Middle Eastern Studies Radical Islamism, Traditional Islam and Ethno-Nationalism in the Northern...

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Radical Islamism, Traditional Islam andEthno-Nationalism in the NorthernCaucasusChen Bram a & Moshe Gammer ba P.O. Box 27124, Jerusalem, 9127101, Israelb Tel Aviv University, Middle Eastern and African History, Tel Aviv,69978, IsraelPublished online: 25 Mar 2013.

To cite this article: Chen Bram & Moshe Gammer (2013): Radical Islamism, Traditional Islam andEthno-Nationalism in the Northern Caucasus, Middle Eastern Studies, 49:2, 296-337

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2013.763797

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Radical Islamism, Traditional Islam andEthno-Nationalism in the NorthernCaucasus

CHEN BRAM� AND MOSHE GAMMER��

Over 25 years have passed since the beginning of Perestroika, and more than 20 sincethe dissolution of the USSR. This seems to be a long enough period to enable one toreflect on the interplay between Islam, collective identity and inter-group relationsand their reciprocal influences on the upsurge of conflicts and the relations with anon-Muslim state – in this case the Russian Federation.

The Northern Caucasus is a distinctive example of the dynamics of Islam in thepost-Soviet era, dynamics that cannot be discussed without the specific considerationof the local context. Yet the study of the different dynamics within this area suggestsimportant insights beyond the regional framework to the overall understanding of theinterplay between Islam and collective identity and their position in potentialconflicts.

The Northern Caucasus has often been perceived as a major locus of radical Islam,and as a strategic rift in the ‘clash of civilizations’.1 The simplistic way in which theconflict in Chechnya has been portrayed – in the media in particular – diverts atten-tion from various contemporaneous processes in the area, thus thwarting a more com-plex comprehension and leading to a misperception of the dynamics of Islam in thisregion. This paper, therefore, intends to highlight the ‘conflicts within civilizations’.2

Contrary to what many, first and foremost radical Islamists, would like people tobelieve, the significant rifts and conflicts are between different Islamic alternatives.3

Important variables crucial to this discussion highlighted by the case of the NorthernCaucasus are ethnicity, nationalism, civic identity and their interplay with Islam. Nev-ertheless, all the above does not reduce the significance of external factors influencingthe various orientations of Islamic developments, such as the policies of, and relationswith, the controlling non-Muslim power. This is, thus, an example that the potentialof radicalism in Islamic societies is not the mere result of its own ‘characteristics’, butis also a product of policy towards Islamic societies by outside actors.

Although the title of this paper follows a common trend in politics and research to

*P.O. Box 27124, Jerusalem, 9127101. Israel. E-mail: [email protected].**Tel Aviv University, Middle Eastern and African History, 69978 Tel Aviv, Israel. E-mail:[email protected]

� 2013 Taylor & Francis

Middle Eastern Studies, 2013Vol. 49, No. 2, 296–337, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2013.763797

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mailto:[email protected]

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2013.763797

refer generally to the ‘Northern Caucasus’ as a distinct unit, any unitary perception ofthis region would be misleading. The differences between various areas – and eventsand processes – in the Northern Caucasus are remarkable. Hence, this paper demon-strates the importance of local context and historical background to the understand-ing of such phenomena.

The Northern Caucasus demonstrates both ends of the spectrum of post-SovietIslam. On the one hand it contains societies in which age-old Islamic institutions andidentities remained central during the Soviet period and resurfaced in the post-Sovietera to reshape themselves and their societies. On the other hand it includes societies inwhich Islam did not strike deep roots before the Russian conquest, and was success-fully marginalized by the Soviet authorities. Here a process of re-Islamization startedafter the dissolution of the USSR. At the same time the area also exemplifies opposingalternatives of current Islamic orientations: on the one extreme is moderate Islamwhich goes hand in hand with other collective identities (i.e. ethnicity, nationalism,but also civic identity); on the other is radical Islam which in principle demands supe-riority over all other ideologies and identities. Interestingly enough both opposingalternatives of Islamic orientation exist at both ends of the spectrum of societies de-scribed above. And although the specific dynamics are different in each case, these dif-ferences are central to the understanding of the position of various types of Islam inthe Northern Caucasus and elsewhere.

The Northern Caucasus is divided among two krais (provinces), where the majori-ty of ethnic Russians is concentrated,4 and seven autonomous republics for local na-tionalities. These are, from east to west: Daghestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, AlanyaNorth Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachai-Cherkesia and Adyghea. All are alegacy of the Soviet nationality policy and all are members (in Russian legal terms‘subjects’ – sub’ekty) of the Russian Federation.5 This paper deals with four of them:Daghestan and Chechnya in the east; Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachai-Cherkesiain the west.

In the east North Ossetia and Ingushetia will not be discussed. The majority of theOssets are (at least nominally) Christians, which in addition to other differences be-tween them and their neighbours leaves them out of the premises of this paper. TheIngush, although sharing ethnic, linguistic, religious and other attributes – and until1991 also a joint autonomous republic – with the fraternal Chechens, have been fullyengrossed in their conflict with the Ossets which precluded any meaningful develop-ment related to the present topic. Chechnya and Daghestan differ in many ways fromeach other. Perhaps the most obvious dissimilarity is the fact that Chechnya is mono-national while Daghestan is ‘owned’ jointly by 14 titular nationalities (see Appendix).Still, in spite of the many differences between them and the divergent paths alongwhich they have been marching, these two republics have a great many common char-acteristics which have enabled the development of similar processes in both. The mostimportant of these common features is the deeply Islamic and Sufi nature of both soci-eties (as well as of the Ingush). In spite, or perhaps because, of Soviet attempts to de-stroy it, Islam has remained a major component of individual and group identity inboth societies.

In the west this paper will concentrate on Kabardino-Balkaria, the largest autono-mous republic in that part of the Caucasus, and on Karachai-Cherkesia. The reasonsfor that are: (1) in these two republics the local people form a majority, while in

Islam and Ethno-Nationalism in the Northern Caucasus 297

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Adyghea, which is surrounded by the Krasnodar krai, the majority of the populationare Russians (Circassians make up less than 17 per cent of the inhabitants); and (2)the importance of the various processes related to the interplay between Islam andother identities and ideologies in these two autonomous republics is evident. Further-more, in both republics the political division cuts across the ethnic one – both areinhabited by one part of each of two larger local Muslim ethno-national groups (thisis another reason to exclude Adyghea, which is inhabited by one local group only):the Circassians (Adyghe – as they all call themselves6) speak a North Caucasian lan-guage and are divided into Kabartay and western Circassians according to dialect.7

They inhabit the northern, lower parts of these two republics. The Karachai-Balkarsspeak a Turkic language, and live in the higher areas in the south.8 Both groups, andespecially the Circassians, are the least Islamized people in the Caucasus.9 At the pres-ent the Circassian Kabartay constitute more than 50 per cent of the population ofKabardino-Balkaria. In Karachai-Cherkesia the Karachais are the largest group.Each republic also has a Russian population (which is more significant in Karachai-Cherkesia).

A comparative study of these two different areas within the same region – theNorthern Caucasus – should supply an opportunity to explore the general importanceof the deep comprehension of local context. At the same time, the differences enableone to discern general processes, which can in turn contribute to the understanding ofother Islamic societies.

This paper is a joint effort by a historian (MG) and an anthropologist (CB), eachspecializing in a specific part of the geographical area under discussion and using hisexperience, knowledge and the tools of his discipline. The paper attempts, thus, tocombine approaches from both disciplines and bring together the study of historicaland contemporary sources with information collected during field trips to the area.10

The historical prism offers a deeper understanding of current developments throughthe observation and analysis of longer historical processes, and by the examinationsof sources from different periods but from the same localities. The anthropologicalperspective adds the specific attention to different contexts, as well as its special theo-retical frameworks developed to study ethnicity and religion, and their inter-rela-tions.11 The authors hope that this inter-disciplinary approach will help to betterbring to light the various inter-dependent variables which influence the makeup ofIslamic activities in this area and beyond.

Finally, a series of events in the mid-2000s, which include the deaths of AhmadKadyrov (the pro-Moscow president of the Chechen Republic; 9 May 2004), AslanMaskhadov (president of the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeriya; 8 March2005) and Shamil Basayev (leader of the Islamist wing of the separatists; 10 July2006), the armed attack on Nalchik (13 October 2005), the replacement of Magome-dali Magomedov by Mukhu Aliev as president of Daghestan (15 February 2006) andthe abolition of the (separatist) Chechen Republic of Ichkeriya12 by its president,Doku Umarov, who declared himself instead ‘the Amir [Commander] of all the fight-ers of the Caucasus and the leader of Jihad’ (October 2007),13 seems to signify the endof an era in the history of the post-Soviet Northern Caucasus. The timeframe of thisarticle therefore extends from the dissolution of the Soviet Union until the mid-2000s.It forms, however, a firm base to the understanding of later events, such as the killingof three Russian tourists in the mountainous Elbrus area of Kabardino-Balkaria on

298 C. Bram and M. Gammer

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19 February 2011 or a series of assassinations of public figures such as Anas Pshikha-chev, the mufti of Kabardino-Balkarya, a number of police officers and state officials– including the Kabartay ethnologist Arsen Tsipinov – the responsibility for allclaimed by local Islamist insurgents.14

Islam in the north-eastern Caucasus is unique on at least three historical counts thatcontinue to have social and cultural significance on current developments.

First, one of the oldest and most developed centres of traditional Muslim scholarshipis located in it, namely in Daghestan. Already in the eleventh century CE major centresof Islamic learning existed in that ‘Mountainland’,15 and since then Daghestan hadbeen the beacon of Islamic scholarship for the Northern Caucasus and had suppliedspiritual leadership to the entire area at least until the 1920s.16 Being both a borderlandfar removed from the heartland of Islamic civilization and a rural country with notowns or cities seem to have worked in favour of enhancing this tradition of scholar-ship: the madrasas, libraries etc. were located in villages, which strengthened and deep-ened the roots of both Islam and its scholarship among the rural population.17

Second, Islam in this area has a strong Sufi flavour. Although, Sufism had not beenunknown in medieval Daghestan, the modern Sufi brotherhoods that dominate thearea at the present arrived relatively late. In the 1810s it was the Khalidi branch of theNaqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya (named after Sheikh Khalid al-Shahrazuri, 1760–1827, and called ‘Miuridizm’ in the Russian and Soviet sources) that successfullyestablished itself in the Northern Caucasus.18 It is still influential among some of theChechens and plays a prominent role in Daghestan. The Khalidiyya was followed, inthe 1850s, and supplanted among most Chechens, by the Qadiriyya (called in the Cau-casus after the man who introduced it – Sheikh Kunta Hajji, 1830[?]–64 – and knownas ‘Zikrizm’ in Russian and Soviet literature). It is now influential among the Ingush,Chechens and Kumyks.19

The late arrival of the brotherhoods was a major element in the Sufi success in thenorth-eastern Caucasus. The branches which arrived in the Caucasus belonged tothose Sufi brotherhoods which underwent in the twelfth Islamic (roughly the eigh-teenth Gregorian) century a great number of organizational and ideologicalchanges,20 that enabled them to become an integral part of the social fabric. Their ide-ologies enabled the two to appear, each in its turn, as bearers of solutions to the acutecrises suffered by these societies due to the Russian conquest and to the decades longresistance to it.21 Their organization, hierarchy and discipline helped them to be incor-porated into, become a vital component of, and supply much-needed leadership to lo-cal society. The fact that both brotherhoods valued Islamic scholarship and combinedit with their mystical paths facilitated their acceptance among the ‘ulama (religiousscholars) and propelled their sheikhs to the position of spiritual and intellectual lead-ers of the population.

Third, resistance to Russian conquest and rule – both tsarist and Soviet – had beenconducted under the banner of Islam and the leadership of both Sufi brotherhoods.The Khalidi branch of the Naqshbandiyya and its three imams (leaders) led the30-year-long resistance to the Russian conquest in Daghestan and Chechnya (1829–5922

and all subsequent uprisings against Russian rule in Daghestan up to the 1930s.23

The Qadiriyya which started as a movement preaching ‘passive resistance’, to usemodern terminology, was soon driven to rebellion by Russian deliberate provocation


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and turned into a sworn enemy of Russia.24 Thus, the Qadiriyya, or at least some ofits branches, led a series of revolts in Chechnya and Ingushetia, the most important ofwhich were those of 1863, 1877–78, 1919, 1920, 1924–25 and 1929–30.25

Soviet policies, formulated under Stalin and changed only slightly by his successors,were designed from the very beginning to destroy the hold of Islam and the Sufi brother-hoods over society and to suppress all vestiges of resistance. Thus, the aggressive perse-cution of religion;26 the creation during the Second World War of an official Islamicadministration to control the believers; and the massive involvement of the secret police– in its successive acronyms from ChK to KGB – in every aspect of the above two.

Far from eliminating the role and influence of the Sufi brotherhoods in the life of socie-ty, however, all these only served to enhance it. To start with, the brotherhoods, as ifdesigned on purpose for clandestine activity, filled the vacuum created by Soviet anti reli-gious policies. The ziyarts27 (which they controlled) became the only centres of religiouslife. These and the dhikr28 ceremonies provided people with their only opportunity toworship. The brotherhoods ran a clandestine education system, in which children andadults were taught the essentials of Islam, prayer, the Qur’an and some Arabic. Later onthey also established their own samizdats which published and distributed underground agreat deal of banned religious literature in local languages as well as in Russian.

Thus, during the last three decades of the Soviet period the brotherhoods had, infact, successfully established what might be termed ‘parallel communities’ with aflourishing parallel (in Soviet vernacular ‘left’) economy, which maintained as littlecontact as possible with the Soviet state, society and economy. In large parts ofChecheno-Ingushetia and of Daghestan, the shari‘a (religious law) and the ‘adat29 reg-ulated life, not the Soviet legal system (for, as an English observer remarked, ‘thereseemed to be three legal systems in force – Soviet law, local Party extortion and theold customary law’).30

More important, in both republics, as in other parts of the USSR, the nationalitypolicy of the new Soviet regime was designed to break up the unity of the Muslimcommunity by a sophisticated and complex ‘divide and rule’. It thus created new na-tionalities, national languages and used the Latin and then the Cyrillic alphabets todivide Soviet Muslims from each other, from the Muslims outside the USSR andfrom their past. Furthermore, the Soviets took care not to include the entirety of anygiven nationality within its own political/administrative unit. The creation of two sep-arate Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics (ASSRs) within the Russian Soviet Fed-erated Socialist Republic (RSFSR) – the Checheno-Ingush ASSR (ChIASSR) and theDaghestani ASSR (DASSR) was part of this policy. These new republics would hencedevelop in separate, even divergent ways.

The Daghestanis, speaking at least 32 different local languages, were divided by theSoviet authorities into 12 officially recognized nationalities. Each of these developedalong separate lines, reshaping its own group identity and cultivating its own national-ism. Furthermore, Soviet massive transfer – sometimes by ‘stick’, other times by ‘car-rot’ – of populations from the mountains into the lowlands created quite a fewnational conflicts which would come into the open after the dissolution of theUSSR.31 The Chechens and the Ingush – divided officially into two separate national-ities – suffered the tragedy of the so-called ‘deportation’ to Central Asia in 1944 and‘rehabilitation’ in 1957.32


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Soviet nationalities policy, however, had dialectical results and its very success innation building – the obstacles placed on it by Moscow notwithstanding – returned toboth the Soviets and even more so to their successors with a vengeance. Three cam-paigns – in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s – against the ‘vestiges of religionand clericalism’ and against ‘chauvinistic bourgeois nationalism’ bore witness to Mos-cow’s failures in both spheres. The Soviets had to face a more serious problem, how-ever – the ‘convergence of religion and nationalism’. Among all Soviet Muslimpopulations Islam remained a strong focus of identification and a major componentof the new national identity. In the case of Chechnya and Daghestan, though, it alsomeant the involvement of the Sufi brotherhoods with national identity and national-ism and in many cases ‘the tariqah [that is, brotherhood] became . . . the very symbolof their nationhood’.33

By the end of the Soviet period the majority of the indigenous people in both repub-lics shared at least three tendencies: (1) they identified as Muslims, which did not nec-essarily mean that they all practised the commandments of Islam and/or had anymeaningful knowledge of its doctrines; (2) they belonged to one of the Naqshbandi orQadiri wirds,34 which did not mean that they were murids35 (rather it meant that theyaccepted the head of the wird as their ustadh36 and obeyed him); and (3) theyabstained from any contact with the functionaries of ‘official Islam’ whom theyregarded as stooges of the Godless authorities (bezbozhniki) and suspected as KGBagents.

As in other parts of the former Soviet Union (FSU), Muslim and non-Muslim alike,four major processes followed and influenced each other in Daghestan and Chechnyasince the last few years of perestroika (1987–91): (1) the greater (though nowhere nearfull) control by the believers of the religious board (‘official Islam’); (2) the growinguse of Islam by both the authorities and many of the opposition groups for politicalmobilization and legitimization; (3) the increasing involvement, usually reluctant, ofthe Sufi leadership in politics; and (4) the appearance of foreign-inspired purist Islamiccurrents, dubbed in the FSU ‘Wahhabis’. These processes were strongly influenced bythree major events: the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, followed by a weak leader-ship in Moscow; the first war in Chechnya (1994–96); and the rise to power of Vladi-mir Putin in 1999, which signalled a return to centralizing policies and tight controlby a strong leadership in the Kremlin.

Naturally, these processes have varied in many details as well as in scope and inten-sity. In Chechnya the situation was relatively simpler and more straightforward thanin Daghestan for two reasons – its national homogeneity and its being the only ex-So-viet political unit to permanently overthrow the nomenklatura (known all over theFSU as partokratiia) in what was officially termed ‘the Chechen revolution’.37

Islam being an integral part of Chechen identity, even to the most secularized andwesternized nationalists, Islamic symbols and slogans were most naturally used by thenew government. Thus, in November 1991 Johar Dudayev took oath as president onthe Qur’an, the republic was termed ‘Islamic’ (with no definition of this term) and thestruggle for independence was termed jihad.38 Furthermore, Islam had been to theChechens the antithesis of everything Marxist and Soviet. The Islamic alternatives tothe Soviet state and code of law were the imama and shari‘a respectively, so deeply en-graved in national history and tradition.39 Nevertheless, until the first war the regimeremained committed to a secular orientation.


