VI - ISLAM ON THE QAZAQ STEPPE, SEP.

26-30

SOURCE (TEXT): A MONTH AMONG THE QAZAQS IN THE EMIRATE OF BUKHARA: OBSERVATIONS ON ISLAMIC
KNOWLEDGE IN A NOMADIC ENVIRONMENT, AHMAD AL-BARANGAVI.

Introduction:
Its author, Aḥmad b. Ḥafīẓ ad-Dīn al-Barāngavī (1877–1930), was a student in Bukhara from 1901 to 1905 and has left us a
detailed account of a month he spent among Qazaq nomads in the Emirate of Bukhara in the summer of 1905.
The assumption that nomadism was incompatible with the Islamic religion is still widespread today, including among many
Qazaqs, but certainly fails to take into account the presence of nomads at the centre of political and religious life throughout
virtually the entire course of Islamic history.
Among both Kazakhs and Tatars we see the same emphasis on Sufism, shrine pilgrimage, patron saints, the use of Sufi litanies in
rituals, funeral repasts and the elevation of Khwaja descent groups, and so forth.
More significantly for our purposes, they did not describe Qazaqs as passive recipients of ‘civilization’ or ‘culture’, but depicted
them as Islamic actors in their own right.
Qazaq scholars themselves played an important role in the Islamic revival that took place among them from the mid-19th century,
down to first decade of Soviet rule, and while Qazaq biographical sources for this period are only slowly coming to light, these
sources are showing that Islamic institutions staffed by Qazaq scholars and Sufis were operational and expanding in nomadic
communities.
many still-current assumptions that undervalue the presence and significance of Islamic institutions among Inner Asian
nomads in general.

The Tārīkh-i Barāngavī:

The Work’s Author:
The work’s author is Aḥmad b. Ḥāfiẓ ad-Dīn b. Naṣr ad-Dīn al-Barāngavī, who served as imam of Baranga’s Fourth Mosque from
1907 presumably until his death in 1930.
His grandfather, Naṣr al-Dīn (1796–1868) became imam of Baranga’s First Mosque in 1824,14 and earned meshchanin status15,
which freed his descendants from the poll tax.

Translation of al-Barāngavī’s Account of the Qazaqs:

