contextualizing the salafi – sufi conflict (from the northern caucasus to hadramawt)

This article was downloaded by: [Dicle University]On: 13 November 2014, At: 02:44Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Middle Eastern StudiesPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fmes20

Contextualizing the Salafi – Sufi conflict(from the Northern Caucasus toHadramawt)Alexander KnyshPublished online: 12 Jun 2007.

To cite this article: Alexander Knysh (2007) Contextualizing the Salafi – Sufi conflict(from the Northern Caucasus to Hadramawt), Middle Eastern Studies, 43:4, 503-530, DOI:10.1080/00263200701348847

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00263200701348847

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fmes20

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080/00263200701348847

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00263200701348847

http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Contextualizing the Salafi–SufiConflict (from the NorthernCaucasus to Hadramawt)

ALEXANDER KNYSH

In late August–early September of 1999, when the so-called Russian ‘anti-terrorist’ operation in Daghestan, an autonomous republic of the RussianFederation, was in full swing following its invasion by Islamist fighters fromneighbouring Chechnya, a Russian anthropologist came into possession of thelecture notes that apparently belonged to a Daghestani Muslim trained in a rebelcamp in either Chechnya or Daghestan. The notes were later published in theRussian academic journal Vestnik Evrazii under the title ‘Kredo vakhkhabita’(that is, ‘A Wahhabi’s Creed’).1 They provide an illuminating glimpse into theideological underpinnings of the Islamist movement in the Northern Caucasusthat is commonly described as ‘Salafi’ or ‘Wahhabi’ in Russian and Westernacademic literature and mass media. The lecture notes appear to be part of acrash course on ‘pure Islam’ taken by the author in conjunction with his militarytraining – a practice widely attested in the Russian media coverage of theconflicts in the Northern Caucasus.2 Written in Russian, the lecture notes containnumerous quotations from the Qur’an and the prophetic hadith, occasionally withparallel Arabic texts. The course consists of the following major units: ‘Islam’,‘Innovations [in Religion]’ (Ar. bid‘a), ‘Jihad’, ‘The Saved Community’ (Ar. al-firqa al-najiya), ‘Hypocrisy and Its Types’ and ‘An Appeal to the Leaders andRulers of the Muslim World’. Evidence of this kind merits closer examination,especially since ‘Wahhabism’ is now officially banned in Daghestan and otherMuslim republics as a ‘pernicious and subversive ideology’.3 Flyers enumeratingauthors whose works are prohibited for distribution via both state and privatechannels are circulated among book vendors in Daghestan’s capital Makhachkalaand other urban centres of the republic. Among the banned authors are IbnTaymiyya, Nasir al-Din al-Albani, Salih b. Fawzan al-Fawzan, ‘Abd al-‘Aziz b.Baz, Muhammad b. Jamil Zinu and a few local authors.4

The first unit of the course provides a brief definition of Islam, as annunciated inits principal sources, the Qur’an and the Sunna of the prophet Muhammad. Specialemphasis is placed on the role of jihad and the safeguarding of the ‘correct’ Islamiccreed and practice from ‘alien’ elements. Following this rather brief positivedefinition, the author of the notes provides a much more detailed list of actions and

Middle Eastern Studies,Vol. 43, No. 4, 503 – 530, July 2007

ISSN 0026-3206 Print/1743-7881 Online/07/040503-28 ª 2007 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/00263200701348847

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

beliefs that he and his instructors consider to be ‘contrary to Islam’. Condemned asmanifestations of ‘polytheism’ or ‘idolatry’ (shirk) they include:

. Supplication (du‘a) or having recourse to anything or anyone other than God bethey dead or alive;

. Sacrifice devoted to anyone or anything but God;

. Vows made to anyone but God;5

. Circumambulation of any object (e.g., a grave or a bonfire) other than the Houseof God;6

. Pinning one’s hope on anything or anyone but God;

. Acts of worship dedicated to anything or anyone other than God;

. Adjudication or legislation based on anything other than the Divine Law (al-shari‘a);

. Dissatisfaction with any ruling of the Shari‘a;

. Putting one’s faith in various ‘ungodly’ teachings, such as atheism, communism,socialism, Jewish masonry, democracy, secular way of life, and nationalism;

. Abandonment of Islam and/or conversion to another religious creed;

. Assisting the ‘infidels’, namely the Jews, the Christians, and the communists;

. Failure to declare all these groups to be ‘infidels’;

. Attempts to effect a separation of religion and state under the pretext that Islamprovides no guidelines for state politics, which amounts to calumny against Godand his Prophet;

. Belief in the veracity of astrologists, witch-doctors, soothsayers, fortune-tellers,and other individuals who claim to know the ‘unseen’, which is the exclusiveprerogative of God;

. Adhering to the Sufi doctrine of the ‘unity of being’, which postulates that theentire universe and its inhabitants are identical with God.

All these violations against ‘pure’ Islam are viewed by the author of the notes as‘heretical innovations’ in religion that have no precedent in the Qur’an and theSunna. They manifest themselves in the following ‘perverse’ practices:

. The celebration of the Prophet’s birthday (mawlid) – a practice which wasborrowed from Christianity by the ‘heretical Shi‘i sect’ of the Fatimids;

. Recitation of Sufi litanies and chants accompanied by drumbeat and dances;

. Celebrations of the birthdays of various pious individuals and scholars; inspiredby the celebration of the Prophet’s mawlid, they are a ‘clear proof’ of how anostensibly meritorious practice (namely, honouring the Prophet) can degenerateinto a major heresy;

. Seeking the blessing (baraka) of certain ‘holy’ sites, monuments, dead and livingindividuals, and [their] photographs;

. Supererogatory (non-canonical) prayers and vigils;

. A vocal declaration of one’s intention (niya) before the prayer;

. The reading of the Fatiha over the newly deceased and holding a wake overthem;

. Celebration of non-canonical holidays, such as the Prophet’s night journey andascension or commemoration of the Prophet’s hijra to Medina;

504 A. Knysh

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

. The construction of buildings or other monuments over the graves ofreligious scholars and Sufis and transforming them into mosques or places ofprayer.

The next unit is devoted to the necessity of jihad and its various possible forms,namely, jihad against Satan; jihad against one’s lower soul; the armed jihad againstthe infidels; and jihad against the hypocrites. According to the author of the notes,jihad constitutes the heart of Islam and the invigorating force that keeps it alive.Therefore its neglect by the believers automatically leads to the corruption of theirfaith and the resultant decline of their community. After addressing some practicalmatters (such as the necessity of acquiring good fighting skills and maintainingmilitary readiness by the faithful), the notes identify the principal objects of jihad: thecommunists, the Jews, the Christians, and the followers of Babism. The incessant‘plotting’ of the Jews and ‘free masonry’ also receives special mention as a worthytarget of holy war.

The subsequent unit describes the fortunes and beliefs of the ‘saved community’,whose members are identified as ‘adherents of the Prophet’s Sunna’. Its emergence,according to the notes, was predicted by the Prophet in an oft-quoted hadith aboutthe 73 sects of Islam of which only one is destined to achieve salvation. The author ofthe notes avers that the members of this sect are now in the minority in a world inwhich, according to another famous hadith, ‘Islam has become the stranger that itwas when it first appeared on the face of the earth’. The members of the ‘savedcommunity’ are careful to avoid the deviations from the ‘true Islam’ outlined in thepreceding units. They form a unified ‘commonwealth’ (jama‘at) that ‘rejects bogustariqat and Sufi orders that split the Muslim community and introduce innovationsinto religion thereby departing from the Sunna of the Prophet’. The members of the‘saved community’ are prepared to conduct jihad in the path of God and to ‘enjointhe right and to prohibit the wrong’.7

The second but last unit of the course addresses the phenomenon of hypocrisy(nifaq), which, according to the author of the notes, constitutes two categories –‘major hypocrisy’, which effectively amounts to unbelief (e.g., making mockery ofIslam and its Prophet under the guise of external compliance with their precepts) and‘minor hypocrisy’, namely, an occasional violation of certain norms of Islam thatdoes not entail the perpetrator’s forfeiture of faith. Unlike the committer of ‘majorhypocrisy’, the ‘minor hypocrite’ still enjoys the opportunity to redeem himself byrepenting of his sins, although he is not guaranteed that his repentance (tawba) willbe accepted by God. Here Ibn Taymiyya’s opinion to this effect is cited by the authorof the notes.

The last unit of the course contains an appeal to the leaders of the Muslim worldto resist the malicious machinations of Western powers aimed at weakening Islamand imposing their will on the Muslims.

To anyone with a modicum of knowledge of Salafi/Wahhabi ideology the creedfound in Daghestan sounds very familiar. Drawing its inspiration from the writingsof Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab and his recent Saudi commentators,8 it could as well havebeen taught at any mosque or religious school in Saudi Arabia or the Gulf. Someimportant elements of the more radical Wahhabi/Salafi doctrine are missing, though.Thus, for instance, we find no mention of the concept of takfir, namely,

Contextualizing the Salafi–Sufi Conflict 505

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

excommunication and condemnation of those who refuse to embrace ‘pure’ Islam –an action that, according to the original Wahhabi doctrine, may entail capitalpunishment. Nor do we find the concomitant concept of wala’ wa-bara’, namely,amity towards one’s brothers-in-faith and simultaneous disavowal of miscreants.

Nevertheless, the absence of these precepts does not affect our overall conclusion:we are dealing here with a typical sample of ‘Wahhabi’/Salafi ideology with itsrejection of all manner of shirk and bid‘a, its exclusive (and exclusivist) claim to theultimate religious truth, and its energetic encouragement of social and politicalactivism in the name of religion. This ideology is pretty straightforward and does notrequire an extensive commentary.9 Since the topic of my paper is the relationsbetween ‘Sufism’ and ‘Wahhabism’/Salafism, I would like to focus on the ways inwhich they are treated in the notes.

As one may expect, the author or, rather his instructors, are uncompromisinglyhostile toward what they regard as ‘Sufi innovations’ in religion. On the doctrinallevel, as we remember, the notes squarely condemn the doctrine of the ‘unity ofbeing’, which the author attributes to the ‘head of all Sufis’. This unnamed individualis quoted as stating that ‘God is identical with dog and pig’ and that he (God) ‘isnothing but a priest in the church’. In all probability, the author refers to Ibn ‘Arabi,although in my study of his legacy I have not come across the scandalous statementsascribed to him by the author of the notes.10 The other unnamed Sufi ‘heretic’mentioned in the creed is accused of professing ‘total unification’ with the Divine.Since, according to the notes, he was condemned to death for this blasphemy byMuslim scholars, this cannot be anyone but the famous (or infamous – depending onone’s perspective) Sufi martyr al-Hallaj (d. 309/922). This is hardly surprising giventhe stridently negative attitude that the Wahhabis maintain toward both Sufimasters. It further confirms the Wahhabi provenance of the notes at hand.

