The Participation of N.I. Ilminskii in the Matter of Non-Russian Schooling in the Turkestan Region

In the summer of 1899 a book was published in Tashkent dedicated to the memory of K.P. Kaufman, the first Governor-General, organizer and educator of the Turkestan region, entitled “The History of Public Education in the Turkestan Region: K.P. von Kaufman – Personal Recollections of N. Ostroumov (1877-1881)”
Its author N.P. Ostroumov is an alumnus of the Kazan Theological Academy, the best of the students of the departed N.I. Ilminskii, orientalist and expert on the Turkestan region. From 1877-1881 he was a constant and most trustworthy colleague of K.P. Kaufman, in connection with the local public education and knew all the details of his educational activity and his program of public education. The entire book is comprised of notes, which the author took at the time. It includes all that which seemed to him noteworthy in his intercourses and conversations with the Governor-General, and the overarching state of education in the region. The memories of Mr. Ostroumov arouse a vivid and lively image of the well-known General. They also arouse a vivid and lively picture not only of the exterior, but interior development of local public education.
The late general was a person universally educated, with expansive political views, embracing not only a single military aspect of administration, but other aspects of state and social life of the newly conquered territory entrusted to him. He paid special attention to the matter of public education throughout the entire course of his governor-generalship. “Only public education,” he said, “is capable of conquering the territory in spirit: neither arms nor the rule of law can accomplish this, but the school, and only the school, can” (in the book of the author pgs. 54-55). He also held such a conviction earlier, during his general-governorship in Vilnus after M.N. Murav’ev, where he struggled against the influence of Polish language, culture (polonizatsiya), and the Catholic church (okatolichenie) on the Russian and Lithuanian population by educational means; he placed education at the core of his activity in Turkestan territory as well, where he had to retain Russian dominion among eastern tribes as it struggled with the no less strong and dangerous influence of Tatar culture (tatarstvo) and Islam. It is understood that on the education of non-Russians he had to turn a larger share of his educational concerns. On the successful organization of the education depended, as says Mr. Ostroumov, the future of public education in the territory, in which the main and continuous element of the population were precisely non-Russian (pg. 113).
The activity of the Governor General on this matter during this time exactly coincided with our working out of the general question of non-Russian education, posed in the second half of the 1860s in the eastern governorships of European Russia and in the south in Crimea. The main point of discussion was the new system of non-Russian education in Russian spirit, the creator of which was N.I. Il’minskii. It was implemented in non-Russian schools in Kazan and the Kazan gubernia, at first in the villages of baptized Tatars, then in the villages of other baptized non-Russians, not only in the Kazan gubernia, but also in other neighboring gubernias.
From the very beginning, these schools were considered to be a bulwark against the strong pressure on our eastern non-Russians from Muslim-Tatar propaganda, which produced among them dangerous mass apostasies to Islam and, moreover, threatened to erase their tribal characteristics and turn them into Tatars in a short amount of time. The previous Russian school, in which non-Russians studied, was not able to act as such a bulwark; it was more foreign to them than the Tatar schools with their mullahs in respect to both language, which they studied with great difficulty to the detriment of other subjects in the school curriculum, and in its entire organization. Only a very few of the non-Russian students whom the school system managed to teach something and Russify were fruitlessly ripped them from their tribes, working in village clerkships etc, not rendering on their fellow countrymen any kind of cultural influence, appearing foreign and sometimes even highly unpleasant to them.
For the successful implementation of its mission, the new non-Russian school adopted for itself a purely public (for each tribe) form of study and existence, immediately giving it in the eyes of the non-Russians immense advantage over the old Russian and Tatar Muslim schools. Russian education, which it started to convey to its pupils, took a local nationalistic form in order to communicate to the heart and mind in a more direct, immediate, and lively manner, to make the education their own, and to bring them close to the Russian fatherland, which they share with us. Its external way of life was organized in the most simple and modest forms, as close as possible to the external way of life the non-Russians themselves. When it came to choosing teachers, preference was shown to teachers from the tribesmen. Using language as an educational tool, instruction was conducted in the native colloquial language of each tribe, and Russian became only a scholarly language, which students had to study on par with other subjects of the curriculum with the help of their native language, only becoming a language of instruction in so far as was adopted by the students. For the easement of the beginning of its study and transference to the reading of Russian books, in school textbooks and other books in non-Russian languages Russian transcription was used; besides this, the Russian alphabet of these books should have sharply delineated for the pupils the “new” school from Tatar-Muslim literacy and culture, which uses the holy and Arabic alphabet shared by all Muslims.
In particular the outward nationalistic form of this new system of non-Russian education was a source of perplexity, grabbing the attention of the supporters of the state language. Due to it, they did not pay attention to the essence of the matter and the practical importance of the new methods of education, the former being in essence purely Russian and deeply religious. It is curious, that a number of these supporters included ecclesiastical figures, whom one would have thought would be more interested in supporting the best and easiest means of study of God’s law in the native tongue of non-Russians and their more sincere upbringing in the faith than the interests of the state language. In a letter of N.I. Ilminskii to K.P. Pobedonostsev ( 27 June 1891), we find an expressive reply on his part against the danger, expressed in the Educational Council of the Holy Synod by one of the bishops, that permitting of non-Russian languages in the school and church would create new nationalities harmful to the Russian state and people. “Against this danger one needs to keep in mind the following fact. A long time ago was begun and up to now irrepressibly continues the gradual absorption of all Volga non-Russians, not only pagans, but also kryashens, by Muslims and Tatars… In front of our eyes whole villages of Chermisi, Votyaki, and Chuvashi are apostatizing to Muhammedism at the hands of Tatars, who have been gradually preparing for this for a long time. It is an irresistible process, like gangrene, which if one does not place obstacles in its path, could in 50-100 years end in the final conversion of all our non-Russian tribes (Chuvash, Cheremis, Votyak) to Islam. And Muhammad will be all, in all. The only means against such an inevitable calamity is the interior, sincere, and convicted assimilation of the Christian teaching by non-Russians, enlivened by Orthodox theology and prayer. And for such a lively and sincere assimilation by non-Russians of Christian teaching, the native language serves as the most faithful and effective means [to this end]. In such a manner, a dilemma arises: if out of danger of separate nationalities we do not sufficiently allow the non-Russian language into non-Russian schools and churches for the solid and complete, convicted assimilation of the Christian faith, then in such a situation all the non-Russians will merge into one tribe in language and faith, becoming Tatars and Muslims. If we allow non-Russian languages, even if nationalities were supported…they would be unified with the Russian people by faith. Choose as you will, but I suggest, that such small, scattered nationalities cannot exist for long and in the end they will merge with the Russian people over the passage of time.”
The first application of this new system of non-Russian education touched only kryashen non-Russians, but soon its influence spread to non-Christian tribes, foremost among them the nomads of the eastern steppe. From 1858-1861 N.I. Il’minskii served on the Orenburg border commission, whose chairman then was the famous orientalist V.V. Grigor’ev. They both were very much interested in the situation of the steppe Kirgiz ethnic groups, constricted as in the case of the Volga tribes, by the irrepressible pressure of Tatar-Muslim culture. The clear predominance of Tatars over the Kirgiz with regards to administrative relations, created during the reign of Catherine II, and the fanatical propaganda of Tatar mullahs, who held more and more sway over the spiritual life of the territory, bent on the complete “Tatarization” of the good-natured, Shamanistic and illiterate Kirgiz peoples and weakening of Russian influence on the steppes. In the Russian-Kirgiz administration Tatars, in the offices of interpreters, scribes etc. became continuous intermediaries between the Russian administration and the Kirgiz people; Tatar became the official language of the steppe. In 1850 in Orenburg, a school was opened for Kirgiz children. It immediately obtained a Tatar character with most of the instruction in Tatar rather than in Russian. Rich and influential Kirgiz were all “Tatarized”. Tatarization also penetrated the masses, penetrating the steppe from two sides, from the Russian and Central Asian borders. The strengthening of Russian influence and the weakening of Tatar influence was the most urgent need for the Kirgiz steppes.
V.V. Grigor’ev attempted to weaken this dangerous influence of Tatarism by strengthening national elements of steppe life. First of all, he attempted to increase the significance of the national language of the Kirgiz, forcing interpreters to write in it in official correspondence, and to strengthen Russian influence [direction] in the Orenburg school. On his initiative, four schools were opened in the main fortifications of the Ural oblast with this same Russian influence with instruction in Russian and Kirgiz, not Tatar. Instruction of Muslim dogma was allowed only in private, outside the state. He was the first to put forward the idea of adapting the previously unwritten Kirgiz language to the Russian, and not Arab-Tatar, alphabet. His colleague Il’minskii from the bottom of his heart loved the talented Kirgiz people and its expressive language. He studied the latter and in the Academic Notes of Kazan University (1860-1861) published “Material for its study [Kirgiz language?]” and a Kirgiz story “Ir-Targyn”. In Kirgiz schools, his “Manual for Self-instruction of Russian Grammar for Kirgiz (Kazan, 1861) was significant. He managed to establish contact with Kirgiz teachers in the steppe, one of whom he was especially endeared to named Altynsarin, who later became a lead actor in the field of Kirgiz education.

