Blessed by the waters of the Amu Darya and perched on the main caravan route connecting Central Asia and Iran, Charjoy was for long among the possessions of the Bukharan emirate. A fortified city and a trade outpost, Charjoy did not change much after the emir surrendered to the Russians in 1873. Only after the construction of the Transcaspian railway did things change. A new colonial settlement grew around the railway station, which soon expanded towards the embankments along the Amu Darya to become a major commercial hub. Postcards of the period show a new colonial city with boulevards lined by poplar trees, horse carriages and phaetons transporting Russian notables dressed in white, and bustling market stalls swarming with local porters.[1] With trains moving back and forth between Krasnovodsk, Merv, and Samarqand and steamboats shuttling up and down the Amu Darya, the new Charjoy was a cathedral in the Qara Qum desert.[2]

On June 26, 1901, the chief of the local military garrison wrote to his superior, the City Commandant of Charjoy, requesting assistance: one Jumaqul Khidyrqulov, a native resident and a subject of the Bukharan emirate, had sought his support to apostatise from Islam to the Russian Orthodox Church. The military chief was worried, however. He knew that according to sharia the adoption of another faith is considered a crime and the Bukharan authorities would be demanding the arrest of Jumaqul. The military chief had therefore proceeded to send Jumaqul to the City Commandant accompanied by a policeman. When met by the colonial official, Jumaqul was brandishing a statement written in spotless Russian: ‘I have the sincere desire to embrace the Holy Orthodox Faith,’ said the missive, ‘and therefore I humbly request Your Eminence's intercession to administer to me the rites of the Holy Sacrament of Baptism and Chrismation (miropamazanie). I wish to receive the sacrament of Baptism and Chrismation as soon as possible, as authorities in Bukhara prevent [me from converting] and oppress me.’[3]

How were tsarist officials to react to this cry for help? Were they willing to uphold the basic rights of religious toleration (veroterpimost’) and thus safeguard the privitised notions of belief of a Bukharan subject from the intrusive approach of local Muslim authorities? Or were they to act according to a different set of considerations? The following story will show that tsarist colonial authorities not only had a somewhat lenient approach towards Muslims converting to Christianity, but they also facilitated their religious conversion.

One thing was sure: everyone in Charjoy knew about Jumaqul’s renegade aspirations, and the Bukharan officials were after him. The City Commandant too knew that, if left unattended, Jumaqul was destined to end miserably either executed or expelled from his community. He therefore made arrangements for Jumaqul to be escorted to the Russian Political Agent (rossiiskoe imperatorskoe politicheskoe agenstvo) who oversaw diplomatic relations between the Governorship-General of Turkestan and the Bukharan Emirate then under Russian protection.[4] Situated in Kagan or New Bukhara, the Political Agency was a powerful office headed by a diplomatic resident who ensured that things with the emir went as smoothly as possible. This time, Charjoy’s City Commandant warned, there were all the premises of a diplomatic breakdown: the emir’s men wanted to arrest Jumaqul for breaching sharia.[5]

As usual tsarist officials were very cautious not to stir up a feeling of resentment among local authorities and therefore proceeded to inquire with their bureaucratic interlocutors in Bukhara. The Qushbegi, then the most influential office under the emir, replied in only a seemingly friendly fashion. He explained that according to sharia the conversion from Islam to another faith is not allowed and exceptions are extremely difficult. He therefore requested the Russians to hand over Jumaqul to the Bukharans so that they could ascertain whether he was in full possession of his mental faculties. The Qushbegi suspected that Jumaqul’s desire to recant Islam reflected in fact a state of mental incompetence. However, so suggested the Bukharan official, if were ascertained that Jumaqul was resolute about his change of hearts, it would be up to the emir to decide according to the rule of Islamic law.[6]

At this point of the story, one would expect tsarist officials to proceed in recognition of the prerogatives of Bukharan sovereignty and thus deliver our Jumaqul to the Qushbegi. The Russian Political Agent proceeded otherwise, however. Disdainful of the administration of justice in the emirate, the tsarist official took several steps to prevent Jumaqul’s arrest, protect him, and help to achieve conversion. The Political Agent had a plan. Jumaqul ought to recant Islam away from Bukhara and the only possible way for him to do so would require that he enter Russian territory. Conversion as a Bukharan subject was out of the question, assumed the Political Agent, and therefore it was essential for Jumaqul to become a Russian subject. To this end, the Political Agent developed a two-pronged strategy. He first instructed the Charjoy City Commandant to compile a file on Jumaqul offering information on his background, his status, and his ‘moral qualities’ (nravstvennye kachestva). Secondly, he had one Alexander Onegin Kubenev, an officer of the Tersk Cossack Troops, craft a petition on behalf of Jumaqul. Addressed to the General Governor of Turkestan, the petition made it clear that Jumaqul did not just want to convert to the Russian Orthodox Church, but also was willing to become a subject of the empire. Bukhara was the past; Russia was the future:

