Quiet street of Trunilovskaya Sloboda, an old linden alley, a path paved with figured stone. The buildings around are old, historical - the governor's house, the diocesan school for women, the provincial district court, the house of the writer Sergei Aksakov … Half of the block before the descent of the hills to the Belaya River is a garden with lawns and apple trees, over which the yellow crescent of the First Cathedral Mosque rises. In its fence there are graves of Russian muftis. A white-stone house with a high carved door looks out on Voskresenskaya Street - the old residence of the Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly, now the Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia. The essay "Crescent, Tamga and Cross" has already discussed the reasons for the creation of a muftiate in Ufa. Today we are talking about how a provincial institution extended its influence to almost the entire country
Until the end of the 18th century, there were no muftis in Russia. The famous trip of Empress Catherine II along the Volga with a visit to Kazan and the ancient Bulgar (see "Catherine, you were wrong …") resulted in the issuance of decrees that radically changed the life of Russian Muslims. The empress's decree of 1773 "On the tolerance of all religions …" proclaimed the principle of religious tolerance throughout Russia, and the decree of 1783 "On allowing the Mohammedan law to elect their own Akhuns …" stopped the previously existing practice of inviting mullahs from Central Asian states, which not only weakened the influence of local Muslims on their Russian co-religionists, but also allowed people loyal to the government to be promoted to spiritual posts.
But by declaring freedom of religion, the empress let go of the bridle. The process began to develop spontaneously. Crowds of wandering dervishes appeared in the Ural-Volga region. Mullahs from Khiva and Bukhara walk through the villages, preach what they want. They move from place to place, when they want - they cross the border, if they want - they return. The number of akhuns and mullahs in the region is also unlimited. They live at the expense of their fellow believers, but their knowledge has not been tested by anyone, and it is not known what moods.
This outrage had to be stopped. The project developed by the Governor-General Osip Igelstrom boiled down to forming a "Muslim commission" of authoritative Muslims in Ufa to take examinations of applicants for spiritual positions and test the knowledge of acting mullahs in the Ufa governorship and the Orenburg region. It is planned to include in the commission two akhuns and two mullahs, the provincial prosecutor and members of the "upper punishment" should be present at the meetings, and the governor's board will be appointed to the post.
The highest decrees on the establishment of the Muslim Spiritual Assembly in Ufa and the appointment of Mukhamedzhan Khuseinov as mufti were announced on September 22 and 23, 1788.
But after that there was a long pause. First, it was not clear what exactly the Spiritual Assembly should do and to whom it should obey. Secondly, no one knew who exactly the mufti was - everyone heard the word, but did not know what exactly it meant.
There is nothing similar in Peter's "Table of Ranks". The decree of Empress Catherine also says vaguely about the position of the mufti: "The First Akhun Mukhamet Dzhan Huseynov, whom We All-Mercifully grant to the Mufti with the production of his salary, will preside over the Spiritual Assembly." Everything. Nothing about rights and responsibilities. It is not said which spheres are subject to the jurisdiction of the mufti. The limits of power are unclear. Service rank has not been determined …
The word stuck out like a peg to which a single phrase is tied - "the Bishop of Muhameddan." Formulated by Dmitry Borisovich Mertvago, an adviser to the Ufa governorship, this definition spread throughout the local offices and eventually reached St. Petersburg.
Until the decree of Empress Catherine, the title of mufti among the ranks of the clergy was not found in any of the documents. No one has heard of muftis anywhere else in Russia, with the exception of the recently annexed Crimea. Probably, Petersburg got acquainted with the concepts of mufti and muftiate precisely after the annexation of Tavri. But borrowing didn't go far. The Crimean Muslim clergy are caste-like - receiving a religious title is associated with belonging to the spiritual class. None of this was supposed in the Ufa muftiat. As is customary in the Ural-Volga region, anyone elected by the Muslim community to a spiritual position could be approved in it, regardless of class.
In general, the exact meaning of the word "mufti" had yet to be established. The incompleteness of the decree on the appointment of the mufti gave place to assumptions and conjectures. Moreover, the functions of the mufti were understood in different ways by the governor, the empress, and the mufti himself.
How exactly?