"Islam in Turkestan" (1898)

Report of the Turkestan Infantry Governor General Dukhovskoi: “Islam in Turkestan”

My appointment as the main administrator of the territory of Turkestan coincided with the event which shocked all of Russia: approximately one thousand Muslims benevolently treated under the Russian authority, who by the most servile means were showing us their devotion and thankfulness while secretly forming a plot, suddenly decided to condemn to death all Russians at our weakest frontier post, fanning the flames of general insurrection in order to return the former independence of the Muslims of Central Asia. Having managed to kill 22 of our soldiers, who were sleeping at the time, the participants in the uprising were punished in the following manner – 18 were executed, 360 sent into penal servitude, a Russian village of 200 households was established on the site where the leader of the uprising used to live, and financial reparations were imposed.
Being somewhat familiar with Islam during my long former service in the Caucasus and always interested in the life of our Muslim provinces, I immediately upon my arrival in the territory, worried about the event described above, turned my attention to the thorough familiarization of the reasons for the unrest. Regardless of the accidental and temporary reasons, I had to pay special attention to the general contemporary moral climate of Islam in Turkestan. It turned out to be unavoidable and completely possible, within the realm of the power granted to me, to immediately set out a number of measures for the struggle against the clearly palpable ailment. Many of those measures have already been enacted; a few were presented in reports to the Ministry of War.
But among the planned measures found to be necessary were those which should apply beyond the borders of the Turkestan region. Primary among them is the general organization in the state of a plan with regards to Islam and a plan of struggle with this painful sore historically afflicting the body of the state.
The number of Muslims under the Russian Crown, gradually increasing, has now reached 14 million, which is larger than the populations of Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Switzerland, and Norway taken together.
Over the course of three and half centuries the Russian authority has not ceased to impose its humanistic order on the conquered Muslim peoples. However now we must admit that in spite of their seemingly complete submission, urges among Muslims to revolts, similar to what occurred in Andizhan, are possible in the future.
Under favorable circumstances the flames of revolution can easily take dangerous proportions. In any case it is still not possible to consider the Turkestan border region, thickly populated with Muslims, as a territory in which peaceful existence has been completely secured. This circumstance should always be remembered in all enacted measures, discussions and resolutions of the highest authorities of all the ministries and departments.
Unfortunately in our organs of central government this last view has not been firmly and equally accepted. Under the influence of superficial impressions, a few organizations mistakenly add the belief that the spirit of the Muslim has already been conquered to the outward expression of calm in the region. They consider Sarts , Kirgiz , Tadjiks , and Turkmen to be similar in spirit to the Russian peasants of the inner provinces. Asian flattery is taken at face value, and the fear of our strength - as sincere devotedness. Such a mistake very often affects the decisions on various reports coming from Turkestan, and influences the delay, and sometimes even outright rejection, of the most beneficial petitions from the local authority.
As the territory where our 14 million Muslims are scattered is enormous, this population enters into the composition of many general governorships and can be found even outside them. Measures in the different provinces of the immense, but united Russia should, of course, be integrated and mutually coordinated. The historical wavering in the views of the Government and the absence of a general state plan for the moral assimilation of the conquered Muslims with the native Russian people give rise to serious difficulties and not only postpone the attainment of the goal, placed on Russia by Providence, but even at times leads to negative results.
After the 350 year dominion of Russia over millions of Muslims, it would seem possible and necessary to fundamentally take matters into hand. The conditions of the Turkestan region, especially after its expansion from the Caspian to Altay , place on me as the main administrator of the above-mentioned the responsibility to express my opinion concerning this, having been plunged into the aforementioned, in accordance with the permission granted to me upon my assumption of office, to the most gracious view of Your Imperial Highness.
A number of measures are enumerated below which I have already implemented and solicited particularly for Turkestan, of which many, it would seem, are necessary to apply in one way or another to other regions with a Muslim population outside of Turkestan. Finally, I also take the liberty to note that, in my opinion, it is useful for individuals of the central Government of Russia to rule with a firm and irrevocable hand in future.
Due to the complexity of the matter, I of course cannot trouble Your Imperial Majesty with the details of these measures. However, because all of them are based on the argument that the assimilation of Muslims with the indigenous Russian people is much more difficult than the assimilation of those subjects of Your Imperial Highness who confess other faiths, differing from our predominant one, I boldly seek to preface the abovementioned list with a synopsis of these arguments and the briefest historical facts.

