Kunta Hajji Kishiev

Kunta Haddschi Kischiev, contemporary graphic reconstruction

Kunta-haji ( Chechen Киши КIант Кунт-Хьаж, Russian Кунта-Хаджи Кишиев; born about 1830 in Istisu / Meltschchi, Chechnya , died in May 1867 in Ustyuzhna ) was a North Caucasian Sheikh , who during the Caucasus War , the 1817-1864 Chechen and Called Ingush for a peaceful stance towards Russia and founded a new Sufi movement, which the Russians called "Sicrism". The name came from the fact that Kunta Hajji and his followers performed the Dhikr (Russian: Sikr), the Sufi prayer ritual, loudly and also made music and danced, in contrast to the Naqshbandīya order that was then prevalent in the North Caucasus , in which a quiet Dhikr was favored. Kunta Haddschis ethnic affiliation is controversial: according to Alexander Dmitrievich Knysch he was Kumyke , according to "Grozny-Inform", an information agency of the Chechen Ministry of National Policy, External Relations, Public Information, he was a member of a Chechen tribe that originally an Arab tribe from Yemen .

Around 50 to 80 percent of the Muslims in Chechnya still feel obliged to the Sufi tradition (Will) established by Kunta Hādji . They are divided into five subgroups, which also will be called and to various sheikhs refer the reasoned Kunta Pilgrimage Holiday tradition. The grave of Kunta Hajji's mother in southeast Chechnya is still one of the most important sacred places in the North Caucasus. An Islamic University named after Kunta Hajji was opened in Grozny , the capital of Chechnya, in 2009. He is also considered one of the role models and examples of non-violent traditions and currents in Islam.

Life

Early years and first pilgrimage to Mecca

Kunta's family came from the Kumyk village of Incho in Dagestan , according to other sources, from the village of Meltschchi in Chechnya . His father Kizhi, after which he got his Russian name Kischiev, and his mother Hedi belonged to the Ta'ip ("clan") of the Gumchoj. When Kunta was seven years old, his family moved to the Aul Ilischkan-Yurt in the Chechen district of Gudermes . Kunta learned the Koran by heart by the age of twelve and then received religious training. He was introduced to the Naqshbandīya-Chālidīya, a subgroup of the Naqshbandīya order that was predominant in the North Caucasus at the time and who was also Imam Shamil , the religious and political leader of the Muslim mountain peoples of Dagestan and who was also introduced by a scholar named Tasho Hajji al-Indīrī Chechnya, belonged to.

In 1848/49 Kunta and his father were given permission by Imam Shamil to perform the Hajj , an extraordinary privilege at a time that was marked by the Caucasus War of the North Caucasian Muslims against the Russians. During his trip to Mecca , Kunta was probably introduced to the Qādirīya in Baghdad , but there is no information about who gave him this connection. Followers later said that ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī himself, who appeared to him in a dream, had introduced him to the order.

Preaching and clash with Imam Shamil

After his return, Kunta Hajji promoted his new order and went public with sermons. In it, he called not only for a peaceful stance towards Russia, but also for hard work and for abstaining from blood feuds, theft and alcohol. On a social level, he stressed in his sermons the need for neighborly care, mutual help and sharing one's own wealth with the poor.

Due to his popularity, Kunta soon came into conflict with Imam Shamil, who viewed him as a threatening rival. Altogether there were four points that contrasted him with Shamil and the Naqshbandīya:

1. Kunta practiced a loud dhikr and also had dances performed. This was considered a violation of Sharia law .
2. In contrast to Shamil, who demanded joint military action from his followers, Kunta Hajji called on his followers to tauba , self-purification and renunciation of the world.
3. Kunta taught that peaceful coexistence with the Russians was possible as long as they allowed the Chechens and Ingush to freely practice their religion and customs. He not only considered resistance to the Russians senseless, but even regarded it as a sin. He even predicted the collapse of Shamil's Imamat. Instead of fighting, Kunta recommended staying away from the unbelievers.
4. While Shamil taught that submission to Russian rule was tantamount to apostasy , Kunta taught that one could submit to Russian rule but still remain a good Muslim because acts of worship performed under Russian rule are also valid.