Mufti Mukhamedzhan Khuseynov relied on personal experience. In his youth, he was sent by the Collegium of Foreign Affairs on secret assignments to Bukhara and Kabul, where, posing as a Shakird student who had come to receive spiritual knowledge, he collected information about the number of troops, their movement, about the characters of the commanders and the mood in the troops. After returning from Kabul, he served as an officer in Orenburg, then became a mullah and rose to the level of akhun during the Orenburg border expedition.
Khuseynov believed that he was appointed to lead an intelligence-diplomatic institution and saw his task in organizing the receipt of information from the Steppe region and bringing the Kazakhs to obedience, as well as preventing influence on the steppe people of Khiva, Bukhara and the Ottoman sultan. At that time, the anti-Russian fugitive Kazan mullahs were preaching in the border Small Zhuz at that time. Some used to influence the Kazakh nobility and incited the Kazakhs to break the oaths of loyalty to the empress. Mullah Husseinov saw his and his subordinates' duty to stop the hostile agitation. In the Small Horde, the mufti believed, one should first establish himself, and then take over the leadership of the mullahs, elders, and sultans.
Under his leadership, the mufti had already assembled a group of trusted mullahs who were supposed to act in secret. Some of them permanently lived in Central Asian cities under the guise of priests, raising their religious knowledge at famous madrasahs. Others, disguised as merchants, regularly went there with letters-questionnaires from Khuseinov and delivered back the answers they needed. These services were paid from the treasury with valuable gifts and the right to duty-free trade. Transport costs must be reimbursed by the muftiat in Ufa. The muftiate, according to Khuseinov, should become the center of secret diplomacy and collection of information about the eastern neighbors.
This is approximately how Khuseynov understood his tasks. He did not even think about a religious figure of a Russian scale. In a letter of thanks to the Empress, Mukhamedzhan Khuseynov calls himself a "Kyrgyz-Kaisak mufti." Only.
General Igelstrom looked at the muftiate established at his suggestion differently. He believed that the institution he had invented should first deal with the mountains of complaints from the Muslim population and establish at least some kind of office work. The fact is that the governors' instances and courts for decades were inundated with reports of the crimes and misdeeds of Muslims, which were not possible to understand.
Complaints and petitions were sent to the public places, which the mullahs could not or did not want to consider themselves. Complaints against the mullahs themselves came to the governorship. It was unclear how to deal with these issues - who should deal with cases of omission of prayers, adultery, alcohol consumption and other violations of Sharia? Unfamiliar life, rules - everything is unfamiliar. Interpreters-interpreters in the Ufa and Orenburg Chanceries regularly translated papers, but there are no Sharia experts among them. Nobody makes decisions on Muslim affairs. At the time of the establishment of the muftiate, complaints, due to their number, had ceased to be accepted at all … These issues, thought Igelstrom, the mufti should deal with immediately. It is necessary to clean up the mountains of papers and draw up instructions for Muslims, based on Russian laws.
To make the mechanism work, the Governor-General drew up a "Draft Regulation on the Spiritual Mohammedan Law of the Assembly." It stated that the muftiate is under the authority of the Ufa governor's office. The project clearly describes the procedure for admission to the spiritual positions of azanch, mullah and akhun.
For example, a mullah is first elected by a rural society, about which the zemstvo police chief informs the governor board, which checks whether the elections were held correctly. The next stage is an examination at the muftiat. The one who answered successfully receives a document of the governor's board - a decree. The exam did not pass - a turn from the gate.
Further - the delicate question of the relationship between family and marriage. And here Igelstrom has his own considerations. Believing that Muslims are especially likely to break the law in this area, the Governor General carefully describes all aspects of life. The cessation of abuses in marriages, divorces and division of inheritance is seen in the earliest possible adaptation of Muslim traditions to European ones. This reflects his romanticism and naivety - he believes that everyday life and attitude can be changed by an executive decree …
Igelstrom describes in detail the procedure for the construction of mosques and the conduct of divine services. As in the laws on Orthodox churches, Muslims are allowed to have one mosque per hundred households. The number of clergymen at the mosque is not specified.
Finally, Igelstrom examines the punishments for crimes against faith - neglect of prayer, adultery, and drunkenness. Shariah provides for corporal punishment for this, but Igelstrom warns about the illegality of such actions: "so that no spiritual or Spiritual assembly itself dares to impose on anyone, and even less commit corporal punishment." Instead, it is proposed that the guilty be publicly advised or obliged to additionally visit the mosque, and in the case of particularly audacious acts, to keep him under arrest in the mosque.