Sharia

Sharia, which is a multivolume commentary on the Qu’ran, is considered by Muslims to be a universal codex in which the believer will find answers to everything, without exception - questions of religion, government, society, and private life.
Together with decrees regarding fasting and prayer, payment of taxes, legal proceedings, trade, marriage and moral laws, here (similar to the Talmud) we find laws which regulate even such things as social propriety and the smallest details of personal life, not excluding intimate aspects of married life.
Sharia does not make a distinction between sin and crime, and the violation of any of the laws established by Islam is a violation of God’s law as confessed in the Qu’ran.
From the point of view of Islam, a person then can only please God when all of his life, all of his actions and even his thoughts correspond to the regulations of Sharia, whose very name when translated from the Arabic means “path,” i.e. the straight, highest path to salvation. The smallest deviation from this path makes the Muslim a sinner.
In such a manner, Sharia suggests that everything is envisaged and regulated by it, that it is the entirely complete codex, not subject to change or improvement.
Regulating all phenomena of human life, it subjects to itself this life, penetrates its intimate corners and thereby enslaves not only the actions, but also the mind and imagination of the believing Muslim, and, on top of this, it is a teaching that develops in its adherents great intolerance to other religions.
Recognizing the Gospels as revealed by God, speaking of how God put in the hearts of the followers of Christ compassion and good-nature, having permitted Muslims to marry the daughters of Christians and Jews, the Muslim prophet, considering the contemporary Gospels as distorted, numbered Christians and Jews among the unbelievers who should not be friends with Muslims and who ought to be exterminated at the first opportunity.
The Prophet forbade believing Muslims a number of actions approved of, or at the most ignored by, our religion and civil statute. Due to this, Islam is not only a hindrance impeding the true Muslim associating with our culture from going hand in hand with us along the path of general human progress, but presents itself as an irreconcilable enemy of all Christian culture in spite of the assurances of contemporary Pan-Islamists. The Kazan Tatars serve as clear evidence, who finding themselves over the course of three and half centuries in constant close contact with us, to this present time retain their religious and nationalist separatism.