On the practical level, the Sufis are accused of encouraging the innovation ofsinging, dancing, and drum-beating during their recitation assemblies (adhkar). Onthe communal level, Sufi shaykhs are held responsible for splitting the initially unitedumma into numerous mutually hostile brotherhoods and factions blindly loyal tothem. In other instances, Sufism is not explicitly condemned but its perverseinfluence is implied, for instance, the celebration of the Prophet’s mawlid and the‘birthdays’ of God’s friends (awliya’), visits to and worship at their tombs, seekingthe blessing and help of dead and living individuals (tawassul), engagement insupererogatory (non-canonical) prayers, fasts and vows, and observance of non-canonical holidays (e.g., the Prophet’s night journey and ascension). All thesepractices are routinely considered by Sufism’s critics to be part and parcel of Sufipiety. Noteworthy is the mention of the custom of seeking help from a photograph.It apparently refers to the famous Naqshbandi precept of rabita – the spiritual bondbetween the Sufi shaykh and his disciple which demands that the latter constantlymaintain the image of his master in his mind’s eye.11 To this end, some nineteenth-century Sufi treatises from the Caucasus provided detailed descriptions of thephysical appearances of major Sufi masters from the area.12 Today, such descrip-tions are often replaced by photographs of Sufi masters which their disciples areexpected to have with them at all times.13

In a Wahhabi newspaper published in Chechnya in December 1999, we find somefurther details of the Wahhabi/Salafi critique of the local versions of Sufi Islam. Here

506 A. Knysh

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

Sufi masters are accused of pretending to know the unseen (al-ghayb), which Salafisconsider to be the exclusive prerogative of God; of inserting themselves between thebelievers and God and acting as mediators between them (similar to the Christianclergy); of claiming infallibility and divine protection from sin; of charlatanism andvenality, and, last but not least, of neglecting the duty of jihad by collaborating withungodly powers-that-be and non-Muslim enemies of the Muslim nation.14 In hisvideotaped sermons, the leader of Daghestani Salafis/Wahhabis Baha’ al-Din(Bagauddin) Muhammad (Magomed) Kebedov accused Sufis of violating 100rulings of the Shari‘a.15

These and similar doctrinal condemnations often have quite concrete behaviouraland social implications in the Muslim societies of the Northern Caucasus. Thus,local Salafis/Wahhabis routinely condemn their Sufi counterparts from the pulpits oftheir mosques, refuse to pray or eat with them, do not marry their daughters orattend their funerals. The Sufis pay them in kind by refusing to have any socialinteraction with them and branding them as ‘grievous innovators’ who haveabandoned the Islam of their forebears and who seek to impose upon theircommunities an ‘alien’ version of Islamic religion.16

The rift between the Salafis/Wahhabis and the Sufis is not unique to the Caucasus.It is found in practically every Muslim country today (as well as the Muslimdiasporic communities of the West). It is often construed by observers as evidence ofthe intractable conflict between these distinct visions of Islam. However, this generalobservation alone does not carry far, for behind the apparent universality andsimilarity of Salafi/Sufi confrontation we find a myriad of local factors that shape itsconcrete manifestations in different Islamic societies. In what follows I will examineseveral different regional, historical and cultural contexts in which this confrontationhas unfolded over the past decade or so.

I will begin my discussion with Daghestan – the probable homeland of the author ofthe notes. This former Soviet autonomous republic consists of a congeries ofcommunities that are divided along ethnic and kinship lines, language, customs,historical experiences and geographical location (namely, highlanders versuslowlanders; inhabitants of the coastal areas as opposed to inland communities,recent settlers versus ‘indigenous’ ethnic groupings, etc.).17 The Daghestanis speak atleast 32 different languages and are divided (rather artificially) into 12 or 14 officiallyrecognized nationalities.18 The fact that they have ended up within the confines ofthe same autonomous republic seems purely accidental – its southern areas couldwell have been part of Turkic speaking Azerbaijan, its north-western areas part ofChechnya, and its north-east is closely integrated with the Turkic speaking Nogaysteppe. Along the coast of the Caspian Sea Russian cultural and linguistic influenceis predominant.

Before the Russian conquest, the inhabitants of Daghestan used Arabic and AzeriTurkic as their lingua franca. After the arrival of Russians in the middle of thenineteenth century, these languages were gradually supplanted by Russian, althoughArabic remained the language of jurisprudence and legislature until the late 1920s.Islam in its Sunni (Shafi‘i and Hanafi) forms served as an important source ofcommon identity for Daghestan’s motley population.19


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

In the first decades of the nineteenth century, the Russian colonization of Chechnyaand Daghestan triggered a wave of anti-Russian rebellions of local Muslimcommunities. These rebellions were initially successful and led to the creation of ajihad-oriented state (‘imamate’) under the leadership of three successive Avar imams,Ghazi-Muhammad, Hamzat Bek, and Shamwil (Shamil).20 Under the latter, theNorthern Caucasus imamate achieved the peak of its power only to be vanquished byRussian forces in 1859. These rebellions, known in Russian historiography as ‘the FirstCaucasus War’, continue to inspire those Chechens and Daghestanis who seekindependence from Russia and the creation of a Shar‘i-based polity.21 Followingthe fall of Shamil’s imamate, both Daghestan and Chechnya witnessed severalunsuccessful insurgences against Russian rule, although on a much smaller scale.22

Resistance continued after the Soviet takeover in the second decade of the twentiethcentury until it was ruthlessly suppressed by the communist state in the early 1920s.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the whole area witnessed theemergence of national/ethnic movements which demanded greater autonomy and, inthe case of Chechnya, independence from Russia. The Russian government ofPresident Yeltsin responded positively to the former demands, but rejected the latterout of fear that it would lead to the disintegration of the Russian Federation. InDecember 1994, following the declaration of independence by the Chechenleadership, the Russian government sent a large military contingent to restore thefederal control of the rebellious republic. The Russian invasion triggered an all-outRusso-Chechen war that lasted for two years (1994–96). Faced with the over-whelming might of the Russian state, Chechen leaders appealed to their fellowMuslims world-wide for financial and military support. In response to this appeal,the rebels received substantial financial and moral assistance from some MuslimNGOs. The war also attracted a considerable number of foreign fighters (mujahidun)from the Arab world, Turkey and Central Asia, which viewed Chechen resistance aspart of the global confrontation between the Muslim world and the ChristianWest.23 Launched as a movement for national liberation, the Chechen strugglegradually acquired a distinct Islamic character with nationalist slogans graduallygiving way to the Islamist rhetoric of the creation of a Shari‘a state and unification ofthe Muslims of the Caucasus into a regional Islamic state (imamate).

The situation was different in Daghestan. Here, after the fall of the Soviet Union,the local leaders did not seek independence from Russia. Former Communist Partyapparatchiks, they were ready to settle for a broad autonomy within the RussianFederation.24 For this, there were several reasons. Unlike mono-ethnic Chechnya,Daghestan’s ethnic composition is extremely diverse. Throughout its existence firstunder Russian and then Soviet rule, its territorial and political integrity hasdepended on the ability of both central and local authorities to balance theaspirations of its ethnically and culturally diverse populations. Failure to maintainthis balance threatened to bring about political fragmentation and inter-ethnicviolence. Under Russian and later Soviet rule, the centralized state (and, in theSoviet period, also party) apparatus in Moscow served as an arbitrator and diffuserof inevitable interethnic tensions. During the Soviet period, alongside the coerciveforce of the authoritarian state, the Marxist/Leninist doctrine of supra-ethnicbrotherhood of the labouring masses (‘proletarian internationalism’) was cultivatedby the Communist party as a major ideological safeguard against ethnic strife.

508 A. Knysh

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

Naturally, Islam continued to play an important, if officially unacknowledgedunifying role. Any attempts by a Daghestani ethnic group to assert its ethnicexclusivity or impose its will on neighbouring peoples invited prompt and decisiveinterference from the Communist party and the Soviet state. Nevertheless, someDaghestani nationalities (e.g., the Avars and Dargins) enjoyed more favourabletreatment than others (e.g., the Kumyks, the Lezgins and the Laks).25

In the mountainous areas of central and western Daghestan, following the collapseof the resistance movement led by Shamil in 1859, the Russian state instituted the so-called ‘popular-military form of governance’ (voenno-narodnoe pravlenie). It granteda considerable level of autonomy to local village communities under the supervisionof those of Shamil’s lieutenants and military commanders (na’ibs and dibirs) who hadsubmitted to Russian rule. While the major urban centres were subject toRussification and secularization, remote village communities in the mountains werelargely left to their own devices. The Russian plan envisioned the creation ofegalitarian communities of free villagers (jama‘at) ruled by elected elders. In real life,the leadership of such communities often reverted to the former nobility (the beksand khans) who came from the clans (tukhums) that had controlled the villagecommunities on the eve of the Russian conquest. Thus, the oft-claimed ‘egalitarian’character of Daghestani mountain communities is not only a relatively recentphenomenon; in fact, it is, to some extent, a historical fiction.26

Leaders of Daghestani communities in villages and towns often derived theirauthority from their status as religious scholars (‘alims) and Sufi shaykhs or ustadhs.They relied on the norms of the Shari‘a and the local ‘adat (customary law) tomediate and adjudicate conflicts within local communities. In a sense, such religiousleaders constituted an informal authority that existed parallel to the officialstructures of the Russian, and later Soviet, state. Although village leaders usuallyabstained from openly challenging Russian and Soviet state and Communist partystructures in the region, they served as an important bulwark against Russificationand de-Islamization of the Daghestani populations. Under Soviet rule, manyDaghestani communities (jama‘at) in the countryside were transformed into Soviet-style kolkhozs. Despite the strenuous efforts of Soviet authorities to eradicate thereligious beliefs and practices of Daghestani Muslims, in many areas the kolkhozseffectively became the principal vehicles of their preservation and reproduction. Inaddition to the canonical Islamic rituals, Daghestani villagers practised the visitationof shrines of local holy men and women and performed dhikr, according to the rulesof a local brotherhood. Contrary to the commonly held stereotypes about thepredominance of Sufi Islam in the area, participation in dhikr assemblies did notnecessarily mean active membership in a Sufi tariqat or a wird. The number of active,practising members of the main local tariqas (namely, the Naqshbandiyya, theQadiriyya, and the Shadhiliyya/Jazuliyya) was and has remained insignificantcompared to the overall number of Daghestani believers. In general, loyalty wasgiven to a concrete Sufi ustadh (as a spiritual guide, an arbitrator of disputes, and anexpert on Islamic law) rather than to the teachings of a given Sufi order.27

Now, let us briefly examine the role of Sufism in Daghestani society over the pasttwo centuries. Since the beginning of Russian expansion into the area in the early1800s, both Russian and Western historians and colonial administrators haveconsidered Sufism to be a major (if not the major) ideological and mobilizing force