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Also in Daghestan, where the partokratiia with its erstwhile ‘religiophobia’ and an-tipathy to nationalism remained in power, religion and nationalism complementedeach other. However, in a multi-national state this meant that neither was an integra-tive force able to replace the defunct Soviet ideology and power structure, and providethe government with legitimization and the republic with a sense of unity, purposeand security. ‘Belonging’ officially to 14 titular nationalities, nationalism in Daghe-stan meant only trouble. With no group even approaching a relative majority, variousrivalries and conflicts had developed among them. Some of these traversed internaland newly established international borders. Other internal but more serious conflictsthreatened to explode into violence.40

But, Sunni Islam was not a common denominator either. Two of the titular na-tionalities are not Muslim and another is Shi‘i.41 As for the rest – their allegianceto Sunni Islam comes second to ethnic and national loyalties. This was clearly dem-onstrated when the larger say of the believers in the running of the religious boardresulted in its division along national lines, with almost every major nationality se-ceding and establishing its own muftiate. Also the Sufi brotherhoods proved to bea divisive force, and not merely because of the traditional rivalries among them:since most, if not all, of them were mono-ethnic in composition, this meant that inmany cases traditional and national frictions intertwined and reinforced eachother.42

Still, the authorities in Daghestan had no choice but to try to use both nationalismand Islam and to co-opt their bearers. They had to do so because while a weakenedMoscow was practically unable to give them any meaningful support, the rise of na-tionalism and the religious revival had left them no option but to ‘join them’.43 Withregard to Islam it meant not merely regaining control over ex-‘Official Islam’,44 butcooperating with the Sufi sheikhs whose inherited aversion to everything Soviet com-bined with time-honoured Sufi traditions of reluctance to get directly involved in poli-tics. Only the appearance in Daghestan of political Islam, and most particularly theso-called ‘Wahhabis’, compelled the Sufis and the ex-commissars to join forces.

‘Wahhabis’ has been the pejorative applied by the political and religious establish-ments all over the FSU to an array of groups and individuals, in order to denigratethem and neutralize their influence.45 Not necessarily related to the official religiousdoctrine of Saudi Arabia and not at all a homogeneous camp, these ‘Wahhabis’ werein the north-eastern Caucasus mainly young, educated people who in the years sinceperestroika had completed religious studies in one of three ways: (1) in the MiddleEast; (2) in Daghestan with teachers from the Middle East; and (3) in Daghestan withgraduates of either of the two above.46 At first they could be found only inDaghestan. Chechnya proved less fertile ground for their activities because theChechens were ‘intoxicated with nationalism’.47

These young men found many deviations from ‘pure’ Islam in the traditional reli-gious practices. Their public criticism of these ‘deviations’, of Sufism and of the tradi-tional leadership – all sanctified to the believers by 70 years of anti-religiouspersecution – aroused a great deal of resentment and animosity. Their call to establishan Islamic order – social as well as political – challenged the republican leadership.48

Their preference to lead a segregated life alienated them from the majority of the pop-ulation and made them an easy target for the authorities to mark as ‘the enemy’.49


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Still, if not for the first war in Chechnya (1994–96), these ‘Wahhabis’ might (thoughnot necessarily would) have remained a curiosity.

The war was the major catalyst for the radicalization of Islam in Chechnya and theentire Northern Caucasus. First of all, it enhanced the Islamic dimension of Chechenidentity and brought to the fore memories of the Islamic resistance to Russia in theeighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Inside Chechnya Islam proved the strongestrallying call. Outside it seemed to be a more effective call for unity than secular onesin mobilizing support for the Chechen struggle among other Northern Caucasiannationalities, first and foremost Daghestanis.

Second, during the war, ‘squads of Wahhabi volunteers came to us from the Arabcountries. Since they were very well armed, our Chechens joined them readily’.50

These ‘Wahhabis’ introduced into Chechnya ideologies, or rather trends and fashions,from the wider Islamic world and contributed to the legitimization and popularizationof Islamic language in politics and more particularly the demands for an Islamic state(imama) based on the shari‘a.

Third, volunteers from Daghestan (and other parts of the Caucasus) met these‘Wahhabis’, were exposed to their ideas, trained by them in guerrilla tactics and estab-lished connections with other like-minded men. Returning home after the war, theyimplemented all they had studied.51

Thus, the inter-war period (1996–99) witnessed a boost in the scope of Islamist activi-ties and their deterioration into violence in both Chechnya and Daghestan.52 In Chech-nya, where the country was completely in ruins, to the people – with neither means ofsurvival nor hope – Islam looked more than ever the solution.53 Hence, practically allpresidential candidates in the January 1997 elections pledged to establish ‘an Islamic or-der’. After the elections both the elected president, Aslan Maskhadov, and his rivals –first and foremost Shamil Basayev – competed over who was more ‘Islamic’. This com-petition, which led to Maskhadov’s imposition of the shari‘a on the country on 3 Feb-ruary 1999,54 was one of the reasons for Basayev’s joining the ‘Wahhabis’.55 Thiscompetition and Maskhadov’s inability to control the country56 made Chechnya notmerely a haven for criminals and extremists of all kinds, but into a hub of instabilitythreatening the peace of, and Russia’s rule in, the entire region

In Daghestan the inter-war years were marked by the radicalization of Islamic po-litical parties, by the proliferation of para-military organizations stating their inten-tion to fight for an Islamic order57 and by the surge in violent attacks, which some ofthese Islamic organizations claimed responsibility for. Even the ‘Alliance of theMuslims of Russia’ (AMR – Soiuz Musul’man Rossii), which was established in May1995 as a ‘secular’, anti-’fundamentalist’ party,58 fully supporting ‘one undivided Rus-sia’, and ‘the unity of all Russian Muslims’,59 called in 1997 the Muslims of the Cau-casus to jihad and advocated an imama, that is a united shari’a-based state asthe preferable model for the Muslims of the Northern Caucasus.60 By May 1998 theAMR and its leader, Nadirshah Khachilayev, were accused of an attempted coup,and the organization was outlawed.61

All these activities in Daghestan were, at least partially, interconnected with eventsin Chechnya. Many Chechens believed that in order to secure its independence Chech-nya had to spread ‘decolonization from Russia’ to other parts of the Northern Cauca-sus. Daghestan was the favourite candidate for such a union. It is the largest interritory and population among the republics of the Northern Caucasus and has the


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smallest – numerically as well as proportionately – Russian population. In addition, itis the historical centre of Islam in the Northern Caucasus. Consequently it carriesmore weight than any other republic in the region and may cause others to follow it.Daghestan shares with Chechnya the memories (and perhaps the ethos) of the longjoint resistance to Russia and the united imamate under Shamil. It might, therefore,be easier to convince to separate from Russia. Last but not least, Daghestan is adja-cent to Chechnya and borders on the Caspian Sea. A ‘decolonized’ Daghestan –

whether independent or united with Chechnya – would grant Chechnya an outlet tothe sea, enhance its political and economic sovereignty and magnify the chances forrecognition of its independence.

It should not be surprising, therefore, that following the war quite a few efforts weremade to promote ‘decolonization’ of Daghestan. The most salient two were initiatedby persons allied to the ‘Wahhabis’: the ‘Islamic Umma Congress’, established on 24August 1997 by Movladi Udugov,62 and its successor and substitute, the ‘Congress ofthe Peoples of Daghestan and Ichkeria’, established by Shamil Basayev on 26 April1998. Both included nationalist and Islamist organizations from both republics andproclaimed fairly similar aims: the former wanted to create ‘a single Islamic nation’and to reinstate ‘Islam in its previous historical borders’;63 the latter wanted to unite‘the Muslim peoples of Daghestan and Chechnya in one free state’ and by that toachieve ‘peace and stability in the region’.64 While on the Chechen side central figurestook part in these efforts, the Daghestani participants represented, it seems, a tinymarginal minority.

Naturally, the Daghestani authorities saw in the ‘Wahhabis’ ‘a fifth column threat-ening the country’s stability’ and accused them of ‘receiving funds from Arabic [sic]countries and the United States to destabilize the republic’ and ‘to reduce Russian in-fluence in the region’.65 Backed by leaders of both official and Sufi Islam, who chargedthe ‘Wahhabis’ with being heretics, and stated that ‘a believer who kills a Wahhabiwill get into paradise, as will a believer who is killed by a Wahhabi’,66 the authoritiespassed, on 25 December 1997, a law on the ‘Freedom of Religious Confession’, whichstrongly restricted ‘Wahhabi’ activities67 and following that arrested ‘Wahhabi’ lead-ers and closed down their organ. All the detained were released within a few weeksand many found refuge either in Chechnya or in Karamakhi.

The jama‘at (village community) of Karamakhi, consisting of the three villages ofKaramakhi, Kadar and Chabanmakhi in the Buinaksk district (raiion) had by thenbecome a (if not the) major ‘Wahhabi’ centre in Daghestan.68 Here they establishedin 1996 an alternative order to that of the state and enforced it:

Wahhabi militia patrols the village and punishes those who openly abuse Islamicorder – people who drink alcohol, smokers, prostitutes, hooligans, and drug deal-ers. After an initial warning, repeat offenders are beaten with sticks atthe presence of a community commission (symbolizing shari‘a law). Those whorefuse to comply are expelled from the village.69

A series of confrontations between the state and the ‘Wahhabis’ followed andreached its peak in the summer of 1998. On 22 May,70 the ‘Wahhabis’ drove out thevillage administration and the local police from Karamakhi. A force of 1,000 police-men failed to re-occupy the village and cordoned the area off for three weeks instead.


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In early July, when the siege was renewed, the ‘Wahhabis’ placed road-signs aroundthe area stating: ‘You are entering independent Islamic territory’.71 According to aRussian news agency, they ‘have declared they will secede from Russia and join neigh-bouring Chechnya’ and that ‘they intend to scrap the Russian constitution and followthe rules of Islamic shari‘a law’.72

The crisis reached boiling point on 7 August 1998. On that day chief mufti Abuba-karov was assassinated while leaving the central mosque after the Friday noon prayer.The ‘Wahhabis’ were blamed for the murder. Moscow could not but intervene to coolthe situation. The then Russian minister of the interior, Sergei Stepashin, flew in toDaghestan and hammered out an agreement between the Daghestani governmentand the ‘Wahhabis’ of Karamakhi.73 The agreement was followed by relative calmfor almost a year.74

In July 1999 a local conflict involving native ‘Wahhabis’ erupted in the villages ofAnsalta, Rakhata and Echeda in the Tsumada raiion in the western, mountainouspart of Daghestan. In what seems to have been a repetition of the earlier events inKaramakhi, Kadar and Chabanmakhi, the local quarrel escalated into a confronta-tion between the ‘Wahhabis’ and the district authorities leading to the expulsion ofthe police. Then, in August 1999, these villages were ‘invaded by a large number ofChechen and other foreign [i.e. non-Daghestani] Wahhabis’ commanded by ShamilBasayev and Emir Khattab (true name Samir Salih ‘Abdallah Suwaylim), the Saudiborn commander of the Arab volunteers in Chechnya.75 Official Makhachkalaregarded it as a full-fledged invasion of Daghestan aimed at reaching Makhachkalaand overthrowing the regime. So did thousands of Daghestanis who enlisted into amilitia (opolchenie) to fight the invaders.76 These volunteers, supported by the Russianair force, re-conquered the three villages after a fortnight of bitter fighting.77 In Sep-tember 1999 Basayev’s and Khattab’s forces assailed the Novolakskii district of Dag-hestan and were again repulsed after heavy fighting.78

If in August 1998 Moscow saw no danger to Russia from ‘Wahhabism’,79 this timeit reacted completely differently.80 In Daghestan the ‘Wahhabi’ organizations wereoutlawed, their offices and other property confiscated and those of their leaders whohad not fled were arrested. Immediately upon the conclusion of the fighting in theTsumada raiion, in a protracted and costly operation Russian forces surrounded andconquered the villages of Karamakhi, Kadar and Chabanmakhi. At the same time, inSeptember 1999, Russia used these events and a series of explosions in major Russiancities as a reason to send its forces into Chechnya once again, ‘to get rid of “Wahhabiterrorists”’.81 The Russian forces fairly quickly captured all the major settlements andestablished a cooperating government.

In all this Moscow greatly benefited from the cooperation of the Sufi brotherhoods,both of which underwent major transformations in their attitude to Russia. The Kha-lidiyya, which led the 30-year-long resistance during the imamate and all subsequentuprisings up to the 1920s, encountered the arrival and spread in Daghestan of a rivalbranch, which in due time became the dominant tariqa in Daghestan – the Naqshban-diyya-Mujaddidiyya-Khalidiyya-Mahmudiyya, established by Mahmud al-Almali(?–1877).82 The new branch was against waging jihad on the Russian (and later Sovi-et) authorities, as too were some branches of the parent Khalidiyya. During the Sovietperiod the Naqshbandiyya enjoyed a dominant position in both republics, though it


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was in the minority among the Chechens and the Ingush,83 and cooperated with, orrather did not oppose, the authorities. In post-Soviet Daghestan both the Khalidiyyaand the Mahmudiyya, continuing their line of non-opposition to Russia and under in-tense attack from the ‘Wahhabis’, gave their full support and blessing to the authori-ties’ (both Daghestani and Russian) endeavours against the ‘Wahhabis’.

The Qadiriyya initially offered a war-ravaged society a way out after 30 years of re-sistance by accepting outwardly the Russian conquest and rule. However, a series ofRussian provocations – the most important being the arrest and exile in 1863 ofSheikh Kunta Hajji – turned the various branches of the Qadiriyya into sworn ene-mies of Russian rule.84 The ‘godless’ Bolshevik authorities succeeded soon enough incausing all the branches of the Qadiriyya, including those who at first cooperatedwith them, to oppose Soviet rule. The ‘deportation’ intensified the Qadiriyya’s pivotalrole in, and leadership of Chechen society. ‘For the deported mountaineers deprivedof everything’, the tariqa ‘became not only the very symbol of their nationhood butalso very efficient organizers ensuring their survival’ and ‘more than ever before’ it‘appeared as the only centre around which the surviving mountaineers could organizetheir national and spiritual life’.85

Thus, during the Soviet period, especially since ‘rehabilitation’, Chechen national-ism and the Qadiriyya had become entangled.86 This connection intensified in the per-estroika years and culminated in the events of the ‘Chechen revolution’. In these andin the following events the Qadiriyya (or at least some of its branches) supportedDudayev.87 It had been the seal of approval of the Qadiri masters which secured hiselectoral victory, and in crucial moments brought tens of thousands of demonstratorsinto the central square of Groznyi.88

During the war the Qadiriyya supplied more than infrastructure to the resistance:like at the time of ‘deportation’, it was in many cases the only provider of the popula-tion with means to survive. At the end of the war the Qadiriyya seems to have sup-ported Maskhadov, which helped him to win in the first round against several othercandidates, including the incumbent president, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev.89 TheQadiriyya continued to support Maskhadov and his policy of reaching an accommo-dation with his rivals, including the ‘Wahhabis’. ‘For a long time’, told chief muftiAhmed Kadyrov in an interview, ‘we have tried to reach an amiable agreement withthe Wahhabis. Alas, the dialogue failed.’90

The Qadiriyya thus supported Maskhadov in this confrontation. On 5 January1999 Kadyrov appeared on Groznyi television and accused Maskhadov’s opponentsof ‘undermining social and political stability’ in the republic and of ‘promoting theirown selfish aims and ignoring the needs of the population’. He then called upon themto ‘drop political ambition in the sacred month of Ramadan’, to ‘put an end to con-frontation’ and to ‘consolidate the young Chechen state together with presidentMaskhadov’.91

However, Maskhadov’s inability to ‘deliver’, that is to control the country and curbthe ‘Wahhabis’ and their allies, finally caused the Qadiriyya, or at least some of itsmain branches, to change course. Regarding the ‘Wahhabis’ as more of a threat thanRussia, Kadyrov switched sides during the Russian invasion and headed the pro-Mos-cow government until his assassination. In this he seems to have been supported by asizeable part of the Sufi and other religious leadership and by a considerable portionof Chechen society.


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In the Second Chechen War (1999–) the Russian forces were successful in dealing ablow to the ‘Wahhabis’ in Daghestan and in taking control of Chechnya. Moscowwas then able to install a loyal Chechen regime, headed by Ahmad Kadyrov (actinghead of the Administration from July 2000 and president from 5 October 2003) andafter his assassination, on 9 May 2004, by his son Ramzan (president from February2007). Moscow thus secured its hold over the Northern Caucasus. This victory was,however, far from complete.

First, it did not put an end to the war. In Daghestan the ‘Wahhabis’ were drivenunderground and to violence.92 In Chechnya resistance has been marginalized. Inboth cases the opposition was not completely eliminated. As a result resistance toRussia has (1) expanded territorially, to most other republics in the Northern Cau-casus as well as to major cities in Russia; and (2) become more markedly terrorist innature.93 These acts of terrorism reached a peak at the beginning of September2004, when ‘Wahhabi’ terrorists of various nationalities seized a school in Beslan(Northern Ossetia) and held the children hostage.94 Moscow’s policies and actionsduring the ‘anti-terrorist campaign’ (as the war in Chechnya was officially termed)and after, as well as the economic, social and political conditions in Chechnyaand the other autonomous republics of Northern Caucasus, have greatly contributedto its persistence and helped feed the ranks of the rebels with embitteredyoungsters.95

Second, resistance has been further radicalized and pushed towards the Islamic, or‘Wahhabi’ edge. This was to a great extant the result of the Russian success in hittingthe Chechen nationalist camp hard and assassinating many of its leaders, reaching apeak with the killing of Maskhadov. The Islamists thus remained the default bothpersonally and ideologically. Personally, the successors of Maskhadov were eachprogressively closer to the Islamists, and with the death of Basayev they were able toreplace both leaders, become the mainstream and marginalize those nationalists whostill resisted the Russian-installed regime in Grozny. Ideologically, Islam proved tobe more efficient than nationalism on three counts: (1) in mobilizing new recruits;96

(2) in spreading resistance to other parts of the Northern Caucasus;97 and (3) in solic-iting assistance and support from the wider Islamic world.98 Moscow’s policy ofequating ‘nationalism to separatism, separatism to terrorism and domestic terrorismto international terror’ has thus become ‘a self-fulfilling prophecy’.99

Third, and more important, Moscow’s victory was achieved largely thanks to an al-liance with the traditionalist Islamic elements, that is the Sufis, which means that inboth republics the Sufis were (or at least were perceived to be) the clear winners. Thisfact had two important interconnected consequences: Islamization and conflict amongthe brotherhoods.

