The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought

Shamil (1797–1871)

Shamil was the third and most successful imam (r. 1834–59), or leader of the Muslim resistance to the Russian conquest of Chechnya and Daghestan and ruler of the imamate (Islamic state) it established.

Born in the a’ul (village) of Gimry, Shamil displayed from early childhood interest in religious studies. He, together with his older friend and distant relative Ghazi Muhammad (the future first imam), studied with various ‘ulama’ in Daghestan, the most famous of whom was Sa‘id al-Harakani (d. 1834), and then joined the Khalidi branch of the Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi Sufi brotherhood. Both he and Ghazi Muhammad were disciples (murīds) of Jamal al-Din al-Ghazi-Ghumuqi (1788–1869) but were given licenses (ijāza) to propagate the brotherhood (ṭarīqa) by his master, Muhammad al-Yaraghi (1770–1838). Shamil remained loyal and obedient to Jamal al-Din until his last day in the Caucasus. He married his mentor’s daughter and gave two of his daughters to Jamal al-Din’s sons. Jamal al-Din, on his part, supported Shamil in his bid for leadership and during the entire period of his rule.

During his first three years as imam, Shamil was busy establishing his authority over rival claimants to leadership and the population at large. Here, his master’s support was of crucial importance. So was the imam’s low profile in his negotiations with the Russians. In 1837 the Russians tried to destroy him but were forced to sign a truce. Two years later Shamil escaped a crushing defeat with his family and a few followers, but he rose to new heights of power and success in the following years.

At the peak of his power, Shamil controlled most of Daghestan and Chechnya and sent nā’ibs (lieutenants) to the Circassians in the Western Caucasus, the most successful of whom was Muhammad Amin (active 1848–59). In 1845, Shamil dealt a painful blow to a huge Russian expeditionary force under Count Vorontsov, and in the following year he tried to join forces with the Circassians. He repeated such attempts up to, and during, the Crimean War (1853–56).

Understanding the odds he was up against, Shamil, like his predecessors, tried to secure Ottoman assistance, but the Sublime Porte denied it. During the early 1840s, however, assistance came from Muhammad ‘Ali, the pasha of Egypt. In the period leading to the Crimean War it seemed as if both Shamil and the Ottomans were moving toward cooperation. Shamil’s serious attempts to join forces with the Ottoman army at the beginning of that war, however, were met with a feeble Ottoman response. The Ottomans abandoned such attempts completely following their defeats on the Anatolian front and pressure from the British ambassador.

With the lessons of the Crimean War in mind, the Russians concentrated on conquering Chechnya and Daghestan. The Chechens and Daghetsanis were in the meantime greatly demoralized after the Ottomans failed to join them during the war and thereafter abandoned them in the Paris peace treaty of March 1856, which concluded the Crimean War. Beginning in 1857, successive Russian offensives from three sides gradually reduced Shamil’s imamate, which collapsed in 1859, forcing Shamil’s surrender.

In captivity, Shamil was treated with respect and allocated a house in Kaluga and later in Kiev. In 1869, he was allowed to leave for hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. He settled in Medina and died in 1871 on his way to another visit to Mecca. His eldest surviving son, Ghazi Muhammad, became a general in the Ottoman army and led a Caucasian division in the Russo-Ottoman War (1877–78). His other son, Shafi‘ Muhammad, was a general in the Russian army. His grandson Sait (Sa‘id) Shamil joined the 1920 rebellion against the Bolsheviks in Daghestan and was one of the only two survivors who returned to Turkey.

During his long reign, Shamil completed the structure of the imamate, the foundations of which had been laid by his predecessors, Ghazi Muhammad (1829–32) and Hamza Bek (1832–34). The imam stood at the head of both the lay and the religious hierarchies and claimed full sovereignty, assuming the title amīr al-mu’minīn (Commander of the Faithful). He was assisted in running the state by a dīwān (privy council), which included Jamal al-Din. The lay hierarchy below the imam included in descending order mudirs and nā’ibs, who were simultaneously governors, military commanders, and tax collectors for bayt al-māl (the treasury). The religious hierarchy included muftis (jurists) and qadis (judges), who were independent of the nā’ibs and accountable only to the imam. The backbone of the army were the murtaziqa (supported, provided for)—a standing army of one soldier per ten households who provided for all his family’s needs—but in the late 1840s an artillery corps and an Ottoman-style regular infantry, the niẓām, were also set up.