Kazan, Astrakhan, Crimea, and the Kirgiz Steppe

There is good reason to believe that in the era of the conquest of Kazan by Ivan Grozny the local Tatars, like a significant number of our contemporary Kirgiz and Turkmen, were still comparatively bad Muslims, more in name than in spirit, and their heroic defense of Kazan was the result not so much of religious fanaticism as the rise of national feeling, only indirectly aroused by religious sentiment.
Our governmental establishments and the people in charge of matters of this nature, due to unfamiliarity with Islam and its harmful aspects, considered the Kazan Tatars dangerous enemies of Russia only as long as they had the opportunity to disturb our borders with raids. As soon as the successes of Russian arms deprived the Tatars of this possibility, once the Kazan khanate, having lost its autonomy after the pogrom of 1552 and any serious military significance, failed to threaten us with raids and different problems purely military in character, our former rulers forgot about the Tatars, ignored their existence and did not take any measures to impede the establishment of Islam among them, for they did not have any idea of the harmful consequences this would have for Russia in the future.
This does not exclude the selfless work of the first saint of Kazan St. Guri, directed only towards the conversion of the Tatars to Christianity, but by no means a systematic struggle with Islam as a political force.
The same situation occurred somewhat later in Astrakhan, significantly later in Crimea, then in the Caucasus and in Turkestan.
The religiously tolerant Russian nation, despite the fact it once suffered a great deal from all sorts of adversities inflicted by its Muslim neighbors on the border areas of Greater and Smaller Rus, even in the era of these afflictions, due to the good nature which distinguishes its powerful national spirit, always considered the Muslims (бусурман) merely as enemies of the Church of Christ, who from time to time had to be punished with fire and the sword, but who generally speaking were a tolerable people, not arousing the necessity of mistrustful relations. Our highest governmental spheres also treated Islam in like manner, not refraining under the influence of the liberal ideas of the 18th century to give Russian Muslims establishments such as spiritual governments with muftis and Sheikh-ul-Islams, bringing great harm to our Russian cause in the Muslim border areas.
It was always overlooked that Islam is a codex hostile not only to our religion, but also to our culture in general; that thanks to the simplicity and concreteness of its basic tenets it firmly and comprehensively assimilates the peoples situated on a low stage of development. For this reason Islam represents a strong power that we will unavoidably have to contend with for a long time. Due to the aforementioned particularities of its faith and interpretation of law, our Muslims who remain faithful to Islam cannot assimilate and form one firmly united political family with us.
Having summarized what occurred over the past 350 years, it is easy to see the error of our relationship with the conquered Muslims or, more accurately, to the doctrine taught by them.
Being comparatively bad Muslims in the era of the conquest of Kazan by Grozny, already during the the reign of Emperor Catherine II the Kazan Tatars were printing fanatical booklets locally. Taking advantage of a number of mistakes committed by the governmental organs of that time, they not only spread Islam to the Kirgiz Steppe, but hostile relations towards Russia as well.
The conquered Muslims, from 1552 up until this present time under the protection of Russian laws and Russian weaponry, which provided them the possibility of a completely peaceful existence, often made use of special privileges to strengthen their material and spiritual wellbeing and always went forward on a path strengthening the dogmas and rites of their religion. Ignoring the blessings given to them, they raised their youth in the ideals of religious and national separatism with regards to Russia, which until this time not only has not taken one serious step towards the weakening of this undesirable movement, but, on the contrary, has done much to embolden it.
Around 1785 they even found it necessary to artificially propagate Islam among the Orenburg Kirgiz, being then Muslim only in name, for they did not even fulfill such rites as “namaz” or fasting, the fulfillment of which is incumbent on every Muslim. To this end they built mosques on the Kirgiz Steppe (beyond the Urals) and schools in their vicinity, where they sent Kazan and Ufa Tatars, who robbed the Kirgiz and sowed discord among them as they did among the neighboring Bashkirs in the capacity of imams (prior/superior of mosques) and teachers.
In 1788 the “Spiritual Assembly of Mohammedan Law” was founded with a mufti at its head, who was determined “to have in his department all spiritual officials of this law, residing in different provinces, excluding the Tavricheskii oblast, where there is a unique spiritual governing body.”
Immediately upon arrival in Ufa, this mufti showed how it is possible for the Russian government to rely on the loyalty of Tatar mullahs. He was not only an opponent of the Russian authority, but also a zealous agent of horde members working against the beneficial instructions and actions of the border authority.
Strife ridden and therefore relatively weak, not having a head until this time, Islam in northeast Russia became organized. With the help of governmental establishments of the time, first, it received organization and the cause of anti-Russian and anti-Christian propaganda, and second, the exact address for the emissaries of Turkey appeared, whose pretensions in this matter are evident now as they were before.
All the aforementioned about the Kazan Tatars in one form or another relates to the Tatars of the lower Volga and to the Crimean Tatars, with only this difference, that the latter did not have and do not have at their disposal such an arena of activity like the Kirgiz Steppe, and that the Crimean Tatars, living in the immediate neighborhood of Turkey, along with the Caucasian Muslims find themselves under its influence.

The Caucasus and Shamil

Islam in the Caucasus, due to the extreme tribal diversity of the local population and its religious diversity, was not an obvious, acknowledged danger until the appearance of Shamil.
The difficulties of our situation there were mainly connected with the geographical particularities of the land, as well as the distinctiveness of the national character and various traits of the bellicose mountain population.
Shamil, unifying the previously uncoordinated Muslim populations of the Northern Caucasus, made the latter especially dangerous for us because, having reminded the mountain people of the duty of Holy War for Muslims with the unbelievers and relying on that part of Sufi teaching which is called tarikat that obliges every murid to unquestioningly obey his murshid, he managed to fanaticize and discipline many thousands of his followers, always ready at his word to embrace any kind of danger.
Shamil in practice demonstrated to us that Sufi-Muslims in many ways are more dangerous to us than Orthodox-Muslims, and that the creation of some kind of unifying establishment or center among the Muslims coordinated by the spiritual and civilian authority can always threaten us with the most undesirable complications.

