Visions of Justice Handbook of Oriental Studies Handbuch der Orientalistik Section Eight Uralic and Central Asian Studies Edited by Nicola Di Cosmo Volume 24 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ho8 Visions of Justice Sharīʿa and Cultural Change in Russian Central Asia By Paolo Sartori LEIDEN | BOSTON This is an open access title distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 (CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0) License, which permits any non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. Cover illustration: “Triangle Comedy”, Mushtum 23 (1937): 11. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Sartori, Paolo, 1975– author. Title: Visions of justice : Sharia and cultural change in Russian Central Asia / by Paolo Sartori. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2016. | Series: Handbook of oriental studies. Section eight, Uralic and Central Asian studies ; Volume 24 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016034428 (print) | LCCN 2016035432 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004330894 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9789004330900 (e-book) | ISBN 9789004330900 (E-book) Subjects: LCSH: Law—Asia, Central—History—19th century. | Muslims—Legal status, laws, etc.—Asia, Central—History—19th century. | Islamic law—Asia, Central—History—19th century. | Muslims—Legal status, laws, etc.—Russia— History—19th century. Classification: LCC KLA477 .S27 2016 (print) | LCC KLA477 (ebook) | DDC 340.5/90957—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016034428 Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 0169-8524 isbn 978-90-04-33089-4 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-33090-0 (e-book) Copyright 2017 by Paolo Sartori. This work is published by Koninklijke Brill NV. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. Koninklijke Brill NV reserves the right to protect the publication against unauthorized use and to authorize dissemination by means of offprints, legitimate photocopies, microform editions, reprints, translations, and secondary information sources, such as abstracting and indexing services including databases. Requests for commercial re-use, use of parts of the publication, and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner. Contents Acknowledgments vii Note on Transliteration and Nomenclature ix Abbreviations x List of Maps and Illustrations xii Introduction 1 1 The Islamic Juridical Field in Central Asia, ca. 1785–1918 40 2 Native Judges into Colonial Scapegoats 104 3 The Bureaucratization of Land Tenure 157 4 Annulling Charitable Endowments 211 5 Fatwas for Muslims, Opinions for Russians 250 Epilogue. The Legacy: Opportunities from Colonialism 306 Appendix I: Examples of Diplomas of Appointment to the Office of Qāḍī 316 Appendix II: Examples of Sale Deeds of Land in Tashkent, 1856–1883 321 Appendix III: Ṣādiq Jān Ākhūn Jān-ūghlī vs. Muḥyī al-Dīn Khwāja Īshān Qāḍī 325 Appendix IV: A Qāḍī ’s Ruling on a Defamation Case 347 Glossary of Islamic Terms 352 Archival Files Consulted 355 Bibliography 365 Index 389 Acknowledgments This book has been long in the making, and, along the way, I have accumulated many debts to people and institutions. Without their help, this project would have never seen the light of the day. I owe debts of gratitude to the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the Volkswagen Foundation, the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), the German Research Fund (DFG), the French Institute for Central Asian Studies (IFEAC, Tashkent), the Central Asia and Caucasus Research and Training Initiative of the Open Society Foundations (CARTI, Budapest), and the Austrian Academy of Sciences for providing material support for research in Europe, Russia, and Central Asia. The seeds of this book were planted in 2007 when a Volkswagen Foundation fellowship allowed me to spend four years at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, in Germany. There I had the unique privilege to work with Jürgen Paul. His erudition and passion for things Central Asian have been one of my greatest intellectual inspirations over the years. Volker Adam, Bekim Agai, Ildikó Beller-Hann, Johann Büssow, Jeanine Dağyeli, Ralf Elger, Kurt Franz, Chris Hann, Asma Hilali, Christian Müller, Francesca Petricca, Nader Purnaqcheband, Philipp Reichmuth, Christina