Imperialism through Islamic Networks 35In the case of the Dagestani hajj pilgrims we can begin to see the outlines of
an emerging policy of Russian hajj patronage, based on complex new geopoliti-
cal circumstances, and mutual interests among Russian officials in the Cauca-
sus and Syria, as well as Muslims from the Caucasus. At a time when Russia was
trying to consolidate its empire in the newly conquered Caucasus and also
expand its influence in Ottoman Syria, tsarist officials in both places began to
see the hajj traffic that linked the two regions as strategically useful, and well
worth cultivating.
In the Caucasus, Russian commander in chief I. G. Golovin and his successors
in the early 1840s had started to sponsor the hajj selectively, offering passports
and special support—subsidies, gifts, travel assistance, in some cases all-paid
hajj trips—to Muslim elites who had chosen to serve the Russian administration
or pledge their allegiance to Russian forces.^55 The case of the pilgrims from Kazi-
kumukh fits this pattern of hajj patronage as a colonial strategy to consolidate
Muslim loyalties. Meanwhile, across the border in Syria, Bazili quietly began to
expand support for the hajj. He hired an unofficial consular agent in Damascus,
a local Greek-speaking merchant named Leonidas Telatinidis, to advertise the
services of the nearby Beirut consulate to hajj pilgrims from the Caucasus mov-
ing through the city, and to help “settle their accounts.”^56
If some Muslims from the Caucasus were happy to invoke their new status as
Russian subjects and take advantage of services offered through Russia’s con-
sular network in Syria, their reasons were surely pragmatic. At a time of politi-
cal flux in Syria, and repeated failures by the Ottomans to secure traditional
routes and keep pilgrims safe, Bazili and his agent in Damascus offered them
the support they needed to perform this sacred religious ritual. The relation-
ship was mutually beneficial: by offering Russia’s hajj pilgrims support, and
getting them to turn to the Russian consulate instead of Ottoman officials and
institutions, Russia was able to gain some understanding of, if not control over,
the hajj traffic between the Caucasus and Ottoman lands, and justify the expan-
sion of its diplomatic presence deeper into Syria.
Over the 1840s Russia expanded support for its hajj pilgrims in Syria. In 1845 it
opened a new vice-consulate in Aleppo, and, most significantly, in 1846 it
opened one in Damascus. Both cities were nodes along the main routes used by
Muslims to get from the Caucasus to Mecca, and the new consulates operated
under Bazili’s supervision. By opening these consulates, the Foreign Ministry
was essentially formalizing activities that had been going on for years, making