Najmuddin Hotsinsky

نجم الدين غوتسينسكي

– †

† Hijri date derived by computation from the Gregorian/Julian date; it may differ from the transmitted date by a day or two.

Najmuddin Hotsinsky (1859–1925), an Avar scholar from the village of Gotsob in Dagestan, became Mufti of the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus in 1917 and was recognised as Imam of Dagestan and Chechnya in 1919. He led repeated uprisings against the Bolsheviks until his capture and execution by shooting at Rostov-on-Don in 1925.

Depth

At a glance

Roles
theologian · Politician · Poet
Region
Anatolia
Identifiers
Wikidata
Review

Life in time

1825185018751900192519501975
The Colonial Era · The Modern Era Contemporaries: Abdurreshid Ibrahim · Ahmad al-Hamlawi · Ahmed Rıza · Ali-Hajji of Akusha · Alladiya Khan

Place in the story

    Unknown (unknown)

    Roles are dated and sourced; the museum describes the act and attributes the judgement.

    Scholar and official

    Born at Gotsob in Dagestan to a landowning Avar family — his father Muhammad Donogo had been a naib of Imam Shamil who defected to Russia — Najmuddin followed his elder brother Abdulatip into the ulama after a religious education, served the Dagestan Oblast court, and was naib of the Koisubu prefecture from 1895 to 1903 1. In 1903 he travelled to the Ottoman Empire, wrote poetry there, and sought and received Abdul Hamid II's encouragement for an imamate of Dagestan 1. He was known across Dagestan and Chechnya for his charity, distributing meat to the poor at the Islamic holidays 1.

    Mufti and imam

    At the May 1917 congress of the Union of Highlanders in Vladikavkaz, Najmuddin was appointed mufti of the North Caucasus 1. Proclaimed imam at Temir-Khan-Shura in January 1918, he again stepped back within days; in 1919 the highlanders gathered at Gunib recognised his authority as Imam of Dagestan and Chechnya, and he mobilised resistance first to Denikin's Whites and then to the Bolsheviks 1. His breach with the Naqshbandi sheikh Uzun-Hajji, whose emirate he and allied scholars condemned, split the anti-Bolshevik camp 1. After the failure of the 1924–1925 Chechen uprising he was captured in September 1925 and executed by shooting at Rostov-on-Don 1 2.

    Faith

    Two readings stand in the sources, and neither reaches the two-text bar. The Sunni reading rests on infoboxes and structured data alone — the Russian and Avar infoboxes give Islam of the Sunni persuasion, the English infobox Sunni Islam, and Wikidata the same value — one family of fields referenced to no text, while no article text names his madhhab 3 2 4. The English infobox's further fields, Sufism and Naqshbandi, stand against the Russian article's text, which states expressly that although he praised some Sufi sheikhs, he himself did not belong to a tariqa 3. His muftiate and imamate are offices, and office never counts. His faith segment is therefore recorded as unknown, flagged, with both readings preserved in the record's note.

    Sources

    • 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.

    Connections

    Explore the connections

    Opposed
    Uzun-Haji

    People and things also explored

    Ali-Hajji of Akusha· Uzun-Haji

    Sources

    1. Najmuddin Hotsinsky — English Wikipedia
    2. Najmuddin Hotsinsky — Avar Wikipedia
    3. Najmuddin Hotsinsky — Russian Wikipedia
    4. Najmuddin Hotsinsky — Wikidata Q4147143
    Cite this page

    islam.museum contributors. “Najmuddin Hotsinsky”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/najmuddin-hotsinsky/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-27.

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    People

    Prophets, companions, scholars, rulers, scientists, poets, travelers: women and men who shaped the story.
    Related

    Ali-Hajji of Akusha

    Ali-Hajji of Akusha (1847–1930) was a Dagestani scholar and jurist from Akusha who became qadi of its congregational mosque and was elected shaykh al-Islam of the Northern Caucasus and Dagestan in 1918. He chaired the Security Council that resisted the White invasion of Dagestan, and had a large murid following in central Dagestan. He first supported the Bolsheviks in hope of sharia, then opposed their anti-religious policy; the Soviet regime executed many of his followers and sons in 1928, and he died at Akusha soon after.