History, Archeology and Ethnography of the Caucasus

Introduction

This article continues our comparative examination of Muslim institutions in the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly (OMSA) and the North Caucasus. In a previous study, we analyzed early twentieth-century projects for religious autonomy, most of which remained unrealized because they required approval either from central authorities or through a unified religious administration for the North Caucasus – processes that were inseparable from broader all-Russian developments [1].

Applying an institutional approach, the present study focuses on another widespread phenomenon among Russian Muslims – charitable societies. Research conducted during the compilation of regional dictionaries, and subsequently the eight-volume encyclopedic dictionary Islam in the Russian Federation, revealed that Muslim charitable societies under OMSA authority operated not only in the Volga-Ural region and the capitals but also in northwest Russia, central Russia, the southern regions (Rostov-on-Don and Astrakhan province), Siberia, and the Far East. Similarly, while preparing the dictionary Islam in Crimea, D.I. Abibullayeva – at our request – documented six Crimean Muslim charitable societies, the earliest of which was established in 1897 [2, pp. 18–21].

The North Caucasus emerged as the next region for examining this phenomenon. On 11 December 2023, during the XX Faizkhanov Readings, charitable societies of Russian Muslims became a central topic in the section devoted to the preparation of the encyclopedic dictionary Islam in the Russian Federation. In that forum, D.N. Denisov presented a report titled “Charitable Organizations of the Muslim Peoples of the North Caucasus in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries,” which drew on a comparative analysis of the activities of Muslim Tatar societies under the OMSA and their counterparts in the North Caucasus. Earlier contributions include H.M. Donogo’s study of the Society for the Education of Native Muslims of the Dagestan Region in Temir-Khan-Shura (present-day Buinaksk, Republic of Dagestan) [3, pp. 427–430] and A.K. Buzarov’s examination of the Circassian Charitable Society in Ekaterinodar (present-day Krasnodar) [4, pp. 31–41].

The role of charitable societies in the personnel training

For the forthcoming first volume of the encyclopedic dictionary Islam in the Russian Federation (2026, in press), entries were prepared on Muslim charitable societies across the entire territory of the present-day Russian Federation, organized according to the regions listed in Article 65 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. An entry was added to the section “Charitable societies of the Republic of Dagestan”: “Society of education of the Kumyk people of the Khasavyurt district” [5, p. 265]; the section “Charitable societies of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic” contains the entry “Сharitable Society for the dissemination of education among Kabardians and highlanders of the Nalchik district” [6, pp. 266–267]; in the section “Charitable societies of the North Ossetian Republic” the following entries: “Muruvat Vladikavkaz Charitable Muslim Society” [7, p. 271], “Society for the Dissemination of education and technical information among the Highlanders of the Tersk region” (mixed religious composition) [8, pp. 271–273], “Khimmat” society for the benefit of poor Persian subjects in Vladikavkaz and the Tersk region” [9, p. 273], “Society for the Education of the Ingush people of the Nazran district of the Tersk region” [10, p. 273-274]; in the section “Charitable societies of the Chechen Republic” – an entry “Society for the dissemination of education among Chechens” [11, p. 275–276]; in the section “Charitable societies Stavropol Territory” – an entry “Stavropol Muslim Charitable Society” [12, p. 279].

These eight more entries have been added to one related to the Muslim charitable society in the North Caucasus Federal District (Krasnodar krai is a part of the Southern Federal District) in the consolidated version of the dictionary Islam in the Russian Federation, which reveal the activities of societies in 5 subjects of that district. The present article is therefore synthesizing in nature. It draws on materials from the regional volumes of the series Islam in the Russian Federation (2006–2024) and the summary entry on Muslim charitable societies in the first volume of the consolidated dictionary Islam in the Russian Federation (in press), supplemented by the entries on specific societies that follow it.

