Annotation: By the late 19th century, the government of the Russian Empire had become deeply engaged in the regulation of an important Muslim religious practice—hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. In this way, tsarist authorities attempted to control Russia’s Muslim population, integrate this population into its imperial space, as well as expand Russia’s influence in neighboring states. During the 1920s, Soviet authorities resurrected the imperial infrastructure that had been constructed to surveil and control Russia’s hajj traffic. Although the hajj was eventually curtailed in the 1930s due to rising xenophobic tendencies, the Soviet Union’s influence in the Near East continued to mostly rely on the remnants of this infrastructure. Using the regulation of pilgrimage practices as a case study, historian Eileen Kane provides a detailed analysis of the ways in which the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union dealt with Islam. The author pays special attention to this question as viewed in an international context. Thus, the history of the hajj in Russia is presented in this book as part of a broader, global history.