Shamil, also spelled Shamyl, Schamil, or Schamyl, (b. June 26, 1797, Gimry, Dagestan [now in Russia] — d. February 4, 1871, Medina, Hejaz, Ottoman Empire [now Saudi Arabia]), was the leader of Muslim Dagestan and Chechen mountaineers, whose fierce resistance delayed Russia's conquest of the Caucasus for 25 years.
Shamil was the third Imam of the Caucasian Imamate (1834–1859), and a Sunni Muslim Shaykh of the Naqshbandi Sufi Tariqa.
Shamil was born in Gimry, Dagestan which is now in Russia. Shamil was originally named Ali, but following local tradition, his name was changed when he became ill. His father, Dengau, was a landlord, and this position allowed Shamil and his close friend Ghazi Muhammad to study many subjects, including Arabic and logic. The two close friends also studied the Qur'an and practiced Sufism together at Yaraghal, a Murid center. Both Ghazi and Shamil came to dislike the loose customs of the mountain -- the Caucasus -- people that contradicted the laws set forth in the Qur'an.
Shamil grew up at a time when the Russian Empire was expanding into the territories of the Ottoman Empire and of Persia. Many Caucasian peoples united in resistance to Russian imperial aspirations in what became known as the Caucasian War (1817-1864). Early leaders of Caucasian resistance included Hadji Dawud, Sheikh Mansur and Ghazi Muhammad. Shamil, the childhood friend of Ghazi Muhammad, would become Ghazi's disciple and counselor.
Ghazi Muhammad (1793 –1832) became an Islamic scholar and ascetic, who became the first Imam of the Caucasian Imamate (from 1828 to 1832). He promoted the Sacred Law of Sharia, spiritual purification (tasawwuf), and facilitated a jihad against the invading Russians. He was also one of the prime supporters of Muridism, a strict obedience to Quranic laws used by imams to increase religio-patriotic fervor in the Caucasus.
Ghazi Muhammad preached that jihad would not occur until the Caucasians followed sharia completely rather than following a mixture of sharia and adat (customary traditions). By 1828, Ghazi Muhammad had begun proselytizing and claiming that obeying sharia, giving zakat, faithfully praying, and performing the hajj would not be accepted by Allah if the Russians were still present in the area. He even went on to claim that marriages would become void and children bastards if any Russians were still in the Caucasus.
Ghazi Muhammad became one of the most prominent preachers of Islam in the Caucasus. His memorization of over four hundred hadith allowed him to win many debates against rival preachers in the area. As his reputation grew, he was invited by many khanates and kingdoms loyal, indifferent, and hostile to the Czar. As a sign of humility and austerity, he refused to ride, but would walk.
During the early to mid 19th century of the Christian calendar, Russian political strategy in Dagestan included supporting local, indigenous law, known as 'adat. This was a careful and strategic investment against the growing religiosity and resistance founded on sharia law, which was championed by Ghazi Muhammad. The popularity and rise of Ghazi Muhammad has been attributed both to his charismatic personality and to an indigenous Dagestani population that had grown tired of Russian intrusion and reorganization of local land and resources. Due to conflicting local political, legal, and religious interests, the war led by Ghazi Muhammad has been characterized as a war in the name of Muslim resistance just as much as a war against Russian Imperial encroachment into the North Caucasus. While Ghazi Muhammad gained popular support for his religious policies and military tactics, he did not find widespread support among the region's other political leaders. This lack of support prompted Ghazi Muhammad to launch assaults both against local leaders who preferred to ascribe to ‘adat and against the encroaching Russians. As such, support for Ghazi Muhammad was not ubiquitous in Dagestan and his rise to power resulted in unrest among local political stakeholders.
In 1829, Ghazi Muhammad was proclaimed the first Imam of Caucasian Imamate in Ghimry. Soon thereafter, Ghazi Muhammad formally made the call for a holy war -- for a jihad. He also decreed that all wine should be destroyed publicly.
In 1830, Ghazi Muhammad and Shamil unsuccessfully tried to capture the Avar capital of Khunzakh from the khanum Pakkou-Bekkhe. Following the setback, Shamil prevailed upon Ghazi to bide his time for a while, until all the tribes became united in following sharia law.