By 1914, 87 Muslim charitable societies were active across the Russian Empire, with additional ones established in subsequent years. These organizations varied considerably in geography, objectives, composition, and duration of operation; a comprehensive analysis of their activities would necessitate a dedicated monograph. In the course of preparing the regional volumes and the consolidated edition of the encyclopedic dictionary Islam in the Russian Federation, we compiled entries on the great majority of these societies, including nearly all stable urban ones.

The present article concentrates on two closely related aspects: (1) the educational programs designed to prepare students for entry into Russian secondary and higher educational institutions, and (2) the scholarship systems that supported such students. As an assessment of outcomes, we provide concise biographical information on individuals who benefited from this training. Accordingly, the study does not address the broader development of education under Muslim charitable societies but focuses specifically on preparation for state educational institutions and the subsequent achievements of these activities.

A key consideration is the focus on male students. In the Russian Empire, secondary and higher education remained segregated by gender until women gained the right to obtain state-recognized university diplomas in selected faculties from the 1915–1916 academic year and across all faculties from 1916–1917.

Charitable societies are generally regarded as secular institutions with no direct link to religious tradition. Nevertheless, as early as 1876, Shihab ad-Din Marjani, imam-khatib of the First Cathedral Mosque in Kazan, secured the adoption of the “Draft Rules for the Administration of the Madrasa Property of the Parish of the First Cathedral Mosque in Kazan” [13, pp. 27–32]. By doing so, Shihab Marjani directed a collegial body toward addressing Muslim educational needs.

From the perspective of Islamic doctrine, zakat – one of the five pillars of Islam – has traditionally been allocated to assist the poor. However, imperial Russian legislation did not recognize waqf endowments in the OMSA district [14, pp. 129–130]. Consequently, Muslim capital in this district was concentrated primarily in urban centers, and the financial stability of the community depended heavily on the prosperity of wealthy merchants (bays), who served as trustees (mutawalli) of the parishes [14, pp. 139–140].

Muslim charitable societies, which began to emerge in the late 19th century, were predominantly an urban phenomenon, as they aimed to support members of the ummah living in cities. Their objectives were defined primarily in their charters, which therefore serve as the main sources for this analysis. Initially, the emphasis was on financial support. This is evident in the 1897 charter of the Kasimov Muslim Charitable Society, which declared: “The society aims to provide funds for the improvement of the material and moral condition of poor Muslims of the city of Kasimov, without distinction of sex or age” (§ 1). Paragraph 2 detailed a broad range of activities: supplying clothing, food, and shelter; granting cash benefits in extreme cases; assisting the needy in finding employment or service; purchasing materials and tools for their work and facilitating the profitable sale of their products; providing medical care and hospital placement for poor patients at the society’s expense; aiding in the burial of the deceased; placing the elderly and infirm in almshouses and minors in orphanages, shelters, craft schools, or educational institutions; and providing the means for the poor to return to their homeland. The sole provision touching on enlightenment, rather than formal education, was point (f): “the dissemination of moral books among the people” [15, pp. 3–4]. The 1898 charter of the Troitsk Muslim Charitable Society reproduces these provisions almost verbatim [16, p. 1].

The 1896 charter of the Astrakhan Trusteeship for Poor Tatars similarly mentions education only in passing: paragraph (e) authorizes the “organization of … craft schools, soup kitchens for the poor, etc., charitable institutions,” while paragraph (f) provides for “assistance to the education of poor children, as well as improvement of the internal and external conditions of students in Tatar schools at mosques” [17, pp. 3–4]. Thus, in their original version, the charters of Muslim charitable societies focused almost exclusively on aiding the poor, thereby effectively narrowing the functional scope of zakat.

However, the possibility of directing zakat funds toward education had already been raised in the early 1890s. In 1892, while OMSA mufti Muhammadiyar Sultanov was absent, a meeting on school reform and education was held there. On its sidelines, the Orenburg bai Gani Khusainov managed to obtain a fatwa from the OMSA qadi Gabdurrashid Ibragimov permitting the allocation of zakat funds for educational purposes [18, p. 133].