Turzer, and Wolfgang Holzwarth made my stay in Halle an exciting and collegial experience. Thank you for your generosity and patience. A visiting professorship to the École des Haute Études en Science Sociales, in Paris, in spring 2012 allowed me finally to see the contours of this book. I am grateful to Alain Blum, Randy Deguilhem, Isabelle Ohayon, Alessandro Stanziani, and Julien Thorez for convening the research seminars where I pre- sented a dry run of the materials which then evolved into chapters two, four, and five. An incentive to complete this book came from the many invitations I received over recent years to present my work in universities and research institutes. Audiences at Leiden University, the University of Liverpool, the Institute of Ismaili Studies (London), the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (New Delhi), the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, the Uzbek Academy of Sciences (Tashkent), the University of Exeter, Harvard University, and Indiana University have heard and commented on versions of some of these chapters. The Institute of Iranian Studies at the Austrian Academy of Sciences has been a wonderful place to work over the last few years. I am deeply grateful to the Director, Florian Schwarz, for giving me the opportunity to focus on my research and creating a vibrant and stimulating academic setting where Central Asianists can feel at home. I am also thankful to my colleagues for being supportive of my work and generous in sharing their input, advice, and a healthy dose of laughter. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS viii Over the many years of research and writing that have gone into this book, many friends and colleagues have helped me, and I would like to thank them here for their assistance: Sergei Abashin, Bakhtiyar Babajanov, David Brophy, Alfrid Bustanov, Jeff Eden, Allen Frank, Rozaliya Garipova, Rebecca Gould, Daniele Guizzo, Michael Kemper, Alberto Masoero, Nasriddin Mirzaev, Alexander Morrison, Beatrice Penati, James Pickett, Danielle Ross, and Uktambek Sultonov all contributed astute comments on various aspects of the questions addressed here. While telling a story about tossing a copy of Nabokov’s Lolita out of the window or sharing a startling comment over the latest issue of The New Yorker , Ulfat Abdurasulov and Tom Welsford read the entire manuscript several times, challenged me with their probing criticism, and listened to incessant monologues. They also opened a world of friendship to me. I also want to thank Devin DeWeese, Niccolò Pianciola, Ido Shahar, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam for pushing me, either by design or inadvertently, to reach beyond the usual frontiers of academic conventions. A special word of recognition is due to Svetlana Jacquesson. Between Halle, Istanbul, and Bishkek I learned from her more than I can easily summarize. I want to thank Nicolette van der Hoek, my editor at Brill. Her capable col- laboration has made the production of this book a pleasant experience. The reports of two anonymous referees of Brill Publishers were useful in revis- ing the manuscript, and I am naturally grateful to them. Special thanks are due to Alan Hartley for careful copyediting and to Bettina Hofleitner for the maps. I thank Cambrige University Press for permission to reprint sections in the Introduction from my article “Constructing Colonial Legality in Russian Central Asia: On Guardianship,” CSSH 56/2 (2014): 419–47. I also thank Brill for allowing me to reproduce in Chapter 2 parts of my article “Authorized Lies: Colonial Agencies and Legal Hybrids in Tashkent, c. 1881–1893,” JESHO 55/4–5 (2012): 688–717. The greatest debts are owed, of course, to my family. Special thanks to my parents Gildo and Giovanna Sartori for their unfailing and unconditional support and care. Caterina came into this world just as I started work on the manuscript. Together with this book she travelled many places and faced an itinerant life with her big smile. The late Edda Benetti Plafoni helped keep my sometimes flagging spirits high with her memorable dinners. It is to Barbara Plafoni Sartori that I dedicate this book for her witchcraft, big heart, and dreams. Note on Transliteration and Nomenclature For Islamic names and terms, I adopt the transliteration system for Arabic used by the International Journal of Middle East Studies . In