122 Chapter Four
facilities for hajj pilgrims. He had just signed an exclusive deal with the Volun-
teer Fleet to transport pilgrims between Odessa and Jeddah during the upcom-
ing hajj season. He insisted that only a Muslim could lead the hajj in Russia,
given that most pilgrims were unsophisticated and suspicious of outsiders, and
believed that “one of their own, according to Islamic law, would never deceive
them.” Moreover, Islamic law had so many restrictions and requirements, he
argued, only a Muslim could keep them straight.^7
Much of what Saidazimbaev told Stolypin and others in the Russian govern-
ment was untrue. He lied about owning land in Odessa. And he had no previ-
ous experience organizing the hajj or with a business venture of this scale. Nor
was he well liked among Muslims in Turkestan. Had Stolypin looked into his
background, by contacting Russian authorities in Turkestan, he would have
discovered that Saidazimbaev had a long record of failed businesses, debts, and
lawsuits against him, and a reputation as a drinker who liked dancing and Rus-
sian women. He also would have learned that Saidazimbaev had tried, and
failed, to get elected to the Second State Duma the previous year.^8
Stolypin did not do this. Instead, he naïvely took Saidazimbaev at his word,
and hoped that Muslims would trust him as a coreligionist and a member of the
elite, and follow his plan. His hasty appointment of Saidazimbaev, without any
kind of inquiry into his past or his story, suggests the depth of his concern
about growing Muslim discontent with conditions along hajj routes through
Russia, and his eagerness to solve the problems of the pilgrimage and bring it
under state control. The story of Saidazimbaev’s appointment as hajj director,
and the execution of his plan in the key transit point of Odessa, reveal how
political discussions about the hajj and the government’s handling of the pil-
grimage changed after 1905.
As this chapter will demonstrate, the struggle over Russia’s post-1905 reli-
gious order occurred not only within the Duma. Alongside his well-documented
efforts to legislate religious equality and accommodate the needs and demands
of Russia’s non-Orthodox groups within the Duma, Stolypin also tried other,
quieter strategies. In this example, he experimented with the co-optation of a
self-declared Muslim “leader” to solve the problems associated with the hajj.
Stolypin saw in Saidazimbaev a chance to solve a seemingly impossible situa-
tion: a way for the government to finally organize hajj in the empire without
appearing to intervene in it directly, while appeasing Muslims and without
exacerbating tensions between the state and the Orthodox Church. What
looked like an elegant solution on paper would prove impossible to achieve,
however. Saidazimbaev’s plan would not, in the end, succeed in organizing the