Transformation of Islamic Institutions in Revolutionary Russia: The Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Assembly and the Muslim Clergy of the Volga-Ural Region in 1917 - early 1918

Abstract

This article is devoted to an analysis of institutional changes in religious administration of Muslims of the former Russian Empire during 1917 and early 1918. Its focus is the Muslim clergy and the Tatar population inhabiting European Russia, the Volga-Ural region, and Siberia that were under the jurisdiction of the Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Assembly. The Muslim congresses (including the first Turco-Tatar national parliament, the Millat Majlise), as well as the Tatar-language press, discussed a variety of key social and political issues. Radical social changes, fluctuations in public opinion, the growth of “national egoisms”, and the ideological domination of the Marxist “class approach” have all impacted the discussions. The article deals with the nature of these debates, their relationship with the revolutionary changes, and their general outcomes by the time of the beginning of the Civil War.