Sufism

Having mentioned that Sufism in many respects is more dangerous for us than orthodox Islam, it is necessary to clarify this matter, saying a few general words about Sufism itself, all ready for centuries playing an important role in the life of Muslims and manifested of late in the well known movement of African mahdists. The soul of this movement, as it was during the time of Shamil and the last uprising in Andizhan, was tarikat, the ritual aspect of Sufi teaching, which as already noted is sometimes called dervizhism or muridism.
At its heart Sufism, appearing as a heresy in the first century of Islam, not only has nothing in common with the latter, but even contradicts it, for Islam teaches strict monotheism while Sufism is a teaching of pantheism in the broadest sense of the word.
After a prolonged struggle between these two teachings, Islam, not finding itself in a position to completely suppress Sufism, had to acknowledge it as an Islamic teaching, as they say, “bone of its bone”; and Sufis in their turn made many concessions to Islam, using as a cover the texts of the Qu’ran and the hadith, which was not particularly difficult due to their vagueness.
Sufism, earlier having taught the unity of earthly matter and its inseparability from God, having denied the idea of the uncreatedness of the Koran, a necessity for Sufi (or Dervish) membership not only to Islam, but also in general to some kind of religion, subsequently through the efforts of its conciliators with Islam Islamisized to such a degree that its later adherents, like Hodja Abdu-Kadira Gidzhduvani, forgetting that in essence they are all Sufis, said to their disciples: “Run from Sufism; find salvation in the reading of the Qu’ran”.
Nevertheless up to this time Sufism still differs greatly from Islam in its pure form.
Islam does not allow any kind of critical attitude toward the doctrines found in the Koran. The most it allows to the believer is the deduction of conclusions, which do not present contradictions to the spirit of the Qu’ran, by means of analogy.
Sufism, on the contrary, gives significant freedom of thought, not excluding even critical attitudes to the doctrines proclaimed in the Qu’ran, which, however, does not prevent the free-thinking Sufi from posing himself as a true Muslim, for in all difficult circumstances he with astonishing skill takes refuge, if not in the texts of the Qu’ran and the hadiths, then most likely in the proverbs of the most authoritative Muslim theologians.
A Muslim of orthodox persuasion, in view of the existence in the Sharia of regulations concerning those circumstances, when lent, generally necessary for him, becomes unnecessary, can, by analogy, establish a view on the unobligatoriness of other prescribed actions in such analogical circumstances. But he never brings himself to raise the question of whether namaz is necessary, the obligatoriness of which is expressed clearly in the Koran for every Muslim. The raising of such a question once makes him kyafirom, an unbeliever.
The extreme Sufi, most likely a Sufi of the past, not only does not refrain from raising this kind of question, but even asserts that zikr (zeal), which leads a person to the condition of religious ecstasy, is more helpful and edifying than the prescribed namaz, which does not lead the soul to such strong impressions, like zikr.
Islam is the handing over to God, the submission to the will of God, the unquestioning fulfillment of His command. The believing orthodox Muslim can only be a slave of God, searching for the salvation of his soul, for which the dream of attainment to holiness is all ready in and of itself sinful, for holiness is a gift given by God only to his chosen ones. He cannot dream of the gift of prophecy, for Muhammad, according to the teaching of the Koran, is the last and most perfect of the prophets. Therefore there will be no other prophets after him and there cannot be any person equal to him.
Tasasvvur (Sufism) is the striving for the spiritual, directed towards purity (safa), which attaining the Sufi gradually approaches the absolute holiness, ie to God.
By means of continual exercises in zikr and in other god pleasing acts, he purifies himself from the filth of sin to such a degree that with the course of time he becomes equal to his pir (teacher). This condition is called fana-fi-pir (or fana-fi-sheikh). Going in this direction and further, he can reach not only fana-fi-rasul, equality with the rasul, that is the prophet, but even fana-fi-ulla, equality with God.
Soon after the conquering of Samarkand by the Arabs a certain Mukanna appeared in Sokd, who declared himself God and caused much trouble for the local Muslims, and in Tashkent a few years ago the very influential Ahmad-ishan died, who passed himself off as the prophet and was considered by many as holy when he was alive.
Shamil also belonged to these Sufis, and Sheikh Mansur, who, “adhering to a special sect in the Muslim law, roamed among the Kirgiz horde, attempting by various means to agitate the local people” (1790).
It would be a mistake to assume that the further influence among our Muslims of individuals like Shamil is not possible or improbable in the future. Dukchi-ishan from Andizhan serves as evidence to the contrary, who in spite of his limited knowledge, especially of administrative and military matters, managed to fanaticize and subject to his will a few bellicose Sarts to such an extent that they, almost defenseless, resolved to attack our soldiers.
The likelihood of similar incidents in the future is greater than in the past and present, for the gradual improvement of the means of communication and the development of international trade, bringing together Muslim peoples previously uncoordinated, are of great service to the cause of Pan-Islamism, opening relations between these peoples and arousing among them hope for mutual aid.
Such hopes, though, are perhaps more troubling now after the Afghani Emir printed a brochure concerning jihad, which our Sarts are bringing, by the way, to Afghanistan.

Pan-Islamism

It is very difficult to settle the question of when exactly, under what circumstances, and who made the first attempt to establish the governmental protectorate of Turkey, the head of which is also considered the head of the entire Muslim world and our Volga Tatars. Nevertheless it is beyond doubt that the harmful influence of this neighboring Muslim power on our Tatars was evident in the reign of Empress Catherine II. The Tatars’ hostile relations toward us were particularly obvious during our war with Turkey, not excluding the last war.
However these earlier attempts of the Turks, mainly discernable in the arousal among the Tatars of hateful relations towards us as people of a different faith, were not notable for systematization or overarching design.
The situation has taken on a different character lately due to the widespread propagation of the idea of Pan-Islamism among our Muslims, as among the Turks. It is even more harmful in view of the complete ignorance of our intelligentsia with Islam. Turkish emissaries are not responsible for the activity, but our Tatars. Frequently using the most ridiculous manipulations imperceptible to persons not well acquainted with the Sharia and its casuistry, they by every possible means, including the press, attempt to demonstrate to our Government and our society that the intolerance of Islam towards believers of different faiths, the irreconcilability of this teaching with the idea of general human progress and so on –are nothing more than delusions owing to the ignorance of Russians with the Sharia and the true spirit of the Muslim teachings.
At this very moment our Tatar Pan-Islamists are striving to bring the issue of schooling among Tatars and other non-Russian Muslims under their influence and demanding the spread of the Turkish language. In their opinion, Turkish now ought to be the official language of the entire Muslim world.
Most recently a few native Tashkent booksellers started receiving illustrated publications from Turkey, unregistered and sent using cash on delivery to the exact address. They include descriptions of the last Greco-Turkish War, the war on Cyprus, and others, which both serve to strengthen among our Sarts the exaggerated idea of the power of Turkey and the spread of the Turkish language, which differs greatly from the local Turkic dialects and is hardly understood by the Sarts.
With respect to the spread among the natives of the Turkestan region of the idea of Pan-Islamism, these publications promise in future to play a role similar to the one played by the Kazan, Ufa and Orenburg Tatars in the propagation of Islamic fanaticism among the Kirgiz, who in comparison with the settled peoples of Turkestan relate to Islam indifferently.
The Military Governor of the Turkestan oblast in his governmental report of 1897 clearly speaks about the gradual spread of Islam among the Turgai Kirgiz, during which “the Russian cause in the steppe took a large step backwards, having accordingly widened the sphere of influence of its age-old enemies.”

