Russian Hajj in the Twenty-First Century 185colonies. To the contrary, tsarist Russia forged its empire in part through global
Islamic networks, building new imperial pathways upon the hajj routes that
connected the tsarist empire to Arabia.
This story has particular resonance today. As in the early twentieth century,
governments today perceive migration and immigration as double-edged.
Migration is both a threat—based on fears and high anxiety about terrorism,
extremism, and contagion—and an opportunity, based on the economic fluo-
rescence of globalization. Globally, fears of migration are perhaps especially
tied to Islam, which many in the West see as violent, fanatical, and essentially
incompatible with Western democracy and progressive social values.
In today’s era of globalization the term “Muslim world” does not mean much:
accelerated patterns of migration and immigration over the past century have
uprooted Muslims from their historical homes to a degree never before seen in
history. Muslims today live everywhere in the world, perhaps most precariously
in Europe, where anti-Islamic sentiment has been mounting for decades, a
reflection of Europe’s economic troubles and a general unease with Europe’s
newfound status as an immigrant destination, after centuries of being a source
of immigrants.
In the late nineteenth century, Russia, too, struggled to reconcile its historic
identity as an Orthodox empire with the reality of its internal diversity and its
large and increasingly mobile Muslim populations, whose loyalties, it feared,
may have belonged to the neighboring Ottoman sultan, a rival of the tsar. This
struggle converged around the important issue of the hajj, and debates among
officials on how to deal with it. Many Russian officials wanted to restrict the
hajj for many reasons. But how could they do this without appearing to inter-
vene in Muslim practice, and to violate Muslims’ religious freedom? Russia’s
attempts to sponsor the hajj promised to give it greater access to Muslim com-
munities and control over the pilgrimage—but this approach, too, had its prob-
lems. Patronage was not supposed to encourage the hajj and increase the
numbers going, but it had just that effect. And patronage raised broader ques-
tions related to Russia’s identity and legitimacy, and the institutions that helped
to build imperial stability. How could Russia, an Orthodox state, justify sup-
porting a major Islamic ritual? And how could it extend patronage without
upsetting the Russian Orthodox Church and losing its crucial institutional
support for the regime?
Many of these same questions confront European and Russian officials today
as they struggle to manage the hajj and accept it as part of their evolving
national cultures. These are not so much new questions as old ones, rooted in