Muslim Politics

Many of the local Muslim organizations founded in the first weeks of the revolution were concerned primarily with cultural or educational issues, while others had more overtly political aims, although the two sets of goals were rarely separable. The Splendor of Islam Society (Rawnaq ul-IslamJamiyati) in Katta Qorghan ,for instance, aimed to "acquaint the people with the present situation and to send people to the villages to spread ideas of citizenship [ghrazhdanliq ]and knowledge, in order to prepare our brothers for the Constituent Assembly and to reform our schools."^[19] Along with the mushrooming of organizations went the adoption, no matter how superficially, of new norms of procedure. On 22 March a meeting of the prominent ulama of Kokand began with the election of a chair and a secretary to record the minutes of the proceedings.^[20] Agendas were drawn up for meetings and minutes diligently kept and promptly published in the press. The revolution had produced new forms of sociability among the local population that the tsarist regime had done its utmost to curtail. Although the more ambitious among

[18] Marco Buttino, "Turkestan 1917, la révolution des russes," Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique , 32 (1991): 66-67, 70-71.

[19] UT , 5 May 1917, 3. Very similar aims were expressed by the Muslim Education Society in Samarqand (Samarqand anjuman-i maarif-i islamiya jamiyatining mukhtasar proghramasi [Samarqand, 1917], 2-7).

[20] Tirik soz , 2 April 1917.

them could still comment with dismay that most of the new organizations remained mere societies or circles,^[21] there was little question that the nature of politics had changed irrevocably in Turkestan.

For the Jadids, the revolution was a summons to action, and they acted to realize their long-held wishes. The organizational activity of the first weeks of the revolutionary era bore the marks of cultural struggles of Central Asia. The enthusiasm that led to the reemergence of the periodical press was replicated in other areas of Jadid concern. Munawwar Qari organized a commission in early March to work toward creating a common program for all Muslim schools in Turkestan and to suggest ways of introducing the teaching of Russian into them.^[22] New-method teachers formed unions in Tashkent and Kokand and, in true revolutionary fashion, convened a Turkestan Teachers' Congress, which met in Tashkent on 20 May.^[23] Over the summer, the Jadid-led Turkestan Central Council organized teacher training courses in Tashkent, which paralleled similar initiatives in Samarqand.^[24] Abdullah Awlani went as Turkestan's delegate to the All-Russian Muslim Teachers' Congress in Kazan in August 1917, where he was elected to the presidium.^[25]

The revolution opened up entirely new domains to competition among Muslim elites of Turkestan. Now the state came to occupy a central place in their thinking about the future; the politics of admonition gave way to the politics of mobilization, and votes took the place of exhortation. They sought to use the freedoms allowed by the revolution to ensure full participation for Turkestan in the political life of the Russian republic (which had been a basic political goal of the Jadids before the revolution). The possibilities seemed limitless now. The fundamental task was to ensure that the nation knew how to take advantage of them. Exhortations to unity and action abounded in the Jadid press, and they were combined with warnings about the dangers of not seizing the opportunity provided by the revolution: "[If we let this moment go,] it will be an enormous crime, a betrayal of not just ourselves, but of all Muslims.... We will leave a bad name behind in the history of Turkestan. God forbid, we will be accountable both to coming generations and to our ancestors and will receive retribution both in this world and

[21] "Turkistanda tashkilat masalasi," Kengash , 11 July 1917.

[22] Ibrahim Tahir ,"Maktab wa madrasalar islahi ,"UT , 5 May 1917.

[23] "Turkistan muallimlar isyizdi," UT , 24 May 1917.

[24] Kengash , 25 July 1917; Hurriyat , 18 July 1917.

[25] Kengash , 20 August 1917.

afterlife. O Muslims of Turkestan! ... Let this time not pass!"^[26] The Jadids also asserted their claim, implicit in their rhetoric of the previous decade and a half, to lead their society in the new era. Their possession of modern knowledge, especially of the Russian language, gave them the necessary qualifications for that role. Conversely, the Jadids commonly asserted that the traditional educations of the ulama had left them incapable of understanding, let alone making use of, the opportunities offered by the new turn of events.

The emergence of open politics brought the Jadids in cooperation with those Russian-educated Central Asian intellectuals who had played little or no role in the politics of cultural reform. Tashpolad Narbutabekov ,a lawyer, was from the beginning very prominent in Muslim politics. The revolution found Mustafa Choqay in Petrograd, where he worked in the offices of the Muslim Faction at the State Duma. He took the first train to Turkestan. Also taking the train was the young Bashkir historian Ahmed Zeki Velidi (1894-1970), who had spent some time in Central Asia several years earlier doing his research. Until August, when Bashkir politics claimed his attention, he played a very visible role in organizational matters. Delegations from Kazan and Transcaucasia arrived to help local Jadids organize, and some of their members ran for office. A number of lines dissolved in 1917, and the Jadids became part of a broad coalition of groups whose major common characteristics were their youth and a will to participate in the liberal politics of the revolution.

