In Quest for God and Freedom. The Sufi Response to the Russian Advance in the NorthCaucasus by Anna ZelkinaReview by: Laurence BroersThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 80, No. 4 (Oct., 2002), pp. 747-748Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4213590 .

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REVIEWS 747

of a well-organized delegation from Belorussia which secured the Jews' inclusion after a formal presentation before the Senate.

This is an outstanding piece of social history and a major contribution to our understanding of the relations of Jews with the local and national authorities in post-partition Eastern Europe. Research libraries should make an effort to secure a copy before it becomes a bibliographical rarity.

Department of Hebrew and J7ewish Studies J. D. KLIER University College London

Zelkina, Anna. In Questfor God and Freedom. The Sufi Response to the Russian Advance in the North Caucasus. C. Hurst & Company, London, 2000. XXiii + 265 pp. Notes. Maps. Illustrations. Glossary. Bibliography. Index. ?45.??.

IN a world galvanized into discussion of Muslim responses to the challenge of the West, this new history of Islamic responses to the Russian advance into the North Caucasus could not be more timely. Anna Zelkina examines the religious revival in what is present-day Dagestan and Chechnya, beginning in the late eighteenth century and culminating in the defeat of the 'third imam of the Caucasus', Shamil, in I859. Her focus is the remarkable rise of the Sufi Naqshbandiyya order (tariqa), and its impact not only on anti-colonial resistance, but more significantly, on patterns of social and political organiza- tion in the region. Hitherto this topic has been researched mainly in terms of the military history of the Russian conquest, as a purely anti-colonial struggle or, in Soviet historiography, through an ideologically skewed view of 'fundamentalism'. Zelkina brings a new perspective to this period in focusing on the religious and social aspects of the Naqshbandi movement, thereby redressing the past denial of a wider Islamic dimension to the Naqshbandi phenomenon. To do so, she draws upon on a wide range of primary sources in both Russian and Arabic, including hitherto untranslated writings of North Caucasian Naqshbandi sheikhs.

Zelkina traces the development of the Naqshbandiyya order from Iran and Central Asia, through permutations first in Moghul India and later in Ottoman lands in the eighteenth century. She argues that by adapting Naqshbandi principles to local political prerogatives, Naqshbandi sheikhs increasingly emphasized the legal (/iqh) as well as spiritual aspects of shari?a, and the principle of 'solitude within the crowd', implying a more active role for Naqshbandi adepts in social and political matters. This established the Naqshbandi order as a powerful potential force for social and political mobilization. The north-eastern Caucasus, home to a long-standing tradition of Islam, proved fertile ground for this increasingly political and revisionist viewv of Muslim priorities. Confronted with military and technological superiority in the form of the Russian Empire, communities in the north Caucasus were faced with an urgent crisis of moral, social and political decline.

Zelkina's key and highly plausible thesis is that the Naqshbandi order provided the ideology and organizational structure necessary for a coherent response to the Russian challenge. Over time, the initially separate mystical

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748 SEER, 8o, 4, 2002

and political aspects of Naqshbandi merged, and a pattern of political leadership legitimated by spiritual authority emerged, supplanting traditional secular leadership. The first Naqshbandi leader to effectively combine both aspects was Ghazi Muhammad (?I 793-i832), who declared ghazavat ('holy war') as key to the establishment of shari"a. Pursuit of this goal culminated in the creation of the first state formation amongst the North Caucasian peoples, Shamil's imamate. The Naqshbandi movement represents the first attempt at modernization in the North Caucasus, introducing recognizably modern forms of political leadership, social contract and collective identity. As such it stands as the ne plus ultra of indigenous, as opposed to Russian- or Soviet- imposed modernization in the region. The chapters on the imamate provide an overdue focus on Shamil's administrative, fiscal, military and religious reforms.

The account presented here provides a fascinating basis for comparison with more recent events. As the word play in the book's title suggests, the Naqshbandi search for responses to external challenges took the form of an introspective inquest, a judicial enquiry into the current moral and social state of Muslim communities. Initial targets for Naqshbandi activists were the recognized Muslim authorities advocating a more conciliatory relationship with the Russians. Ghazavat was therefore a bi-focal phenomenon, aimed at both the established Muslim authorities, lambasted as corrupting 'true Muslim values', and the Russian menace. The radical orthodoxy of the Naqshbandi engendered a dual debate, on one front between Muslims as to the forms that a modern Islam should take, and on the other with the non-Muslim world. The extraordinary success of the Naqshbandiyya reflects the capacity of radical orthodoxy, reliant on other-worldly values, to feed an ideology of resistance to challenges firmly rooted in this world.

Adapted from a PhD thesis, this lucid, well-written account presents an important contribution to the history of the North Caucasus, as well as to the intellectual history of Sufi Islam. For those who wish to probe the history of the current situation in the North Caucasus beyond the recent wave of books dealing explicitly with the conflict in Chechnya, this book is essential reading.

Department of Political Studies LAURENCE BROERS School of Oriental and African Studies University of London

Kelly, Laurence. Diplomacy and Murder in Tehran. Alexander Griboyedov and Imperial Russia's Mission to the Shah of Persia. I. B. Tauris, London and New York, 2002. xiii + 3I4 pp Maps. Illustrations. Appendices. Notes. Biblio- graphy. Index. 25s.00.

GRIBOEDOV'S masterpiece Gore ot Uma has ensured him a permanent place alongside the great names of Russian literature. Its undoubted literary merits apart, its political tendency and the author's association with the Decembrists have often led to his being identified with the progressive wing of the Russian intelligentsia. But as Professor Kelly's new biography shows, Griboedov was an extremely complex person and his career as a diplomat and servant of the

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