Competition, rivalries and conflicts between the brotherhoods and among their var-ious branches and sheikhs is not new to the Caucasus, or in general. The rivalry be-tween the Naqshbandiyya and the Qadiriyya in Chechnya has been mentionedabove.100 Much less is known of inter-Qadiri rivalries, though such, no doubt, existtoo. In Daghestan, ‘as a rule, Sufi masters accuse each other of “pretending to besheikhs” (mutashayyikhun)’ and of ‘violating the basic principles of the Sufi andIslamic path’.101 In the 1990s all these rivalries and conflicts were overshadowed bythe ‘Wahhabi’ challenge. Once this challenge seemed to be over, in 1999–2000, theserivalries resurfaced and escalated to an unprecedented level. The reason was that


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Islamization in each republic took the path of a single Sufi branch imposing its brandof Islam on the republic.

Chechnya of the mid-2000s, where Ramzan Kadyrov’s power was unlimited,started ‘to taste’ of ‘Chechnya in 1999’. In late May 2005 he announced that ‘girlsunder 18 should not be using mobile phones’. In February 2006 he ‘organized a “con-ference” of Chechen students and present[ed] US$1,000 to each girl who had her haircovered. Female university professors were distributed headscarves and ordered tocover their heads in class’.102 By 2007 he made his brand (and branch) of Sufism theofficial ideology cum religion of the country.103

In Daghestan, where the ex-Soviet ruling elite had remained in power, Islamizationproceeded through the Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims of Daghestan (SDMD;Dukhovnoe Upravlenie Musul’man Dagestana), which was granted absolute jurisdic-tion over all the religious life in the republic. Critics of this step were quick to statethat it ‘opened the door to the Islamization of politics’ and pushed the country ‘somedistance towards establishing a kind of “Islamic republic”‘.104 More of an immediateproblem was, however, the fact that the SDMD was controlled by the followers ofSaid-Apandi (Efendi) al-Chirkawi (Atsayev) of the Mahmudiyya, the most influentialsheikh in Daghestan. With Mahmudiyya sheikhs not considering those who do notfollow them as ‘real Muslims’,105 ‘all Muslims (not only “Wahhabis”) who do notagree with’ the policy of the SDMD and ‘all Sheikhs who are not connected withSaid-Apandi’ were experiencing ‘a difficult period’.106

The possible results of these two processes might be of great importance. Already inthe early 1990s a British journalist observed about the Northern Caucasus that ‘themap says you are on the southern border of the Russian Federation, but this is in the-ory’. In practice, ‘you cross a psychological border every time you enter an aul [vil-lage]. It is another country’.107 With the ongoing Islamization, Daghestan – and evenmore so Chechnya – of the middle and late 2000s must seem completely alien coun-tries to Russia and Russians. In the long run the question this poses as to the future ofthese republics within the Russian Federation is obvious.

Even more significant in the shorter run is another danger – the ‘escalating struggle. . . among the winners in the battle against the “Wahhabis” – the Muslim traditional-ists’.108 In Daghestan some Sufi sheikhs and ‘traditionalist’ (that is, non-‘Wahhabi’)communities reject the authority of the SDMD.109 The indiscriminate anti-‘Wahhabi’activity of the security forces, which label and target many ‘traditionalists’ as ‘Wahha-bis’, might push some of them towards armed resistance. In Chechnya the brutal andaggressive ways of the Kadyrov regime may keep the discontents quiet for a shorter orlonger period of time, but eventually some of them might do the same. In such a casethey might forge a united front with the existing armed extremists – the ‘Wahhabis’.110

After all, it is not too difficult for them to find common ground in Islamic rhetoric andin slogans, such as imam, shari‘a and jihad.111

Finally, and perhaps most important from a panoramic view, is the exclusivist andintolerant nature of the current interpretations of Islam as displayed by both ‘Wah-habi’ and ‘traditionalist’ currents in the north-eastern Caucasus. Throughout most ofits history Sunni Islam was a tolerant and pluralistic religion, which allowed and ac-knowledged different interpretations as legitimate and equal.112 Like the other mono-theistic religions, however, it does not lack the potential of consecrating a singledoctrine or view and proclaiming all others as heresies or even apostasies.


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Occasionally such actions occurred, but they remained on the fringes. It is the processof modernization, with its emphasis on uniformity and on the written – as opposed tothe spoken – word, that propelled this attitude into centre stage. Indeed, modernist Is-lamic movements, especially of the so called ‘fundamentalist’ brand, de-legitimizeanything but their own interpretation. In some cases, however, Islamic movementswhich have gone through modernization, retain a more ‘pluralistic’ view. In the for-mer Soviet Union this usually does not seem to be the case. The Soviet view, like anyother mould of thinking, is not easy to move away from. Thus, many people adoptednationalism or religion instead of Marxism-Leninism, but retained the conviction thatonly their faith was ‘objective’ and ‘scientific’ and everything else was false. Thisseems to have happened to Sufi brotherhoods too. In the long run, this might be themost dangerous and destabilizing phenomenon.

While Islam reached the north-eastern Caucasus in the seventh century, with theArab conquest of Derbent, its first penetration into the north-western Caucasus oc-curred only after the fall of Constantinople. The north-western Caucasus, or ‘Circassia’,was a borderland between Christian and Muslim rulers. Ties between Kabartay leadersand the Russian empire in the fifteenth century supported Christianity among them,113

but it seems not to have penetrated beyond the political sphere; Christianity remainedsuperficial among the Circassians and their particular polytheistic-naturalistic pantheonsurvived.114 The first important influence of Islam started in the seventeenth centuryand was limited and connected to the political struggle between Russia and its Muslimrivals: the Ottoman Empire and the Tatars of the Crimea. The influence of the lattermarked the beginning of a slow introduction of Sunni Islam, of the Hanafi madhab.115

However, most of these first contacts with Islam (as with Christianity) were among theleaders and had little effect on the masses. Practically speaking, the Circassians contin-ued to hold on to pagan beliefs. Elements of these can still be seen today, both in every-day customs and language, and in their national epos, the Nart sagas.116

The Karachai-Balkars were officially converted to Islam in the eighteenth centurythrough the influence of the Crimean Tatars, and later by the Ottomans and by theKabartay who enjoyed feudal lordship over the Balkars. However, this Islamizationwas even more superficial than that of the Circassians, and they continued to keeptheir nomadic shamanistic and animistic traditions.

Russian colonialism and settlement in the Caucasus in the nineteenth centurychanged the situation, and the struggle with Russia enhanced a process of actualIslamization of the Circassians, which also influenced the Karachai-Balkars. Islamicinfluences came from several directions, including some influence through Sufi ordersthat were active in the north-eastern Caucasus, such as the Naqshbandiyya. However,‘It was only contact with the Ottomans and the advent of the Russians that hastenedmass conversion to Islam in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By the middle ofthe nineteenth century, most Circassians had become Muslims’.117 Hence, most oftoday’s Muslim population of the north-western Caucasus went ‘formally’ under collec-tive Islamization in a situation of war with a Christian ‘superpower’ of that time.

Although the struggle with Russia was a crucial element in the Islamization of theCircassians, it is important to differentiate between their struggle and the struggle ledby Imam Shamil (ruled 1834–59) who united the people of the north-eastern Caucasusin a holy war against Russia and succeeded in building a Muslim state there. Al-though some cooperation existed between Shamil and the Circassians, their struggles


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were largely separate.118 The Circassians continued their struggle until 1864, five yearsafter Shamil had surrendered.119 While Shamil united the north-eastern Caucasus un-der the banner of Islam, the efforts to unite the Circassians were ethno-national incharacter, and only partly successful. There was no full participation of all the local,supposedly Muslim, population in the war. While scholars hold on to different opin-ions as to the extent of the Karachai-Balkars’ part in the struggle,120 it is clear that theCircassians themselves were not fully united: most of the Kabartay resisted Shamiland especially his Chechen allies.121 Still, even though Islam played such a differentrole in these cases, it is important to note that Shamil has been revered as a national(and not merely a religious) icon in the entire region, which points to the importantties between ethno-nationalism and religion in the Caucasus in general.

It is clear that Islam had a symbolic importance in the struggle against the Russians,but its adoption as a political strategy was not followed by a deeper process of Islami-zation. Such a process of Islamization involves what Levtzion called communal orgroup cohesion (differentiated from individual conversion) – Islam adopted by an eth-nic group in their own milieu, while maintaining their own cultural identity. There washardly a break with past traditions, and pre-Islamic customs and beliefs survived.122

Levtzion stressed that this kind of conversion might fit with Nock’s definition of adhe-sion ‘where there is no definite crossing of religious frontier, and . . . the acceptance ofnew worship, [is] as useful supplements and not as substitutes’.123

The exodus (from 1864 onwards) of the majority of Circassians (and of someKarachai-Balkars) to the Middle East interrupted the processes that the Circassiansunderwent after this mass Islamization, and those who stayed in the Caucasus werecut off from further Muslim influence. In the Middle East, the emigrants went througha different process: they kept their old traditions and beliefs, but as time went on theinfluence of Islam upon them increased.

Under the Soviet regime ‘the already weak hold of Islam in the North-Western Cauca-sus was further loosened through anti-religious campaigns and atheist propaganda’.124

The situation among the Karachai-Balkars was a little different: following their depor-tation to Central Asia for alleged collaboration with the Germans in the Second WorldWar, at least some Karachai-Balkars became more religious than their Circassianneighbours.125 Karachai-Balkars brought with them some Islamic influences from Cen-tral Asia when they were allowed to return, but even these were very limited.

Islam became a mark of identification which helped local people to maintain theirseparate collective identities through the difficult times of deportation in the case ofthe Karachai-Balkars, and through the difficulties of Soviet rule in general in thecase of the Circassians. Hence, a clear-cut distinction between ‘religious’ and otheridentities is sometimes an artefact imposed by scholars. This is especially importantto the understanding of Islam during the Soviet period. Under the Soviet regime, sec-ularization processes and Soviet policy on the one hand, and the clear distinction be-tween colonialist Christian Russians and local Muslim people on the other led to asituation in which ‘even convinced atheists declare[d] themselves “Muslims” sincefor them religion is confused with the national belonging’.126 Among the Circassians,similar samples could be found in the basic patterns of collective identity: when peo-ple declare themselves to be ‘religious’ in Kabarda, they do not necessarily differenti-ate between religious laws and the social and moral ethos of the Adyghe (i.e.


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Circassian people).127 Religion had an important juxtaposition with nationalism, andreligious beliefs and practices primarily do not challenge ethnic boundaries. This, ofcourse, suggests a very different starting point than radical ‘purist’ Islamic ideology,which stresses the unity of the Muslim umma beyond ethnic and national boundaries.Islam, therefore, kept some symbolic importance during the Soviet period even in thenorth-western Caucasus – an importance which was derived from its connection togroup identity. However, if one is to concentrate on religious practices among theCircassians, Soviet influence erased most signs of Islam except burial rites. The situa-tion was not very different among the majority of Karachai-Balkars. Hence, the cur-rent Islamic influence in the north-western Caucasus can be seen as a second wave of‘Islamization’ or ‘re-Islamization’.

The years 1991–2000 witnessed a significant change in the status of Islam in thisregion. In a visit to this region in 1990, almost no operating mosques could befound among the Kabartay of Kabardino-Balkaria, and the situation was similarin Adyghea and Karachai-Cherkesia. But glasnost and the subsequent dissolutionof the Soviet Union started a gradual rehabilitation of Islam. During the 1990smosques were built in almost every village in the north-western Caucasus. In addi-tion, new madrasas and Islamic institutions were opened in the capitals and townsof Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachai-Cherkesia, introducing Islam to people whohad previously been nominally Muslim but had known very little about theirreligion.

The development in Kabardino-Balkaria, the largest Autonomous Republic in thenorth-western Caucasus is an example to this process of Islamization. In 1993 the firstofficial madrasa was opened in Nalchik in order to train religious functionaries whowould know Arabic in addition to the languages of Kabardino-Balkaria. In 1994about 100 religious (Muslim) communities were registered in the Republic, an Islamicnewspaper was launched, and other Islamic publications started to appear and Schoolcurricula began to include the basics of Islam.128 In addition, ‘Islamic institutions anduniversities were organized in Nalchik (Kabardino-Balkaria) . . . [and in] Cherkessk(Karachai-Cherkesia)’. However, their activity was limited and they faced many diffi-culties.129 In 1997 the number of Muslim communities registered in the justice depart-ments of the autonomous republics of the north-western Caucasus were as follows: 96in Kabardino-Balkaria, 91 in Karachai-Cherkesia and 14 in Adyghea. Still, ‘the num-ber of Muslim associations in the Post-Soviet period at that time were still half ofwhat they were before the [Bolshevik] revolution’.130

The growing influence of Islam in the area during the 1990s was therefore very im-pressive given its state during the Soviet period. This does not mean, however, thatIslam had become a dominant factor, or that this process was analogous to the growthof Islamic influence in other parts of the Northern Caucasus. One example of thesedifferences can be seen in patterns of Islamic identification. According to surveysquoted by A. Malashenko, a prominent Russian expert, most people in Adyghea andKabardino-Balkaria (where most Muslims are ethnically ‘Circassians’) identifiedthemselves as ‘Muslims’ in general, while at least half of the population in Ingushetiaand a majority of the population in Chechnya regarded themselves as ‘Sunni Mus-lims’. He further states that in the year 2000 some 400 mosques operated in Chechnyaand Ingushetia, as compared to only 96 in Kabardino-Balkaria and 91 in Karachai-Cherkesia.131


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Another important characteristic of Islamic influence in the north-western Caucasusduring the 1990s is related to Islamic radicalism. Although it is clear that Islamic activ-ity intensified in the area in those years, there was almost no evidence of influence ofIslamic radicalism. Chechen attempts during the first Chechen war to mobilize theMuslim people of the north-western Caucasus to side with them against the Russiansfailed. Even later, in the late 1990s, when foreign ‘Wahhabis’ intensified their activitiesin neighbouring Chechnya and tried to gain influence in many areas of the Caucasusand Central Asia, the north-western Caucasus remained relatively calm, and the influ-ence of Islam in general, and of ‘Wahhabism’ in particular, was limited. This situationraises questions about the processes and powers that influence the specific mode of re-Islamization in the area: how important was external Islamic influence in the processesof Islamic activities in the north-western Caucasus? What were the factors and process-es that influenced the place of Islam? And what were the reasons for the limited extentof the Islamic awakening during the 1990s?

While the re-introduction of Islam to the north-western Caucasus was indeed an im-portant and interesting phenomenon, in regional identity politics Islam was a second-ary factor, usually subordinate to ethno-nationalism. Hence, ethnicity and ethno-nationalism are crucial not only to the understanding of the political and social dy-namics in this area, but also to any discussion of Islamic activity.

The dynamics of ethno-nationalism in the north-western Caucasus is highly con-nected to the local context, where Soviet ethnic policy had a specific form. Stalin’s ‘di-vide and rule’ policy in this area led to the creation of three separate autonomies inwhich the Circassian-Adyghe was the titular nationality. At the same time, in the twobigger autonomies – Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachai-Cherkesia – the Circassians (orKabartay – a specific Circassian-Adyghe group) shared this status with another dividedgroup – the Karachai-Balkars. Therefore, any discussion of the north-western Caucasusshould take into account a complex situation in which no correlation exists between thepolitical-administrative entities and ethnic divisions.

This raises a methodological question of the frameworks for analysis which is espe-cially important in understanding Islam in the north-western Caucasus and for inter-preting the limited data available on Islamic activities there. Most of the data aboutIslamic activities is available within the framework of the separate autonomousrepublics. The republics, as the main governmental power units, are, indeed, centralto the understanding of Islam and of ethno-nationalism in any post-Soviet context.132

At the same time, such a framework might direct one to misleading generalizationswith regard to both Islam and ethno-nationalism in the area. With the exception ofthe few major cities, most of the population of these autonomies lives in ethnically dis-tinct areas – the Karachai and Balkars in the mountains, and the Circassians in thelower regions, closer to the Russian population in the plains. The available data, how-ever, usually do not differentiate between the ethnic groups and lack informationabout the ethnic/community dimension of Islamic activity, although most of this ac-tivity has taken place within specific ethnic groups.

This situation makes the ‘administrative’ and ‘ethnic’ factors two different poten-tial modes of analysis (e.g. it is possible to discuss Islam in the different republics orto discuss Islam among different ethnic groups). But each of these frameworks is lim-ited, since it is crucial to understand their inter-relationships. Hence, it is not possible


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to understand the religious developments in Kabardino-Balkaria andKarachai-Cheresia without paying specific attention to ethno-nationalism and ethnicrelations in the context of social and political structures in the transition from theSoviet to the post-communist period.

A small anecdote from a field report written during a visit by one of the writers toKabardino-Balkaria in 1990 (CB) demonstrates another aspect of the need to considerthe interaction between Islam and specific ethnicity and cultural traditions – in thiscase the Circassian culture which was crystallized long before Islamization. One ofthe hosts during this visit, a local Kabartay ethnographer, claimed that there were nooperating mosques in Kabartay. After a long investigation, he received informationabout a small mosque in the Baksan area. During the visit there, while I (the visitor)started to take off my shoes in order to enter the mosque, the local imam seemeduneasy and said that I should enter with my shoes on since according to the AdygheK’hase (the Circassian code of behaviour) the guest’s comfort is above everythingelse. (I remained barefoot, out of respect.) This event could not have happened afterthe mid-1990s.133

Dualities and even tensions between local ethos and law and the shari‘a are a com-mon phenomenon. However, these take different forms in different societies, which inturn can have different implications for the role of Islam in each. Unlike the salientcontradictions between some attributes of Circassian traditional culture and Islam,among the Karachai-Balkars national and Islamic awakening seem to be more con-nected (This might be the result of some Islamic influences on this group during theirdeportation.) Indeed, it seems that a large proportion of the published data about Is-lamic activities in the 1990s (Islamic organizations, new Mosques – especially in thecountryside etc.), while referring to the north-western republics as a whole, dealt, infact, almost only with the Karachai-Balkars.

In order to analyse the specific features of Islamic influences in the north-westernCaucasus it is thus important to understand the place of Islam and the inter-relationsbetween ethno-nationalism and Islam within each different group.

