I would like to thank Robert Crews, Kimitaka Matsuzato, Mark D. Steinberg, Tomohiko Uyama, David Wolff, Richard Wortman, and the anonymous reviewers of Slavic Review for extremely useful suggestions, criticisms, and encouragement, which enormously improved early drafts. The remaining faults are all mine. The epigraph is taken from ‘Abdullah Yûsuf 'Alî, The Meaning of the Holy Qur'ân (Beltsville, Maryland, 2001), 1468–69.

1. Yûlduz, 30 May 1910, 3; Bayân al-Haqq, 30 May 1910, 2. On the Spiritual Assembly, see Azamatov, D. D., Orenburgskoe magometanskoe dukhovnoe sobranie v kontse XVIII–XIX vv. (Ufa, 1999)Google Scholar; Crews, Robert D., For Prophet and Tsar: Islam and Empire in Russia and Central Asia (Cambridge, Mass., 2006)Google Scholar; Arapov, D. Iu., Sistema gosudarstvennogo regulirovaniia islama v Rossiiskoi imperii (posledniaia tret’ XVII-nachalo XX vv.) (Moscow, 2004)Google Scholar; Zagidullin, I. K., Islamskie instituty v Rossiiskoi imperii: Mecheti v evropeiskoi chasti Rossii i Sibiri (Kazan, 2007).Google Scholar

2. Bâaydn al-Haqq, 1 June 1910, 2; Yûulduz, 1 June 1910,1 and 6June 1910, 4. Copies of the telegram were sent to Rossiia, Novoe vremia, Rech'.

3. Salikhov, R. R., Tatarskaia burzhuaziia Kazani i natsional'nye reformy vtoroi poloviny XIX-nachala XX v. (Kazan, 2001), 24-26.Google Scholar For more general information on the Muslim protests in the last decades of the nineteenth century, see James H. Meyer, “Turkic Worlds: Community Representation and Collective Identity in the Russian and Ottoman Empires, 1870–1914” (PhD diss., Brown University, 2007), chap. 2.

4. Häfner, Lutz, “'Khram prazdnosti': Assotsiatsii i kluby gorodskikh elit v Rossii (na materialakh Kazani. 1860–1914 gg.),” in Zorin, A. N. etal., eds., Ocherkigorodskogo byta dorevoliutsionnogo Povolzh'ia (Ul'ianovsk, 2000), 468-526.Google Scholar

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7. Noack, Christian, Muslimischer Nationalismus im russischen Reich: Nationsbildung und Nationalbewegung bei Tataren undBaschkiren, 1861–191 7 (Stuttgart, 2000), 220-25, 309–10.Google Scholar See also Noack, , “State Policy and Its Impact on the Formation of a Muslim Identity in the Volga-Urals,” in Dudoignon, Stéphane A. and Komatsu, Hisao, eds., Islam inPolitics in Russia and Central Asia: Early Eighteenth to Late Twentieth Centuries (London, 2001), 3-26;Google Scholar Naganawa, Norihiro, “Molding the Muslim Community through the Tsarist Administration: Mahalla under the Jurisdiction of the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly after 1905,” Acta Slavica Iaponica 23 (2006): 101-23.Google Scholar

8. Natsional'nyi arkhiv Respubliki Tatarstan (NART), f. 199 (Kazanskoe gubernskoe zhandarmskoe upravlenie), op. 1, d. 948, 1. 4. His lecture was later supplemented and published in the local Tatar newspaper. Yûulduz, 4 May 1914, 1–2; 18 May 1914, 2–3; and 23 May 1914, 2–4. On the Oriental Club, see Madina V. Goldberg, “Russian Empire— Tatar Theater: The Politics of Culture in Late Imperial Kazan” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2009), chap. 4.

9. Crews, , For Prophet and Tsar, 332-46.Google Scholar

10. On the role of religion in creating the public sphere, see Veer, Peter van der, Imperial Encounters: Religion and Modernity in India and Britain (Princeton, 2001), 24 Google Scholar; see also 22–24, 27-28, 33, 43-53.

