Varieties of Islamization in Inner Asia - The case of the Baraba Tatars, 1740-1917

The Islamization of the Baraba Tatars, which began in the first half of the eighteenth century after that community had become Russian subjects, is an informative example for the social and communal complexities and ambiguiti es surrounding Islamization, both in imperial Russia and in Inner Asia as a whole. The surviving accounts of the Islamization of the Barabas have come down to us in three different groups of sources. The first are Russian acc ounts describing the formal acceptance by the Baraba Tatars of Islamic stat us; that is, a formal status by which the Russian state formally recognized the status of the Barabas as Muslims. Here Islamization involves legal sta tus. The second body of sources are the Barabas' own legends, where they cl aim their ancestors to have come to Siberia from Bukhara, and to have alway s been Muslims. Here Muslim status is seen as an immutable fact of communal affiliation. The third body of sources are the accounts of Muslim Tatar co lonists in the Baraba steppe and their descendants, who claim that over the course of the nineteenth century they (or their ancestors) Islamized the B arabas by teaching them proper and normative Islamic practices. Here Islami zation is seen as the adoption of a set of standards and behavior. All thre e aspects are crucial to understanding the interplay of Islamic status and Islamization in imperial Russia and Inner Asia as a whole.