From kolkHoz to pulpit: Rashida abïstay and female religious authority in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia

Abstract

This article focuses on the life and activities of Rashida Iskhaki, an ordinary Soviet woman from a kolkhoz near Kazan who became one of the most authoritative religious figures in Soviet and post-Soviet Tatarstan. Her path-breaking career demonstrates the development of the institution of female religious authority, abïstay, in post-WWII Russia and under the anti-religious Soviet regime. While the male religious elite was decimated before the war and remained under strict state control in the post-war period, women played a crucial role in the transmission of Islamic knowledge. Making use of public and private spaces Rashida Iskhaki developed into a full-fledged religious authority among the Muslims of Kazan. She contributed immensely to the formation of the female and male religious elite of early post-Soviet Russia. She and other women actively connected Muslims in and around the city of Kazan through home classes and majlises. The article suggests rethinking the dichotomies between ‘male’ and ‘female’ spheres, between ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ Islam and argues that contemporary abïstays are very much a ‘Soviet phenomenon’, whose authority developed in the conditions of the Soviet regime and its collapse.