The Jadids' claim to leadership was contested by other groups in society. Tensions appeared at the outset. The induction of Khojaev and Narbutabekov into the Tashkent Executive Committee on March 6 led to grumbling in the city about "why have the youth [yashlar ]entered the committee when no ulama, functionaries, or merchants were included?" The Jadids were able to contain conflict on this occasion by going door to door over the next few days and putting the matter before the public meeting of 13 March, which in addition to ratifying the election of these two, elected two more representatives (both Jadids) to the committee.^[27] But much tougher struggles lay ahead. The Jadids retained control of the Tashkent Shura, but many other organizations, especially outside the

[26] Muallim M. H., "Bukun qanday kun?" Kengash (Kokand), 15 April 1917, 12. For other expressions of such anxiety, see Shakirjan Rahimi, "Eng zor wazifalarimiz," Najat , 23 March 1917; Abidjan Mahmudov, editorial in Tirik soz , 2 April 1917; Mirmuhsin Shermuhammadov, "Hurriyatdan nechuk faidalanamiz," Najat , 9 April 1917.

[27] "Tashkandda hurriyat harakatlari," Najat , 23 March 1917.

capital, appeared far beyond their purview. Many revolved around personalities, in effect transforming the informal politics of colonial Turkestan into the formal politics of the revolutionary era. Tashkent Jadids hoped to create a network of organizations covering all of Turkestan, but no coordinated effort ever came about. The title "Shura-yi Islam "proved quite popular, but the various shuras in Turkestan had little in common with the Tashkent organization. In Samarqand, the local shura was the organization of the ulama, many of whom were inimical to the Jadids. The three organizations in Aq Masjid represented various factions of local notables.^[28] But the most intriguing story came from Andijan.

Representativesof the Tashkent Shura arriving in Andijan walked into the ancient rivalry between two local millionaires, Mir Kamil-bay and Ahmetbek Temirbekov. Mir Kamil interfered in the meetings of the newly established organization (in one instance, his minions forced all Tatars present to wear a chalma (turban), and expelled those who refused),^[29] while Temirbekov refused to have anything to do with the Tashkent delegates. Instead, he asked the local executive committee for permission to start "his own" Shura-yi Islam .When permission was not granted, he named his organization Hurriyat (Liberty). By late May, though, numerous other organizations had come into existence and joined together to form a Ferghana Oblast Soviet of Deputies of Muslim Organizations. On 20 May, this soviet, in conjunction with the Turkestan Soviet of Soldiers' and Workers' Deputies, managed to have Mir Kamil exiled from Turkestan and Temirbekov sent off to Tashkent. They were allowed to return in mid-July, but only on condition that they not interfere with public affairs until the election of the Constituent Assembly.^[30]

Moderate Jadids emphasized unity in their attempts at organization. When Munawwar Qari organized the school commission in March, he invited maktab teachers to participate, clearly an attempt to build bridges with more conservative groups. The Union of Teachers in Kokand similarly took a conciliatory stance toward the ulama. As the editorial in the first issue of its magazine asserted, the community needed the ulama for guidance in religious affairs just as much as it needed open-minded, Russian-speaking, modern-educated people to take the helm in the po-

[28] Mustafa Çokay, 1917 Yili Hatira Parçalari (Ankara, 1988), 17-19.

[29] UT , 20 May 1917, 4.

[30] "Protokol zasedaiia S"ezda Andizhanskikh obshchestvennykh musul'manskikh uezdno-gorodskikh organizatsii ot 14-170e iiulia 1917 goda," TsGARUz, f. 1044, d. 24, II. 26-270b.

litical realm.^[31] However, other aspects of Jadid activity worked against this attempted conciliation. One of the Jadids' first organized efforts after the revolution was a campaign against corrupt or incompetent qazis .This was clearly a continuation of the campaign pursued the previous winter by Ubaydullah Khojaev and Vadim Chaikin, but now it tapped into the general revolutionary sentiment against the old order. The Tashkent Shura called for the re-election of all qazis who had been serving for more than three years, and two days later it resolved to form a committee to "dismiss those old functionaries whose continued employment is harmful" in the new era.^[32] In Kokand, one of the first acts of the local shura was the dismissal of several qazis .^[33] Many of these functionaries, and especially the qazis among them, were to form the backbone of the opposition to Jadids that emerged by late spring.

