Open-access edition of Russian Hajj: Empire and the Pilgrimage to Mecca by Eileen Kane

FAIN: DR-290459-23

Cornell University (Ithaca, NY 14850-2820)
Mahinder Singh Kingra (Project Director: July 2022 to January 2025)

In the late nineteenth century, as a consequence of imperial conquest and a mobility revolution, Russia became a crossroads of the hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. The first book in any language on the hajj under tsarist and Soviet rule, Russian Hajj tells the story of how tsarist officials struggled to control and co-opt Russia's mass hajj traffic, seeing it as not only a liability but also an opportunity. To support the hajj as a matter of state surveillance and control was controversial, given the preeminent position of the Orthodox Church. But nor could the hajj be ignored, or banned, due to Russia's policy of toleration of Islam. As a cross-border, migratory phenomenon, the hajj stoked officials' fears of infectious disease, Islamic revolt, and interethnic conflict, but Eileen Kane innovatively argues that it also generated new thinking within the government about the utility of the empire's Muslims and their global networks.

Associated Products

Single Publication (Open Access eBook or Collection)
Publication Type: Single Publication
Title: Russian Hajj: Empire and the Pilgrimage to Mecca
Year: 2015
ISBN: 9781501701306
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Author: Eileen Kane
Abstract: In the late nineteenth century, as a consequence of imperial conquest and a mobility revolution, Russia became a crossroads of the hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. The first book in any language on the hajj under tsarist and Soviet rule, Russian Hajj tells the story of how tsarist officials struggled to control and co-opt Russia's mass hajj traffic, seeing it as not only a liability but also an opportunity. To support the hajj as a matter of state surveillance and control was controversial, given the preeminent position of the Orthodox Church. But nor could the hajj be ignored, or banned, due to Russia's policy of toleration of Islam. As a cross-border, migratory phenomenon, the hajj stoked officials' fears of infectious disease, Islamic revolt, and interethnic conflict, but Eileen Kane innovatively argues that it also generated new thinking within the government about the utility of the empire's Muslims and their global networks.
Primary URL: https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501701306/russian-hajj
Primary URL Description: Cornell University Press
Secondary URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/255/oa_monograph/book/57671
Secondary URL Description: Project Muse
URL 3: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/88186
URL 3 Description: OAPEN
Type: Single author monograph

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