They gave us some water for ablutions and we performed our daily prayers.
He said, ‘There was a student like us who when he travelled with the Qazaqs read the Hidāya on top of a camel. When a
Qazaq asked what book that was, he answered, ‘The book you read on a camel!’ On that day we travelled until the afternoon
prayer.
The Hidāya is one of the standard Hanafi texts on fiqh.
The next day his neighbor, a big fat woman, invited us to a feast. We accepted and went there. They invited one or two other
people, as well as Nārāṭ-Bāy and had the Qur’an recited, and for a small price we performed the taṣadduq prayer, and they made
us guests. Everyone here was poor, and was a dung-seller and had one or two camels. These unfortunate people said that they
suffered oppression from the Bukharan bīks and if they had a camel, they would take it, saying it was закат.
Among Qazaqs in particular the taṣadduq prayer (in Qazaq, tasattïq) was often performed as a rain prayer.
Although zakāt is in fact an incumbent charitable tax for Muslims, in the Central Asian Khanates at that time it was in effect a tax
that the Khanates obtained from nomadic communities, among others.
We stayed there as guests four or five days. After that our host said, ‘Moldakas, in a rocky place there’s a camp. Unlike us they
have good food. They are preparing food now because tomorrow it will have been forty days since so-and-so’s death. I can take
you there, if you want to go.’38 We agreed.
Those who were in fact rich had felt yurts and had good and large herds of sheep and camels. The community was blessed, that
is, a lot of people could be seen. We entered the yurt our host indicated. However, the owner of the yard we entered was also
involved in the fuel business and went to Bukhara.
It was time for the afternoon prayer. The Qazaqs spread one or two canvas cloths and stood up to pray. We performed the
ablutions and joined them.
The imam came out of a felt yurt that was the school (maktab) and met with us.
This person was from among the Qazaqs’ authoritative men (agha) and had studied in Bukhara, and was good with the
Mukhtaṣār.
We performed the namāz, and the khatm litany was begun.
After that we came to the assembly. As for that, it was a Qazaq-style feast. Before the food [came] the owner of the house began to
speak. ‘Moldaka, I convened this assembly to perform the marriage ceremony [to marry] my daughter so-and-so, to so-and-so,
the son of so-and-so. [212b]
They said, ‘It’s not in the Kāfiya. Let him be.’ Imam Afandi looked at me. I said, ‘Although the marriage ceremony is permitted as
long as the birth has not taken place, the consummation is not permitted.’ The imam said, ‘The marriage ceremony is all right,
they won’t wait until the [wedding] night for its consummation.’
After that the ceremony was performed, and they paid a few Bukharan tangga. After the fātiḥa sheep heads, intestines, and lungs
were set out in large bowls, and they brought soup, and one knife.
We left the assembly and Imam Afandi brought us into the school [yurt]. The Imam Afandi had his own felt yurt that was also
called the mosque.
There was no concealment among Qazaq women and girls. They spoke openly and laughed. However the imam’s wife, while she
did not conceal herself, did not speak after having greeted us.
That night two young Qazaq fellows came. They went from camp to camp performing songs. They strummed played dombras in
their hands and began singing songs. They were also preaching (waʿẓ sōyliyōr) and everyone, young and old, men and women,
assembled to observe and hear the sermon. We also want to listen. It was a moonlit night. However, it was understood as if
among the young men and the girls in the isolated empty places there were various secrets.
The ram was torn into two pieces. The remains were left on the sand, and the young men went off. The next day a woman came
and received permission from the mullah to cook the remains, and she cooked it. We sat down and ate it, however soon there was
a smell and the sand was swimming in the meat and in the soup.
At that time Mullah Afandi would give lessons twice a day every day to 20 or 30 children. Since the yurt where we stayed was the
school 15 or 16 year-old girls would assemble there. The lessons would start after eight o’clock in the morning until the advent of
the sandstorm. The later lesson would be given from when people woke up until the afternoon prayer. Imam Afandi gave lessons
very diligently. Although he did not teach syllables, morphology [214a] was according to the jadid method. However, the mullah
sat in one place cross-legged, holding a whip in his hand. Putting the children in a circle, they were arranged as if all of them
were together with their partners, and they recited with the books and Qur’ans in their hands. They would read the Haft-i Yak in
Persian, and later recite the Qur’an. After the practical exercises [they read] the Chahār kitāb, and the Thubāt al-ʿājizīn;44 after
the Qur’an recitation, [they read] Bīdil and Murād al-ʿārifīn. As with us [in Russia], invalids and the lame would give lessons and
would be junior instructors. In this way a forty-year old man would give lessons in Bīdil and the Qur’an. Because Imam Afandi
liked us a great deal, we also loved him. However, even though I did know and record his name, during the Baranga Fire it was
destroyed together with my sayāḥatnāma.
The mullah made an invitation to learn the rules of arithmetic and calendars. After that a Qazaq placed the two of us on a camel,
paid the price of a taṣadduq prayer, and sent us toward a second Qazaq encampment (ūtrāw).
At that time the owner said, ‘I’m dying’, and started dictating his will to my companion. After everyone started crying he couldn’t
write and put down the pen. They gave both of us a tanga as an offering, and they sent us by camel to another distant
encampment.
His Holiness Jumʿa-Bāy took training for a few years from Sultan Khan47 in Bukhara, and obtained a license. He also taught the
Rashahāt48 for a while. After that we set off to return to Bukhara.

