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The Tale of Joseph and Zulaykha on the Volga Frontier: The Struggle for Gender, Religious, and National Identity in Imperial and Postrevolutionary Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Agnès Kefeli
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Abstract

The ancient tale of Joseph, son of Jacob, and Zulaykha was a "best seller" on the Silk Road from Russia to China. Before the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, the Tatars, a Turkic-speaking people living in the middle Volga, used this tale to propagate Islam among the animistic and Eastern Orthodox Finno-Ugric and Turkic peoples. Tatars drew upon this famous tale to address the internal communal fractures caused by Russian colonization, which opened the doors to Eastern Christianity, a far stronger competitor than the local indigenous religions. While scholars have shown interest in the tale's literary value and linguistic history, there has been no effort to investigate its readership. Yet the story of Joseph and Zulaykha as presented in popular poems and religious books empowered both men and women on the Volga frontier to refashion their religious and national identities. Today proponents of national revival call for the reappropriation of such tales to restore boundaries between Tatars and Russians.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 70 , Issue 2 , Summer 2011 , pp. 373 - 398
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Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2011

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References

The research for this article was supported by two seed grants from the Center of Religion and Conflict and the Institute for Humanities Research at Arizona State Universit)', a grant from the International Research and Exchanges Board with funds provided by the Department of State, and two writing fellowships from the American Association of University Women and the Kluge Center of the Library of Congress. I am very grateful to the anonymous readers at Slavic Review and to Kathryn Babayan, Eugene Clay, Allen Frank, Shoshana Keller, Danielle Ross, Uli Schamiloglu, and Fanzilia Zavgarova for their helpful comments. The people of Chura and Elyshevo (in particular Gölsinä Shärifullina) generously shared with me their memories of the past and their hopes for a better understanding of their history. This article is a tribute to them.

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25. Werth, At the Margins of Orthodoxy; Robert Geraci, Window on the East: National andImperial Identities in Late Tsarist Russia (Ithaca, 2001); Crews, Robert, For Prophet and Tsar:Islam and Empire in Russia and Central Asia (Cambridge, Mass., 2006)Google Scholar.

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27. Medieval texts preserve the memory of past readings; they do not live a life of their own, separate from their readers who continuously draw on their symbolic resources. Here I draw my approach from Mikhail Bakhtin and other works dealing with śćriptural intertextuality. See Bakhtin, Mikhail, “Diśćourse in the Novel,” The Dialogic Imagination:FourEssays (Austin, 1981)Google Scholar; Colby, Frederick S., Narrating Muhammad's Night Journey: Tracingthe Development of the Ibn ‘Abbās Aśćension Diśćourse (Albany, 2008), 1–12 Google Scholar; Kathryn Babayan who used a Bakhtinian approach in her study of Safavid religiosity and conception of history in Mystics, Monarchs, and Messialis: Cultural Landśćapes of Early Modern Iran (Cambridge, Mass., 2002), xv-xliv; Reeves, John C., ed., Bible and Qur'an: Essays in Scriptural Intertextuality (Leiden, 2004)Google Scholar; Nazif Shahrani, M., “Local Knowledge of Islam and Social Diśćourse in Afghanistan and Turkistan in the Modern Period,” in Canfield, Robert L., ed., Turko-Persiain Historical Perspective (Cambridge, Eng., 1991), 161–88Google Scholar.

