The Hajj and Religious Politics after 1905 121Though he would later shift to a more conservative position, in 1908 Stolypin
was part of a cohort of tsarist officials who championed non-Orthodox rights as
a matter of imperial preservation and stability. (This group included Sergei
Witte, who had overseen Russia’s industrialization and who had authored the
October Manifesto in 1905). By supporting Russia’s non-Orthodox peoples and
accommodating them, Stolypin hoped to neutralize dissent and cultivate broad
support for the regime. This agenda often put him at odds with the Russian
Orthodox Church, which saw in it the erosion of the church’s privileged posi-
tion in the empire, as well as with the tsar himself, who relied on the church as
a crucial source of institutional support for the monarchy.^3
In this tense post-1905 context of political flux and contestation over reli-
gious policy, the hajj posed a particular challenge to Stolypin. To ignore it was
out of the question. The disorders of the 1907–8 hajj season, and the fears they
stoked within the regime about sanitary and political threats to the empire, had
made the need to organize the hajj more urgent than ever. At the same time, as
Stolypin saw it, organization offered a chance for Russia to ingratiate itself with
its twenty-million-strong Muslim population, to demonstrate its policy of reli-
gious toleration and support for Islam, and to win Muslim loyalties at a critical
moment. Political revolutions in 1908 in both the Ottoman Empire and Persia
had only deepened tsarist officials’ concerns about Muslim loyalties. The Young
Turks’ overthrow of the Ottoman sultan, in particular, and their propagation of
Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turkism alarmed officials in Russia and made many
more intent on establishing state control over the hajj.^4 And yet, just as Stolypin
was under increased pressure to solve the problems associated with the hajj, he
was also more restricted in his ability to increase government support for it.
And so Stolypin was doubtless pleased in early 1908 to receive from Saidaz-
imbaev an ambitious plan to organize the hajj. The two met in Stolypin’s office
in St. Petersburg that February, in a meeting arranged by Muslim Duma repre-
sentatives.^5 Saidazimbaev must have seemed to Stolypin like someone he could
work with: he spoke excellent Russian, wore Western-style clothes, came from a
family closely tied to the Russian administration in Turkestan, and had glow-
ing recommendations from Muslims in the Duma. Saidazimbaev presented
himself to Stolypin as an altruistic Muslim concerned about the suffering of his
coreligionists, and the interests of the empire. He stressed the urgent need for
the government to appoint a “trusted leader” to guide them, and offered his
services to reorganize the hajj in Russia.^6
Saidazimbaev’s plan was comprehensive, and spanned the whole empire. He
claimed to have the connections and experience necessary to carry it out, and
to own land in Odessa and Tashkent, where he was already building transit