The Russian Experience of Reforming Nomadic Courts According to Adat in Turkestan, 1850–1900

Abstract

The Russian General’s Governorship in Turkestan was founded under the Russian Empire in 1867. The adopted model of the military-popular rule included the native courts practice for the Muslim population, on the basis of Adat among the nomadic population and Sharia among the settled population. It was supposed that preservation of the previous forms of social regulation among the native population of Turkestan would permit the securing of order and stability based upon native traditions. Nevertheless the native courts system was reformed to a certain extent by the Russian administration in such ways that it could be called a ‘progressive’ reform in the mode of humanism.

These reforms evoked quick and rather substantial changes in the social life and norms of adat among the nomadic Muslim population. However, these changes were far from being ‘progressive’, and also developed in way which the Russian administration by no means expected. Nomadic society absorbed the innovations imposed by the Russian rulers in a mode of patriarchal consciousness.