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

behind the resistance of mountain communities to the Russian conquest of theNorthern Caucasus that lasted from the 1820s until 1870s.28 Following the spread inthe Caucasus of the teachings of the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya-Khalidiyyabrotherhood during the first two decades of the nineteenth century, it was – so theargument goes – used by three successive leaders of the mountain resistance movement(Ghazi Muhammad, Hamzat Bek, and Shamwil, better known as Shamil) to launchand sustain the struggle against Russian colonization of the area.29 Shamil, inparticular, was successful in transforming the precepts of the Naqshbandiyya into theeffective ideological and organizational underpinning of his religious polity, theimamate. He astutely exploited the Naqshbandi-Khalidi emphasis on the strictobservance of the Shari‘a as well as the brotherhood’s hostility toward both non-Muslims and Muslim deviators (especially, the Shi‘a) to consolidate his grip on powerand to establish a centralized and efficient theocratic state. Since Shamil’s spiritualdisciples, the murids, allegedly constituted the military backbone of this state, themovement itself was dubbed ‘miuridizm’ by contemporaryRussian writers.Whatmoreevidence of Sufism’s centrality to Shamil’s movement does one need? By the same logic,following the collapse of Shamil’s imamate, the struggle of mountain communitiesagainst Russian domination has also been viewed by Western and Russian scholars aswaged primarily under Sufi banners. The 1877 rebellion of the Khalidi-Naqshbandishaykh ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sughuri (or al-Thughuri; d. 1882) has frequently been citedby Western researchers as a typical example of Sufism’s centrality to anti-Russianresistance in the Caucasus. Al-Sughuri’s disciples Najm al-Din Gotsinski (al-Hutsi)and Uzun Hajji led another massive ‘Sufi’ rebellion in western Daghestan, this timeagainst the Soviets (1920–21). Following the capture and execution of Gotsinski in1925, theDaghestaniNaqshbandiyya lost its militancy, although it remained in passiveopposition to the Soviet polity until its collapse in 1991.30

In Chechnya, the fall of Shamil’s imamate led to the shift of Sufi-based resistancefrom the Naqshbandiyya-Khalidiyya to the originally pacifistic local branch of theQadiriya brotherhood founded by the Chechen (or Kumyk) Kunta Hajji (d. around1868). Goaded by the anti-Muslim policies of Russian colonial officials who orderedthe arrest and deportation of Kunta Hajji, his movement re-invented itself to becomean important vehicle and ideological foundation of resistance to Russian rule.31 Thebrotherhood’s numerous offshoots (known as wirds) survived Tsarist repressions andplayed a pivotal role in helping the Chechens and the Ingush to withstand thehorrendous trials and privations of their exile to Kazakhstan in 1944–57.

Western proponents of the ‘Sufism thesis’, such as Bennigsen, Lemercier-Quelquejay, Bennigsen-Broxup, Gammer, and Zelkina, have argued that in the1960s–1980s Sufi brotherhoods in Chechnya and Daghestan served as the principalorganizational and ideological framework of mountaineers’ resistance to theatheistic rule of the Soviet state. Driven underground by the the Soviet SecretPolice (NKVD; later KGB), the brotherhoods never abandoned the hope ofrestoring Islam as the law of their land. According to the aforementioned scholars,the overwhelming majority of Daghestani, Chechen, and Ingush Muslims belongedto one or the other Sufi wird. As I have argued elsewhere, this standard and widelyaccepted account of the role of Sufism in the struggle of mountain tribes againstRussian and later Soviet domination of their homeland is problematic for a numberof reasons.32 I will mention only some of them.

510 A. Knysh

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

First, we find no evidence of a wide network of Sufi lodges and waqfs associatedwith them as, for example, in the case of nineteenth-century Tripolitania andCyrenaica, where these institutions were part of the powerful and centralized Sanusibrotherhood.33 By availing themselves of these resources, the leaders of theSanusiyya were able to lead a relatively effective local resistance to the colonialencroachments of the Italians and the French. Now, we find no evidence of suchlodges and waqfs in either Daghestan and Chechnya. This is not to say thatindividual Sufi masters could not have rallied their followers against Russianadvance. However, and this is my second point, the Daghestani resistance leadersmentioned earlier were not fully-fledged shaykhs of the Naqshbandiyya-Khalidiyyain the Caucasus. Rather, they were disciples of two pre-eminent Sufi shaykhs of thearea, Muhammad al-Yaraghi and Jamal al-Din al-Ghazighumuqi. The formerapparently blessed the Daghestani-Chechen ghazawat (possibly, for personalreasons),34 while the latter warned his disciples against pursuing it. This fact showsthat there was nothing intrinsically militant about the tenets of the Naqshbandiyya-Khalidiyya or, at the very least, that they yielded themselves to different, if notdiametrically opposed interpretations. This observation is later confirmed by thetransformation of the initially peaceful Qadiriyya of Chechnya and Ingushetia into apowerful vehicle of opposition to Russian and later Soviet rule. Finally, we find noclear-cut link between the quite pedestrian moral and ethical precepts of theNaqshbandiyya-Khalidiyya35 and the jihad-oriented ideology of Shamil’s imamate.If these precepts indeed were its ideological foundation, then they must have beenrecast by Shamil beyond recognition.

Elsewhere, I have tried to explain the persistence of the ‘Sufi’ thesis in Russian andWestern studies of the Northern Caucasus by tracing its origins back to the Frenchcolonial historiography of Algeria and North Africa whose creators considered localSufi brotherhoods to be the main obstacle to the French mission civilisatrice in thearea.36 I will not repeat my arguments here.

Let us now turn to the current religio-political situation in Daghestan in order todetermine what role, if any, Sufi teachings, practices, leaders or communities(tariqas) have played in local societies following the spectacular collapse of the Sovietstate in the early 1990s. The situation in Daghestan is very complex indeed. It hasbeen shaped by the historical, social, economic, and political factors that are sonumerous and intertwined that I have decided to use a diagram to convey it (seeFigure 1).

1. Soviet Period: 1920s–1986.. During the Soviet period, Daghestan witnessed a rather curious co-existence

of several ideologies. The official doctrine of the Soviet state cultivated anidentity based on the Soviet value system with special emphasis on theequality of all members of a given collectivity, ‘class conscience’, and‘proletarian internationalism’. This Soviet identity was supposed to transcendand supplant traditional Daghestani affiliations based on kinship, locality,ethnicity, and religion. Eventually it was supposed to weld together all Sovietnationalities into a ‘new historical entity’ – the Soviet people, who would beunencumbered by the ‘obsolete’ and ‘parochial’ loyalties and ethos inheritedfrom bourgeois and pre-bourgeois societies.


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

Figure 1. The religio-political situation in Daghestan.

512 A. Knysh

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

. In reality, ethnic identity (Avar, Dargin, Lak, Lezgin, Tabasaran,Kumyk, etc.) not only survived the communist social engineering, but wasreinforced even more, since access to power and distribution of goods andfunds were spread unevenly among Daghestani nationalities at the republicanlevel and some of them enjoyed preferential treatment. On the regional level,affiliation with a given clan, village community or family continued to bepredominant and often overruled loyalty to the Communist party and Sovietstate.

. Religious identity. As in the nineteenth century, it was based predominantlyon the Sunni Islam of the Hanafi or Shafi‘i madhhabs and traditional(hereditary) association – often very loose – with several local Sufi silsilasand their leaders. Despite severe persecutions under the Soviet regime,Daghestani scholars and Sufi ustadhs managed to preserve and maintain theMuslim identity of their communities via informal educational networks,such as home-based religious schools or hujras. This identity was periodicallyrenewed and reasserted by the collective participation of Daghestani Muslimsin religious rituals, prayers, festivals, and dhikr assemblies.

2. Perestroika: 1986–91.. This period witnessed the weakening and near-collapse of Soviet state

structures and the rapid dissolution of the authority of the Communist partyand ideology associated with it. As a result, the republic witnessed anexplosive and often violent release of competing local aspirations, which canbe characterized as ‘the division of spoils of the Soviet Empire’ (and thespheres of influence left after the implosion of the state and bureaucracy).Contestation among and within the local elites (which were deeply dividedalong ethnic and regional lines) was focused on the political, economic andreligious spheres with the more numerous and compact nationalities (Avarsand Dargins) enjoying advantages over smaller and fragmented ones.

. An important external factor at work during the chaos of Gorbachev’sPerestroika was the activities of foreign religious missionaries, many of whomarrived from the Arab Middle East, especially the Gulf, Jordan, and Syria.37

Their preaching fell on fertile ground, as the majority of Daghestanis (this isequally true of the Chechens) were anxious to rediscover their Islamicidentity, to be reintegrated into the imagined global Islamic umma andthereby benefit from the financial support of international Islamic charities.At the same time, a massive influx of puritan Islamic ideology from SaudiArabia and the Gulf threatened to undermine the positions of bothtraditional Muslim authorities of mountain societies and the secular post-Soviet ruling elites associated with them. Fuelled by generous injections ofcash from the Gulf and the increased access of local Muslims (especiallyyouth) to Islamic educational institutions in the Middle East and SouthAsia, the idea of the so-called ‘true’ (istinnyi) Islam was embraced bymany Daghestani Muslims. It became an ideological and mobilizationforce to be reckoned with. The same is equally true of Chechnya,whose quasi-independent status vis-a-vis Russia gave free rein to foreignpurveyors of ‘true’ Islam who represented different Islamic colleges anduniversities.


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

3. Post-Soviet Chaos, Conflict, and Consolidation: 1991–2005.. In Daghestan, the post-Soviet period is characterized by the persistence of

Soviet mentality and modus operandi, albeit in modified forms, namely theinstinctive suspicion and suppression of ideological pluralism by the post-Communist ruling elite; its willingness to use raw force and intimidation indealing with opponents, its authoritarianism, under-the-carpet politicking,etc. Former communist functionaries have smoothly transformed themselvesinto a new nationalistic ruling elite under the then fashionable ‘democratic’slogans. These former Soviet apparatchiks retained their traditional loyaltyto Russia and its leaders, viewing them as an indispensable guarantor of their(often corrupt and incompetent) rule and a source of subsidies to sustain thetraditionally feeble economy of the area. The latter factor is particularlyimportant for Daghestan, which, unlike Chechnya, has no oil resources.38 Itexplains why Daghestani leaders were not so anxious to cut loose fromRussia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In Chechnya, on thecontrary, the Soviet-style partocracy (Rus. patrokartiia) was largely displacedby an ambitious younger crop of professionals, former military officers, andfree-lance intellectuals.39 They owed their ascendancy in large part to theinapt Russian policy in the region and the subsequent Russo-Chechen war,which discredited those elements of Chechen society which were ready tostrike a deal with the Russian Federal authorities. After wresting power fromthe old guard, the new elite was anxious to go it alone in the hopes of gainingexclusive control over the republic’s oil wealth.

