Eileen Kane. Russian Hajj

Eileen Kane’s Russian Hajj: Empire and the Pilgrimage to Mecca traces what Kane describes as “the story of how Russia became patron of the hajj” (20). The book is primarily concerned with highlighting Russia’s “sponsorship” of the Muslim hajj to Mecca. To her credit, Kane makes a provocative argument in this volume, but the events she relates in support of this view tend to be more anecdotal than systematic. Chapters 1 and 2 look at the activities of a smallish number of tsarist bureaucrats working in Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, their assistance to Muslim pilgrims, and their proposals for legalizing the hajj, which was prohibited outright by Russian authorities for much of the nineteenth century. Chapter 3 discusses the decision by state officials in Russia to allow two steamship companies to transport pilgrims to the Ottoman Empire. Chapter 4 is devoted mainly to outlining the undertakings of one Said Gani Saidazimbaev, who provided false credentials to tsarist officials in his efforts to win their support for organizing the transportation of Muslim pilgrims. Chapter 5 describes the Soviet government’s cooperation in allowing foreign Muslims (but not Soviet ones) to transit across the USSR en route to Mecca.

Ancient history · Archaeology · Argument (complex analysis) · Christian ministry · Empire · Government (linguistics) · Hajj · Islam · Ottoman empire · Pilgrimage · Political science · Politics · State (computer science) · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts · Philosophy

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