*2.3. Wahhabism*

The term "Wahhabis" requires the greatest explication of all the terms D¯ınmuh. ammadov invokes. "Who are the Wahhab¯ ¯ıs?"—an article published in the Orenburg journal *Religion and Life*in 1910, clarifies his use of the term. At the beginning, the author, 'A¯ıd Muh. ammad Ah. marov, cites a section from another Orenburg periodical, *Time* (*Waqt*), which described the Wahhabis as "tribes who wish to return to the pure Islam of the past and devote themselves to the Qur'an and the Sunnah" ( ¯ Ah. marov 1910). Ah . marov proceeds to explain that such a description was inaccurate; far from renewing or improving Islam, the Wahabbis were "destructive and bloody" and sowed conflict through their rejection of classical theology (kalam), their primitive understanding of God's oneness (tawh ¯ ¯ıd), and their ability to convince their "ignorant" coreligionists to commit unspeakable acts of violence against non-Wahhabi Muslims and holy sites, including Mecca (Ah. marov 1910, 1911b, 1911a). For Ah. marov, Wahhabism was a virus (mikrub) that, once loosed upon the world by Mu ¯ h. ammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792), ¯ had spread through the Arabian peninsula, India, and Egypt, infecting pure-hearted scholars and turning them into violent, irrational beings intent on destroying Islam (Ah.marov 1910).

There is no evidence of contact between Volga-Ural Muslim scholars and the eighteenth-century Wahhabis. When D¯ınmuh . ammadov, Ah. marov, and other Volga-Ural writers used the term, they,

in fact, referred to those of their colleagues who identified as disciples of nineteenth-century scholars Jamaladd ¯ ¯ın al-Afghan¯ ¯ı (1838–1897) and Muh. ammad Abduh (1849–1905). Afghan¯ ¯ı became especially popular among Volga-Ural Muslim scholars during his visit to Russia in the late 1880s. 'Abdarrash¯ıd Ibrah¯ımov (1857–1944), who later became an advocate of legal reform, a supranational Muslim identity, and anti-colonial rebellion, served as Afghan¯ ¯ı's interpreter (Keddie 1972). Muhammadnaj¯ıb Shamsadd¯ınov at-Tunt ¯ ar¯ ¯ı (1862–1930), editor of the scholarly religious journal *Al-D¯ın wal-Ad ¯ ab¯* , circulated Afghan¯ ¯ı's views in his correspondences with his colleagues (at-Tunt ¯ ar¯ ¯ı na.). Riza'add¯ın b. Fakhradd¯ın (1859–1936) declared Afghan¯ ¯ı one of the three most important Islamic scholars of the nineteenth century and wrote a biography of him (Fakhradd¯ın 1915; S. A. Dudoignon 2006). The generation of Volga-Ural Muslim jurists who came of age in the 1880s and 1890s similarly idolized Muhammad Abduh. Reformist theologians Mus¯ a B¯ ¯ıg¯ı (1875–1949) and Dhakir al-Qad ¯ ¯ır¯ı (1878–1954) and jurist 'Abdullah B ¯ ub¯ ¯ı (1871–1922) studied at al-Azhar or visited Abduh during their travels in the Arab world (Khayrutdinov 2005; Bubyi 1999; Kadyri 2006).

The Islamic legal and theological reforms promoted by Afghan¯ ¯ı and Abduh have been given multiple names by historians since the 1980s. Albert Hourani refrains from assigning their philosophy a name in his *Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age* (Hourani 1983). Charles Kurzman identified their program as modernist Islam, highlighting the prominence of discussions of modernity and progress in their writings (Kurzman 2002). By the 1990s, historians increasingly identified Afghan¯ ¯ı and Abduh as early Salafis (Lauzière 2016). Bernard Haykel has challenged this identification by pointing out the significant differences between Afghan¯ ¯ı and Abduh's views and those of later Salafis (Haykel 2009). Most recently, Henri Lauzière, in *The Making of Salafism*, has used the term "balanced reform" (al-is.la¯h. al-mu'tadil) to describe the views of Abduh, Afghan¯ ¯ı, and their followers. His choice of term reflects the reformers' terms of self-identification, suggests the moderate goal of their project (i.e., finding a "balance" between Islamic and European cultures), and emphasizes what bound them together (dedication to legal and cultural reform, and not promotion of Salafi theology, which some embraced and others did not) (Lauzière 2016). In this essay, I will follow Lauzière's convention of referring to the adherents of Afghan¯ ¯ı and Abduh as balanced reformers.