. In both Daghestan and Chechnya, the role of ethnicity and clannish/groupsolidarity40 has increased as party loyalty has become irrelevant. Simulta-neously, religion has become an important source of legitimization for theruling elites in both Chechnya and Daghestan.

In the course of all the momentous transformations outlined in Figure 1 there hasemerged a symbiosis between the republican state structures and the traditionalreligious authorities – ‘ulama’ and Sufi shaykhs.41 It has found its most dramaticmanifestation in the make-up of the Spiritual Directory of the Muslims of Daghestan(Rus. DUMD), whose members are closely affiliated with popular Sufi masters, theNaqshbandi-Shadhili shaykh Sa‘id Effendi (Apandi) of Chirkei being the mostpowerful of them all. Sa‘id Effendi (Apandi), an Avar, and three of his fellowNaqshbandis of Avar, Dargin, and Kumyk background have become the paramountreligious leaders of Daghestan. They enjoy the support of the republican authoritiesand are effectively in control of DUMD, the supreme religious body of therepublic.42 This is not to say that the opponents of this pro-government body arenecessarily Salafi/Wahhabi. Some Naqshbandi shaykhs, such as Ramazanov ofKhasaviurt, Babatov of the village of Kiakhulai, and Karachaev, Gadzhiev, Iliasovof Makhachkala have not recognized the legitimacy of DUMD and harshlycriticized it. Thus, we can speak of oppositional and rival trends within not just theSufi movement but also within the one and the same Sufi silsila.

We can now try to address historical reasons for this situation. In Daghestan wefind two different patterns of interaction between Sufi leaders and the powers-that-be. They are associated with two principal branches of the Naqshbandiyya – one

514 A. Knysh

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

goes back to the aforementioned ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sughuri and the other traces itsspiritual genealogy down to shaykh Mahmud al-Almali (d. 1877). The former wasassociated with the more warlike, jihad-oriented strand within the Naqshbandisilsila. His son was declared the imam of an anti-Russian uprising in Daghestan andChechnya in 1877, and, after its failure, executed by Russians. Although ‘Abd al-Rahman was initially opposed to the uprising and his involvement in the rebellion isnot well attested, his prior support of ghazawat and his prominent role in Shamil’simamate made him a convenient symbol of this anti-Russian movement. Regardlessof the fact that the exact role of the Naqshbandi tariqat in these events remainsunclear,43 it is widely believed to have been considerable, if not decisive.

An alternative pattern of Sufi–state interaction is exemplified by the branch of theNaqshbandiyya tariqa inaugurated by Mahmud al-Almali (d. 1877). Named‘Mahmudiyya’ after its founder, its leaders, including the renowned shaykhSayfullah-qadi (d. 1919 or 1920), consistently demonstrated restraint and evendocility in dealing with Russian state authorities and were not averse to occasionallycooperating with them.44 Close relations between the current Naqshbandi leaders ofDaghestan, especially Sa‘id Effendi (Apandi) of Chirkei, and the authorities of therepublic can be seen as a continuation of this pacifistic and collaborationist trendwithin the local Naqshbandiyya tradition. No wonder that Sa‘id Effendi belongs tothe same (Naqshbandi-Shadhili) branch of the tariqat as Sayfullah-qadi andconsiders himself his spiritual heir.

In sum, the history of Sufi brotherhoods of Daghestan offers their present-dayfollowers two diametrically opposed patterns of interaction with state authorities.Adopting the pacifistic-collaborationist attitude associated with al-Almali andSayfullah-qadi – the first Naqshbandi-Shadhili shaykh of Daghestan45 – someDaghestani Sufi leaders have consciously opted for cooperation with the secular,pro-Russian government of the republic of Daghestan after the collapse of the SovietUnion. In return, the authorities have granted them or their followers (murids)almost exclusive control over religious officialdom as represented by the republic’sSpiritual Directory, which is responsible for appointments to religious posts,religious education and distribution of funds allocated by the republicanauthorities.46 The Directory’s overall philosophy can be described as gradualist –while the creation of a Shari‘a-based state is given lip service, in the foreseeablefuture its members content themselves with a step-by-step re-Islamization of thepublic sphere and education and then again only to the extent allowed by therepublican secular leadership. The latter, in turn, seek to legitimize their rule bypresenting themselves as supporters of ‘traditional’, ‘moderate’ Islam and its leadingrepresentatives in the republic.

Under the circumstances, it is little wonder that opposition to the secular pro-Russian elite and its supporters among local religious authorities has assumed amarkedly anti-Sufi form. The most active opposition comes from the DaghestaniWahhabis headed by Baha’ al-Din Muhammad Kebedov (a.k.a. BagauddinMagomed Kebedov) of Kizyliurt, who, I mentioned earlier, once accused Sufis ofviolating 100 rulings of the Shari‘a. After the activities and publications ofKebedov’s party were banned by the republican parliament in autumn 1997, it wentunderground and has remained in opposition ever since. Kebedov himself fled toChechnya where he was received with open arms by local warlords and politicians,


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

the Chechens Shamil Basaev, Zelimkhan Yandarbiev and Movladi Udugov and theArab mujahid al-Khattab (the Black Arab), who are seen by both Chechens andDaghestanis as out-and-out Wahhabis.47 Kebedov’s Daghestani followers took anactive part in the 1999 incursion into the Botlikh and Tsumadin districts ofDaghestan of the Islamist levies led by Shamil Basaev and al-Khattab.48 After theirexpulsion to Chechnya by Russian federal forces with the support of localDaghestani militias in September 1999, the Daghestani Salafis/Wahhabis eitherresided in Chechnya or went underground and started an undeclared war againsttheir prosecutors, especially the local police, Russian Federal troops and secretservice operatives.49

The war now shifted to Chechnya, where it has continued unabated up to thepresent day with casualties on both sides. Routinely, the pro-Russian republicanauthorities of Daghestan and the Russian federal troops operating in Chechnyaannounce the discovery of yet another cache of weapons and ‘Wahhabi’ or‘extremist’ literature and video/audio cassettes. This indicates that in their struggleDaghestani Salafis/Wahhabis avail themselves of both military and ideologicalmeans.50

In the meantime, the Spiritual Directory of Daghestan has declared Wahhabis tobe ‘enemy number one’ of the Daghestani state and Islamic religion. Wahhabieducational institutions and presses were shut down and their suspectedsympathizers denied religious appointments not only in the official religious bodiesof the republic, but also as muftis, qadis, and khatibs of local mosques. The chiefmufti of Daghestan Abubakarov went as far as to declare that ‘a believer who kills aWahhabi will go to Paradise, as will a believer killed by a Wahhabi’.51

In Chechnya, the religio-political situation in the past six years has been decisivelyshaped by the bloody confrontation between Russian military forces and theChechen rebels seeking independence from Russia. According to the majority ofRussian and Western observers, already at the beginning of this conflict politicalpower shifted from the largely pro-Russian population of the Chechen plains to thewarlike mountain clans of the mountainous region known as ‘Ichkeriia’. The formerhave been traditionally associated with the Naqshbandiyya tariqat, whereas thelatter adhered to various wirds of the Qadiriyya tariqat founded by Kunta Hajji(there are some 30 wirds in Chechnya). Some observers go as far as to present thistransition of power as a decisive triumph of the activist Qadiri brotherhood over thepacifist Naqshbandiyya.52 Interestingly, the situation was the exact opposite underShamil, who was suspicious of the pacifistic message of Kunta Hajji which he saw asan impediment in his struggle against Russia.53

In the course of their resistance to the still mighty Russian state Chechen fightershave been supported by Muslim charities world-wide. This support has often comein the form of both funding and ideology, the latter being for the most part of aSalafi/Wahhabi slant. The majority of non-Chechen fighters in Chechnya are radicalSalafis who profess global jihad and who view local religious customs and traditionsas a gross ‘aberration’ of ‘pure’ Islam that must be corrected or extirpated. As inother areas of the Muslim world, their puritan anger is often directed against localsanctuaries and saints’ tombs.54 At one point, the Salafis attempted to destroy thetomb of Kunta Hajji’s mother at the village of Gehi – a major Chechen sanctuarythat attracts hundreds of visitors from across Chechnya and Ingushetia.55 Chechen

516 A. Knysh

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

Wahhabis led by the former Chechen president Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, ShamilBasaev, Arbi Baraev and ‘Abd al-Malik Mejidov became the principal opponents ofPresident Aslan Maskhadov, who relied on the support of traditional leaders,including the chief mufti of Chechnya Ahmet Kadyrov, an ustadh of the Qadiriyyatariqat, who later threw in his lot with the Russians and was assassinated by hisopponents.56 In 1996, the leaders of the two major Sufi tariqat of Chechnya joinedforces in order to more effectively resist the ascendancy of their Wahhabi/Salafiadversaries.57 The conflict between the two factions came to a head in the town ofGudermes in the summer of 1997 when an armed confrontation between a Wahhabidetachment and the troops loyal to the late Chechen president Maskhadov resultedin heavy casualties on both sides.58 Up until the present, the most effective resistanceto Russian occupation of Chechnya and its local supporters has been spearheaded bySalafi/Wahhabi jama‘ats, which continue to benefit from foreign aid. Led by Russia’smost implacable nemesis, Shamil Basaev, this radical movement is held responsibleby the Russian authorities for a series of horrendous terrorist attacks against civiliantargets outside Chechnya, including the hostage-taking crises in Moscow andBeslan.59

Let us now turn to Hadramawt, an eastern province of the Republic of Yemen,which until 1990 was part of the ‘People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen’, acountry that effectively remained under Soviet control from 1969 until 1990. In theearly 1970s, the Communist rulers of South Yemen launched a violent campaignagainst Islamic practice, destroying or desecrating saints’ tombs, arresting andmurdering religious scholars or forcing them to emigrate. In the late 1970s thisvigorous anti-religious policy was effectively abandoned due to its obviousineffectiveness. Religion was too deeply entrenched in South Yemeni society to beeradicated overnight. Under the new policy, religion was no longer activelysuppressed but cautiously tolerated, provided its exponents refrained fromchallenging the ruling elite educated in the Soviet Union and steeped in atheistideology.

When religious scholars were prosecuted by the regime in the early 1970s, this wasdone in the name of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of class struggle which viewedmembers of the ‘clergy’ as stooges and learned backers of the ‘feudal’ or ‘parasiticclasses’. In Hadramawt, the latter accusation was directed primarily at the membersof local families that claimed descent from the Prophet via ‘Ali and Fatima.Collectively called al-sada, they had indeed often occupied positions of authority inthe governments of local sultans and played a very important role in thetransmission and preservation of Islamic learning not only in Hadramawt, but alsoin the other parts of the Muslim world. The Socialist ideologues of South Yemenbranded the sada as ‘religious aristocracy’ and visited severe reprisals on its mostprominent representatives. I have examined the fortunes of the sada in a special essayand will not repeat myself here.60 Suffice it to say that the Socialists were not the firstto accuse the sada of illegitimately claiming a special status in Hadrami society andderiving economic and social advantages from this claim.

