Author ORCID Identifier
0009-0006-3051-9382
Abstract
Examination of the strategic role of the Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Assembly (OMSA) as a pivotal instrument of imperial governance in the Kazakh Steppe during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The study investigates how the Russian Tsarist administration instrumentalized Islamic institutions to exercise political control and facilitate the integration of nomadic Kazakh society into the imperial hierarchy. Drawing on extensive archival evidence, the author analyzes the institutional evolution of the Muftiate, its involvement in diplomatic and intelligence operations, and the intermediary agency of Tatar mullahs who bridged the gap between the Kazakh aristocracy and the Russian bureaucracy. The paper identifies a significant paradigm shift in Russian religious policy: an initial phase of co-opting Islam for imperial expansion followed by a mid-nineteenth-century transition toward active Christianization and Russification. The study concludes that the Orenburg Muftiate functioned not merely as a religious body but as a sophisticated ideological apparatus designed to reshape traditional Kazakh identity and incorporate the frontier into the Russian imperial socio-legal framework.
Recommended Citation
Akhan, Zharas
(2026)
"Imperial Islam and Colonial Control: The Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Assembly as a Mediator of Russian Rule in the Kazakh Frontier,"
Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe: Vol. 46
:
Iss.
6
, Article 6.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.55221/2693-2229.2821
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree/vol46/iss6/6