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Caucasus, invaded the Kumuk plain, looted the Russian fortress of Kizlyar, 
besieged Burnaya, Vnezapnaya and Derbend, and threatened Groznaya and 
Vladikavkaz.
85
 
Ghazi Muhammed managed to establish a central authority with the help of 
the  Naqshbandi order and thus the Mountaineers understood importance of a 
unified body in the struggle with a powerful external force. Moreover, for the first 
time, he challenged the traditional institutions of power and the entire set of laws 
and customs that governed North Caucasian society, and introduced an alternative 
system of values, which asserted the supremacy of God and His Prophet in all 
matters of law and government.
86
 
 
After the death of Ghazi Muhammed
87
, another Avar, Hamza Bek became 
the new Imam in 1833.
88
 As Zelkina pointed it out, he was not so much interested 
in the spiritual-mystical dimension of the tariqat as its political teaching and 
particularly in its call for ghazavat.
89
 His most important contribution to the 
establishment of the subsequent ‘unified state’ of Shamil was the extermination of 
one of the most powerful local ruling families, the Avar ruling house. By doing so, 
he changed the traditional balance of power in the North Caucasus. He removed the 
                                                 
85
 Magomedov, 47-52. 
86
 Zelkina, God and Freedom, 159. 
87
 As the last episode of Paskevich’s, the new chief commander of Caucasus, campaign Ghazi 
Muhammad died in the village of Gimrah in October 1832. 
88
 Hamza ibn Ali al-Iskander Bek was born in 1789 in Hutsal (new Gotsatl), one of the largest 
villages of the Avar khanate. His father belonged to a side branch of the family of the Avar khans 
and enjoyed the respect of the people in Hutsal and has close relations with the Avar khans. He 
studied Qur’an and Arabic, but he didn’t further his religious education. Unlike both the first and 
third North Caucasian imams, he did not achieve the rank of a Sufi sheikh and had no Sufi murids 
of his own. Nevertheless, his military and political talents and courage brought him a prominent 
position on the eyes of Ghazi Muhammed and his murids. See Gammer, Muslim Resistance, 60-65 
and Zelkina, God and Freedom, 160-168, Magomedov, 52-59. 

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most powerful local force capable of resisting the spread of the Imam’s authority 
and deprived the Russians of their most important allies. After the removal of the 
Avar khans, although not claiming the title of khan, he took Khunzakh, the Avar 
capital as his main residence. Nevertheless, this action caused a bloody feud, which 
resulted in his death.
90
 Despite the very short term of his service as an Imam, 
Hamza Bek made the rise of the third Imam, Shamil, and the establishment of the 
North Caucasian Imamate possible. 
9-Towards the Sovereign State: The North Caucasian Imamate: 
Following the assassination of Hamza Bek, one of the most prominent 
Naqshbandi sheikhs, Shamil
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 became the third Imam in late September 1834. 
Nevertheless, during the period between his becoming Imam and 1837, he had to 
overcome the internal strife within the Naqshbandi order first
92
 and then regain the 
respect and trust of the North Caucasian peoples, outside the tariqat. Thus, in this 
                                                                                                                                        
89
 Zelkina, God and Freedom, 161. 
90
 One of the guards of the dead khans, Itim Muhammad urged his sons Osman and Haji Murad to 
avenge the killing of the khans. Although Hamza Bek was urged by one of his loyal murids he did 
not take it seriously. On 19 September 1834 those two organized the assassination and killed imam 
in the mosque. Zelkina, God and Freedom, 167. 
91
 He was born in 1797 in Gimrah, to the family of Dengaw Muhammad, an ordinary uzden and 
Pahu Mecedu –the daughter of a branch of the ruling Ghazi-Kumuk family. He received solid 
religious education of the Arabic grammar and the Qur’an, logic philosophy and law. He entered the 
tariqat and spent a number of years with the greatest Naqshbandi Sheikh in the region, Jamal al-Din 
al-Ghazi Kumuyki. At his house Shamil studied Sufi practices and other ‘ulum and after finishing 
his spiritual education, along with Ghazi Muhammad, he went to Muhammad al-Yaraghi who put 
the final touches on his spiritual training. Then Yaraghi nominated Shamil as sheikh in his own 
right. Shamil accompanied Ghazi Muhammad in all his military campaigns and was with the Imam 
during his last battle at Gimrah in 1832. He was appointed by the Imam as his deputy in the 
Koysubu  jama’ats. He served the second Imam within the same region. See Zelkina, God and 
Freedom, 170-171, Gammer, Muslim Resistance, 69-80, Magomedov, 59-60. Moreover these 
novels on Shamil by Lesley Blanch, 1960. The Sabres of Paradise, London: John Murray (in 
English) and Tarik Mümtaz Göztepe, 1961. İmam  Şamil: Kafkasya’nın Büyük Harp ve İhtilal 
Kahramanı, İstanbul: Inkılap Kitabevi, and Murat Yeşil, 2000. Kafkas Kartalı İmam Şamil Destanı, 
İstanbul: Babıali Kültür Yayıncılığı (in Turkish) could be seen. For a comprehensive bibliography 
on Shamil see Moshe Gammer, 1991. “Shamil and the Murid Movement, 1830-1859: An Attempt at 
a Comprehensive Bibliography,” Central Asian Survey, 10(1/2): 189-247. 

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