11. For the methodology addressing the politicization of nation and Islam, see Brubaker, Rogers and Cooper, Frederick, “Beyond ‘Identity,'” Theory and Society 29 (2000): esp. 5, 19-21, 27-28, 30-33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eickelman, Dale and Piscatori, James, Muslim Politics, 2d ed. (Princeton, 2004).Google Scholar

12. Kazan historians have examined this aspect of the holiday dispute, but they have only considered it a form of commercial competition, have unambiguously presumed Muslims’ devotion to the observance of rituals, and have largely ignored the motivations of diverse actors in the dispute, most notably local mullahs as religious scholars. Salikhov, , Tatarskaia burzhuaziia, 46-48 Google Scholar; Usmanova, D. M., Musul'manskie predstaviteli v rossiiskom parlamente, 1906-1916 (Kazan, 2005), 352-73Google Scholar; Zagidullin, I. K., Musulmanskoe bogosluzhenie v uchrezhdeniiakh Rossiiskoi imperii: Evropeiskaiachast'Rossii i Sibir’ (Kazan, 2006), 254-62, 267-71Google Scholar; Malysheva, Svetlana, “Ezhenedel'nye prazdniki, dni gospodskie i tsarskie: Vremia otdykha rossiiskogo gorozhanina vtoroi poloviny XlX-nachala XX w.,” Ab Imperio, no. 2 (2009): 225-66.Google Scholar

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14. On the estate, see Freeze, Gregory L., “The Soslovie (Estate) Paradigm and Russian Social History,” American Historical Review 19, no. 1 (February 1986): esp. 25-34 Google Scholar; Burbank, Jane, “Thinking Like an Empire: Estate, Law, and Rights in the Early Twentieth Century,“ in Burbank, , von Hagen, , and Remnev, , eds., Russian Empire, 196-217.Google Scholar

15. Sverdlova, L. M., Na perekrestke torgovykh putei (Kazan, 1991), 37 Google Scholar; Salikhov, , Tatarskaia burzhuaziia, 39-48.Google Scholar

16. Azamatov, , Orenburgskoe Magometanskoe Dukhovnoe Sobranie, 50 Google Scholar; N. K. Garipov, ed., Sbornik tsirkuliarov i inykh rukovodiashchikh rasporiazhenii po okrugu Orenburgskogo Magometanskogo Dukhovnogo Sobraniia, 1836-1903 g. (Ufa, 1905; reprint, Kazan, 2004), 28-29, 143-48. On the efforts of a distinguished Kazan scholar, Shihâb al-Dîn al-Marjânî (1818–1889), to establish a clear definition of the months based on mathematics, see Kemper, Michael, Sufii i uchenye v Tatarstane i Bashkortostane: Islamskii diskurs pod russkim gospodstvom (Berlin, 1998; Russian translation, Kazan, 2008), 586-90.Google Scholar

17. Crews, , For Prophet and Tsar, 345.Google Scholar

18. Based on extensive analysis of the Tatar press, Stéphane A. Dudoignon calls attention to the autonomy of the local Muslim society from the control of the Spiritual Assembly in the management of congregational resources. See Dudoignon, , “Status, Strategies and Discourses of a Muslim ‘Clergy’ under a Christian Law: Polemics about the Collection of the Zaâdt in Late Imperial Russia,” in Dudoignon, and Komatsu, , eds., Islam in Politics, 43-73.Google Scholar James H. Meyer also examines the competitive aspects in the relationship between emerging Muslim leaders and the Spiritual Assembly in terms of “leadership politics,” diat is, the right to speak in the name of Muslims after 1905. See his “Turkic Worlds,” chap. 4.

19. In contrast, see the Central Asian Jadids’ quest for participation in Russian political life despite their limited access. Khalid, Adeeb, The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidismin Central Asia (Berkeley, 1998), 231-44.Google Scholar

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21. For instance, see a petition to the Kazan city head made by the Tatar employers' meeting on 5 January 1914 in Quûdâh, 13 January 1914, 2. On the Volga-Urals Muslims in the Russian army, see Naganawa, Norihiro, “Musul'manskoe soobshchestvo v usloviiakh mobilizatsii: Uchastie Volgo-Ural'skikh musul'man v voinakh poslednego desiatiletiia sushchestvovaniia Rossiiskoi imperii,” in Naganawa, Norihiro, Usmanova, D. M., and Hamamoto, Mami, eds., Volga-Ural'skii region v imperskom prostranstve: XVIII-XX w. (Moscow, 2011), 198-228.Google Scholar On Central Asians alienated from this “national” project, see Uyama, Tomohiko, “A Particularist Empire: The Russian Policies of Christianization and Military Conscription in Central Asia,” in Uyama, , ed., Empire, Islam, and Politics, 23-63.Google Scholar

