A lesson for today's jihadis

The 1660 Deccan campaign of Mughal general Shaista Khan, Emperor Aurangzeb's uncle, to subdue the rebellious Shivaji had all the ingredients of a jihad. In one of the battles, the bravery and skill of Shivaji's valiant commander Firangoji Narasale greatly impressed him. Eventually, when Khan won the battle and the captured Narasale was brought before him, the Mughal general couldn't help but praise his bravery in front of his own officers. An appreciative Khan didn't stop at that and offered him a high position in the Mughal army. But when Narasale refused, Khan allowed him to go back to Shivaji honourably.

Such magnanimity is unthinkable in the jihad of the ultra-Wahabi Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or Al Qaeda, whose only mission is to kill innocents in their Islamic war. ISIS is going a step further and abducting the women of the non-believers, many of whom are their own co-religionists who differ with them only in the theological interpretation of Islam. It is time to recall the inclusive jihad of one of the most revered Islamic fighters of the 19th century - Imam Shamil, a Sufi preacher of the Naqshbandi order, who waged jihad in the form of a gallant guerrilla struggle against Russia's oppressive occupation of Caucasian regions of Daghestan and Chechnya from 1834 to 1859 with unequalled chivalry, skill and honour. In the end, when he surrendered before the Russians, the czar was compelled to keep the captive in a mansion in royal style and even allowed him to spend his last days in the holy land of Mecca in appreciation of his character. Born in 1797 to a Naqshbandi land holder of the village of Girmi in modern day Daghestan, Shamil is one of the important characters of Peter Hopkirk's famous book Great Games, which captures the great struggle between Britain and Russia for the control of Central Asia in the 18th and 19th centuries. Hopkirk has depicted Shamil as a hero while describing him as a brilliant guerrilla fighter.

Shamil's jihad had three or four main objectives: stopping distribution of liquor, preaching of Christian faith by Russians in Muslim lands and protecting the local Muslim culture against Russian aggression, which had shades of a Christian crusade. But Shamil's jihad had ingredients that are unthinkable in the jihad that has been unleashed in the 21st century by a group of so called faithfuls. When he took over the leadership of the Caucasian Muslims fighting Russian occupation in 1834, he made his main aims known to his followers: ''Don't kill old men, women and children and don't fell trees and destroy crop fields.'' The captured Russians were treated honourably by him, and some of the non-Muslims among the non-Russians even joined his army for a living, drawn by his charitable nature.

The battles that he fought with the Russians were fierce and bloody. European military historians regarded Shamil highly because with his guerrilla battle tactics and bravery, he kept at bay Russians who had defeated Napolean. That too with his small army and poor resources. Apart from dozens of small encounters, there are four major battles listed in his name against Russians, in all of which he gave the enemy a tough time with just 4,000 of his soldiers taking on the 25,000 to 30,000-strong Russians. In the battle of Ahulgo, Shamil lost 300 of the 4,000 warriors while the Russians lost close to 5,000 in an army of 30,000. His strategy was to inflict heavy casualties on the Russians by guerrilla warfare and then leave the battlefield to minimise damage to his forces. The idea was to wear out the Russians. He gave an account of his uncommon bravery and skill very early in his career in the battle of Gimri in 1832, which he fought as a common soldier under commander Ghazi Molla. When the Daghestanis had almost lost the battle, he jumped from an elevated stoop "clean over the heads of the very line of soldiers about to fire on him. Landing behind them, whirling his sword in his left hand, he cut down three of them, but was bayoneted by the fourth, the steel plunging deep into his chest. He seized the bayonet, pulled it out of his own flesh, cut down the man, and with another superhuman leap, cleared the wall and vanished in the darkness".

The Russians were dumbstruck. Shamil took over as Imam or commander of the Naqsbandhi army in 1734. His surrender in 1859 came, on one hand, as a result of honourable acceptance of all his major demands by the tired Russians and, on the other, owing to his own exhaustion after a quarter of a century of incessant fighting against an enemy several times more powerful than him. On his surrender, in which he was fully armed, unlike a defeated commander, Russians curiously asked him how he could wage an endless war with them with such a small army. When he explained his guerrilla tactics, they were amazed. No wonder they called him a war genius. After his capture, he was sent to meet Czar Alexander-II in St Petersburg and then settled in a small settlement on Moscow's outskirts before he was shifted to Kiev, where he was kept in the royal style even though he was under captivity. In 1869, after 10 years of captivity, he asked for permission to go to Mecca and Medina and got it from an accommodating Russian leadership. When he was on his way to Arabia by sea, hordes of Muslims drawn to his fame came to see him on the ports where his vessel was anchored.

In Turkey, Sultan Abdul Aziz made Shamil break his journey to make him his guest in the Istanbul Palace. During a conversation, when the Sultan hinted to him that his battles would have been fought by his Murids (his followers) and not by him in person, an angry Shamil got up from his chair and showed the Sultan 40 scars left behind by the serious wounds he had suffered in battles. Abdul Aziz was overwhelmed and offered his throne for Shamil to sit in deep appreciation. On reaching Mecca, he had the good fortune of meeting the world famous Algerian Sufi fighter - of the Qaddirya order - Abdelkader El Djezairi. He had waged a principled jihad against the French occupation of Algeria during the same period - before surrendering, getting imprisoned and then winning Frances highest honour for protecting Christians, particularly Roman Catholic nuns, during the anti-Christian riots in Damascus. Abdelkader died in Damascus in 1883.

On reaching Medina, Shamil rushed to Prophet Muhammad's tomb and kneeled before it in tears. A few days later, a direct descendent of the Prophet and a spiritual scholar, Naqib Sadat, came to see Shamil. Sadat kissed his feet even though he was older than him. When the Imam Shamil died in 1871, his funeral was joined by a large number of locals. He was buried next to Abbas, the Prophet’s uncle. After his death, his wife Shuanet moved to Turkey and was given pension by the Ottomon Empire.

Clearly, Imam Shamil’s jihad remains a lesson for today's ultra-Wahabi jihadis.