The Hajj and Religious Politics after 1905 129ships. He also had the endorsement of Duma deputies. Downplaying his own
financial interest, he instead emphasized his desire to direct profits to Russia’s
national fleet, and away from foreign steamship companies, for the good of the
empire. He told the committee that he envisioned making the hajj “more
orderly and less expensive,” and ending the “awful exploitation” his fellow
Muslims faced along their routes, “especially by foreigners.”^40
Saidazimbaev’s plan agreed with the “commercial ethics” of the Volunteer
Fleet, so the committee signed an exclusive three-year contract with him, nam-
ing him general agent. It promised him specially outfitted steamships to trans-
port pilgrims between Odessa and Jeddah over the next three years, and a
fifteen-percent cut of each pilgrim ticket he sold. It also gave him a 50,000-ruble
interest-free loan to build a Volunteer Fleet ticket office at his “Muslim station”
in Tashkent. In return, Saidazimbaev promised to deal only with the Volunteer
Fleet, and build ticket offices selling its tickets in railroad stations across Rus-
sia’s Muslim regions.^41 Finally, Saidazimbaev promised to finish construction
of the “rail station” he claimed to be building in Odessa in time for the 1908–9
hajj season, which would begin in the early fall. The contract made clear that
the agreement was provisional: if by September 1908 Saidazimbaev had failed
to realize his plans, the Volunteer Fleet could nullify the contract.^42
Within weeks of signing his contract with the Volunteer Fleet, Saidazimbaev
presented his plan in a private meeting to Stolypin. Just as Saidazimbaev had
played to the altruistic, religious interests of his fellow Muslims and to the com-
mercial interests of the Volunteer Fleet, he presented the hajj, and the need to
organize it, in political and humanitarian terms to Stolypin. He played to
Stolypin’s concerns about social unrest in the empire, sketching a dire picture
of the uncomfortable, humiliating, and at times dangerous conditions pilgrims
suffered during their travel through Russia that also sometimes made it impos-
sible for them to observe their religious traditions and rituals. Echoing details
from Russian newspaper coverage, which he clearly had followed closely,
Saidazimbaev described the hellish experience along Russian railroads during
the 1907–8 hajj season as a major source of disappointment for Russia’s Mus-
lims. They had abandoned their old land routes, hoping to find in the railroads
a faster and more comfortable way to get to Mecca, but these hopes had “largely
been dashed.”^43
None of what Saidazimbaev described would have been news to Stolypin. As
minister of internal affairs, he was the main official responsible for managing
domestic conditions surrounding the hajj. As described in chapter 3, in 1907, in
an attempt to establish some government regulation of steamships, Stolypin