The Karachai national movement – Jamagat – was one of the first to get organizedand push forward its claims. As early as 1988 the Karachais began lobbying for the di-vision of Karachai-Cherkesia, at that time an autonomous oblast. Moscow’s reactionwas to promote the status of the region to autonomous republic. The Karachai claimsderive from their aspiration, as the larger titular group in Karachai-Cherkesia, to re-store their own autonomy which they enjoyed before, and lost as a result of their ‘de-portation’ to Central Asia. This can be clearly seen in the words of a Karachai leaderwho addressed the question of ‘rehabilitation’ in 1991:

It’s not like in the United States where the Japanese-Americans who were put incamps during World War II were apologized to and given financial compensa-tion. Or look at the Germans, the way they have apologized to the Jews andbanned anything anti-Jewish. Instead, our repressed peoples came back in thelate 1950s either to have their oil exploited in the case of the Chechens, their bestlands taken away in the case of the Ingush, their autonomous status removed inthe case of the Karachai and, again, a loss of territory in the case of theBalkars.134


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This connects (symbolically, at least) the Karachais and Balkars to other deportedgroups in the Northern Caucasus and beyond – including the Chechens – while atthe same time highlighting the conflict of interests between them andthe neighbouring Circassians. Still, during the 1990s the relationships between thecommunities remained calm, although this background probably gave more motiva-tion to the local Cherkess of Karachai-Cherkesia to play an important role in theevolving Circassian ethno-national organizations, and to stress their affiliation toother Circassians in Kabardino-Balkaria, Adyghea and in the diaspora. Tensionerupted in 1999, triggered by the competition between Cherkes and Karachai candi-dates at the presidential elections in the republic. This led to the intervention ofMoscow’s new representative to the Caucasus which in the end stopped the inci-dents. In the end the election of a Karachai to president kept power with theKarachai.

While the Karachai are the largest community in Karachai-Cherkesia, the ethnical-ly and linguistically related Balkars form a small minority in Kabardino-Balkaria.During the 1990s the Kabartay’s political aims were restricted to greater autonomyfrom Russia. The Balkars feared the changing demography of the republic, becauseRussian emigration augmented the Kabartay majority.135 The Balkars demanded fullterritorial ‘rehabilitation’ (that is, the return of lands taken from them during their‘deportation’) and some even demanded a separate Balkar republic. In 1996 their or-ganization, the Congress of Balkars, voted for the establishment of a Balkar republic,which led to a strong reaction from the government of Kabardino-Balkaria. Notwith-standing all this, the overall relations between the communities remained calm. Thesedevelopments show that in the 1990s the potential for instability in the republics ofthe north-western Caucasus was based mainly on ethno-nationalism and ethnic rela-tions rather than on confrontation with Russia or the influences of religious ideology.Furthermore, the Karachais and Balkars made their claims separately, accepting defacto the separation between them due to the existing administrative division of thearea, although both, and especially the Karachais, desired some changes within thisframework.

Islamic awakening among the Karachai-Balkars in the 1990s seems to have beenconnected to ethno-nationalism, although the information about the different influ-ences of Islam among these groups is limited. It is an open question whether the his-tory and traditions of the Karachais and Balkars as Turkified former nomads of thehigh mountains were sufficient to create strong ethno-national feelings. This mightexplain the importance of Islam as another source for meaning and an integral partof the framework of this ethno-nationalism. According to some sources, some groupsof Karachais adopted a ‘Salafi’ ideology. Perhaps this was a continuation of process-es that started in the 1950s, during the ‘deportation’. Another possible source of in-fluence was the Karachai community in Turkey.136 However, most of the Karachaisand Balkars were not religious, and only started to undergo Islamization in the1990s.

Circassian ethno-nationalism took a different shape. Since most of the Circassianslive in the diaspora, the dissolution of the Soviet Union marked for them a real pos-sibility of establishing connections with the homeland and even repatriation becamean option. diaspora Circassians had influence on the construction of Circassianethno-nationalism, which also brought with it a specific mode of re-Islamization.


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Circassian ethno-nationalism had local manifestation in each republic – the activityof ethno-national organizations, the ‘Adyghe Khase’. At the same time, at the begin-ning of the 1990s the ‘International Circassian Association’ (ICA) was established,uniting Circassians from the different republics in the Caucasus (Kabardino-Balka-ria, Karachai-Cherkesia, Adyghea) and from the diaspora. The ICA held five con-gresses between the years 1991 and 2000, each in a different capital or centre of theCircassians in the Caucasus. During the 1990s The congresses became important are-nas for negotiating Adyghe/Circassian identity, and had a clear ethno-national agen-da, although the actual power remained with the leadership and administration ofthe republics.137

The Abkhazians were also officially part of this association – although they con-structed their own ethno-nationalism at the same time. The collaboration betweenAbkhazians and Circassians led to the participation of several thousand Circassianvolunteers in the Abkhazians’ war with Georgia in 1992–93. Chechen volunteers alsofought in Abkhazia, but Chechen efforts to enlist Circassians to their side in the 1995war failed. The Circassian association adopted a moderate policy and tried to achieveits goals through negotiations with Russia. This was reciprocated by Moscow, whichtried, to a certain degree, to negotiate with the organization and to co-opt its leaders.The first president of the ICA, Iuri Kalmykov, even served as minister of justice inYeltsin’s administration.138

Among the major issues that the ICA addressed were themes like the status of theCircassian regions (especially Adyghea), the future of the Adyghe (Circassian) lan-guage and, especially, the right of repatriation to the Caucasus. As a result of its activ-ities Russian laws were changed in the 1990s, and potential Circassian repatriatesfrom the diaspora were able to settle in the Caucasus and start the process of naturali-zation. While only several thousand Circassians re-emigrated to the Caucasus,139 cul-tural and educational ties expanded rapidly. These included students arriving to studyin the Caucasus, mutual visits, exchanges of youth delegations as well as delegationsof cultural clubs, etc.

Contrary to other ethno-national movements in the Northern Caucasus, Circassianethno-nationalism was almost totally detached from Islam. Most of the symbols andgestures emphasized elements from Circassian culture which to a certain degree evencontradict Islam, such as the Adyghe Khabzhe, the Nart epos and various Adyghe cus-toms. Islamic identity themes played hardly any role. In a few exceptions delegatesfrom the Middle East related generally to the importance of ‘religion’ – symbolicallyleaving room also to non-Muslim Circassians.140 At the same time, interaction withCircassians from the diaspora, especially visits to the Middle East, introduced Cauca-sian Circassians to an Islamic religious world almost completely new to them. Diaspo-ra Circassians came as agents of ethno-nationalism, but also served as agents ofIslamization. The notion of Islam they brought was moderate, secondary to ethno-national identity.141

Islamic influences, however, also came from other sources, not only from diasporaCircassians. In the cities there were some manifestations of Islam that went beyondethnicity, such as the development of small Islamic educational institutions, but theirorientation was civil, combining Islamic knowledge with a general education, com-puter classes and English lessons. These, however, were exceptions. In the late 1990


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one could also see the beginning of differences between ‘traditional’ representativesof Islam in the villages, and a new generation of people who had studied Islam out-side the Caucasus or in the new Islamic institutions. This process was more obviousamong the Karachai and Balkars. But generally speaking, this younger generationaccepted the existing political and social framework, and tried to promote Islamwithin it, while stressing their Russian civil identity and their place in the RussianFederation.

Still, the specific juxtaposition of Islam and ethno-nationalism described abovehad a major influence on the process of re-Islamization among Circassians inKabardino-Balkaria, Karachai-Cherkesia and Adyghea. Some of the new mosquesand madrasas were sponsored or influenced by diaspora Circassians.142 At firstIslamic education was provided by Circassian repatriates from the Middle East andTurkey. Diaspora Circassians, together with local leaders and activists of the ethno-national movement and local scholars were engaged in preparing corrected transla-tions of the Qura’n from Arabic (and not from a Russian translation) to the WesternAdyghe and Kabartay dialects of Circassian. In all these activities, moderate Islamwas promoted, but mostly as an accompanying element of ethno-nationalism, not asa dominant factor in the social or political spheres. ‘Wahhabism’ or any other formof radical Islam did not find its way to the Circassians and that influenced the char-acter of Islam in Kabardino-Balkaria – where Kabartay-Circassians are the majorityof the population.143

Generally speaking, until the end of the 1990s the level of Islamic penetration intothe north-western Caucasus, and its political implications in particular – although var-ied among different ethnic groups in the area – remained limited. Ethno-nationalism aswell as Islamization took very different forms among the Circassians and the Kara-chai-Balkars. The processes of Islamization among the Karachais and Balkars weremore obvious than the penetration of Islam among the Circassians, although mutualinfluences between these groups also started to gain some importance. In both casesthey developed along with acceptance of the overall political framework of the RussianFederation. In most cases, the main agents of ethno-nationalism and Islamizationadopted a pragmatic approach, and rejected radicalism. Islamic influences on thesegroups came from different, even competing, sources, but it seems that foreign ‘Wahha-bis’ were not among them. In most cases Islam developed in each group separately, asan accompanying – and usually secondary – element to ethno-nationalism.

As shown above, the north-western Caucasus was relatively stable during the 1990s,and evidence of the presence of radical Islam was minimal. At the second half of the1990s there were also some hopes for an improvement in the economic situation, afteryears of difficulties following the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and later theharsh influences of the first Chechnya war. The evolving connections between the lo-cal population and their diasporas played an important role in these hopes for a bet-ter future. Along with the growing ethno-national movements many visitors came tothe area – most of them from the Circassian diaspora, and some from the smallestKarachai-Balkar diaspora.144 Some of them even bought flats or houses and evenstarted to invest in business initiatives. New airlines started to operate between Istan-bul and Nalchik, and Turkish companies invested in hotels and tourism. These trends


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did not create a dramatic change, but these tendencies gave some hope for a betterfuture.

Change started, however, with the outbreak of the second Chechen war, in the au-tumn of 1999. This war can be seen as a landmark in the situation in the NorthernCaucasus, which had clear influences on the republics of the north-western Caucasus. Reports of clashes between government forces and armed groupsof radical Islamists in the north-western republics in the following years marked thissignificant change.

The changes, nevertheless, did not occur immediately but in a slow process.Hence there is a question as to what had a greater impact on the situation in thenorth-western Caucasus: the evolving conflict in Chechnya or the shift in Russianpolicy towards the whole area, which complemented, and developed alongside, theevents in Chechnya. It is important to differentiate between these two strongly con-nected elements if one wants to understand the behaviour of the local Muslim popu-lation in the republics of the north-western Caucasus, and its reaction to radicalIslam.

President Putin’s rule has been characterized by a shift to a centralistic and more‘hawkish’ policy, which had a serious influence on the developments in the area. Dur-ing the period of the first Chechen war and shortly afterwards, the main tensions inthe north-western Caucasus remained frictions between the local ethnic groups, espe-cially between the Karachais and the Circassians in Karachai-Cherkesia. Moscowsent a special representative to the republic, and this was effective in reducing andcontrolling the ethnic tensions there. In the long run, however, this step proved to beonly a temporary solution, which did not affect any of the basic problems, such as theincreasing frustration of the local population with poverty and the growing corruptionin the republic.

The new developments also influenced the local actors, especially the ethno-nation-al movements that had to position themselves vis-�a-vis the new developments. Gener-ally speaking, this weakened the already shaky power of these movements. Karachai-Balkar organizations tried to coordinate their activities,145 but generally speakingthese organizations ‘prove unable to organise the population, to form an alternativestructure to power’.146 Meanwhile, in the summer of 2000, a split occurred in theKabardinian Adyghe Kha’se due to an internal power struggle and differences ofopinion about the organization’s policy towards the authorities. The leadership op-posed to the authorities was defeated. This meant not only the increased co-optationof the ethno-national organization into the establishment, but also the regrouping ofopposition forces in the republic around Islamic ideology.147

The new centralistic policy and the following new regulations imposed byMoscow, it seems, were mainly concerned with expanding control over the area andits various political players. Moscow did not address the continuing deterioration ofan already severe economic situation in the area. This is especially demonstrated inthe attitude towards the newly established connections between local and diasporaCircassians. During the 1990s the Russian authorities allowed various initiatives toestablish such connections and family/clan re-unions with diaspora Circassians. Theyeven allowed, albeit with limitations, their immigration to the Caucasus. This policychanged abruptly at the end of the 1990s when new restrictions on re-immigration wereintroduced.


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One occurrence in particular became a cause c�el�ebre for Circassian nationalists aswell as human rights organizations and gained a symbolic importance: in August2002 Bolat Haji-Bairam, a 30-year-old nationalist activist who had for seven yearsbeen a permanent resident of Russia and planned to apply for naturalization, wascharged with violating the local administrative code and deported. He was allowed toreturn after he had appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourgand after the city court of Nalchik ruled, on 5 October 2003, that his deportation wasillegal and had restored to him all his civil rights. However, on 25 August 2004 he wasdeported again.148

These new restrictive and centralistic policies were mirrored by the weakening ofthe Circassian nationalist organizations. In Kabardino-Balkaria the local administra-tion continued its struggle against Balkar nationalism. The Republican authoritiesalso used the shift in Moscow’s policies to limit the power and influence of the localAdyghe Khasa, the Circassian (Kabartay, in this case) national organization. TheCircassian national organizations – both the International Circassian Congress andthe local Adyghe Khasa in the three republics – lost power for many other reasonstoo. Among these were leadership dilemmas, the unresolved tension between the dif-ferent Circassian centres in the Caucasus149 and the limited cooperation between theCaucasus and the diaspora.150 But the new centralistic policy, as opposed to the for-mer attempt of Moscow to legitimize and co-opt this organization, seemed to acceler-ate the weakening of nationalism as a legitimate channel of collective expressionamong the Circassians.

Meanwhile, the years 1999–2004 were marked by an increase in terrorist attacks,following the shift of Chechen radical activists (especially Shamil Basayev) to suchattacks as a major instrument in their struggle against Russia. This affected all ofthe Northern Caucasus and neighbouring areas (especially the Stavropol krai) aswell as Moscow and other major cities in Russia.151 This strategy, combined withthe intensification of Russian operations against the rebels in the mountains ofChechnya, led some Chechen guerrilla groups to look for temporary shelter in themountains of neighbouring republics, and some Chechen radical leaders to intensifytheir attempts to collaborate with local Muslim groups. Although no clear-cut evi-dence has been presented so far of augmented Chechen influence on radical Islamistsin the north-western Caucasus, there is evidence that points to the existence of localradical groups which preach Jihad and see their struggle as part of a larger Muslimholy war. According to various reports, such groups include ‘Jama‘at Hizb al-Tawhid’, which operates in Karachai-Cherkesia, and ‘Jama‘at Yarmuk’ in Kabar-dino-Balkaria.

According to a 2002 interview by ‘Radio Kavkaz’ with Dagir Bejiev, supposedlythe ‘Amir’ of the Karachai-Cherkes Jama‘at,152 Hizb al-Tawhid included over 1,000Karachai members. According to him its activities were inspired by the Karachai‘Amir’ Ramazan Burlakov, who led a force of 150 Karachais (30 of whom werekilled) to fight in the second Chechen war. It is difficult to verify this information, butif it is correct it goes hand in hand with the assumption that radical Islam succeededin gaining some support among the Karachais in Karachai-Cherkesia. The bases forthese groups might be the Salafi groups that were active in Karachai-Cherkesia in the1990s. At the same time they represent a younger generation, and their relations withthe Salafi groups among the Karachais are still under a question mark.


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In any case, at that stage, the actual influence of these groups, and their percentageof the overall Karachai population seem to be very limited. In the first years of thethird millennium the main issues to occupy the population of Karachai-Cherkesiahave been the harsh economic situation, inner ethnic tensions and more recently alsoorganized crime and corruption. Although such a situation can form fertile groundfor ‘purist’ Muslim ideology, it seems that this ideology has had influence mainly inthe margins, and most of the population of Karachai-Cherkesia has not been involvedin a religious campaign against Russian sovereignty in the area. Malashenko ques-tioned the credibility of publications that claim that Karachai-Cherkesia is a centre of‘Wahabism’ referring to the (mis)use of the term ‘Wahabis’ by the authorities: ‘InKarachai-Cherkesia and in Kabardino-Balkaria, people who break the law or goagainst the government are called by the authorities “Wahabis”’. Rather, he suggeststhat when the population sees the instability caused by radical Jihad, they reject Is-lamic radicalism.153

Local history suggests some explanations to the development of radical Islamismamong the Karachais, the majority Muslim group in Karachai-Cherkesia. However,the appearance of radical Islam in Kabardino-Balkaria raises more difficult questions,especially regarding the participation of Kabartays (Circassians), the majority Mus-lim group in this republic, in these organizations.

In 2003, following bomb explosions in Moscow and in Mozdok, the Russian forcesreported that one of the terrorists responsible was killed during an attack on a rebelbase in a mountainous area of Kabardino-Balkaria. Following this event, the policytowards Muslims in Kabardino-Balkaria became increasingly oppressive. Of the lim-ited number of mosques that had previously been allowed to operate many wereclosed and reports appeared of police brutality towards ordinary Muslims. These poli-cies were justified by Fuad Shurdumov, head of the republic’s division to combat or-ganized crime. Shurdumov claimed that ‘mainstream Islamic clergy have failed tostop the spread of Wahhabism among Kabardino-Balkaria’s youth’, that the ‘Wahha-bites are largely supported by the republic’s population’ and that ‘numerous residentsof the republic were given small amounts of money and they follow the lead of, andaid Wahhabites’.154

No evidence has been produced to support these claims. On the contrary, it is like-ly that at that stage the vast majority of the Republic’s population was far from radi-cal in its religious approach and did not support terrorism. A different approachtowards the connection between radicalism and the local population’s religious ori-entation was presented in an appeal by the ‘official’ representatives of Islam, theleaders of the ‘Spiritual Administration’, against the shutting down of mosques.155

In it they stated that the ‘closure of mosques isn’t the most effective preventive mea-sure against the dissemination of Islamic radicalism’.156 However, unlike in Daghe-stan, these religious figures did not enjoy a power base, and thus their voice could beignored.