28. [‘Ali, Qul], Kitab-i qissa-yï hairat-i Yusuf an-nabï ‘alayhi as-saldm (Kazan, 1880)Google Scholar. The first printed copy of Qui ‘Ali's work, done in 1839, was based on the editing of various manuśćripts by ‘Abd ar-Rahim al-Utïz Imani (1754-1834) in 1824. Utiz Imani was a Naqshbandi Sufi poet and theologian who, according to local traditions, proselytized among baptized Krashens and whose mother's village, home to apostate families, was the target of repeated unsuccessful Eastern Orthodox missionary visits until the 1860s. See Khisamov, N. Sh., “Itogi i zadachi izucheniia ‘Kyssa-i Iusuf Kul ‘Ali,” Tatarica: Studia in,honorem Ymdr Daher, anno MCMLXX sexagenerio (Helsinki, 1987), 354, 361 Google Scholar; Ghaynetdin, Masghud, Khaqïyqat'yulïnnan. Adäbi tänqïyt´ (Kazan, 2001), 37 Google Scholar; Naqshbandi Sufis favored the use of print to spread Islamic education. Michael Laffan, “The New Turn to Mecca: Snapshots of Arabic Printing and Sufi Networks in Late 19th Centuryjava” in the special issue “Langues, religion et modernite dans l´espace musulman,” Revue des mondes musulmanset de la Mediterranee, no. 124 (November 2008): 113-31. According to Nikolai Il´minskii, the establishment of the Asian printing house in Kazan in 1801 facilitated further access to Muslim literature and thus encouraged more Islamic proselytism among the Krashens. N. I. Il´minskii, “O kolichestve pechataemykh vKazani magometanskikh knig i o shkole dlia detei kreshchenykh Tatar,” in Il´minskii, ed., Kazanskaia tsentral´naia, 113-14. Printed copies of the tales of prophets were available at major markets located in baptized villages such as Ianyli, Apazovo, and Staraia Ikshurma in Kazan province. For manuśćript variants of Qui 'Ali's work, see Fasiev, F. S., in Ghali, Qol, Qïyssai Yosif: Yosïf turïnda Qïyssa (Kazan, 1983)Google Scholar.

29. Qisas-ï Rabghuzï (Kazan, 1275/1859), 120-208; Al-Rabghuzï, Stories, 1:131-226; 2:163-279. The language and the spelling of the Kazan version of the Stories of the Prophets reflected the linguistic particularities of the Volga region.

30. Al-Rabghuzï, Stories, 2:164.

31. Ghosmanov, Mirqasïym, Qaurïy qaläm ezennän (Kazan, 1994), 55–62 Google Scholar.

32. Genesis 39:10; ‘losif Prekrasnyi,” in T. G. Ivanova, Azbelev, S. N., and Marchenko, Iu. I., eds., Belomorskie stariny i dukhovnye stikhi: Sobranie A. V. Markova (St. Petersburg, 2002), 165 Google Scholar; Sviashchennaia istoriia ol sotvoreniia mira do konchiny losifa, po knige bytiia idozhennaiana tatarskom iazyke (Kazan, 1863), 96-137; Qur'an 12:24.

33. Al-RabghuzT, Stories, 2:205-6.

34. Hadidi quoted by al-RabghuzI, Stories, 2:206; Hoffman-Ladd, Valerie, “Mysticism and Sexuality in Sufi Thought and Life,” Mystics Quarterly 18 (1992): 86–87 Google Scholar.

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36. Al-Rabghuzl, Stories, 2:186, 206-7. Such a conversion, however, did not occur in the Qur'anic narrative, although Potiphar's wife did tell the truth to exonerate Joseph. Qur'an 12:50.

37. See Hamza, Seyyad, Yusufve Zeliha (Istanbul, 1946)Google Scholar; Djami, , Youssouf et Zulaykha, trans, from Persian by Bricteux, Auguste (Paris, 1927)Google Scholar.

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39. Tatar ädäbiyatï tarikhï (Kazan, 1984), 1:114-16; Goldman, Wiles of Women, 139; in Qui ‘Ali's version, Joseph was asked by the king offish to give him children and by the merchant Malik to give him sons. Joseph prayed to God and his prayers were answered. [Qu\'Mi], Kitab, 22, 30.

40. Merguerian, Gayane Karen and Najmabadi, Afsaneh, “Zulaykha and Yusuf: Whose 'Best Story'?” International Journal ofMiddle East Studies 29, no. 4 (November 1997): 501 Google Scholar.