I have a sincere desire to accept Russian subjecthood and to be included in the merchant community of the city of Tashkent. Since I have lived in the service of the Russians since my childhood, I have sufficiently assimilated the character, manners and customs of the Russian people, which I am extremely fond of. Therefore, I wish to belong to the Russian Orthodox world (Russkii pravoslavnyi mir), not only as a subject [to the Tsar], but also [as a member of its] religion. In view of the above, I humbly request Your Excellency, in accordance with the note to art. 1020 vol. IX of the Civil Status Laws (1876 edition),[7] to allow me into Russian subjecthood, with inclusion in the merchant community of the city of Tashkent. I wish to take the sacred oath of allegiance of subjecthood in the city of Tashkent, where I intend subsequently to join the Holy Orthodox Church, and I shall reside in the city of Tashkent until I become a Russian subject.[8]

While this petition was designed to show Jumaqul’s sincere intention to apostatise, the information collected by the Charjoy City Commandant pictured him as a pariah who had reached out to the Russians for help. Born into a poor family, Jumaqul was raised by his lone and blind mother who was a beggar. Since the age of 14 he had lived among Russians and served for three years as a guard for the police of Charjoy. Jumaqul spoke very little Russian, he looked mentally impaired, and he could not explain exactly what made him embrace the Orthodox faith. The only thing he could say, the Charjoy City Commandant reported, was that his relatives preyed on him for his earnings. Following the recommendation of the Political Agent, the Charjoy City Commandant made arrangements to have Jumaqul escorted secretly to Tashkent.[9]

Meanwhile, the Political Agent wrote separately to the Governor General in order to plead on Jumaqul’s behalf. He explained that Russian and Bukharan laws on matters of apostasy were irreconcilable and that he had proceeded to inform the Qushbegi that this case was exceptional and that Russian authorities were to treat it accordingly. The Political Agent furthermore reported that, while he had turned down the request to hand over Jumaqul, at the same time he had reassured the Qushbegi that he would do his utmost to facilitate Jumaqul’s conversion away from Bukhara to avoid popular disturbance. Jumaqul was now on the run, protected by the Russians. Meanwhile, the Charjoy City Commandant was told to keep silent about the case, so as to sideline the Bukharan authorities and deflect their inquiries.[10]

This was the outcome of a complex scheme concocted by the Political Agent who had gone to extraordinary lengths to support an attempted conversion from Islam to the Orthodox Church. Was this approach reflective of a wider tendency among colonial officials in Russian Central Asia to facilitate apostasy from Islam? When the chancery of the Governor General received all the information concerning Jumaqul, now safely ensconced in Tashkent, they got cold feet and resolved to turn down the latter’s request to become a Russian subject. Clearly, colonial authorities did not want to stir up troubles with Bukharan officials who by this time were fully aware of Jumaqul’s whereabouts. As for the issue of apostasy, the Governor General made an interesting move: officially he did not consider it necessary to deal with religious questions, he said, and he left it to Jumaqul to make the final decision whether to convert: all the Bukharan subject needed to do was to turn to an Orthodox priest.[11] The highest imperial authority in Russian Central Asia had a simple thought regarding Muslims’ conversion to Orthodoxy: it was a private business and the empire would not interfere.