The shift that made education a central statutory objective of Muslim charitable societies occurred during the Revolution of 1905–1907. The overall designation of some societies could remain unchanged. The 1908 charter of the Kasimov Muslim Society, for example, declares: “The Society aims to improve and develop the cultural, legal, and economic life of Muslims and to disseminate modern education in the city of Kasimov and its district” (§ 1).

Section a) of § 2 then specifies:

“In pursuit of this aim, the Society:

a) promotes the improvement of existing schools, maktabs, and madrasahs in compliance with established laws; opens new general and vocational schools, training workshops, model farms, and enterprises for field, horticulture, and dairy farming;

b) publishes popular brochures and books of educational, pedagogical, agricultural, and legal content in the Tatar language, in compliance with existing general laws …” [19, pp. 3–4].

Thus, these societies increasingly aimed to raise educational levels and enhance opportunities for vertical social mobility. A common strategy in both the Volga-Ural region and the North Caucasus was the establishment of private Muslim schools specifically designed to prepare students for admission to state secondary educational institutions, which in turn served as gateways to university education and further social mobility. Prominent examples include the schools operated by the Society for the Dissemination of Education and Technical Knowledge among the Highlanders of the Tersk Region (Vladikavkaz, founded 1882), the Society for the Education of Native Muslims of the Dagestan Region (Temir-Khan-Shura, present-day Buinaksk, founded 1906), and the Orenburg Society for the Care of Muslim Students (founded 1912).

The Society for the Dissemination of Education and Technical Knowledge among the Highlanders of the Tersk Region had a mixed religious and ethnic composition. Although Ossetians held prominent positions in the Mountain Society, including Muslims of the same nationality (notably T.K. Dudarov, I.T. Kusov, E.B. Kusov, I.G. Tkhostov, D.T. Shanaev, and I.D. Shanaev), the leadership also included Dargins (M.M. Dalgat), Lezgins (Yu.D. Dagirov), Chechens (M.O. Omarov, A.M. Chermoev), Balkars (A.A. Urusbiev), and Kumyks (M. Osmanov, M.M. Sheikh-Ali). Through its activities, it had a substantial influence on the educational and cultural development of highlanders of diverse nationalities across the North Caucasus. As part of the empire-wide celebration of the centenary of Alexander Pushkin’s birth in 1899, the society took the lead in fundraising and, between 1902 and 1903, constructed a two-storey brick dormitory on Krepostnaya St. (present-day Tsereteli St.) in Vladikavkaz at a cost of 25,000 rubles. Known as the Gorsko-Pushkin dormitory, it housed sixty boys – Ossetians, Ingush, Chechens, Kabardians, Balkars, and Kumyks – who were attending secondary and vocational institutions in the city [8, p. 271].

The Society for the Education of Native Muslims of the Dagestan Region in Temir-Khan-Shura purchased a house in 1906 for 3,500 rubles and established a school for preparing Muslims for admission to secondary institutions with a dormitory for twelve scholarship students: “one representative from each ethnic group inhabiting the Dagestan Region.” Enrollment at the preparatory school rose from 13 in 1907 to 37 in 1909, 29 in 1910, 31 in 1911, and 54 in 1912. Subsequently, it was reorganized as a Russian-Muslim school with the status of a single-class elementary school under the Ministry of Public Education. Instruction in Russian covered the Russian language, arithmetic, geometry, Russian history, natural history, geography, and law of the Russian Empire. Kumyk (“local Tatar”), Arabic, and Islamic studies were taught in Kumyk. By 1913 the school had 91 pupils (62 boys and 29 girls). One of the teachers was the socio-political and religious figure M.-K.D. Dibirov, author of the first primers and textbooks in the Kumyk language [4, pp. 292–293].

