Tsarist Russia institutionalized an official Muslim clerical hierarchy to police loyalty

Evidence

Even more pervasive was the influence of an official hierarchy of Islamic authorities, established in 1788, that oversaw mosques throughout the empire (separate institutions performed similar functions for Muslims in the Crimea and, later, in the Caucasus). Tsarist police backed the authority of Muslim clerics in these communities, particularly in matters that seemed to shore up the state, for instance by preaching loyalty to the emperor, respect for public morality, and by assisting in expanding the bureaucratic reach of the state. Muslim clerics were more than mere servants of the state, though, and sometimes lay men and women could appeal to the regime to discipline wayward prayer leaders and scholars. Indeed, it was the tsarist government’s defence of particular Islamic legal claims that made it so central to disputes about Islam among these communities. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 525

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the pattern of state-sponsored religious hierarchies elsewhere in imperial governance — echoes the book’s broader thesis that Jews and Muslims were co-administered by the same imperial state.
• QUESTION: How did the 1788 Muslim ecclesiastical institution compare structurally to the kahal that was dissolved in 1844? The parallel administrative treatment invites direct comparison.