The high point of the political movement came early, when it organized the First Turkestan Muslim Congress, from 16 to 22 April, in Tashkent. Although the congress was not representative in the strict sense of the word (Muslim organizations from all over Turkestan were invited to send delegates with mandates, but more than 100 delegates arrived on their own out of a sense of civic duty),^[34] the mere fact of its convening only seven weeks after the fall of the autocracy was remarkable. The congress opened in the mansion of the governor-general with typical revolutionary pomp, as representatives of the Provisional Government, Turkestan Congress of Executive Committees, and Turkestan Soviet of Soldiers' and Workers' Deputies greeted its inaugural session.^[35] The elections to the presidium of the congress signified a victory for the Jadids: Munawwar Qari was elected president, and Ubaydullah Khojaev, Mustafa Choqay ,Narbutabekov ,Islam Shahiahmedov, and Zeki Velidi were among those elected to the presidium.^[36] The congress also elected a twelve-member delegation to attend the forthcoming All-Russian Muslim Congress organized by the Muslim Faction of the Duma in Moscow and decided to establish a Turkestan Muslim Central Council (Turkistan Milli Markaz Shurasi )as its standing executive organ.^[37] Although this organ did not begin work until 1 June, it was to provide an invaluable institutional base

[31] Muallim Hakimjan Mirzakhanzada ,"E'tizarga e'tizar,"Kengash , 15 April 1917, 14.

[32] Najat , 26 March 1917; 9 April 1917; 15 April 1917.

[33] Muallim Shakir al-Mukhtari,Kim qazi bolsin (Kokand, 1917), 2; UT , 5 May 1917.

[34] UT , 25 April 1917.

[35] Turkestanskie vedomosti , 22 April 1917.

[36] UT , 25 April 1917.

[37] Kengash , 31 August 1917.

for the Jadids; through it, the Jadids could claim to speak in the name of all Muslims of Turkestan. The sixteen-point program for the congress included a wide array of questions dealing with the political future of Turkestan, ranging from the attitude toward the new government, the forms of state organization, food supply, and land and water rights, to questions of education reform.^[38]

Yet, even the euphoria of the occasion could not hide the acute tensions within Muslim society. The congress was sharply divided on the question of autonomy. All had celebrated the dawn of freedom, and all could agree on the desirability of autonomy, but different groups had very different ideas about the meaning of these terms. The ulama were wary of a redefinition of culture that undermined their position as its authoritative interpreters. The Jadids' eagerness to use the opportunities afforded by the revolution to seek full participation for Turkestan in the new order also threatened to collapse the walls that sustained the ulama's status within the community. The ulama's response to the revolution therefore took the form of an attempt to maximize the space allowed by the regime to the regional and cultural peculiarities of Turkestan and to attempt to cordon off as much of their society as possible from the depredations of the new universalist order inaugurated by the revolution. In practical terms, it meant demands for broadening the competence of Muslim courts to new areas of criminal and personal law, which would have placed the ulama in greater control of Muslim society.^[39] The ulama were less concerned with participation in mainstream imperial life, for while they could reach accommodation with outsiders, they had no patience for those within their own society who sought to undermine their authority.

Non-Russians in the country widely assumed that the democratic Russia of the future would provide some sort of autonomy for its various nationalities. As various groups across the empire organized politically and sought to be recognized as future autonomous subjects, they debated the choice between territorial and cultural forms of autonomy (the latter would have guaranteed nationalities such cultural rights as those of language, education, and representation, without attaching those to a territory). The debate came in this form to Turkestan. Most Jadids favored cultural autonomy, for they feared that without outside help they

[38] UT , 25 April 1917; see also Browder and Kerensky, eds., Russian Provisional Government , I: 420-421.

[39] Çokay, 1917 Yili , 49.

would be swamped by the enormous influence the ulama wielded m Turkestan and thus be marginalized in public life. Behbudi, along with Zeki Velidi, vehemently opposed this position and insisted that the congress vote for territorial autonomy. They were successful, and the congress voted in favor of a democratic federative republic for Russia with Turkestan enjoying wide territorial autonomy.^[40] The Jadids' fear of territorial autonomy turned out to be justified, although a different resolution at the congress would hardly have mattered.

Conflict came into the open by late spring. In Kokand, Hamza had early got into trouble with his peers, when an article he wrote in the Kokand magazine Kengash (Counsel) provoked criticism for its generally harsh tone.^[41] In Tashkent, the Turan party (toda ), under the leadership of Abdullah Awlani ,consistently took a more radical line than the Shura. It began by requisitioning, in true revolutionary fashion, the offices of the municipal chief of Tashkent for use as its headquarters (a rare, perhaps unique, instance of such revolutionary initiative from a Muslim organization).^[42] In July it was instrumental in hosting a delegation from the Turkic Federalist Party based in Ganjä in Transcaucasia. But it was an article by Mir Muhsin Shermuhammadov in the second issue of its newspaper Turan that brought matters between the Jadids and their opponents to a head. Mir Muhsin, recently returned from a year at the new-method Galiye madrasa in Ufa, expressed the usual Jadid criticisms of traditional education. These sentiments had been repeated ad nauseum by Jadid writers and orators since the turn of the century, but now certain ulama seized upon it as a show of strength. Mir Muhsin's criticism of a medieval tract on Arabic grammar was deemed blasphemous by the qazi of the Sibzar section of Tashkent, and although Awlani apologized publicly in the next issue of the newspaper, Mir Muhsin was arrested and sentenced to death for apostasy.^[42] The sentence far exceeded the qazi's

[40] Contemporary reports (e.g., Najat , 23 April 1917) unfortunately do not provide details of this debate. Behbudi recounted his views several months later: "Turkistan mukhtariyati ,"Hurriyat , 19 December 1917; A. Z. V. Togan, Hâtiralar: Turkistan ve Diger Musluman Dogu Turklermin Millî Varlik ve Kultur Mucadeleleri (Istanbul, 1969), 152-153; see also Ahlullah Khayrullah oghli, "Turkistanda birinchi 'qurultay,'" Shura , 15 July 1917, 323-324.