As balanced reform spread from Egypt to the Volga-Ural region in the last years of the nineteenth-century, it comingled with the views of Kazan scholar, Marjan¯ ¯ı, who, in addition compiling and debating local history, had written extensively on questions relating to Islamic law and ritual. Like Afghan¯ ¯ı and Abduh, he sought ways to integrate potentially useful aspects of European science and technology into Islamic society. In *Na¯z.urat al-haqq f¯ı farid. iyya al-'isha' wa in lam yaghib al-shafaq* (1870), he turned to Qur'anic citations to argue that God created everything in the natural world ¯ for human beings to use and gain knowledge from. Muslim scholars were obligated to observe the natural world and use the knowledge they gained from it even when such knowledge contradicted previously-accepted legal opinions (al-Marjan¯ ¯ı 1897; Kemper 1998). This was consistent with his call to embrace knowledge from a range of sources when writing regional history (discussed above). Marjan¯ ¯ı was involved in a project to correct typographical errors in the Kazan edition of the Qur'an, ¯ in the restructuring of madrasa curriculum and administration in the 1860s–1870s, and witnessed Orenburg mufti Salimgarey Tevkelev's campaign to reform the Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Assembly (Kemper 1998; Zagidullin 2014). In this environment, Marjan¯ ¯ı came to champion efforts to update and correct all aspects of Volga-Ural Islam. In Islamic legal practice, that meant questioning canonical legal commentaries and encouraging scholars to return to the primary sources of the law: the Qur'an, ¯ the Sunnah, the consensus of scholars (*ijma'¯* ), and deductive analogy (*qiyas¯* ) (al-Marjan¯ ¯ı 1870).

There is little evidence that Marjan¯ ¯ı interacted with Afghan¯ ¯ı or Abduh, but subsequent generations of Volga-Ural Muslim scholars identified all three as their intellectual fathers and saw them as proponents of the same ideals:

(1) The rejection of the classical legal and theological schools (madhhabs) and any other affiliations (teacher-student relations and Sufi discipleship) that divided the *ummah* into rival units (Kar¯ım¯ı 1898; Anonymous 1904);


Volga-Ural balanced reformers heavily promoted the view that Islamic legal interpretation was historically and culturally contingent ( Bub¯ ¯ı 1904–1910). This approach opened most topics in the field of furu' al-fiqh for reinterpretation, and Volga-Ural balanced reformers used that to mediate the adoption of European and Russian technologies, clothing styles, and values (such as the rejection of polygamy) into Muslim society (al-Makhdum¯ ¯ı 1901; Kar¯ım¯ı 1898). At the same time, they all but extinguished debate in the field of theology by promoting a literalist view on commonly-debated questions such as the divine attributes (Bub¯ ¯ı 1911; Kamali 2010; al-Qad¯ır¯ı 1909).

The strategies above served several larger purposes. First, they allowed the reformers to call for sweeping social and cultural changes, while simultaneously presenting them as contiguous with the existing Muslim intellectual tradition. Second, they emphasized practical and applied knowledge over the theoretical, supporting their new vision of the village imam as a public servant rather than an elitist intellectual (Ross 2020). Finally, by reducing the quantity of literature required to master Islamic law and greatly simplifying theology, these strategies fulfilled the goals of making Islam comprehensible to a wider, less scholarly audience and facilitating popular participation in upholding shar¯ı'a.