The events of 2003 were the starting point in a series of clashes between armedMuslim rebels, ‘Wahabis’ according to official reports, and government forces in theterritory of Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachai-Cherkesia. These incidents includedboth operations by the government forces against rebel bases, and terrorist attacksby the latter, mainly against targets in Kabardino-Balkaria.157 According to certainreports, Russian converts to Islam participated in some of the attacks associated


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with the Karachai Jama‘at.158. These attacks have been escalating not only numerical-ly, but also in the importance and location of their targets. This can be seen especiallyin the attacks on government buildings and federal institutions in Nalchik, the capitalKabardino-Balkaria, and its vicinity, especially the attack of October 2005.159

However, manifested in this attack there seems to be another, more important devel-opment in Islamic activity in the area: at least some of the radical Islamic groupsseemed to have been multi-ethnic, involving also Circassians and not onlyBalkars/Karachais.160

Russian sources claimed that the rebel groups in Kabardino-Balkaria, or at leastsome of them, had connections with radical Chechen leaders, such as ShamilBesayev, that these groups acted on behalf of an ideology of radical Islam, and thatthey represented ‘purist’ or ‘Wahabbi’ ideology. Even if one accepts the official Rus-sian version,161 the question remains as to whether such groups represented impor-tant segments of the population in Kabardino-Balkaria and, if such support existed,who exactly were the local groups involved in it. It is not likely that such bandswould have succeeded in the mountains without some support from among the localpopulation. While in the beginning of the 2000s the potential for such support mighthave been the conjunction of Islamic dissemination and ethno-nationalism amongthe Balkars and Karachais, it seems that the situation had changed and such supportfor the attackers came also from the local Kabardinian population, and many, if notmost, of the attackers were young Kabardians. The reason for this was not necessar-ily a direct influence of radical Islam. The continuing pressure on the peaceful localMuslim population as part of the struggle against ‘Wahhabism’ had its influence inalienating local youth against Russian authorities.162 At the same time, the econom-ic situation, unemployment and the perception of local government as corrupt allcontributed to the growing tension in the region. In any case, the participation ofKabardians suggested a new stage in the development of resistance to the authoritieswhich is associated with radical Islamism in these areas.

The economic crisis also raises the question whether some of these groups – or atleast some of their components – actually started as criminal bands, not groups mo-tivated by radical Muslim ideology. It is reasonable to assume that both phenomena(radical ideological rebels and groups that were motivated by the economic situa-tion) exist and co-exist and that distinctions between them are sometimes blurred.Moreover, blurred distinctions also exist between ‘criminal’ gangs and marginalizedyouth groups that can be easily recruited both by criminals and by radical Muslimactivists.

On the other hand, some observers suggested that the cooperation of Kabardiansand Balkars can be seen also as a joint ‘strong desire among local youth to distancethemselves from the Turkic–Adyghe split, to put an end to the power of corrupt elites,and to retaliate against indiscriminate activities of the local police’.163 But this cooper-ation might be a sign of a deeper change. During a journey to the area some inter-viewees suggested that the new young generations ‘“already think in Russian” (hence,not in Adyghe) . . . their world view is shaped by differentiation made by Russiansand Russian language . . . they adopt Russian understanding that there are Muslimswho are Kabardians’.164

These developments suggest a correlation between three different processes.The first is the weakening of the ethno-national movements (especially among


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Adyghe- Kabardians) since the end of the 1990s. The second is the new regime inthe area, which is no longer based on Soviet nationalities policy, but involves astruggle between conflicting notions of citizenship and belonging in new Russia,marked by a growing split between ‘Russians’ and ‘Muslims’. These tensions areespecially influential on the younger generations.165 The third is the rising power ofIslam as a mode of identification – and as almost the only real option of politicalresistance.166

While the scope of the analyses suggested here is 1990–2005, it seems thatthis nexus did not change although other parts of the Caucasus were influencedby recent developments, especially the 2008 Russian–Georgian war, and also the Cir-cassian protest regarding the Sochi 2014 winter Olympics. It seems that during thesecond half of the first decade of the twenty-first century the situation in Kabardino-Balkarya and Karachai-Cherkesia was primarily influenced by the continuing effortsof Moscow to prevent terrorism, which led to growing pressure on the local popula-tion, as in the example of the complete closure of the Pre-elbrusia area.167

The discourse of Islam and collective identity is shaped by the authorities’ tendencyto dub every criminal act in the area as carried out by ‘Wahabis’, obstructing any at-tempt to evaluate the real threat of radical Islam in the area. The anti-Islamic policyin the north-western Caucasus might be motivated inter alia by fear that a situationmight develop there similar to that in Daghestan and Chechnya, which had de factobecome countries completely alien to Russia and Russians. It was influenced also bywider anti-Islamic tendencies in policy and in the media.168 However, such policy le-gitimized practices designed also to legitimize brutality against civilians, and its conse-quences seem to be counterproductive and accelerate the potential of radical Islam asa prospective channel of resistance for the local population.

A comparison between the western and eastern parts of the Northern Caucasus bringsforward several points with regard to the interplay between Islam and nationalism,the spread of Islamic radicalism and the relationship between government policiesand the above two. Both parts of the Northern Caucasus share with the rest of theFSU the vacuum created by the collapse of Soviet ideology and the need for an alter-native value system in the tough period of economic, social and political transition.As in other parts of the FSU, religion and nationalism have been the two availableoptions to fill this vacuum.

Both parts of the Northern Caucasus also share with the rest of the FSU religion –

in this case Islam – as part of their group identity. However, while in the east thisIslamic dimension is institutionalized and represents various options – mainly but notexclusively through the Sufi brotherhoods – in the west, where Islam became almostabsent during the Soviet period, the relationships between the Islamic and other com-ponents of identity are still in a formative stage.

The particular direction of events in each area has been influenced by the political-administrative structure imposed by Stalin’s policy. In the western Caucasus twomain ethno-national groups – the Circassians and the Karachai-Balkars – are dividedbetween two bi-national autonomous republics. Thus the creation of ethno-national-ism and the influence of local ethnic relations were central issues during the 1990s.The mode of re-Islamization was influenced by these processes. Islam, being‘weak’ was not an independent variable but an accompanying element of the various


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ethno-national processes. These were also the major processes in the eastern Cauca-sus, though here Islam was potentially an alternative. In this part of the FSU theChechens shared their autonomous republic with the Ingush and Daghestan was‘owned’ by 14 titular nationalities. As in other parts of the FSU, also in the NorthernCaucasus Islam underwent a process of ‘nationalization’. In its eastern, more ‘Islam-ized’ part, this meant also the ‘nationalization’ of the various Sufi groups.

Different local contexts dictated different dynamics in negotiating collective identi-ty and local politics in various parts of the Northern Caucasus, which resulted also ina range varying from violent conflicts (e.g. Chechnya and Ingushetia-Ossetia) to a rel-atively stable situation (in the north-western Caucasus, and to a lesser degree also inDaghestan). The place of Islam in these developments differed. In most areas of theNorthern Caucasus Islam has become, once again, an important factor. At the sametime, in all these different local dynamics Islam has usually played a secondary role toethno-nationalism.

One should not forget that the dynamics of nationalism and Islam are not playedout in an empty space. The existing political-administrative units are the frameworkwithin which these dynamics have taken place. Furthermore, the autonomous repub-lics and their ruling elites are the most powerful political actors: each republic strivesto control and direct the national and religious activities within its territory. In thisthey represent local interests, but also have to represent and consider the centre inMoscow. At the same time, the republics also represent a mode of identification in itsown right: the structure of the republics became a ‘habitus’ (in P. Bourdieu’s terms)during the Soviet period,169 and most aspects of everyday life have been – and are –

carried out within this framework. So has the current dissemination of Islam. More-over, the growing salience of the distinctions between ‘Russians’ and ‘Muslim Cauca-sians’ in post-Soviet Russia reshapes the meaning of this ‘habitus’ especially foryounger generations.

Of crucial importance is, of course, Moscow and its policies in the region. Inpractice Yeltsin’s (lack of) policies left a wider space for local actors to play, whichmeant that various local identities were given a chance to express themselves. Thus,the situation in the Northern Caucasus was the outcome of negotiations among thevarious local players and between them and Moscow. This enabled a relative sta-bility in the north-western Caucasus and in Daghestan in the midst of a political,economic, social and psychological upheaval following the dissolution of theUSSR. It also prevented the spread of the conflict which had erupted, becausemost local players – nationalist and Islamic included – tried to maximize withinthe existing political framework. Even after the outbreak of the first war in Chech-nya, where Moscow acted in an extreme manner, the above dynamics in the otherrepublics prevented the expansion of the war into other parts of the region.

Radical Islamists tried to use perestroika and the dissolution of the USSR to strikeroots in the Northern Caucasus, but with little success. At first, they were only able toestablish themselves as a marginal group in the multi-ethnic, deeply Islamized Daghe-stan. Even there, the strength of traditional (mainly Sufi) Islam and the blend betweenIslam and ethnicity preordained them to remain marginal. What changed this situa-tion was the first war in Chechnya. The physical destruction and the social and moralvacuum left by this war – the Chechen military success being a Pyrrhic victory – gave


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the foreign ‘Jihadists’ the opportunity to grow and spread their vision and influence.In a country out of the control of its elected president, the weapons and money ofthese ‘Wahhabis’ gave them an enormous advantage. Still, the number of ‘Wahhabis’and their followers in Chechnya seems never to have exceeded 10 per cent of the popu-lation. Outside Chechnya they managed to attract allies only among a few disgruntledelements in Daghestan.

The local authorities in Daghestan, Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachai-Cherkesiahave followed other Muslim governments in the FSU in calling the ‘Wahhabis’ a dan-ger and describing almost any opposition as ‘Wahhabi’. This political use of the termto smear opponents should be taken into account when one tries to analyse the situa-tion in the Caucasus (and other Muslim parts of the FSU), especially as it has success-fully percolated into the media and created simplistic, stereotyped perceptions. Farmore important, by doing so, governments in the FSU (and elsewhere) are generatinga self-fulfilling prophecy. By denying other, legitimate avenues for political and reli-gious expression they turn the ‘Wahhabis’ into the only alternative for the population.In describing the ‘Wahhabis’ as the major, even the only, danger they present radicalIslam as stronger than it might be and render this option credible in the eyes of thepopulation.

This perception of ‘Wahhabi’, or ‘fundamentalist’, danger reached its peak withPutin’s accession to power. It went hand in hand with more centralist, activist andforceful policies introduced by the new administration in general.170 Thus the decisionto send the army into Chechnya again, which started the second war there, and toeliminate the ‘Wahhabis’ in Daghestan by the use of force. This marks a completelynew stage in the region. In the Northern Caucasus, like all over the Russian Federa-tion, this renewed emphasis on centralism has meant, inter alia, the limiting of thespace of local players and expressions. Cloaked behind anti-‘Wahhabi’ rhetoric, thenew policy has been restraining ethno-national identity as well as local administrativeautonomy.

While Russia was able to conquer Chechnya and to eliminate the ‘Wahhabi’enclave in Daghestan, the elimination of the ‘Wahhabi’ danger seems far from beingachieved. On the contrary, the scope of radical Islamic activities, and acts of terror inparticular, have been on the rise. The blockade of Chechnya forced the extremists tolook for new places to continue their struggle from and thus to strengthen their effortsat collaboration with opposition groups under the banner of Islam.

This became more feasible because other avenues for political activity and, evenmore important, expression of identity had been closed. The situation in Kabardino-Balkaria is a good example: the centre’s policies contributed to weaken the ethno-na-tional organizations, including the very moderate and secular expressions of Circas-sian ethno-nationalism. Moreover, during those years more and more restrictionswere put on all Islamic activities, mosques were closed down and a very limited spacewas left for legitimate moderate Islam. Most of the population of this republic is farfrom being radical or even religious. However, these policies raise a question as towhat modes of expression have remained open. A more important question is whetherthese policies help to prevent radicalism or, perhaps, channel young people originallyfar from an Islamic background to look upon ‘Wahhabism’ as an option and an(only) alternative.


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In Chechnya and Daghestan the Russian authorities have struck an alliance withtraditional Sufi Islam in their common struggle against the ‘Wahhabis’. In Chechnyait only helped to further fragment and polarize society, without really solving theproblems. In Daghestan, where the support for staying within the Russian Federationhad been strong to start with, this has not led to the complete elimination of the ‘Wah-habi’ danger, or to the cessation of acts of terror. Still, such a policy, by allowing localactors some room for manoeuvre, forwards stabilization.

Such stabilization is possible because of the deep Islamic presence and holdover society. Traditional Islam, sanctified to the believers by 70 years of Sovietpersecution, leaves little space for the radical ‘Wahhabi’ brand of Islam. Thesame is true of Chechnya, if the problem of Russian presence/independence issolved. This raises an important point, especially when the north-westernCaucasus is compared with Daghestan. With Islam being new to the north-westernCaucasus, and with no deeply rooted Islamic institutions, which go hand in handwith local ethnic identities, the relations between Islam and ethno-nationalism arestill in flux.

The comparative analysis highlights that the different history and socio-culturalcharacteristics of the different regions in question leads to different approaches to reli-gion which contain a paradox: unlike the situation in Daghestan, where Islam is wellestablished and the authorities have to collaborate with different Islamic bodies intheir struggle against ‘Wahhabism’, in Kabardino-Balkaria the ‘legitimate’ Islamicleaders – whether those representing the state or leaders of other Islamic movements –are powerless.171 On the one hand, this represents the overall weak position of Islamin the area. On the other, it leads to the struggle against radicalism becoming a strug-gle against religious activity in general. It is doubtful whether such a strategy willachieve its ends; rather it might result in a greater influence of radicalism, as there re-main no legitimate religious alternatives.172

Even if ethno-national identity remains at the moment the main source of identi-fication in the area, theoretically this policy can produce a future scenario of Islam-ic identification beyond ethno-national identity – if not as a deep source of identityat least as an escape from poverty and oppression. Most of the citizens in thenorth-western Caucasus, and most probably of other parts of the Caucasus, seethemselves as citizens of Russia, which is another important part of their identity.But the continuing economic crisis, the growth of radical Islamic activities and thepolicies and atmosphere which leave little space for these identities to develop raisequestions as to theoretical scenarios in which radical Islam materializes. Such a sce-nario is relevant to the discussion of Islam in other areas of the former SovietUnion as well.

Finally, the study of Islam in the Northern Caucasus brings forward some impor-tant lessons for the general discussion of Islam and radicalism today: first, the impor-tance of the inter-relationship between Islamic and other identities, most particularlyethno-nationalism. Second, it highlights the significance of the context for the compre-hension of the relations between Islam, society and politics as well as relations be-tween Muslims and others. Relating to the context supplies us with a fuller and morecomplicated, albeit also contradictory, picture than any popular two-dimensional par-adigm of ‘Islam vs. the rest of the world/the West’.


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Notes

This study was supported by a research grant from the Harry S. Truman Institute forthe advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

1. See S.P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon& Schuster, 1996), pp.127, 129, 276–9.

2. As suggested by the title of D. Senghaas, The Clash within Civilization: Coming to Terms withCultural Conflicts (New York, 2001).

3. See E. Sivan, ‘The Clash within Islam’, Survival, Vol.45, No.1 (Spring 2003), pp.25–44.4. Ethnic Russians are composed of Cossacks, who for centuries occupied the ‘front lines’ of Russian

advance to the south, and by others who immigrated to the region in the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies.

5. Chechnya is an exception in that it declared independence in November 1991, and although thenew constitution placing Chechnya within the RF was ‘approved’ by referendum on 23 March2004, secessionist resistance is still on and has even spread to other republics in the NorthernCaucasus.

6. The term ‘Adyghe’ implies a common identity and outlook and hints at the ethical-behavioural codethat unites all Adyghe – though in a number of distinct variations – the Adyghe Khabzah. SeeC. Bram, ‘The Circassian World Congress: Dilemmas of Ethnic Identity and the Making of anEthno-National Movement’, in M. Gammer (ed.), The Caspian Region, Vol.II: The Caucasus(London: Routledge, 2004), pp.63–103. As a rule, in this article references to further reading (asopposed to sources and quotations) are to English publications only.

7. The Circassians are actually a single nation divided among three republics: Kabardino-Balkaria,Karachai-Cherkesia and Adyghea. In addition, there is a small concentration of Circassians on thecoast of the Black Sea, in the Shapsug area, which is part of the Krasnodar krai (Shapsug is the nameof one of the Circassian groups, or ‘tribes’). There is also a small community of Christian Circassiansin Ossetia. Most Circassians, however, live in the diaspora since their exile following the Russianconquest of the area in the nineteenth century.

8. The Karachai language belongs to the Kypchak branch of Turkic. According to some scholars theirancestry goes back to the Hunn-Bulgarian conglomeration which lived along the Kuban river. Theywere Turkified by the Turkic tribes which took over the Khazar kingdom in the middle of theeleventh century. E.g. H. Salihoglu ‘Karacay’, Encyclopedia of Islam, new edition (EI2) (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1978), pp.596–7.

9. An additional group are the Abaza. They are quite close to the Abkhaz in terms of language, ethnicidentity and culture, but live north of the main range of the Caucasus – primarily in Karachai-Cherkesia. The Abaza live in close proximity to the Circassians (Adyghe) and could be regarded aspart of the overall Circassian population in the context of this discussion. On Abkhaz and Abaza (orAbazin), see J. Colarusso, ‘Abkhazia’, Central Asian Survey, Vol.14, No.1 (1995), pp.75–97; Bram,‘The Circassian World Congress’, pp.65–6, 73–8.

10. Field trips were conducted (by CB) in 1990, 1993, 1996, 1998, 2000, in north-west Caucasus and in2003 in Daghestan and in Kabardino-Balkarya, in addition to several visits to Georgia andAbkhazia.

11. See A. Giddens, ‘Notes on the Future of Anthropology’, in A.S. Ahmed and C.N. Shore (eds.), TheFuture of Anthropology (London: Athlone, 1995).

12. The official name of Chechnya adopted after the declaration of independence was ‘the ChechenRepublic of Ichkeriya’ (in Chechen: Noxciyin Respublika Noxciytc€o; in Russian: ChechenskaiaRespublika Ichkeriia).

13. ‘Doku Umarov raspustil Ichkeriiu’, Nastoiashchee vremia, 2 Nov. 2007.14. E. Souleimanov, ‘Kabardino-Balkarya Risks Becoming New Insurgency Hotspot’, CACI Analyst,

3 Feb. 2011 ([email protected]).15. Dagh in Turkic is mountain and Stan is the Persian suffix for territorial names. Thus Daghestan

means literally Mountainland.16. Islam reached Daghestan in 643 AD, when the Arabs conquered Derbend (named by them Bab al-

Abwab). It took about eight centuries for Daghestan to become completely Islamized. Neverthe-less, already in the eleventh century major centres of Islamic learning existed in Daghestan. Among


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the Chechens and Ingush Islam spread considerably later. In fact, the Chechens were finally andcompletely Islamized only in the first half of the nineteenth century and the Ingush only by the be-ginning of the twentieth. Daghestan has, thus, naturally become the religious centre and suppliedspiritual leadership to its neighbours. And see A. Shikhsaidov, ‘The Political History of Daghestanin the Tenth–Fifteenth Centuries’, in M. Gammer and D. Wasserstein (eds.), Daghestan in theWorld of Islam (Helsinki: Finnish Academy of Sciences and Letters, 2006), pp.45–53; A. Shikhsai-dov, ‘Ancient Mosques in Daghestan’, in M. Gammer (ed.), Islam and Sufism in Daghestan(Helsinki: Finnish Academy of Sciences and Letters, 2009), pp.15–27. In the post-Soviet periodDaghestan seems to be recovering at least some of its position, for which see A. Navruzov, ‘IslamicEducation in Post-Soviet Daghestan’, in Gammer (ed.), Islam and Sufism in Daghestan, pp.147–62.