[41] The article m question seems never to have been published, but the debate it provoked became public when Hamza complained m a different newspaper that he had been censored m a manner worse than he had experienced m the imperial period; see Hamza, "E"tizor," in Tola asarlar toplami , ed. N. Karimov et al., 5 vols. (Tashkent, 1988-1989), IV: 269. For Kengash's response, see Mirzakhanzada ,"E'tizarga e'tizar,"14.

[42] UT , 7 July 1917.

[43] "Shayan-i ta'assuf waqealar ,"UT , 31 May 1917. This incident caused comment in the Tatar press as well; see Shura , 15 June 1917, 286-287.

competence, but what was truly at stake was not blasphemy but an assertion by the ulama of their power within Muslim society as well as a challenge to the new Russian authorities. Ultimately, Mir Muhsin was rescued by the police from the Russian quarter and his sentence was "commuted" to eighteen months' imprisonment. Mir Muhsin managed to escape and with financial help from friends among the Jadids returned to Ufa, but the absence of widespread protest against this action was proof that the ulama retained moral and religious authority among the population at large, surely a disturbing sign for the Jadids.

As disagreements deepened, the ulama in Tashkent split from the Shura and formed their own organization, the Ulama Jamiyati (Society of Ulama). Again, the new principle of sociability is worth noting, for the Ulama Jamiyati was a modern organization quite distinct from the ulama's traditional modes of association. Although technically not a political party, the Ulama Jamiyati often functioned as one, as is clear from its actions during the rest of the year, when it mounted political campaigns, ran candidates for office, held conferences, and published magazines. Nor was it merely a trade union for the ulama; it was a political organ representing the interests of all traditional elites in Turkestani society. It was headed not by a religious dignitary but by Sher Ali Lapin, a Russian-educated Qazaq who had spent years in Russian service as an interpreter and was currently a lawyer.^[44] Nor was the Jamiyat averse to forming alliances with Russian parties of the right and the left, as its progress through the year showed.

The campaign for elections to the Tashkent Duma, set for late July after the Russians had dropped their demand for segregated dumas, pitted the Jadids directly against the ulama in a test of political strength.^[45] An offer by the Shura to field a joint slate of all Muslim groups in the city was rebuffed by the ulama, who saw little need to cooperate with their rivals. The Shura responded with a pamphlet that severely criticized "certain mullas and old functionaries who have united with foreign enemies who do not wish Muslims to achieve progress and take their affairs in their own hands and [who therefore] oppose the Shura-yi Islamiya ."^[46] Here and throughout the campaign, the Shura stressed that its candidates

[44] TsGARUz, f. 47, d. 2769, passim; Çokay, 1917 Yili , 18-19. Hélène Carrère d'Encausse ("The Fall of the Czarist Empire," in Edward Allworth, ed., Central Asia: A Century of Russian Rule [New York, 1967], 216), assuming the Ulama Jamiyati to be a purely clerical organization, automatically promotes Lapin to "a mullah."

[45] Togan, Hàtiralar , 163-165.

[46] Tashkand Shura-yi Islamiyasi ,Khitabnama (Tashkent, 1917), 2.

would be able to function fruitfully in the duma because they had modern educations and were fluent in Russian. The purely traditional education of the ulama, the pamphlet went on to argue, rendered them ignorant of the times and of contemporary politics, and led them to be taken in by mischief makers (fitnachilar ). The pamphlet also asserted the credentials of the Shura's candidates, many of whom were learned in traditional knowledge.^[47]

The ulama's response was brief and caustic. In the few months of freedom, they stated in their response, the ulama of Tashkent had heard several criticisms from "inexperienced youth [yashlar ]... who had not received a complete religious or worldly education." The ulama had refused to field a joint slate because they knew who would be on that list and "which children [balalar ]would gain control of the public affairs of the Muslims of Tashkent. Keeping in mind the great importance of the duma, the ulama saw no public good coming out of cooperation in this matter with such youth."^[48] The list of candidates put forward by the Ulama Jamiyati was dominated by members of the religious elite.^[49]

Two different bases of authority were at stake here. The Shura based its claim to authority and leadership on its superior knowledge of the current situation and its claim to be able to function fruitfully in the Duma and, later, in the Constituent Assembly. The ulama derived their authority from their possession of traditional knowledge still greatly valued by society. Their condescension about the inexperience of youth also tapped into the great respect accorded to age in Central Asia. Ultimately, the ulama's claims to leadership proved more authoritative as they won the election by a landslide, gaining an absolute majority in the new duma, while the Jadids could scrape together only eleven seats. Voting was strictly according to national lines, with much of the Russian vote going to the Socialist Revolutionaries (see Table 8).