D¯ınmu h. ammadov and many of his fellow teachers criticized these balanced reformers for de-emphasizing theology, logic, and philosophy in the madrasa curriculum and doing away with the debate (muna¯z.ara) as a teaching tool because they believed that students who were not exposed to logic and debate made poor jurists and teachers (Garipova 2016). However, these critics' recurring use of "Wahhabis" as a descriptor for balanced reformers highlights the aspects of the balanced reform program that most defined it in the eyes of its opponents: its combination of simplified theology; distain for the canonical legal and theological works; seemingly free interpretation of Qur'anic verses; and mobilization of less-educated Muslims under the banner of "purifying" Islam. ¯ D¯ınmu h. ammadov repeatedly emphasized these aspects of balanced reformers' writings in his critique of the works of Marjan¯ ¯ı and Muhammadnaj¯ıb Shamsadd¯ınov at-Tunt ¯ ar¯ ¯ı (at-Tunt ¯ ar¯ ¯ı 2002). Where balanced reformers preached unity, purity of faith, and the full engagemen<sup>t</sup> of believers, their critics saw crude popularization of Islamic theology, ignorant misinterpretation of Islamic law, and an inevitable descent into violence and bloodshed that would pit Muslim against Muslim. Even if the Wahhabis and the balanced reformers did not strictly share an intellectual pedigree, they did share certain strategies and goals; for D¯ınmuh.ammadov, this made them essentially the same.

### *2.4. The Socialists and the Revolutionaries*

The first and last terms of D¯ınmu h. ammadov's formulation—socialists and revolutionaries—are best addressed together. Volga-Ural Muslim intellectuals who opposed socialism do not seem to have envisioned any version of socialism that did not involve a revolutionary restructuring of Muslim society. Among proponents of socialism, even those who did not advocate physical violence against political and socio-economic oppressors articulated visions of a Muslim future in which certain "privileged" classes would cease to exist.

The writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels first attracted the attention of ethnic Russian intellectuals in the 1840s (Walicki 1979). From there, the ideas expressed in these two writers' works were nativized, elaborated upon, and became interwoven into various political movements by the 1860s (Walicki 1979). The first documented Volga-Ural Muslim socialists appeared in the early 1900s. Political leanings in early-twentieth-century Russia were often expressed through membership in one or another political party and Muslim socialists turned to the programs of two: the Socialist Revolutionaries (SR) and the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDRP).

The RSDRP was formed in 1898. Its members were those who understood the failure of the 1870s' "Going to the People" movement as a sign that Russian Populist ideology was flawed: the peasants were not the class that would bring revolution to Russia and revolution could not be rushed or engineered through human intervention. As staunch followers of the works of Marx and Engels, the members of the RSDRP supported the principle that industrial workers would be the class to lead the revolution and that such a revolution was historically inevitable once Russia reached the requisite stage in its economic development (Walicki 1979).

The Socialist Revolutionary Party was founded in 1901 in response to the rise of Russian Marxism. Its founder, V. M. Chernov (1873–1952), sought to revive aspects of 1860s–1870s Populist ideology (narodnichestvo), especially that ideology's focus on Russia's peasants. The SR program viewed peasants, agrarian life, and rural communes as part of modern economic life rather than as historical relics that would disappear as Russia industrialized. Peasants and their communal tendencies would be key to establishing socialism throughout Russia. In contrast to the Marxist RSDRP, the SR party's members believed in the ability of the individual to a ffect the course of history. This ideology led some members of the party to turn to political terror as an tool for bringing about social change (White 2010; Hildernmeier 2000).