Particularities of the Turkestan Region

Turning to the Turkestan region and comparing it with our other Muslim borderlands, it is necessary to note that in view of its historical past and contemporary ethnographic and other particularities, it demands extraordinary and exceptional attention.
Over the course of the past seven the centuries, the center of Muslim scholarship has found a home in Central Asia. Its most astute students diligently studied the Arabic language and the definitive division and classification of the detailed questions of law and theology.
During the reign of Timur and his descendants Samarkand was such a center. After the fall of the great kingdom founded by Timur, the significance of Samarkand declined, while neighboring Bukhara’s rose.
Approximately 80 years ago, from the time of the ascension of Omar Khan to the Kokand throne, when the Kokand khanate experienced its golden century and diplomatic relations with Turkey began, a new Muslim center arose in Kokand, and although generally second rate, it nevertheless rivaled Bukhara in a few of its madrasahs, the erudition of their mudarris (teachers) and the number of mullahs studying in them.
How great was the general Muslim significance of the work of Central Asian theologians, jurists, and Arabic philologists is apparent in the fact that a few of the more famous and authoritative books on Sharia that guide Muslim-Sunnis throughout the entire world were written in Central Asia.
Hidaya-i-sharif (Хидая-и-шариф) was written in Margеlan, Akaid (Акаид) in Bukhara; Khikmat-ul-ain (Хикмат-ул-аин) in Samarkand. The author of the book Hidaya-i-sharif “Хидая-и-шариф”, a Sart from Margelan who went to worship in Mecca, received the position of teacher of Arabic language and theology in one of their madrasas.
Without exaggeration one can say that Central Asia gave the Muslim world the last redaction of Sharia.
Besides this, it also gave to this world such mystic poets (Sufis) as Navoi (Навoи) (Mir-Ali-Shir) (Мир-Али-Шир), Sufi-Alla-Yar (Суфи-Алла-Яр), Ahmad Yasavi (Ахмад Ясави), and Mashrab (Машраб).
For a long time Bukhara was acknowledged by the entire Muslim (Sunni) world as a sweet-smelling source of Muslim orthodoxy and scholasticism and it has not failed to completely lose this significance even to this time.
Neither the Volga Region, nor the Crimea, nor the Caucasus ever had anything similar.
The Tatars, appearing in the role of preachers and propagators of Islam among the Kirgiz, never resolve to speak openly among the Sarts, who in connection with Islamic bookmaking are much further developed and, firstly, consider the Tatars ignoramuses with regards to the Sharia, and, secondly, relate distrustfully to them behind their half-European clothes.
The second particularity of the Turkestan region, in contrast with the Caucasus, is the uniform faith of its Muslim people. They belong exclusively to the Sunni persuasion and are only divided into two peoples: 1) Turks, compromising the vast majority, and 2) Tadjiks and settled Turks (Sarts), who before our own eyes are assimilating both the Turkic-nomads (Kirgiz) and Tadjiks. The Kirgiz are gradually leaving behind the nomadic way of life, embracing the land and changing from adat, the standard oral law, to written law, Sharia. The Tadjiks are very quickly adopting the Turkic language, after which they lose every national difference between themselves and the Sart-Turks.
The latter process is also helped by the fact that from the time of our occupation of the region, every official correspondence between the natives and our local governmental establishments and officials has been carried out exclusively in Turkic, the so-called Sart language, due to the ignorance of the vast majority of our translators, to the great regret of a large number of Tatars and Kirgiz, with the Persian language, the former official language during the rule of the Khan.
The above-mentioned assimilation of the Kirgiz and Tadjiks in significant measure is also being helped by the pacification of the region after its occupation by our forces. After the occupation, the previous incessant civil strife ceased, allowing the widespread development of internal (in the region) trade and the gradual improvement of local means of communication.
At the same time, the Russian administration of the area has at its disposal the most insignificant means for the cultural struggle with Islam, for the weakening of this bad influence, which Muslim schools, kadis, ishans etc render on the domestic life of the native people and their way of thinking.
It is enough to say that there are 119 Russian educational institutions in the Sirdarya, Ferghana, and Samarkand oblasts compared with 5,246 Muslim schools; and six Orthodox churches in the Ferghana oblast compared with 6,134 mosques. (A collection of statistics concerning Muslim establishments of the region can be found at the end of this report).

Arguments hindering the assimilation of Islam with the indigenous Russian population and the general character of necessary measures

