Mapping the Hajj, Integrating Muslims 73pilgrims through legal channels. An 1895 article, for example, described how
Muslims could leave their money and valuables at the consulate before heading
to Mecca. There were local brokers who offered this same service in Jeddah, and
had been doing so for centuries, but they charged high fees and were known for
cheating pilgrims. Now, however, the Jeddah consulate offered this service for
just five kopecks. The article recounted a happy story about how, in 1894, a
group of twelve Muslims had left 3,000 rubles with the Jeddah consulate, and
that “all of the money and property was returned to pilgrims” upon their return
from Mecca. In addition, the article described the Russian consul’s discovery in
Jeddah of unclaimed estates of several deceased Bukharan and Russian sub-
jects, for a total value of 2,500 rubles. In keeping with Islamic traditions, and
with its role as protector of the rights of Russian subjects, the article noted, the
Jeddah consulate had worked closely with the Ottoman authorities and Russian
authorities back in the empire to deliver the estates to the proper heirs.^78
It is difficult to judge the effectiveness of these articles in persuading Turke-
stan’s Muslims to use the Jeddah consulate’s services. It is clear, however, that in
spite of them, many Muslims continued to rely on alternate sources of support
in Arabia, and avoided the consulate. We see this in other articles that contain
implicit warnings to would-be pilgrims about the risks of not using the Jeddah
consulate, or ignoring official procedures in making the hajj. An 1895 article,
for instance, reported that more than 3,000 Muslims had made the hajj from
Russia by way of Jeddah the previous year, but only half had registered with the
Jeddah consulate, presumably because they had no passports. The article high-
lighted the problems that cropped up for these pilgrims later, when they reached
Constantinople and showed up at the Russian general consulate to request an
entry visa into Russia. With no documents to prove they were Russian subjects,
the consul-general denied their requests, and they ended up stranded in
Constantinople.^79
Histories of Russia’s late nineteenth-century colonization of Turkestan often
explore this process as it unfolded within the borders of this newly conquered
territory. Framed in regional terms way, the cross-border dimensions of this
process remain hidden. To see these, we must think of Russia’s colonization of
Central Asia differently, not as a process contained within hard borders but
rather, following David Ludden, as a complex process influenced by local,
regional, and global transformations that occurred within shifting “imperial
circuits of space” and reflected efforts to control human resources and move-
ment.^80 The articles considered above reveal close connections between Russian
authorities in Tashkent and Jeddah, produced by and organized around the