Criticism of the dominant position of the sada in Hadrami society was notsomething new. During the first decades of the twentieth century, opposition to the


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

religious and cultural domination of the sada was led by the so-called irshad(‘Guidance’) movement active in Southeast Asia (primarily in Java and Singapore).The Irshadi critique of the Hadrami sada was articulated in religious terms andreflected the reformist tendencies of the age emanating from Egypt and Syria. Thesada and their followers among the Hadrami population were accused of violatingthe principle of equality of all Muslims, nepotism, and encouraging and cultivating‘idle superstitions’ and ‘idolatrous practices’ around the tombs of their ancestors.The sada disregard for the principle of equality of all Muslims, according to theIrshadis, found its most dramatic expression in their marriage customs, whichprohibited female members of the sada stratum (sharifas) from marrying men of non-sada background, whether Hadrami or not. (The male sada could marry anyone theywanted.) The dispute over this issue was important enough to attract the attention ofleading scholars of the age, including Muhammad Rashid Rida who weighed in byruling against the sada kinship based interpretation of the concept of marriage parity(kafa’a).61

All these debates took place in the Hadrami diasporas in Southeast Asia, especiallyin Java and Singapore. In Hadramawt itself, the atmosphere was much moreconservative and the special position of the sada as purveyors of religious knowledge,culture and education remained practically unchallenged until the triumph of theYemeni Socialist Party in 1968. As mentioned, Socialist ideologues appropriated andreshaped the Irshadi criticism of the sada, couching it in the rhetoric of the Marxiantheory of class struggle. One should point out that the sada have never spoken in onevoice. Some of them accepted the Irshadi criticism and adopted a reformist,egalitarian stance. At the same time, many of conservative Hadramis of non-sadaextraction sided with the sada party named ‘al-Rabita al-‘Alawiyya’ against theirdetractors. This is largely true of the current situation in the province, where thesupporters and detractors of the sada cannot be easily placed into neat sociologicaland genealogical cubby-holes. Nevertheless, some general tendencies in the socialbehaviour of representatives of the sada are discernable (see Figure 2).

Islamic resurgence in South Yemen in the aftermath of the collapse of the pro-Soviet regime and the unification of the country in 1990 has taken a variety of formswith different versions of Salafi ideology (from the Muslim Brothers to the literalistand apolitical Salafiyya of shaykh Muqbil of the Sa‘da region in the north of thecountry) enjoying ascendancy in most parts of Yemen with the exception ofHadramawt. Here the positions of traditional, shrine-centred Islam have proved tobe particularly strong. The local landscape is richly dotted with whitewashed domedshrines of saints and prophets that compete with mosques in architecturalelaboration and grandeur. The ritual calendar of the area is shaped by pilgrimagesto these sanctuaries, which draw hundreds and even thousands of visitors fromacross the country and abroad. Moreover, in the sada of Hadramawt traditionalYemeni religiosity found uniquely qualified and highly respected advocates andpromoters.62 Despite these obvious advantages, the revivalist project of the sada hashad to compete with rival versions of Islam – mostly of a Salafi slant – and up until1994 also with a revamped Socialist ideology that survived the unification of bothparts of the country in 1990.63 Interestingly, after the unification, the Socialistleadership of the south sought a rapprochement with the sada and their localfollowers, seeing them as a counterweight to the growing influence of the north with

518 A. Knysh

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

its activist Salafism of various stripes.64 The situation in the south was furthercomplicated by the arrival of new ideological and political forces from the north –the ruling General Popular Congress and its rival, the Islamist Islah party. All thesepolitical and ideological forces rushed to fill in the ideological vacuum left by theimplosion of Socialist ideology in the south. With the exception of the rump of the

Figure 2. Hadramawt.


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

Socialist party, all these forces made extensive use of religious rhetoric and slogans toadvance their political agendas and to secure seats in the Parliament. In theideological struggle that ensued Islamic practice and education became the principalfoci of contestation. The sada families, which had either lived in exile or kept a lowprofile in the country under Socialist rule, now saw in this religious resurgence anopportunity to restore their special status in Hadrami society. The sada leadersconsidered religious education as an important, if not the principal means to thisend. Several Islamic universities and religious colleges have been established in theprovince, some of them explicitly geared to promoting the sada vision of Hadramihistory and culture. This vision ascribes all major cultural, economic, and religiousachievements to the members of various sada lineages by portraying them as tirelessreformers, educators, and spiritual guides of not just Hadramawt but other areas ofthe Muslim world as well.65

The most dramatic example of the sada-sponsored educational revival was theestablishment in the mid-1990s of a ‘neo-traditional’ madrasa in Tarim, the ancestralhome and spiritual centre of the Hadrami sada. Named Dar al-Mustafa, it is headedby a charismatic sayyid Habib ‘Umar. Son of a respected sayyid scholar of Tarimwho was executed by the Communist secret police, Habib ‘Umar and his facultyactively advocate and promote ‘traditional’ Islamic values and practices,66 which, inHadramawt, have been centred on the tombs of local saints – most of whom comefrom one or the other sada clan – and prophets (Hud, Salih, Hadun, and others). Asmentioned, the Socialist regime attempted and failed to eradicate seasonalpilgrimages to such shrines, so the sada did not find it particularly hard to restorethem. Upon his return from exile, Habib ‘Umar set about reviving these shrine-centred patterns of religious behaviour, which gradually became the centrepiece ofhis pedagogy. Since its foundation in the mid-1990s Habib ‘Umar’s institution hasenjoyed a truly international reputation and has attracted numerous students(around 1500 in 2003–04) from East Africa, Yemen, Arab countries, South andSoutheast Asia, and some Western countries (Britain, North America, France,Australia, and Italy). The female section of the madrasa houses around 100students.67

The Dar al-Mustafa curriculum includes a daily recitation of mawlid poetry (suchas al-Busiri’s Qasidat al-burda) and poems in praise of the Prophet composed bylocal sada. Practically every day, Habib ‘Umar and his disciples tour Tarim’s famouscemetery Zanbal and the city’s environs and recite litanies and homiletic odes eitherinside the tombs of saints buried there or in the nearby mosques. The annualpilgrimage to the grave of the Qur’anic prophet Hud in Wadi Masila is celebratedwith tremendous pomp and is videotaped, the footage being disseminated via localretail shops and Internet websites.68 Led by Habib ‘Umar and his relatives fromvarious sada clans, the Hud pilgrimage attracts large crowds from across theHadramawt and beyond (including Saudi Arabia). Habib ‘Umar and his numerousrelatives of sada extraction (haba’ib) associated with Dar al-Mustafa take the leadingrole in these educational processes, devotional activities, and pilgrimages in theprovince. They wear the distinct garb of Hadrami sada and accept token gestures ofrespect from disciples and other non-sada Muslims.

When questioned by an outsider like myself, Habib ‘Umar and his faculty andstudents were reluctant to explicitly recognize themselves as Sufis. Rather, they

520 A. Knysh

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

would speak of themselves as the restorers of traditional Hadrami piety and of theIslamic legacy of the great scholars and saints of the country, to whom theyoccasionally refer as al-salaf. In this sense, they certainly are ‘Salafis’, albeit theirdefinition of al-salaf is quite different from that of their ‘Salafi’ critics.69 Whenpressed, they might acknowledge the merits of the spiritual method of the ‘Alawiyyatariqa. Named after the common ancestor of all local sada (who are collectivelyknown as ‘Ba ‘Alawi’), it combines two spiritual genealogies – that of theShadhiliyya of North Africa and that of the Qadiriyya of Iraq.70 However, mostof the sada and their followers residing in Dar al-Mustafa would hasten to add thatthe ‘Alawiyya spiritual method rests squarely on the Qur’an and Sunna and theirinterpretations by the leading luminaries of Islam. Therefore those who implementthem in their lives are automatically following the ‘Alawiyya tariqa.

This is not how they are viewed by outsiders. Neutral observers refer to thefollowers of Habib ‘Umar simply as ‘Sufis’, while their detractors (who are quitenumerous outside Tarim) contemptuously describe them as ‘grave-worshippingSufis’ or ‘purveyors of idle superstitions’ (ashab al-khurafat). The ‘Alawiyya tariqa isdenounced by its opponents as a family affair that effectively excludes non-sada fromparticipation and is geared to preserving their privileged status vis-a-vis ordinaryMuslims in Hadramawt and beyond. As mentioned, the critics of Habib ‘Umar andhis followers refer to themselves as ‘disseminators of Salafism’ (al-da‘wa al-salafiyya).Locally known as ahl al-sunna or, occasionally, ahl al-hadith, some of them arefollowers of the firebrand shaykh Muqbil b. Hadi al-Wadi‘i (d. 2001) of the Sa‘daregion in the northern part of the country.71 The ahl al-sunna have their ownreligious institution called Dar al-Hadith which has been functioning in the town ofal-Dabbaj, Sa‘da, since the early 1980s. I suspect that Habib ‘Umar’s Dar al-Mustafawas created in response to shaykh Muqbil’s Salafi Dar al-Hadith. Be this as it may,this institution has numerous branches across the country, including the port city ofal-Shihr in Hadramawt.72 For their opponents, the ahl al-sunna, are, of course,proponents of ‘Wahhabism’ – an ideology that many Hadramis regard as alien toHadramawt and even more suspect because of its association with neighbouringSaudi Arabia, both a geopolitical rival and an abiding threat to Yemen’s sovereigntyand territorial integrity.73

Objectively speaking, shaykh Muqbil, who received his education in Saudi Arabiaunder its foremost scholars (such as ‘Abd al-‘Aziz b. Baz and al-Albani),74 can beregarded as a Wahhabi, although his Wahhabism is quite unique in its literalism,exclusivity and rejection of any involvement in politics. Throughout his careerMuqbil discouraged his followers from any political involvement. In particular, hewent on record as a vocal critic of the Muslim Brotherhood – both its foundingfathers (al-Banna’ and Sayyid Qutb) and their recent followers, such as Muhammadal-Ghazali, al-Sha‘rawi, Sa‘id Hawwa, ‘Isam al-‘Attar, ‘Abd al-Hamid Kishk, andMuhammad Qutb.75 Shaykh Muqbil, who was (in)famous for his caustic tongue,derogatorily dubbed them al-ikhwan al-muflisin, namely the ‘failed brothers’.76

Practically no modern scholar or Islamic movement has been spared the shaykh’svitriolic condemnations, with the partial exception of Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1792)and al-Shawkani (d. 1834).77 In general, Muqbil’s spirited tirades boil down to onetheme – the rampant spread of ‘innovation’ (bid‘a) in religion and the insidiouserosion of religious values under the influence of Western secular ideologies. In his


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

view, the Muslim Brothers and other Islamist movements (e.g., Hizb al-tahrir) havesuccumbed to a grievous bid‘a by getting involved in state politics and by seeking toundermine or overthrow the incumbent rulers of their states, who, corrupt andinefficient as they might be, have to be obeyed as long as they remain nominallyMuslim. Muqbil accused Muslim reformers and modernists, including ‘Abdu andRashid Rida, of bid‘a due to their advocacy of Western values, such as progress,parliament, democracy and party politics – things that the vitriolic scholar regardedas incompatible with the teachings of the Qur’an the Prophet’s sunna. Sufis, too, didnot escape Muqbil’s vituperations. He held them responsible for espousing allmanner of ‘heretical’, ‘non-Islamic’ beliefs and practices, many of which havealready been mentioned in this article and need not be repeated here.

