76 C h a p t e r Tw o
efforts to extend hajj patronage to Bukharans, who were not technically Rus-
sian subjects. They were subjects of the emir of Bukhara, which was a semi-
independent protectorate of Russia, and therefore, according to Ottoman
officials, fell under the patronage and authority of the Ottoman sultan-caliph.
Ivanov proposed that Levitskii wait until the Jeddah consulate was “more
established on legal grounds,” and then let Muslims themselves ask for the
consulate’s assistance.^89 Ivanov’s response reveals his embrace of caution over
coercion. It also suggests his confidence that if Muslim pilgrims were offered
superior services, they would eventually and voluntarily submit to the author-
ity of the Jeddah consulate.
The tekke episode reveals two major challenges Levitskii and his successors
faced in their efforts to establish authority over Russia’s hajj traffic in Arabia.
The first was ambiguity and sometimes disagreement over who, exactly, was a
Russian subject and entitled to diplomatic protection through the Jeddah con-
sulate. Central to this issue was the Bukharan émigré community in Arabia.
European colonization of Muslim lands over the nineteenth century had set
off waves of Muslim migration to Ottoman lands, among them Bukharans
fleeing the Russian invasion of Turkestan. They had been living for decades in
Ottoman lands, had long ago become Ottoman subjects, and some had reset-
tled in Arabia, where they worked as merchants. But with the opening of a
Russian consulate in Jeddah, some of these émigrés began to show up at the
consulate, presenting themselves as Russian subjects and demanding diplo-
matic protection.^90
There is no evidence that Levitskii deliberately tried to cultivate Bukharan
émigrés and lure them to the consulate. Rather, it seems that Bukharan émigrés
often came to the consulate on their own, seeking to claim extraterritorial priv-
ileges as Russian subjects to advance their own economic interests or escape
prosecution under Ottoman laws. Two cases from the Ottoman archives,
involving Ottoman subjects, illustrate this. In one, from 1891, a Bukharan resi-
dent of Arabia named Celal appealed to Russia’s Jeddah consulate to secure his
release from prison, after being arrested by the Ottoman authorities in Arabia
for illegally selling slaves. In another, from 1898, a Bukharan merchant named
Abdurrahman applied to the Jeddah consulate for Russian subjecthood soon
after being charged merchant fees to enter Jeddah for trade.^91
The second challenge Levitskii and his successors faced in Arabia was the
resistance of Ottoman officials to their authority over Muslim pilgrims. The
European consular presence in Arabia was relatively new, and unwelcome by
Ottoman officials, who saw it as part of broader European efforts to meddle in