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23. For the Central Asian press, see Khalid, Adeeb, “Printing, Publishing, and Reform in Tsarist Central Asia,” International Journal of MiddleEast Studies 26 (1994): 187-200 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Khalid, , The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform, esp. 115-27.Google Scholar On the developments in the Tatar press after 1905, see Bennigsen, Alexandre and Lemercier-Quelquejay, Chantal, La presse et le mouvement national chez les musulmans de Russieavant 1920(Paris, 1964)Google Scholar; Karimullin, A. G., Tatarskaia kniga nachala XX veka (Kazan, 1974)Google Scholar; Usmanova, Dilara M., “the tatarische Presse 1905-1918: Quellen, Entwicklungsetappen und quantitative Analyse,” in Kemper, Michael, Kügelgen, Anke von, and Yermakov, Dmitry, eds., Muslim Culture in Russia and Central Asia from the 18th to the Early 20th Centuries (Berlin, 1996), 1:239-78.Google Scholar Reading venues were also widely developed. In Kazan, thousands of people visited the Islamic Library every year, since its opening in 1906 as a branch of the Kazan City Library. Minnullin, Zavdat S., “Zur Geschichte der tatarischen öffendichen Bibliotheken vor der Oktoberrevolution,” in Kemper, et al., eds., Muslim Culture, 207-37.Google Scholar

24. Brower, Daniel R., The Russian City between Tradition and Modernity, 1850-1900 (Berkeley, 1990)Google Scholar; Clowes, Edidi W., Kassow, Samuel D., and West, James L., eds., Between Tsar and People: Educated Society and the Quest for Public Identity in Late Imperial Russia (Princeton, 1991)Google Scholar; Lindenmeyr, Adele, Poverty Is Not a Vice: Charity, Society, and the State in Imperial Russia (Princeton, 1996)Google Scholar; Bradley, Joseph, Voluntary Associations in Tsarist Russia: Science, Patriotism, and Civil Society (Cambridge, Mass., 2009).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25. See the classic Hamm, Michael F., ed., The City in Late Imperial Russia (Bloomington, 1986).Google Scholar On Ufa, see Steinwedel, “Invisible Threads“; Steinwedel, Charles, “The 1905 Revolution in Ufa: Mass Politics, Elections, and Nationality,” Russian Review 59, no. 4 (October 2000): 555-76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On Baku, see Altstadt, Audrey, “The Baku City Duma: Arena for Elite Conflict,” Central Asian Survey 5, no. 3/4 (1986): 49-66 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mostashari, Firouzeh, On the Religious Frontier: Tsarist Russia and Islam in the Caucasus (London, 2006), esp. 121-27Google Scholar; Breyfogle, Nicholas B., “Prayer and the Politics of Place: Molokan Church Building, Tsarist Law, and the Quest for a Public Sphere in Late Imperial Russia,” in Steinberg, and Coleman, , eds., Sacred Stories, 222-52Google Scholar. On Tashkent, see Sahadeo, Jeff, Russian Colonial Society in Tashkent: 1865-1923 (Bloomington, 2007)Google Scholar. On Kiev, see Meir, Kiev, Jewish Metropolis; Faidi C. Hillis, “Between Empire and Nation: Urban Politics, Community, and Violence in Kiev, 1863-1907” (PhD diss., Yale University, 2009).

26. On late imperial Russia, see Brooks, Jeffrey, When Russia Learned to Read: Literacy and Popular Literature, 1861-1917 (Princeton, 1985)Google Scholar; McReynolds, Louise, The News under Russia's Old Regime: The Development of a Mass-Circulation Press (Princeton, 1991).Google Scholar On modern Islam, see Robinson, Francis, “Technology and Religious Change: Islam and the Impact of Print,” Modern Asian Stuthes 27, no. 1 (February 1993): 229-51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eickelman and Piscatori, Muslim Politics, esp. 37-45.