Imam Shamil had Kunta come to his headquarters near Wedeno three times and had long arguments with him. When he saw that he could not dissuade Kunta from his teaching, he sent him on a second pilgrimage to Mecca in 1858 to get rid of him.

Building the Brotherhood

When Kunta Hajji returned to the North Caucasus in 1861 or 1862, Shamil's Imamat had already collapsed. Among the war-weary Chechens and Ingush he now won a large number of followers with his sermons, which were given in very simple language. The Russians were initially positive about him, seeing his pacifist sermons as a suitable means of eliminating the remnants of the Islamic resistance in Chechnya.

The initiation into the brotherhood he founded made Kunta very simple: he himself or one of his representatives took the hand of the new adept and asked him to recognize the authority of the sheikh , to repeat the Shahāda a hundred times a day and in the ritual dance to participate in the Tarīqa . Kunta Hajji's followers recognized him as their Ustādh and regarded themselves as murīden . In order to spread his teaching among the masses, Kunta Hajji sent emissaries to the various Chechen and Ingush communities.

In the course of time, his movement developed institutional and administrative structures. Much like Shamil had done before, he appointed a number of his closest followers as deputies ( nuwwāb , so-called nāʾib ) in the various regions of Chechnya and Ingushetia. According to reports from the Russian colonial authorities, he divided Chechnya into a total of five “proxy bodies ” (niyābāt) , with each Nāʾib having several authorized representatives ( wukalāʾ , so-called wakīl ) under his control. These had the task of spreading the Tarīqa among the mountain people. The inner circle around Kunta Hajji consisted of his brother Mowsar, who was also the Nāʾib for the Avturchan district, Mjachik, the Nāʾib for the region between Urus-Martan and Achchoi-Martan, Bamat Girej Mitajew and Tschim-Mirsa Taumursajew.

According to Russian information, a total of 6,000 men and women followed Kunta Hajji's apprenticeship. Most of them lived in the villages of Shali , Gechi, Schaladschi, Urus-Martan and Avtury.

Conflict with the Russian authorities and deportation

Up until 1863, Kunta Hajji's sermons had a predominantly mystical and ascetic character. Some of his sermons now got a millenarian orientation and gave the impression that he was waiting for a divine sign in order to be able to start a new jihad . According to Russian sources, more and more of Shamil's earlier followers joined him during this time and understood his teaching as a new edition of his Ghazw ideology. The Russian authorities, suspicious of any doctrine that could mobilize the Muslim masses, encouraged respected local scholars such as ʿAbd al-Qādir Khordayev and Mustafā ʿAbdullajew to condemn “sicrism” as a doctrine contrary to Sharia law. They did this by attacking the dhikr rituals and dances practiced by Kunta Hajji's followers on the one hand, but also accusing him of lacking religious competence on the other. In response to these allegations, Kunta Hajji is said to have admitted his own incompetence in the area of ​​the outer teachings of Islam, but at the same time pointed out that, unlike these scholars, he was in possession of the knowledge about the inner essence of Islam. Later follower accounts attribute a number of miracles to him, allegedly demonstrating his superiority over his learned opponents.

In the years 1862/63 a wave of unrest swept over Chechnya, and since Grand Duke Michael Nikolayevich Romanov was uncanny about the increasing number of Kunta Hajji's supporters, he let him in on January 15, 1864 with his brother and several of his supporters arrested near Shali and taken to the Novocherkassk military prison . A few months later he was separated from his followers and deported to the city of Ustyuzhna in Novgorod Oblast .

Kunta Hajji spent the rest of his life in great poverty under police supervision in Ustyuzhna. Letters to his wife and family asking for financial support did not reach their destination as they were intercepted by the Russian secret police. Kunta Hajji died of an illness in May 1867.

