a rich set of secret materials, including Andizhan trial records and reports from the governor-general.

23. Materialy po musul'manstvu, 5 vols. (Tashkent, 1899); the only previously published Russian study of Muslim pilgrimage to be found in the empire's official repository library (currently the Russian State Library, St. Petersburg) was the work of a student at the Kazan Theological Academy, Muropiev, Mikhail, Religioznoe i politicheskoe znachenie khadzha Hi sviashchennogo puteshestviia mukhametan v Mekku (Kazan, 1877).Google Scholar

24. “Raport,” 8 September 1899, RGIA, f. 560, op. 28, d. 182, 11. 2–3.

25. “Ministr finansov S. Iu. Vitte po proektu Vremennykh pravil,” 25 October 1900, RGIA, f. 821, op. 150, d. 409, 11. 5, 10.

26. “O sposobakh uporiadochneniia palomnichestva russkikh musul'man,” 4 December 1900, in “Poezdki magometan v Mekku i Medinu,” 1. 232.

27. Quoted in Roff, “Sanitation and Security,” 152.

28. “Zapiski o palomnichestve musul'man,” 11. 140–44.

29. “Po voprosu ob utverzhdenii proekta Vremennykh pravil o palomnichestve musul'man,” RGVIA, f. 400, op. 1, d. 2904, 1. 50.

30. “O sposobakh uporiadochneniia palomnichestva russkikh musul'man,” 1. 217.

31. “Po voprosu ob utverzhdenii proekta,” 1. 50ob.

32. “Vremennye pravila musul'manskogo palomnichestva,” in “Perepiski o vyrabotki pravil perevoski magometanskikh palomnikov,” RGIA, f. 821, op. 8, d. 1196 (1900–1906), 11. 1–2.

33. The heated debates that preceded the tsar's approval of the Orenburg line are contained in “Zhurnal osobogo soveshchaniia po sooruzheniiu zheleznoi dorogi v Sredniuiu Aziiu,” RGIA, f. 274, op. 2, d. 58.

34. The petition is contained in records of the 1908–09 investigation of Turkestan conducted by Count K. I. Palen, “Otchet po revizii Tashkentskogo zheleznoi dorogi,” 3 October 1908, RGIA, f. 1396, op. 1, d. 216, 11. 80–81.

35. Novoe vremia, 25 November 1908.

33. The heated debates that preceded the tsar's approval of the Orenburg line are contained in “Zhurnal osobogo soveshchaniia po sooruzheniiu zheleznoi dorogi v Sredniuiu Aziiu,” RGIA, f. 274, op. 2, d. 58.

34. The petition is contained in records of the 1908–09 investigation of Turkestan conducted by Count K. I. Palen, “Otchet po revizii Tashkentskogo zheleznoi dorogi,” 3 October 1908, RGIA, f. 1396, op. 1, d. 216, 11. 80–81.

35. Novoe vremia, 25 November 1908.

39. Ibid., 1. 57.

40. “Po voprosu ob utverzhdenii proekta,” 1. 145ob.

41. “Otchet Said Gani Saidazimbaev,” TsGARU, f. 1, op. 3, d. 876, 11. 2–5.

42. “Perepiski o vyrabotki pravil perevozki magometanskikh palomnikov,” 11. 58–59.

43. “Otchet Said Gani Saidazimbaev,” 1. 6.

44. “Perepiski v vyrabotki pravil perevozki magometanskikh palomnikov,” 11. 23–25, 59.

45. “Musul'manskii s “ezd,” 29 June 1914, RGIA, f. 821, op. 133, d. 525, 1. 129.