so doing, I opted for a simple one-to-one correspondence between grapheme (in the original Arabic script) and phoneme (in the Latin). I have avoided rendering the presumed pronunciation of words in Persian and Chaghatay (Central Asian Turki) and introducing any artificial phonetic distinction between front and back vowels characteristic of the Turkic languages spoken in Central Asia. My transcription of Russian follows the Chicago Manual of Style with a few exceptions: iu, ia instead of yu and ya One complicating factor for the transliteration system that I employ is the variety of orthographic forms for certain names (e.g. Murād, Murat). In the attempt to avoid a normative approach to rendering such variations, I render names in the form in which they appear in whatever text is under discussion. For the sake of clarity and uniformity, however, I did not follow this rule when dealing with Islamic terms appearing in Russian sources. I thus give no account of how they are rendered in Russian and opt instead to transliterate them from their presumed Arabic-script rendering (e.g. mulk and sharīʿa instead of miulk and sharigat ). Most of the unpublished material on which the chapters of this volume are based comes from post-Soviet archives, and the citation of the archival mate- rial thus follows the standard system used in Russian studies. The archival col- lection, the inventory, the file, and the folio are indicated respectively with the following Russian abbreviations: f. ( fond) , op. ( opis’ ), d. ( delo ), and l., ll. ( list, listy ), ob. ( oborot ). Throughout this book I refer frequently to Central Asian historical actors as “Muslims.” The adjective “Muslim” here refers to the population and is employed mostly as an emic category. It does not reflect any ascription to reli- giosity or politics. Nor do I understand “Muslims” as a population inhabiting a clearly defined and self-contained sociocultural domain. As the reader will see, this book includes cases reflecting substantial variations among Muslims’ beliefs and behavioral patterns that would complicate any essentialist vision of things Muslim. The same approach applies to the terms “Russians” and “colonizers.” Abbreviations Archives AMIKINUz Arkhiv muzeia istorii, kul’tury i isskustva narodov Uzbekistana , Samarqand FBKOANRUz Fundamental’naia biblioteka karakalpakskogo otdeleniia Akademii Nauk Respubliki Uzbekistan, Nukus IQM Ichan Qalʾa Muzei, Khiva IVRAN Institut vostochnykh rukopisei Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, St. Petersburg NBUz Natsional’naia biblioteka Uzbekistana im. Alishera Navoi, Tashkent ObAKh Oblastnoi arkhiv Khodzhenta, Khujand TsGARUz Tsentral’nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Respubliki Uzbekistan, Tashkent TsVRUz Tsentr vostochnykh rukopisei im. Abu Raikhana Beruni pri Tashkentskom gosudarstvennom institute vostokovedeniia, Tashkent Journals and Reference Works AHR American Historical Review AHSS Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales AS Asiatische Studien BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies CAS Central Asian Survey CAC Cahiers d’Asie centrale CMR Cahiers du Monde russe CSSH Comparative Studies in Society and History DI Der Islam EIr Encyclopædia Iranica. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985‒ EI2 Encyclopaedia of Islam , 2nd ed. Leiden: Brill, 1960‒2004 HLJ Hastings Law Journal GAL Brockelmann, Carl. Geschichte der arabischen Literatur Leiden: Brill, 1996 [1st ed. 1943], 5 vols (vols. G.I–II and S.I–III) GLR Griffith Law Review ABBREVIATIONS xi IESHR The Indian Economic and Social History Review IJMES International Journal of Middle East Studies ILS Islamic Law and Society IS Iranian Studies JAS The Journal of Asian Studies JESHO Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient JFGO Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas JIS Journal of Islamic Studies JLP Journal of Legal Pluralism JMMA Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs JOAS Journal of the American Oriental Society JPS Journal of Persianate Studies JRAI Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute JRAS Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Kritika Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History LHR Law and History Review LSI Law and Social Inquiry LSR Law and Society Review MAS Modern Asian Studies ONU Obshchestvennye nauki v