Some Notes on the Text:

It was very common practice in the 19th and early 20th centuries for Tatar madrasa students to spend summers among nomads
as instructors. However because living among nomads was often compelled by difficult economic circumstances, among Tatars it
was widely held to be a low-status pursuit. Elsewhere in the manuscript, Aḥmad points out that when he was a student in Kazan,
fellow students who returned from spending the summer among Qazaqs were often ridiculed by other students. However, he
expressed surprise that the opposite appears to have been the case in Bukhara, where students returning in autumn held those who
had lived with nomads in particular honour. Aḥmad does reflect on the reasons for the difference in their attitudes, but they could
be based on differing perceptions of the political status of nomads, or tribal communities, in Russia and Bukhara respectively.
There were communities of Qazaq nomads subject to the emirs of Bukhara. The only Qazaqs subordinate to Bukhara are those
known as Ilibai [Ilibay]. They are not rich, despite their name, which means ‘the wealthy auls.’ Two hundred tents of Shömekey
Qazaqs wander between Bukhara and Qarshi. The Ilibais are engaged in the shipping of charcoal and wood to Bukhara. There are
no other Qazaqs subordinate to Bukhara.
Aḥmad does not further identify the Qazaqs he traveled with. He points out that the Qazaqs with whom he first travelled were
dung-sellers, which was used as fuel. Perhaps these were the Ilibays whom Witkiewicz identifies as fuel sellers. At the same time,
the route Aḥmad tea appears to have been to the north of Bukhara, which was the direction of the territory inhabited by the
Shömekey Qazaqs. Conversely, Aḥmad may have never travelled with both groups.

Curricula and Education:

In his description of Islamic education and of the teachers, and of the texts they made use of, Aḥmad reveals a Muslim
community with a strong educational foundation, at many levels similar to that of rural Muslim communities in Russia. He
records a broad range of Persian and Turki literature that appears to have been widely read among these Qazaq nomads, and which
reveals a substantial level of literary sophistication and Islamic knowledge among these nomads, including a high degree of
familiarity with the Persian language. We find references to a broad selection of works typical of the Ḥanafite curriculum of that
era, beginning with madrasa primers and including more advanced works on jurisprudence and Sufism.
Aḥmad’s account demonstrates quite clearly that the Qazaq nomads studied and displayed familiarity with many of the standard
texts of the Ḥanafite curriculum that were in use in Bukhara and Russia. These include the Char kitab, which was widely used
as a maktab primer in Central Asia. Although it was less commonly encountered in the Volga-Ural region, it was nevertheless
used throughout much of the Qazaq steppe. Mäshhür Zhüsip Köpeyulï reports having used it as a primer in the Pavlodar region in
the 1860’s, 52 and the work continues to circulate in Kazakhstan in a modern Qazaq translation.
Aḥmad also mentions several works devoted to Sufism. Clearly at the beginning of the 20th century Naqshbandi ṭarīqats
maintained a strong presence in Qazaq nomadic communities, and Qazaq murīds were studying Sufism both in major centers in
both Russia and Central Asia, such as Troitsk, Petropavlovsk, Semipalatinsk, Khiva, Bukhara, and Tashkent.
Clearly, Sufi conceptions were disseminated textually, as well as orally, among these nomads.
In his account it is evident that Aḥmad is impressed with his hosts’ knowledge of the Persian language.
Aḥmad indicates the imam in the settlement was particularly devoted to Bīdil’s poetry, and reveals that his poetry was even taught
in the school.
As we have indicated above, in pre-Soviet Tatar texts the ignorance of Qazaq nomads is a commonly-encountered stereotype, and
at one level several of Aḥmad’s comments could be interpreted in that framework. For example, one of the Qazaqs identifies the
Hidāya as ‘the book one reads on top of a camel.’ Similarly, the episode where the Qazaqs seek a legal opinion from Aḥmad
regarding the legality of a marriage between a young man and the girl he impregnated. However, the reader is left wondering
whether the Qazaqs are note perhaps slyly poking fun at their Tatar guests. As we have seen, the level of Islamic education
among these nomads is clearly elevated. When they are discussing the data regarding the marriage for the pregnant girl, the
Qazaqs know to dismiss the authority of the Tatar student who had only so far studied Arabic grammar.

