Through analysis of the Russian-language writings of the prominent Crimean Tatar Muslim educator Ismāʿīl Gasprinskii, this article engages in unpacking the term ‘Islamic Reformation’. Gasprinskii’s membership of various, not necessarily overlapping social groups, including Russian conservative circles and international Muslim liberal networks, gave rise to the multitude of complex, often mutually exclusive meanings that the term enjoyed in his work. Despite clear references that Gasprinskii made to European and global Islamic discourses on civilisation and progress, his texts remained highly sensitive to Russia’s own insecure stance vis-à-vis Europe. Responding to the nation-building rhetoric of Russia’s elites, Gasprinskii conformed to and simultaneously challenged dominant cultural codes concerning Russia’s ethnic and religious minorities in many subtle ways. His case thus invites a reconsideration of the modes of conversation that existed between the coloniser and the colonised at the turn of the twentieth century, whereby we see them not as instances of uncontested domination by and imposition of European models, but as a complex and multidirectional process in which Muslim figures, like Gasprinskii, could exercise a significant degree of agency.

通过分析著名的克里米亚鞑靼穆斯林教育家 Ismāʿīl Gasprinskii 的俄语著作，本文致力于拆解“伊斯兰教改革”一词。加斯普林斯基属于各种不一定重叠的社会团体，包括俄罗斯保守派圈子和国际穆斯林自由派网络，这导致该词在他的作品中享有众多复杂的、往往相互排斥的含义。尽管加斯普林斯基明确提到了欧洲和全球伊斯兰关于文明和进步的论述，但他的文本仍然对俄罗斯自身对欧洲的不安全立场高度敏感。回应俄罗斯精英的建国言论，加斯普林斯基以许多微妙的方式遵守并同时挑战了有关俄罗斯少数民族和宗教的主流文化规范。因此，他的案例引发了对 20 世纪之交殖民者与被殖民者之间存在的对话模式的重新思考，我们认为它们不是欧洲模式无可争议的统治和强加的例子，而是复杂的、多向的在这个过程中，像加斯普林斯基这样的穆斯林人物可以行使很大程度的代理权。