Following the unification of two Yemens in 1990, the leaders of the north found itconvenient to make use of numerous Islamist movements and parties in their part ofthe country in order to counter and discredit the secular ideology of the formerSocialist ruling elite of the south and, in the final account, to dislodge it from power.On the eve of the first general elections in 1993, they blessed the creation of apowerful coalition of religious parties named Islah (‘Reform’). Its principal, if notexplicitly stated goal was to divert votes from the Socialist party. After the northmilitarily defeated the south in 1994, a politically active and successful Islah, whichrelied on religious slogans and rhetoric in its electoral politics, became a liability forthe (essentially secular) regime and its party, the General Popular Congress. With theSocialist party effectively defeated, the regime came to view Islah as a dangerous rivalon Yemen’s fragmented political field. Furthermore, the leadership of the Congresswas alarmed by the presence in the movement of some militant Salafis (al-salafiyyaal-muqatila), who had fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan and whohad embraced the idea of ‘jihad without borders’. Their attacks on US andEuropean targets stationed in Yemen sent a clear message to the regime of ‘Ali‘Abdallah Salih, who was eager to cooperate with the US in return for economicassistance and international recognition.78 This cooperation became particularlyclose after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, when the government of Yemen acceptedUS troops and covert operations units that were sent to the country to quashlocal terrorist cells. Naturally, such cooperation caused considerable indignationamong many local Islamists, who threatened to take up arms against the ‘impious’rulers of Yemen for siding with the forces of the ‘world oppressor’ to fightagainst fellow Muslims. In the face of this threat, the government began toconsistently cultivate the apolitical and quietist elements within the Yemeni Islamistmovement. Two groups fit the bill perfectly – the ultraconservative followers ofMuqbil, who were staunchly opposed to any involvement in politics, and theapolitical devotees of Habib ‘Umar’s Dar al-Mustafa. Thus, by a strange quirk offate, the two seemingly incompatible movements have found themselves in theregime’s good books.

In the aftermath of the civil war of 1994 and the collapse of Socialist ideology,relations between Islah and the Dar al-Mustafa acquired a new dynamics –something the authorities in Sanaa had not anticipated. Although many members ofthe former were moderate Salafis (in line with his apolitical principles Muqbil refusedto join the ranks of Islah), who regarded the activities of Dar al-Mustafa as ‘idlesuperstitions’ and ‘grievous innovations’, the two sides recognized that they shared a

522 A. Knysh

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

common goal – to effect a gradual re-Islamization of the country’s south and toeliminate the remaining ideological vestiges of the ‘atheist’ Socialist regime. DespiteHabib ‘Umar’s professed opposition to parties and party politics (on this point he isin complete agreement with shaykh Muqbil), there is evidence that the Dar al-Mustafa’s implicit support was essential in securing votes for Islah in innerHadramawt during the election of 1997.79

The leaders of Dar al-Mustafa also established good relations with the traditionalopponents of Sufism, the Zaydi sada of the north, who had in the past shownthemselves to be Sufism’s implacable and vocal critics.80 In this case, the commonground was found in the idea that the descendants of the Prophet are responsible forproviding religious guidance and leadership to their flock. Since, like the leadershipof Dar al-Mustafa, the sada of the north – who have their own religious party calledal-Haqq – consider themselves the spiritual guides of their (Zaydi) community, therapprochement of two branches of the sada came quite naturally.81 All these factsdemonstrate the political and diplomatic acumen of Habib ‘Umar and his comrades,who, unlike the implacable shaykh Muqbil, have been ready to make compromiseswith their erstwhile adversaries.

Now, who are the principal opponents of Habib ‘Umar and his followers inHadramawt? They are not necessarily the adherents of shaykh Muqbil, who doesnot, to my knowledge, have a substantial following in the province. Rather, theyseem to be young Hadrami men who have worked or studied in Saudi Arabia andthe Gulf, where they have imbibed the anti-Sufi and anti-saint rhetoric of localSalafi/Wahhabi scholars. Upon return to Hadramawt, such individuals oftenattempt to implement the famous Hanbali/Wahhabi precept of ‘commanding rightand forbidding wrong’.82 To this end, they either verbally attack what they regard aslocal transgressions against ‘pure’ Islam or even try to physically destroy or desecratesaints’ tombs, which, for them, epitomize the ‘non-Islamic’ superstitions of their‘Sufi’ opponents. As elsewhere, these disgruntled individuals refuse to come to themosques patronized by the ‘Sufis’ and hold them responsible for all manner of‘heretical innovations’. In the conflict between the Sufis and their Salafi detractorsthe government of the Republic of Yemen has been consistently supporting theformer. President ‘Ali ‘Abdallah Salih has demonstrated his support by payingseveral visits to the Dar al-Mustafa compound. The leaders of Dar al-Mustafa enjoyexcellent working relations with the Ministry of awqaf, and Habib ‘Umar isgenerously granted time on the state TV and radio. He also serves on severalgovernmental committees, including one that is charged with the rehabilitation ofYemeni mujahidun returning from Afghanistan and other hot-spots.83 One canhardly suspect the state authorities of having a soft spot for the Habib ‘Umar’s ‘neo-traditionalism’. They simply act in accordance with the principle of the lesser evil.Under the circumstances this implies supporting the least politically active of actors.In Dar al-Mustafa and Dar al-Hadith Yemeni state officials see a convenientcounterweight to Islamic militancy at a time when their full cooperation with the USin its ‘war on terror’ has exposed them to Islamist wrath.

Rumours have it that the activities of Dar al-Mustafa are subsidized from the statecoffers, although the accuracy of this information is impossible to determine, becauseof its potentially damaging impact on the movement’s reputation. In any event,whatever help Dar al-Mustafa may have been receiving from the state is insignificant


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

compared with the generous donations from the United Arab Emirates (UAE),Oman and other countries of the Gulf, whose rulers maintain close relations with thecompound via its emissary Habib ‘Ali al-Jifri.84

Thus, in Habib ‘Umar and his educational project we find an example of adynamic religious movement which makes extensive use of the modern media andinformation technology to disseminate its message and to promote its version ofIslam. The movement presents itself to the outside world, on the one hand, as abulwark against the secularization of education and the public sphere – allegedlypromoted by the US and its allies in the Muslim world – and, on the other, againstthe hijacking of education by radical and extremist elements which seek tomanipulate it to their ‘ignoble’ and ‘destructive’ ends.

In the Islamic communities we have surveyed, the role of Sufism is determined by acomplex variety of factors, which makes any broad generalizations tenuous at best.What is abundantly clear is that Sufism – whatever this term is supposed to imply – isdeeply and inextricably embedded in the history, culture, social structure and powerrelations of concrete Muslim societies and cannot be studied in isolation from them.If there is one feature the societies we have examined seem to share, it is theirtransition from political and ideological authoritarianism to relative ideologicalopenness. This process has been characterized by the intrusion into the public sphereof religious rhetoric and an acute and occasionally violent rivalry among variousreligious parties and factions. It is against this general backdrop that we shouldanalyse the vicissitudes of the Salafi/Sufi confrontation.

In the Northern Caucasus, as in Hadramawt, the majority of opponents of Sufismbelong to the younger generation. While on the face of it they denounce what theyconsider to be ‘Sufism’ as a gross aberration of the ‘correct Islam’ of its ‘piousfounders’, wittingly or not they are driven by the desire to liberate themselves fromthe traditional structures of power, loyalty and authority. These structures areexemplified by traditional Muslim scholars who more often than not are affiliatedwith and derive their authority from a Sufi silsila. Hence the conflation, in the mindsof the critics, of Sufism with ‘what has gone wrong with Islam’. In Daghestan andChechnya, for instance, the egalitarian rhetoric of the young Salafi/Wahhabi leadersevinces their intention to break away from the traditional networks of kinship andpatronage and to become citizens of the imagined global umma unconstrained by thepatriarchal ethos and conventions prevalent in their communities. The iconoclasticrhetoric of ‘pure’ Islam provides them with a convenient idiom to express theirprotest against the social status quo which in their communities – and this is equallytrue of Hadramawt – has always favoured the older generation, while demandingunquestionable obedience from the younger one. Although this youthful protest canin theory be expressed via a militant strain within the Sufi tradition – this is true ofChechnya and Daghestan but not of Hadramawt, where such tradition does notexist – the strident anti-Sufi rhetoric of Salafism/Wahhabism has rendered the Sufioption less attractive to those who are eager to pursue an activist or jihad orientedinterpretation of Islam. In a sense, we can argue that Salafism/Wahhabism hasproved to be more effective (and fashionable) as an ideology of protest, probably dueits simplicity, straightforward logic and its rationalist rejection of the miraculous and

524 A. Knysh

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

the fanciful – an attitude that jibes well with the sober, rational outlookcharacteristic of the post-modern age.

In Hadramawt, the Salafi movement derives it vitality from the country’sproximity to Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, where Salafi/Wahhabi ideologyis pervasive and virtually unchallenged as long as it is not used to discredit theauthority of the ruling families. Many young men from Hadramawt are exposed to itduring their stay in these countries as remittance workers. By attending the vitriolicsermons of Saudi and Gulf preachers they embrace the Wahhabi concepts of tawhid,bid‘a and shirk, as well as the concomitant injunction to actively command good andforbid wrong. Upon return to their homeland they immediately ‘recognize’numerous ‘deviations’ from the principles of tawhid in the beliefs and practices oftheir countrymen. What they used to take for granted prior to their emigration, nowstrikes them as a grievous ‘heresy’ if not even outright ‘unbelief’. Very oftenthey identify these ‘deviations’ from the ‘pure’ Islam of their Salafi/Wahhabineighbours as being of ‘Sufi’ origin or inspiration. In Hadramawt, when theyobserve the residents of Dar al-Mustafa travelling to sacred shrines in a fleet of carschanting mawlid hymns, they attribute their actions to their ‘Sufi’ training andconvictions.

