Imamate of Dagestan - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Not to be confused with the Caucasus Emirate
Caucasus Emirate
The Caucasus Emirate also known as the Caucasian Emirate is a self-proclaimed virtual state entity, partially successor to the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and was officially announced on October 31, 2007 by former President of Ichkeria Dokka Umarov, who became the first Emir...

The Caucasian Imamate also known as the Caucasus Imamate was the state established by 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...

s in Dagestan

Dagestan

The Republic of Dagestan is a federal subject of Russia, located in the North Caucasus region. Its capital and the largest city is Makhachkala, located at the center of Dagestan on the Caspian Sea...

and Chechnya

Chechnya

The Chechen Republic , commonly referred to as Chechnya , also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, sometimes referred to as Ichkeria , is a federal subject of Russia . It is located in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. The capital of the republic is the city of Grozny...

during the early and middle of the 19th century in the Northern Caucasus, to fight against the 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...

during the Caucasian War

Caucasian War

The Caucasian War of 1817–1864, also known as the Russian conquest of the Caucasus was an invasion of the Caucasus by the Russian Empire which ended with the annexation of the areas of the North Caucasus to Russia...

, where Russia sought to conquer the Caucasus in order to secure communications with its Southern territories, with the long term goal of the conquest of the "riches of Persia and the Middle East".

Background

Previously in the Northeast Caucasus, there had, since recordable history, been a large array of states.

Caucasian Albania had existed in Southern Dagestan, but was overrun and converted to Islam- after the Arabs left, they left the new Muslim states of Lezghia (centered in the Islamic learning center of Derbent), Lakia (centered in another, rival city of Islamic learning, Kumukh) and their less important neighbors. In these areas (Southern and Southeast Dagestan), where interethnic conflict was often present, Islam served a unifying role, and it was often the clerical establishment which mediated disputes. To this day, this is the most devotedly Islamic region of the Caucasus, with this as one of the major reasons (another, less popularized reason, is its rampant poverty and lack of established secular nationalism).

Islam was far less well-ingrained, but still highly important, in Central and Western Dagestan. These areas had always lied far outside the influence of Caucasian Albania and similarly fiercely fought off (as the neighboring Chechens, or Vainakh at that time, did) the Arab invaders, with assistance from the Khazars. Here lay Massaghetia, the Dargins and their neighbors, Didoya (probably a state of the modern, now marginal Dido peoples), and Sarir. The Georgian chronicles

The Georgian Chronicles

The Georgian Chronicles is a conventional English name for the principal compendium of medieval Georgian historical texts Kartlis Tskhovreba , literally "life of Kartli", Kartli being a core region of ancient and medieval Georgia, known to the Classical and Byzantine authors as Iberia...

noted the existence of a Dzurdzuketia (Dzurdzuks, the Georgian

Georgian language

Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...

name for the Vainakhs, the ancestors of Chechens and Ingush), which appears to have been absorbed into Alania at times, constituting an important part of the latter. Sarir was the strongest. Sarir at times adopted Christianity as the nominal, but not in reality, official religion. It was reduced at various times to a puppet state of Alania, Khazaria, or Sarmatia. In this area, kingdoms arose and fell or were subjugated frequently, and the Dido were reduced to their current state.

In Chechnya, Islam was considerably less ingrained than in the Imamate's other claims. Islam only began to make inroads in the 16th century in Chechnya, and even then was not highly important, with the indigenous Vainakh religion

Vainakh mythology

The Vainakh people of the North Caucasus include the modern Chechens and Ingush, who are today predominantly Muslim in religion. Nevertheless, their folklore has preserved a substantial amount of information about their pre-Islamic pagan beliefs...

still holding strong. It was only at the point of the threat of Russian conquest that people began to turn en masse, to Islam as a way to mobilize a coordinated resistance to Russian encroachment. Islam was spread to the Chechens this way mainly through the work of Sheikh Mansur

Sheikh Mansur

Sheikh al-Mansur was a Chechen leader who led the resistance against Catherine the Great's imperialist expansion into the Caucasus during the late 18th century. He remains a legendary national hero of the Chechen people....