History of his brotherhood after his deportation

"Battle of the Daggers" and emigration movement

The arrest of Kunta Hajji provoked an uprising of his supporters, which is referred to in Russian sources as the "Battle of the Daggers" (kinschalnij boj) . 3,000 to 4,000 of them, armed with daggers, sabers and sticks, walked in a ritual procession on January 26, 1864 to a Russian unit stationed near the Chechen village of Shali , believing that Kunta Hajji was being held there. As they approached the unit and began to dance and chant Qādirite litanies, they were gunned down by Russian troops. 164 murderers died , including six women, or - as the Russian sources say - men disguised as women. The site of the “Battle of the Daggers” near Shali is now considered one of the most sacred places for the Chechens. It is possible that the followers of Kunta Hajji believed that the mystical power of their master would protect them from the gunfire of the Russian troops. After the massacre, the Russian administration arrested many supporters of the movement and deported them to Russia.

In May 1865, a Chechen supporter of Kunta Hajji from the Aul Kharachoy named Tosa Akmirsajew (or Tasa Ekmirsa) declared himself the new imam and called on the people of the Chechen mountain region, known as Ichkeria, to gather on June 5th . According to Russian reports, he claimed to have ascended to heaven himself and to have received an order from God to represent the "prophet Kunta Hajji" as an imam. Several former followers of Kunta Hajji, including Mjachik, joined him. The Russian administration reacted with a hard hand and put down the uprising with three infantry units in a short time. Tasa was sentenced to twelve years of forced labor and deported to Siberia. After the Russian authorities had strictly forbidden the loud dhikr as a sign of disloyalty, there was still a mass emigration of Ingush and Chechens to Ottoman territory in 1865 . About 23,000 to 30,000 Chechens, most of them followers of Kunta Hajji, boarded Ottoman ships and left the country.

The Kunta Hajji movement also had a great influence among the Ingush: Due to its influence, the last non-Muslim Ingush clans converted to Islam by around 1870.

The split into wills

Kunta Hajji left no offspring. After his death, his mother was able to maintain the brotherhood's spiritual unity for a short time. Then they split into four sub-groups will have been called and were led by a former deputies of Kuntas each:

1. The will of Omar Hajji , a Kumyk in North Dagestan, who was considered the actual successor to Kunta Hajji. He was followed Qahraman Pilgrimage Holiday, a Chechen in Aul of Shali , Husain Pilgrimage Holiday in Plievo in Ingushetia , Gharabig-Pilgrimage Holiday in Nasyr-Korta in Nazran -Distrikt of Ingushetia, Rajab Dibir Aliyev in Tsumada with the Avars and Ysuf Pilgrimage Holiday in Mahkema in the Chechen district Vedeno as a deputy. This core brotherhood of Kunta Hajji continues to exist as a separate becoming in Chechnya and in the mountain regions of Dagestan.
2. the Will of Bamat Girej Hajji Mitayev , who has his center in the avtura aul in Ingushetia . The followers of this will are also known as “head noders” because of their specific Dhikr ritual.
3. the Will Batal Pilgrimage Holiday Belchorojew with center in the Auls of Surhohi, Yandyrka and Jekaschewo in the district of Nazran , which is considered very "fanatical". Initially it was limited to Ingushetia, but later it also spread to the Achchoi-Martan region of Chechnya , north Dagestan , the Muslim parts of north Ossetia and Kabardino-Balkaria .
4. the Will of Tschim-Mirsa Taumursajew with its center in the Aul of Mairtup in the Shali district in Chechnya. Since the followers of this will also use drums in the dhikr rituals, they were also called barabanschtschiki ("drummers") in Soviet literature . To this day, Will has followers in Ingushetia and Chechnya.

To this day, the various wills are each headed by a Ustādh or Murschid ("spiritual leader"), who comes from the family of the namesake.

History under Soviet rule

When the Soviets began to take action against the Sufi Brotherhood in 1929, the murīds of the Kunta-Hajji groups took part in uprisings together with the followers of the Naqschbandīya. In 1930, two Kunta-Hajji murids killed the two Russian chiefs of the secret police in Ingushetia and Chechnya.

