This extremely timely book deals with the development of Bulghar regional identity among Tatars and Bashkirs, i.e. Volga-Ural Muslims.
Based on locally-produced Islamic manuscrips, the book examines how these Muslims manipulated local legends, conversion narratives, and sacred geography to create a body of sacred historiography that expressed a meaningful regional identity, and one which responds to the changing relationship between these Muslims and the Russian state over the nineteenth century.
The book also traces the debate between traditionalist supporters and reformist detractors...

Russia's Muslim religious institutions on the steppe frontier, during the imperial period, are examined in detail in this book. This study is based on a Turkic manuscript history entitled the Tavarikh-i Alti Ata, compiled in 1910.
It examines the mosques, madrasas, imams, mu'adhdhins, and Sufis of a single district and in adjoining regions of the Kazakh steppe, areas that were inhabited by several Muslim communities, including Tatar peasants and merchants, Bashkir and Kazakh nomads, and Muslim Cossacks.
The study compares the information from the manuscript with published sources on...

This biographical dictionary, based on a Turkic manuscript compiled in 1912, is essential for all those interested in the Islamic history of Central Asia under Russian and Chinese rule. Covering the period from 1770 - 1912, it brings to life the muslim communities of Sufis and scholars of the eastern Kazakh steppe. Its extensive biographical information provides fresh insights into the intellectual, political, and religious life of a region for which indigenous Islamic sources are virtually unknown.
With a historical and textological introduction, full English translation, extensive notes,...

In Bukhara and the Muslims of Russia Allen Frank examines the relationship of Tatars and Bashkirs with the city of Bukhara during the Russian Imperial era. For Muslims in Russia Bukhara's prestige was manifested in genealogies, fashion, and in the elevated legal status of Bukharan communities in Russia. The historical relationship of Russia's Muslim communities with Bukhara was founded above all on Bukhara's reputation as a holy city of Islam, an abode of great Sufis, and a center of Islamic scholarship. The emergence of Islamic reformism critiquing Bukhara's sacred status, led by...

A team of international scholars examine the rise, fall, and legacy of the Mongol world empire.