According to its charter, the Orenburg Society for the Care of Muslim Students established a private preparatory school whose purpose was “to prepare Muslim children for admission to state educational institutions. The curriculum included Islamic studies, Russian language, arithmetic, the native (Tatar) language, and drawing” [20, pp. 3–4]. The society received donations from across the Russian Empire – Yekaterinburg, Omsk, Verny (present-day Almaty), Kokand, and elsewhere – indicating that it quickly transcended its original regional scope and assumed an all-Russian character [21, p. 280].

The second most important component for enabling access to state secondary and higher education was the provision of scholarships by charitable societies.

The Society for the Dissemination of Education and Technical Knowledge among the Highlanders of the Tersk Region provided benefits to needy highlander students attending state institutions, including the Vladikavkaz and Pyatigorsk gymnasiums, Vladikavkaz Vocational School, Tiflis Medical School, Moscow Higher Technical College, Tomsk Technological Institute, Don Polytechnic Institute, Tiflis Teachers’ Institute, the commercial institutes of Moscow and Kiev, St. Petersburg Forestry Institute, Kharkov Veterinary Institute, and the universities of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Kharkov, Derpt (Tartu), and Tomsk. The number of beneficiaries rose from 16 in 1887 to 31 in 1896, 33 in 1905, 114 in 1906, 72 in 1907, 115 in 1908, 36 in 1909, 97 in 1910, and 67 in 1911. In total, between 1882 and 1913 the society expended 35,892 rubles on such scholarships [8, p. 272]. Note that these figures refer exclusively to students in state secondary and higher educational institutions.

The Charitable Society for the Dissemination of Education among Kabardians and Highlanders of Nalchik District, founded in 1907, awarded scholarships to needy Kabardians and Balkars attending state secondary and higher educational institutions, including Nalchik Real School, Mozdok City School, Chuguev Military School, St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, St. Petersburg University, etc. [6, p. 267]. These figures, too, refer exclusively to state institutions, including military ones.

The Society for the Education of Native Muslims of the Dagestan Region similarly provided scholarships to poor Dagestani students enrolled in state educational institutions [4, p. 293].

The Orenburg Society for the Care of Muslim Students granted scholarships, allowances, or interest-free loans to Muslims studying at primary, secondary, and higher state institutions across the Russian Empire (nearly all located in the territory of present-day Russia) [21, p. 280]. Additional income was directed to the Board of Trustees of the Akhmad-bai Khusainov’s Waqf (brother of Gani-bay) in Orenburg, which funded 26 scholarships for Muslim youths pursuing secondary and higher education in Russia. Two scholarships were allocated for Hajj, but in fact were intended to support advanced study at Muslim institutions in the Middle East (see below) until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 [22, pp. 290–291].

Beneficiaries of charitable society scholarships

In this section, we will try to summarize the results of Muslim charitable societies in the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly jurisdiction (primarily Orenburg province) and the North Caucasus on national education and the social mobility of Russian Muslims. Their success is measured by the subsequent career growth and societal contributions of scholarship recipients. Rather than organizing the analysis by ethnicity or region, we group individuals according to professional field: lawyers and public figures; educators and cultural figures; and medical professionals.

Regarding lawyers and public figures, we see a fairly large degree of difference between the Volga-Ural region and the Caucasus. Several factors account for this disparity: the North Caucasus lacked zemstvos; the absence of Tatar slobodas in cities with their well-developed economic and socio-political infrastructure of the modern period. For the prospects of legal careers of Russian Muslims in the region in the early twentieth century, a critical obstacle was “the underdeveloped judicial system in the Caucasian viceroyalty, which encompassed most of the North Caucasus” [23, p. 30]. Moreover, under the electoral law of 3 June 1907, the region’s population, except Zakataly district, was excluded from elections to the State Duma of the Russian Empire.

In 1917, two fellows of the Orenburg Society for the Care of Muslim Students who had completed legal education were elected to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly: Shakir Zarifovich Mukhamediarov and Muhammad-Nazip (Najib) Latypovich Halfin [21, p. 280]. M.-N. Halfin served in 1917–1918 as a member of the executive committee of the Kazan Provincial Milli Shuro and was elected deputy of the Constituent Assembly from Kazan province on the Milli Shuro list. Sh. Mukhamediarov was elected from Samara province on a comparable list [24, pp. 283–285, 321].