Once elected, the Tashkent Duma found it difficult to accomplish much in the chaotic situation of the summer except to provide further evidence of the tensions that existed between the ulama and the Jadids. The election of a new chairman for the duma produced the first crisis. The Ulama Jamiyati had no hesitation in putting forward as its candi-

[47] Ibid., 5, 13.

[48] Ulama Jamiyati, Haqiqatgha khilaf tarqatilgan khitabnamagha jawab wa ham bayan-i ahwal (Tashkent, 1917), 2, 5-7.

[49] "V obshchestve mull," Turkestanski kur'er , 2 July 1917, in Pobeda oktiabr'skoi revoliutsu v Uzbekistane: sbornik dokumentov (henceforth PORvUz ), 2 vols. (Tashkent, 1963-1972), I: 153.

date Lykoshin, whose amazement at natives becoming citizens we noted above. However, strong protest from other parties led to his nomination being withdrawn, to be replaced by that of A.K. Iakhimovich, whose politics were described by a disgruntled Jadid newspaper report as "to the right of the Kadets." so Iakhimovich was finally elected chair in late August, signifying an alliance between the ulama and conservative Russians.

The issue of schools provided the ulama another opportunity to humiliate the Jadids. The ulama elected five of their number to the eight-member commission formed in August to inspect schools in the city, and

[50] UT , 27 August 1917, 3.

one place went, ex officio, to the head of the duma. For the other two places, the Shura nominated Munawwar Qari, the founder of the largest new-method school in Tashkent and widely recognized as the leader of the Jadid movement in the city. In a public insult to Munawwar Qari and the Jadid cause, the ulama voted him down and instead elected two Russian socialist members of the duma to the commission.^[51] The ulama deemed even radical Russians preferable to the Jadids in questions of cultural policy, an indication of how far apart the two sides had drifted over the summer.

Tashkent provided only the most telling example of a conflict that raged throughout Turkestan. First blood had been shed in mid-April during a confrontation in Namangan, although details of the incident are extremely sketchy.^[52] In June, a meeting of the notable ulama of Kokand, called on the initiative of a qazi who had been dismissed earlier in the year, decreed that Musa Jarullah Bigi, the renowned Tatar modernist alim , and Ayaz Ishaki, the Tatar writer, were both infidels whose books should be gathered and burnt. The assembled ulama also demanded that they should have the right to supervise and censor all books and newspapers published in Turkestan.^[53] Attitudes were also influenced by events in Bukhara, where the amir had mustered conservative forces against the Jadids. In May, a certain Mulla Khalmurad Tashkandi, a conservative scholar in Bukhara, had obtained a fatwa decreeing all Jadids of Turkestan and Bukhara to be "enemies of the Islamic faith."^[54]

The question of women's place in the new era proved to be a major source of conflict. The Provisional Government granted the franchise to all citizens of Russia over the age of twenty, regardless of sex. This momentous change upset all existing calculations in Turkestan. The Jadids welcomed these new rights and set about registering women voters. They saw the right to vote as a boost to the position of women, but they also deemed women's votes to be crucial to the success of Muslim candidates in an election based on proportional representation. They succeeded in

[51] "Duma jivilishi," UT , 23 August 1917. In a few weeks, the commission decided to coopt four experts to help it in its work, and elected Munawwar Qari, as one of the four. But the ulama still managed to elect two teachers of old-method schools. "Maktab kamisiyasi," Kengash , 8 September 1917.

[52] I have encountered several indirect references to this incident: TsGARUz, f. 1044, d. 1, l. 36; see also a letter signed by representatives of two Andijan organizations expressing dismay at the activities of "the Protopopovs of Turkestan": "Turkistan Protapapavlari," UT , 14 June 1917.

[53] "Khoqand ulamasining qarari," UT, 13 July 1917

[54] "Bukhara v 1917 godu," Krasnyi arkhiv , no. 20 (1927): 110.

securing a resolution of the April congress in favor of "giving" women the vote,^[55] and in July they garnered the help of Tatar women in registering women voters. As a conciliatory measure, the Jadids approached the ulama for a fatwa on whether it was permissible for women to vote if separate polling facilities existed for them and they encountered no men in the process. For the ulama, the choice between ensuring the electoral strength of the Muslim community and relinquishing their vision of a Muslim society built on gendered patterns of authority was clear-cut. They ruled that women's right to vote contravened Islamic laws and was therefore impermissible. Eventually, some Muslim women did vote, but the issue proved highly divisive throughout Turkestan. Behbudi, ever the moderate, suggested that the Jadids yield on this question for the sake of "national" unity, although in a different context he rued the fact that women's votes were crucial in assuring Muslim control of the new organs of self-government.^[56] This kind of unity was achieved in Katta Qorghan at least, where women simply did not vote in the elections.^[57]

