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7 - Taqlīd and Ijtihād over the Centuries: The Debates on Islamic Legal Theory in Daghestan, 1700s–1920s
- Edited by Paolo Sartori, Danielle Ross, Utah State University
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- Book:
- Shari'a in the Russian Empire
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 22 September 2020
- Print publication:
- 31 March 2020, pp 239-280
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- Chapter
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Summary
Introduction
In scholarly literature, the history of the development in Daghestan of Islamic legal theory (usūl al-fiqh), in general, and the polemic on taqlīd and ijtihād, specifically, continue to receive little study. The few works that do address this topic do not fully reveal the depth of this polemic within the framework of Shāfiʿī legal tradition, which spread in Daghestan from the beginning of the eleventh century, the reasons it emerged or how it functioned from a historical perspective.
The main shortcoming of most existing works on Islamic law in Daghestan is that they do not consider the multi-layered character of ijtihād or the subtleties of discussions among the Daghestani Muslim elite concerning this topic. With rare exceptions, scholars study the problem of ijtihād without connecting it to the internal and external factors at play during the appearance and development of the ijtihād discourses. Also, there is still a tendency in Russian-language scholarship to present ijtihād as existing in opposition to taqlīd. However, as can be seen in Arabic-language Daghestani sources, ijtihād and taqlīd cannot be viewed as opposing or exclusive processes. Elements of ijtihād were never fully purged from the Shāfiʿī legal tradition. In fact, the boundary between ijtihād and taqlīd in the Daghestani written tradition is less than clear; those jurists who are described in the local tradition as supporters of taqlīd, in fact permitted the use of certain kinds of ijtihād. In other words, all the discussions of taqlīd and ijtihād in Daghestan were not based primarily upon the opposition of the two methods to each other, but, rather, focused on the permissibility of different levels of ijtihād.
These debates continued with varying degrees of intensity for several centuries and they were carried on across several historical epochs: the pre-colonial period, the colonial period and the early Soviet period. The variations in intensity of the polemic can be explained by several factors, including the outside influence of the great Islamic legal authorities of the Middle East. However, the discourses were also influenced by the internal socio-economic and political transformations of Daghestani society: the struggle of Daghestani jurists against the ascendancy of customary law (ʿadāt), the period of jihād against the Russian Empire and the Great Reforms of the second half of the nineteenth century, when Daghestan was integrated into the social and economic framework of the Russian Empire.
8 - Kunta Ḥājjī and the Stolen Horse
- Edited by Paolo Sartori, Danielle Ross, Utah State University
-
- Book:
- Shari'a in the Russian Empire
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 22 September 2020
- Print publication:
- 31 March 2020, pp 281-298
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
Introduction
This paper is a contribution to the study of Kunta Ḥājjī al-Iliskhānī (1830?–67), the famous Chechen Sufi who is still enormously popular in Chechnya. Reportedly a representative of the Qādiriyya brotherhood, Kunta Ḥājjī established a Sufi network in Chechnya, Ingushetia and parts of Daghestan, and came into conflict with a rival brotherhood, the expanding Naqshbandiyya khālidiyya that had its stronghold in central Daghestan. According to Russian reports he was rebuked by jihād leader Shāmil (Shamwīl, Imām in central Daghestan and parts of Chechnya from 1834 to 1859), apparently on the issue of the loud dhikr ceremonies that Kunta and his disciples practiced, with round dances, chanting and musical instruments. Kunta is said to have rejected Shāmil's jihād, and to have called for non-violent resistance against the Russians instead. Many historians see him as a strong proponent of customary law (ʿādāt) against Islamic law. According to the many Chechen and Russian accounts, Kunta escaped conflict with Shāmil by making a second hajj pilgrimage, from which he returned in 1862. He then gained more adherents who were dis¬satisfied with the long and unsuccessful militant resistance to the Russians, and placed his representatives in various villages. The Russian authorities soon became suspicious of Kunta's network, which they apparently saw as a parallel administration.
In the last days of 1863, Kunta and some of his murīds were imprisoned, and exiled to the Vologda area of Russia's north. In 1864, a rebellion of his remaining murīds in Chechnya – armed with nothing but daggers, and apparently motivated by the expectation of the End of Times – was blood¬ily suppressed by the Russian military. The movement disintegrated into several groups called wirds (from the Arabic word for ‘Sufi litany’), which were led by his disciples of the first and second generations. Next to the ‘Kunta Ḥājjī’ wird proper, today there are still other groups that emerged by names such as ‘Bammat-Gireis’, ‘Ali-Mitaevs’ and ‘Chim-Mirzas’. These Sufi groups still exist today. Often with hereditary leaderships, these branches of the Kunta Ḥājjī network differ in their male headdress and the musical instruments they use, and some groups allow women to participate in their round dances while others do not.