Gabdul-Ahad Rizaetdinovich Fakhretdinov (1892–1938), son of the prominent alim, qadi of the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly (1890–1906), and later mufti and chairman of the Central Muslim Spiritual Administration (1921–1936), Riza ad-Din ibn Fakhr al-Din, received a scholarship from the Board of Trustees of the A. G. Khusainov’s Waqf while attending the Orenburg Real School.1 Gabdul-Ahad Fakhretdinov was elected to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly from Orenburg province on the list of the Bashkir Shuro (autonomists). Muhammad-Najib Kurbangaleev, a law student at Kharkov University, received a scholarship from the Troisk Society of Clerks. He served on the bureau of the Muslim Faction of the State Duma (1915–1917) and in 1918 became chairman of the Magarif Nazaraty (Department of Education) of the Milli Idare [25, p. 360].

Muhamet-Kamil Gilmanovich Karimov (1891–1949), supported by the Board of Trustees of the A. G. Khusainov’s Waqf, graduated from the Faculty of Law at Kazan University in 1913.2 He subsequently worked as an assistant attorney in Orenburg, was elected to the Orenburg City Duma in 1916 and to the Millet Mejlis in 1917, and headed the Orenburg Provincial Milli Shuro in autumn 1917.

Galimzyan Sharafutdinovich Sharaf (1896–1950), another beneficiary of the Khusainov’s Waqf board, completed the Kazan Real School in 1915.3 In 1917–1918 he served as a deputy of the Millet Mejlis and chairman of the Board for the Implementation of the Ural-Volga State (KUVSH). During the Soviet period he worked as a linguist and teacher.

Vasilii-Gabdulla Ibragimovich Dzhabagiev (1882–1961), a scholarship holder of the Society for the Dissemination of Education and Technical Knowledge among the Highlanders of the Tersk Region, served as Chairman of the Ingush Executive Committee in 1917 and as Minister of Finance of the Mountainous Republic from 1917 to 1920. After graduating from the Vladikavkaz Real School, he studied at the Faculty of Agriculture of the Don Polytechnic Institute and later continued his education at the University of Jena (Germany), where he specialized in natural sciences, agriculture, and agricultural economics [25, pp. 113–114].

Beneficiaries of the Society for the Dissemination of Education and Technical Knowledge among the Highlanders of the Tersk Region included several prominent cultural and educational figures: the founder of modern Ingush poetry, T.D. Bekov (1873–1938); the educator and publisher A. A. Kanukov (1866–1918), who edited the first Ossetian journal Zond (“Knowledge”) and authored the first Ossetian primer; the philologist, literary critic, and folklorist G. A. Dzagurov (1888–1979), who served as the first chairman of the Ossetian Historical-Philological Society, headed the archival service of North Ossetia, and directed the regional public education department; and the educator B. A. Alborov (1886–1968), who led public education in Vladikavkaz district, organized and directed the North Ossetian Research Institute of Humanitarian and Social Studies, and later became rector of the Gorsky Pedagogical Institute [8, p. 272].

Beneficiaries of the Charitable Society for the Dissemination of Education among Kabardians and Highlanders of Nalchik District included the founder of Kabardian drama, teacher, and linguist T. A. Sheretlokov (1884–1937), as well as the teacher and public figure B. L. Khuranov (1890–1928), who served as the first head of the public education department of the Kabardian and later Kabardino-Balkarian regional executive committees, developed the Latin-based Kabardian alphabet, and authored textbooks and a dictionary [6, pp. 266–267].

