“Formalism, Puritanicalism, Traditionalism: Approaches to I slamic Legal Reasoning in the 19 th ‐Century R ussian Empire”

As early as the 1730s, the R ussian imperial state sought to incorporate its M uslim subjects into the tsarist bureauacracy, first by co‐opting M uslim legal scholars, and later, beginning in 1788, by placing the whole of the ulama under government control. This led to a marginalization of I slamic legal institutions and a transformation of Islamic legal practice under R ussian rule. In the early 19th century, ulama sought ways to adapt I slamic law to these institutional changes, and vibrant debates about the purpose and function of legal theory represented an important part of the religious discourse among these M uslim communities. This paper addresses the approaches of three scholars, A bu N asr Q ursawi (1776–1812), ῾ A bd al‐ R ahim U tiz‐ I mani (1754–1834) and F ath A llah U riwi (1767–1843), who strongly disagreed regarding issues such as the use of usul and furu ῾, the permissibility of ijtihad , and the relationship between the ulama and the community. I argue that while each scholar puts forward a different approach to the law — which I term, respectively, formalism, puritanicalism and traditionalism — each of these positions represents a response to their communities' shifting circumstances under R ussian rule and a way for the discursive tradition of Islamic law to continue despite the marginalization of legal institutions.