Uzbekistane MSR Mamluk Studies Review PP Past and Present SLR Sidney Law Review SVR Sobranie vostochnykh rukopisei Akademii Nauk Uzbekskoi SSR. Tashkent: Fan, 1952–87, 11 vols TS Turkestanskii sbornik: Sobranie sochinenii o Turkestanskom krae voobshche i sopredel’nykh s nim stran Srednei Azii , ed. V.I Mezhov. St. Petersburg: Tip. Valasheva, 1868–1917, 594 vols TV Turkestanskie Vedomosty WDI Die Welt des Islams ZDMG Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft ZGUP Zhurnal grazhdanskogo i ugolovnogo prava List of Maps and Illustrations Maps 1 Central Eurasia in the early 19th century xiv 2 Central Asia prior to Russian colonization xv 3 Russian Central Asia xvi Illustrations 1 Khwāja-Īlī qāḍī s’ report to the office of the Yasāwulbāshī, n.d. 37 2 Diploma of appointment to the position of senior jurist for the military, Bukhara, 1758–9 52 3 Sultan Sanjar and the Old Woman , mid-18th century 61 4 Qāḍī ’s report to the royal court in Bukhara, n.d. 74 5 Judicial report to the royal court in Bukhara, n.d. 84 6 Rescript addressed to the court of Emir Ḥaydar, 1807 87 7 Detail of a map illustrating Muḥyī al-Dīn Khwāja’s possessions in the vicinity of the Anhor canal, Tashkent 112 8 “ Qāḍī s’ election” under Russian rule, according to the satirical journal Mushtum , 17–18.09.1937 127 9 ʿAlī Khwāja admits that his lawsuit against the qāḍī Muḥyī al-Dīn Khwāja was driven by malice. Legal certificate issued in Chaghatay, 19.06.1897 133 10 Detail of the endowment deed of the two mosques in the Maḥsīdūzī maḥalla , I 152 11 Detail of the endowment deed of the two mosques in the Maḥsīdūzī maḥalla , II 153 12 Record of a ruling issued by the judicial assembly of Zaamin, 15.03.1887 205 13 Land assessor’s map of the contested lands in the Jalayir and Balghali settlements, Iam County, Jizzakh District, 1904 208 14 Deed confirming the validity of an endowment, Tashkent, 12.03.1884 240 15 Detail of a fatwa: seals and responses ( bāshad ), 1864 258 16 A fatwa 259 17 Draft of a riwāyat 264 LIST OF MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS xiii 18 Mullā ʿAbd al-Wāhid’s fatwa, 1902–03 284 19 Muḥyī al-Dīn Khwāja’s letter to a Russian prosecutor, 06.04.1891 300 20 Diploma of appointment to the office of qāḍī and ra ʾis in the city of Wazīr, issued by Allāh Qulī Khān, Khiva, November– December 1833 319 21 Diploma of appointment to the office of qāḍī in the city of Dahbīd, Samarqand, September–October 1840 320 22 Sale deed, Tashkent, February–March 1856 323 23 Sale deed, Tashkent, September–October 1883 324 24 Record of a ruling on a defamation case, Zangi Ata, 19.01.1890 [recto page] 350 25 Record of a ruling on a defamation case, Zangi Ata, 19.01.1890 [verso page] 351 Map 1 Central Eurasia in the early 19th century. © Bettina Hofleitner Turkistan Sairam Khoqand Kashghar Samarqand Tashkent Kabul Merv Delhi Herat Mashhad Bukhara Yarkand Teheran Baku Moscow Khiva Orenburg Baghdad Urumchi Turfan Semipalatinsk Astrakhan A m u D a r y a Aral Sea Caspian Sea B l a c k Sea L. Balkhash P e r s i a n G u l f I r t y s h O b V o l g a E u p h r a t e s T i g r i s I n d u s B U K H A R A N E M I R A T E Q A J A R I R A N O T T O M A N E M P I R E Q I N G E M P I R E R U S S I A N E M P I R E A F G H A N I S T A N B R I T I S H I N D I A K H O Q A N D K H A N A T E K H I V A N K H A N A T E Map 2 Central Asia prior to Russian colonization. © Bettina Hofleitner Aulie Ata Turkistan Sairam Tashkent Khojand Khoqand Ura-Tepe Jizzakh Samarqand Urgut Shahr-i Sabz Qarshi Hisar Baljuwan Kulab Merv Termez Kerki Charjuy Qarakul Bukhara Baysun Dehnau Urgench Khiva Qungrat Kunya-Urgench Q i z i l Q u m B a y s u n T a g h B a b a T a g h H i s a r M o u n t a i n s Z a r a f s h a n R a n g e F e r g h a n a Q a r a t e g i n B a d a k h s h a n H i s a r T u r k i s t a n R a n g e Q a r a Q u m H a i d a r K u l A m u D a r y a A m u D a r y a Z a r a f s h a n Z a r a f s h a n Q a s h q a D a r y a S u r k h a n K a f i r n i h a n W a k h s h S i r D a r y a S i r D a r y a A r a l S e a K H I V A N K H A N A T E B U K H A R A N E M I R A T E K H O Q A N D K H A N A T E Map 3 Russian Central Asia. © Bettina Hofleitner Aulie Ata Turkistan Sairam Tashkent Khojand Khoqand Ura-Tepe Jizzakh Samarqand Shahr-i Sabz Qarshi Hisar Baljuwan Kulab Merv Termez Kerki Charjuy Qarakul Bukhara Baysun Dehnau Urgench Khiva Qungrat Kunya-Urgench Katta Qurgan Chimbay Petroaleksandrovsk Q i