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48 
 
These nizams of Shamil can be examined into two broad categories. Within 
the first category there were the nizams of prohibitive character. Those groups of 
nizams were regulated for promoting and reinforcing the shari’a laws in opposition 
to the local adat and laws induced by the Russian administration. Most of the time, 
these  nizams repeated the stipulation of shari’a or gave force to a certain 
interpretation of it. 
The other category of nizams were supplementary in character. These 
nizams, had little to do with religious law, involved mainly non-religious 
administrative and military issues. 
One of the most important legal codes of Shamil defined the administrative 
structure, which was inspired from the three main sources: “firstly the Sufi 
framework which he adapted into a lay form of social organisation; secondly the 
structure of the Ottoman empire,…; and thirdly what he had seen of a centralised 
Russian autocracy.”
107
 
Administratively, again for the first time, he had divided the country into 
smaller structures.
108
 At the top of the structure there were large military 
administrative districts, vilayats. Initially in 1840 there were only 4 vilayats, but in 
1856 it reached 33.
109
 All these vilayats, were then divided into smaller districts, 
and than as the smallest unit villages came. 
In order to administer and control these units, Shamil appointed his 
deputies, naibs.
110
 These naibs were the backbone of the administrative-military 
machinery. They had full authority over all military, administrative and judicial 
                                                 
107
 Zelkina, God and Freedom, 204. 
108
 Magomedov, 93-95. 
109
 Gammer, Muslim Resistance, 226. 

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49 
 
matters in their vilayats. He was responsible for law and order. He had to collect 
taxes, to execute the sentences and to judge his subordinates according to the 
Shamil’s regulations. Most important he was the military commander of his area, 
led its people on to the battlefield and was, therefore, responsible for their 
preparedness for war.
111
 
“Although many of Shamil’s naibs belonged to the traditional ruling houses 
they reached their posts through their service to the imam and their personal 
merits rather than their noble origin. Furthermore, their power was now 
interpreted not in traditional but religious terms, but rather derived from 
their association with the imam.”
112
 
 
However, at a later stage, because of increasing abuses of power and to 
prevent the increasing powers of the naibs, Shamil confined their powers to 
military issues and transferred all judicial and religious matters to the jurisdiction 
of specially appointed muftis and qadis who were accountable directly to the Imam 
by a decree in 1847.
113
 
The smaller units, districts, were headed by a ma’zun or dibir in Dagestan 
and turqkh in Chechnya. These heads of administration performed similar tasks to 
the naibs in vilayats. Again similarly, the judicial authority was vested in the local 
qadis, who were responsible to the muftis. Moreover at village level, authority was 
vested in the hands of elders who were elected by the village settlers. 
As the administration became more complex and difficult to control, Shamil 
instituted the rank of superintendent, mudir. As a watchful eye on the naibs, the 
mudir supervised the different activities of several naibs, and muftis and acted as a 
                                                                                                                                        
110
 For the names of some of his naibs see Magomedov, ibid., p. 94. 
111
 Gammer, Muslim Resistance, p.226. 
112
 Zelkina, God and Freedom, p.207. 
113
 Zelkina, God and Freedom, p. 205. 

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naib in his own right in the area of his residence. Moreover he led his inferiors and 
their men in battle. Shamil also appointed inspectors, called muhtasib to exercise 
control over the naibs and mudirs and collect information independent from their 
reports. These muhtasibs, who were recruited from the most loyal and 
knowledgable Naqsbandi sheikhs of the imamate, travelled around and reported to 
Shamil on the activities of his officers.
114
 
Shamil managed to establish a well functioning and well-defined 
administrative system which was accountable to the Imam and thus to the people 
and God, throughout the country. 
 
In order to make the system’s work possible and maintain the centralised 
system of government, Shamil put the financial affairs in order by making fiscal 
reforms. He systematised the sources of revenue and of expenditure in his state and 
thus the Treasury.
115
 Ghazi Muhammed, the first Imam, had in fact set up the 
treasury, bayt al-mal. The main source of funding of this treasury was initially 
military revenues, but in time, as a result of the growing state this became 
insufficient.
116
 Therefore Shamil, in order to maintain the centralised state 
apparatus, introduced a system of regular revenues in the early 1840s. The income 
was driven from several sources. 
The first and the most important one was the taxation. His taxation system, 
naturally, was based on the traditional Muslim system of taxation. The two main 
                                                 
114
 See Zelkina, God and Freedom, 203-7 and Gammer, Muslim Resistance, 226-7. 
115
 Magomedov, 102-103. 
116
 According to the Shari’a one fifth of the captured amount, that is khums, is belonging to the 
treasury and four-fifths were divided among the participants of a raid. At the outset this was the 
major source of income. 

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