In societies ravaged by war and social upheavals Salafi ideology has become aparticularly attractive option. In Chechnya, the dire conditions of war andoccupation and the incessant violence they have engendered have favoured themost radical and jihad oriented forms of Salafism (including terror against civilians)at the expense of its more moderate forms. The fact that this radical strain ofSalafism has gained wide acceptance vis-a-vis more moderate, traditional formsIslam characteristic of Chechen society (whether explicitly Sufi or not) can beattributed to external factors, such as the trauma and devastation of war and thesubsequent depredations of the occupying federal forces and their local backers.Furthermore, in Chechnya cooperation between Russian federal authorities and themajor native powerbrokers associated with the local wirds (such as Ahmet Kadyrov)has continually bred resentment among mostly young men and women who have losttheir relatives and loved ones during the conflict. Their desire for revenge drives themto the camps of Chechen guerrillas most of whom espouse the most radical versionsof Salafism/Wahhabism as their ideology of choice.

In general, external factors and actors play an important role in shaping andperpetuating tensions between Sufi and Salafi forms of Islam. Confrontation betweenthese two visions of Islam can be artificially cultivated and deliberately exploited bystate authorities in order to weaken religious opposition to their rule. It is surprisingto what extent both the Sufis and their Salafi opponents are penetrated andmanipulated by state authorities.85 In most cases, as we have seen, the powers that bechoose to accommodate and cultivate the Sufis, viewing them as ‘the lesser evil’.Leaders of Sufi communities, in their turn, take advantage of their favourabletreatment by the ruling elite in order to promote their disciples to positions ofauthority and thereby to manipulate the state apparatus and its resources to theiradvantage.

In the case of external financial assistance, it is often the Salafis/Wahhabis whostand to benefit from the largesse of charitable foundations, most of which arelocated in the Gulf. This is understandable, since donors are naturally inclined to


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

promote the version of Islam predominant in their societies. One can even argue thatin some cases ‘conversion’ to Salafism/Wahhabism is dictated primarily by thepromise of financial assistance. Hence, the notion of ‘dollar Islam’ that has become astock-in-trade of the Russian media coverage of the Caucasus.86 At the same time,the cordial relationships between Dar al-Mustafa and some individuals andinstitutions in the Gulf may be indicative of a relatively new tendency among localrulers and wealthy individuals to support less politically active and vocal movementsas a counterbalance to the more activist and politicized Salafism.87 No more playingwith fire, as it were. The quiet and almost invisible revival of Sufi teachings andmovements in the Gulf area seems to indicate that they are no longer seen as anideological threat by the local governments, especially in the face of the recentoutbursts of Islamist militancy associated with some radical Salafi groups.

It appears that individuals with secular education are more prone to embrace thestraightforward, rationalist and universalizing teachings of Salafism. In Daghestan,for instance, an observer describes them as cell phone-toting physicians, students,professors, businessmen and even former Komsomol functionaries.88 However, thismembership pattern seems to undergo drastic changes at the time of armed conflict,when the Salafi/Wahhabi recruitment pool acquires a different dynamic and becomesmore inclusive. War or no war, the egalitarian ideology of Salafism/Wahhabismappeals to many constituencies. In Daghestan, one can discern several categories ofits followers: (a) the ‘Wahhabism of the poor’, that is one that has been adopted bythe rural youth marginalized and impoverished by the social and economic transitionto a free market economy following the collapse of the Soviet Union; (b) the‘Wahhabism of the rich’, namely of the well-to-do mercantile and entrepreneurialelements that are disgusted by the rampant graft of the local authorities and theirinability to protect local communities from crime and corruption; such elements seethe rigid requirements of Salafi ideology as a safeguard against the post-Soviet chaosand lack of moral restraints.89 The appeal of Salafism to certain groups ofintellectuals and professionals looking for a ‘streamlined’, ‘rational’ version of Islamhas already been mentioned.90 Thus, like Sufism, Salafism/Wahhabism is far frommonolithic and appeals to different constituencies for different reasons.

A comprehensive definition of Sufism remains elusive. In many instances itdepends on the position of the observer, namely, what he or she recognizes or doesnot recognize as belonging to ‘Sufism’ is determined by his or her intellectualbackground, education, upbringing and life experiences. Such practices as visiting,worshipping or making vows at saints’ tombs are often seen by both Sufism’s criticsand neutral observers as part and parcel of Sufi piety. The same is true of thecelebration of certain holidays, prayers over the bodies of the deceased, belief infortunetelling, talismans, clairvoyance and so on. As we have noted, in the popularmentality these practices, and not the teachings of classical Sufism, have become themost potent symbols of this movement. An outside observer is faced with twopossible approaches to Sufism – one inclusive and the other restrictive. According tothe inclusive, Sufism is what people recognize it to be; according to the restrictive,Sufism is what the normative literature of Sufi classics demands it to be, the restbeing nothing but ‘folk’ Islam, ‘pre-Islamic relics’, ‘popular superstitions’, and so on.

In some North Caucasus communities, the concept of Sufism as a distinct and self-sufficient tradition has not yet taken shape. For instance, in contemporary

526 A. Knysh

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

Ingushetia uneducated men and women identify themselves not as followers of anabstract phenomenon known as Sufism or even Sufi tariqat but as ‘spiritual children’of an authoritative spiritual guide, the ustadh. The fact that this ustadh happens to bea representative of a certain Sufi silsila (e.g., the Qadiriyya in this case) is largelyirrelevant to them. As already mentioned, loyalty is usually owed and given to aconcrete shaykh, not to the abstraction that we call ‘Sufism’.

The increasing (and now ubiquitous) use of this abstraction to classify certainpractices, beliefs, and institutions appears to have been a largely unintended result ofthe influence of academic and theological polemic around the phenomenon of Sufismover the past two centuries. Such discourses tend to construe it as a reified andclearly definable object that is somehow independent of the societies and cultures inwhich it operates. Once this theoretical construct leaves the narrow confines oftheological or academic discourse and enters the public domain, it gains a life of itsown and begins to shape the ways in which ordinary people think and speak ofvarious devotional beliefs and practices they observe. This is equally true of bothinsiders and outsiders. I have reason to believe that my own work has contributed tothe proliferation of such abstract constructs. A Russian translation of my bookIslamic Mysticism: A Short History has recently been recommended by the SupremeCouncil of the Ulama’ of the Russian Federation for study by ordinary RussianMuslims.91

Notes

1. A. Yarlykapov, ‘Kredo vakhkhabity’, Vestnik Evrazii, Vol.3, No.10 (2000), pp.114–37.

2. I. Dobaev, Islamskii radikalizm: genesis, evoliutsiia, praktika (Rostov-Don: Severo-Kavkazskii

Nauchnyi Tsentr, 2002), pp.334–5; E. Kisriev, Islami i vlast’ v Dagestane (Moscow: OGI, 2004),

pp.163–4.

3. V. Bobrovnikov and A. Yarlykapov, ‘Wahhabity Severnogo Kavkaza’, in Stanislav Prozorov (ed.),

Islam na territorii byvshei Rossiiskoi imperii, fasc. 2 (Moscow: Nauka, 1999), p.22; Kisriev, Islam i

vlast’, pp.152–3; in Daghestan the ban was imposed on 16 September, 1999. One should point out that

in the early 1990s writings of a Salafi/Wahhabi slant were published in great numbers by private

presses in Moscow and the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union and were readily available to

the reading public. In the late 1990s in Daghestan and elsewhere these publications were labelled as

‘extremist literature’ and officially banished from circulation in the public domain; Dobaev, Islamskii

radikalizm, pp.150–60; S. Sedel’nikov, ‘Savelofiia’, Gazeta.Ru: http://gazeta.ru/print/2004/04/20/

oa_118491.shtml; A. Kaiaev, ‘Podlezhat unichtozheniiu’, Kavkaz Center, 31 May 2004: http://

www.kavkazcenter.com.russ/article.php?odþ21654; see also G. Fagan, ‘Russia: Increasing Crack-

down on Muslim ‘‘Extremist’’ Books’, Forum 18 News Service, 14 Sept. 2004.

4. See, e.g., the flyer (in Russian) entitled ‘Obraschenie-preduprezhdenie’ (‘Call and Warning’). The

author has a copy of it in his private possession.

5. Implied here is a promise of sacrifice to somebody other than God should one’s request or desire be

granted.

6. That is, the Ka‘ba in the sanctuary of Mecca.

7. For a comprehensive study of this precept see M. Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in

Islamic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

8. See, e.g., M. b. ‘Abd al-Wahhab, Kitab al-tawhid (Egypt: Dar al-ma‘arif, 1974); Sharh masa’il al-

jahiliyya li-shaykh al-islam Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-Wahhab (with a commentary by Salih b. Fawzan al-

Fawzan) (Riyadh: Dar al-‘asima, 2001).

9. For a detailed discussion of Salafi-Sufi disagreements in Daghestan and Chechnya, see Chapter 5 of

Kisriev, Islam i vlast’.

10. See A. Knysh, Ibn ‘Arabi in the Later Islamic Tradition (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1999).


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

11. Kisriev, Islam i vlast’, pp.102–3.

12. M. Kemper, ‘Khalidiyya Networks in Daghestan and the Question of Jihad’, Die Welt des Islams,

Vol.42, No.1 (2002), p.56.

13. The author’s personal observation during his field research in Tarim, Hadramawt, in Oct.–Nov. 1999.

14. V. Tishkov, Obschestvo v vooruzhennom konflikte (Moscow: Nauka, 2001), p.340; cf. Kisriev, Islam i

vlast’, pp.141–2.

15. D. Makarov,Ofitsal’nyi in neofitsal’nyi islam v Dagestane (Moscow: Carnegie Foundation, 2000), p.15.

16. See, e.g., G. Yemelianova, ‘Sufism and Politics in the Northern Caucasus’, Nationalities Papers,

Vol.29, No.4 (2001), pp.661–88; Dobaev, Islamskii radikalizm, pp.150–380 and A. Zelkina, ‘The

‘‘Wahhabis’’ of the Northern Caucasus vis-a-vis State and Society: The Case of Daghestan’, in

M. Gammer (ed.), The Caspian Region. Vol.2. The Caucasus (London and New York: Routledge,

2004), pp.146–78; Kisriev, Islam i vlast’, pp.45–6; cf. my ‘A Clear and Present Danger: Wahhabism as

a Rhetorical Foil’, Die Welt des Islams, Vol.44, No.1 (2004), pp.3–26.

17. For a concise summary see E. Kisriev, ‘Societal Conflict-Generating Factors in Daghestan’, in

Gammer (ed.), The Caspian Region. Vol.2. The Caucasus, pp.107–21; idem, Islam i vlast’.

18. M. Gammer, ‘Between Mecca and Moscow: Islam, Politics, and Political Islam in Chechnya and

Daghestan’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.41, No.6 (Nov. 2005), p.834; Kisriev, ‘Societal Conflict-

Generating Factors’; V. Bobrovnikov, ‘Rural Muslims: Nationalism in the Post-Soviet Caucasus: The

Case of Daghestan’, in Gammer, The Caspian Region, Vol.2. The Caucasus, pp.179–97; in reality, one

can speak of 30 different ethnic groups that were ‘consolidated’ into larger ethnic units by Russian/

Soviet authorities; see Kisriev, Islam i vlast’, p. 46.

