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The Search for Identity. This Gives the Opposition Political Parties a Solid 294 BOOK REVIEWS the search for identity. This gives the opposition political parties a solid and popularly accepted platform from which to challenge the government and the autocracy of the ruling elites (including the old atheistic communist cadres,, some of whom have sought popular acceptance, as Rashid notes, by performing the pilgrimage to Makka). The author correctly notes, in the chapter on foreign policy, that the so-called 'Muslim fundamentalism' is not a native product but is exported to Central Asia by the three previously named foreign powers: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan, each of which seeks to use Islam to establish and consolidate its own influence in the area. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jis/article/6/2/294/710283 by guest on 27 September 2021 Rashid's book is excellent, but it has a number of weaknesses. It was obviously written in a hurry, with a certain journalistic flavour designed to please the casual reader, hence, it is marred by a series of factual errors and confusing dates. For example, the dates given for the alphabet to change from Arabic to Latin to Cyrillic vary from place to place; President Ozal of Turkey is said to have died 'during a tour of Central Asia' (211; actually it was after he returned to Turkey), etc The book nevertheless retains its basic value as one of the most complete, informed, and insightful analyses of events and people in Central Asia to be published in the last few years. It can be read with great profit by the general public and can be used as an introductory textbook by teachers of Central Asian courses. Kemal H. Karpat University of Wisconsin, Madison The North Caucasus Barrier: The Russian Advance towards the Muslim World Edited by MARIE BENNIGSEN-BROXUP. London: Hurst and Co., 1992. Pp. 245. Price HB £27.50. 1-85065-069-1. This book attempts to tell the story of the resistance of small Muslim groups in a little-known part of the world to the advance of the Russians towards the heartland of the Islamic world in the Middle East. Indeed, few people, including many educated Muslims, are aware that the northern rim of the Caucasian mountains is inhabited by many Muslim groups, such as the Daghistanis, Balkars, Karachais, Chechens, Inqush, Kumyks, Noyai, and others, speaking a variety of Turkic and Cherkess dialects. Some of these, such as the Daghistanis, accepted Islam from the Arabs, along with the Arabic language (mainly spoken by their elites) in the eighth and ninth centuries, while the Chechens and some Ossetians and the Inqush converted to Islam mainly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Today these peoples, organized in autonomous republics, oblasts, etc., are all part of the Russian Federation, and thus still subject to its jurisdiction; hence their relative anonymity. The contributors to the book—altogether eight people, including Abdurahman Avtorkhanov, the Chechen scholar and nationalist fighter— are well acquainted with the area, either through dedication to scholarly BOOK REVIEWS 2£5 research—such as Moshc Gammer of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Chantal Lemercier-Quelguejay, an associate of the late Alexander Bennigsen— or through travel, political interest, and free-lance research—Marie Bennigsen- Broxup, who has made the largest contribution (four articles) to the book, Paul B. Henze, and Fanny E. B. Brian (another Bennigsen daughter). Actually, the entire book, not merely Moshc Gammer's contribution, should have been dedicated to the memory of Alexander Bennigsen, who practically single- handedly 'discovered' and brought to world attention this little-known but vital corner of the Islamic world. It should be noted that the northern Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jis/article/6/2/294/710283 by guest on 27 September 2021 Caucasus inhabited by Muslims lies at or about 250 to 300 miles (crow's flight) from the Turkish and Iranian borders and provides via the Caspian Sea a sort of link between the Muslims of Astrakhan (or whatever is left of them), Bashkirdstan, and western Khazakhstan with their coreligionists in the south. Russia tried to expand into the north Caucasus in the sixteenth century but could not establish any political hegemony there until the eighteenth and, especially, the nineteenth century. Over the years from 1801" to 1856 the tsar took possession of the southern Caucasus, that is Azerbaijan and Georgia, and then of the Ottoman lands bordering the Black Sea. Despite their advances the tsarist, and later the Soviet, regime was unable to subdue completely the north Caucasus inhabitated by these Muslim groups. The strong Caucasian Muslim resistance to the Russian expansion was rooted in and facilitated by the mountainous terrain of their countries, their tribal organization and solidarity, and, especially, by their faith, which played the role of both unifying ideology and culture that kept them apart from the conquering