Class was conspicuously absent from this intense political conflict, which was played out in the language of the nation and of its culture. The local urban workforce had plenty of grievances: It had suffered the consequences of the rapid transformation of the local economy under the impact of cotton and had been adversely affected by the severe economic crisis that hit Turkestan after the outbreak of the war. But it was in a period of transition, in which older patterns of organization such as the guilds were dissolving and new forms of solidarities had not emerged. The political language of the Russian labor movement remained unintelligible to Muslim artisans operating in a very different moral economy.

Artisans did begin to organize, and a Soviet of Muslim Workers' Deputies was formed in Tashkent in June at the initiative of Muslim soldiers returned from duty in the rear of the front.^[58] A Union of Muslim Toilers (Khoqand Musulman Mehnatkashlar Ittifaqi) appeared in Kokand on 25 June, and a Muslim Artisans' Union (Sanna' ul-Islam) organized in Andijan with as many as 1,500 members.^[59] Although Soviet historiography made much of the existence of Muslim labor organizations, it is unlikely that they shared much with the Russian soviets, which in turn made little effort to proselytize among the natives. A number of organizations

[55] Najat , 28 April 1917.

[56] Behbudi, "Bayan-i haqiqat," UT, 12 June 1917; Hurriyat , 3 July 1917.

[57] M. Khojayev, "Katta Qorghan" Hurriyat , 29 September 1917.

[58] PORvUz , I: 281.

[59] Hurriyat , 18 July 1917, 4 August 1917.

of Muslim artisans were headed by Jadids. The Tashkent Soviet of Muslim Workers was led by Abdullah Awlani and Sanjar Asfendyarov, a Qazaq medical doctor who was active in the Shura and who was to be prominent in the Kokand Autonomy. Its journal, despite its proletarian title (Ishchilar dunyasi [Workers' World]), differed little from any other Jadid publication.^[60]

The most prominent class-based Muslim organization existed in Samarqand, where by July, Muslim politics had split between an organization called the Shura-yi Islamiya, dominated entirely by the ulama, and a Muslim Executive Committee, which included members from "the merchants and all other groups."^[61] In August, a public gathering established the Samarqand Labor Union (Samarqand Zehmat Ittifaqi), which fielded a full slate of candidates for the municipal elections held on 8 September. Eschewing the rhetoric of Muslim unity, it openly stressed the specific needs of the poor.^[62] Many candidates on the list were workers, but among its organizers was Sayyid Ahmad Ajzi, and it acquired the support of the Jadids of the city and of their newspaper, Hurriyat (Liberty). Behbudi stood aloof, however, while Wasli campaigned actively against it. The campaign turned nasty, as the ulama declared supporters of the Ittifaq to be infidels and threatened anyone who voted for them with eviction from his neighborhood. Violence broke out on the day of the election, in which eight supporters of the Ittifaq were badly injured.^[63] In the event, the Ittifaq won only 1,796 votes and four of the seventy-five seats. The Shura had entered the election in a coalition with the (Russian) Householders' Union, and their joint list (on which there were twenty-five Russians) won fifty-five seats.^[64]

It was obvious to the Jadids that they needed outside help. Their domination of the Central Council gave them an institutional base from which they could claim to speak on behalf of the indigenous population of Turkestan, and in doing so, they could look for support to two outside sources that held considerable promise. A liberal democratic Russia

[60] Its first issue included an article (in Ottoman) on universities m Japan, two articles on the history of early Muslim dynasties, complete with tables on the titles and reigns of Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs, and a piece of political commentary borrowed from UT .

[61] Mufti Mahmud Khoja Behbudi, "Samarqandda milli ishlar haqqinda," Hurriyat , 28 July 1917.

[62] E.g., "Samarqand Ishchilar Ittifaqining bayannamasi," Hurriyat , 25 August 1917.

[63] S. Siddiqi, "Har asbab oz ishi uchun yiraghlikdur," Hurriyat , 29 August 1917; H. M. Shukrullah, "Shura-yi Islamiya wa saylaw,"Hurriyat , 19 September 1917. The list of those injured is m Hurriyat , 12 September 1917.

[64] "Shahr dumasi," Hurriyat , 19 September 1917.

willing to recognize the principle of national rights while upholding a commitment to secularism and civil liberties could provide a cushion against the more reactionary demands of the ulama (as had clearly been demonstrated in the Mir Muhsin case). Similarly, incorporation into an all-Russian movement for Muslim unity under the modernist leadership of the Tatars, among whom Jadid reform had succeeded to a far greater extent, might have allowed the Jadids of Central Asia the moral and political support they needed to implement their reform, as well as providing a broader sphere of action at the all-Russian level. Yet, in the chaotic conditions of 1917, both these sources of support melted away, leaving the Jadids to wage their struggles by themselves.