. Nonetheless, as Shamil and his predecessors discovered, the actual commitment of the Chechens to Islam was disappointingly small. Paganism remained in practice until the early 19th century, and Chechen Islam today is often described as lax (often epitomized by the popularity of tobacco and alcohol) and is indeed, highly syncretic with Chechens building mosques near streams, and referring to God as Deila, the old head of the Vainakh pantheon. For these reasons, the Chechens became "unreliable" and there was a mutual dislike between them and Avar Imams.

However, although Islam was indeed extremely important in parts of the Caucasus, and was also a unifying force for resistance to Russia, political Islam was challenged by many different groups. Islam in Central and Northern Dagestan and Chechnya was overwhelmingly Naqshbandi at this time. However, Naqshbandiism, which was highly mystical in nature, had internal divisions over whether it should be political or whether, indeed, political Sufism tainted the religion's purity. The drive to establish sharia law in particular was opposed on many fronts. First of all, the indigenous Caucasian elites of states run by Avars, Kumyks, Lezgins, Laks and others (particularly the widow ruler Pakhu Bike, Queen of the Khanate of Avaria) opposed it as it seemed to take legitimacy away from their own positions. Sharia also clashed with adat, the indigenous law system that many, especially peoples such as the Chechens, viewed as superior to sharia. For these reasons, and other more subtle ones, in most areas the Imamate claimed as its domain, it was, in fact, simply viewed as the lesser evil to Russia.

Establishment

Parts of the Muslim population started to become radical due to Russian rapacious activities and taxation, calling for a Gazawat (Holy War) and the enforcement of Sharia

Sharia

Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...

. Two imams who were extremely radical, Imam Ghazi Muhammad

Ghazi Muhammad

Ghazi Mullah was an Islamic scholar and ascetic, who was the first Imam of the Caucasian Imamate . He was a staunch ally of Imam Shamil....

and Imam Shamil

Imam Shamil

Imam Shamil also spelled Shamyl, Schamil, Schamyl or Shameel was an Avar political and religious leader of the Muslim tribes of the Northern Caucasus...

, attempted to initiate the Gazawat they called for by trying to seize the capital of Khunzakh from the khan

Khan (title)

Khan is an originally Altaic and subsequently Central Asian title for a sovereign or military ruler, widely used by medieval nomadic Turko-Mongol tribes living to the north of China. 'Khan' is also seen as a title in the Xianbei confederation for their chief between 283 and 289...

of Pakkou-Bekkhe in 1827. The attack failed and so, disheartened, the imams bided their time, waiting for the various Muslim tribes to agree with one another. In 1828, the two attacked again, this time in Northern Dagestan, and with success.

The Russians, who at the time ruled over Northern Dagestan, were used to fighting on the open battlefields of Europe in lined formation instead of the Thick woods of the Caucasus and so were very unprepared for the guerrilla

Guerrilla warfare

Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...

tactics the two imams, resulting in a victory for Ghazi and Shamil. Though, this action would start the Caucasian War

Caucasian War

, a war between the Imamate and Russia that would eventually lead to the capture of all the Caucasus by the 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...

.

Here the Imamate was formed, with Ghazi self appointed as its first leader. The supreme government body of the Imamate, the State Council (Dīvān

Divan

A divan was a high governmental body in a number of Islamic states, or its chief official .-Etymology:...

) was formed which consisted of Sufi Muslim scholars and students as well as Shamil's military lieutenants, his Naibs.

Expansion

During the war the Imamate would see support from other Muslim tribes, eventually amalgamating with Chechnya, parts of Ingushetia and the rest of Dagestan during the Imamship of Imam Shamil. The Western Muslim tribes, the Adyghes, would fall under the control of the Imamate during Shamil's rule as well, but a problem arose in the form of the Russian-supporting Christian Kabardins and Ossetians that sat in between Shamil's east and west tribes, so these tribes were run mainly by Shamil's naibs who had traveled to the west instead of the Dīvān itself.

Politics

The Imamate's first leader was Imam Ghazi Muhammad, who ruled from 1828 until 1832, when he was succeeded by Gamzat-bek

Gamzat-bek

Gamzat-bek , Hamza-Bek, was the second imam of the Caucasian Imamate, who succeeded Ghazi Mollah upon his death in 1832.Gamzat-bek was a son of one of the Avar beks...

four years later. When he was murdered in 1834, by a band which included Hadji Murad

Hadji Murad

Hadji Murad was an important Avar leader during the resistance of the peoples of Dagestan and Chechnya in 1811-1864 against the incorporation of the region into Russian Empire.-Alliance with Russia:...