41. As in the Sufi works in Persia, India, and the Ottoman empire, the attitude of mystics toward women in Eurasia and Central Asia was ambivalent. Some stories considered “the weaker sex” as inferior, unclean, and dangerous, but others illustrated women's positive role in religious life. See Schimmel, Annemarie, “Eros—Heavenly and Not So Heavenly—in Sufi Literature and Life,” in Marsot, Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid, ed., Society and, theSexes in Medieval Islam (Malibu, Calif., 1979), 119–41Google Scholar.

42. Al-Rabghuzl, Stories, 2:3, 213-14.

43. Qur'ān 2:35-39; Al-Rabghuzi, Stories, 2:30-31; Schimmel, Annemarie, My Southa Woman: The Feminine in Islam (New York, 1997), 56–58, 23-25Google Scholar; Wadud, Amina, Qur'ānand Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman's Perspective (New York, 1999), 23–25 Google Scholar. This unflattering portrayal of women was also widespread in other popular eśćhatological works in the middle Volga. In Nasihat as-Sālihin (Pious Admonitions), an ugly old woman appears at the end of the world and is thrown into hell as die symbol of earthly temptations. And in Qïssa-yï Sulaymān (Tale of Solomon), a folktale popular among the Tatars, the writer warned men not to follow women's advice because they were stupid and ignorant. Nasihat as-Salihin (Kazan, 1908), 3; Mikhailov, A., “Kriticheskii razbor i perevod s tatarskogo iazyka na russkii broshiury ‘Rasskazy o Solomone,'” Orenburgskie eparkhialnyevedomostiM, no. 10 (15 May 1889): 280–84Google Scholar.

44. Al-Rabghuzi, , Stories, 2:198, 201, 205, 207, 211 Google Scholar.

45. The History of al-Tabari (ta'rikh al-rusul wa'l-muluk), vol. 2, Prophets and Patriarchs, trans, and annotated by William M. Brinner (Albany, 1987), 148-85.

46. [‘Ali, Qul], Kitāb, 25, 28 Google Scholar; Al-Rabghuzi, , Stories, 2:271–76Google Scholar.

47. Qisas-ï Rabghuzī, 108-9, 205; Al-Rabghuzī, Stories, 1:168, 223-24; 2:208-9, 276; [Qui ‘Alī], Kitab, 31-37. In die nineteenth century, a famous physician and former rector of the University of Kazan, Karl Fuks, prided himself on having received such passionate letters from female Tatar admirers. The mother of the famous Turkish historian of Bashkir origin, Zāki Wālidi Toghan, freely quoted Persian and Turkic poetry to remind her husband that their mutual love would never tolerate the presence of a second wife. Fuks, Karl, Kazanskie tatary v statisticheskom i etnograficheskom otnosheniiakh (Kazan, 1844), 39–43 Google Scholar; Togan, Zaki Validi, Vospominaniia, bk.l (Ufa, 1994), 34–36 Google Scholar.

48. Al-Rabghuzi, , Stories, 2:187, 194, 197, 276.Google Scholar

49. [’Ali, Qul] ,Kitdb, 31,46–49 Google Scholar.

50. Martin Lings, What Is Sufism? (Berkeley, 1977); Schimmel, Annemarie, MysticalDimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill, 1975), 98–186 Google Scholar.

51. [’Ali, Qul] , Kitāb, 3, 25 Google Scholar.

52. See the “Story of the Moths” in Attar, Faridud-Din, The Conference of the Birds:Mantiq Ut-Tair, trans. Nott, C. S. (Boulder, Colo., 1954), 123–24Google Scholar; Al-Rabghuzi, Stories, 2:192, 219.