After Ingush and Chechens were deported to Kazakhstan in 1944, Viz Hajhi Sagiyev, a member of the Tschim-Mirsa-Werden, founded a new branch of the Kunta-Hajji Brotherhood, which is named after him, Viz-Hajji-Ist. The Dhikr of this fifth group is characterized by the fact that women and children are allowed to participate and that it is accompanied by music with string instruments. Wis Hajji won supporters with his new Will not only in Chechnya and Ingushetia, but also in Dagestan, in the Central Caucasus, in Azerbaijan and in Kazakhstan. Since the Kunta-Hajji groups were still suspected of preparing a jihad against the Soviets, they were closely observed by the security authorities after the return of the North Caucasian peoples to their homeland in 1957.

The grave of Kunta Hajji's mother

The grave of Kunta Haji's mother Hedi in the village of Guni (Haji Otar) in the Chechen district of Wedeno is still one of the most important holy places in the North Caucasus. Apparently in order to break the supporters of the Brotherhood and their resistance to Soviet rule, it was destroyed twice - in 1941 and 1961 - during the Soviet period. Even after that, the pilgrimage of the Kunta Hajji groups to this place continued.

In 1995, conflict over the sanctuary broke out again when Wahhabis , who consider the worship of tombs to be forbidden idolatry , tried to destroy the tomb. However, the followers of Kunta Hajji were determined to defend the sanctuary and armed themselves. Because of this, the Wahhabis gave up on their plan. The conflict was the beginning of a lengthy power struggle between anti-Sufi Islamist Wahhabis and Sufi supporters in the Chechen independence movement. B. led to the defection of the Mufti of Chechnya Akhmat Kadyrov , who later became the first president of the pro-Russian government of Chechnya.

