Ghazi Muhammad

Born at Gimry, he studied Arabic and the Qur'an at Karanay and under several Dagestani ulama ¹. In 1825 he went to Gazi-Kumukh, became a dedicated member of the Naqshbandi order, and studied under its sheikh Jamal al-Din al-Ghazi-Ghumuqi and then under the latter's murshid Muhammad al-Yaraghi, who gave him a daughter in marriage and, according to some sources, the title of sheikh and ijaza to initiate members ¹. The Russian article independently records that he entered the Naqshbandi tariqa under Jamal al-Din ². He introduced his close friend Shamil to the same teacher ¹.

As mullah and qadi of Gimry he campaigned to replace customary law (adat) with sharia, winning Gimry and the neighbouring confederations to his programme in 1826–1827 ¹. Proclaimed imam in late 1829, he declared ghazavat against the Russians in 1830 and at his peak in 1831 held most of Chechnya and Dagestan ¹. After mounting setbacks he was trapped at Gimry and killed on 17 (29) October 1832, leaping, it is said, onto the Russian bayonets; Shamil, wounded, was one of only two survivors ¹. He was succeeded within days by his deputy Hamzat Bek ¹.

Two independent texts attest Ghazi Muhammad's Naqshbandi affiliation personally — the English article's account of his membership, discipleship and sheikh-permission ¹ and the Russian article's record of his entering the tariqa under Jamal al-Din ², with the Arabic article adding that al-Yaraghi was his murshid ³. His faith segment is therefore recorded as sufi, documented, and his membership of the Naqshbandiyya is written as a relation. No madhhab segment is recorded: the "Sunni Islam" of the English and Arabic infoboxes is one family and Wikidata's value is Islam in general ⁴; that he favoured the legal norms of the Shafi'i school ¹ states the law he enforced, not a second text naming his own madhhab.

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.