after Yerevan was made part of the Russian Empire, that province
became the focus of large-scale Armenian immigration. With these
important exceptions, most parts of the eastern Caucasus had far fewer
inhabitants at the end of the Russian takeover than at the start.^5
Russia's acquisition of the eastern Caucasus weakened Islamic re-
ligious institutions, although incidents of deliberate persecution were
few. However, Russian policy showed many of the region's Muslims
that their religion was in danger. Not surprisingly, the status of Islam
was lowest in Elizavetpol' and Georgia. The Muslim community in
Tbilisi was small, perhaps consisting of forty households. These peo-
ple were allotted one mosque but prohibited from having others, and
the land grants (vaqfs] used to fund mosques and other pious institu-
tions were confiscated. Similar confiscations occurred in Elizavetpol',
with financial hardship for the 'ulama a result. Moreover, the sharia
was replaced by Russian (later Georgian) law and the "ulama were
barred from their customary legal functions, except for domestic law,
for which services Russian authorities allowed them to charge only
minor fees. Within a year, the *ulama were reduced to penury. Tsit-
sianov responded by arranging for a limited number to be paid salaries
by the state. These 'ulama had to have the approval of the Russian
government and were expected to promote loyalty to Russia. A num-
ber of symbolic acts reflected the degraded state of Islam throughout
the region. A number of mosques and theological colleges were con-
verted to secular purposes by the Russians. In Elizavetpol', the main
mosque was turned into a church. In Baku, the city's finest mosque,
a Safavi building, was turned into an arsenal and another into a Rus-
sian Orthodox church. Several of the religious structures in New She-
makhi, the capital of Shirvan, were also made into arsenals. The re-
quirement that Georgian and Armenian women abandon the veil,
which had become as customary among them as among their Muslim
neighbors, may have seemed to Caucasian Muslims an ominous por-
tent of further violations of their standard of decency. Whatever the
new government's intentions, Muslims were prepared to believe that
full-scale persecution was planned; periodic alarms to that effect
cropped up on several occasions. Yet the practice of Islam was not
wholly fettered. A visitor to Derbent during the 1840s found that
the city's main mosque still received an income from land grants. The
Muslim women he saw still went completely veiled in accordance
with tradition. While he was in Derbent the ten-day-long public Mo-
harram rites, an emotion-charged commemoration of the martyrdom
of the Prophet's grandson Husein were allowed to take place unim-
peded.^6
150 The Consequences of the Struggle