27. For their typical parlance concerning the relationship between religion and nation, see Jamâl al-Dîn Walîduf, Millat wa Milliyat (Orenburg, 1914), 11-12, 17, 38. See also Goldberg, “Russian Empire,” chap. 3; Noack, , Muslimischer Nationalisms, 461-73Google Scholar; Dudoignon, , “Status, Strategies and Discourses,” 57-60.Google Scholar For a comparison widi their Central Asian counterparts, see Khalid, , The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform, 175-76, 216, 222.Google Scholar

28. Troinitskii, N. A., ed., Pervaia vseobshchaia perepis’ naseleniia Rossiiskoi imperii 1897 goda, vol. 14, Kazanskaia guberniia (St. Petersburg, 1904), vi, 178-79, 204-5, 260.Google Scholar

29. Salikhov, , Tatarshaia burzhuaziia, 16-17, 24.Google Scholar

30. Zhurnaly i protokoly zasedanii Kazanskoi gorodskoi dumy za 1902 (Kazan, 1902), 492- 505; Malysheva, “Ezhenedel'nye prazdniki,” 241-43.

31. Sverdlova, , Na perekrestke, 83-85, 88, 109.Google Scholar

32. See a petition from traders of the Arcade (Gostinyi dvor) to the governor in NART, f.419 (Kazanskoe gubernskoe po zemskim i gorodskim delam prisutstvie), op. 1, d. 474,1. 19; and a petition from Russian representatives from 113 firms to the city duma in Zhurnaly Kazanskoi gorodskoi dumy i doklady Upravy za 1914 (Kazan, 1914), 22-24.

33. Rebutting Russian traders’ criticism, one contributor to the local Tatar newspaper argued that while the Russian streets were full of Tatar shoppers on Fridays, no Russian shopper was seen in the Hay Bazaar on Sundays. Yûulduz, 21 January 1914, 1.

34. Zhurnaly i protoholy zasedanii Kazanskoi gorodskoi dumy za 1903 (Kazan, 1906), 47- 50, 332-33; Zhurnaly za 1914 (Kazan, 1914), 6.

35. Zhurnaly Kazanskoi gorodskoi dumy i doklady Upravy za 1909 (Kazan, 1911), 312; Qûyâsh, 13 January 1914, 2. On the Tatars’ protests invoking the imminent threat of a baptizing campaign in the nineteenth century, see Werth, , At the Margins of Orthodoxy, 78, 183 Google Scholar; Meyer, , “Turkic Worlds,” 77.Google Scholar

36. Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii, vol. 26, 1906 g. (St. Petersburg, 1909), no. 28548.

37. Moreover, Christians employed by Muslims were to be freed from work on Christian holidays, and Muslim employees by Christians, on Islamic holidays. Zhurnaly i protokoly zasedanii Kazanskoi gorodskoi dumy za 1908 (Kazan, 1910), 290, 304-5.

38. NART, f. 419, op. 1, d. 474,11. 25-27, 62; Zhurnalyza 1909, 309-14, 366-71; Zhurnalyza 1914, 15-17, 20-21, 24-30.

39. However, the Kazan governor did not forward the petitions to the minister of commerce and industry and the chairman of the State Duma. NART, f. 419, op. 1, d. 474, 11. 66-67, 71.

40. Gosudarstvennaia duma, tretii sozyv, Stenograficheskie otchety 1910 g. Sessiia tret'ia, chast’ 7V(St. Petersburg, 1910), 547-57, 574, and Sessiia chetvertaia, chast’ /(St. Petersburg, 1910), 2974-79, 2996.

41. Similar protest meetings took place in Orenburg and Ufa. See Yutduz, 26 May 1910, 3; 1O June 1910,1.

42. Ahmadî Îshmuhammaduf, Saudâ khidmatkârînîng ma'îshatî wa dnlarining istiqbâlî (Kazan, 1907), 2,15-18, 22-23. See also G. Ibragimov, Tatary v revoliutsii 1905 goda (Kazan, 1926), 194-202.

