History essay

Islam is closely connected with the century-old history of spiritual culture of the Tatar people. For more than one thousand years it played a key role in forming tenor of life, the system of education, world outlook and spiritual values of the Tatar society. According to the point of view of a number of researchers, the process of penetration and dissemination of Moslem religion in the Middle Volga region began its count-down between the 7th and 8th centuries A. D. In 922 the alliance of Bolgar tribes recognized Islam as an official religion. An embassy of the Arabian caliph, which came to Volga Bolgaria, officially registered Islam in one of the largest early-feudal states in Eastern Europe.

Construction of Moslem religious buildings in the Middle Volga region began long before the official adoption of Islam by the Bolgars. It is particularly proved by Arabian-Persian sources of the 10th century. Ibn-Ruste, Ibn-Fadlan, al-Balkhi, Ibn-Khaukal, Yakut and other authors of medieval geographic writings pointed out that there had been cathedral mosques in Bolgar towns. The archaeological remains of mosques in the towns Bilyar and Suvar(the 10th-13th centuries) have been preserved to our days. In the Golden Horde period there was flourishing in monumental architecture of Bolgar towns. There were built monumental wooden and stone mosques in which, according to scientists, some shapes of Seldzhuk architectural school and local architecture were combined, e.g.the Bolgar Cathedral Mosque (the 1260s), the Small Minaret (the 1st half of the 14 century, now -Bolgar state historical and architectural reservation), The mosque of “the Devil's Site of an ancient town” (the 12th cent., city Yelabuga). After the decay of Volga-Kama Bolgaria the development of Islam and Moslem religious architecture in the region continued within the Kazan khanate. Monuments of Moslem religious architecture of the period of Kazan khanate have not been preserved. There are only written works mentioning Kazan mosques - the Nur-ali mosque, the Otuchev mosque, the Khan mosque and the mosque with eight minarets Kul-Sharif, which were destroyed together with hundreds of village mosques when Russian troops conquered the khanate. Monumental religious architecture of the Tatars' forefathers ceised its development. A type of a small mosque, formed under local conditions on the basis of traditional constructive methods and materials, turned out to be viable under the new conditions, when Islam turned from an official religion into a suppressed one.

The loss of the State system by the Tatars destructively affected their political and religious institutions. Right up to the end of the 18th century Islam was severely persecuted. Anti-Moslem policy of Russian autocracy based on forced conversion of non-Russian population to Christianity was combined with restrictions of civil and property rights of the Moslem clergy and all the leaders of the Tatar society. In 1593 the Tsar ordered the Kazan voivodes to destroy all mosques and didn’t allow the Tatars to build new ones. A short period of slackening in religious persecution of the Tatars during the reign of Sofia Alexejevna at the end of the 17th century changed in the first half of the 18th century into a new rising of the campaign of forced conversion to Christianity, which was connected with the Baptism Mission activity. A Senate decree “About Banning to Build Mosques in Kazan Province”, published in 1742, had strong anti-Moslem and anti-Tatar assignment. In practice it caused general destruction of mosques. During a year and a half after this order was published, in Kazan and its region there were destroyed 418 out of 536 mosques, among them there were those built before the capture of Kazan, as well as those built more than 200 years before it. These insulting actions of the Government caused a great protest among the Tatar population, numerous complaints and petitions about restoration of mosques. In 1744 the Senate made some small concessions allowing Kazan Tatars to construct two mosques in Tatar Settlement and making some regulations which strictly limited conditions of erection of mosques, their amount and number of parishioners. Construction of mosques in villages where Moslems and converts lived together was banned. A parish could consist of no more than 200 males. These and other restrictions existed without being seriously changed nearly up to the 19th century. Village religious architecture continued its existence in the forms of wooden folk architecture. A traditional local type of a mosque represented a framework covered with a gable or a hip roof with a minaret. Its mikhrab should be oriented to Mekka, to the south (exactly, the direction of a mikhrab's and mosque's longitudinal axis deviates to the West by 11 degrees.) The exit from the upper tier (a platform for a muezzin) to a circular balcony is on the south side. The entrance to a mosque depending on a situation can be in the north, east or west facades; in the last two cases, when there is an enfilade of rooms, the entrance is usually close to the north-east or north-west corner. During the reign of Catherine II (Ekaterina II) religious policy towards the Moslems of Russia was revised. The Peasant War of 1773-1775, colonial policy of tsarism in Middle Asia, struggle for influence on southern boundaries and wars between Russia and Turkey, consolidation of “enlightened” absolutism in the country demanded from the government certain efforts in stabilizing socio-economic situation in such an “explosive” region as Middle Volga and drawing leaders of the Tatar society and Moslem clergy to collaboration. One of the first measures of tsarism in this direction was an official recognition of Islam as an endurable religion in 1773, promulgation of a series of decrees which reduced persecution of Moslem clergy. Another measure was establishing a Sacred Assembly, which was to govern Moslem clergy of Russia. But there was still disregard of aspirations and demands of Tatar communities and strict regulation of Moslem parish life. Construction of new brick mosques in Kazan region began at the end of the 60s of the 18th century. Using the traditional type of a mosque with a minaret on its roof, which had been formed and widely spread in Tatar wooden architecture, Russian professional architects built mosques according to All-Russian style forms.