17. The same factors worked in favour of preserving this tradition during the Soviet period, since theauthorities’ attention was directed first and foremost to the traditional, urban centres of Islam, suchas Bokhara and Samarkand in Central Asia, or Kazan in the Volga basin.

18. For the arrival of the Khalidiyya, see M. Gammer, ‘The Beginnings of the Naqshbandiyya in Dag-hestan and the Russian Conquest of the Caucasus’, Die Welt des Islams, Vol.34 (1994), pp.204–17.For further developments, see M. Kemper, ‘Daghestani Shaykhs and Scholars in Russiam Exile:Networks of Sufism, Fatwas and Poetry’, in Gammer and Wasserstein (eds.), Daghestan in theWorld of Islam, pp.95–107. For the contemporary situation, see S. Shikhaliev, ‘Sufi Practices andMuslim Identities in Naqshbandi and Shadhili Lodges in Northern Daghestan’, in Gammer (ed.),Islam and Sufism in Daghestan, pp.133–45; V. Akaev, ‘Conflicts between Traditional and Non-Traditional Islamic Trends: Reasons, Dynamics and Ways to Overcome them (based on NorthCaucasian Documents)’, Central Asia and the Caucasus, No.2 (50), 2008, pp.108–16.

19. See A. Bennigsen, ‘The Qadiriyah (Kunta Haji) Tariqah in North East Caucasus, 1850–1987’, IslamicCulture (Hyderabad, India), No.2–3 (April–July 1988), pp.63–78; M. Gammer, ‘The Qadiriyya in theNorthern Caucasus’, Journal of the History of Sufism, Vol.1–2 (Oct. 2000), pp.275–94; Akaev, ‘Con-flicts between Traditional and Non-Traditional Islamic Trends’.

20. N. Levtzion and J.O. Voll (eds.), Eighteenth-Century Renewal and Reform in Islam (Syracuse, NY:Syracuse University Press, 1987), pp.3–20; O. Depont, Les Confreries religieuses musulmans (Alger:Imprimeur Libraire Editeur, 1897).

21. M. Gammer, ‘The Introduction of the Khalidiyya and the Qadiriyya into Daghestan in theNineteenth Century’, in Gammer and Wasserstein (eds.), Daghestan and the World of Islam,pp.55–67.

22. For which, see M. Gammer, Muslim Resistance to the Tsar: Shamil and the Conquest of Chechniaand Daghestan (London: Frank Cass, 1994); A. Zelkina, In Quest of God and Freedom. The SufiResponse to the Russian Advances in the North Caucasus (Chechnya and Daghestan) (London:Hurst, 2000). According to oral traditions, the first leader of resistance to the Russians (1785–94),Ushurum, who assumed the title ‘al-Imam al-Mansur’ (‘The Victorious Leader’ in Arabic), was aNaqshbandi sheikh too. But there is no evidence to support it. The best study of Imam Mansur isstill Bennigsen’s classic, ‘Une mouvement populaire au Caucase du XVIIIe si�ecle: la “guerre saint”de Sheikh Mansur (1785–1794). Page mal connue et controverse de relations russo-turques’, Cahiersdu Monde Russe et Sovi�etique, Vol.V, No.2 (April–June 1964), pp.159–205. The latest articles onthe subject are J. Meskhidze, ‘Imam Shaykh Mansur: A Few Stanzas to a Familiar Portrait’, Cen-tral Asian Survey, Vol.21, No.3 (Sept. 2002), pp.301–24; and Z. G€uney Ya�gcı, ‘A Chechen NationalHero of the Caucasus in the 18th Century: Sheikh Mansur’, Central Asian Survey, Vol.22, No.1(2003), pp.103–15.

23. See A. Bennigsen, ‘Muslim Guerilla Warfare in the Caucasus (1918–1928)’, Central Asian Survey,Vol.2, No.1 (July 1983), pp.45–56; M. Bennigsen-Broxup, ‘The Last Ghazawat: The 1920–1921 Up-rising’, in M. Bennigsen-Broxup (ed.), The North Caucasus Barrier. Russia’s Advance into the MuslimWorld (London: C. Hurst, 1992), pp.112–45; V. Akaev, ‘Islam and Politics in Chechniia and Ingushe-tiia’, in G. Yemelianova (ed.), Radical Islam in the Former Soviet Union (London and New York,2010), pp.65–9.

24. Having taken advantage of the new ta’ifa’s views and influence to eliminate remainders of resistance,the authorities arrested on 15 January 1864 its founder and leader, Shaykh Kunta Hajji. This provo-cation resulted in a massacre – known in Chechen as ‘Sha’ltan Tom’ (the Battle of Dagger) – whichturned the Qadiriyya anti-Russian.


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25. For these see M. Gammer, The Lone Wolf and the Bear. Three Centuries of Chechen Defiance ofRussian Power (London: C. Hurst, 2005).

26. This involved inter alia massive arrests and executions of religious leaders and their families and theclosing up of mosques. Thus, in the early 1980s only seven ‘official’ mosques were open in Daghestan(compared to 1,800 in 1914) and none in Chechnya (compared to 900 in 1914) – A. Bennigsen andS.E. Wimbush, Muslims of the Soviet Empire. A Guide (London: C. Hurst, 1985),p.112. For the latest study of Soviet policies vis-�a-vis Islam, see Y. Ro’i, Islam in the Soviet Union.FromWorld War II to Gorbachev (London: C. Hurst, 2000).

27. Ziyart, more commonly known as mazar, is a place of pilgrimage, usually a mausoleum of a (mostlySufi) ‘Saint’. And see EI2, Vol.VI, p.942.

28. The main ceremony in Sufism consisting of repeating the name of Allah or the first part of theshahada (‘there is no god but Allah’). During the dhikr the Sufi disciple might lose his senses and getin touch with divine power. And see EI2, Vol.II, p.223.

29. Local/tribal custom. See EI2, Vol.I, p.170. And cf. note 39 below.30. R. Chenciner, Daghestan: Tradition and Survival (London: Curzon Press, and New York: St. Martin’s

Press, 1997), p.237. And cf. A. Zelkina, ‘Islam and Politics in the North Caucasus’, Religion, State andSociety, Vol.21, No.1 (1993), pp.115–24; Ro’i, Islam in the Soviet Union.

31. For Soviet nationality policies and their consequences in Daghestan, see R.B. Ware and E. Kisriev,Dagestan. Russian Hegemony and Islamic Resistance in the North Caucasus (Armonk, NY andLondon: M.E. Sharp, 2010), pp.26–38.

32. See R. Conquest, The Nation Killers: The Soviet Deportation of Nationalities (London: Macmillan,1970); A.M. Nekrich, The Punished Peoples (New York: W.W. Norton, 1978). For further sources,see B.G. Williams, ‘Commemorating “The Deportation”. The Role of Memorialization and Collec-tive Memory in the 1994–96 Chechen War’, Memory and History, Vol.12, No.1 (Spring/Summer2000), pp.101–34; Gammer, The Lone Wolf, pp.166–83.

33. Bennigsen, ‘The Qadiriyyah (Kunta Hajji)’, pp.71–2. This was particularly true in Chechnya andIngushetia, where different branches of the Qadiriyya have become the focus for, and the standardbearers of national identity. In terms of political modernization they have become the agents ofmodern nationalism among the Chechens and the Ingush. And see Akaev, ‘Islam and Politics inChechniia and Ingushetiia’, pp.65–9.

34. Wird is a sub-tariqa.35. Murids are the novices of a Sufimaster. See EI2, Vol.VII, p.608.36. Master, mentor, spiritual guide. And see, EI2, Vol.X, p.925; Vol.VII, p.631.37. The All-National Congress of the Chechen People (ANCCP; the national movement) seized power in

September 1991. In November Johar Dudayev, its leader, won the presidential elections and immedi-ately after entering office proclaimed independence. This was the direct reason that led to the conflictwith Moscow and the war of 1994–96.

38. In this way the nationalists connected the struggle to previous ‘rounds’ in what they called ‘the threehundred year long war of liberation against Russia’. Furthermore, in doing so they put present leader(Dudayev) on an equal footing with past heroes from the nation’s pantheon, first and foremost ImamMansur and Imam Shamil. For further details of Chechen nationalist interpretations of the past, seeM. Gammer, ‘Nationalism and History: Rewriting the Chechen National Past’, in B. Coppieters andM. Huysseune (eds.), Secession, History and the Social Sciences (Brussels: VUB Brussels UniversityPress, 2002), pp.117–40.

39. The shari’a is the only alternative state legal system to the Soviet one, as opposed to the ‘ada which isthe traditional tribal law. The shari’a was also the legal system of the imama, the state established byShamil in the nineteenth century.

40. For the Situation in Daghestan, see Ware and Kisriev, Dagestan, pp.39–87; K. Khanbabaev, ‘Islamand Islamic Radicalism in Dagestan’, in Yemelianova (ed.), Radical Islam, pp.88–95; G.Yemelianova, ‘Islam in Power’, in H. Pilkington and G. Yemelianova (eds.), Islam in Post-SovietRussia. Public and Private Faces (London and New York, 2003), pp.87–113; M. Gammer, ‘Walkingthe Tightrope between Nationalism(s) and Islam(s): the Case of Daghestan’, Central Asian Survey,Vol.21, No.2 (June 2002), pp.133–42; M. Gammer, ‘The Road not Taken: Daghestan and ChechenIndependence’, Central Asian Survey, Vol.24, No.2 (June 2005), pp.97–108; M. Gammer, ‘BetweenMecca and Moscow: Islam, Politics and Political Islam in Chechnya and Daghestan’,Middle EasternStudies, Vol.41, No.6 (Nov. 2005), pp.833–48.


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41. These are the Russians, Mountain Jews/Tats and Azeris respectively. ‘Tats’ are speakers of the Tatlanguage who live in Daghestan and Azerbaijan, and were, therefore, grouped by the Soviets in a sin-gle nationality. In fact, these are separate ethnic groups, with clear ethnic boundaries between themwho live in different places and speak distinct, though related dialects. Soviet ethnic policy regardedthem as one ‘nation’ divided into three groups according to religious affiliation – Shi’is, Jews (knownas ‘Mountain Jews’) and Gregorian Christians (that is followers of the Armenian Church). In Daghe-stan the overwhelming majority of ‘Tats’ were actually Jews. See C. Bram, ‘The Language of theMountain Jews from the Caucasus: Language Preservation and Socio-Linguistic Dilemmas beforeand after the Migration to Israel’, Irano-Judaica, Vol.VI (2008), pp.337–51; and also his The Jews ofDaghestan: Collective Identity and Community Survival, Rapport Center Publications no.14 (RamatGan: Bar Ilan University, 2006), pp.63–99 (Hebrew). In any case all three nationalities – Russians,‘Tats’ and Azeris – are marginal to the political structure of Daghestan and their weight – both politi-cal and demographic – has been diminishing in recent years.

42. According to a Daghestani sociologist, almost all of the 15 Sufi wirds officially registered in therepublic in 1998 had a mono-ethnic following. E. Kisriev, ‘Societal Conflict-Generating Factors inDaghestan’, in M. Gammer (ed.), The Caspian Region, Vol.II, The Caucasus (London: Routledge,2004), p.118. And cf. A. Zelkina, ‘The “Wahabbis” of the Northern Caucasus vis-�a-vis State andSociety: The Case of Daghestan’, in Gammer (ed.), The Caspian Region, p.176, n.59; Shikhaliev,‘Sufi Practices and Muslim Identities’; D. Makarov and R. Mukhametshin, ‘Official and UnofficialIslam’, in H. Pilkington and G. Yemelianova (eds.), Islam in Post-Soviet Russia. Public andPrivate Faces (London and New York, 2003), pp.132–43; E. Omel’chuk and G. Sabirova, ‘Islamand the Search for Identity’, in Pilkington and Yemelianova (eds.), Islam in Post-Soviet Russia,pp.178–80.

43. In September 1997 a Russian newspaper reported that almost 1,700 mosques, 650 Islamic elementaryschools, 25 madrasas, 9 ‘Islamic institutes’ and 11 ‘Islamic centres’ operated in Daghestan and thatabout 1,500 young Daghestani men were studying in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey and Pakistan. At thattime three Islamic parties were legally registered in the republic – S. Ivanov and V. Shelia, ‘Talebanyidut!’, Kommersant, No.31 (1997), as quoted in Z. Kadir, ‘The Rise of Political Islam in Russia’ (unpub-lished paper), p.6. And cf. Navruzov, ‘Islamic Education in Post-Soviet Daghestan’.

44. The Daghestani authorities later made a major effort to at least unite all these separate muftiatesunder a joint umbrella in the form of the Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims of Daghestan. And seeWare and Kisriev, Dagestan, pp.88–90.

45. The labelling of opponents as ‘Wahhabis’ is not new. The name ‘Wahhabis’ itself was from the verybeginning used by the movement’s opponents. Founded in the eighteenth century by Muhammadibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, the Wahhabi movement brought to extremes the principle of tawhid (the one-ness of God), and thus its name used by its followers – muwahhidun. It tried by all means, includingforce, to purify Islam from different practices acquired over the centuries which it regarded as shirk(polytheism). In 1807 the Wahhabis conquered Mecca, and shocked the entire Muslim world byremoving the black rock from the Ka‘ba and preventing non-Wahhabis from performing the haj(pilgrimage). Wahhabism had thus become the equivalent in Islam of Iconoclasm in Orthodox Chris-tianity and of anarchism in modern western perception. Already in the 1820s and 1830s the British inIndia used the negative charge of the term ‘Wahhabis’ to smear the Tariqa-yi Islami, which tried tooverthrow their rule. The present-day use of the term in the FSU goes back at least to the 1980s, butits origin has not yet been traced thoroughly. Inter alia it is known that the KGB referred to one ofthe Qadiri wirds in the Chechen-Ingush ASSR as ‘Wahhabis’. Zelkina, ‘The “Wahabbis”’, p.149.

46. This version, the more common, can be found in many sources, for example, Nezavisimaia gazeta, 11Aug. 1998. According to another version purist individuals and groups had appeared in Daghestanin the early 1980s, before establishing contact with the outside world became possible. Zelkina, ‘The“Wahabbis”’, pp.150–53; A. Matveeva, ‘Daghestan: Interethnic Tensions and Cross-Border Implica-tions’, in Gammer (ed.), The Caspian Region, Vol.II, The Caucasus, pp.127–8. And see Ware andKisriev, Dagestan, pp.90–109; Khanbabaev, ‘Islam and Islamic Radicalism in Dagestan’, pp.95–104;Makarov and Mukhametshin, ‘Official and Unofficial Islam’, pp.149–59.

47. Ivanov and Shelia, ‘Talebany idut!’48. Nevertheless, in the early 1990s the authorities allowed these groups to officially register an Islamic

party and several of their organizations, such as Nahda and Jama’at al-Muslimin, were tolerated.


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Ivanov and Shelia, ‘Talebany idut!’ For the growth and development of purist groups and their con-flict with the authorities, see Zelkina, ‘The “Wahabbis”’, pp.155–60.

49. According to a local journalist, the ‘Wahhabis look different: they shave their mustaches and growtheir beards; they wear shortened pants. And they live differently, abstaining from drugs and alcoholand promoting physical training for their children to defend themselves and their faith. [. . .] Whatmost irks the government about the Wahhabis, is that they answer only to Allah. Wahhabis’ lives areregulated by theQur’an and the hadiths, not by the state.’N. Abdullaev, ‘Daghestan’s True Believers.The Wahhabis Pose a Fundamentalist Challenge to the Political and Islamic Establishment’, Transi-tions (March 1999), p.2 (http://www.jtz.cz/transitions/mar99/dagestan.html). For a study of Daghes-tani popular and elite views of the ‘Wahhabis’, see Ware and Kisriev, Dagestan, pp.109–20.

50. Chechen chief mufti, Ahmad Kadyrov, in an interview with Rotar, Nezavisimaia gazeta, 11 Aug.1998. For ‘Wahhabis’ in Chechnya, see Akaev, ‘Islam and Politics in Chechniia and Ingushetiia’,pp.69–75.

51. Of particular importance to future developments proved to be the connection of ‘Wahhabis’ from thecommunity of Karamakhi in Daghestan with Emir Khattab, the commander of the Arab volunteersin Chechnya, who married a woman from that community. For the establishment there of an Islamicorder see below.

52. See, for example, Mahomed Mahdiyev, a village imam in Daghestan, who told Washington Postjournalist Sharon LaFraniere he had tried to withstand the fundamentalists: ‘A Jordanian clericnamed Khabib Abdurrakhman arrived in the early 1990s with a seemingly irresistible deal. To ahamlet made destitute by the collapse of the Soviet Union, Abdurrakhman brought a slaughteredcow and a free feast every week. He handed out [US] $30 to every convert who came to his simplemosque. And to those adrift in the social chaos of the Soviet breakdown, he offered a new purpose inlife – a form of their traditional Islam rooted in fundamentalism and militancy. [. . .] They tried tolure people in a friendly way at first, but by 1999 they were saying: “Join us or we’ll cut your headoff”‘.Washington Post, 26 April 2003.

53. ‘People are fed up with the disorder all around them’, said a professor at the University of Groznyi toan unnamed reporter, ‘They think that introducing the shari‘a will bring an immediate halt to crime.’Reuter, 20 Jan. 1997.