Russians. The book tells once more, adding considerable new information, the story of muridism, the struggles of the three imams (and their predecessor Gazimolla), and, especially, of Shaykh Shamil, who kept at bay roughly from 1834 to 1859 the well-armed forces of the tsar. The Russian administration tried to co-opt the north Caucasian Muslims into the tsar's service by getting them to convert to Christianity, and by granting them army positions and titles, as described by Lemercier in her socio-historical survey, only to see their efforts remain unsuccessful. The later Muslim converts, particularly the Chechen, were the ones who fought most fiercely against the Russians and then against the communists, using every available orthodox and unorthodox means. For instance, many leading officers of the local communist organizations in Caucasia were also members of the religious brotherhoods—that is, the Naqshbandi tarikats which kept the population mobilized against foreign occupiers. In 1944 Stalin deported the Chechens, along with the Karachais and Balkan, to Central Asia; but these groups began to return to their homeland soon after Stalin's death in 1953. Other deported Muslim groups, such as the Crimeans, did not start their homeward trip until recently; and the Turks of Ahiska (Meskets), who were expelled to Central Asia in 1944, are prevented even today by the Georgian government from going back to their ancestral homes. The last ghazawat, that is 'holy war5 (ghazawat, the plural of ghaxa, is the name given by the imams to their wars against the Russians), was fought Z&6 BOOK REVIEWS ferociously in Chechenia and Daghistan in 1920-1. The Bolsheviks, after using the Muslims to defeat the White Army of Denikin, turned against their 'allies' and used every conceivable form of force and deception to annihilate them: in one case the Soviets induced a resistance fighter to give up his struggle by offering him 'pardon', but the secret service man who handed him the certificate of 'pardon' with one hand shot him with the other. The Muslim fighter, however, had enough life in him to stab the Russian to death. In the light of this historical Caucasian resistance to Russian expansion—only a bare sketch has been presented here—it is quite easy to understand why the Chechens and Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jis/article/6/2/294/710283 by guest on 27 September 2021 other Caucasians took advantage of the putsch of the Yanev junta against Gorbachev's 'reform' government in 1991, to declare their independence. Indeed, the Pan-National Congress of the Chechen Peoples (it included the Ingush) denounced the coup as well as their own local communist leaders. The group under the leadership of Dzhokhar (Zuhar) Dudaev eventually took control of the Chechen government and of the communication offices and other official outlets in Grozni, the capital. On 27 November 1991 the Chechen- Ingush Supreme Soviet declared that their republic was sovereign. The situation thus created in 1991 is analysed with convincing authority by Marie Broxup in her contribution. It had not changed at the time of writing of this review (November 1994), despite a variety of threats by Yeltsin's central government and the employment of the usual devious measures (such as the organizing of rebellions by 'loyal' Chechens) by Moscow in order to re-establish control. The collapse of the Soviet Union certainly has not changed the imperialist mentality of the Russians; on the contrary, it seems to have strenghtened it. Currently the Chechen and the mountain groups in Daghistan have proclaimed a sort of gatawat and, together with Muslim volunteers from other regions of the Caucasus, have joined Dudaev's army. As of now Chechenia is the only autonomous republic within the Russian Federation to have declared its inde- pendence and to have implemented a de facto sovereignty, and, as one might expect, no Muslim government has yet dared recognize Chechenia's independence. The contributions to this book were presented as communications to a conference held in London in 1988. Many of the original communications have been expanded and updated, but there is in this book the usual repetition, which one must regard as normal in a collection of essays dealing with a little- known area accessible only to a few die-hards. The contributions are based on a wealth of objectively analysed historical, anthropological, and political data, occasionally presented in a particularly sympathetic manner. The book fills a major gap in the study of the Muslims of Russia, and is an invaluable source of information for the general public, as well as for students of the Caucasus in particular and Russia and the former Soviet Union in general. It is highly recommended reading for everybody, especially for those Muslims who see their faith just as a body of pious teaching requiring docile submission to the strong rather than as a stimulant for action designed to preserve identity, independence, and dignity as a Muslim and as a human being.
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