This book, which was written between 1911 and 1913, contains many short biographies translated into English of Muslim figures in the eastern Kazakh steppe. Qurban-'Ali Khalidi, the author, lived from 1846 to 1913. He was a chief judge (qazi/qadi) for local Turkic Muslims and was accomplished in Qur'an recitation and Islamic law.
Contents: Introduction (The Author and his Works; Islam in Eastern Kazakhstan and Dzungaria; Islamic Biographical Dictionaries in Imperial Russia; The Manuscript: Its Scope, Sources, and Language; Editor's Notes on the Edition); the Dictionary (English Translation and Notes; Turkic Text)
Comments: 2/9/10
The section on Islam in Eastern Kazakhstan and Dzungaria mentions that Islam there was very similar to Islam in western Kazakhastan with the exception that Khalidi does not mention the influence of the khwaja (Qoja) clans that are so prominent in western Kazakhstan as described by Privratsky (2001) and others.
With regard to the question of the "religiosity" of the Kazakhs, the following quote from page XVI is interesting:
Russian observers, and russophile Kazaks such as Chokan Valikhanov, have pinned the "blame" for this revitalization of Islamic institutions among the Kazakh nomads on outsiders. Valikhanov names "fanatical" Tatars and Central Asians as somehow insinuating an alien ideology among naive passive Kazakhs. From Islamic sources for the period there is ample evidence that the Kazakh nomads themselves were anything but passive, and in fact powered this revitalisation. Qurban-Ali frequently notes the remarkable piety of the Kazakh nomads, and even admonishes them for altering their oral histories out of a mistaken sense of Islamic piety. However, Muslim observers across the Kazakh steppe have emphasized not only the piety, but also the intense orthodoxy of the Kazakh nomads. This well-documented view contradicts the commonly encountered belief that Kazakh nomads were somehow predisposed to heterodoxy, which had to be suppressed by more "orthodox" Muslims from sedentary societies.Descriptors: 2000s, biography, book, F, historical, K, Kazakhstan, translation, Tsarist, U.