Igelstrom in his project tried to proceed not only from the interests of the state, but also from the needs of the Muslim population. And although this project was never approved by the government, in the absence of other laws concerning the muftiate, it was he who was executed for many decades!
The opinion of the enlightened empress about the mufti and the muftiate was fundamentally different from the opinions of Mukhamedzhan Khuseinov and the governor-general Osip Igelstrom. Looking at the distant province from the royal throne, Empress Catherine believed that the expansion of the borders of the state should be supported by the instruments of politics, diplomacy and legislation.
She clearly understood that the Muslims of the annexed Kazakh steppes see the Ottoman Sultan as their ruler, both secular and religious. In addition, smaller figures asserted themselves, claiming to dominate Russian Muslim subjects. Among them, the Bukhara, Kokand and Khiva muftis stood out for their particularly acrimonious messages. Moreover, the empress was informed that the distant Kirghiz-Kaisak clans consider the Chinese emperor their rightful ruler!
The Empress saw her immediate goal in the fact that the Muslim outskirts, including the Kazakh nomads, would recognize and submit to the secular authority of the Russian emperors, and that Mufti Khuseinov would recognize spiritual authority over themselves.
So, in the end, everything came together: the need for the mullahs to test their knowledge of Sharia, the need to clear mountains of complaints and establish legal proceedings, the mufti's conversations over tea in the yurts of Kazakh elders and the great state plans aimed at stopping the bloodshed and rebellions shaking the steppe spaces from the time of the fall of the Golden Horde.
Having conquered the former territories of the Jochi ulus, Russia strove for inner peace. Agriculture, manufactories, mining plants and salt industries demanded attention. The Empress saw the way to the common good in guarantees of religious tolerance and observance of the laws of the Russian Empire throughout its entire space.
Although the tasks and subordination of the muftiate had not yet been determined, immediately after the appointment, the mufti began a struggle to spread his influence in the Steppe region. First, he sent letters of instruction to the Lesser Horde. They were signed by "the spiritual mentor of the Kyrgyz-Kaisak people." Emphasizes: without him, the mufti, the will of the mullah and the steppe people regarding Alkoran, they have no right to make any explanations themselves. He warns: the mullahs urging Russian Muslims to side with the Ottoman Port are both behaving themselves and the steppe nomads to inevitable death. Indicates that everyone should remain calm and obey the Russian scepter, for only a strong Russia is capable of ensuring a calm life and the well-being of its subjects.
“Although we are under one building of orthodoxy,” writes Mufti Huseynov, “there is a great difference between the Muslims under the dominion of the Turkish Sultan and our all-powerful monarch, since each monarch, in fact, controls his own mind in reasoning about what the preaching is good for one and not for another. there are.
These instructions of the mufti were immediately sent from the Kazakh steppe to Bukhara and Khiva for examination. From there they answer with angry rebuffs, in which the admonitions of Mukhamedzhan Khuseinov are called criminal, and the mufti himself is an impostor. Particularly irritating is the fact that Khuseynov recognizes the just war that Russia is waging against the Turkish sultan, the head of all Eastern Muslims.
The Mufti, despite the opinion of Bukhara and Khiva, continues to send letters to the Small Horde. In winter he leaves for Uralsk, for several months in a row he meets with Kazakh foremen and imams. In early spring, as soon as the snows melted, Mufti Khuseinov with a cortege set off for the Steppe region, circling nomad after nomad, convincing and promoting.
Having returned from the steppe elated, Mufti Khuseynov made frequent visits to the capital. He received an audience with Empress Catherine, who assured him of goodwill, and returning to Ufa, spoke with ambition. He declared that from now on he was equal to the first-class rank, at least to the lieutenant-general (at that time the title of the governor of Osip Igelstrom), and, therefore, he should be called "excellent and bishop".
Let me remind you that the right to respectful treatment in the Russian Empire was given by rank. Persons of the 1st and 2nd grades were addressed "Your Excellency", the 3rd and 4th - simply "Excellencies", the 5th - "Your Excellency", the 6th and 7th - "Your Excellency" etc. The spiritual sphere was regulated in the same way. The Metropolitan and Archbishop were addressed by "Your Eminence", to the Bishop - "Your Eminence", to the Abbot - "Your Reverend", to the priest - "Your Reverend" …
The desire of the mufti to be called "superior and bishop" irritated the local authorities. But, on the other hand, it is not clear the significance that he has just acquired in St. Petersburg. This needed to be clarified. The corresponding request from the Ufa governorship was sent to the Senate. Not content with this, Governor-General Igelstrom travels to St. Petersburg, where he discusses affairs with the Empress's secretary, Prince A. A. Bezborodko.
