Shi‘i Worlds Interrupted

Abstract

Russia’s early nineteenth-century conquest of the South Caucasus imposed new borders that, among other effects, disrupted regional Shi‘i Muslim religious networks. Drawing on documents from the Qajar imperial archives, the chapter reveals how tsarist expansion created new issues for the three empires that met in the region—the Russians, Ottomans, and Qajars—and their regulation of religious institutions and practices. The focus here is on revenue-generating endowments (waqfs) in Yerevan that had long helped sustain the holiest Shi‘i shrines in Ottoman-ruled Karbala and Najaf, and on Shi‘i pilgrimage to these holy sites. This focus on religious networks and practices illuminates some of the consequences of the Russian conquest for Shi‘is living in the South Caucasus, and intersections between religion and imperial diplomacy.