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Accordingly, apportioning them among his chief murids, such as Achwerdu-Mahomet, Schwaib-Mollah, Ulubuy-Mollah, Taschaw-Hadji, Dschewad-Khan, and Hadji-Murad, besides retaining a considerable force under his own command, he was enabled to overawe a very great number of tribes, and to threaten the Russians simultaneously at various points.
But the Kabardians who, formerly converted from paganism to Muscovite Christianity and afterward to Mahometanism, were not zealots in religion, turned a deaf ear to both proclamations and preaching, and even put Achwerdu-Mahomet to death. For alike despising the threats of Schamyl, and fearing the artillery of the Russians, they determined to remain neutral.
He had sent emissaries to scatter among them his proclamations, urging them in glowing words to strike a blow for independence and for Allah; he had caused these to be followed by many of his most eloquent murids who preached in their valleys that new faith of the union of all believers in a holy war against the infidels which had taken such strong root among the rocks of the mountains; and finally he had despatched his zealous partisan Achwerdu-Mahomet at the head of an armed force to compel them to take sides with him.
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