Petersburg amazed! It turned out that Khuseynov was taking too high and too fast. They decided: the mufti is just starting to work, there is a lot to be done, the too high status of the mufti can undermine the administration of the region. It was considered correct that Mufti Khuseynov was under the command of the governor and called "high-ranking". Igelstrom should point out to Khuseinov that the mufti's duty is to manage affairs only according to his religious rank, and he should not concern himself with secular affairs!
After the establishment of the muftiate, the main thing changed - the procedure for appointing the Muslim clergy. In most of Russia, it now takes place on the basis of secular legislation that takes into account the principles of Sharia, as well as local customs.
This procedure was not immediately established. Even at the end of the 19th century, not only in remote areas, but also in cities, there were "no-specified" mullahs. Nevertheless, the procedure for the approval of the mullah by the muftiat and the provincial authorities gave an impetus to the fact that the “indicated mullah” became a title and profession.
Official rights and privileges for the servants of the mosque were few. The only privilege enshrined in the law was exemption from corporal punishment. In addition, rural societies exempted imams from monetary and in-kind taxes and duties (it was impossible to see a mullah who, on an equal basis with fellow villagers, participates in the repair of a road, bridge or in the transportation of goods). Representatives of the lower Muslim clergy were periodically awarded by the government with medals.
The government did not pay money to the mullahs, although this issue was discussed more than once. Therefore, when they write about the indicated mullahs of the times of the Russian Empire as government officials, they make a gross mistake - the absence of a state salary and being elected made them much more dependent on the parishioners than on the local authorities. That is why many rural decree mullahs opposed government regulations that infringed on the rights of the mahala communities who elected them.
In 1790-1792, Alexander Peutling became the governor-general of OA Igelstrom, who had left for the war with Sweden, at the post of Simbirsk and Ufa governor-general. He was familiar with the situation in the region, but he had his own opinion about the methods of management.
Igelstrom's successor believed that order and obedience of the steppe inhabitants could only be brought about by harsh coercion. Mufti Khuseinov, according to Peutling, is showing excessive gentleness towards the tribes and clans that have become Russian citizenship, but have not stopped raids and robberies. Peutling is also irritated by the mufti's constant appeals to the provincial administration with a request to release the Kazakhs held in the border fortresses arrested for robberies. The sums that the mufti demands from the treasury for gifts to Kazakh foremen are also outraged. Considering Mukhamedzhan Khuseinov an unnecessary and harmful person, Peutling removed him from participation in diplomatic missions.
Thus, the period of Mufti Khuseinov's stormy activity was replaced by first calm, and then by complete calm. However, by that time the religious authority of the mufti among the Kazakh elite was great and his removal from affairs caused first bewilderment, and then open discontent of the sultans. In the summer of 1790, the leaders of the steppe dwellers Kara-Kabek biy and Shubar biy appealed to the government with a request “that in the future the steppe people should be ruled together by Baron Igelstrom and Mufti Mukhamedzhan, and that the people who ruined our zhuz (meant, of course, Peutling - S. S.) have been removed from us. Apparently, the idea of dismissing Governor-General Peutling from office was inspired by the Kazakh sultans by Mufti Mukhamedzhan Huseynov himself.
Be that as it may, and in November 1794, the vice-governor of the Ufa governorship, the actual state councilor, Prince Ivan Mikhailovich Baratayev, informed the military chancellery that the Ufa governor Peutling was dismissed by the Imperial command, and he, Prince Baratayev, was entrusted with the duties of the governor of the governorship and governor.
This was another victory for Mufti Khuseinov.
And now about the defeats. Women come into someone else's life and reshape it the way they do with their dresses. Again, a seducer was present in the fate of Mufti Khuseinov. Her name was Aisha. A Turkish woman, the widow of the commandant of the Izmail fortress, who died during the assault by Russian troops. By the will of fate, she ended up in Russia, in Kazan - here she married the famous merchant of the second guild S. Apanaev. Soon he died, leaving the widow with two children and a huge inheritance. For three years, suitors from officials and merchants wooed Aisha, but she rejected all of them.
