Abstract:
Thesis: The depiction of Islam that the Qazaqs practiced during the 19th and early 20th centuries
differed hugely in the accounts of the outsiders and insiders. The first group, which included
colonizers and foreigners, had specific purposes while creating accounts of this religion. One of
the primary aims was, as Edward Said puts it, to justify their colonial presence in the region and
oppressive policies toward these nomads. They depicted the Qazaqs as backward, uncivilized, and
uneducated subjects who did not believe truly in Islam and were not true Muslims1
. Christian
missionaries were present in the steppe and tried to convert the locals into Christianity. They
believed blindly that they could convert the locals to Christianity, but after a couple of attempts
failed and the tsarist government just decided to use Islam as a tool to control the locals by sending
Tatar Muslims to the steppe and assigning them into positions of the steppe religious community
before 1868. In 1868, Qazaqs were excluded from the Orenburg Spiritual Assembly.