53. Qisas-ï Rabghuzī, 206; Al-Rabghuzī, , Stories, 2:274 Google Scholar. Zulaykha's attitude was in accordance with the doctrine of some Sufis who felt it was unnecessary to pursue a life of aśćeticism once they had reached the summit of spiritual life. Smith, Margaret, Rabia: TheLife and Work of Rabia and Other Women Mystics in Islam (Oxford, 1994), 73 Google Scholar.

54. Al-Rabghuzī, , Stories, 2:534–36Google Scholar.

55. In another book well known in Tatar primary Qur'anic śćhools, the nineteenthcentury Fdid'il ash-Shiihur (The Qualities of the Months), a woman defied her husband's sexual dominance by giving one of her braids covered with emeralds to the Prophet Muhammad, asking him to sell its precious stones for the sake of the poor. Fdid'il ash-Shiihur (Kazan, 1869), 55-56.

56. Qisas-lRabghuzi, 209-16; Al-Rabghuzi, Stories, 1:227-34; 2:281-88.

57. Dankoff, Robert, “Rabghuzi's Stories of the Prophets,“/ourna/ of the American OrientalSociety 117, no. 1 (January-March 1997): 118 Google Scholar.

58. NART, f. 1, op. 3, d. 228,11. 111-12.

59. In Mamadysh, Laishevo, and Kazan districts, Islamized “baptized” women headed the clandestine Qur'anic śćhools of the villages of Elyshevo, Tri Sosny, Savrushi, Sosnovyi Mys, Bol´shie Savrushi, Tokhtamyshevo, Kibiak-Kozi, Ianasal, and Aziak. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv (RGIA), f. 821, op. 8, d. 763, 11. 288ob., 289ob., 299-299ob., 301-301ob.; NART, f. 1, op. 3, d. 1818,1. 4; NART, f. 1, op. 3, d. 5720,1. 5; NART, f. 4, op. 101, d. 16, 11. 17-18, 21-21ob.; NART, f. 967, op. 1, d. 8, 1. 6; Otchet o deiatel´nosti BratstvaSviatitelia Guriia za semnadtsatyi bratskiigod s 4 oktiabria 1883godapo 4 oktiabria 1884 (Kazan, 1884), 20. See Kefeli, Agnes, “The Role of Tatar and Kriashen Women in the Transmission of Islamic Knowledge (1800-1870),” in Geraci, and Khodarkovsky, , eds., Of Religion andEmpire, 250–73Google Scholar.

60. Makhisärwär Ibrahim qīzī Bikmokhämmät, personal diary, ca. 1915-1919, private collection, pp. 4 - 8 , 25, 59-60, 71, 76. The Folklore Deparunent of the Ministry of Culture of Tatarstan, directed by Fanzilia Zavgarova has started collecting these diaries. About Elyshevo village, see Golsina Sharifullina, “Uris-kyäfer kilgänder Yilish awili ilenä,“ Idel, no. 5 (May 1993): 66-70; Ildus Zahidullin, ‘Ji'llsh awili mäk'ruhlari,” Miras 46, no. 9 (1995): 111-15; 48, no. 11-12 (1995): 138-48; Kefeli, Agnes, “Constructing an Islamic Identity: The Case of Elyshevo Village in the Nineteenth Century,” in Brower, Daniel and Lazzerini, Edward, eds., Russia's Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700-1917 (Bloomington, 1997), 271–91Google Scholar. Elyshevo was originally a village composed of Udmurts and Baptized Tatars.

61. Nikanor Bobylev, Patriarkh Iosifpo Biblii i Koranu, vol. 16, Missionerskii protivomusul´manskiisbornik: Trudy studentov missionerskogo protivomusul´manshogo otdeleniia pri Kazanskoidukhovnoi akademii (Kazan, 1882), 8-10; Miropol´skii's report to the Bishop of Kazan can be found in NART, f. 4, op. 134, d. 33,11. 8-9.