Arriving in Kazan to meet with Emperor Paul I, the mufti, on the advice of the senior akhun of Kazan Khozyashev, stopped at Aisha's house. The hostess was fascinated by Khuseinov's nobility. Mufti Aisha struck with femininity and beauty. The bed is the area closest to space. The most lively of the pleasures ended in a shudder that was almost painful, in appearance - dying, when he came to life, he found Aisha sleeping next to him, curled up in a ball. Pillows and crumpled sheets kept traces of heat. A dress hung on a chair in the soft outlines of comfort and powerlessness. Then he could not even think that Aisha would demand the position of a lioness for herself, because only she was lying next to the lion.
Their life together did not last long. Mufti Khuseynov, having heard that Aisha and the chief of the judiciary were being amused in parallel, immediately left Kazan. Rejected and angry, Aisha began to send petitions to government and court instances. In them, she argued that Huseynov entered into a marriage alliance with her and spent her property, which Aisha demanded to be returned.
In 1801, the mufti, returning from Moscow, where he was present at the coronation of Emperor Alexander I, was detained in Kazan for refusing to appear in court. The city judge ruled, according to which Khuseynov was found guilty of deceiving the merchant and ordered to recover from him about three and a half thousand rubles.
For some time, the mufti refused to compensate for the damage, but the Ufa authorities insistently demanded that this be done. Khuseynov offered part of his land in the Ufa district as compensation, and then the diamond earrings of his deceased wife. The provincial government refused compensation in this form and the Ufa mayor, together with a private bailiff, having described the mufti's property, took most of the things.
The story is extremely shameful … The mufti decided to get married as soon as possible. At first, he intended to marry the daughter of Khan Nurali, who is in exile in Ufa. It is unclear what prevented the wedding, possibly the death of Khan Nurali that followed soon after, but the marriage did not take place.
The next was the attempt of the mufti to marry the daughter of the late Kyrgyz-Kaysak khan Ishim. Previously, Khuseinov achieved the consent of the sultans, then they sent a petition to Emperor Paul I. The permission was received, but while the correspondence was going on, the daughter of Khan Ishim jumped out to marry the son of the Sultan Zyanibek. The mufti sent a letter to Paul I with a request to return his betrothed. however, the emperor advised in such a matter as marriage, to rely not on the emperor, but exclusively on yourself!
Then the mufti began to look for a more reliable bride. She became a relative of Khan Aichuvak, daughter of the former Khiva Khan Karay-Sultan. The wedding took place on August 1, 1800 in Orenburg. The entire top of the Kazakh society was present, as well as the St. Petersburg officials who were conducting the audit of the province at that time - senators M. G. Spiridonov and N. V. Lopukhin. The mufti's wife was called Karakuz, but Mukhamedzhan Khuseynov called her Lizaveta in Russian. Women's love without reciprocity. Male ostentatious indifference. Bitter saliva comes out called wormwood …
After the examination of clergy and the issuance of certificates was established in the muftiate, a problem arose - some influential persons from among the abyzes and mullahs refused to pass the exams. The authority of the mufti was not recognized. The fact is that the very principle of appointment to the post, which was introduced by the muftiat, contradicted the tradition of electing mullahs by the Muslim community-mahals, which had developed in the Ural-Volga region.
Previously, the community chose people whom it knew and respected well. The chosen mullah became a teacher, judge, doctor, advisor, to whom they turned to on any issue. The muftiate, by establishing control over freely chosen mullahs, broke the established order.
The main opponents of the muftiate were identified. Abyz became them. Who are they?
At the head of each rural community was a group of elderly aksakals who had significant life experience and influenced the population, which made the decisions of the council of the elders obligatory for all members of the community. In addition to the council of elders and the general meeting, at the head of each village was also an abyz, literally from the Arabic "hafiz" - who knew the Koran by heart. In fact, the abyz had different knowledge, in some villages even an illiterate person who knew several prayers and ayats from the Koran was called abyz, but distinguished by morality or special merits.
In all controversial cases that arose in the village, it was customary to turn to abyz. Abyzes in rural communities isolated from the world became guardians of traditions and defenders of the rights of mahali. Regardless of their knowledge and compliance with the title, they became the conductors of a very peculiar "folk Islam" with its cult of the saints-Avliys, with the worship of holy sources, tombs and mausoleums, with the idea of the Bulgar city as a shrine of the Ural-Volga region, even surpassing Mecca in value !
