Abstract
In May 1854, Ishan Muhammad Sharif Mansurov was arrested at the fortress of Kapal in south-east Kazakhstan. The investigation into this case lasted nearly eight years and involved a variety of imperial institutions including the Muhammad Spiritual Assembly. Why was the figure of this mysterious Sufi of such interest to the officials? By the mid-nineteenth century, the incorporation of Central Asia into the Russian Empire coincided with the intensification of Islamophobia and a growing suspicion against itinerant Sufis (ishans). The examination of the Mansurov case indicates that colonial authorities simply ignored that publications about Sufism and Islam circulated within the empire. The circumstances of this epic and dramatic case allow us to argue that ignorance greatly weakened and destabilized the imperial policies of toleration of Islam. Nescient of Sufism, officials easily succumbed to information panic and spent a great deal of resources and effort investigating cases like Mansurov’s. Ignorance was the main source of Russians’ fears.