62. Sviashchennaia istoriia ot sotvoreniia mira do konchiny losifa; Krashen priest Stefan Matveev, “Pervye v Ufimskoi eparkhii kursy po prikhodskoi missii dlia kreshchenykh inorodtsev (Ufa, 1911), 9. Students read polemical works published in the Anti-Islamic Missionary Collection by the Kazan Theological Academy, and, in particular, Nikolai Ostroumov who criticized Rabghuzi's “own version” of the patriarchs’ stories in Kriticheskii razbormukhammedanskogo ucheniia oprorokakh (Kazan, 1874).

63. Mashanov, Mikhail A., “Zametka o religiozno-nravstvennom sostoianii,” IKE, no. 1 (1 January 1875): 15 Google Scholar.

64. Early Muslim commentators, among them the collectors of prophetic tales Abu Ishaq Ahmad ath-Tha'labi (d. 1036) in Baghdad or the nonidentifiable Muhammad b. 'Abdallah al-Kisa'i (twelfth century?), used the story of Joseph in a polemical manner to assert the superiority of the Qur'an over the Torah. These commentators quoted various prophetic traditions in support of the idea that God had revealed the complete version of Joseph to Muhammad as proof of his prophethood, and not to other prophets. Such reading was also the reading of Krashens leaning toward Islam, who believed that Tatars had the best version. The Tales of the Prophets ofal-Kisa'i, trans, from Arabic by W. M. Thackston (Boston, 1978), 192; Bernstein, Marc S., Stories of Joseph: Narrative Migrations between Judaismand Islam (Detroit, 2006), 36–40 Google Scholar.

65. Il´minskii, ed., Kazanskaia tsentral´naia, 59; Al-Rabghuzī, , Stories, 2:273 Google Scholar; [Qul ‘Ali], Kitab, 31,47.

66. Bobylev, “Patriarkh Iosif po Biblii i Koranu,” 8-10, 61, 63, 114.

67. Al-Rabghuzī, , Stories, 2:189 Google Scholar.

68. Al-Rabghuzī, , Stories, 2:196 Google Scholar; [Qul ‘Alī], Kitab, 29-30.

69. The famous judge Riza ad-Din b. Fakhr ad-Dīn (1859-1936) in Orenburg used Joseph as an example of moral excellence to stress the equal importance of human agency and divine support for achieving earthly advancement. Rizā’ ad-Din b. Fakhr ad-DIn, Jawāmi’ al-Kalim Sharhi (Orenburg, 1917), 127 (hadith no. 89). In general, Fakhr ad-Din was critical of the historian Tabari's and later Turkic accounts of the Joseph story. According to the Tatar śćholar Nurmukhammet Khisamov, Fakhr ad-Din supported the Qur'anic commentator Zamakhshari (1074-1143) in his criticism of Tabari's fantastic deśćription of the śćene when Joseph, facing Zulaykha, started loosening his pants. If the figure of his father Jacob had not appeared to him, Joseph would have succumbed to his desire; however, the Qur'an made no mention of the sexually titillating detail of Joseph's unknotting his trousers. It simply mentioned that Joseph would have taken Potiphar's wife if he had not seen a sign from God. N. Sh. Khisamov, Poema “Kyssa-i Iusuf” Kul ‘Ali (Mośćow, 1979), 52; The History ofal-Tabari, 155; Qur'an, 12:24.

70. Al-Rabghūzī, , Stories, 2:189–90, 224Google Scholar.

71. For more about missionary indigenous śćhooling in the Volga region, see Werth, At the Margins of Orthodoxy, 183-93, 223-35; Geraci, Window on the East, 47-85, 116-36; Dowler, Wayne, Classroom and Empire: The Politics of Schooling Russia's Eastern Nationalities,1860-1917 (Montreal, 2001), 17–61 Google Scholar; Isabelle Teiz Kreindler, “Educational Policies towards the Eastern Nationalities in Tsarist Russia: A Study of Il´minskii's System” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1969); about the Krashens’ emerging self-identity, see the Krashen priest Grigor'ev, D., “Zovite nas kreshchenami,” IKE, no. 14-15 (8-15 April 1906): 454 Google Scholar.