Contrary to the established view, the main aim of Shamil’s movement was not jihad (holy war) but tanfīdh (implementation) of the shari‘a. Jihad was merely a tool for tanfīdh, in addition to a means for self-defense against occupation by unbelievers. Correspondingly, the imamate was based on Islamic law—according to his (and his followers’) interpretation. Shamil thus made a major effort that the taxes and the expenses of bayt al-māl approximate as far as possible the stipulations of the shari‘a, and an important part of the stipulations of the niẓām—Shamil’s “secular” legislation (by-laws, not to be confused with the infantry unit of a similar name)—dealt with (re)interpretations of the provisos of the shari‘a. As both an ‘ālim (scholar) and a Naqshbandi disciple, Shamil personally made an effort to live according to the shari‘a and to demonstrate that all his actions as leader matched the dictates of the sacred law.

From an early stage in the struggle, the Russians used Daghestani and Middle Volga Region ‘ulama’ in their service in order to discredit Shamil and his movement on Islamic grounds. The most important of these ‘ulama’ were Harakani, Mirza ‘Ali al-Akhdi (d. 1858), and Yusuf al-Yakhsawi (d. 1871). But Shamil and his followers easily dismissed them as traitors to Islam. Of more consequence was Sulayman Efendi, a nā’ib in Shamil’s imamate who defected to the Russians and produced in 1846 a list of Shamil’s transgressions and deviations from the shari‘a. This prompted Shamil to put on record both his history and the legal justifications for his actions. Both of these projects were carried out by well-known ‘ulama’.

Muhammad Tahir al-Qarakhi, who served for a while as Shamil’s secretary, wrote the chronicle titled Bariqat al-Suyuf al-Daghistaniyya fi ba‘d al-Ghazawat al-Shamiliyya (The glitter of Daghestani swords in some of Shamil’s raids), which recorded Shamil’s version of the events. Murtada ‘Ali al-Uradi (d. 1865), who also served for a short time as Shamil’s secretary, wrote al-Murghim (The compulsory) and Risala fi al-Hijra (Treatise on emigration), which summarized the legal point of view of the imam and his supporters.

According to this point of view, an imam is a farḍ kifāya (collective duty), which means that the Muslims must always have at least one leader. Territories too far removed from one another or from the center to effectively assist each other should have their own imam. All Muslims in the imam’s domain have to accept his authority. Those who disobey him are bughāt (rebels), and those who reject the rule of the shari‘a are murtaddūn (apostates). Hijra—that is, emigration from dār al-ḥarb (abode of war) to dār al-islām (abode of Islam)—is compulsory if called upon by the imam. Those who remain in dār al-ḥarb are bughāt, while collaborators with the infidels are murtaddūn. The killing of ahl al-ridda (apostates) takes priority over the killing of ahl al-ḥarb (infidels not recognizing the sovereignty of the Islamic state). If those ahl al-ridda are beyond the reach of the imam, their property may be seized or destroyed, and their marriages, commercial contracts, and inheritance rights are null and void. It is permitted to raid the houses of the bughāt, to pillage and destroy them, and to evict their inhabitants by force into dār al-islām. If dictated by maṣlaḥa (the benefit of the Muslim community), bughāt may be killed too.

The principle of maṣlaḥa grants unrestricted authority to the imam. He has the right of ijtihād (independent reasoning on the basis of the Qur’an and sunna) with regard to legislation and to ta‘zīr (punishments for criminal offenses), including inflicting the death penalty and punishing upon suspicion, without the sufficient proof required by Islamic law. Indeed, Shamil used this authority in both his “secular” legislation—the niẓām—and in substituting the ḥudūd (punishments fixed by the shari‘a) with other punishments.

The physical and spiritual backbone of the movement and the imamate were the Khalidis. It is, therefore, natural that the real challenge to the imamate came from another ṭarīqa that started to spread in Chechnya and Daghestan in the late 1850s: the Qadiris. Shaykh Kunta Hajji al-Michiki al-Iliskhani (ca. 1830–67), who introduced it to the Caucasus, offered people exhausted by 30 years of war and deprivation a third alternative to the two presented by Shamil—either to be true believers and resist or to surrender and become apostates. Kunta Hajji said that being a good Muslim depended on one’s personal behavior, not on resistance. Furthermore, he stated that resistance to the Russians was a sin and predicted the fall of the imamate and the captivity of Shamil. Unable to counter these arguments, the imam sent Kunta Hajji on another hajj, but the message had fallen on fertile ground and contributed to the downfall of the imamate.

Almost completely forgotten in the wider Muslim world and in the West, Shamil became a hero to many in the former Soviet Union, and his figure generated controversy in Soviet historiography. His heritage is claimed by various, often opposing, political, ethnic, and ideological groups and movements in the Caucasus.