19. There is also a relatively small Shi‘i community centred on the coastal city of Derbent; it consists

mainly of Turkic speaking Azeris and some Lezgins.

20. For details and further literature on the subject see my entries ‘Shamil’, ‘Ushurma, Mansur’ and ‘al-

Kabk (the Caucasus), Section 3’, in the second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden: E.J. Brill,

1954–2004).

21. M. Gammer, ‘The Road Not Taken: Daghestan and Chechen Independence’, Central Asian Survey,

Vol.24, No.2 (June 2005), p.97; Kisriev, Islam i vlast’, p.163.

22. Kemper, ‘Khalidiyya Networks’, pp.49–51 and T. Aitberov et al., Vosstaniia dagestantsev i chechntsev v

posleshamilevskuiu epokhu i imamat1877 goda (Makhachkala: Dagestanskii gosudarstvennyi uni-

versitet, 2001).

23. R.B. Ware, ‘A Multitude of Evils: Mythology and Political Failure in Chechnya’, in R. Sakwa (ed.),

Chechnya: From Past to Future (London: Anthem Press, 2005), pp.81–7.

24. For a fine analysis of the situation in Daghestan following the collapse of the Soviet Union see

Chapter 2 in Kisriev, Islam i vlast’.

25. Bobrovnikov, ‘Rural Muslims’ Nationalism’; Kisriev, ‘Societal Conflict-Generating Factors’, passim.

26. V. Bobrovnikov, ‘Arkheologiia stroitel’stva islamskikh traditsii v dagestanskom kolkhoze’, Ab

Imperio, Vol.3 (2004), pp.584–6.

27. G. Khizrieva, ‘‘‘Islam’’, ‘‘musul’mane’’, ‘‘gosudarstvo’’ v rossiiskom islamovedenii’, Ab Imperio, Vol.3

(2004), pp.413–38; Bobrovnikov, ‘Arkheologiia’, pp.583–4; cf. Kemper, ‘Khalidiyya Networks’,

pp.58–9 and 66–8, etc.

28. For a typical example see Chapter 1 in Kisriev, Islam i vlast’.

29. In addition to Kisriev’s Islam i vlast, see also M. Gammer, Muslim Resistance to the Tsar: Shamil and

the Conquest of Chechnya and Daghestan (London: Frank Cass, 1994), pp.39–46 and passim;

A. Zelkina, In Quest for God and Freedom: Sufi Responses to the Russian Advance in the Northern

Caucasus (London: Hurst and Co., 2000), pp.47–51 and 100–134.

30. M. Bennigsen-Broxup, ‘The Last Ghazawat’, in M. Bennigsen-Broxup (ed.), The North Caucasus

Barrier (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), pp.112–45 and idem, ‘After the Putsch, 1991’, in ibid.,

pp.219–40.

31. On the vicissitudes of Kunta Hajji’s movement see V. Akaev, Sheikh Kunta Khadzhi (Groznyi:

Ichkeriia, 1994).

32. A. Knysh, ‘Sufism as an Explanatory Paradigm: The Issue of the Motivations of Sufi Resistance

Movements in Western and Russian Scholarship’,DieWelt des Islams, Vol.42, No.2 (2002), pp.139–73.

33. K. Vikør, Sufi and Scholar on the Desert Edge, Muhammad b. ‘Ali al-Sanusi and His Brotherhood

(London: Hurst and Co., 1995); J.L. Triaud, La legende noire de Sanusiya (Paris: Editions de la maison

des sciences de l’homme, 1995).

528 A. Knysh

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

34. Kemper, ‘Khalidiyya Networks’, p.44.

35. As expounded in J. al-Din al-Ghazighumuqi’s treatise al-Adab al-mardiyya; see Adabul’-marziia

(Pravila dostodolzhnykh prilichii), Sbornik svedenii o kavkazskikh gortsakh, Vol.2 (1869), pp.1–21

(separate pagination).

36. Knysh, ‘Sufism as an Explanatory Paradigm’, pp.148–54 and 160–61.

37. Kisriev, Islam i vlast’, p.137.

38. Gammer, ‘The Road Not Taken’, p.97.

39. Gammer, ‘Between Mecca and Moscow’, p.834.

40. For an analysis of various forms of solidarity in Chechnya and Ingushetia see E. Sokirianskaia,

‘Families and Clans in Ingushetia and Chechnya’, Central Asian Survey, Vol.24, No.4 (Dec. 2005),

pp.453–67; cf. K. Matsuzato and M.-R. Ibragimov, ‘Islamic Politics at the Sub-Regional Level in

Dagestan’, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol.57, No.5 (July 2005), pp.753–79.

41. Kisriev, Islam i vlast’, pp.103–4 and 145–6.

42. G. Yemelianova, ‘Sufism and Politics in the Northern Caucasus’, Nationalities Papers, Vol.29, No.4

(2001), p.669.

43. Kemper, ‘Khalidiyya Networks’, pp.50–51; cf. Kisriev, Islam i vlast’, pp.98–100.

44. Kemper, ‘Khalidiyya Networks’, pp.52–68.

45. Ibid., pp.65–6.

46. For details of their cadre policy see Matsuzato and Ibragimov, ‘Islamic Politics’, and Kisriev, Islam i

vlast’, pp.149–54.

47. Dobaev, Islamskii radikalizm, pp.342–5; on the ideological evolution of Basaev see I. Rotar’, Pod

zelenym znamenem islama (Moscow: AIRO-XX, 2001), pp.35–6 and Kisriev, Islam i vlast, pp.172–6.

48. Zelkina, ‘The ‘‘Wahhabis’’’, pp.159–64.

49. Some scholars hold them responsible for the retaliatory bombings of several apartment complexes in

Moscow and South Russia in autumn 1999; see, e.g., Ware, ‘A Multitude of Evils’, pp.90–96.

50. See, e.g., ‘V Karachevo-Cherkesii zaderahli vakhkhabita s bombami i literaturoi’, Lenta.Ru: http://

lenta.ru/voijna/2003/08boevik/ and note 3 above.

51. Gammer, ‘Between Mecca and Moscow’, p.839; cf. Zelkina, ‘The ‘‘Wahhabis’’’, p.159.

52. Akaev, Sheikh Kunta Khadzhi, p.110.

53. D. Meskhidze, ‘Kunta-khadzhi’, in S. Prozorov (ed.), Islam na territorii byvshei Rossiiskoi imperii

(Moscow: Vostochnaia literatura, 1998), Vol.1, pp.61–2.

54. For details see my ‘A Clear and Present Danger’.

55. V. Akaev, Sufizm i vakhkhabizm na Severnom Kavkaze (Moscow: Institute for Ethnology and

Anthropology, 1999, Document # 127), pp.10–11.

56. Ibid., p.13.

57. Yemelianova, ‘Sufism’, p.681.

58. One hundred fighters, according to some reports, Akaev, Sufizm, p.13; cf. Kisriev, Islam i vlast’,

p.178.

59. Shamil Basaev died in a truck explosion allegedly engineered by Russian special forces on 10 July

2006.

60. A. Knysh, ‘The sada in History: A Critical Essay on Hadrami Historiography’, Journal of the Royal

Asiatic Society, Vol.9, No.2 (1999), pp.215–22.

61. For details see, A. Knysh, ‘The Cult of Saints and Religious Reformism in Hadhramawt’, in U.

Freitag and W. Clarence-Smith (eds.), Hadhrami Traders, Scholars and Statesmen in the Indian Ocean,

1750s–1960s (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997), pp.199–216 and N. Mobini-Kesheh, ‘Islamic Modernism in

Colonial Java’, in ibid., pp.231–48.

62. For details see my article ‘The tariqa on a Landcruiser: The Resurgence of Sufism in Yemen’, Middle

East Journal, Vol.3 (2001), pp.399–414.

63. A. Kotb, ‘La Tarıqa Ba ‘Alawiyya et le developpement d’un reseau soufi transnational’ (Ph.D. thesis,

Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Universite Paul Sezanne, Aix-Marseille III, 2003–2004), p.73.

64. F. Mermier, ‘L’islam politique au Yemen et la ‘‘Tradition’’ contre les ‘‘traditions’’’, Monde arabe:

Magreb Machrek, Vol.155 (Jan.–March 1997), pp.15–16; cf. Kotb, ‘La Tarıqa’, pp.71–2.

65. For details see, my article ‘The sada in History’.

66. For details see my article ‘The tariqa’, pp.406–8.

67. For details see Kotb, ‘La Tarıqa’, pp.38–42.

68. For a list of these sites see Kotb, ‘La Tarıqa’, p.130.


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

69. Knysh, ‘The tariqa’, pp.409–12.

70. Idem, ‘The sada’, p.220.

71. For a detailed account of this movement see F. Burgat and M. Sbitli, ‘Les Salafis au Yemen ou la

modernisation malgre tout’, Chroniques yemenites, Vol.10 (2002): http://cy.revues.org/document137.

html

72. Ibid., p.50, n.94.

73. Knysh, ‘The tariqa’, p.403.

74. Burgat and Sbitli, ‘Les Salafis’, p.8.

75. Ibid., p.14.

76. Ibid., p.13.

77. Ibid., pp.18–20.

78. Ibid., pp.27–30.

79. Kotb, ‘La Tarıqa’, pp.76–7.

80. For instance, they destroyed the shrine of the great Sufi scholar Ahmad b. ‘Alwan (d. 1267) in Yafrus

(near Ta‘izz); see M. Aziz, ‘Medieval Sufism in Yemen: The Case of Ahmad b. ‘Alwan’ (Ph.D. thesis,

University of Michigan, 2004).


82. For details see Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong, pp.87–194.


84. Ibid., p.96.

85. Burgat and Sbitli, ‘Les Salafis’, pp.37–8.

86. Tishkov, Obschestvo v vooruzhennom konflikte, pp.339–49.

87. M.A. Al-Zekri, ‘The Religious Encounter Between Sufis and Salafis: The Issue of Identity’ (Ph.D.

thesis, University of Exeter, 2004).

88. Gammer, ‘Islam’, p.836; cf. Kisriev, Islam i vlast’, p.136.

89. Kisriev, Islam i vlast’, p.135.

90. Ibid., p.136.

91. ‘Spisok bogoslovskikh i inykh trudov, izdannykh v RF i rekomendovannykh Sovetom Ulemov k

prochteniiu i izucheniiu’: http://www.majlisul-ulama.ru/doc_sp_rek.htm

530 A. Knysh

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Dic

le U

nive

rsity

] at

02:

44 1

3 N

ovem

ber

2014

contextualizing the salafi – sufi conflict (from the northern caucasus to hadramawt)

Documents