Ethnography:
The account also stands out for Aḥmad’s attention to ethnographic detail. Clearly he was quite fascinated by his experience with
real nomads, something that was quite new and exciting to him. Aḥmad was struck particularly by the Qazaqs’ poverty, and in
fact, during their month-long stay, they stayed in three separate encampments because of their hosts’ limited resources. He also
remarked on how the Qazaqs complained of their oppression by the Bukharans, who exacted zakāt from them. He comments on
how Qazaq women went about uncovered, unlike in Bukhara, and also mentions that Qazaq girls, even those as old as
15-years old, attended lessons. Similarly, be observed the Qazaqs’ parallel application of customary law and Islamic law in
their rites and customs.

Conclusion:
The Qazaq communities that Aḥmad describes bring into question a number of commonly encountered clichés that describe
nomads, and Qazaqs in particular, as either un-Islamic or fundamentally lacking in Islamic knowledge. Aḥmad’s account in fact
reveals the exact opposite: a community that maintains its own Islamic educational institutions, and what is more, a
community that is sufficiently secure and confident in its Islamic knowledge as to even sometimes make fun of the Tatar
students who travelled among them. Aḥmad describes a fairly effective educational structure among these nomads, which he
describes as essentially similar to what he experienced in his home village in Russia. This includes education for girls as old as 15,
demonstrating that girls’ education was not restricted to Tatars. With respect to Islamic institutions among the Qazaqs he describes
encampments with schools for children, staffed not only by the local imam, but also by handicapped members of the community,
which he notes was an arrangement also in place in Russia. The texts used in the classes were by and large those typical of the
Ḥanafite curriculum. It is also worth pointing out that whereas both Russian officials and Tatar observers credited (or blamed) the
growth in Islamic institutions among Qazaqs to Tatar influence, we see in this case that Qazaqs subjects of the Emirate of
Bukhara, who were under greater Bukharan political and cultural influence than Russian or Tatar, nevertheless maintained
educational and religious practices that Aḥmad described as differing substantially from what he had observed in Bukhara. These
observations suggest that perhaps Qazaq nomadic religious institutions were less influenced by outside cultural and political
forces than has previously been thought, and at the same time, they did not depart significantly from the broader Ḥanafite current
in which they were firmly located.
SOURCE (TEXT): AN ISLAMIC BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF THE EASTERN KAZAKH STEPPE 1770-1912,
QURBAN-ALI KHALIDI.
The Author and his Works:
Qurban-Ali Khalidi - His historical writings, both manuscript and printed works, are essential sources for the history of
Kazakhstan and Xinjiang.
His formal social status both as a Russian subject, and within local Muslim society as well, was as a “Chala Kazakh.” Chala
Kazakhs were historically the children of Central Asian, Tatar, or Bashkir fathers and Kazakh mothers.
By 1874 Qurban-Ali had completed his studies and was appointed imam of the Tatar mosque in the frontier town of Chawchak. In
Chawchak he fulfilled the duties of im§m, but also taught in the local Tatar madrasa. He would retain this post until his death in
1913.
In 1881 he became the chief judge [qazi] for the local Turkic Muslims. This position evidently involved establishing close
working relations in legal matters with the local Russian consul, as well as with Muslim notables in the town and its environs.
It is a compilation of oral and written traditions recorded from local inhabitants, and deals with both local history and
especially lore connected with local Muslim saints and shrines. It is a travel account, but other sections of the work deal with
the history of the Dungans in the region as well, and is a major source for the hagiolatry and local traditions in Eastern Turkestan.

