The article examines Muslim charitable societies of Tobolsk and Omsk cities, which operated in 1907–1914 and were called the Tobolsk Society of Muslim Progressists and the Society for the Care of Muslim Students in the 1st Omsk maktab. The purpose of the study is to analyse their activities as legal public organisations during the inter-revolutionary period (1907–1917) of the Russian Empire. We concluded that these organisations were a part of a network of Muslim charitable societies operating in the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The administration board of the Tobolsk Society included representatives of three groups of the Muslim elite, whose families were historically associated with the region. Officials from nobility, clergy (imams), and bourgeoisie, and the leadership of Omsk Society was dominated by the bourgeoisie. Both the Tobolsk and Omsk societies focused mainly on helping the maktabs for boys. At the same time, three main directions can be seen in the activity of the Tobolsk Society of Muslim Progressists: school education, social activities, and public education. It is the latter function that will become the grounds for the closure of the organisation. Later, the influence of these societies would become evident in the activities of their leaders and activists during the 1917 Russian revolution, and as well as within the institutions of religious and national-cultural autonomy and the broader sociopolitical movement.

Keywords: Muslims of Western Siberia, mekteb, Jadidism, Tatars, Kazakhs.

 

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Accepted: 02.10.2025

Article is published: 15.12.2025