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4
The Hajj and Religious
Politics after 1905
In 1908, Russia’s minister of internal affairs, P. A. Stolypin, appointed a hajj
director for the empire. This was a major turning point in Russia’s efforts to
organize the hajj. The task of the new position, as described in the ministry’s
announcement to fifty-three governors and city-governors across Russia, was a
formidable one: to “solve the many existing problems” associated with the hajj,
and organize it inside Russia. The tsar had made the organization of the hajj a
government priority since the late nineteenth century, which resulted in the
creation of new laws, institutions, and commissions. But never before had the
government put a single institution or individual in charge of the pilgrimage.
No less strikingly, Stolypin appointed a Muslim to this important job—a Tash-
kent native named Said Gani Saidazimbaev.^1
A major political figure in late imperial Russia, Stolypin was both prime
minister and internal minister from 1907 to 1911. He is best known for crack-
ing down on revolutionaries and introducing peasant land reforms to stabilize
the empire after the Russian Revolution of 1905. He also tried to increase gov-
ernment support for Russia’s non-Orthodox faiths. In so doing, Stolypin was
following through on promises for reform issued by the tsar in the October
Manifesto, following the revolution. Among other things, the manifesto prom-
ised greater religious equality in the empire, and the creation of a legislative
body (the Duma) with multiconfessional representation. And as prime minis-
ter, Stolypin would push a broad program for religious reform in 1908 and
19 09, bringing before the Council of Ministers (the upper chamber of the
Duma) no fewer than fourteen bills to expand the legal rights of Russia’s
non-Orthodox communities.^2