Shāmil

Shāmil (born 1797?, Gimry, Dagestan [now in Russia]—died March 1871, Medina?, Arabia) was the leader of Muslim Dagestan and Chechen mountaineers, whose fierce resistance delayed Russia’s conquest of the Caucasus for 25 years. The son of a free landlord, Shāmil studied grammar, logic, rhetoric, and Arabic, acquired prestige as a learned man, and in 1830 joined the Murīdīs, a Ṣūfī (Islāmic mystical) brotherhood. Under the leadership of Ghāzī Muḥammad, the brotherhood had become involved in...