Very few Volga-Ural Muslims became members of Russia's revolutionary parties, but they engaged with Russian socialist writings. Muslims' early encounters with revolutionary socialism occurred through contact with ethnic Russian students and co-workers in the empire's cities, most notably Kazan. 'Aya¯d. Is h. aq¯ ¯ı, Fuad Tuqt ¯ arov (1880–1938), and ¯ H. usayn Yamashev (1882–1912), all studying in Kazan ¯ and influenced by their encounters with underground revolutionary life, organized the manuscript newspaper *Progress* (*Taraqqi*) in 1895 and created the "Student Society" ("Shak¯ırdlär jam'iyyati") in 1903 (Iskhakyi 2011a). *Progress* closed in 1900, but after the Revolution of 1905, Is h. aq¯ ¯ı and Tuqtarov ¯ opened the newspaper *Dawn Tang ¯* (later changed to *Morning Star* (*Tang Yuld ¯ uzi ¯* )) in which they called for Muslims to violently resist autocratic rule and the imperial bureaucracy. The socialist-leaning young writers who formed the newspaper's sta ff became known as the Tangch ¯ ¯ılar (Iskhakyi 2011c; Validov 1998; Ibrahimov 1984b; Rämi and Dautov 2001). This advocacy of force to bring about political change was very similar to the doctrine preached by the more violent members of the SR party and likely derived from it. Is h. aq¯ ¯ı's view in *Extinction after Two Hundred Years* that human action would determine the future of the Tatar nation was also very much in line with SR views on the role of human agency in history. However, the adoption of SR political doctrines did not necessarily preclude Islamic piety. Is h. aq¯ ¯ı later recalled how his friend Tuqtarov never missed a prayer or violated a fast while they ¯ studied in Kazan. The socialist Tuqtarov's adherence to Islamic ritual was so all-consuming that some ¯ of his classmates dubbed him "the fanatic" (Iskhakyi 2011a).

RSDRP political philosophies entered Volga-Ural Muslim society through another circle of Kazan madrasa students. Fati ¯ h. Amirkhan (1886–1926), student activist and self-identified socialist who became acquainted with Marxism through a Russian friend, revived the manuscript newspaper *Progress* in 1901 as part of his underground student movement at Mu h. ammadiyya Madrasa in Kazan (Ibrahimov-Alushev 2005; Ämirkhan 1985b). The dismantling of the imperial censorship by the October Manifesto, combined with the disorder that spread through most of Russia in autumn 1905 as a result of the Revolution of 1905, facilitated the more rapid transmission of radical socialist views through Tatar periodical press and student gatherings. One example of such public dissemination of radical Marxist views occurred in 1906 when former madrasa student 'Aliasgar Kamal opened the newspaper ¯ *Free People* (*Azad Khaliq ¯* ) and used it to publish Tatar translations of the RSDRP party program (Rämi and Dautov 2001; Anonymous 1906).

Marxist theories of class conflict left a deep imprint on Volga-Ural Muslim intellectual culture as it evolved from 1900 to 1917, especially among young writers and activists. Is h. aq¯ ¯ı, a former imam, envisioned Volga-Ural Muslim society as being dominated by an exploiter class of wealthy, obscurant Islamic scholars (*'ulama'¯* ) who would sooner destroy their own people than renounce their privileges (al-Is h. aq¯ ¯ı 1904). Sentiments of class struggle provided a framework within which radicalized madrasa students made sense of intergenerational conflicts with their parents and teachers (Ross 2015). Marxist narratives of historical evolution were equally important in shaping reformers' views on the present and future state of Islam and the Tatar nation. Amirkhan's futuristic novel, *Reverend Fath. ullah¯* (1910), and Jamaladd ¯ ¯ın Val¯ıdov's explication of the evolution of nations, *Millat wa Milliyat* (1914), were both built upon Marxist understandings of the stages of human history and the view that progress was driven by macro-level social and economic factors that were beyond the capacity of human beings to control or alter (Ämirkhan 1984; J. Wal¯ıd¯ı 1914). Rebellious madrasa students' songs of how they would inherit the future when their "backward" teachers and parents died express a more popularized version of Marxist views on historical progress (Sibgatullin 1910 ¯ ).