literature

• Vachit Chumidovič Akajev: Šejch Kunta-Chadži: žizn 'i učenie. Grozny 1994.
• Alexandre Bennigsen: "The Qādirīyah (Kunta Ḥājjī) Ṭarīqah in North-East Caucasus: 1850-1987" in Islamic Culture (Hyderabad) 62 (1988) 63-78.
• Alexandre Bennigsen, S. Enders Wimbush: Mystics and Commissars: Sufism in the Soviet Union . University of California Press, Berkeley, 1985. pp. 20f.
• Moshe Gammer : The Lone Wolf and the Bear: Three Centuries of Chechen Defiance of Russian Rule . Hurst, London 2006, ISBN 1-85065-748-3 , pp. 73-81 .
• EF Kisriev: "Islamic Movements in the Northern Caucasus and their relations with the authorities." In Hans-Georg Heinrich, Ludmilla Lobova, Alexey Malashenko (eds.): Will Russia Become a Muslim Society . Peter Lang, Frankfurt a. M. u. a., 2011. pp. 39-84. Here pp. 47–49.
• Michael Kemper: "Chechnya" in Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE Edited by: Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson. First published in 2012. On-line
• Alexander Knysh : Art. “Al-Ḳabḳ. 3. The period 1800 to the present day "in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition . Vol. XII, pp. 486-501. Here pp. 491b-493a.
• Anna Zelkina: "Some Aspects of the Teaching of Kunta Hajji: On the basis of a manuscript by ʿAbd al-Salam written in 1862 AD" in Journal of the History of Sufism 1/2 (2000) 483-507.
• Anna Zelkina: "Učenije Kunta-Chadži v zapisi ego muridi" in Etnografičeskoje obozrenije 2 (2006) 34–46. Digitized (abridged Russian version of the previous article)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ A. Knysh: Art. Al-Ḳabḳ in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. XII, p. 491b.
2. ↑ Ислам Сайдаев: Шейх Кунта-Хаджи - страница чеченской истории, написанная "золотыми буквами", "Groz January 3, 2012- ."
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Kemper: "Chechnya" in EI³ . 2012.
4. ↑ Damir Ziniurevich Khaireddinov : “Islamic Education in Russia. The History of its Establishment ”in Hans-Georg Heinrich, Ludmilla Lobova, Alexey Malashenko (eds.): Will Russia Become a Muslim Society . Peter Lang, Frankfurt a. M. u. a., 2011. pp. 151-178. Here p. 167.
5. ↑ Michael Shank: Islam's Nonviolent Tradition . In: The Nation . April 27th 2011, ISSN  0027-8378 ( thenation.com [accessed on 24 June 2015]).
6. ↑ Bennigsen / Wimbush: Mystics and Commissars . 1985, p. 20
7. ↑ Web archives of the biography of Kunta Hajji on the website of the Islamic Kunta Hajji University of Grozny (Russian)
8. ↑ Деминцева Е. Б .: Ислам в Европе и в России . Издательский дом "Марджани", Москва 2009, p. 216 .
9. ^ ^{A b c} Moshe Gammer: The Lone Wolf and the Bear . 2006, ISBN 1-85065-748-3 , pp. 74 .
10. ↑ Bennigsen / Wimbush: Mystics and Commissars . 1985, p. 20
11. ↑ Knysh: Art. Al-Ḳabḳ in EI² Vol. XII, pp. 491b-492a.
12. ^ Moshe Gammer: The Lone Wolf and the Bear . 2006, ISBN 1-85065-748-3 , pp. 75 f .
13. ↑ ^{a b c d} Knysh: Art. Al-Ḳabḳ in EI² Vol. XII, p. 492a.
14. ^ ^{A b} Moshe Gammer: The Lone Wolf and the Bear . 2006, ISBN 1-85065-748-3 , pp. 76 .
15. ↑ Bennigsen: The Qādirīyah (Kunta Ḥājjī) Ṭarīqah . 1988, p. 64.
16. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Knysh: Art. Al-Ḳabḳ in EI² Vol. XII, p. 492b.
17. ^ Moshe Gammer: The Lone Wolf and the Bear . 2006, ISBN 1-85065-748-3 , pp. 77 .
18. ^ ^{A b} Moshe Gammer: The Lone Wolf and the Bear . 2006, ISBN 1-85065-748-3 , pp. 78 .
19. ↑ Bennigsen / Wimbush: Mystics and Commissars . 1985, p. 122
20. ↑ ^{a b} Kisriev: Islamic Movements in the Northern Caucasus . 2011, p. 48.
21. ^ Moshe Gammer: The Lone Wolf and the Bear . 2006, ISBN 1-85065-748-3 , pp. 81 .
22. ↑ Bennigsen: The Qādirīyah (Kunta Ḥājjī) Ṭarīqah . 1988, p. 66.
23. ↑ Gammer
24. ↑ Bennigsen / Wimbush: Mystics and Commissars . 1985, p. 21.
25. ↑ Kemal H. Karpat: The Politicization of Islam. Reconstructing State Identity, State, Faith, and the Community in the late Ottoman State. Oxford 2001, p. 40. ( online )
26. ↑ Bennigsen: The Qādirīyah (Kunta Ḥājjī) Ṭarīqah . 1988, p. 66.
27. ↑ Bennigsen / Wimbush: Mystics and Commissars . 1985, pp. 70f.
28. ↑ Bennigsen / Wimbush: Mystics and Commissars . 1985, p. 24.
29. ↑ ^{a b c} Kisriev: Islamic Movements in the Northern Caucasus . 2011, p. 49.
30. ^ ^{A b c} Bennigsen / Wimbush: Mystics and Commissars . 1985, p. 10.
31. ↑ Bennigsen / Wimbush: Mystics and Commissars . 1985, p. 28.
32. ↑ Bennigsen / Wimbush: Mystics and Commissars . 1985, pp. 10, 71.
33. ↑ Bennigsen / Wimbush: Mystics and Commissars . 1985, pp. 104f.
34. ↑ Bennigsen / Wimbush: Mystics and Commissars . 1985, p. 120.
35. ↑ Bennigsen: The Qādirīyah (Kunta Ḥājjī) Ṭarīqah . 1988, p. 66.
36. ↑ Vakhit Akaev: "Religio-politicial conflict in the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria" in Central Asia & Central Caucasus Press ( undated ) Online .