Imperialism through Islamic Networks 39in the Ottoman Empire through Sunni hajj pilgrims who left Dagestan every
year for Mecca. Worried that “secret and harmful relations” were being con-
ducted through hajj networks between the Caucasus and Ottoman lands, but
believing that it was “impossible” for the Russian government to forbid or even
discourage this “important ritual” of the Muslim faith, officials in the Caucasus
embraced a new passport system for the hajj in order to map and understand
patterns of the hajj traffic, and bring the pilgrimage under the authority and
supervision of Russian institutions.^66
Within months of the opening of the Damascus vice-consulate, Bazili told
Titov that hajj pilgrims from the Caucasus were already “drawing heavily” on
Telatinidis’s services. This was surely due to continued Ottoman failure to
secure the Syrian route. The year 1846 was disastrous for the Damascus hajj
caravan. Famine had driven the Bedouins to plunder the caravan’s food and
water stores along the desert route, and when the Damascus authorities sent an
official out into the desert with provisions to replenish the caravan, he too was
attacked. The attack had driven up the cost of fodder for animals at markets
along the caravan route, and camel drivers were forced to demand more money
from pilgrims for their camel hires. Hundreds of pilgrims perished in the attack
and its aftermath, many from starvation, along with hundreds of horses and
camels. Upon the caravan’s return to Damascus, many Russian subjects went to
Telatinidis to complain about being “extorted” on the way home by their camel
drivers, and asked him to take their complaints to the Ottoman governor.^67
For Bazili, Muslims’ reliance on the new Damascus vice-consulate signaled
a major shift. Just several years earlier, he noted, most Muslim pilgrims from
the Caucasus “did not dare” identify as Russian subjects while passing through
Syria, for fear of how “fanatical” locals might react. While acknowledging the
dangerous and unstable conditions that had pushed this year’s pilgrims to
seek Telatinidis’s help, Bazili also claimed credit, saying that his persistent
efforts to support hajj pilgrims—“especially the amazing punishment of the
Bedouins” who had attacked the twenty-man Kazikumukh hajj caravan—had
“transformed” Muslim attitudes about Russia. Today, he told Titov, Muslim
pilgrims coming through Syria “proudly bear the title of Russian subject,” and
“glorify” the name of the tsar and the “concern of the imperial government in
their favor.” Some had even been “overheard in inns and coffeehouses in
Damascus and Beirut” openly discussing with local Muslims the “advantages”
they enjoyed as Russian subjects, and drawing comparisons between their
good life under Russian rule and the “anarchy” and disorder of Ottoman
provinces.^68