The support of democratic Russia had great potential, and the early signs were hopeful. When the Tashkent Soviet of Soldiers' and Workers' Deputies placed Kuropatkin under arrest on 31 March, Petrograd approved the action and, recalling Kuropatkin, appointed a Turkestan Committee of nine members (five Russians and four Muslims, none of them from Turkestan) to govern the region until the Constituent Assembly could meet and determine its political status. The committee began with great enthusiasm and high hopes, holding its first meetings on the train to Tashkent as its members prepared to take on the challenge of governing a distant colony.^[65] It was welcomed upon its arrival in Tashkent on 13 April by a throng of thousands. Troops played the "Marseillaise," and children from new-method schools sang "national" songs in the committee's honor.^[66] But the euphoria evaporated almost immediately, as the Kadet background of its members led to opposition from the Turkestan Soviet, leading six of them to resign within weeks.^[67] For much of the summer, the committee was inactive, although Nalivkin became its acting chair. Attempts to resurrect it continued down to October, but the committee was never a force to be reckoned with.

The All-Russian Muslim movement proved equally disappointing. participation in a larger Muslim community whose overall leadership was firmly in the hands of fellow Jadids appeared to Turkestani Jadids to be a guarantee against the influence of ulama at home. But the movement had tried, ever since its inception in 1904, to reconcile varied interests. Its Tatar leadership had hoped to use it as a vehicle for extending Tatar leadership to a wider constituency, hopes that were renewed in

[65] Minutes of the meetings of the committee are in TsGARUz, f. 1044, d. 1.

[66] Najat , 17 April 1917.

[67] TsGARUz, f. 1044, d. 1, ll. 173-1730b.

1917. The Kazan Muslim Committee sent a six-member delegation to Tashkent to help the local population organize for the awesome possibilities opened up by the revolution. Their natural affinities lay, of course, with the Jadids, but the venture proved ineffective from the beginning. The members of the delegation arrived one at a time, and although they were welcomed loudly,^[68] the leadership of the Shura had ambivalent feelings toward them. The delegation spent considerable energy on organizational matters, but local leaders were suspicious of the uninvited guests, who understood little of the local realities but felt called upon nevertheless to give advice.^[69] Differences came to the fore quite quickly; three of the members resigned and returned to Kazan by early June,^[70] and another two returned at the end of August.^[71] The All-Russian Muslim Congress at Moscow also proved unsuccessful in the long run. The fanfare of the occasion could not hide basic differences, and the conference turned into a contest between the Tatars and the rest over the question of autonomy: Mainstream Tatar opinion favored national-cultural autonomy, while almost everybody else voted in favor of territorial autonomy. Although, after lengthy debate, the congress passed a compromise resolution that recognized both forms of autonomy,^[72] the confrontation cost a de facto Tatar withdrawal from the movement. The Second All-Russian Muslim Congress, held in Kazan in July, was an all-Tatar affair, its exclusivity underscored by its organizers' refusal to avoid a conflict with a Qazaq congress in Orenburg.^[73]

Transcaucasian politicians attempted to fill the space vacated by the Tatars after June. The Ganja-based Türk Adäm-i Märkäziyät Firqäsi (Turkic Federalist Party)^[74] sent a four-member delegation to Tashkent in June to establish a local organization of the party with the aim of form-

[68] UT, 13 May 1917, 3.

[69] The malaise was mutual; Abdullah Battal Taymas, one of the Kazan representatives, looked back on his visit as a waste of time: Rus Ihtilålmden Hâtiralar (Istanbul, 1947), 39.

[70] "Qazan hay'atining isti'fasi," UT , 7 June 1917, 4.

[71] "Qazan hay'ati," UT , 27 August 1917, 4.

[72] Browder and Kerensky, eds., Russtan Provisional Government , I: 409.

[73] The proceedings of the Moscow congress are in Butun Rusya Musulmanlarining 1917nchi yilda 1-11 Mayda Maskavda bolghan umumt isyizdining protaqollari (Petrograd, 1917). See also Serge A. Zenkovsky, Pan-Turkism and Islam in Russia (Cambridge, 1960), 141-153.

[74] On the Türk Adam-i Markaziyat Firqasi, see Tadeusz Swietochowski, Russian Azerbaijan , 1905-1920: The Shaping of National Identity in a Muslim Community (Cambridge, 1985), 86, 90. Adam-i markaziyat is literally "decentralization," but the party's own publications translated it as Tiurkskaia federativnaia partiia , and I have followed that in translating the name into English.

ing a bloc of autonomist movements in the Constituent Assembly.^[75] The delegation began by building bridges with the ulama and exhorting the Jadids to greater caution.^[76] Its members traveled to various cities in Turkestan, establishing local cells and raising money. They seem to have achieved considerable success in garnering a consensus around the idea of autonomy, for in early September the party published its program, signed by fourteen men from several cities of Turkestan, including Munawwar Qari and Behbudi.^[77] Yet again, the ulama of Tashkent remained aloof, and not a single one of them appears among the signatories of the program.