Islam in Eastern Kazakhstan and Dzungaria:

During the first decade-and-a-half of the twentieth century, when Qurban-Ali was compiling his biographical dictionary, Islamic
religious institutions, and Islamic scholarship had attained a level of development and vitality that had never been seen in
those areas of eastern Kazakhstan, and that have not been seen since. The growth of Islamic institutions and Islamic
knowledge in those regions was all the more remarkable as they had only been claimed, or reclaimed, as Muslim territory in the
second half of the eighteenth century, with the Qing’s annihilation of the Dzungar khanate and most of the Oirat Mongols in the
1750s. Politically, this vacuum was eventually filled by the expansion of Russian authority up the Irtysh River, from the
northwest, and the establishment of Qing authority in the eastern part of Dzungaria.
The period examined in the biographical dictionary was marked by, on the one hand, the gradual strengthening of Russian and
Qing authority over the Kazakh nomads, and on the other, the intensification and revival of Islamic culture among the same
nomads, and among Muslim migrants from both Russia and Central Asia. The simultaneous emergence of these two
phenomena appear counter-intuitive, but it is not coincidental.
The expansion of Islamic institutions among the nomads was part of a larger Islamic revival underway in Russia among the
Muslim communities of the Volga-Ural region and Siberia since the second half of the eighteenth century. The penetration by
Muslims from Russia of the steppe, especially by Muslim merchants, was closely tied to the integration of the Kazakh steppe
into the Russian economy.
The center of Islamic scholarship and education in the eastern Kazakh steppe was the Russian city of Semipalatinsk, which
by the 1880’s boasted nine permanentlyfunctioning madrasas, rivaling as Islamic centers the cities of Kazan and Orenburg, and
surpassing significant centers such as Astrakhan, Troitsk, and Petropavlovsk.
For the Kazakhs under Qing control, the situation was somewhat different. Following the annihilation of the Dzungars in the
1750’s, the Qing military authorities did not discourage Kazakh tribes from occupying the pastures formerly used by the
Dzungars. They allowed the Kazakhs to cross their military lines of control, and particularly benefited from the Kazakh livestock
trade. The Qing authorities exported silk, and later, cotton from Altishahr region to the south, in what became a lucrative trade.
His biographical dictionary furnishes no information on Dungan institutions and personalities in the town, suggesting the Turkic
and Dungan Muslim communities were segregated.
Volga-Ural migrants were especially active in commercial activities, and generously supported the area’s religious institutions.
Similarly, scholars from Semipalatinsk even staffed madrasas among the Kazakhs in the Chinese-controlled Altay Mountains, at
the headwaters of the Irtysh River.
On both sides of the border—the “border,” if it was demarcated at all, in fact does not seem to have impeded the movement of
people or goods in any perceptible way at this time—Muslim society, and especially the ulama, was heterogeneous and
multi-ethnic. Similar conditions have been observed at the western boundary of the steppe, along the “border” separating the
Kazakh Inner Horde from the provinces of Russia proper. At the same time, the vast majority of the Muslim population anywhere
in the Kazakh steppe consisted of Kazakhs, and Kazakhs had a strong influence as “consumers” of Islamic scholarship and
education. In Semipalatinsk, Kazakhs made up the majority of the Muslim population. In the first half of the nineteenth century,
they also constituted the majority of students in that city’s madrasas. Muslim scholars and Sufis, especially those from the
Volga-Ural region, earned livelihoods educating nomads, both as itinerant scholars and as permanent residents of Kazakh
communities. As the nineteenth century progressed, Kazakh-language mass-market book publishing became a lucrative
commercial activity for the Muslim printing houses of Kazan, Ufa, Orenburg, and St. Petersburg. Kazakhs were playing an
increasingly important role in Islamic education, Islamic scholarship, and in the funding of Islamic institutions.
The role of Central Asia and Central Asians in the Islamic revival was also significant. For the areas under Russian control,