43. Malysheva, , “Ezhenedel'nye prazdniki,” 258.Google Scholar This state of affairs remained unchanged until 1914. On Sunday, 8 March 1914, the police put 60 Tatar and 5 Russian traders under investigation. When indicted by the Mirovoi sud'ia (justice of the peace), the Tatars entrusted their defense to a lawyer called Bukhov. He argued diat the question about trading on holidays remained open, as the city duma had not yet issued an ordinance based on the law of 15 November 1906. Kamsko-vokhskaia rech', 16 March 1914, 4; Yûulduz, 11 March 1914, 4; 16 March 1914, 4.

44. Malysheva, , “Ezhenedel'nye prazdniki,” 260.Google Scholar

45. See an observation by the local police. NART, f. 1 (Kantseliariia kazanskogo gubernatora), op. 6, d. 949, 11. 71-72. The head of the provincial gendarmerie also stated diatwhen two Tatars met, they always talked about the holiday dispute. NART, f. 199, op. 1, d. 948,11. 17-18.

46. Yûulduz, 5 January 1914, 1, 4; 7 January 1914, 3; Qûyâsh, 9January 1914, 2.

47. Yûulduz, 7 January 1914, 4; Qûyâsh, 7 January 1914, 3. An Orenburg newspaper Waqt also paid attention to the unity between employers and shop assistants. Waqt, 15 January 1914, 1.

48. Yûulduz, 1O January 1914, 3.

49. Ibid., 3-4; Zhurnaly za 1914, 31-34.

50. Yûulduz, 23 February 1914, 1-2; Qûyâsh, 12 January 1914, 3-4; 13 January 1914, 2.

51. Kazanskii telegraf, 12 January 1914. This kind of denunciation associating Tatar political activism with the Young Turk Revolution in 1908 was common among local and central policymakers, as well as among the Orthodox missionaries at that time. See Geraci, , Window on the East, 277-95Google Scholar; Campbell, , “The Muslim Question in Late Imperial Russia,“ 331-35.Google Scholar

52. Yûulduz, 12 January 1914, 1. During the deliberation by the city duma on 8 January, Sadr al-Dîn Maqsûdî also affirmed that as a former deputy of the second and third State Duma he had received petitions on diis question from Muslims nationwide. Yûulduz, 10 January 1914, 3-4. The Orenburg newspaper Waqt also treated the holiday dispute in Kazan as an issue concerning Muslims throughout the empire. Waqt, 15 January 1914, 2.

53. Kazanskii telegraf, 17 January 1914, 3. G. S. Sablukov, during his tenure (1856- 1863), worked out a systematic curriculum for polemics against Islam in the Kazan Theological Academy. His translation of the Qur'ân, published in 1878, was the first to go direcdy from the Arabic text into Russian. Geraci, Window on the East, 86-87.

54. Yûulduz, 21 January 1914, 1.

55. Kamsko-volzhskaia rech', 31 December 1913; 8 January 1914.

56. Qûyâsh, 2 January 1914, 2; 9 January 1914, 1-2.

57. Qûyâsh, 6 February 1914, 1.

58. Qûyâsh, 17 January 1914, 5; 10 February 1914, 1.

59. Yûulduz, 22 May 1914, 1-2; Zhurnaly za 1914, 123-27.

60. Usmanova, , Musul'manskie predstaviteli, 371.Google Scholar

61. Evidence concerning the impact of the war has not been found in the sources. As Tatars often asserted in the course of the holiday dispute, however, it was on Fridays and other Islamic holidays that they usually prayed for the tsar and his family, homeland prosperity, and peace. This was crucial, particularly during the war, as it would help the state augment patriotism in the rear. See Naganawa, , “Musul'manskoe soobshchestvo,” 217-23.Google Scholar

62. Yûulduz, 13 August 1914, 4; Kazanskii telegraf, 4 September 1914, 3.

63. Yûulduz, 19 August 1914, 4. A local Russian paper complained that Muslims had begun opening their shops on Sundays, based only on rumors that the law had changed. Kamsko-volzhskaia rech', 2 September 1914.

64. Qûyâsh, 8 September 1914, 1-2; 19 September 1914, 1-2.

65. Yûulduz, 25 September 1914, 3-4; Zhurnaly za 1914, 29-31.

66. Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv Respubliki Bashkortostan, f. 1-295 (Orenburgskoe magometanskoe dukhovnoe sobranie), op. 6, d. 3734,11. 1, 6, 7.

