The Role of Islam in Chechen National Identity

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Notes

With advice from Dr. Randall Pouwels, Professor of History at UCA, and Dr. Vincent Hammond, Associate Professor of History at UCA.

Malashenko, Islamskie Orientiri Severnogo Kavkaza.

See Gammer, Muslim Resistance to the Tsar: Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and Daghestan, 21; Dunlop writes that in the eighteenth century, Chechens were “superficially” Muslim (Russia Confronts Chechnya, 10); Reynolds writes that the authority of the Muslim Ottoman and Safavid Empires was “nominal” as well: see “Myths and Mysticism,” 305.

The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 4: From the Arab Invasion to the Saljuqs (ed. R. N. Frye) mentions the “petty principalities” that survived owing to the landscape (see 227); this is also given as a cause as to why so little is known about these small communities. Lieven mentions the lack of modernization and religious influence as also being attributed to the mountainous region: see Chechnya, 321.

Lieven, Chechnya, 357.

The following information on Chechen history and society borrows heavily from Jaimoukha's The Chechens, Chaps. 2, 3, and 6; as well as Johanna Nichols' paper on the Chechens, “Who are the Chechens?” (taken from the website of the UC Berkeley Chechen Language project, at <http://Socrates.berkeley.edu/~chechen>), except where otherwise noted.

Quoted in Dunlop, Russia Confronts Chechnya, 19.

Information on the Chechen language was taken from Nichols, “The Chechen Language,” from the UC Berkeley site. Jaimoukha mentions an alternative view, proposed by the linguist Starostin, that there is a Sino-Caucasian “super-family,” which would include other Caucasian languages as well as Basque and some Native American languages. The proposed proto-North Caucasian language has caused controversy among its proponents and those of Nichols (195–96).

Jaimoukha, The Chechens, 14.

Ibid., 90.

Wood, Chechnya, 13. Mr. Wood is assistant editor of New Left Review in London.

Lieven, Chechnya, 329.

Jaimoukha, The Chechens, 91.

Reynolds, “Myths and Mysticism,” 40.

Jaimoukha, The Chechens, 176.

The Khazars were a semi-nomadic Turkic people who had established a small dynasty along the Caspian River. Reynolds places an approximate date of 642–643 for the capture of Derbent (see “Myths and Mysticism,” 33); the Cambridge History of Iran states that Transcaucasia (consisting of Azerbaijan and Armenia) and eastwards “as far as Derband,” were partially captured under the caliphate of Umar, who reigned from 634 to 644 (see 226). Zelkina places the conquest later, during the eighth century. See In Quest for God and Freedom, 27.

Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 4, 243, 245. Reynolds also mentions the troubles that ruling powers had against the mountainous tribes (see “Myths and Mysticism,” 33).

Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650, 64–65. Imber mentions that establishing control was not easy; though the Ottoman leader Özdemiroghlu Osman married the daughter of the Dagestani leader to gain trust among the people, Dagestan tried to align itself with the Safavid governor to defeat the Ottomans.

Zelkina, In Quest for God and Freedom, 33. The Kumyk are a Turkish group found today in Dagestan.

Ibid., 35. Jersild also writes about Orthodox missionaries who traveled to the Caucasus to convert the Caucasians, who were practicing an “eclectic” mix of religious rites: see “Faith, Customs, and Ritual in the Borderlands,” 319.

Esposito, Islam, 12.

Ibid., 11.

Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, vol. 2, 220–21.

Ibid., 214. Hodgson also mentions that the general public could be assimilated into these relationships between master and disciple as “lay murids.”

Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam, 3.

Kabbani, Classical Islam and the Naqshbandi Tradition, 659.

Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, vol. 2, 224.

Ibid., 212.

Esposito, The Oxford History of Islam, 554.

Kabbani, Classical Islam and the Naqshbandi Tradition, 611.

Benningsen and Broxup, The Islamic Threat to the Soviet State, 73.

Trimmingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam, 127.