All the above lead to the following conclusions:
1) Islam, in its present state and strength, being a highly stagnant teaching and unconditionally hostile to Christian culture, excludes any possibility of the complete moral assimilation of our Muslim subjects. A pure Muslim, firmly believing in the letter of the Qu’ran and the Sharia, cannot be a sincere, true friend of a Christian.
2) Sufism in many respects presents itself to us as most harmful and therefore demands strict supervision.
3) Taking advantage of the gifts of our civilization under the protection of the humanitarian laws of the Russian empire, Islam, too widely and condescendingly ignored up until now by Russian society and the Russian government, grows stronger, unites, and receives interior organization, which is hostile to our governmental goal, using our former mistakes. The spread in Turkey and among our Tatars of the idea of Pan-Islamism makes this interior organization especially harmful in political terms.
4) The further ignoring of Islam presents itself not only as undesirable, but impossible.
5) The Turkestan region, being one of the main centers of Islam in the world, with a population sufficiently united in religious and ethnic terms and almost entirely (at least, with regard to its settled part) infected with the teaching of Sufism, demands special attention. The Turkestan natives, over the course of many centuries grown accustom to the unbridled despotism of their former rulers, who always made use of the most severe, and at times even cruel, means of punishment, grew accustomed to brute force. All manifestations of humane treatment, which are extolled in speeches and addresses given by natives, with which they turn to the Russian authority in various circumstances, in the absence of the authority are interpreted by them as short-sightedness and weakness on the part of the authority, unable to use the prerogatives of its power.
6) Independent of individual and local measures, the establishment of a fully designed general governmental plan and a firm attitude toward the given question are completely necessary, in order that the negligence and mistakes of the administrative establishments of one of the border areas would not lead to complications in other areas with a Muslim population, which now, in view of the spread of the idea of Pan-Islamism, seems unavoidable.
7) The future existence of such organs that unite our Muslims, like the Spiritual Administration, should be recognized as absolutely harmful, which is an opinion all ready established by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which flatly refused the idea of the establishment of such an administration for the Muslims of the Northern Caucasus (act of the General Staff, Asian Quarter, 1889 No. 64).
8) The centuries will go by and our population of 14 million Muslims, of course, will not completely accept Christianity. While accepting desirous, independent, exceptional individuals with open arms into the bosom of the Christian church, it would seem we in no way should force our missionary activity, while time and other circumstances do not prepare a basis for that activity. The excessive efforts of missionaries might easily push the Muslim milieu to unify in opposition.
9) The rapprochement of our Muslims with the indigenous Russian people, as can be seen, is possible only with the weakening of the faith of Muslims in the significance of that part of their teaching which preaches hostility against all Christianity. Sometimes voices are raised, arguing as if this hostility did not exist now. Trust in such voices leads, of course, to trust in all contemporary Islam, to its abandonment without attention, that is, to consequences contrary to our goal. Only the development among the rising generation of youth of a correct education can gradually allow for the belief that the hatred in Sharia towards all outside of Islam is actually the result of long past conditions of life and the activity of contemporaries of the prophet, now lost significance. However the current instruction of youth in numerous Muslim schools can only be replaced by a correct, general education in Russian schools only after increased, prolonged, skilful and persistent efforts. Islam for the dark and dusty imagination of the Asians is so powerful, that it would be vain to count on a quick break, especially for generations who grew up under the charm of its current strength. Recently even in Tashkent there were some fanatics who, for fear of defiling themselves, never visited the adjacent Russian part of the city.
10) Experience shows that in nothing else do natives run towards us so readily and sincerely than in the matter of medical treatment of diseases. The humanitarian behavior towards the sick, the successful recovery from serious illnesses, skilful operations, like the removal of cataracts from eyes, the knitting of broken legs and hands produces in them magical impressions. Unfortunately, our medical capacities are meager in the extreme. What can one doctor do in a uezd comprising hundreds of thousands of people? Persons with the most limited knowledge are in charge of the local medical assistance stations. Women doctors and women medical assistants work best of all, whose level of preparation, as is well known, is much greater than that of simple male medical assistants. Women doctors and medical assistants penetrate into the most secluded corners of the family life of natives, inaccessible to men, and their help is especially valued during difficult births. These workers now are proving to be the avant garde of our influence on the Muslim women and family. Expenditures on the development of our medical aid among Muslims rewards hundredfold, not only in its direct goal, but also as regards to the rapprochement of an enormous Muslim mass.
11) Polygamy makes the Islamic family completely different from ours. The wife is not the friend for life of the husband and master of the home. She is a concubine and a slave, a prisoner with the most limited range of ideas. Sanctified by the Koran and hundreds of years, this order in such countries as Turkestan will not change soon, and it is dangerous to sharply set about its change. And now, under the influence of women-doctors, the Muslim woman begins to be conscious of the superiority of the order of Russian families. But this secret matter demands great care and patience.
12) Thus a whole row of measures present themselves: study by individuals in our administration of the local language and interior Muslim life, the weakening of the role of translators and the gradual introduction of Russian language into official correspondence, the gradual submission of Muslims to general governmental legal establishments, and in Turkestan the development and strengthening of Russian colonization. All these measures demand great attention, and most importantly, mutual close relations between themselves and a firmly applied general direction.
13) Offering the appropriate social status amidst Russian society to those progressive (i.e. native R.M.) individuals of both genders who do not fear the censure of the masses and lead others on the path of rapprochement with the Russian world can and should serve as a powerful means for the attainment of the outlined goals. All our educational establishments and all types of service are all ready open to Muslim men and women on an equally footing with Russians. But there still remains cause for complaint. For example, Muslim officers and officials are forced to wear medals, which although in the form of a cross, without fail have an inscription that the given person does not belong to the general Russian society.
14) History gives us many examples of the assimilation of the subjugated with the conquerors through marriage. If the three and half centuries from the conquering of the kingdom of Kazan in Russia had led to tens of thousands of persons of mixed raced (метиз) children being born, with people close to them from both sides, then the matter of the estrangement of Muslims from us probably would not have its current acuteness. But the decrees of our church do not allow marriage in the case being considered. Nevertheless it is possible to think of exceptional cases in the future. It would seem that the possible simplification of the laws of the legitimization of children begotten in extra-marital unions of Christians with Muslim women and vice versa is a question highly worthy of attention.
15) The gradual, firm and irrevocable measures by all the departments and establishments through one general system unquestionably should little by little destroy the now invincible wall dividing the Muslim heart from the Russian heart. But we still need to be ready in the future for every kind of outburst of opposition, coming about due to the slightest carelessness on the part of our local authorities and internal influences. The head of the Andizhan uprising Dukchi-ishan said: the humane Russian order brings to us much in regards to general prosperity; but pure Islam wavers and the people become corrupt; the faithful Muslim does not need riches and comfort; he only needs persistent devotion to the letter of the Koran and Sharia. It stands to reason that such fanatical cries will in the future still find admirers, and therefore for a long time we need, going forward along the civilized path, to be ready to support demands with strength.
A significant percentage of the Russian military force in Turkestan is maintained by general governmental considerations in the event of a foreign war; but it is necessary that this force remain strong. The party of Dukchi-ishan chose Andizhan as its first object precisely because the garrison there had recently been contracted and weakened by the posting of new commands and the unpreparedness of its young soldiers. Every poor decision with regards to the preparedness and care of the local military force is dangerous. In the future, broad laws will be necessary for the highest power in Turkestan, granted now by the “Provision concerning reinforced protection”.