, Shamil

Imam Shamil

Imam Shamil also spelled Shamyl, Schamil, Schamyl or Shameel was an Avar political and religious leader of the Muslim tribes of the Northern Caucasus...

became the third imam

Imam

. The Imamate reached its peak under Shamil's rule, spanning all of the Muslim Northern Caucasus.

The Imamate was a highly militaristic country, having been at war since its establishment. Its politics were always concerned with the furthering of Islam or the Caucasian War. As such, the only people that ever sat on its council were Muslim scholars or military naibs.

The war and the surrender of the Imamate

The war with Russia had several great victories early on, but Russia hadn't really been taking the war seriously. Intoxicated with their great victory over Napoleon's army, the Russian people had little concern for the petty Asiatic resistance occurring on their border. However the Caucasians did reach a point where they pushed the Russians hard enough to incite a full scale attack. In 1832 Shamil and Ghazi led a failed attack on Vladikavkaz, at the time a Russian military fort brazenly named "Ruler of The Caucasus". The Russians countered, launching an assault on what was as close to a capital as the Imamate had, Gimry

Gimry

Gimry is a village in Untsukulsky District of the Republic of Dagestan, Russia. It is located in the mountain where Imam Shamil, the third Imam of Dagestan, was born.-History:...

. This resulted in the seizure of the town by the Russians and the death of Ghazi Muhammad. reportedly, Shamil was the only man to escape the battle, after which he went into hiding to evade the Russians. Everyone assumed him to be dead.

In the absence of Shamil, an imam by the name of Gamzat-bek ruled. Gamzat-bek was an imam who had played a vital role in securing the Avar Khans for the Imamate, and had since been a naib to Shamil and Ghazi. Shamil returned a year later, only to have Gamzat-bek assassinated by the same Avar Khanates he had defeated. With no one else to take the position, Shamil became the 3rd leader of the Imamate. Shamil would turn out to be the greatest of the Imams by far, and would rule for 27 years. He would conquer the Western Muslim tribes, and transform a group of small bickering villages into a united country. However, he would also see great casualties to his people too, particularly in the Siege of Akhoulgo

Siege of Akhoulgo

The siege of Akhoulgo took place in June–August 1839 during the Caucasian War, when the Imperial Russian army under the command of Generals Yevgeny Golovin and Pavel Grabbe surrounded Imam Shamil and his followers, numbering about 5,000 men, in their mountain stronghold of Akhoulgo, nestled in the...

where he would personally loose around 4500 of his own people. But he would continue to rule until 1859, when the Emperor of Russia would offer Shamil a peaceful surrender, he would even be a guest of the royal palace. Shamil agreed, and The Caucasian Imamate was no more. However, fighting did not immediately cease.

The fate of Imam Shamil

As Charles King notes,

Whereas previous enemies of the empire had been imprisoned, killed or exiled, Shamil became a national celebrity [in Russia]. After his surrender, he settled into a comfortable retirement in Kaluga, southeast of Moscow.

In 1859, Shamil wrote to one of his sons: "By the will of the Almighty, the Absolute Governor, I have fallen into the hands of unbelievers... the Great Emperor... has settled me here... in a tall, spacious house with carpets and all the necessities."

Fourth Imamate

After the Russian Revolution of 1917

Russian Revolution of 1917

The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...

, an attempt to reestablish the Imamate was made by the son of one of Shamil's naibs, Najmuddin Hotso. This name stems from the Dagestani settlement of Gotso (when he was awarded nobility

Nobility

Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...

by Tsar

Tsar

Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...

), with the help of Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, during March–April 1918. He was pronounced the fourth Imam of the North Caucasus

North Caucasus

The North Caucasus is the northern part of the Caucasus region between the Black and Caspian Seas and within European Russia. The term is also used as a synonym for the North Caucasus economic region of Russia....

and deposed the Soviet

Soviet (council)

Soviet was a name used for several Russian political organizations. Examples include the Czar's Council of Ministers, which was called the “Soviet of Ministers”; a workers' local council in late Imperial Russia; and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union....

power, but was soon defeated by the Soviets. Hotso only had support in Dagestan, and there he carried on his fight (in Chechnya, meanwhile, North Caucasian nationalists of various creeds similarly went into guerrilla war against the Russians). Both were finally quelled in 1925.