Imperialism through Islamic Networks

In 1848 a Russian subject named Kasym Mamad died in Arabia while performing the hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. Mamad was a native of the South Caucasus, a region Russia had recently conquered through wars with the Ottoman Empire and Persia. Like most Muslims traveling overland to Mecca at this time, Mamad made the long trip as part of a caravan, a procession of people and animals. He took a route that Muslims from the Caucasus, Sunnis and Shi‘is, had followed for centuries. It wound through eastern Anatolia and northern Syria down to Damascus, the departure point for