Building an Archival Persona: The Transformation of Sufi <i>Ijāza</i> Culture in Russia, 1880s–1920s

This article analyses the uses of education certificates (ijāzas) as a tool of self-expression by Russia’s Muslims in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. While the transmission of ijāzas as such served as a means of constructing the ideal Muslim personality, manuscript evidence suggests that a selective approach to compiling ijāza miscellanies could successfully be employed in building one’s own archival persona – the way how an individual wanted to appear on pages of future biographical books: not only as an important transmitter of prestigious lineages, but chiefly as a unique performer of their selective combinations. The presence of Sufi certificates on multiple lineages within and beyond the borders of the established Sufi ‘orders’ suggests the increasing heterogeneity of Sufi organization and practice that was part of the phenomenon of a broadening cultural repertoire, from which individuals could draw upon for their archival persona. The type of ijāzas that we analyse here, namely the separate documents and miscellanies listing the transmitted practices, were very much the product of their time and their wide circulation in late imperial Russia suggests, as we argue, an unprecedented rise of ijāza culture, imported from the Ottoman realm.</p

Ссора по-исламски: жалобы и анонимки советских мусульман

This article introduces a series of semi-official correspondence between ‘Abd al-Bari Isaev, an imam in Leningrad, and Shakir Khialetdinov, then mufti of the European part of the USSR. To contextualize these precious sources stemming from several private archives, which have only recently been opened for research, I bring more examples on the ways how did religious authorities of the Soviet times quarrel on the issues of power. In fact, as Iargue, these multiple quarrels in prose and poetry represent an intriguing case of appropriating both Soviet administrative and Muslim ethical styles of argumentation. The state was always there and Muslim authorities tried hard to use this factor in their inner quarrels by speaking the language of dominant discourse, thus directly borrowing terminology and word constructions from the secular denouncements and linking arguments with the Soviet civil code. At the same time, even in the late Socialist era engagement with the main sources of Islam, i.e. the Qur’an and the Sunna, was another prominent tool in fighting political enemies. This is why we often see quotations from the holy books, referring to the ethical models of Islam. The latter tactics was nothing new to Islamic tradition, especially when the authors tried their pen in poetical fence. What is striking though is that this literary activity and fight over resources was going on in late Socialist Russia, in Arabic-script, long before banned from the public usage by the government

ЛИЧНЫЙ АРХИВ ТАТАРСКОГО АРХЕОГРАФА АЛЬБЕРТА ФАТХИ И ВОСТОЧНАЯ АРХЕОГРАФИЯ В КАЗАНСКОМ УНИВЕРСИТЕТЕ ВО ВТОРОЙ ПОЛОВИНЕ XX ВЕКА

The article is devoted to the personal archive of Albert Fathi, containing records on the history of literacy and various aspects of Tatar culture. Many of them have not been published , but are of great interest to isledovateley oriental manuscripts as part of Islamic literature and national discourse of the Tatar people.Статья посвящена личному архиву Альберта Фатхи, содержащему записи по истории книжности и различным аспектам татарской культуры. Многие из них ранее не публиковались, однако представляют несомненный интерес для иследователей восточных рукописей как части исламской литературы и национального дискурса татарского народа