Not recognizing the spiritual authority of the mufti and the Spiritual Assembly, the abyz, after the Ufa muftiat began issuing decrees for the office of clergy, found themselves in conflict with the indicated mullahs and criticized the innovations. They were not satisfied with the new strict requirements for religious education and knowledge of Sharia, borrowed from Bukhara. They also did not accept the exam procedure itself, where an adult and respected person could get into trouble. I also did not like the fact that the mullahs, in addition to elections in the community, should be approved by the provincial authorities. Therefore, at first, when the muftiate had just begun to work, some of the appointed mullahs were expelled by abyz from the mosques. So, for example, it happened in the famous mosque at the Makaryevskaya fair and in several other places. The Abyz movement stirred up the Muslim society, some authoritative Sufi sheikhs, or ishans, as they were called in the Ural-Volga region, joined it.
Litigation, courts, in which the mufti was involved, damage his reputation. If the stories with women are harmless to one degree or another, the accusations from the Muslim clergy were hard to bear.
In 1803, the mufti was accused of violating Sharia law. In a petition addressed to the Minister of Internal Affairs V. P. Kochubei, a certain Abdulla Khisametdinov listed the mufti's misdeeds: wearing silk clothes, using gold dishes, failure to fulfill five-fold prayers. The letter cited the facts of arbitrariness, including the illegal removal from office of those who disliked the mufti, as well as the protection of the county akhuns who took bribes. Finally, the most serious accusation is the receipt of offerings during the tour of the communities, as well as the receipt of bribes when taking exams.
Abdulla Khisametdinov wrote that during the test of imams, the mufti “takes from the mullahs 20, 30 and 50 rubles, and sometimes more. If it happens that one of them does not give him money, then during the test he asks such questions, which, perhaps, do not exist at all. So he refutes the knowledge of the subject and it is no longer possible for one who did not give a bribe to become an imam."
A year later, the akhun of the village of Lagirevo of the 8th Bashkir canton Yanybai Ishmukhametov made a similar accusation against the mufti. Ishmukhametov testified in the Orenburg chamber of the criminal and civil court. But Akhun's hopes for a judicial proceeding were not justified - the mullahs were summoned for questioning to the provincial government, where Mukhamedzhan Huseynov himself was present, who, by his very appearance, brought the complainants to submission, and with additional questions completely destroyed them.
On the personal order of Governor Volkonsky, an additional thorough investigation was carried out. Judicial officials interviewed the mullahs and the Muslim population of several districts of the Orenburg and Kazan provinces. Most of the clergy denied giving bribes to the mufti. At the same time, several mullahs of the Kazan and Orenburg provinces showed that Mukhamedzhan Khuseynov was taking offerings. In the Kazan province, vague rumors about the mufti's bribery circulated among the population, but they were not supported by facts.
What about Mukhamedzhan Huseynov? He got really angry and demanded to consider all the charges against him in the Governing Senate. The mufti believed that only the emperor could give the final permission to initiate a criminal case against him. The Mufti's persistence paid off. A. N. Golitsyn in a message to the governor G. S. Volkonsky in October 1811 wrote that “the trial of the mufti in the Criminal Chamber was ordered by the Sovereign to stop the muftis from now on, if they find themselves in actions subject to court, they must be tried in the Governing Senate. from a report to His Majesty through the Chief Executive of the Department of Spiritual Affairs of Foreign Confessions."
Thus, as a result of long litigation, the head of the Spiritual Assembly actually achieved the inviolability of his person, thereby significantly raising the status of the mufti.
At the beginning of the 19th century, Mufti Khuseinov remains a key figure in the Muslim world of Russia. His activities as a diplomat and confidant expanded significantly. The mufti goes to the Caucasus, where he receives Russian prisoners from the Kabardians, organizes tribal courts among the highlanders according to Sharia law, and introduces the procedure for taking an oath of allegiance to the Russian crown in the Koran. In 1805, he participates in a secret commission on the affairs of the Turkmen living on the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea.
The Mufti was accepted as an honorary member of the Council of Kazan University and the St. Petersburg Free Economic Society. In general, contemporaries assess the first Russian mufti as a statesman and a man of the empire. As time goes on, the muftiate is increasingly strengthening on the territory of the entire Ural-Volga region and the western part of Siberia. Gradually, appointments to spiritual positions became his unconditional prerogative.