The first brick mosques were built with personal permission of Ekaterina II in the second half of the 18th century after repeated addresses of the Tatar merchantry. They were brick mosques with one or two praying rooms, with a household ground or the first floor and a minaret on its roof. The minarets, as a rule, had several tiers and were of two types: with a platform of a muezzin (open or glazed) and with a balcony around it. The tiers were different in size, shape and were separated by cornices. In styling of the first mosques (the Mardjani, Apanajev mosques in Kazan, the mosques in villages Maskara, Nizhnije Bereski, Kshkar) there is a combination of elements of Baroque architecture and Tatar decorative art.

At the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century this type of mosques was erected in strict forms of the classicism. The mosques of this period are Iske Tash, the Galeev mosque, N 11, the Blue mosque in Kazan, the mosques in villages Tashkichu and Bogatije Sabi.

At the beginning of the 19th century there began a regulation of architecture and construction of Moslem religious buildings in Russia. In connection with introduction of regular planning, the mosques which were to be oriented to the south (to Mekka) were often placed at an angle with the line of street buildings. In Kazan there was not a mosque situated on a square.

According to the law, “a mosque can be built only at the request of parishes and their ranked persons to Mohammedan Ecclesiastic authorities, after approval of Province authorities, when its necessity is proved and if there is enough means to maintain it.” The first model project of 1829 proposed a mosque of a centred design, an eight-faceted building with corbels of a mikhrab and a vestibule from the south and the north, with a low tower with a circular balcony on the level of a flat eight-pitched roof. In 1844 there was approved a new model project of a Tatar mosque which was to be a dome-shaped building with an adjoined minaret in the north part and an entrance through its lower tier. On the basis of this project a design of the Hay mosque of Kazan was worked out. The mosque reflected romantic elements of architecture of that period. With this mosque's construction a period of eclectism in Tatar religious architecture began. According to this design and combinations of various architecture forms and elements there were erected such mosques as Sultanov, Kazakov, Azimov mosques in Kazan, the First Cathedral mosque in the city of Chistopol, mosques in villages Kachimir and Kazilino in Kukmorski region and other mosques. From 1863 it was permitted to choose freely a mosque's composition and layout which earlier were bound to limits of model projects. The projects were to be considered and approved by Construction departments of Province authorities. The events of the First Russian revolution in 1905 influenced preparation and introduction of the law of a liberty of conscience in Russia. The process of construction of Moslem mosques acquired a numeral growth. If in 1856 in 18 provinces, which were in subordination to Ufa mufti, there were 3478 mosques, 934 Moslem schools and 5607 clergymen, in 1912 the number of imam-khatibs increased to 12341 persons and the mosques' number increased to 6144. The most impressive was the growth of religious educational institutions - there were 4583 madrasahs and mektebs.

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries a new “modern” style began to be widely used.

According to some data, as long ago as in 1914 a new mosque's design was developed in “modern” style, and in 1924 it was put into practice in construction of the Trans-Kaban mosque. It was the last mosque in Kazan that crowned the pre-revolutionary stage in the development of monumental religious architecture. During this 150-year period it was developing within the limits of all-Russian architecture and enriched itself with original specimens of mosques. In villages the construction of mosques sometimes continued up to the beginning of the 1930s. During the period of the Soviet regime successive development of the Tatar religious architecture suffered great losses. A large amount of mosques were demolished, some of them were rebuilt and lost their minarets.

At the end of the 1980s the construction of mosques gained in scope. The two trends can be observed in it : in modern buildings there were used not only traditional lay-outs and arrangements of mosques with a minaret on their roof or above an entrance in the north part, but also traditional forms and decoration (the mosques in the villages Nurlat, Burmetjevo in Oktyabrsk region, the “Medina” mosque in Kazan). To the same group belong mosques, in which traditional forms are stylized with the use of modern ones with minimum details and original proportions. The second trend in modern construction is characterized by a creative search for new shapes, new compositional sketches, revival in new shapes of a lost type of the mosque with many minarets. Modern village mosques reflect, as a rule, the first trend in modern religious construction in the Republic. The second trend is characteristic of Kazan mosques and mosques in other large cities of the Republic. In mosques' functional organizing there can be observed innovatory tendencies, and the main one was appearance of a praying room for women. There is also an extension of mosque's functions. Besides traditional vestibule and praying-rooms for men, a mosque contains a room for women, bathrooms, rest rooms, a library, a study-room with an additional small praying room for students (if there is not a separate building of a madrasah). This list of additional rooms can vary. There were made several attempts to create a new shape of the Tatar mosque in forms combining the motifs of eastern Moslem, Bolgar and Tatar national architecture (the mosques “Tan” in Mendeleevsk, “Abuzar” in Naberezhnije Chelni, “Khuzaifa Ibn al-Yamani” and some others). The mosques “Ihlas” in Naberezhnije Chelni, “Kul Sharif” in Kazan and some other reflect the tendency of compositional complication, the enrichment with expressive elements. Original Moslem religious architecture, which is being formed in the Republic, reflects a stage of its formation and creative searches for its modern image.