Waqf Administration in Tashkent Prior to and After the Russian Conquest: A Focus on Rent Contracts for the Kūkeldāš Madrasa
Abstract
Drawing on a collection of Islamicate and Russian-language documentary materials presently held in Tashkent, I explore how the administration of Tashkent's Kūkeldāš Madrasa oversaw and regulated the leasing-out of the madrasa's waqf-endowed trade and artisanal establishments. By tracing shifts in the administration of leasing arrangements we may begin to illustrate a number of other, larger shifts in socio-economic practice over the course of the madrasa's long existence, reflecting the consequences first of the rise of the Khoqand Khanate and secondly of the Russian conquest and the establishment of the Turkestan Governorship-General. By attending to patterns of lease arrangements over the history of a single waqf establishment, we may begin to discern shifting patterns of practice which are all too often obscured when viewed against a wider canvas.