Muslim Communities in Tatarstan in the 1920s–1930s

Abstract

Ilnur Minnullin examines micro-history of Muslim congregations known as mahalla under forced Soviet reforms happened in Tatarstan in the 1920s and the 1930s. The author argues that on the eve of socialist transformation of the countryside mahalla was turned from an autonomous Muslim parish, as the late imperial authorities took it, into a religious association putting it under a strict supervision and depriving it of independent Islamic education and nationalized waqf endowments. Growing state pressure on Muslim congre­gations and repressive campaign of de-culakization provoked a mass abandonment of reli­gious positions by Muslim spiritual elite. The most active 'ulama' were physically exterminated that resulted in broking continuity of Islamic practices in the region.