The range of Tatar and Bashkir scholarship holders was particularly broad, so here are the most illustrative examples that show concern of the Tatars of the Southern Urals for the training of the next generations of teachers. The Troitsk Muslim Charitable Society covered the tuition of M.-G. N. Mukhamedov (1886–1950) at the Ufa Teachers’ Institute; in 1917–1918 he led the Ufa provincial branch of the Magarif Nazaraty (Department of Education) of the Milli Idare, and from 1918 to 1921 directed the three-year Ufa Muslim pedagogical courses before their reorganization into the Bashkir Pedagogical College [26, p. 4]. H. H. Zaini (1890–1968), supported by the Troitsk Society of Clerks while studying at the Istanbul Pedagogical Institute, later served as director of the Troitsk Tatar Pedagogical College (1922–1925) and dean of the Geography Faculty of the Ufa Pedagogical Institute (1934–1937) [27, p. 360]. M. Z. Safin (1893–1937), funded by the A. G. Khusainov’s Waqf, graduated from the Kazan Teachers’ Institute and subsequently headed the Muslim section of the Samara Provincial Department of Public Education (1918–1919), the preschool education department of the Bashkir People’s Commissariat of Education (1920–1922), the publishing department of Bashkniga (1922–1924), and, in 1937, the biology and chemistry faculty of the Kazan Pedagogical Institute [28, p. 135].

In the context of Russia’s underdeveloped healthcare system, aggravated by the First World War, the Civil War, famine, and epidemics, the training of medical personnel was critically important. Several scholarship recipients became key organizers of healthcare in national regions and republics. Fatykh Garifovich Mukhamedyarov (1884–1950), supported by the Board of Trustees of the A. G. Khusainov’s Waqf, graduated from the Medical Faculty of Kazan University in 1917. He was among the founders of the Muslim Socialist Committee in Kazan and served as People’s Commissar of Health of the Tatar ASSR from 1922 to 1927 [29, p. 306]. I. M. Abaev (1888–1933), a beneficiary of the Charitable Society for the Dissemination of Education among Kabardians and Highlanders of Nalchik District, headed the medical-sanitary department of the Nalchik District Revolutionary Committee and established the Soviet sanitary-epidemiological service in Kabardino-Balkaria [6, p. 267]. M. I. Tulatov (1869–1934), supported by the Society for the Dissemination of Education and Technical Knowledge among the Highlanders of the Tersk Region, became the first head of the Health Department of the Ingush Autonomous Oblast [8, p. 272].

A distinct group of beneficiaries from the A. G. Khusainov’s Waqf pursued religious education and/or became prominent religious figures. The best-known example is Yakub Suleimanovich Shinkevich (1884–1966), who received a scholarship to the Faculty of Oriental Languages at St. Petersburg University but interrupted his studies in 1914 to serve at the front; he later became the first mufti of Poland (1925–1944) [30, pp. 181–202]. Two others received scholarships ostensibly for the Hajj but in reality – for studying at Middle Eastern madrasahs: the historian and publicist Gabdulbari Abdullovich Battal (1880/82–1969), who attended the Ghumdaniya madrasah in Medina (then Ottoman Empire) and al-Azhar University in Cairo [31, p. 49]; and the teacher-methodologist Zakir Nasyrovich Ayukhanov (1889–1961), one of the developers of the Cyrillic-based Bashkir alphabet, who studied at al-Azhar University from 1911 to 1914 [32, pp. 16–17].

Conclusion

The authors examined Muslim charitable societies of the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly (OMSA) district and in the North Caucasus. Earlier contributions to the encyclopedic series Islam in the Russian Federation expanded the documented North Caucasian societies from two to ten, enabling systematic comparison with their counterparts in the OMSA district.

This study has shown, through concrete examples, that charitable societies in both regions pursued common educational objectives. They established preparatory schools and provided scholarships for study at state-funded secondary and higher educational institutions across the Russian Empire. Graduates of these schools and beneficiaries of the charitable societies’ scholarship programs – among the Muslim populations of the North Caucasus, Tatars, and Bashkirs – included public and political figures, educators, writers, scholars, and medical professionals. These individuals formed the core of the regional national elites in governance, culture, education, and science during the Revolution of 1917 and the early Soviet period.