72. Iakov, Diakon Emel´ianovich Emel´ianov, “Satashkanny uiatyu,” in Stikhi nakreshcheno-tatarskom iazyke: Stikhldre (Kazan, 1879), 20–22 Google Scholar

73. See, for instance, Ghayaz Iskhaqïy, Ikeyozy'ildan song iqïyraz (n.p., 1904), reprinted in Qazan Utlarï69, no. 1 (1990): 110-42; no. 2 (1990): 109-48; Tormïshmï buPreprinted in Zindan, 78-146.

74. Kutlushkino (Yäushirmä) in Chistopol’ district, where Iskhaqi's father served as imam, was home to thirty Christian Tatars who had apostatized from Eastern Orthodoxy in the 1830s and the 1860s. Malov, Evfimii, “Statisticheskie svedeniia o kreshchenykh tatarakh,“ Uchenye zapiski Kazanskogo universiteta (Kazan, 1866), 4:343 Google Scholar.

75. Such prejudices continued well into the Soviet period. Despite their official “return“ to Islam after 1905, deśćendants of Elyshevite apostates still complain that Tatars from the kolkhoz center of Shitsy refer to them contemptuously as keräshennär (Kräshens). Elyshevites until the 1950s married within their prerevolutionary “apostate” kinship network. Field notes, Elyshevo village, Tatarstan, May 2008.

76. Iskhaqïy, Zöläykha, 544, 548, 551, 573.

77. ‘Abdal Qayyum Nasiri (1825-1902) translated Imam Suyuti's work Ants al-Jalis in 1882. See “Jäwahirel khikäyat,” in Nasiyri, Qayum, Saylanma äsärlär (diirt tomda) (Kazan, 2004), 2:266 Google Scholar. Among the textbooks the Crimean Tatar modernist pedagogue and journalist Ismail Gasprinskii (1851-1914) recommended was Nasiri's translation. See the list of recommended modernist literature in Ismail Gasprinskii, Mebadi-yi temeddun-i Islamiyan-iRus, trans. Lazzerini, Edward in “Gädidism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: A View from Within,” Cahiers du monderusseet sovietique 16, no. 2 (April-June 1975): 245–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

78. Just as Jacob lost his sight after weeping for his son's death, Zulaykha's mother became blind after her daughter was deported. In the same manner, Zulaykha clung to her husband's bloody coat as Jacob pressed Joseph's blood-stained shirt against his heart. Iskhaqiy, Zolaykha, 540, 543, 545.

79. In the play the villagers reported to the priest that their village's mullah taught baptized children, married the young, and buried the dead among the baptized villagers. Iskhaqïy, Zöläykha, 535, 537-38, 540. Muslim Tatars who did not approve of their mullahs' village politics occasionally used their involvement in the baptized community as a weapon to denounce them to the authorities. For a good example, see Crews, For Prophet and Tsar, 134-40.

80. Qur'an 12:30-32; ‘Jäwahirel khikäyat,” in Qayum Nasïyri, Saylanma äsärlär, 266; Al-Rabghuzi, , Stories, 2:214–19Google Scholar; [Qui ‘All], Kitab, 37.

81. Iskhaqïy, Zöläykha, 517, 540.

82. Iskhaqïy, Zöläykha, 543, 569, 576.

83. Akafist sviatiteliu Guriiu Kazanskomu i Sviiazhskomu chudotvortsu na tatarskom iazyke.Izdanie Pravoslavnogo missionerskogo obshchestva (Kazan, 1890).

84. Werth, , “From ‘Pagan’ Muslims to ‘Baptized’ Communists,” 508; Iskhaq ïy, Ghayaz, Äsärlär (Unbish tomda): P'esalar (1900-1918) (Kazan, 2003), 4:446–49, 487-88Google Scholar; Tyumenov, Ramazan, “Zöläykha Mäskäudä,” in Iskhaqïy, Ghayaz, Äsärlär (Unbish tomda): ChayazIskhaqiyning tormïshï häm ijalï turïnda zamandashlarï (1898-1917) (Kazan, 2001), 8:305–9 (reprint from //, 10 May 1917)Google Scholar.