In 1831, after a few months of quiet, Ghazi Muhammad attacked Northern Dagestan, and met with success there. His guerilla tactics caught the Russians unprepared. By 1832, Ghazi Muhammad (Qazi Mullah) was able to menace Vladikavkaz. However, the Russians repulsed the Imam's assault and, when the Russians took Ghimry, according to legend, they found
The Russians took the body of Ghazi Muhammad to Tarku, the capital of the Kumyk state, and gave it to the Kumyk Khan, who had been loyal to them. The body was displayed in the marketplace for a few days before being buried in the hills.
In 1832, when Ghazi Muhammad died at the battle of Ghimry, Shamil was one of only two Murids to escape. However, in doing so, he sustained severe wounds. During this fight, Shamil was stabbed with a bayonet. After jumping from an elevated stoop clean over the heads of the very line of soldiers about to fire on him, Shamil landed behind them. Whirling his sword in his left hand Shamil cut down three of them, but was bayoneted by the fourth, the steel plunging deep into his chest. Shamil seized the bayonet, pulled it out of his own flesh, cut down the man, and with another superhuman leap, cleared the wall and vanished in the darkness.
Shamil went into hiding and both Russia and his fellow Murids assumed him dead. Once recovered, he emerged from hiding and rejoined the Murids, at that time being led by the second Imam, Gamzat-bek.
Gamzat-bek, also known as Hamza-Bek, Hamza Bek ibn Ali Iskandar Bek al-Hutsali (b. 1789 — d, October 1, 1834) was the second imam of the Caucasian Imamate. Gamzat-bek succeeded Ghazi Muhammad upon Ghazi Muhammad's death in 1832.
Gamzat-bek was a son of one of the Avar beks. He was educated under the supervision of Muslim preachers and became an avid follower of a Sufi order. In August 1834, Gamzat-bek launched an assault on the Avar khans, who had been supporting the Russian Empire government and who had been hostile towards the Sufism movement. He succeeded in capturing the Avar capital of Khunzakh and executed its female ruler Pakhubike and her sons. However, the supporters of the Avar khans, including Hadji Murad, conspired against Gamzat-bek and killed him (Leo Tolstoy's story Hadji Murat is based on this event). After the death of Gamzat-bek, Shamil became the third Imam of Dagestan -- the third Imam of the Caucasian Imamate.
The Dagestan struggle against the Russians began when the Russians formally acquired control of Dagestan from Persia (Iran) in 1813. After Ghazi Muḥammad was killed by the Russians (in 1832) and his successor, Gamzat Bek, was assassinated by his own followers (in 1834), Shamil was elected to serve as the third Imam (political-religious leader) of Dagestan -- the third Imam of Caucasian Imamate.
When Gamzat-bek was murdered in 1834, Shamil took his place as the prime leader of the Caucasian resistance and became the third Imam of the Caucasian Imamate. He would wage unremitting warfare on the Russians for the next quarter century and would become one of the legendary guerrilla commanders of the century.
In 1839 (June–August), Shamil and his followers, numbering about 4000 men, women and children, found themselves under siege in their mountain stronghold of Akhoulgo, nestled in the bend of the Andi Koysu, about ten miles east of Ghimry. Under the command of General Pavel Grabbe, the Russian army trekked through lands devoid of supplies because of Shamil's scorched-earth strategy. The geography of the stronghold protected it from three sides, adding to the difficulty of conducting the siege. Eventually the two sides agreed to negotiate. Complying with Grabbe's demands, Shamil gave his son, Jamaldin in a sign of good faith, as a hostage. Shamil rejected Grabbe's proposal that Shamil command his forces to surrender and for him to accept exile from the region. The Russian army attacked the stronghold. After two days of fighting, the Russian troops secured Akhoulgo. Shamil escaped the siege during the first night of the attack. Shamil's forces had been broken and many Dagestani and Chechen chieftains proclaimed loyalty to the Tsar (Czar). Shamil fled Dagestan for Chechnya. There he made quick work of extending his influence over the clans.