67. The phrase comes from Burbank, “Thinking Like an Empire.“

68. In the Hegira calendar a day begins in the evening and runs from sunset to sunset.

69. Yûulduz, 24 January 1914, 1-2.

70. See Qûyâsh's call for the publishers to use observatories’ data in Qûyâsh, 7 January 1914, 2. On the whole, the Kazan publishers were inclined to agree with this call. Qûyâsh, 18 March 1914, 5.

71. Bennigsen, and Quelquejay, , La presse, 67-69, 92-93Google Scholar; Validov, Dzh., Ocherk istorii obrazovannosti i literatury tatar (Moscow, 1923; reprint, Kazan, 1998), 120, 132-33Google Scholar; Salikhov, Tatarskaia burzhuaziia, 29, 31-32, 91-92.

72. For one of the first reevaluations, see Stéphane A. Dudoignon, “Qu'est-ce que la ‘qadStîphanemiya'? Éléments pour une sociologie du traditionalisme musulman, en Islam de Russie et en Transoxiane (au tournant des XIXe et XXe siStèphanecles),” in Stéphane A. Dudoignon et al., eds., L’ Islam de Russie: Conscience communautaire et autonomie politique chez les Tatars de la Volga et de I'Oural depuis le XVIIIe siStèphanecle (Paris, 1997), 207-25.

73. Kemper, , Sufii i uchenye, 416-20, 629-31.Google Scholar

74. Khalid, , The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform, 174-75.Google Scholar For a comparison with north India, see Robinson, “Technology and Religious Change,” 242, 244-46.

75. Khalid, , The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform, 11, 154.Google Scholar In the Volga-Urals region, the conservative group also had its own journal, Din wa Ma'Stîphaneshat, which was based in Orenburg and existed from 1906 to 1918. See Röstäm MökhStäphanemmStäphanetshin, “Din vä mägStïphaneyshStä“ zhurnalïnïng bibliografiyase (1906-1918) (Kazan, 2002).

76. Every year, the Spiritual Assembly provided the Department of Religious Affairs within the Interior Ministry with calendars in order to inform the army of the Islamic holidays. Zagidullin, , Musul'manskoe bogosluzhenie, 268.Google Scholar But the Spiritual Assembly was reluctant, perhaps due to limited finances, to circulate its official calendar to all the mullahs under its jurisdiction. It argued that in principle the imams themselves should observe the moon and determine the beginnings of holidays and diat they should contact the Spiritual Assembly as necessary. Waqt, 14 January 1914, 1-2; Yûulduz, 9 August 1914, 4.

77. Yûulduz, 19 January 1914, 2. The Orenburg paper Waqtwas also of the same mind. Waqt, 29 January 1914, 2.

78. Yûulduz, 23 January 1914, 3.

79. Yûulduz, 21 January 1914, 4.

80. Qûyâsh, 23 January 1914, 2 - 3.

81. Qûyâsh, 27 January 1914, 1.

82. Yûulduz, 30 January 1914,1. On the Persian commentary, see Storey, C. A., Persian Literature: A Bio-Bibliographical Survey (London, 1972), 2.1:50.Google Scholar

83. Fatih Amîrkhân argues that it was after the 1905 Revolution that the Mawlid began to occupy an important place in mass observance. See Qûyâsh, 22 January 1914, 1.

84. For instance, see Fuks, K., Kazanskie tatary v statisticheskom i etnograficheskom otnosheniiakh (Kazan, 1844; reprint, Kazan, 1991), 102.Google Scholar

85. Ridâ’ al-Dîn b. Fakhr al-Dîn, Shaykh Zayn Allâh hadratining tarjama-i hâlî (Orenburg, 1917), 8-9, 20-21, 30. See also M. N., Farkhshatov, “Zainulla Rasulev,” in Islam na territorii byvshei Rossiiskoi imperii: Entsiklopedicheskii slovar', no. 1 (Moscow, 1998), 85 Google Scholar; Crews, , For Prophet and Tsar, 324.Google Scholar

86. See the report from Samarkand by Nûshîrwân Yâwshif, who traveled around Russian and Chinese Turkestan. Qûyâsh, 2 February 1914, 2.