Central Asians, especially those from Tashkent and the Ferghana Valley, were active in economic and religious life. In
Semipalatinsk their economic significance rapidly declined after the Russian conquest of Tashkent in 1865 and the defeat of the
khanate of Khåqand in 1868. However, Qurban-Ali’s dictionary makes it plain that Central Asians, including Kashgharis, were
especially prominent in Dzungaria, especially in Chawchak, and among some of the nomadic Kazakh communities. Most
significantly, the absolute center of Islamic scholarship for the Kazakh steppe, and for the Volga-Ural region and Siberia as well,
was Central Asia, and above all, the city of Bukhara. Qurban-Ali expressed the highest respect for that city’s scholars and
scholarship, and the region’s greatest scholars and Sufis are identified as having been trained in that city.
Russian observers, and Russophile Kazakhs such as Chokan Valikhanov, have pinned the “blame” for this revitalization of Islamic
institutions among the Kazakh nomads on outsiders. Valikhanov names “fanatical” Tatars and Central Asians as somehow
insinuating an alien ideology among naive and passive Kazakhs. From Islamic sources for the period there is ample evidence that
the Kazakh nomads themselves were anything but passive, and in fact powered this revitalization. Qurban-Ali frequently notes the
remarkable piety of the Kazakh nomads and even admonishes them for altering their oral histories out of a mistaken sense of
Islamic piety. However, Muslim observers across the Kazakh steppe have emphasized not only the piety, but also the intense
orthodoxy of the Kazakhs nomads. This well-documented view contradicts the commonly encountered belief that Kazakh
nomads were somehow predisposed to heterodoxy, which had to be suppressed by more “orthodox” Muslims from sedentary
societies.
Orthodoxy - is adherence to correct or accepted creeds, especially in religion.
Heterodoxy - Departing from or opposed to the usual beliefs.
For reasons that are not clear, the khwaja clans that played such an important role in the religious life of the Kazakh communities
on the western and southern Kazakh steppe, and especially in the Syr-Darya Valley, appear to have been largely absent, or at best
to have played a very limited role, among the Kazakhs of the Middle Zhuz on the northeastern steppe.
Despite these differences, Islamic life and Islamic institutions in eastern Kazakhstan and Dzungaria were subject to essentially the
same forces, and exhibited the same features, as the Islamic institutions in the western part of the steppe (Kazakh communities in
close proximity to the Central Asian khanates were institutionally, economically, and politically more integrated with Central
Asian sedentary communities).
Kazakh nomads gained increasing prominence within the commercial and religious elites as the nineteenth century
progressed. Central Asians also occupied prominent positions, as merchants, Sufis, and scholars.

The Manuscript: Its Scope, Sources and Language:

Semipalatinsk, which was the region’s dominant center of Islamic education, exerting a broad influence across the eastern Kazakh
steppe, including among the Kazakhs under Chinese rule.
While the use of oral sources sharply distinguished this Islamic historiography from the later works of modernist Tatar historians,
who relied instead upon Russian documentary materials, it needs to be emphasized that Islamic scholarship at that time was in
large measure an oral scholarship, in which oral transmission of knowledge was not only deemed acceptable, but in fact, in the
presence of verification, was held most authoritative.
Undoubtedly, Qurban-Ali who spent all of his life among the Kazakh nomads, particularly those of the Mayan tribe, was strongly
influenced by the prominence, or even dominance, of oral sources and recitation in all aspects of Kazakh oral literature, including
epics, and historical folklore. There is no doubt that he highly esteemed these traditions, and was diligent and scrupulous in
recording them.

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate

The Letter Alif
Abul-Qasim Ishan b. Khan-Tora Ishan Tashkandi
His madrasa was prosperous and filled with students; many mullas graduated and were assigned to cities and to creation.
Ahmad Ishan was educated in Bukhara and was mediocre in the exoteric sciences.
Pages 20-34