D¯ınmuh . ammadov had a deeply personal reason to dislike revolutionary socialism. By the early 1900s, both revolutionary-socialist-allied Muslim intellectuals and their Marxist colleagues used the classical Muslim scholar ('al¯ım) as a literary and visual symbol of the classes that they believed exploited Volga-Ural Muslim society. When D¯ınmuh. ammadov criticized them, they singled him out for special abuse, dubbing him "Ishmi the Donkey" and "Ishmi Ishan," and mocking him in the Tatar-language press (Tukai 2011b, 2011f, 2011g, 2011n). However, D¯ınmuh. ammadov was not alone in his anxieties over socialism and its incompatibility with Islam. His concerns were shared by balanced reformer Dhakir al-Qad ¯ ¯ır¯ı, who translated Syrian Raf¯ıqbek al-'Az.¯ım's *Life and Religion* from Arabic into Tatar in 1911. Qad¯ır¯ı's translation laid out the case for socialism being antagonistic to Islam far more articulately than D¯ınmuh. ammadov managed to. The book argued that socialism, by proposing class struggle as a necessary step on the journey to achieving happiness (*sa'adat*) for all humanity, set itself in opposition to Islam. In Islam, the salvation of humanity was not the task of any single class, but of every human being, and it was a collective project in which the more learned were obliged to help the less learned regardless of wealth or class (al-'Az.¯ım 1911). Though a translation by one of D¯ınmuh . ammadov's intellectual rivals, those sentiments summarize, in a more diplomatic manner, D¯ınmuh .ammadov's aversion to socialism's violent and divisive aspects.

### **3. Discussion: Bringing the Three Ideologies Together**

By the early twentieth century, young reformers combined Tatar nationalism and Islamic balanced reform with Russian revolutionary socialism and Marxist political philosophies to create a single narrative, a set of goals, and a plan for action.

In approaching both Islam and nation, the nationalist reformers adopted and adapted from European orientalist literature a narrative of golden age and decline. That narrative began with a pristine past—for Islam, the first three generations of Muslims, and for the Tatar nation, the state of Bulghar, and later, the Kazan khanate—in which people enjoyed justice and prosperity. This idyllic era was ended by a fall. For Islam, this fall was precipitated by the civil wars (*fitna*s) and the rise of the Umayyad and 'Abbasid caliphal dynasties, which preceded the emergence of the complex culture of Islamic legal commentaries and theological debates that twentieth-century reformers so despised (al-Qad¯ır¯ı 1909). For the Tatar nation, this fall was the conquest of Kazan by the Muscovites, which reformers saw as having deprived their ancestors of sovereignty and the resources required to maintain their faith and culture (al-Marjan¯ ¯ı 1897; Ghafur¯ ¯ı 1907; al-Jalal¯ ¯ı 1908).

For both Islam and nation, this decline was reversible through a combination of socio-economic evolution and human intervention. Such a fusion of social revolutionary and Marxist thought was in no way unique to Volga-Ural Muslim reformists. It also appears in the concept of revolutionary vanguard laid out in V. I. Lenin's *What is to be Done?* (1902), which many of the young reformers active in the 1900s–1910s had read or were, at least, familiar with (Lenin 1902; Äkhmädullin 1981; Ibrahimov 1984b). By achieving political and national consciousness and spreading that consciousness to others, reformers believed that they could bring about a future for the nation and Islam that combined the justice and cultural flourishing of the imagined past with the most useful technologies of the present (Gafuri 1980a, 1980b; Rämiev 1980).

For the reformers, the end goal that Tatar nationalism, balanced reform, and socialism, for the promise of a society in which social inequality would at last be eliminated and hierarchy would be replaced with a community of autonomous, equal individuals who would have equal access to material resources, knowledge, and political power. This vision finds its most elaborate expression in Amirkhan's *Reverend Fath . ullah¯* , a novel that depicts a highly technological society in which all members recognize themselves as Tatars, are united in Islam, have open access to Islamic knowledge, and experience no poverty or conflict. Although *Reverend Fath. ullah¯* is a Tatar nationalist novel, a balanced reformer's ideal vision of Islam plays a significant role in the future society that Amirkhan envisions. This society's legal system contains a *shar¯ı'a* court run by a combination of legal scholars and common citizens. The city in which the plot unfolds possesses only one giant mosque capable of holding over 100,000 worshipers, an architectural embodiment of the unity of an ummah no longer divided by madhhab or sect (Ämirkhan 1984).

