Islamic Scholars: The Glue That Held Volga-Ural Muslims Together in the Russian Empire

Abstract

When Russian forces occupied the Volga-Ural region in the sixteenth century, they nearly eliminated the local Muslim nobility. In the absence of a politically active nobility, Islamic scholars kept the region’s Muslim inhabitants connected as a larger community. This population of agricultural peasants and seasonal nomads rarely ventured beyond the vicinity of their villages or market towns, but scholars traveled extensively to pursue knowledge. As they traveled, they forged lasting connections with other students and scholars. When they graduated and dispersed through the region as village imams, they maintained these connections through kinship ties, letters, Sufi associations, and theological debates. Some of them also engaged in a broader network of Islamic scholars that extended primarily from Transoxiana to the Ottoman territories. As such, they served as the glue that held Volga-Ural Muslims together in a shared world, a regional Muslim domain, and they integrated this regional community of believers further into a transregional Muslim domain.