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Updated: June 1, 2025
The following is one of the proclamations referred to, and may be taken as a specimen of Schamyl's State papers. "In the name of Allah, the all-merciful, whose gracious Word flows like the spring before the eyes of the thirsty wanderer in the desert, who has made us the chief pillars in the temple of his faith, and the bearers of the torch of freedom!
It was easy galloping over the smooth valleys and softly rolling hills of the Kabardas; nor having once broken the bounds of the mountains were Schamyl's riders content to turn back their horses until they had watered them on the Kuban, and even filled with consternation the stanitzas on the still more distant banks of the Laba.
The manner of Schamyl's escape and recovery from the wounds received at Himri never having been explained by himself, was believed by the mountaineers to have been miraculous. Certain it is he survived to receive the mantle of the heroic Khasi-Mollah, though in descending to him it rested for a short time on the shoulders of Hamsad Bey.
Of this Russian party in the highlands Avaria still remained the head-quarters; and during the first four years of Schamyl's imamship his aims were chiefly directed towards the subjugation of this district. Hadji-Murad, who after the assassination of the Avarian princes had continued at the head of affairs in Chunsach, early foresaw that this would be his policy.
If hard pushed the murids retreated; wherever opportunity offered they struck a blow and suddenly retired; those tribes who wavered in their allegiance found themselves unexpectedly visited with retribution; and when the Tchetchenians, aggrieved by Schamyl's apparent neglect of their interests, took advantage of a wound received by him to send messengers to Tiflis to sue for peace, immediately he appeared in their midst, terrifying rather than winning them back to the cause of the patriots.
Schamyl's head-quarters continued for several years to be at Dargo, where aided by Polish deserters he built a residence somewhat superior in style to the houses generally seen in the eastern Caucasus. It was surrounded by a double row of strong palisades with a filling of small stones and earth, and was approached through a single gateway guarded by sentinels.
Schamyl's love for exploring the mountains would naturally make him fond of hunting, as are his countrymen generally, when not occupied with the higher game of war. The larger kinds of game being abundant in these mountains, and the use of small shot being unknown, bird-shooting is but little practised, and the fowl fly in these heavens as unscared as in the original paradise.
For the latter was then the most eminent murschid left in the eastern Caucasus, where his sayings passed current among a large number of the tribes as oracles. Schamyl's principal rival was Taschaw-Hadji, an influential chieftain who resisted the supremacy of the new Imam, as he was called, until the year 1837, when he formally gave in his adhesion.
This opposition, however, while it lasted, considerably hindered the growth of Schamyl's influence among the tribes, and restrained the freedom of his action against the Russians.
History has been fortunate enough, however, to get possession of the name of Schamyl's instructor, who is called Dschelal Eddin, and who, beginning the education of the future prophet by teaching him the Arabic language, completed it by initiating him into the doctrines of the Sufis.
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