Shamil was effective at uniting the many, quarrelsome Caucasian tribes to fight against the Russians, by the force of his charisma, piety and fairness in applying Sharia law. Shamil believed that the Russian introduction of alcohol into the area corrupted traditional values. Against the large regular Russian military, Shamil made effective use of irregular and guerrilla tactics. In 1845, an 8-10,000 strong column under the command of Count Michael Vorontsov followed the Imamate's forces into the forests of Chechnya. The Imamate's forces surrounded the Russian column, destroying it. This destroyed Vorontsov's attempt to cut away Chechnya from the Imamate.
Shamil's fortunes as a military leader rose after he was joined by Hadji Murad, who defected from the Russians in 1841. Soon thereafter, the area under Shamil's control tripled in size. Hadji Murad, who was to become the subject of a famous novella by Leo Tolstoy (1904), turned against Shamil a decade later, apparently disappointed by his failure to be anointed Shamil's successor as imam. Shamil's elder son was given the successor designation, and in a secret council, Shamil had his lieutenant (Hadji Murad) accused of treason and sentenced to death.
Hadji Murad, on learning of the successor designation and death sentence, re-defected to the Russians. Though Shamil hoped that Britain, France, or the Ottoman Empire would come to his aid to drive Russia from the Caucasus, these plans never came to fruition. After the Crimean War, Russia redoubled its efforts against the Imamate.
In 1857, the Russians became more determined to suppress Shamil, whose reputation had spread throughout western Europe and whose exploits had become legendary among his own people. Sending large, well-equipped forces under generals N.I. Evdokimov and A.I. Baryatinsky, the Russians started operations from all sides. The Russian military successes, coupled with the increasing exhaustion of Shamil’s followers, resulted in the surrender of many villages and tribes to the Russians.
After the Russian invaders successfully stormed Shamil’s fortress at Vedeno (in April 1859), Shamil and several hundred of his adherents withdrew to Mount Gunib. On September 6, 1859, Shamil, recognizing the futility of continuing to fight the overwhelming Russian armies that surrounded him, finally surrendered and effectively ended the resistance of the Chechen and Dagestani peoples to Russian subjugation.
After his capture, Shamil was sent to Saint Petersburg, Russia, to meet the Tsar (Czar) Alexander II. Afterwards, he was exiled to Kaluga, then a small town near Moscow. After several years in Kaluga, Shamil complained to the authorities about the climate and in December, 1868, he received permission to move to Kiev, a commercial center of the Empire's southwest. In Kiev, Shamil was provided with a mansion on Aleksandrovskaya Street. The Imperial authorities ordered the Kiev superintendent to keep Shamil under "strict but not overly burdensome surveillance" and allotted the city a significant sum for the needs of the exile.
In 1869, Shamil was given permission to perform the hajj to the holy city of Mecca. He traveled first from Kiev to Odessa and then sailed to Istanbul, where he was greeted by Ottoman Sultan Abdulaziz. He became a guest at the Imperial Topkapi Palace for a short while and left Istanbul on a ship reserved for him by the Sultan. In Mecca, during the pilgrimage, he met and conversed with Abdelkader El Djezairi, the Algerian religious and military leader who had led a struggle against the French colonial invasion of Algiers in the early 19th century.
After completing his pilgrimage to Mecca, Shamil went to Medina. Shamil died in Medina in 1871. He was buried in the Jannatul Baqi, the historical graveyard in Medina where many prominent personalities from Islamic history are interred.
In the process of Russia managing to conquer Chechnya and Dagestan in a series of bloody conquests, Russians developed a great respect for Shamil. Tsar Alexander II of Russia openly admired Shamil's resistance. The Tsar's admiration is part of the reason why, in the later part of his life, Shamil was housed in a mansion and was permitted to perform the hajj. Accordingly, Shamil largely escaped from the demonization of other Caucasian leaders in Russian historiography. Indeed, Shamil's legacy continues to remain strong not just in the memories of the people of the North Caucasus but also in general Russian history. He is regarded as one of the revered warrior figures in Russia and is frequently studied by Russian academia despite his defiance to Russian imperial aspirations and power.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamzat-bek
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghazi_Muhammad
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imam_Shamil
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shamil
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