On May 22, 2025, the head of the “Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of the Caucasus” (Sheikh ul-Islam) Allahshukur Pashazade announced that the Azerbaijani authorities are “reviving” the kaziyat system in Yerevan and appointing a qazhi (religious judge) to serve there (https://haqqin.az/news/348957; https://vestikavkaza.ru/news/v-erevane-vozrozdaetsa-institut-kazia.html). A qazhi is a theologian–jurist who oversees the activities of religious functionaries and adjudicates matters under Sharia law (marriage, divorce, inheritance, etc.).

It should be noted that, by imperial decree as early as 1872, a spiritual administration had been established in Transcaucasia for both Shia and Sunni communities. Its purpose was to oversee the religious life of Muslims throughout the Caucasus region. The head of this administration was known as the Sheikh ul-Islam. Prior to the 1917 Revolution, the administration’s jurisdiction extended over the governorates of Tiflis, Baku, Yelisavetpol, Erivan, and Kutaisi, as well as the regions of Batumi, Kars, and Dagestan and the districts of Zaqatala and Sukhum (Pashayev 2014, 14; Avoyan 2020, 129–134). In other words, the institution was intended to tend to the spiritual needs of Muslim populations across both Transcaucasia and the North Caucasus. It did not possess an explicitly national character; rather, it was organized along administrative lines that encompassed these territories. Within this framework, both major branches of Islam—Shia and Sunni—were represented and unified under a single governing body.

Subsequent restrictions on this spiritual administration followed the establishment of Soviet rule. The laws enacted between 1927 and 1929, which targeted religious institutions, effectively curtailed the administration’s reach, confining it exclusively to the territory corresponding to present-day Azerbaijan. Notably, during Heydar Aliyev’s tenure, the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of the Caucasus was endowed with a distinctly “national” character, becoming effectively “Azerbaijanized” and functioning to express—and in many respects to advance—the interests of the Azerbaijani state (Pashayev 2014, 46–57).

Azerbaijani media coverage has presented the restoration of the Yerevan qaziyat institution as a “response” to actions by Yerevan and the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, which, according to Azerbaijani sources, purportedly aims to abolish the Diocese of Artsakh. Official statements have also argued that, historically, a similar institution existed in “Western Azerbaijan” but was closed following the establishment of Soviet authority and subsequent demographic changes in the South Caucasus (https://ru.apa.az/religion/v-svyazi-s-vozobnovleniem-deyatelnosti-irevanskogo-kaziyata-budut-predlozheny-sootvetstvuyushhie-izmeneniya-v-zakony-611161; https://ru.apa.az/religiya/deyatelnost-irevanskogo-kaziyata-vozobnovlyaetsya-obnovleno-611140).

In light of these developments, it is evident that the “restoration” of an institution originally created for entirely different purposes is being appropriated to serve narrow political ends. The reestablishment of the Yerevan qaziyat, frequently invoked under the rubric of so-called “Western Azerbaijan,” clearly demonstrates how official Azerbaijani authorities are deploying a once-broadly defined religious structure for their own geopolitical objectives.

Bibliography

1. Avoyan 2020 - Avoyan S., Russian Government’s Religious Policy toward the Armenian Apostolic, Georgian Orthodox Churches, and Muslim Religious Institutions in Transcaucasia, Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin.
2. Pashayev 2014 - Pashayev A., Islam in Azerbaijan: Past and Present, Yerevan.