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34 
 
towards the Russians resulted in the emergence of the Naqshbandiya as the sole 
force, which could reach beyond petty tribal loyalties and offered an ideology 
capable of uniting these various peoples into a broader independent political 
movement. 
As pointed out by Gammer, according to the local traditions, the first 
Naqshbandi leader,
69
 who combined the national struggle with the religious one 
and as such can be seen as the first in the line of North Caucasian Imams was a 
Chechen from the village of Aldy (Aldi), Ushurma, generally known as Sheikh or 
Imam Mansur.
70
 
Although Mansur himself never mentioned the name of the brotherhood, 
nor did he try to establish a Sufi network, he left a long-lasting legacy in the North 
Caucasus. Moreover, he laid the foundations of a unified body of resistance 
transcended, which crossed the tribal and ethnic confines and united the 
Mountaineers under the auspices of a broader politico-religious movement and 
became a ‘national’ symbol of a unity.
71
 
                                                                                                                                        
the spread of Naqshbandiya into the North Caucasus see Moshe Gammer, Muslim Resistance, 39-
46; and A. Bennigsen and S. E. Wimbush, Mystics and Commissar, 14-24. 
68
 Tariqat, literally way or path, is a mystical method, system or school. 
69
 Gammer, Muslim Resistance, 39-40. 
70
 There is no exact information in respect to the birth date of Mansur. Even, one of his great-
grandsons, Nart gave contradictory dates in different sources. While in his booklet, Zhizn Mansura 
which was published in Istanbul in 1924, he was giving the date of 1732, in another article which 
was published in the second issue (published in 1925) of Kavkazskiy Gorets in Prague, 1748. 
Zelkina was also refrained to give the exact date, and therefore, she preferred to say “born in the 
1760s.”  God and Freedom, p. 59. Nart’s booklet later translated into English and published in 
Central Asian Survey “The Life of Mansur: Great Independence Fighter of the Caucasian Mountain 
People,” 10(1/2), 81-92. In addition to these sources see Tarık Cemal Kutlu, 1987. İmam Mansur, 
İstanbul: Bayrak Yayımcılık; Franco Venturi, 1991. “The Legend of Boetti Sheikh Mansur,” 
Central Asian Survey, 10(1/2): 93-101; E. Kaval, 1953. “Şeyh Mansur,” Birleşik Kafkasya 
(Vereinigtes Kaukasien), (Munich), 9 (26): 17-24 and 1953. “Kafkas Mücahidi Şeyh Mansur,” 
Kafkas Dergisi, (İstanbul), 1(9): 23-24. Dr. Vasfi Güsar, 1953. “Uşurma – Şeyh Mansur,” Kafkas 
Dergisi, (İstanbul), 1(11/2): 4-6. 
71
 Zelkina, God and Freedom, 67. 

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He was proclaimed a Sheikh and Imam and adopted the name Mansur, 
which means ‘victorious’ in Arabic, in 1783 but the first Russian reports related to 
him date back only to 1785.
72
 In his early years of power, Mansur tried to establish 
the dominance of Islam in the North Caucasus. He declared a ghazavat
73
 against 
the pagan and semi-pagan Ingush and Christian Osetians, first by sending his 
emissaries and, later in June 1785, by organizing two military campaigns against 
them. The Russian authorities saw this as a challenge to their power and they 
staged a military campaign against Mansur’s base, the village of Aldy, to capture 
him. However, Mansur’s surprising victory over the Russian forces earned him his 
place among the North Caucasian peoples. As a result, by sending letters to all 
jama’ats, he propagated Islam and made several attempts to organize the life of 
Mountain peoples. He established the first native army of 12,000 amassed from 
among the Chechens, Kabardians, Kumuk, Avar, Nogay, and Circassians, to 
combat the Russians.
74
 
Nevertheless his offensive against the most important military centre of the 
region, Kizlar, halted his short-lived successes. Against the overwhelming Russian 
military might, he had to escape into the western North Caucasus in 1787, and led 
                                                 
72
 For the first Russian report, from Major General P. S. Potemkin to the viceroy of the Caucasus 
Prince G. A. Potemkin, on Mansur see A. Bennigsen, 1964. “Un Movement Populaire au Caucase 
XVIII Siecle,” Chaiers du Monde Russe et Sovietique II, 5: 159-204. Zelkina (59-60) quoted it. “On 
the opposite bank of the river Sunja in the village of Aldy a prophet has appeared and started to 
preach. He has submitted superstitious and ignorant people to his will by claiming to have had a 
revelation.” 
73
 Literary means conquest. In the Caucasus it took the meaning of a holy war for the sake of Islam, 
identical to Islam. 
74
 Zelkina, God and Freedom, 64. 

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the Circassians in anti-Russian resistance for three years, until the Russians 
captured him in Anapa in 1791.
75
 
Although it took not so long period, in the history of the North Caucasus 
Mansur was the first leader who initiated the struggle of independence within a 
unified structure under the banner of Islam. He managed to motivate the 
Mountaineers to join the struggle against the Russians in a consolidated body. Thus 
the Mountaineers’ vivid memories of Mansur and his achievements against Russia 
prepared the ground for the later Naqshbandi  Imams who saw themselves as his 
disciples. 
 
“He failed it is true, in his endeavour to unite them [the mountain peoples] 
against a common enemy, but he it was who first taught that in religious 
reform lay one chance of preserving their cherished liberty and 
independence and therefore laid foundation for future union and for the 
great movement which under the name of Muridism was, in the common 
century to set at naught year after year, decade after decade the whole might 
of Russia.”
76
 
 
By the 19
th
 century, the Russians started to re-implement the dream of Peter 
the Great, traditional policy of expansian towards the Black Sea and began to 
colonise the North Caucasus systematically by constructing a fortified Caucasian 
line and hastened the resettlement of the Cossacks. At the turn of the century, in 
1801, through the manifesto of Tsar Aleksandr I, Russians began to re-implement 
the traditional policy of, above-mentioned, co-optating the local elite once again.
77
 
                                                 
75
 The Russians brought him to St. Petersburg and imprisoned in Schlusselburg castle where he died 
on 13 April 1794. Three days later, on 16 April he was buried on the Preobrazhenskaya hill. 
76
 Baddeley, 47-8. 
77
 This classic policy which was modelled partly on the Byzantine and partly on the Mongol 
traditions, involved granting economic and political advantages to individuals, social groups and/or 
entire tribes as well as the delegation of power to the local ruler who became the representative of 

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