54. In an attempt to outplay his rivals, who had called on the president ‘to introduce shari‘a law throughoutChechnya immediately’ (RFE/RL, Newsline, Vol.3, No.22, Part I, 2 Feb. 1999), Maskhadov imposedthe shari‘a on the country, stripped the parliament of its legislative powers and established a Shura(State Council) with consultative powers only (AP, 4 Feb. 1999; RFE/RL Caucasus Report, Vol.2,No.6, 9 Feb. 1999). However, facing strong opposition, Maskhadov’s spokesman stated that ‘the finaland complete establishment of the shari‘a in the republic’ would take place only after a ‘three year longtransition period’ and pending the introduction of a ‘new shari‘a constitution and presidential and par-liamentary elections’ (president’s press secretary Vachagayev quoted by ITAR-TASS,10 Feb. 1999). The new draft constitution, stated that the secretary of the committee which drafted it,‘draws on the Qur’an, the shari‘a, the sunna of the Prophet, Chechen customs and traditions and theconstitutions of several Islamic states, including Pakistan, Egypt, Iran and Syria’ (Nezavisimaia gazetaand Izvestiia, 7 May 1999).

55. Basayev did not like this nickname. When asked directly whether he was a ‘Wahhabist’, he replied: ‘Iam a “Khattabist”’ (after Khattab, the commander of the Arab ‘Wahhabi’ volunteers). A conversa-tion with. Sebastian Smith. We are grateful to Mr Smith for the quote.

56. For example, Basayev responded to Maskhadov’s establishment of a Shura by a counter Shura head-ed by himself (AP, 4, 9 Feb. 1999; RFE/RL Caucasus Report, Vol.2, No.6, Feb. 1999; ITAR-TASS,10 Feb. 1999).

57. Those Islamic organizations that published their goals differed in their aims as well as in the ways toachieve them. Among the groups surfacing in 1997 and 1998 were the ‘Insurgent Army of the Imam’,the ‘Central Front for the Liberation of the Caucasus and Daghestan’, the ‘Sabotage Group of the Is-lamic Front’, the ‘Fighting Squads of the Jama‘at of Daghestan’, ‘the Sword of Islam’ and ‘Shamil’sDescendants’.

58. S.M. Rossii, Kalendar Musul’manskikh prazdnikov (Moscow: Soiuz Musul’man Rossii, 1995), p.2.59. [S.M. Rossii], Programma obshcherossiiskogo obshchestvenno-politicheskogo dvizheniya ‘soiuz

Musul’man Rossii’ (Moscow: Soiuz Musul’man Rossii, 1995), pp.1–3. This change was due mainly tothe exceptionally ambitious, energetic and able leadership of Nadirshah Khachilayev – a Daghestani


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businessman and the brother of the leader of the Lak national movement – who replaced the founderof the AMR as its leader.

60. ‘Suffering and humble submission to despotism are unacceptable to us, because we have been blessedby God to struggle for freedom. If we do not unite under the banner of Islam and ghazavat to combatevil, war will knock on the door of each of us separately’. N. Khachilaev, ‘Shamil i kavkazskayavoina: istoriia i sovremennost’, Islamskaia natsiia, No.1 (18–25 Nov. 1997). And cf. his ‘Predislovie kRusskomu izdaniiu’, in M. Gammer, Shamil’. Musul’manskoe soprotivlenie tsarizmu. ZavoevanieChechni i Dagestana, trans. V. Simakov (Moscow: Kronpress, 1998), p.9.

61. ITAR-TASS, 22 May 1998; T. Arkin and A. Sashin, ‘Chechenskoe znamia nad Dagestanom’, Kom-mersant-Daily, 22 May, 1998, pp.1, 2. While the information available is too scarce to even try to ful-ly reconstruct the events, it nevertheless points at Khachilayev’s entrapment by his opponents.According to the most reliable version (given to MG in a private conversation), the police tried to dis-arm Khachilayev’s men when he was on his way back to Makhachkala from a meeting with Aki Che-chen leaders. Khachilayev went into the government building to protest to the minister of the interior.The minister as well as a great many other officials escaped, leaving the building in possession ofKhachilayev. Returning to Makhachkala, chairman of the Council of Nationalities (and the de factopresident) Mahomedali Mahomedov entered the government building alone and convinced Khachi-layev to leave. At first, both Mahomedov and the federal minister of the interior dismissed the inci-dent. However, later their position changed. Khachilayev was officially accused of a coup attemptand in September 1998 he was stripped of his parliamentary immunity.

62. Udugov was widely accused by Russians, Daghestanis and Chechens alike of being a promoter of‘Wahhabism’ and of ‘Arabizing’ Chechnya. E. Krutikov, ‘Petlia svobody na shee u svobodoliubi-vykh. Kadrovoe obnovlenie Chechenskogo rukovodstva svidetel’stvuet o ee radikalizatsii’, Segodnia,14 July 1998, pp.1–3. He was also widely suspected of supporting ‘Wahhabi’ armed groups inDaghestan and of using them as a weapon for his aims – e.g., I. Rotar, ‘Nezavisimmyi Dagestanzhizneno vazhen dlia Chechni’, Nezavisimaia gazeta, 12 Feb. 1998, p.5.

63. RIA-Novosti, 24 Aug. 1997. Russian media attributed to the ‘IslamicUmma’ the aim of uniting Dag-hestan and Chechnya in a ‘kind of a state emulating Shamil’s Imama’ (e.g., I. Rotar, ‘Moskva i Groz-nyi boriutsia za vliianie v respublike. Mestnykh zhitelei podtalkivaiut k krovoprolitiiu’, Nezavisimaiagazeta, 17 Sept. 1997, p.3). Udugov was far more circumspect in his wording: ‘Historically’, he told aRussian newspaper, ‘Our peoples have had the closest of relations and hence the borders betweenChechnya and Daghestan must remain open. Our task is to prevent the splitting of Chechens and thepeoples of Daghestan along ethnic lines, not to allow the isolation of Chechnya from Daghestan’(Nezavisimaia gazeta, 12 Feb. 1998, p.5).

64. ITAR-TASS, 26 April 1998; A. Barakhova, ‘Shamil’ Basaev ob’edinit Chechniu i Dagestan’,Kommersant-Daily, 28 April 1998, p.3. For that purpose the Congress established a ‘PeacekeepingBrigade’. Interfax, 6 July 1998. And see Ware and Kisriev, Dagestan, pp.121–3.

65. Abdullaev, ‘Daghestan’s True Believers’, p.2.66. Chief mufti Sa‘idmuhammad-Hajji Abubakarov, Head of Daghestan’s SDMD, quoted in

Abdullaev, ‘Daghestan’s True Believers’, p.1. Abubakarov was, in fact, repeating the words of someSufi sheikhs.

67. The new enactment empowered the SDMD (that is official Islam) to supervise all religious associa-tions established less than 15 years before its adoption and authorized it to grant or deny them theright to communal practice of their religion. The law also entitled the SDMD and the Committeefor Religious Affairs (a government office) to monitor all religious literature, printed in the republicand imported alike, and to ban publications they disapprove of. And see R. Ware andE. Kisriev, ‘The Islamic Factor in Daghestan’, Central Asian Survey, Vol.19, No.2 (June 2000),pp.235–252.

68. The Buinaksk district was a major ‘Wahhabi’ locus. According to a Daghestani journalist, about90 per cent of the ‘Wahhabis’ in Daghestan were to be found there. Abdullaev, ‘The True Believers’,p.2. Zelkina (‘The “Wahabbis”’, p.159) quotes different data, according to which 71.6 per cent of theWahhabis were concentrated in the 11 mountain districts (raiiony) of western and central Daghestan,in which 75.8 per cent of the Sufis were also concentrated. These seem to be also the data used byMatveeva (‘Daghestan’, p.29). Other centres of ‘Wahhabi’ activity have been the districts of KyzylYurt and Khasav Yurt in the northern plains. Their headquarters, according to a Russian newspaper,was the town of Kyzyl Yurt – where one of their prominent leaders, Bahautdin Muhammad, had


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been mullah – and there they operated a television studio, a satellite communications centre and apublishing house. Ivanov and Shelia, ‘Talebany idut!’

69. Abdullaev, ‘Daghestan’s True Believers’, p.2. For a more detailed and somewhat different descriptionof events, see Zelkina, ‘The “Wahabbis”’, pp.160–64; Ware and Kisriev, Dagestan, pp.101–9.

70. That is, one day after the AMR’s alleged coup attempt.71. Abdullaev, ‘Daghestan’s True Believers’, p.3.72. AFP, 21 Aug. 1998, quoting ITAR-TASS. According to the report Basayev publicly expressed his

support for the three villages and offered help.73. In this agreement the authorities undertook to put an end to the harassment of the ‘Wahhabis’ and to

stop using that term in state-controlled media. The ‘Wahhabis’ for their part abandoned their claimto territorial sovereignty and agreed to respect the constitutions of the Russian Federation and of theRepublic of Daghestan. They agreed to allow the police into the villages, but refused to permit the re-instatement of the police station in Karamakhi. They also retained the right to organize armedpatrols to keep law and order in the villages. The disarming of the population was agreed to in princi-ple but postponed indefinitely.

74. Abdullaev, ‘Daghestan’s True Believers’, p.4. The September 1998 agreement must have contributedto the relative calm in Daghestan until August 1999. Another reason might have been the internalconfrontation in Chechnya between President Maskhadov and his rivals, which escalated dramatical-ly in the autumn and winter of 1998–99.

75. See Ware and Kisriev, Dagestan, pp.123–8; R. Ware and E. Kisriev, ‘Conflict and Catharsis: A Re-port on the Developments in Daghestan following the Incursion of August and September 1999’, Na-tionalities Papers, Vol.28, No.3 (Sept. 2000), pp.479–522. It seems that unlike in the previoussummer, when Basayev’s support for the jama‘at of Karamakhi could not but remain verbal becauseof geographical realities, this time he and Khattab, had no choice but to act upon their statementsand to the help their allies in a jama’at neighbouring on Chechnya and directly on their areas of con-trol there.

76. The Daghestani authorities distributed, with Moscow’s approval large quantities of weapons to thevolunteers.

77. The Russian air force was reported to have used petrol bombs.78. The Novolakskii raiion is the ancestral area of the Chechens in Dagestan, from which they were ex-

iled in 1944 and never allowed to return to. They have never given up their demands to return to theirancestral villages.

79. Report by the special commission of experts to investigate the issue of the ‘Wahhabis’ established byRussia’s minister of justice, Pavel Krasheinikov, submitted by the end of August 1998 as quoted inAbdullaev, ‘Daghestan’s True Believers’, p.4.

80. One reason for that was the unprecedented nature and scale of the events of August–September 1999.Another no less important cause was the change of guard in the Kremlin. While the above eventswere unfolding, Russian President Boris Yeltsin announced that he would not run in the presidentialelections due in the spring of 2000. Rather, he announced his support for Vladimir Putin, whom healso promoted to the post of prime minister. Putin, from his first day in office, advanced a more‘hawkish’ line in both internal and external policies. In the case of the ‘Wahhabis’ he belonged tothose who had seen them as a danger to the Russian state which had to be eliminated, while with re-gard to Chechnya he seems to have been among the opponents of any compromise with the national-ists and Maskhadov.

81. The authorities immediately blamed the explosions on ‘Wahhabi’ terrorists based in Chechnya. Proofof these accusations has yet to be produced.

82. Kemper, ‘Daghestani Shaykhs and Scholars in Russian Exile’; Shikhaliev, ‘Sufi Practices andMuslimIdentities’.

83. After independence, the Qadiriyya in Chechnya insisted that the chief mufti be chosen from its ownmembers. An unidentified prominent Qadiri leader stated in a private conversation: ‘Up to now thefollowers of the Naqshbandi tariqa have been in power. Now it is our turn’ – V. Akaev, Sheikh KuntaKhadzhi: Zhizn’ i uchenie (Groznyi: Institut Gumanitarnykh Nauk Chechenskoi Respubliki, 1994),pp.108–9, 110 (quotation from p.110). And see Akaev, ‘Conflicts between Traditional and Non-Tra-ditional Islamic Trends’. Indeed, in 1995 Ahmad Kadyrov ( ¼ Qadirov. The name clearly indicateshis affiliation) was nominated chief mufti of the republic.

84. See notes 19 and 20 above.


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85. Bennigsen, ‘The Qadiriyyah (Kunta Hajji)’, pp.71–2.86. See Ware and Kisriev, Dagestan, pp.26–38.87. According to a Chechen scholar, ‘many Zikrists supported Johar Dudayev’, while the opposition

‘was overwhelmingly composed of representatives of the Naqshbandi tariqa and of an insignificantnumber of Zikrists’. Akayev, Sheikh Kunta Khadzhi, p.109 (emphasis added). And cf. Nezavisimaiagazeta, 11 Aug. 1998, p.5.

88. Such massive demonstrations and dhikrs performed by large congregations turned the scale in favour ofthe national movement in September 1991 and checked Moscow’s attempt to get rid of the new regimein Groznyi by force two months later. The western public was exposed to such massive demonstrationsand dhikrs (described by a bemused western television reporter as ‘war dance’) in December 1994, onthe eve and at the beginning of the Russian military invasion of Chechnya.

89. After the Russian assassination of Dudayev, on 21 April 1996, Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, as vice-presi-dent, became acting president until the elections.

90. Nezavisimaia gazeta, 11 Aug. 1998.91. ITAR-TASS, 5 Jan. 1999. For other examples of support by the Qadiri-controlled religious establish-

ment see, ITAR-TASS, 14 Jan., 15 March 1999.92. The failure of the ‘Wahhabis’, warned the head of the Dagestani Institute for Religious Studies, ‘does

not mean that there is not going to be a struggle for an Islamic state in the future, that this fight can-not be resumed and that there are no longer people dreaming about establishing an Islamic state inDagestan. They did not disappear, despite the internal self-erosion of the religious movement, whichwas quite powerful in the early [19]90s. Those who held extremist stances are still strong and are cer-tainly going to continue to fight for their ideas for a long time’. H. Kurbanov, ‘Terrorizm: utopia ireal’naia opasnost’’, Novoe Delo (Makhachkala), 31 May 2002. For a list of terrorist attacks, seeWare and Kisriev, Dagestan, pp.185–91.

93. Up to 2005 such acts of terrorism included 17 attacks by women suicide bombers (‘Black Widows’),which claimed at least 220 deaths. And see Y. Henkin, ‘From Tactical Terrorism to Holy War: TheEvolution of Chechen Terrorism, 1995–2004’, Central Asian Survey, Vol.25, No.1– 2 (2006), pp.193–203.

94. Among the hostage takers were Chechens, Ingush, Arabs and two Russian converts to Islam.95. For Russian and local policies, see S. Markedonov, ‘Russia’s Politics in the Northern Caucasus:

Systemic Crisis and How to Overcome it’, Central Asia and the Caucasus, Vol.2, No.38 (2006),pp.37–44. W. Richmond, ‘Russian Policies towards Islamic Extremism in the Northern Caucasusand Destabilization in Kabardino-Balkaria’, in M. Gammer (ed.), Ethno-Nationalism, Islam and theState in the Caucasus. Post-Soviet Disorder (London: Routledge, 2008), pp.86–101; E. Sokirianskaia,‘Ideology and Conflict: Chechen Political Nationalism Prior to, and During Ten Years of War’, inibid., pp.102–38. This is probably the best analysis of developments in Chechnya so far. For the so-cial and economic crises, see J. O’Loughlin, V. Kolossov and J. Radvanyi, ‘The Caucasus in a Timeof Conflict, Demographic Transition, and Economic Change’, Eurasian Geography and Economics,Vol.48, No.2 (38) (2006), pp.135–56.

96. In the minds of Chechen youth ‘the fight for freedom is strongly linked to Islam. Nationalism and re-ligion are inseparable and interwoven with personal wartime experiences’. Their ideology was ‘a mix-ture of anti-colonialism, faith, injured dignity and revenge’. The ‘ideologues of jihad’ attract them tothe resistance by skilfully ‘creating a chain of cognitive linkages from “memoirs of grievance” and“glorification of the fight for freedom” through the “romanticization of death” and “restoration ofinjured dignity” to the more general concept of jihad’. : Sokirianskaia, ‘Ideology and Conflict’, p.130.

97. In addition to notes 93 and 94 above, see C. Moore and P. Tumelty, ‘Assessing Unholy Alliance inChechnya: From Communism and Nationalism to Islamism and Salafism’, Journal of CommunistStudies and Transition Politics, Vol.25, No.1 (2009), pp.73–94; D. Sagramoso, ‘Violence and Conflictin the Russian North Caucasus’, International Affairs, Vol.83, No.4 (2007), pp.681–705; I. Dobaev,‘The Northern Caucasus: Spread of Jihad’, Central Asia and the Caucasus, Vol.1, No.1 (55) (2007),pp.49–56.

98. Indeed, Muslims all over the world and, especially, Islamic charity organizations like the Saudi-based International Islamic Relief Organization, also supported financially, among others, the Che-chen Islamists. More important, radical Islamists all over the world have regarded the Chechenstruggle as part of global Jihad and some Islamic, mainly Arab volunteers (the Russians calledthem ‘mercenaries’), fought in Chechnya. Still, the role of Arab volunteers was marginal. They


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always remained a small, separate contingent and the leadership always remained Chechen. While‘Chechen Islamists embraced extremist ideals, adopted extremist rhetoric and employed extremistmeans learned from fighters from abroad’, they ‘fought two basically nationalistic wars’. Henkin,‘From Tactical Terrorism to Holy War’. And see B.G. Williams, ‘Allah’s Foot Soldiers: An As-sessment of the Role of Foreign Fighters and Al-Qa’ida in the Chechen Insurgency’, in Gammer(ed.), Ethno-Nationalism, Islam and the State in the Caucasus, pp.156–78.

99. Sokirianskaia, ‘Ideology and Conflict’, p.134.100. See notes 83 and 87 above.101. Shikhaliev, ‘Sufi Practices and Muslim Identities’, p.144. Also Navruzov, ‘Islamic Education in Post-

Soviet Daghestan’, p.161.102. Sokirianskaia, ‘Ideology and Conflict’, p.132.103. E.g., see T. Parfitt, ‘The Battle for the Soul of Chechnya’, The Guardian, 22 Nov. 2007.104. R. Ware and E. Kisriev, ‘Irony and Political Islam: Daghestan’s Spiritual Directorate’, Nationalities

Papers, Vol.30, No.4 (Dec. 2002), p.663.105. Shikhaliev, ‘Sufi Practices and Muslim Identities in Naqshbandi and Shadhili Lodges in Northern

Daghestan’.106. M. Roshchin, ‘Sufism and Fundamentalism in Dagestan and Chechnya’, Cahiers d’Études sur la

Méditerranée Orientale et le Monde Turco-Iranien, No.38 (2008), p.72.107. S. Smith, Allah’s Mountains. Politics and War in the Russian Caucasus (London and New York: I.B.