While Amirkhan fused together Tatar nationalism, Islamic balanced reform, and Marxist views of historical progress in fiction, his close friend, the poet 'Abdullah T ¯ uq¯ ayev (1886–1913), did the same ¯ through poetry-writing and performatively. Inspired by a combination of fictional re-workings of Marjan¯ ¯ı's *A*ff*airs in Kazan and Bulghar* and Marxist views on history, Tuq¯ ayev gradually worked out ¯ a theory that every nation evolved to a point when its own foundational national author appeared; Tuq¯ ayev believed himself to be this historically predestined author for the Tatar nation ( ¯ Tukai 2016a, 2016b, 2016c, 2011j, 2011k).

As Tuq¯ ayev worked to create what he imagined would become the foundation of the Tatar ¯ national literary canon, he simultaneously made a point of commenting on Islamic belief and practice in the nascent Tatar nation. Unlike Qad¯ır¯ı, B¯ıg¯ıev, and Bub¯ ¯ı, Tuq¯ ayev was not a jurist or theologian by ¯ profession and he did not compose theoretical tracts or textbooks on Islamic law and theology in the same way that he did for national literature. Nor did he produce vernacular translations of the Qur'an¯ as did his friend, Kamil Mut ¯ ¯ı'¯ı. However, Tuq¯ ayev had received his education at Ural'sk Madrasa from ¯ Kamil's father, Mut ¯ ¯ı'ullah Tukhfatull ¯ ¯ın, an al-Azhar graduate and a student of Muh. ammad Abduh (Mutigi 1986), and balanced reform formed a significant part of the intellectual scaffolding upon which Tuq¯ ayev built his image of the Tatar nation. So too, did theories of Marxist class struggle, which ¯ Tuq¯ ayev was first exposed to through his contact with Russian youths at an early job at a Russian ¯ newspaper and his reading of the works of Muslim-socialist novelist Aya¯d. Ish. aq¯ ¯ı (Gladyshev 1986; Rämiev 2005). In his poetry, Tuq¯ ayev developed a vision of Islam as a religion that was foundational ¯ to Tatar national identity, was practiced and experienced in the Tatar language, and was indispensable to the realization of social justice. In the poem "Native Tongue," he presents the Tatar language as the medium in which children address their first prayers to God (Tukai 2011p). In another poem, "A Mother's Prayer," he exalts an elderly woman praying late at night for the wellbeing of her son and implies that there is no way that God will fail to answer her prayer (Tukai 2011a). In these poems, Tuq¯ ayev simultaneously celebrates the piety of humble Muslim believers and the power of a ¯ national vernacular language to enable those believers to experience a meaningful connection with God and Islam.

By contrast, Tuq¯ ayev regularly calls out the wealthy and powerful for their lack of piety and ¯ meaningful knowledge of Islam. In, "A Little Story Set to Music," he tells the story of how Safi, a disciple of a powerful Sufi shaykh, is thrown into crisis when faced with his wife's demand for a divorce. Despite Safi's public displays of piety, he is revealed to be ignorant of shar¯ı'a (Tukai 2011d). In another poem, "A Student, or an Encounter," Tuq¯ ayev relates how wealthy Muslims praise madrasa ¯ students for their pure faith. However, when informed that the students are starving, the same wealthy people recommend that they pray to God for assistance (Tukai 2011m). In both these narrative poems, Tuq¯ ayev explores the theme of outward piety versus inward ignorance. Both Safi the disciple and the ¯ wealthy onlookers behave in ways that sugges<sup>t</sup> that they are good Muslims, but, when faced with a test of their knowledge of Islam (i.e., how to ge<sup>t</sup> a divorce; the need to donate money to help the poor), they fail miserably. Both of these poems reflect Volga-Ural balanced reformers' call for all Muslims to become knowledgeable about Islamic law and diligent in their application of it. At the same time, Tuq¯ ayev's focus on social and economic privilege in these poems is very much inspired by his socialist ¯ colleagues' and friends' emphasis on class conflict and exploitation. This element is most obvious in

the contrast Tuq¯ ayev draws in "A Student, or an Encounter" between wealthy citizens of the nation ¯ and impoverished students. However, Marxist values are also implied, if less obviously evident, in, "A Little Story Set to Music," with Tuq¯ ayev's deliberate characterization of Safi as a Sufi, an identity ¯ that binds him into what Tuq¯ ayev viewed as an exploitative socio-economic relationship between ¯ privileged shaykhs and their ignorant followers. Tuq¯ ayev viewed Islamic scholars who exploited the ¯ ignorance of common Muslims as corrosive not only to Islam, but to the health of the Tatar nation (Tukai 2011h, 2011l).

