Shaping (Il)legal Mobilities: Regulations, Pilgrim Passports, and the Hajj in Tsarist Central Asia During the Turn of the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

This paper examines the role of documentary mechanisms in the formation and reconfiguration of different pilgrimage routes in Central Asia during Russian rule. It focuses on how mass mobility in the form of pilgrimage was at once facilitated by the introduction of modern forms of transportation and channeled by regimes of regulation and paperwork. The article aims to reconstruct the discourses that took place among officials of the Russian colonial administration and their understanding of Muslim mobility. More importantly, the study examines how the indigenous population navigated and resisted these regulations en route to Mecca. By examining colonial and diplomatic correspondence, along with travel documents in Turki, Persian, and Russian languages, the paper sheds light on the classification of itineraries as legal and illegal through pilgrim passports and documentary regulations.