The crisis deepened further in September, when the Jadids and the ulama held separate congresses. The Shura had called the second Turkestan Muslim Congress for early September to discuss the activity of the Central Council, the questions of land, water, and food supply, and the political future of Turkestan.^[78] The ulama effectively sabotaged the congress by vehemently criticizing it in a pamphlet as a conference of atheists.^[79] The congress opened with barely 100 delegates, instead of the 500 expected, and almost no ulama in attendance. It nevertheless heard a proposal, drafted by Islam Shahiahmedov, a graduate of the law faculty in Petrograd, outlining a plan for far-reaching autonomy for Turkestan. Shahiahmedov saw Turkestan enjoying territorial autonomy in a federal Russia. It was to have its own duma with authority in all matters except external affairs, defense, posts and telegraphs, and the judiciary. The region was to enjoy complete autonomy in the economic realm, including control over mineral and water resources. The project also called for the equality of all citizens of Russia, regardless of religion, nationality, or

[75] Members of a delegation from Baku had attended the meeting of the Central Council on 26 June and been coopted into it: Kengash , 28 July 1917.

[76] The first issue of its newspaper, Turan , published an article lavishing praise on the ulama: "A number of complaints have arisen since the beginning of Freedom because of discord between the ulama and the youth [yashlar ]. Gentlemen, even a little prudent reflection would force us to admit that today the ulama are our spiritual fathers and the supporters of our faith. If we youth deny their existence, we will be guilty [gunahgar ] for all time" ("Jahalat yuzindan i'tilafsizlik," Turan , 1 September 1917). The next issue of the newspaper published a similarly laudatory article about the ulama: "Al-'ulama warsat ul- anbiya'," Turan , 6 September 1917.

[77] This document has been published m modern \ by Ahmadjon Madaminov and Sand Murod, eds., "Turkistonda khalq jumhuriyati," Fan wa Turmush , 1990, no. 7, 6-8; for an English translation and commentary, see Hisao Komatsu, "The Program of the Turkic Federalist Party m Turkistan (1917)" in H. B. Paksoy, ed., Central Asia Reader: The Rediscovery of History (Armonk, N.Y., 1994), 117-126.

[78] See Kengash , 31 August 1917, for the agenda of the congress.

[79] Kengash , 12 September 1917.

class, the freedoms of assembly, religion, and conversion, and the abolition of censorship and the passport system. The congress recommended broad dissemination of the project for discussion before being put to a vote at the next conference.^[80] The congress also passed a resolution on questions of "education and civilization," which called for universal, compulsory, free elementary education in the vernacular, the organization of a hierarchy of new-method schools and teachers' colleges, and the creation of a university. All education was to be funded by the state but under Muslim control. Russian was to be introduced only in middle school. Madrasas were also to be reformed and regulated.^[81] Finally, a resolution called for the establishment of a shariat administration (mabkama-yi shar'iya ) in each oblast, but with the crucial proviso that the electoral principle be maintained and that its members be "educated and aware of contemporary needs" (zamaindan khabardar, ilmlik kishilar ).^[82]

The ulama met in their own congress a week later, a huge affair with over 500 delegates from the five oblasts of Turkestan as well the Turgay and Ural'sk oblasts of the steppe region. The congress unanimously resolved itself to be in favor of a federative democratic republic, with Turkestan having its own duma with jurisdiction over issues of land and water, as well as its own militia. It also called for a halt to the creation of land committees and the socialization of land. None of this was drastically different from the form of autonomy the Jadids' congress had heard the previous week. The crucial difference lay in the ulama's resolution of the questions of religion and women. The congress resolved that "the affairs of religion and of this world should not be separated, i.e., everything from schools to questions of land and justice should be solved according to the shariat." Similarly, "Women should not have rights equal to those of men, but everyone should have rights according to one's station as adjudged by the shariat."^[83] (Of course, since the only people capable of interpreting the shariat were the ulama themselves, this guaranteed the entrenchment of their authority in the new regime.) Finally, the congress called for the Muslims of Turkestan to maintain unity and suggested that this unity be embodied in a new party to be called the Ittifaq ul-Muslimin (Union of Muslims), which should replace all existing or-

[80] Kengash , 13 September 1917; the text of the draft resolution in autonomy is in UT, 7 and 10 September 1917.

[81] Turan , 21 September 1917.

[82] Turan , 14 September 1917.

[83] "Ulama isyazdining qararlari,UT , 30 September 1917.

ganizations such as the Shura-yi Islamiya.^[84] This was nothing less than a call for the abolition of the organizational infrastructure of Jadidism in Turkestan, an aggressive assertion by the ulama of their power. Each side now saw itself as the sole legitimate representative of the community and sought to act on its behalf.