Bariqat al Suyuf al Daghistaniyya fi ba'dh al Ghazawat al Shamiliyya, 'The Shining of Daghestani Swords in Certain Campaigns of Shamil (بارقة السيوف الداغستانية في بعض الغزوات الشاملية ) fine facsimile copy

Facsimile in full leather binding of the rare edition printed in Moscow 1946. 311 p. of Arabic text and 21 p. of introduction in Russian. Archive studies and publication series no. ( 2 ).
The mountain war in the North Caucasus generated thousands of documents, most from Russian officials but also a large number from the mountain peoples.85 Among mountain sources, however, only two chronicles dealt comprehensively with the military campaigns and their religious context. The first was kept by Qurban Ali al-'Ashilti and edited by Imam Shamil himself. Unfortunately, after Shamil's surrender this irreplaceable source was burned by the author out of fear that the chronicle would be used by the Russians as the basis for mass arrests.86 The second was Muhammad Tahir al-Qarakhi's The Shining of Daghestani Swords in Certain Campaigns of Shamil. This document, treasured by the mountaineers and widely circulated—sometimes in shortened, altered or otherwise corrupted redactions—was not published in a reliable scholarly edition until 1941. Yet, today, specialists recognize it as perhaps the single most revealing indigenous account of the mountain war. The compiler of The Shining of Daghestani Swords, in spite of his prominence in the Sufi brotherhood, remains to us an obscure figure. We know virtually nothing of his early life except that he studied under the alim Hajj Dibir of Khunuk. There al-Qarakhi mastered Quranic Arabic, familiarized himself with principles of Islamic law, read the Life of the Prophet and Arabic poetry. Al-Qarakhi's knowledge of Arabic was not unusual in early nineteenth-century Daghestan. The Soviet Arabist I.Iu.Krachkovskii has shown that, across the eastern portion of the North Caucasus among the peoples of Daghestan, Chechnia, and Ingushetia, there was a serious interest in classical Arabic dating to the late eighteenth century.87 Marius Canard has added that Arabic instruction was routinely provided to young boys in Daghestan mountain communities. Shamil himself began reading Arabic at age six.88 For most of the nineteenth century, Arabic constituted the written lingua franca of the North Caucasus, a link connecting the diverse peoples of the region with each other and to the wider Islamic world.89 Al-Qarakhi's intense religiosity and his consequent devotion to the sacred language of Arabic led him to identify with the mountain insurgency from its outset and to celebrate its great deeds. When the "first imam" Ghazi Muhammad was killed at Gimrah in 1832, al-Qarakhi mourned the passing in an Arabic elegy Al-Qarakhi's acquaintance with Shamil can be assumed at this time because Shamil arranged Ghazi Muhammad's burial rites.90 In 1846 al-Qarakhi was attached to Shamil as an expert in Islamic matters. After the battle at Kutisha, al-Qarakhi composed an Arabic poem "for the imam's consolation and for the noble naibs' exhortation."91 Two years later after the defeat at Akhdi, he wrote similar consolatory verses for the imam.92 From the evidence it is not clear to what extent al-Qarakhi involved himself in actual fighting between 1832 and 1849, but an explanatory aside in his chronicle hinted that he had seen action before the Russians besieged the insurgents' fortress at Chokha in 1849. That siege, however, left him a "weakened and broken" man, unable to participate any longer in the ghazwa because of "weakness and pain in his joints.

In the winter of 1850 al-Qarakhi settled in the awul Darghiyya. There he became one of Shamil's closest lieutenants, his confidant and virtual alter ego. The moment of alQarakhi's transformation apparently occurred when the imam consulted his inner circle concerning the wisdom of naming his second son Ghazi Muhammad the naib of Qarata. The so-called "consultation" amounted to an exercise in divination based on a Quranic verse. Al-Qarakhi "saw immediately that the sense of the Quranic line…indicates that the office of naib has been ordained to him [Ghazi Muhummed]." Persuaded by al-Qarakhi's exegesis, the imam proceeded to name his second son to the position, even though Ghazi Muhammad had not yet reached his majority After performing this service for Shamil, alQarakhi was invited to live "in the imam's quarters." "Season after season" al-Qarakhi stayed there until 1855, when Shamil's eldest son Jamal al-Din returned from Russian captivity.94 At some point after 1850 al-Qarakhi received from Shamil a directive to prepare a chronicle of the mountain war. This was a very sensitive assignment with profound political implications. In the event of victory over the Russians, the chronicle would identify Shamil, as the human architect of the mountaineers' triumph, with God's wisdom; in the event of defeat, the document would convey to future warriors the precious memory of a holy war gloriously waged in God's name. Al-Qarakhi dutifully gathered materials for the chronicle until the prisoner exchange of March 1855 freed Shamil's eldest son Jamal al-Din from Russian confmement.95 The return of Jamal al-Din evidently disrupted the fragile comity in the Naqshbandi leadership. After sixteen years among the Russians, Jamal al-Din had learned the Russian language and Russian customs. He had developed friendships with his captors, including General Leontii Pavlovich Nikolai, who helped negotiate the prisoner exchange.96 Almost immediately after being reunited with his father, Jamal al-Din and his cousin Hamza "spoke with the imam about making peace with the Russian tsar and urged him towards it." These pleas for peace did not impress the imam, but they did excite irritation at Shamil's eldest son and nephew: "It was said," al-Qarakhi reported, "that [the Russians] freed these two only for this [peace initiative]."97 The hint in the lines is palpable: Jamal al-Din and al-Qarakhi quarreled over peace policy. Although the imam took al-Qarakhi's position on the political matter, he could not be seen as choosing intimacy with a trusted advisor over his son. That is the likeliest explanation for the termination of Shamil's close relationship with al-Qarakhi. During the subsequent fighting against the Russians, al-Qarakhi "became separated from Shamil."98 The separation may have occurred because al-Qarakhi was physically unable to campaign, whereas the imam rushed from place to place in a vain effort to stave off defeat. Perhaps, however, the "separation" happened suddenly in late July/early August 1859, when the remnants of Shamil's state collapsed swiftly under Russian pressure. Between August 21 and September 6, 1859 Shamil and his immediate entourage were trapped in the mountain awul Ghunib. By the time the final siege had commenced, al-Qarakhi had come to the attention of the Russian high command. Perhaps Bariatinskii learned of al-Qarakhi's status in the Naqshbandi brotherhood from GeneralL. P.Nikolai who had cultivated close relations with the insurgents and had been involved in the 1855 peace feelers. At any rate, in late August al-Qarakhi was sent by the Russians into Ghunib to negotiate Shamil's surrender (Russian - Muslim confrontation in Caucasus)