85. Slezkine, Yuri, “The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism,” Slavic Review 53, no. 2 (Summer 1994): 414–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hirśćh, Francine, “The Soviet Union as a Work-in-Progress: Ethnographers and the Category Nationality in the 1926, 1937, and 1939 Censuses,” Slavic Review 56, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 251–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

86. Werth, “From ‘Pagan’ Muslims to ‘Baptized’ Communists,” 508-15.

87. Further study of Tatar “realms of memory” or memorial processes, combining a literary, religious studies, historical, and anthropological approach and focusing more on die readers’ or listeners’ responses to sacred texts will lead to a better appreciation of the continuities and metamorphoses of the religious and secular diśćourses in Eurasia and Central Asia. Nora, Pierre, ed., Realms of Memory: Rethinking IheFrench Past (New York, 1996)Google Scholar; DeWeese, Devin, “Islam and the Legacy of Sovietology: A Review Essay on Yaacov Ro'i's Islam in the Soviet Union,” Journal of Islamic Studies 13, no. 3 (2002): 318–23Google Scholar; helpful samples and reviews of prerevolutionary and modern Islamic literature published recendy can be found in Allen Frank, Popular Islamic Literature in Kazakhstan: An Annotated Bibliography (Hyattsville, Md., 2007). As in the Balkans, in Tatarstan the mythical, as much as the political and the economic, still forges a powerful invisible shield against Russian or, in the case of Orthodox Krashen communities, local Tatar hegemony. Sells, Michael A., “The Construction of Islam in Serbian Religious Mythology and Its Consequences,” in Shatzmiller, Maya, ed., Islam and Bosnia: Conflict Resolution and Foreign Policy in Multi-Ethnic States (Montreal, 2002), 56–85 Google Scholar.

88. Yaghkub, Wäliulla, Tatarstanda rasmi bulmaghan Islam: Kharakatldr, aghimnar, sektalar (Kazan, 2003/1424)Google Scholar.

89. Fokin, Arkadii, “Kriashenskii vopros v Tatarstane: Etnoistoricheskii obzor,” in Sovremennoe kriashenovedenie: Sostoianie, perspektivy. Materialy nauchnoi konferentsii, sostoiavsheisia23 aprelia 2005goda (Kazan, 2005), 94–100 Google Scholar; Dmitry Gorenburg, “Tatar Identity: A United, Indivisible Nation?” (paper presented at Harvard University, 19 July 2004), 1-31, at http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/∼gorenbur/gorenburg%20tatar%20idendty.pdf (last accessed 15 March 2011); Liudmila Belousova, “Kereshen: Pravo na samobytnost',” Tatarskiimir, no. 6 (2003), at http://www.tatmir.ru/article.shtml?article=47 (last accessed 15 March 2011).

90. Ramil’ Tukhvatullin (director and producer), Zuleikha, in a collection of historical films on DVD, distributed by Firdaus Studio; “V Kazani prokhodit prem'era igrovogo fil´ma o musul´manke, nasil´no priniavshei khristianstvo i pokonchivshei zhizn’ samoubiistvom“ (14 January 2005), Religiia i SMI at http://www.religare.ru/printl3553.htm (last accessed 15 March 2011); Gölsinä Khämidullina, “Zhätma (“Zölaykha” fil´mïn qaraghannan song tughan uylar),” Met 186, no. 2 (2005): 33-35; Entsiklopediia Islam v sovremennoi Rossii (Mośćow, 2008), 127; Khäsänov, M. Kh., Äkhmädullin, A. G., Ghalimullin, F. G., and Nurullin, I. Z., Adäbiyat (XXyoz bashï häm 20nche yïllar): Tatarurta ghomumi belem birü mäktäbeneng l0 nchï sïynïfi öchen däreslek (Kazan, 2005), 62–65 Google Scholar.