Conclusions

Deeply convinced of the importance of everything stated in the present report, upon assuming the office of General Administrator of the Turkestan region I immediately set about the implementation of measures within the limits of power granted to me. Up until now, the following has been carried out:
1) In view of the inadequate knowledge of the majority of individuals in our local administration with Islam, the publication of a periodical edition entitled “Collection of Materials on Islam” has been undertaken. The first volume is enclosed with this report.
2) It has been ordered that mostly persons familiar with the native language should be chosen for the lower level administrative positions that come into direct contact with the native people. It was also ordered that after some time, only persons who know the Russian language will be allowed to fill the offices in the local administration, and it was recommended to entrust the duties of translators, if possible, to those of the Russian background.
3) Increased attention has been paid to Russian-native schools, the numbers of which has been increasing noticeably lately. It has been ordered that during the travels of administrative officials, the younger (of course still only male) generation together with the local population should greet the visiting dignitaries so that the natives would grow accustomed to seeing kindness and concern from the Russian authority from an early age. This was successfully accomplished during my personal travels in the region. This year, a group of the best students was taken out on an excursion across Russia for the first time with beneficial results beyond all expectations.
4) In view of the delay in the highest levels of authority of the implementation of the proposals presented by me and my predecessor regarding the increase in the number of local police constables, I have temporarily requisitioned up to twenty five officers from combatant forces to those posts. Unfortunately, even now there is sometimes only one police constable in charge of a population of hundred thousand locals.
5) The local administration has been instructed to catalogue and make know to the Russian authorities all Muslim institutions: mosques, schools, mazars, etc. as well as vakf properties; to create a directory of ishans indicating their residences, the orders to which they belong, and the number of their murids. A short compilation of this information has been included with this report. Unfortunately, due to the shortage of staff of the Russian administration, the matter demanded an entire year. In future, the conducting of such a project will prove impossible without some increase in staff.
6) Ishans have been forbidden trips to recruit murids and to collect donations for their own use.
7) It has been ordered to immediately replace those teachers in Muslim schools, who were discovered to be either foreign Tatars or immigrants from other countries, with Russian subjects.
8) The settlement of Tatar immigrants and other settled peoples, who often appear with harmful aims, among the nomadic Kirgiz was forbidden. Failure to comply leads to the imposition of fines up to 500 rubles.
Concurrently I have made the following proposals but they still have to be approved:
1) Concerning the increase of the number of permanent police constables (report to the War Ministry, 16 November 1898, N. 8658).
2) Concerning some increases in staff of the local administrations with the goal of allowing continual and detailed registration of all Muslim institutions in the region, which task is overwhelming for the present personnel.
3) Concerning the transfer of all Muslim schools from the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Public Education to the jurisdiction of the local administration in order that a) maktabs (elementary schools) open only with the permission of the head of the district (uezd), b) the construction of new madrassas (high schools) would only be permitted with the consent of the Governor-General, providing constant financial resources, and c) the construction of new kari-hana and dalyan-han, not having educational significance, would be forbidden.
4) Concerning the implementation in all Muslim schools of the law of March 1, 1893, on Jewish heders (elementary schools), which states that teachers of elementary schools should obtain certificates with payment of fees of 3 rubles and 50 kopecks, and teachers of of high schools of 7 rubles. Such financial dues will cover the expenses of increasing the staff of the local administration as outlined in paragraph 2 of the aforementioned plan.
5) Concerning the right of the Governor-General to abolish such Muslim institutions that might be deemed harmful in political terms.

The following proposals are being prepared:
1) Concerning the vakf properties and the pilgrimage to Mecca.
2) Concerning the return to the administration the right to resolve family and marriage issues that earlier used to bring the sympathy of the native women, allowed for the possibility to influence native family life and decreased the moral pressure on this life by the courts of the kadis and bii unfavorable to us.
3) Concerning some changes to the dates and order of field training of the troops and the discharge of soldiers to the reserve or lighter duties to ensure the constant preparedness of our military force in the region.
4) Concerning the future extension of the “Provisions Concerning Reinforced Protection” for neighborhoods with a dense Muslim population, which now requires annual renewal.

Finally, I am resolved to express the necessity of the following measures, which go beyond the borders of the Turkestan region and demand new general governmental statutes:
1) Establishment of a general plan of relations toward Islam.
2) Abolition of all Muslim spiritual administrations currently existing in the empire, with the transfer of the matters in their jurisdiction to the administration.
3) Establishment of specialized regulations for the censorship of Muslim publications.
4) The dissemination of the main measures taken in the Turkestan region to the Pri-Volga, Crimea, Caucasus, and different localities with Muslim populations.
5) Given the impossibility of marriage in the church between Muslims and Christians, the possible simplification of the process of adoption of children begotten from sexual relations between Christians and Muslims and vice versa.
6) Change of the laws concerning the wearing of medals for service so that ones “instituted for non-Christians” would not be obligatory for all Muslims.
7) Continual addressing of measures, whose need will become apparent with life experience and the activity of establishments dealing with Muslim matters, with the goal of the gradual weakening of the hostile tendencies of Islam towards Christianity and the strengthening of measures for the timely suppression of outbursts of opposition.
The implementation of every one of these enumerated measures comprises a particular matter subject to separate consideration in detail. And the appropriate resolution of all these by the ministers and departments depends first and foremost on the general system indicated by Your Imperial Highness.
The responsibility laid upon me for the tranquility and appropriate guidance of the immense Russian Central Asia, filled with Muslims, justifies the present request for direction from Your Excellency.
In view of the obvious and great advantages of a close union between Muslims and our general Russian society, in view of the large number of Muslims with far-sighted and innate wit and lively practicality, one must hope that by the firmly and irrevocably led path characterized by undeviating preparedness, and always supporting our demands with power, the desired goal may calmly be fulfilled in the future.
Russia bore, and continues to bear, the full brunt of a number of questions related to the borderlands: the Baltic and Finnish questions were complicated by mistakes in the past and their slow rectification. The “Muslim Question”, which is capable of inflicting great calamities at a critical moment, deserves measures for timely prevention.
Under the reign of Your Excellency, peoples of the most various moral foundations entered the empire: besides every possible kind of Christian creed and Jews – Muslims, Buddhists, and followers of Confucius, Shintoists. Even dark idolaters are beginning to approach. How small is the light of Christianity, but religiously tolerant Russia will for a long time need to see in its midst large masses of desired sons, whose complete adoption demands the destruction of walls or abysses which currently separate us in spirit and heart. In the current age of steam, electricity, and improved relations among all nationalities proclaimed by You, Your Excellency, the idea of general peace and every action towards rapprochement is highly desirable.
Finally, during the peaceful reign of Your Parents departed in the Lord, and Yours, Most Gracious Sovereign of the Russian land, the inner moral national might of our Fatherland awoke with such power, that it seems to me entirely necessary and appropriate not to postpone any longer the measures for the many millions of our followers of Islam.