Imperial Pedagogy and Religious Constraint: The Politics of Islamic Education in the Kazakh Steppe Under Tsarist Rule
This article examines the evolution of the Russian Empire’s educational policies toward Islamic schools in the Kazakh Steppe from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1917 Revolution. While the early imperial administration initially tolerated Islamic institutions for pragmatic governance, the latter half of the nineteenth century witnessed a decisive paradigm shift toward systematic surveillance and restriction. Drawing on archival records and colonial administrative decrees, the study analyzes the implementation of the "Ilminsky system" and the compulsory introduction of the Cyrillic alphabet as tools for cultural assimilation and Russification. The research highlights the dual nature of colonial education: while the Tsarist authorities sought to produce loyal bureaucratic functionaries through Russo-Kazakh schools, the local Muslim populace and national figures like Ibrahim Altynsarin navigated these constraints to preserve religious and cultural identity. By deconstructing the mechanisms of state control over maktabs1 and madrasas,2 the article concludes that the imperial educational policy was not merely a pedagogical project but a critical component of a broader strategy to undermine the spiritual autonomy of the Kazakh subjects and ensure the stability of the imperial borderlands.