Wood, Chechnya, 125. Mansur was a Chechen, and Shamil was an Avar from Dagestan. “Pan-Caucasian solidarity” is an idea that all peoples of the Caucasus should put aside tribal and ethnic differences and unite under a common theme, particularly Islam.

Benningsen and Wimbush, Mystics and Commissars, 19.

Wood, Chechnya, 125.

See Geertz, Islam Observed, for an example of two such communities.

Zelkina, In Quest for God and Freedom, 48.

Ibid.

Geertz, Islam Observed, 25–27.

Reynolds, “Myths and Mysticism,” 37; Gammer, “Nationalism and History,” 123.

Gammer, “Nationalism and History,” 124.

Dunlop, Russia Confronts Chechnya, 9.

Ibid., 10.

Ibid., 11.

Mesbahi, Central Asia and the Caucasus after the Soviet Union, 83.

Lieven, Chechnya, 309.

See Kemper, “The Daghestani Legal Discourse on the Imamate,” 265–78.

Lieven, Chechnya, 34.

Mahomedov, “Shamil's Testament,” 241–42.

Wood, Chechnya, 23.

Reynolds, “Myths and Mysticism,” 40.

Bonney, Jihad, 188.

Dunlop, Russia Confronts Chechnya, 28.

Gammer, “Nationalism and History,” 125.

Ibid., 126.

Ibid.

Ibid., 128.

Roshchin, “Sufism and Fundamentalism in Dagestan and Chechnya,” 95–102.

Akhmadov et al., “Islam in the North Caucasus,” 570.

Gammer, “Nationalism and History,” 129.

Reynolds, “Myths and Mysticism,” 39.

Ibid., 39.

Zelkina, In Quest for God and Freedom, 40.

Wood, Chechnya, 125.

Reynolds, “Myths and Mysticism,” 40.

Gammer, The Lone Wolf and the Bear, 76.

Hunter, Islam in Russia, 146, 148.

Barrett, “The Remaking of the Lion of Dagestan,” 353.

Bondarevskii and Kolbaia, “The Caucasus and Russian Culture,” 11.

Benningsen and Broxup, The Islamic Threat, 17–18.

Gammer, Lone Wolf, 108: see text and notes.

This has been stated by Goldenberg in Pride of Small Nations, 183, as well as Russell, “Terrorists, Bandits, Spooks and Thieves,” 3. This negative view of Caucasians in general has been helped by the literature, for example, Mikhail Lermentov's A Cossack Lullaby, which is sung as a lullaby and mentions “the evil Chechen.”

Quote from Hunter, Islam in Russia, 23; see The Encyclopedia of Nationalism for a description of post-Soviet Russian identity.

Hunter, Islam in Russia, 23.

Russell, “Terrorists, Bandits, Spooks and Thieves,” 4.

Benningsen, The Islamic Threat, Chap. 1.

Ibid.

See The Encyclopedia of Nationalism, vol. 2.

Benningsen, The Islamic Threat, 71. There was also an official Orthodox Church during Soviet times.

Aliyev, “Framing Perceptions of Islam and the ‘Islamic Revival’ in Post-Soviet Countries.” Also, it should be noted that the same occurred in Orthodox communities: especially in rural areas, Christian rituals such as baptism and memorial services were still followed. See Anokhina and Shmeleva, “Soviet Religious Policy,” 791.

Williams, “Jihad and Ethnicity in Post-Communist Eurasia,” 4.

Benningsen, Mystics and Commissars, 1–2.

Ibid., 65.

Benningsen, The Islamic Threat, 74.

Benningsen, Mystics and Commissars, 66.

Damrel, “The Religious Roots of Conflict,” 10.

Benningsen, The Islamic Threat, 73.

Jabrailova, “Tsena Deporatsii,” 2.

Benningsen, The Islamic Threat, 33.

Lieven, Chechnya, 319.

Wood, Chechnya, 127.

Benningsen, “Unrest in the World of Soviet Islam,” 771.

Benningsen, Mystics and Commissar, 15.

Gammer, “Nationalism and History,” 125.