Tauris, 1998), pp.4, 19.108. Navruzov, ‘Islamic Education in Post-Soviet Daghestan’, p.162.109. Khanbabaev, ‘Islam and Islamic Radicalism in Dagestan’, p.95.110. At the same time some of the ‘Wahhabis’ appeared to be changing their language, if not their stand,

following the decline in the financial support and the stream of volunteers from the Arab world. Hen-kin, ‘From Tactical Terrorism to Holy War’.

111. A possible meeting ground may prove to be the north-western Caucasus, where ‘traditionalist’Chechen refugees are harassed by the security forces as ‘Wahhabis’.

112. Suffice to mention that Sunni Islam accepts as legitimate and equal four schools (madhahib) ofreligious law.

113. N.M. Emelianova,Musul’mane Kabardy (Moscow, 1999), p.31.114. R. Traho, ‘Circassians’, Central Asian Survey, Vol.10, No.1–2 (1991), pp.1–63.115. Both Circcassians and Karachai-Balkars, like the majority of the Muslims of the Russian Federation,

are Sunnis of the Hanafi School of Law. Only Daghestani peoples and the Chechens adhere to theShafi‘i School of Law. A. Bennigsen, ‘The Muslims of European Asia and the Caucasus’, in W.S.Vucinich (ed.), Russia and Asia (Stanford, 1972), p.135.

116. The Nart epos is also associated with and claimed by the neighbouring Ossets, who unlike the Cir-cassians are officially Christians (though they have preserved many pagan practices too).

117. A. Jaimoukha, The Circassians. A Handbook (Richmond, Surrey, 2001), p.151. He also states thatthe Ottomans converted the Circassians through evangelism: Mullahs sent by them used popular reli-gious belief in the afterlife and in the punishment for sins, promising that Muslims can make offeringsand then admitted to blissful and eternal life in paradise.

118. See Gammer, Muslim Resistance, pp.162–3, 248–50. A recent study convincingly demonstrates thatthe extent of cooperation between both flanks of the Caucasus and the degree of integration of someof the Circassians into Shamil’s Imamate has been greatly under-rated. Y. Khoon, ‘Sufism and Resis-tance. Muhammad Amin and the Circassian Anti-Colonial Struggle in the Northwest Caucasus inthe mid-19th Century’ (PhD thesis, University of Haifa, 2011, in Hebrew).

119. P.B. Henze, ‘Circassia in the Nineteenth Century; the Futile Fight for Freedom’, in C. Lemercier-Quelquejay, G. Veinsteen and S.E. Wimbush (eds.), Pass�e Turco-Tatrar, Pr�esent Sovi�etique. �etudesofferts �a Alexandre Bennigsen (Louvain and Paris: �Editions de l’�Ecole des Hautes Études en SciencesSociales, 1986), pp.243–72.

120. H. Sliho�glu, for example, claims that the Karachai ‘did not play any active role in the resistance toRussia from 18th Century onward’ (‘Karacay’, p.597). For a different opinion, see the entryM. Al-Haq, ‘Karachai’, in N. K. Singh and A.M. Khan (eds.), Encyclopedia of the World Muslims(Delhi, 2001), pp.675–9. Analysis of the patterns of exodus/deportation in comparison to thoseremaining in the Caucasus shows that probably only some groups took an active role in the struggleof the Circassians.


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121. Emelianova, Musul’mane Kabardy, pp.44–5. According to Cornell, the Kabartay ‘have been consid-ered the most pro-Russian of all Caucasian Muslim people, and their feudal elite was co-opted to agreat extent by the Russians’. S.E. Cornell, Small Nations and Great Power: A Study of EthnopoliticalConflict in the Caucasus (Surrey: Curzon, 2001), p.262.

122. N. Levtzion, ‘Toward a Comparative Study of Islamization’, in N. Levtzion (ed.), Conversion toIslam (New York and London: Holmes & Meir, 1979, 1974), p.19.

123. Balkars and Karachais, for example, who were fully Islamized only in the mid nineteenth century,not only maintain certain aspects of animism, but some continued to raise pigs. And see Al-Haq,‘Karachai’, pp.676–8.

124. Jaimoukha, The Circassians, p.152.125. Cornell, Small Nations and Great Power, p.262.126. Bennigsen, ‘The Muslims of European Asia and the Caucasus’, p.160.127. See also Emelianova,Musul’mane Kabardy, pp.92–3.128. Ibid., pp.100–101.129. A. Iarlykapov, ‘Revival of Islamic Education in the Northern Caucasus’, Central Asia and the Cauca-

sus, No.1 (2003), pp.166–8.130. Emelianova,Musul’mane Kabardy, p.102. The source of this information is not mentioned.131. A.B. Malashenko, Islamskie orientiry Severnogo Kavkaza (Moscow: Carnegie Foundation, 2001),

p.81. This also explains why the attention of scholars who study Islam in the Russian Federation andthe Caucasus were naturally focused on other, neighbouring areas. Although there is only limited re-search and information about the dissemination of Islam in the north-western Caucasus, most of thescholars agree that there was a gradual difference in the dynamics of Islamic development betweenthe north-western Caucasus and Daghestan and Chechnya in its north-eastern part.

132. Slezkine discussed Soviet policy towards the different nationalities and pointed out how this policyactually gave different ethnic groups a (controlled) degree of cultural autonomy. Y. Slezkine, ‘TheUSSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism’,Slavic Review, Vol.53, No.2 (1994), pp.414–52. Roy showed how this policy created an importantbase for the creation of new nations in Central Asia. O. Roy, The New Central Asia (London andNew York: New York University Press, 2000). The implications of these analyses to the north-western Caucasus are, however, limited due to the ‘binary’ structure of the republics and to differ-ences between the geographical settings of Central Asia and the Caucasus, as well as to the differ-ent historical and ethnographic trajectories of their populations regarding ethnicity and religion.

133. Even then, in 1990, it would probably have had a different character among the Karachai-Balkars.134. Smith, Allah’s Mountains, p.91.135. Cornell, Small Nations and Great Power, p.266.136. Juluetta Meskhidze argues that the inter-relations between national and religious ideologies gained

importance in the case of the Karachai-Balkar due to the failure of ethno-national organizations toachieve their goals, and the process that highlights this importance started with the November 1996Nalchik events – the declaration of the Congress of the Balkar people calling to ‘reestablish the terri-torial integrity of Balkarya’, and the reaction of the Kabardino-Balkarya authorities which deniedthe legitimacy of the Balkars’ demands. See J. Meskhidze, ‘The Events of 1996 in Kabardino-Balkaria and their Prehistory’, in Gammer (ed.), Ethno-Nationalism, Islam and the State in theCaucasus, pp.68–85.

137. For a broader discussion of Circassian ethno-nationalism see S. Shami, ‘The Little Nation. Minoritiesand majorities in the context of shifting geographies’, in K. Goldman, U. Hannerz and C. Westin(eds.), Nationalism and Internationalism in the post-Cold War era (London: Routledge. 2001), pp.103–27; C. Bram, ‘The Congresses of the International Circassian Association: Dilemmas of an Ethno-National Movement’, in Gammer (ed.), The Caspian Region, Vol.II: The Caucasus, pp.63–103.

138. Kalmykov resigned in protest when Russian troops were sent to Chechnya in 1995.139. C. Bram, ‘Circassian Re-Emigration to the Caucasus’, in S. Weil (ed.), Roots and Routes: Ethnicity

and Migration in Global Perspective (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1999), pp.205–22.140. A small community of Christian Circassians lives in Mozdok in North Ossetia.141. C. Bram, ‘Re-Islamization and Ethno-nationalism’, in Gammer (ed.), Ethno-Nationalism, Islam and

the State in the Caucasus.142. Jaimoukha, The Circassians, p.152.


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143. Emelianova, Musul’mane Kabardy, p.102. According to this study, ‘a majority of people’ among theKabartay ‘define themselves as “religious” but do not observe all Islamic laws, a minority do observeIslamic laws’, and there are those who define themselves as ‘Atheist and Non-Muslim Kabartay(Christians or other)’ (p.101). Generally, this estimation agrees with my own field impressions anddata (CB).

144. On visitors and growing relations with the diaspora, see Shami, ‘The Little Nation. Minorities andMajorities in the Context of Shifting Geographies’; and Bram, ‘Circassian Re-Emigration to theCaucasus’.

145. Between 2000 to 2001 the Balkar movement Malkar Auzy and the inter-regional Karachai orga-nization Alan decided to coordinate their activities. Meskhidze, ‘The Events of 1996’, p.80.

146. Ibid. See also Richmond, ‘Russian Policies towards Islamic Extremism’, p.91.147. S.I. Akkieva, ‘Razvitie etno-politicheskoi situatsii v Kabardino-Balkaii’, p.230, cited by Meskhidze,

‘The Events of 1996’, p.80.148. V. Khatazhukov, ‘Kabardino-Balkarya: Circassian Clears Last Repatriation Hurdle’, Nalchik,

14 July 2004 ([email protected]); Caucasus news agency, 26 Aug. 2004 ([email protected]).

149. After the International Circassian Congress in Nalchik in 2000 the centre of the conference wasmoved to this city. But this attempt to create a single centre for the movement seems to have weak-ened it.

150. These were influenced by processes among diaspora Circassians. The shift from ‘community in exile’to ‘diaspora communities’ which followed the establishment of connections with the Caucasus causedparadoxically a greater emphasis on the local, civil, place of these communities in their different loca-tions (Turkey, Jordan, etc.). And see Bram, ‘Circassian Re-Emigration to the Caucasus’.

151. See Henkin, ‘From Tactical Terrorism to Holy War’.152. ‘Our March is Jihad’, interview with Amir of Karachaevo jamaat, Radio Kavkaz, 17 July 2002

(taken from list: Chechniya sl@ Yahoogroops, 20 July 2002).153. Malashenko, Islamskie orientiry Severnogo Kavkaza, pp.117–19.154. ‘Two rebel bases found in Kabardino-Balkaria mountains’, Interfax-South, Nalchik, 9 Sept. 2003.155. Liudmila Maratova reported (Caucasian Knot, 14 Sept. 2004) that only the central mosque in

Nalchik remained open. The other six mosques were closed by order of Berdov, the mayor ofNalchik. See also Richmond, ‘Russian Policies towards Islamic Extremism’, p.94.

156. Ibid. This approach was also articulated by the mufti of Kabardino-Balkaria, Anas Pshikhachev, inan interview with the Cherkess-language service of Radio Liberty: ‘We are outraged by the actions ofthe police who – in a blatant violation of the law – have closed down several mosques’. Report byValery Khatazhukov in IWPR’s Caucasus Reporting Service, No.199, Nalchik, 9 Oct. 2003. (It is im-portant to state that these reports represent interested bodies as well. Valery Khatazhukov, for exam-ple, is the executive director of Kabardino-Balkaria’s Republican Human Rights Centre in Nalchik).

157. Walter Richmond argues that ‘ironically, ethnic tensions . . . have saved Karachai-Cherkessia . . .from the sort of disruption seen in Nalchik in October 2005’, since federal government troops wereoccupied with ethnic conflicts and could not engage in the ‘war on terror’ to the extent that theircounterparts in Kabardino-Balkarya did. Richmond, ‘Russian Policies towards Islamic Extremism’,pp.92–5.

158. T. Samedov, ‘Investigation – “Persons of Slav Nationality.” Russians Fought in Karachai Jama‘at’,Kommersant, 25 Feb. 2005 (html version of source, provided by ISP). Also B. Gerasimov: ‘PoliceKill Wahhabite But Lose Out to Him on Ideological Front’, Kommersant, 12 Sept. 2003.

159. For a detailed discussion of these events see Richmond, ‘Russian Policies towards Islamic Extrem-ism’, pp.95–7.

160. Ibid., p.86. According to a statement from the Yarmuk Jamaat of Kabardino-Balkarya, the newleader of the Yarmuk War Council at this stage was a Kabartay. A. McGregor, ‘The Jamaat Move-ment in Kabardino-Balkaria’, the Jamestown Foundation, In-Depth Analysis of the War on Terror,Special issue on Chechnya, 7 April 2004 – Volume III, Issue 7, as published in [email protected].

161. According to a report by Sufian Zhemukhov and Jean-Francois Ratelle, in 2005, Anzor Astemirov,the leader of the Kabarda-Balkaria jamaat and Ingush jamaat leader Ilyas Gorchkhanov approachedShamil Basayev with a suggestion of uniting with the Chechen jamaat to form a Caucasus-wide coali-tion. Astermirov’s idea was to unify all anti-Russian separatist and religious groups in the Caucasus.


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Basayev did not agree since he wanted them to subject themselves to the rule of the forces of ‘TheChechen Republic of Ichkeria’, but in exchange Basayev helped insurgents in Kabardino-Balkaria toorganize the massive military attack on security forces in Nalchik in October 2005. See S. Zhemu-khov and J.-F. Ratelle, ‘A Case Study of the Kabardino-Balkaria Insurgency –A Comparative Anal-ysis of Ideological Trends in The North Caucasus’, PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No.156, May2011, pp.1–6 (http://www.gwu.edu/�ieresgwu/assets/docs/ponars/pepm_156.pdf).

162. Richmond, ‘Russian Policies towards Islamic Extremism’, pp.94–5. In some cases, especially duringattacks in mountainous areas, it is possible that support has been secured both by force and by eco-nomic rewards to locals, thus taking advantage of the severe economic situation in the area. Howev-er, it seems that that was not the only reason in the case of the Nalchik assault.

163. See Suleimanov (3 Feb. 2011 issue of the CACI Analyst). Suleimanov and this list of goals with‘establish an independent Islamic state in the North Caucasus’ (ibid.). However, there is a distinc-tion between the factors of resistance that help to recruit supporters and a clear understanding andagreement of an Islamic state as a goal. At least within the timeframe of this article, until 2005, itis questionable to what extent this was a clear goal of many who took part in events like the Nal-chik assault of 2005. The situation has changed since the establishment of the ‘Caucasus Emirate’in October 2007. The goals were to change the ideology from separatism/nationalism and to estab-lish an Islamic state in the North Caucasus, but these issues go beyond the scope of this article.See Zhemukhov and Ratelle, ‘A Case Study’, pp.1–6.

164. Interview with Rulan Tsirov, Valery Kaz’arov (and other local scholars), Nalchik, 2011.165. Compare the discussion of the influence of negative labelling and the tension between ‘rossiiski’ vs ‘

russkii po-kroviu’ (Russian by blood) on the image of Georgian immigrant youth in Moscow:F. Markowitz, ‘Diaspora with a Difference: Jewish and Georgian Teenagers’ Ethnic Identity in theRussian Federation’, Diaspora, Vol.6, No.3 (1997), pp.331–51.

166. The Circassian protest against the location of the winter Olympics on what used to be the heartlandof Circassian population and a symbolic place in the Circassian fight against Russian invaders, thatled to their deportation. However, this seems to be central arena for diaspora Circassians more thanCircassians in the Caucasus.

167. During a 2011 visit to north-western Caucasus and Kabardino-Balkarya (CB) the pressure on thePre-elbrusia area by Russian Special Forces (including a closure on the area) continued. LocalKabardians ironically referred to the area as ‘occupied territory’. Furthermore, in regard to BruceGrant’s recent discussion of Russian colonization and Sovereignty in the Caucasus, the practices ofRussian special security forces in the area can be seen as a new chapter in the history of raiding in thearea, while the exchange of human bodies (dead and alive) continues to shape the relations betweenRussians and locals. B. Grant, The Captive and the Gift (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009).

168. See Richmond, ‘Russian Policies towards Islamic Extremism’, pp.88–9.169. Habitus in Bourdieu’s terms is a set of dispositions which generate practices and perceptions – hence

it is already ‘inside the heads’ of the actors. See P. Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production: Essayson Art and Literature, intro. and ed. R. Johnson (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993), pp.29–73, ‘TheField of Cultural Production’.

170. On Russian policies towards ‘Wahhabism’ see Richmond, ‘Russian Policies towards Islamic Extrem-ism’, pp.86–97.

171. This is valid both to older religious establishment and village imams, as well as to the youngergeneration who were educated in the Middle East. The tensions between these generations furtherweaken the local religious leadership. See Richmond, ‘Russian Policies towards Islamic Extremism’,pp.92–3.

172. The implementation of these policies increased side by side with the weakening of the republic’s presi-dent, Valery Kokov, who successfully ruled Kabardino-Balkaria in the 1990s.


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Appendix. The titular nationalities of Daghestan.

1989 Census 2002 CensusNationality No. (in Thousands) % of Population No. (in Thousands) % of Population

Avars1 524 25.8 815 31.6Dargins2 314 15.5 425 16.5Kumyks 249 12.3 366 14.2Lezgins3 231 11.4 336 13.0Laks 98 4.8 140 5.4Tabasaranians 94 4.6 110 4.3Nogais4 32 1.6 38 1.6Rutuls 19 0.9 24 0.9Aguls 18 0.9 23 0.9Tats5 11 0.5 2 0.1Tsakhurs6 8 0.3 8 0.3Azeris 84 4.1 111 4.3Chechens 62 3.0 88 3.4Russians 236 11.6 121 4.7

Notes:1Thirteen additional ethnic groups have been officially registered as Avars: Akhvakhs, Andis,Archis, Bakgulals, Botlykhs, Chamals, Didois, Godubers, Kapuchins, Karatais, Khunzalis,Khvarshis and Tindis.2Two additional ethnic groups have been officialy designated as Dargins: Kaitaks andKubachis.3 Only less than half of the Lezgins live in Daghestan. A great part of them live in adjacent areasin northern Azerbaijan.

4 Only about 42 per cent of the Nogais live in Daghestan. An equal number live in the Stavropolkrai, and almost all of the rest in the Chechen Republic.

5 Only about 33 per cent of the Tats live in Daghestan. An additional 39 per cent live in adjacentareas in northern Azerbijan. Caucasian (Mountain) Jews (gorskie evrei) are sometimescounted as Tats, which makes statistics of both groups inconsistent. See M. Tolts, ‘Demogra-phy of North Caucasian Jewry: A Note on Population Dynamics and Shifting Identities’, inM. Gammer (ed.), Ethno-Nationalism, Islam and the State in the Caucasus. Post-Soviet Disor-der (London: Routledge, 2008), pp.212–24; C. Bram, The Jews of Daghestan: Collective Iden-tity and Community Survival.

6 Only about 34 per cent of the Tsakhurs live in Daghestan. About 63 per cent of them live inadjacent areas in northern Azerbaijan.


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Middle Eastern Studies Radical Islamism, Traditional Islam and Ethno-Nationalism in the Northern...

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