Şihabetdin Märcani was a Tatar

Volga Tatars

The Volga Tatars are the largest subgroup of the Tatars, native to the Volga region.They account for roughly six out of seven million Tatars worldwide....

 theologian and historian.

He studied in madrassas of Tashkichu (Kazan Uyezd, Kazan Governorate

Kazan Governorate

The Kazan Governorate or Government of Kazan was a governorate of Imperial Russia from 1708–1920, with the city of Kazan as its capital.-History:...

, Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

), Bukhara

Bukhara

Bukhara , from the Soghdian βuxārak , is the capital of the Bukhara Province of Uzbekistan. The nation's fifth-largest city, it has a population of 263,400 . The region around Bukhara has been inhabited for at least five millennia, and the city has existed for half that time...

 and Samarqand. Beginning in 1850 he served as the imam

Imam

An imam is an Islamic leadership position, often the worship leader of a mosque and the Muslim community. Similar to spiritual leaders, the imam is the one who leads Islamic worship services. More often, the community turns to the mosque imam if they have a religious question...

 of the First Cathedral Mosque. Later, in 1867, he became a muhtasib

Muhtasib

A ' was a supervisor of bazaars and trade in the mediæval Islamic countries. His duty was to ensure that public business was conducted in accordance with the law of sharia....

 of Kazan

Kazan

Kazan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. With a population of 1,143,546 , it is the eighth most populous city in Russia. Kazan lies at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka Rivers in European Russia. In April 2009, the Russian Patent Office granted Kazan the...

. At the same time, in 1876-1884 he lectured on religion in the Tatar Teachers' School. Märcani became the first Muslim member of The Society for Archaeology, History and Ethnography at Kazan State University. In his papers he illustrated his ideas about the renovation and the perfection of the Tatar educational system

Jadid

The Jadids were Muslim modernist reformers within the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th century. They normally referred to themselves by the Turkic terms Taraqqiparvarlar , Ziyalilar , or simply Yäşlär/Yoshlar...

. As a historian, he was the first Tatar scholar to employ a synthesis of European methodology with the traditions of the Oriental scholars. He was the author of more than 30 volumes about Tatar history.