In the vignette of Jumaqul we have observed a somewhat proactive approach on the part of the colonial authorities towards the conversion of Muslims. Indeed, the colony adopted measures to favour apostasy among Muslims. As early as 1865, the imperial rules (Pol’noe Sobranie Zakonov) included a provision conferring on Muslims who served in the army and were willing to convert to Christianity the same rights of renegade Jews,[12] which included the adoption of the name of their Christian godfathers.[13] Introduced in 1890, an addition to the code on the prevention of crimes (ustav o predotvrashchenii prestuplenii) obliged Muslim apostates to leave their ancestral place of dwelling and relocate inside Christian communities. Such cases of conversion from Islam to the Orthodox Church in the military proved financially advantageous: the apostates could appeal to Russian imperial authorities and request that the expenses involved in their relocation be covered by the treasury.[14] And we can observe that this course of action was taken also by Muslims serving in Russian Turkestan. In June 1903, for example, the military governor of Semireche successfully petitioned the Ministry of Internal Affairs on behalf of one Vasilii Vasil’ev Muhamedvaliev. While serving as a complement to the Siberian infantry regiment stationed in Turkestan, Muhamedvaliev had converted to the Orthodox Church and was therefore entitled to a bonus of 100 roubles.[15] The same happened two years later when a Kazakh who had recently apostatised and changed his name to Pavel Fedorovich Shcherbakov asked for money to relocate among a community of Slavic settlers in the military district of Vernyi (today Almaty). In this case too, the Ministry of Interior took all the necessary measures so that Shcherbakov could receive money sufficient to set up a new household.[16]

What is more, colonial authorities took measures to publicise cases of conversion from Orthodoxy to Islam. Published in St. Petersburg in 1904 in the literary magazine Istoricheskii Vestnik, a fictionalised memoir about the siege of Samarkand in 1868 includes a colourful passage about a Turkestani renegade. The author – a Russian lady – claims to have met in Kiakhta one Komilboy, an Uzbek who had fought against the Russian army and was eventually exiled to Siberia for the murder of a coreligionist. After serving his sentence of hard labour, Komilboy travelled to the Far East to the Zaybakalsky Krai in search of fortune. He worked in the Algach silver ores and in farms close to the river Chikoy, before finally moving to Kiakhta to find occupation as a guard at the local police department:

Twelve years ago, Komilboy converted to Orthodoxy and married a peasant woman from the village of Belliut. His new name [now] is Konstantin Bogdanov. By all accounts, he is a good old man, honest and sober, taking his duties seriously. I asked him whether he would be willing to return to Samarkand to his Uzbeks (sarty). He replied in the negative. “Now I belong to the Russian faith”, he said,” my wife is Russian. I have two children, a boy and a girl. I love my children and my wife very much. My woman is hard-working, she is kind, we live together in friendship. Why should I leave?”[17]

[1]rus-turk.livejournal.com/605630.html

[2] See also the photos taken by the famous French traveller Paul Nadar, L’odyssée de Paul Nadar au Turkestan 1890. Photographies de Paul Nadar, introduction, choix des photographies et des textes cités par Anne-Marie Bernard et Claude Malécot (Paris, 2007).

[3] O’MA, f. I-1, op. 4, d. 566, l. 11.

[4] The Political Agent was legally an in-residence diplomat. His informal powers grew considerably in the 1890s. T.G. Tukhtametov, Russko-Bukharskie otnosheniia v kontse XIX-nach. XX vv. (Tashkent, 1966).

[5] O’MA, f. I-1, op. 4, d. 566, l. 11.

[6] O’MA, f. I-1, op. 4, d. 566, ll. 8-8ob.

[7]Svod zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii. Tom deviatyi. Zakony o sostoianiiakh (St. Petersrbug, 1857), 203.

[8] O’MA, f. I-1, op. 4, d. 566, ll. 1-1ob.

[9] O’MA, f. I-1, op. 4, d. 566, ll. 10-10ob.

[10] O’MA, f. I-1, op. 4, d. 566, l. 7.

[11] O’MA, f. I-1, op. 4, d. 566, ll. 11-11ob.

[12] O’MA, f. I-1, op. 3, d. 676, l. 2.

[13] O’MA, f. I-1, op. 3, d. 676, l. 2. In fact, this practice has an earlier pedigree, see Sean Pollock, ”Friend and Foe: Religious Toleration in Northner Caucasia in the Age of Catherine the Great,” Princeton Papers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 27 (2015), 25-61.

[14] O’MA, f. I-1, op. 3, d. 676, l. 4.

[15] O’MA, f. I-1, op. 3, d. 676, l. 6.

[16] O’MA, f. I-1, op. 3, d. 676, ll. 1, 3.

[17] L.Kh. Simonova, ”Rasskazy o zavoevanii Samarkanda,” Istoricheskii vestnik: istoriko-literaturnyi zhurnal, vol. 97 (1904), 858-9.