Not content to confine his promotion of the Tatar nation and Islam to his writings, Tuq¯ ayev acted ¯ out his view of proper Islam and national citizenship in his daily life. He presented his own childhood as a story of overcoming callousness and exploitation by the ignorant and impious, relating, among other things, how the woman charged with caring for him instead left him outside in the winter cold until his bare feet froze to the doorstep (Tukai 2016d). By re-telling this story, he meant for those who read or heard it to draw a comparison with how the Qur'an mandated that Muslims should ¯ treat orphaned children. Tuq¯ ayev lived frugally, eschewing fine clothes, comfortable housing, and ¯ female company, all things that he associated with the lifestyle of the exploitative, irreligious classes (Tukai 2011e, 2011c, 2011l, 2011o). Even among his socialist-leaning friends, he became infamous for his penchant for ragged, ill-fitting clothing (Ämirkhan 1985a; Kamal 1986 ¯ ; Rämiev 2005). He projected a commitment to Islam and the Tatar nation that was total and unwavering. Following the closure of Izh-Bub¯ ¯ı Madrasa by the Russian police in 1910 and the subsequent investigation of its teachers for evidence of their participation in anti-government agitation, he cursed D¯ınmu h. ammadov (who he believed had denounced Izh-Bub¯ ¯ı's teachers to the police) and vowed that if the Tatar presses were closed down (which would have amounted to the Russian government's suppression of both Islamic knowledge and Tatar national culture), he would tear his new clothing from his body and go out barefoot into the street (Tukai 2016e). In reading Tuq¯ ayev's Tatar-language adaptation of Russian ¯ poet Mikhail Lermontov's "The Prophet," it is not di fficult to see parallels between the poem's main character, a divinely-chosen messenger unappreciated and abused by his own people, and Tuq¯ ayev's ¯ image of himself as someone destined by divine or historical forces to be a blindly devoted, ill-treated promoter of the Tatar nation, defender of pure Islam, and champion of the exploited (Tukai 2011i).

Not all Tatar nationalists and balanced reformers committed to their mission with Tuq¯ ayev's ¯ zeal and not all combined their quests for nation-building, Islamic legal reform, and social justice in quite the same way. In fact, more of them focused primarily on one field while publishing in the same newspapers, moving in the same social circles, and voicing support for their colleagues' work. The themes of social equality and the overthrow of hierarchy were consistent across their work. For balanced reformers employed in the fields of Islamic law and theology, achieving equality among community members meant making Islamic knowledge accessible to a wider audience by translating key Arabic-language texts into vernacular Tatar-Turkish (Fakhreddinov 2005; Ross 2020) and challenging the relevance and validity of the traditional madrasa textbooks and legal commentaries (B¯ıg¯ıev 1909a; Bub¯ ¯ı 1909). Tatar nationalists saw themselves as promoting the same goal of equality and supporting their friends and colleagues in law and theology by using poetry, prose fiction, and drama to praise behaviors and individuals that advanced the causes of the Tatar nation, socio-economic equality, and the full engagemen<sup>t</sup> of all community members with Islam; and by condemning those who did not. Becoming a Tatar in no way meant abandoning or neglecting Islam. As G. 'Az¯ız argued in his analysis of nation, it was possible for a nation to have a special historical relationship with a religion that made that religion a key part of that nation's culture and identity, even if the religion was practiced by multiple nations. The Chinese nation enjoyed a distinct and important relationship with Buddhism. Why could the Tatar nation not enjoy similar relationship with Islam? ('Az¯ız 1913b).