z i l Q u m B a y s u n T a g h B a b a T a g h H i s a r M o u n t a i n s Z a r a f s h a n R a n g e F e r g h a n a Q a r a t e g i n B a d a k h s h a n H i s a r T u r k i s t a n R a n g e Q a r a Q u m H a i d a r K u l A m u D a r y a A m u D a r y a Z a r a f s h a n Z a r a f s h a n Q a s h q a D a r y a S u r k h a n K a f i r n i h a n W a k h s h S i r D a r y a S i r D a r y a A r a l S e a R U S S I A N E M P I R E KHIVAN P R OT ECTO RAT E BU KHARAN PRO TECTORATE © paolo sartori, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004330900_00� This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC License. Introduction In the summer of 1936 the Uzbek writer Abdulla Qahhor (1907–68) published a short story in the satirical journal Mushtum (“The Fist”).1 Titled “The Thief,” the story recounts the behavior of the average Muslim population of Central Asia encapsulated in the pursuit of redress under tsarist rule. “The Thief” is a morality tale of an elderly little man who struggles against the colonial bureaucracy to recover his property, a stolen ox, and gets lost in the interstices of local power relations. The plot is simple. An old woman, “rising at dawn to knead dough,” inspects her household and finds that an ox has disappeared. Summoned by her cries, her husband, Qobil Bobo, soon realizes that the ani- mal has been driven away through a hole in the barn. Inquisitive neighbors come in and crowd the scene. Among them is a striking figure, a neighbor whose deformed face lacks a nose; he holds the position of “fiftier” ( ellikboshi ), which is to say a local notable who had authority over fifty households. It is through this persona that we can begin to discern the contours of the colonial system of justice. A conversation with the ellikboshi is enough for us to sense that Qobil Bobo’s hopes of recovering his property rest on the support of a cohort of officials, both native and Russian, and their willingness to listen to his trivia. The following excerpts illustrate an ordinary experience of a colonial subject seeking redress in Russian Turkestan:2 Then the neighbor of Qobil Bobo came in, the noseless ellikboshi . Going into the barn, he examined the hole and the post to which the ox had been tied. For some reason, he shook the post all over. Then, he sum- moned Qobil Bobo and with a nasal voice said: “Your ox isn’t going any- where: we’ll find it!” That the ellikboshi entered the barn to inspect the scene gave some hope to Qobil Bobo, who was delighted with his words. As the old man began to cry, “May God be magnanimous with you . . . my ox was piebald,” the people dispersed. They all debated how, when, and with which instrument the thief had broken in, which direction the ox had gone, and in which market it would be sold. The noise abated. The wife of Qobil Bobo stopped crying and left, praying for the ellikboshi as she went. . . . The ellikboshi again inspected the hole where the thief had entered. Arms folded, Qobil Bobo, weeping, followed him. “Don’t cry, 1 Abdulla Qahhor, Asarlar (6 tomlik) (Tashkent: Ghofur Ghulom Nashriyoti, 1967), 1: 59–62. 2 Throughout the book I use Russian Central Asia and Russian Turkestan as synonyms. Introduction 2 I say, don’t cry! If your ox has not left the land of the White King,3 we can find it without fail.” The ellikboshi spoke with confidence, as though it were a matter of simply going right out and finding the ox. “One must give something to this man, may God help him, for all his travails. Even a cat does not come out in the sun for free. Has he perhaps spent some money to become ellikboshi ? To one county administrator [ mingboshi , lit. “thousander”] alone he brought seven hundred bundles of clover and a one-year-old colt. And besides, he’s not receiving a salary from the trea- sury!” Qobil Bobo shook his wallet and handed to the ellikboshi all that was in it. Having accepted the offering, he promised to report the incident immediately to the bailiff [ amin ]. In the evening, Qobil Bobo decided to go to the amin . A dry spoon can wound the mouth, they say. How much money to take to the amin now? For those who give, one is much, but for those who take, ten is little. After consulting with the old woman, Qobil Bobo decided that this would be his last expense, on which depended the return of the loss. Does it make sense to be skimpy here? When Qobil Bobo appeared before him, the