Muslim reformism in Daghestan Islamic politics and Muslim education after the Russian Revolution

This dissertation analyzes the discourse of Daghestani “reformist” scholars of Islam (ʿulamāʾ) after the collapse of the Russian Empire and their attempts to gain religious and political authority in the new post-imperial environment. Analyzing unpublished Arabic and Turkic language treatises and the contributions they made to the periodicals of time, this thesis grounds its discussion of the visions that the ʿulamāʾ had for the future of Daghestan and the question of religious and political leadership in that context.
My dissertation first presents the historical and historiographical background of Daghestan between 1917 and 1929. It then turns to the three main spheres of the discourse developed by the ʿulamāʾ: the question of state model, of education system, and of religious authority within the new Soviet system. I demonstrate that the main debates over this issue were strongly rooted in the existing Islamic discourse, and the reformists made use of religious arguments to defeat their religious enemies. Already, in Soviet Daghestan, reformists transformed their project, using the “Orthodox” language of Islam and representing themselves as the major religious authority. This thesis traces the main sources of influences on the Daghestani reformists, identifying two significant sources that had a great deal of influence on the reformists of Daghestan: the Jadīds of Russia and the reformists of Egypt. By comparing the Daghestani reformists to similar circles of Russian Muslims, this thesis demonstrates that despite the unique characteristics, they were still a part of the broader Jadīd movement.