108 Chapter Three
pilgrims, for fear of increasing “fanaticism” among Russia’s Muslims. Citing a
cliché of the time, one that appears to have little empirical foundation, Lams-
dorf warned that the hajj radicalized Muslims, and that they returned to the
empire “hostile to everything Russian” and more intent on “religious-political
isolation.” Returning hajjis had influence over other Muslims of a kind that was
not desirable from the point of view of the government.^65 Lamsdorf ’s objections
illuminate two of the most difficult issues tsarist officials faced in trying to or-
ganize the hajj: the need to do it without damaging the prestige and standing of
the Orthodox Church in the empire, and the fear that organization might look
like encouragement, and increase the volume of hajj traffic, which would create
even bigger problems for the government.
Unsurprisingly, the State Council rejected Pleve’s proposal, on the grounds
that it would give hajj pilgrims the same privileges the state offered its Ortho-
dox pilgrims, and because it “looked like encouraging Muslim pilgrimage.”^66
This was in fact what Pleve had sought to avoid in designing the rules, particu-
larly by suggesting that Muslim leaders be co-opted. In fact, Ministry of Inter-
nal Affairs officials would later describe the proposal as an attempt to “provide
Muslims themselves with power by giving them the right to help their
co-tribesmen” and without establishing “protective measures for the pilgrim-
age itself.”^67 In response to the State Council’s rejection, Pleve revised his
proposal, resubmitting a much stripped-down version of his rules. The State
Council passed these in June 1903.^68 The new rules are noteworthy for two rea-
sons. First, they did not include any special privileges or incentives for Mus-
lims. And second, they indicated a shift from suasion toward coercion, with the
state essentially trying to dictate pilgrims’ routes and forbid travel along the
land routes. This, in turn, suggests that some officials, Pleve among them, had
begun to embrace a different, forceful kind of model for organization.
The 1903 measure passed by the State Council introduced special “pilgrim pass-
ports” for Muslims heading to Mecca as well as Mesopotamia and Persia (with
their important Shiʿi holy sites). There was no mention of a reduced fee. These pass-
ports would be small booklets with pages in which Russian officials were supposed
to record detailed itineraries of pilgrims’ planned routes, based on what pilgrims
told them upon applying for a passport, and provide stamps proving that pilgrims
had undergone sanitary inspection at border checkpoints. Russia’s governors were
required from now on to issue such passports to all Muslim pilgrims.
The new rules also set restrictions on hajj pilgrims’ routes. They required
Muslim pilgrims to return to Russia only through those Black and Caspian
ports and border spots mandated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, all of