In 1920, Bigiev could be found in Ufa, where he presented a program for social reform with the title of "Appeal to the Islamic Nations" to the members of the Muslim religious administration; this included the allegiance of the Russian Muslims to the caliphate above the Soviet State. The program formed the basis for his book "Islam Milletlerine" ("To Muslim Nations"; or "Islamning Elifbasi", "The Alphabet of Islam", as response to Nikolai Bukharins "Alphabet of Communism") of which 5,000 copies were printed in Berlin in 1923. Following this publication, he was arrested in Moscow while on his way from Petrograd to a conference in India. The Soviets had begun to suppress all forms of religious expression, including "Pan-Turkists" and "Pan-Islamists".