Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Constance Padwick, Muslim Devo-

tions: A Study of Prayer-Manuals in Common Use (Lon-

don: SPCK, 1961); Andrew Rippin, Muslims: Their 

Religious Beliefs and Practices. 2d ed. (London: Rout-

ledge, 2001).

shahid

  See 

martyrdom

.

shame

  See 

honor

 

and

 

shame

.

Shamil

 

(1786–1871)  North Caucasus Muslim 

resistance leader

Shamil was born around 1786 into a noble fam-

ily from the Avar people of southern Daghestan. 

From the 1830s to 1859, Shamil was able to unite 

many of the ethnically and linguistically diverse 

peoples of the North Caucasus (areas now within 

c

hechnya

 and Dagestan in Russia and northeast-

ern Azerbaijan) to fight against the encroaching 

Russian Empire. Shamil was a religious, political, 

and military leader. Under the banner of ghazawat

(the Caucasian variant of 

Jihad

), Shamil and his 

followers (

murids

) were able to inflict great dam-

age on and hold off the Russian army over the 

course of a decades-long war, setting up a fledgling 

Islamic state in areas under their control. Shamil’s 

power derived as much from religious 

aUthority

as from military prowess, and he was able to con-

vert his religious authority, based as the leader of 

the local n

aqshabandi

  s

UFi

  o

rder

, into political 

and military power by transforming the hierarchi-

cal religious structure of the Sufi brotherhood into 

a political movement and state structure. Shamil 

sought to implement strict adherence to Islamic 

law, and he claimed to be chosen by God to lead 

his people.

Shamil successfully employed guerrilla tactics 

to keep the Russians at bay until the Russians 

deployed nearly 500,000 troops and decimated 

Shamil’s fighters and demoralized the local popula-

tion using scorched earth tactics. He surrendered 

to the Russians in 1859, but he was uncharacter-

istically treated magnanimously and sent to live 

in exile in the Russian city of Kaluga. After much 

correspondence, he was allowed to make the pil-

grimage to m

ecca

, and he died in 1871 in m

edina

.

With Shamil’s surrender, the resistance to the Rus-

sians collapsed, only to flair up again whenever 

Russian control was weak. To this day, Shamil is 

held in great esteem by the population of the North 

Caucasus, and his name and authority are evoked 

by those leading the current fight in Chechnya.

See also  c

entral

  a

sia

 

and

 

the

  c

aUcasUs

; 

reneWal

 

and

 

reForm

 

movement

.

David Reeves