All-Russian Muslim Congress (1917)

Organised Muslim politics in Russia began with the 1905 revolution. That August the first Muslim congress in Nizhny Novgorod founded Ittifaq al-Muslimin (Union of the Muslims of Russia), a party run mainly by Tatars and aligned with the Constitutional Democrats. Its leaders entered the State Duma in April 1906 and formed a Muslim faction in all four Dumas, and both party and faction were strongly influenced by the Jadidism of the Volga-Ural region. After the February Revolution of 1917, when the Russian Provisional Government declared all citizens equal, this congress was called as a general assembly of all Turks and Muslims of Russia. It met in a building that the Azerbaijani philanthropist Shamsi Asadullayev had given to the Muslims of Moscow. Of more than 900 delegates, chosen by political committees, charities, cultural institutions, cooperatives, the Muslim Military Committee, student unions and others, 300 were clergy and 112 were women. Ahmed Tsalikov, Ayaz Ishaki, Zaki Validi, Mammad Amin Rasulzade and Musa Bigiev were among them, and according to the Russian-language source Cafer Seydahmet also took part. Every party and left-wing faction except the Bolsheviks, including the Kadets, SRs and Mensheviks, was represented, and the congress worked in nine sections: state structure, labour, agriculture, women, Constituent Assembly elections, military affairs, religion, education and local government.

The main dispute was the form of the Russian state. The Volga-Ural Muslims wanted a single religious autonomy and a common representative body for Russia’s Muslims together with national-cultural autonomy; the leaders of the North Caucasian mountaineers stressed territorial autonomy; the Azerbaijanis sought to turn Russia into a federal republic. Rasulzade’s federal scheme carried by 446 votes to 271, and the resolution gave nationalities without a definite territory national-cultural self-determination and called for a central Muslim institution with legislative powers over religious and cultural affairs. On labour the left-wing demands were adopted, including the eight-hour day, 42 consecutive hours of weekly rest and a ban on child labour, while the agrarian question was left to the Constituent Assembly. By majority vote the congress banned polygamy, bride price and the marriage of young girls and recognised women’s right to vote, to stand for election and to dress freely; a protest petition with 226 signatures was handed to the presidium. The military section decided to form Muslim units serving in their home regions. For the first time a mufti, Alimjan Barudi, was elected rather than appointed by the Tsar, and a woman, Mukhlisa Bubi, was elected one of the six qadis. The All-Russian Muslim Council founded on 11 May had thirty members; the English-language source names Ishaki as its president, the Russian-language source Tsalikov as chairman of its twelve-member executive committee. The sources also differ on its end: March 1918 in English, 23 May 1918 in Russian.