Chechnya's WWII

1940 written statement addressed by Hassan Israilov to Chechen Communist party authorities (as translated in an article by Jeffrey Burds):

I have decided to become the leader of a war of liberation of my own people. I understand all

too well that not only in Checheno-Ingushetia, but in all nations of the Caucasus it will be difficult to win freedom from the heavy yoke of Red imperialism. But our fervent belief in justice and our faith in the support of the freedom-loving peoples of the Caucasus and of the entire world inspire me toward this deed, in your eyes impertinent and pointless, but in my conviction, the sole correct historical step. The valiant Finns are now proving that the Great Enslaver Empire is powerless against a small but freedom-loving people. In the Caucasus you will find your second Finland, and after us will follow other oppressed peoples.

That chap was evidently a descendent of Muhammad Shamil, the 19th Century nationalist that I've mentioned before. Other WWII Chechen leaders include Maibrek Sheripov, Rasul Sakhabov and Sarali Makhmudov. All came to unpleasant ends, I understand.

The ‘Chechevitsa’ — the plan to deport the entire indigenous native population of the Northern Caucasus to Central Asia — was carried out from mid-February until mid-March 1944. In all, 602,193 persons were deported from the region: 496,460 Chechens and Ingushi, 68,327 Karachaevtsy and 37,406 Balkars.

from the article

It was a forcible deportation and thousands if not tens of thousands died in the process of being deported from mainly Chechnya-Ingushetia to mainly Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzsia. They were replaced by mainly Russians and Georgians.

Other More 'Modernised' Islamic Political Models Part 1: Resistance Movements (generally led by a 'Mystic')

After a delay caused by a wrist injury, I'm tentatively returning to my topic (though I'm not yet fully recovered). I've briefly discussed the most conservative political theory that survived in Islam into the modern period mainly in what became Saudi Arabia (and which has been recently spreading) and I'll now consider a few of the other models that were attempted (and are still being attempted) partly in response to the ideas brought by Western colonists. These models generally contain elements of either religious or ethnic 'nationalism'.

Resistance Movements (generally led by a 'Mystic')

There were separate movements led by Sufi mystics in at least Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Turkey, Iran and Chechnya to revive Islam and oppose occupations by the Ottomans, Egypt or European Powers. The Egyptian group especially was also focussed on nationalism and modernising while the Tunisian and Turkish groups were also modernising forces.

The Libyan group was led by Muhammad Ibn ‘Ali al-Sanusi (1787 – 1859) and opposed the Italian presence in Libya. The group therefore came to be called the Sanusiyya as its leader was called the Great Sanusi. It was also a religious, political and social movement which also had a partly pan-Islamic agenda. It had legal and political clashes with the more conservative religious establishments in both Mecca and al-Azhar over the right of ijtihad (legal reform). It provided for education and social welfare among its supporters and integration of tribes into the community order. It aimed to reform local religious practices by missionary activity and participated in nationalist resistance as jihad against the expansionary and invading 'infidel' Italians. Material luxury was shunned in the puritan and Sufi tradition.

‘Abd al-Qadir (1808 – 1883) opposed the French in Algeria. He controlled an independent state in the Algerian interior from 1832 to 1847 before his exile by the French and opinion is divided as to whether the brief state most resembled a modern nation-state or an Islamic state.

Al-Rifi (‘Abd al-Karim al-Khattabi) (1882 – 1963) in Morocco also opposed the French as well as Spanish occupation with an armed resistance in the early part of the 1920s. He combined nationalist with Salafiyya inclinations.

Al-Mahdi also known as Shaykh Muhammad Ahmad (1848 – 1885) in Sudan opposed the ineffective, economically disastrous and arbitrary joint rule of the Ottomans, the Egyptians and the English with his followers, the Mahdiyya, eventually killing the English general, Gordon, at Khartoum. His declaration of himself as the Mahdi was meant in the Sunni sense of renovator, saviour and bringer of justice rather than the more apocalyptic Shi’a sense. He was a charismatic leader and claimed religious and political authority for himself as a direct descendent from Muhammad with a definite mission inspired by God. He was able with his Ansar to form a revolutionary state from 1881 in which he sought to reform the distinctly Sufi form of Sudanese Islam to bring about a more orthodox and less complex form of Islam. Aside from requiring new religious practices he also required seclusion of women and bans on tobacco, alcohol, music and the visiting of tombs. His group understood itself to be performing jihad against infidels (understood to be all non-Sudanese). Nevertheless the movement had pan-Islamic appeal as it sought to conform to a ‘true’ Islam and oppose non-Muslim and Western colonial expansion and rule.

Muhammad Shamil (1797 – 1871), who was a Sufi master politically active from 1834 to 1859 in Chechnya, opposed Russian occupation and rule of the Caucasus. His resistance was nationalist and supported especially by the local free peasant landowners who opposed foreign control.