91. Field notes, Chura village, Tatarstan, June 2008 (Chura was the village where the famous Kräshen poet lakov Emel´ianov was priest); Glukhov-Nogaibek, Maksim, Sud'baguardeitsev Seiumbeki (Kazan, 1993), 194 Google Scholar; V. M. Malakhov, “Kto krestil Krashen?” Kerdshensiize (Slovo Kräshen) (Chally, Tatarstan, Russian Federation), 9 April 1996, 2; R. Akhmatyanov, “Kerashennar qayan kilep chi'qqan? (Törki khristianlïq turïnda),” Watanïm Tatarstan (23 July 1997), 7; Evgenii Barkar', “Kipchaksko-nestorianskoe proiskhozhdenie kriashen,“ at kryashen.ru.rus.php?nrus=article_text&id=160 (last accessed 15 March 2011); G. M. Makarov, “O kul´ture protokriashen do XVI veka,” at kryashen.ru.rus.php?nrus=article_ text&id=194 (last accessed 15 March 2011).

92. Since the fall of communism Tatars have shown a greater interest in these traditional medieval texts, which have been reprinted in academic and popular religious presses. See, for instance, Yakhin, Färit, Pdyghambdrldr tarikhi: Farit Yakhin khikdydldrendd (Kazan, 1992)Google Scholar; Yakhin, Iman (Kazan, 1995); Yakhin, Päyghambärebez Mokhämmäd (Kazan, 1999); Baqirghan kitabi: XII-XVII yöz törki- tatar shaghïyr'läre äsärläre (Kazan, 2000); Aghlamov, Modarris, “Densezme min, dinsezme?” Yalqin, no. 12 (December 1993): 26–27 Google Scholar; Sadekova, Aislukhadzhi, Ideologiia Islama i tatarskoe narodnoe tuorchestvo (Kazan, 2000)Google Scholar; Rabghuzi's work in modern Tatar by Imam Mulla Salakh bin Mulla Shäräfeddin, Qïysasel-dnbiyd:Päyghambärlär tarikhï (Kazan, 2003) (the author, concerned with the proper maintenance of gender hierarchy, censored the part when Joseph ran after Zulaykha, see 134-89); Flyura Khannanova (teacher of Tatar literature at the Muhammadiya Madrasa in Kazan), Közläremdä äleyazlar kötäm (Kazan, 2006), 123-42.

93. Field notes, Chura village, Tatarstan, May 2008; see śćhool programs and textbook, Tatar mäktäplärendä Tatar äddäiyatinnan belem bïrü standarti (Kazan, 2004); Tata rurta mäktäpläre ochen äddäiyat programmalarï 5-11 sïyniflar (Tatarstan Respublikasï Mägharif häm fän ministrilïghï tarafinnan raslanghan) (Kazan, 2005); Mingneghulov, Kh. Y and Ghiymadieva, N. S., Tatar ädäbiyati (Rus telendä urta ghomumi belem. biriiclie mäktäpneng 10-nchisiynifi ochen ddreslek-khrestomatiya (Tatar balalari ochen) (Kazan, 2006), 3–90 Google Scholar; Säubanova, Samigha, Bilgen bäyrdm, bugen tuy: Mäkläp uquchilari, uqituchilar, ata-analar häm mädäniaghartu uchrezhdenieläre ochen bäyräm kichäläre ütkdru ürndkldre tuplanghan däreslek-qullanma (Kazan, 2005), 21–47 Google Scholar. This aid for teachers contains skits to celebrate the Feast of Ramadan. The skits include the singing of munajat, excerpts from the story of Joseph, and short dialogues with the Prophet Muhammad who explains the basic tenets of the Islamic faith.