amin belched loudly then guffawed so that his fat chin trembled. “So a cow disappeared, you say? No . . . not a cow . . . an ox, a piebald ox . . . An ox?! Ah, it was an ox! Um, a piebald ox? Ah, so . . . It is the only thing I have . . . the ox.” The amin stuck half of his small finger into his nose and laughed. “The Thief” was published on the cusp of the anti-colonial campaigns in early Soviet Central Asia4 and, as such, it is shaped as a fragment of a bygone age. In opening this satirical piece with the expression “from the past” ( o’tmishdan ), Abdulla Qahhor, who had spent his childhood in tsarist-ruled Kokand, attempted to render a cultural atmosphere that had begun to fade away after the October Revolution. Indeed, the story echoes many of the com- mon assumptions about colonial justice that had circulated widely in Russian Central Asia and that, by the time “The Thief” was published, had become lit- erary motifs. It offers a medley of greedy and careless administrators; it opens a window on a Kafkaesque bureaucratic system that obliged appellants to go back and forth from one official to another; it describes bailiffs, police chiefs, and translators as individuals with discretionary power to act however they wished. Reading the story, one would think that justice in Russian Central Asia was all about bribery: 3 Оqposho in the text. Central Asians used the term “White King” to refer to the tsar. 4 For an overview on such campaigns, see D. Northrop, Veiled Empire: Gender and Power in Stalinist Central Asia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003). 3 Introduction A week passed. During this week, to identify the suspect, the old woman went to a fortune teller [ azaiimxon ] whose prayer was powerful enough to take a castle. She laid out half a sack of jiida berries,5 three large cups of corn, and two skeins of thread. Nothing happened. On the eighth day Qobil Bobo went back to the amin , whose hair stood on end with rage. “You what? Should I drive your ox to your house, or what? After all, you should go and appeal [ axir, borilsin, arz qilinsin-da!] : the subject who comes with a request confers honor upon the authorities [ fuqaron- ing arzga borishi arbobning izzati bo’ladi ].” Qobil Bobo consulted with friends: what to take to the police chief, if not money? Everyone knows that, before you reach him, your back will break from bowing. Even if Qobil Bobo can deliver [only] three chickens, one of them a mother hen, this is what he has. The neighbors, instead, collected one hundred eggs, but he [Qobil Bobo] was unable to get past even the translator with this offering. The translator took the entire gift and promised to explain the case immediately to the police chief. Qobil Bobo began to lose hope. Then he enraged, but, of course, that was in vain. Don’t mess with the authorities: you’ll lose no matter what! [ o’ynashmagil arbob bilan— seni urar har bob bilan ]. Now that he was well acquainted with the case, the police chief took his two best chickens and three rubles. Fortunately for Qobil Bobo, he did not say, “I will report immediately to the comman- dant” but told him instead to apply again to the amin . The amin said: “Go to the ellikboshi !” Seeing Qobil Bobo, the ellikboshi became angry: “Tell yourself who the suspect is! I don’t make miracles [ avlio emasman ]!6 How could I know who stole your ox? And I suppose that it was butchered long ago. Instead of complaining here, I would go to the best tanners and look at the pelts. However, if it went to a tanner, it is now just a skin. And from this very skin they must have made a pair of galoshes that are now in the market. “Oh, God, what grief! My poor little head,” whispered the wretched old man. “Are you a child, or what? Why do you cry? You are an adult. If this was the only ox in the whole world, it would be another mat- ter. God willing, your loss will be reimbursed. So be it: I will tell my father- in-law, and he will lend you one of his oxen. Is one ox worth the blood of a man?” The next day the ellikboshi took Qobil Bobo to his father-in-law, a cotton trader named Egamberdi. The merchant sympathized with the old man and at the time of plowing gave him not one ox but two. But with a “minor” condition. Qobil Bobo will find out about that in autumn. . . . 5 Jiida denotes a plant belonging to the genus Elaeagnus (silverberry, oleaster). 6 Lit. “I am not a saint.”