SPREAD OF JIHAD: THE ORIGINAL FACTORS AND THE SCOPE OF ISLAMIC RADICALIZATION IN THE NORTHERN CAUCASUS

Abstract

Russia has been trying to put out the flame of resistance in the Northern Caucasus for 200 years now. Historians and political analysts came up with all sorts of explanations: the mountain peoples’ predatory nature; British and Turkish influence; the mutinous leaders of Sheik Mansour, and imams such as Ghazi-Muhammad, Shamil, and Najmuddin Gotsinsky; the socioeconomic crisis; and the subversive activities of foreign extremist organizations. In fact, resistance has been fed by the simple fact that the Caucasian Muslims cannot accept the rules, laws, and sociopolitical norms of the Russian state. “From what we know about the history of the Cau-casus we can conclude that the anti-Russian revolts of the locals were not brought about by chance people like Shamil or even by the very strict teaching of the Murids. The main reason was hatred of Russian domination.”1 Our contemporary Iakov Gor-din says the same: “To harshly impose European ideas transformed into an ‘over-regulated’ variant typical of Russia on a fundamentally different system of world perception was a fatal mistake.”2 Many of those who try to analyze the reasons for the region’s mutinous nature fall into the same trap. They follow their own logic (far removed from the cast of minds of a Caucasian Muslim resolved to fight the state) in an effort to explain why extremist and radical movements are gaining momentum. Even though such researchers do not go beyond the superficial and secondary causes of political-religious extremism, they claim a pro-found and exhaustive analysis of its roots and further development. Here I would like to dwell on the deep-rooted factors which go back to the violently tectonic layers of the local nations’ consciousness and their historical memory and are feeding the radical movements and resistance in the Northern Caucasus.