Abstract:

My paper discusses the history of the Samarkand Kufic Quran, which claims to be the Quran of Uthman, the third Caliph. After the Russian Army conquered Turkestan and forcibly took the Quran from the Muslims of Turkestan back to the Imperial Library in Saint Petersburg, what was once exclusively a locally-recognized artifact used to legitimize a specifically-Turkestani set of Sufi practices become recognized as the authentic Quran of Uthman by Muslims all throughout the Russian Empire. Following the October Revolution, using an extensive set of Russian-language archival sources never-before used for historical research, I describe how various Muslim organizations (such as the Tatar-dominated Ufa Spiritual Assembly and the Jadids of Tashkent) varyingly competed with one another in appealing to the Bolsheviks in Saint Petersburg to secure a "return" of the Quran. Based on the varying circumstances of the Russian Civil War, the Quran was first "returned" to Ufa, and then later to Turkestan, where Soviet cadres sent down from St. Petersburg fought with local Muslim Communists as to the future role of the Quran, and whether it should be returned to a mosque for religious use or instead put into a museum as a historical artifact. Finally, once the Soviet center had firmly cemented its control over Turkestan, the Quran was indeed put into a museum as religious practice was suddenly severely curtailed. Nevertheless, the story of the Samarkand Kufic Quran did not end there, as the Quran almost simultaneously obtained an incredibly important role in Soviet diplomacy with the Muslim-majority nations of the global South, including with the Turkic Muslims of Xinjiang, who petitioned the Soviets for a facsimile copy of the Quran, which the Soviets put on display in their consulate in Tarbagatay for pilgrims to come worship. During these visits to the Soviet Consulate in Xinjiang, Soviet embassy staff delivered lectures to the local Muslims about the "falseness" of rumors circulating in Xinjiang about the oppression of Islam in the USSR.