ამიერკავკასიის მუფთი ჰუსეინ ეფენდი გაიბოვი

Abstract

Russia's expansion into the "Muslim world" lasted from the second part of the 16th century to the end of the 19th century. As a result of this expansion, 18 million Muslims lived in the empire and mainly inhabited the areas around the Volga, the Crimea, Central Asia and the Caucasus. The significant growth of the Muslim population forced the authorities to take measures for their integration into the structure of the Russian Orthodox state. One of the important conditions for the implementation of this objective in Muslim-populated regions was the establishment of relations, determined by the government, with numerous clerical ranks. These relations played a significant role in the religious and civil life of Muslims. Besides performing liturgical duties, the Muslim clergy supervised the education of Muslims and handled their matrimonial, family and inheritance matters. Muslim religious institutions were owners of large waqf property. Accordingly, the authorities considered the Muslim clerical rank an instrument of Russian policy in Muslim regions. The issue of the organization of the Transcaucasian Muslim clergy was discussed for more than 50 years and, finally, in 1872, the Statute on the Administration of the Transcaucasian Sunni Muslim Clergy and Statute on the Administration of the Transcaucasian Shi‘a Muslim Clergy were officially approved. The jurisdiction of Transcaucasian Shiite and Sunni Religious Boards (centred in Tbilisi) extended to the Muslims of Baku, Elisavetpol, Tbilisi (Tiflis) and Yerevan (Erivan). According to the data of the first general census of the Russian Empire, 1,885,722 Muslims were subject to the religious authorities in 1897, including 673,243 in Baku, 552,822 in Elisavetpol, 117,620 in Kutaisi, 189,028 in Tbilisi, and 350,009 in Yerevan. In 1900, under the ownership of the Transcaucasian Sunni clerical government, there were 649 mosque communities with 807 mosques and prayer houses, as well as 654 mullahs. From the confessional point of view, the Muslim population of the region was divided into two main categories: the Shiite Imams of the Ja‘fari Madhhab obeyed the Transcaucasian Shi‘a Religious Board. On the other hand, the Sunnis of the Hanafi and Shafi‘i (the Shafiites traditionally prevailed in Dagestan and Chechnya) schools followed the clerical rule of the Transcaucasian Sunni Religious Board. The formation of one type of clerical government contributed to the levelling of the differences between the Transcaucasian Shiite-Imamites and Sunnis. As claimed by the Viceroy of the Caucasus, Mikheil Nikolaevich Vorontsov, the purpose of establishing new clerical governments was to control the activities of persons "hostile to the empire on religious grounds", and to resist the strengthening of corporate anti-Russian spirit in the influential clergy. Another purpose was to prevent representatives of the hostile Muslim spiritual elite from the Ottoman Empire and Persia from entering the Caucasus. The clerical governments were headed by the Sunni mufti and a Shiite sheikh-ul- Islam approved by the Russian emperor on the nomination of the Viceroy of the Caucasus. One of the most progressive figures in the Muslim clergy of the Caucasian provinces of the empire was the Mufti of Transcaucasia, Hussein Effendi Gaibov, Chairman of the Transcaucasian Sunni Muslim Religious Board. This paper discusses and analyzes the activities of Hussein Effendi Gaibov as a Sunni Muslims religious leader of Transcaucasia and a statesman of the Russian Empire.