87. See the special issue of a Kazan-based journal for women dedicated to the Mawlid: Sûyum Bîka 7 (1914). See also a report on the “Lathes’ gathering” (khânimlar majlisî) in Shiqmây village of Menzelinsk uezd, Ufa province in Yûulduz, 4 February 1914, 2 - 3. On the women's role in the spread of Islamic knowledge through folk tales about the prophets, see Kefeli, Agnès, “The Tale of Joseph and Zulaykha on the Volga Frontier: The Struggle for Gender, Religious, and National Identity in Imperial and Postrevolutionary Russia,” Slavic Review 70, no. 2 (Summer 2011): esp. 379-89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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90. For pictures of children's plays on the Mawlid, see Sûyum Bîka 8 (1915): 10 (in Troitsk, Orenburg province); 10 (1916), 181 (in Moscow). On a condemnation, see Dîn wa Ma'îshat 6 (1914): 94.

91. Shûrâ2 (1914): 56-57. This flexibility of religious leaders toward popular Islam diat resembles the cult of saints is also the case for al-Azhar in Cairo today. Schussman, Aviva, “The Legitimacy and Nature of Mawlid al-Nabî: Analysis of a Fatwâ,” Islamic Law and Society 5, no. 2 (1998): 214-34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

92. Maktab 2 (1914): 29-31. With the substantial increase of Islamic elements in education during the reign of Abdülhamid II, Mawlid became an important event of the Galatasaray Imperial School in Istanbul in the 1880s. Fortna, Benjamin C., Imperial Classroom: Islam, the State, and Education in the Late Ottoman Empire (Oxford, 2000), 109.Google Scholar A famous Bukharan Jadid ‘Abdurauf Fitrat also published a book on the Mawlid in 1914 after studying in Istanbul. Komatsu, Hisao, “Bukhara and Istanbul: A Consideration about the Background of the Munâzara,” in Dudoignon, and Komatsu, , eds., Islam in Politics, 178-79.Google Scholar

93. Validov, , Ocherk istorii obrazovannosti, 57-59 Google Scholar; Kemper, Michael, “Entre Boukhara et la Moyenne-Volga: ‘Abd an-Nasîr al-Qûrsâwî (1776-1812) en conflit avec les oulémas traditionalistes,” Cahiers du monde russe 37, no. 1 (1996): 44-45 Google Scholar; Kemper, , Sufii i uchenye, 383-93.Google Scholar

94. Qûyâsh, 11 July 1914, 2; Yûulduz, 9 August 1914, 4.

95. Dîn wa Ma'îshat 27 (1914): 428; 29 (1914): 460-61. This journal also lamented that the number of Muslims who were unaware of times of prayers was now increasing. Dîn wa Ma'îshat 30 (1914): 468-71.

96. Tûrmush, 16 July 1914, 2; Waqt, 3 July 1914, 2-3; 12 July 1914, 1-2.

97. Qûyâsh, 30 July 1914, 2.

98. Qûyâsh, 4 August 1914, 4.

99. Qûyâsh, 8 August 1914, 1-2.

100. In Ufa, the âkhûnd from the first mosque, Jihângîr Âbizgildîn, convened a consultation of the three executive members (qâdîs) of the Spiritual Assembly and the four city imams. They also decided to follow the calendar of the Spiritual Assembly. Dîn wa Ma'îshat 31 (1914): 493.

101. Yûulduz, 9 August 1914, 5-6.

102. Yûulduz, 22 August 1914, 3.

103. On the strains of secularism in India, see Veer, Peter van der, Religious Nationalism: Hindus and MUSUTHS in India (Berkeley, 1994), 10-12, 21-23.Google Scholar

104. On the predicaments of multiculturalism under liberalism, see Kymlicka, Will, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford, 1995)Google Scholar, esp. chaps. 6 and 9: “it is interesting to note how rarely [public holidays] are discussed in contemporary liberal theory” (114). The holiday question is topical in Russia today, as the State Duma has begun to consider the possibility of introducing Islamic holidays into the republics wifh sizeable Muslim populations. See “Sub“ektam RF mogut razreshit’ ustanavlivat’ svoi prazdniki,” at http://www.itar-tass.com/c9/233530.html (last accessed 1 December 2011).