Rizaeddin bin Fakhraddin

Rizaeddin bin Fakhreddin (1859–1936) was a Tatar and Bashkir scholar and publicist, and one of the most productive authors of the Jadid movement, the Islamic reform movement of the Russian Empire. ¹ Elected a qadi of the empire's Muslim religious administration in 1891, he went on to edit the newspaper Waqt, to found the journal Shura — the longest-lived Tatar periodical of the empire — and, after the revolution, to serve as mufti of European Russia until his death. ^{1 2} His most important work is the biographical compendium Asar, and on some of the Central Asian scholars it depicts his work remains the best source. ¹

His birth is split across the sources themselves, and the museum states the readings rather than smoothing them over: the Arabic and Urdu articles give 13 January 1859 at the village of Kichuchat in Samara gouvernement, the English article's lead gives 12 January 1858, Wikidata gives 4 January 1859, and monographic literature appears with the dates 1858–1936 in its very titles. ^{3 2 1 4} The record follows 13 January 1859, marked debated. ³

He was born the son of the mullah of Kichuchat, studied at the village kuttab his father led and then at the madrasa in the neighbouring village of Chelsheli (Nizhniye Chershily), where he later taught the junior classes himself. ^{1 2} The Urdu article records that he went to Chistopol madrasa as a boy, travelled to Kazan in 1886 and met the historian and theologian Shihab al-Din al-Marjani, and in the summer of 1888 met Jamal al-Din al-Afghani in St Petersburg; he counted Marjani, al-Afghani and Ismail Gasprinsky as his spiritual mentors. ² The English article likewise notes that he studied at the Märcani mosque for some time and met al-Afghani during a journey to St Petersburg. ¹

At the age of 30 he became mullah and head of the madrasa in the village of Ilbek, and in 1891 he was elected qadi — a member of the Russian religious administration for Muslims (the Sobranie) — and moved to its seat at Ufa, where he administered the agency's extensive archive. ¹ During the Revolution of 1905 he submitted an extensive reform programme to the muftis of the Sobranie, including the extension of its responsibility over the Kazakh Muslims; the Russian government refused it. ¹ In 1906 he retired from religious office and became editor of the Orenburg newspaper Waqt, becoming in this period a close friend of Musa Bigiev. ¹ In 1908 he began publishing Shura, which he edited until the Soviet authorities closed it in 1918. ^{1 2}

After the death of the mufti Galimjan Barudi on 6 December 1921 he took up the mufti's office in the religious administration, and on 10 July 1923 he was formally elected mufti, serving until his death. ² The English article dates his return to religious office to 1921 and describes him as mufti of European Russia until he died in 1936, adding that he avoided cooperating with the Soviets as much as possible. ¹ He died at Ufa on 12 April 1936 and was buried in the city's Muslim cemetery; Wikidata also carries an 11 April value, which the record states without following. ^{2 4}

He was an extremely productive author, writing more than sixty books, besides journalistic texts, pedagogical works and essays on the situation of Muslims in Russia and on debates such as women's education and family politics. ¹ His most important work is the two-volume edition of biographies of Central Asian scholars, Asar together with Meshhur Irler ("Famous People"), which he wrote while working at the archive of the Muslim religious administration; a companion volume treats famous women (Meshhur Khatunlar). ¹ His essay of 1906, "The Needs of the Russian Muslims and a Critique of Them", criticised the reform demands of the ulama addressed to the Russian rulers as too vague. ¹ The Arabic article lists Tatar works including a life of al-Ghazali and a commentary on Jawami' al-kalim. ³

This section sets out positions as reported in the sources; it is not a verdict by the museum.

Reform within Islam. According to Azade-Ayşe Rorlich, as reported by the English article, the importance of education for overcoming poverty and the possibility of reconciling Islam and science were central to his worldview; he saw the rise and fall of nations as directly connected to their belief systems and held that a renunciation of superstition and a return to the beginnings of Islam were necessary for a Muslim renaissance. ¹ He also criticised the historical work of Ibn Khallikan for concentrating on the doings of rulers, and tried instead to honour the deeds of ordinary Muslims in his books. ¹

His offices and his faith. His qadi service and his muftiate were offices of the empire's, and then the Soviet-era, Muslim religious administration, an institution of the Hanafi milieu; the museum records the offices as facts of his career, not as an attestation of a personal school, and since no source names a school for him his faith is recorded as unknown in his data record. ⁴

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.