Imperialism through Islamic Networks 19mid-nineteenth century that made the Russian Empire a center of global hajj
routes and traffic.
Having inherited a hajj tradition through imperial conquests, Russia had to
decide what to do with it. As one of the five pillars of Islam, and an obligation
for Muslims, the hajj could not easily be banned or stopped—and, it offered
Russia opportunities for managing and governing Muslims, as well as for
advancing state and imperial agendas. To bring the hajj under state influence
and control, Russia began to sponsor it in the nineteenth century. This sponsor-
ship was at first improvised and episodic, as part of Russian efforts to consoli-
date rule in newly conquered Muslim regions. However, as the hajj grew into a
mass annual phenomenon over the nineteenth century, Russia’s interests in it
multiplied, and state support became systematic. While the tsar periodically
announced bans on the hajj in the empire, particularly during wars and epi-
demics, and tsarist officials often expressed political and economic concerns
about the hajj, Russia embraced a general policy of hajj patronage from the
mid-nineteenth century onward.^8
By sponsoring the hajj, Russia was not simply trying to control the pilgrimage,
or contain the problems it engendered as a mass migratory movement. Rather, it
was seizing a new opportunity created by imperial conquests to tap into and
co-opt the hajj, a global Islamic network, as a mechanism of imperial integration
and expansion. This was part of a larger process that had been under way in Rus-
sia since the late eighteenth century—and, more broadly, across European em -
pires over the nineteenth century—whereby European colonial governments
institutionalized Islam and Islamic practices to advance imperial agendas.^9
Co-opting the hajj would not be easy. Contestation and ambivalence were
inherent to the project from the start. Unlike the situation with Russian Ortho-
dox pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which the tsarist government also began to spon-
sor in the nineteenth century, government support for the hajj was not
organized through a centralized process, nor did the tsar ever publicly endorse
it.^10 This semisecrecy reflected concerns, widely shared among tsarist officials,
that state support for the hajj could upset the empire’s Russian Orthodox faith-
ful and the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church, which enjoyed promi-
nence and a privileged position as the “preeminent” church of the empire and
the ruling dynasty. The decision to sponsor the hajj grew from a gradually
developing consensus within the government that Russia stood to gain more
from sponsoring the hajj than ignoring or banning it. But as a non-Muslim
empire, Russia faced unique challenges in persuading Muslims to recognize it
as protector of the hajj, and to follow state-mandated routes and regulations.