“Shamil,” Bolshaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopedia, vol. 47, 2nd ed. (1957): 506–07.

Williams, “Jihad and Ethnicity,” 4.

Aliyev, “Framing Perceptions.”

Wood, Chechnya, 128.

One could look to Malaysia, Pakistan in the mid-1970s, and the civil war in Tajikistan in the early 1990s; the examples are numerous.

Cited in Hughes, Chechnya, 60.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Wood, Chechnya, 129.

Hughes, Chechnya, 94.

Russell, “Terrorists, Bandits, Spooks and Thieves,” 5.

Smith, Allah's Mountains, 180.

Anna Politkovskaya was perhaps the loudest opponent of the war in Chechnya, voicing criticism of President Putin's tactics and the corruption on the Chechen side. See A Russian Diary; and idem, A Small Corner of Hell.

Russell, “Terrorists, Bandits, Spooks and Thieves,” 8.

Wood, Chechnya, 123.

Williams, “Jihad and Ethnicity,” 15.

Ibid., 16.

Williams, “Allah's Foot Soldiers,” 160. Williams gives a thorough analysis of the role of Arab fighters in the Chechen conflict, as well as an excellent comparison with the role of foreign fighters in the Balkan conflicts of the mid-1990s.

Wood, Chechnya, 133.

Ibid., 135.

Bowers et al., “Islam in Ingushetia and Chechnya,” 395. Radical groups have been noted to follow the same path in other societies, for instance the Gaza Strip; a society in need of basic social services will not refuse help from anyone, and fundamentalists have been known to take advantage of the vulnerable nature of such societies.

See Akhmadov et al., “Islam in the North Caucasus.”

Williams, “Jihad and Ethnicity,”18.

Galpin, “Chechen Rebel Urges Global Jihad.”

“Movladi Udugov.” The website is decorated with Islamic art and glorifies the mujahideen who are continuing the struggle for an Islamic Caucasian state.

Ruslan Isayev, “Views of Chechen Residents on the Declaration of a ‘Caucasus Emirate.’”

Roshchin, “Sufism and Fundamentalism in Dagestan and Chechnya,” 100.

Wood, Chechnya, 182.

Quoted in Benningsen and Broxup, The Islamic Threat, 15.

Cited from a Turkish source in Reynolds, “Myths and Mysticism,” 32.

Voll, Islam, 122.

Zelkina, In Quest for God and Freedom, 35.

Ware et al., “Stability in the Caucasus,” 15–16.

Ibid., 12.

Ibid., 16.

Cornell, “The North Caucasus.”

Matveeva, “Chechnya,” 5. The Central Mosque of Grozny, named in honor of the first president of the Russian-recognized Chechen Republic, Akhmat Kadyrov, is a prime example of Islamic symbolism present in Chechnya today. It has become fairly controversial with Putin's recent decision to allocate government funds for the center.

Fuller and Doukaev, “Chechnya.”

Chivers, “A Whirling Sufi Revival with Unclear Implications.”

Matveeva, “Chechnya,” 7.

Fuller and Doukaev, “Chechnya.”

Matveeva, “Chechnya,” 5.

Bigg, “Russia.”

Kantysheva, “New Year in the North Caucasus.”

Lieven, Chechnya, 343; Wood, Chechnya, 126.

Quoted in Lieven, Chechnya, 343.

Geertz, Islam Observed, 2–3.

The following statistics are from the 2002 All-Russia Census (which is the most recent and comprehensive census of the Russian Federation), cited in Filatov and Lunkin, “Statistics about Religiousness in Russia,” 33–49.

Vachagaev, “The Role of Sufism in Chechen National Resistance.”

Akhmadov et al., “Islam in the North Caucasus.”

Geertz, Islam Observed, 1.

See Jaimoukha, The Chechens, Chap. 2; and Reynolds, “Myths and Mysticism.”

Matveeva, “Chechnya” 6.

Voll, Islam, 29

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Notes on contributors

Joanna Swirszcz

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