Before the Russian encroachment, the religious landscape of the North Caucasus was a mix of:
- Sufiism
- Adat (Customary Law): This was the real “law of the land.” Adat governed blood feuds, marriage, and property. Many of these customs actually contradicted Sharia (Islamic law).
- Paganism: In the high mountains of Chechnya and Ingushetia, ancient animist shrines were still being used alongside mosques well into the 1700s.
As the Russian Empire pushed southward under Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, the fractured tribes of the Caucasus realized they could not resist a modern army as independent clans. They needed a trans-tribal identity.
Islam provided that “glue.”
BUMP