Then he took out the first object, a superb golden mirror, chased in turquoise. He held it high over his head for all to admire before flinging it with full force into the rapids. The object floated for a while, then, caught in the eddies of the current, disappeared. The women, the murids, and the naïbs stood there, breathless. They did not understand. Nor did Jamal Eddin.
By the armful, his father flung plates, bracelets, sheaths and swords, even kinjals into the swirling water. No, the little boy could not understand. Finally Shamil threw the coffer over the bridge, and all of them watched as it crashed on the rocks.
Rid of it all, Shamil walked toward his generals’ horses.
With a word, spoken so softly that no one heard, he forced them to detach their saddlebags and bring them to the river. One by one, each of the ten naïbs had to open his sack and empty it over the guardrail, shaking it over the rushing river.
A few pieces of an alabaster cup floated for a moment, as white as the foaming water, before the swirling current dragged them to the river bottom.
When Yunus, head down, returned to his horse, he found the little boy in his charge seated in the place his share of the treasure had occupied.
Jamal Eddin had managed to put his foot in one of the stirrups and lift himself up to the pommel. The look on his face showed that he was perplexed. His eyes looked questioningly at his tutor. Why had they thrown away the sabers, whose beauty he had learned to worship?
Yunus’s sole response was to chant the shahada, the hymn of the murids, and to let Jamal Eddin climb behind him to ride pillion.
“La ilaha illa Allah. There is no other god but Allah.”
The rest of the horsemen took up the chant, singing at the tops of their voices, drowning out the roar of the river and making the mountain air tremble. The echo rippled down the narrow gorge and reverberated from valley to valley down the immense chain of the Caucasus. It went on forever, and with it the lesson of the imam Shamil, reaching even the most isolated auls. Unity in the service of God was the most precious treasure of the Muslims. Unity was the incarnation of absolute good that justified all sacrifices. No sword, no cup, no treasure in the world was worth risking the disunity of the servants of Allah.
But the image of the sabers in the torrent continued to haunt Jamal Eddin, leaving a great question mark in his mind.
CHAPTER III
The Shadow of God on Earth
“Yunus,” Shamil said after his usual polite greeting, “tell me about my son.”
“Mohammed is the first prophet of Allah, Shamil is the second,” Yunus said, avoiding the question.
The phrase was common among the men of Dagestan, who used it as a greeting, a prayer, and a rallying cry. Declared with hand over heart, it acknowledged the divine mission of the imam and proclaimed the union of his people under his authority. Coming from Yunus, it summed up Shamil’s glory and his successes: the shadow of God spread across the earth.
Nonetheless, Shamil’s spectacular gesture on the bridge at Ghimri had ruined them all.
While his actions had reinforced his image as a saintly man, they had hindered the liberation of the Caucasus. How could one finance a holy war without gold? How could they buy horses, guns, and cannons?
Shamil had nothing.
Avoiding any direct confrontation with the Russians for the time being, he concentrated upon community affairs.
Armed with the axe of justice, flanked by the sabers of his executioners and the muskets of his well-trained troops, he traveled from village to village, preaching the Sharia and keeping his promises to the hypocrites. His injunctions to repent, if they went unheeded, were followed by punishment, as he executed those who disobeyed his laws, the law of God, or the laws of men. He levied heavy fines on those who committed lesser transgressions, filling his coffers anew. In three years, through rigor and terror, he had instituted a system of taxation to which all were subject and imposed a religious, political, and moral code that excluded corruption and formed the basis for a state.
One essential task remained: to drive out the infidels and let liberty triumph.
On this late September day in 1837, Shamil and Yunus rode together, reins slack, avoiding the usual trails as they slowly circled the village of Chirquata. Tucked into the mountain-side, the fortified aul of dilapidated hovels with terraced roofs spread over the hillside. Heavy storm clouds hung over the houses where their families awaited them. Shamil had scarcely had time to watch his children grow up these past three years. He had spent all his time on horseback, like a nomad, leaving his wife and sons in the protection of one community chief or another for weeks, even months, at a time. These long stopovers had permitted Bahou-Messadou to remarry Patimat to the mullah Akbirdil Mohammed al-Kunzakhi, one of the only natives of Kunzakh to have rallied to the murid cause. Shamil’s sister had given her new husband two sons. The eldest was named Hamzat, the name of the imam assassinated by Hadji Murat.
This last separation, the longest, had gone on for eight months. Yunus, who had galloped from village to village to meet the imam, knew at this very moment that Shamil was trying hard to control his impatience. His face was a mask.
Heads lowered, their flanks dark with sweat, the horses nibbled at the rare blades of grass they found between the rocks. The horsemen would let them dry off before taking them to the fountain to drink. They had a good deal to say to each other but spoke sparingly, embarrassed by the soft intimacy of the evening light. Yet they knew each other so well. They had shared everything, from nights of camping out on the banks of raging mountain streams to solitary rides through the snow, the adrenaline-infused waiting period before an attack and the long hours of watch duty beneath a leaden sun outside the Russian forts. Theirs was the communion born of men facing death.
But in forty years of friendship, they had never taken this sort of leisurely ride in the quiet of dusk.
They had matured at the same time, both filled with the same love of liberty and a thirst for God. They were equally attached to those close to them. Yunus’s young wife Zeinab was as precious to him as Fatima was to Shamil. Both of them loved to come home to their wives, and both were equally capable of sacrificing them. Beyond that, they were very different. Black-eyed Yunus had swarthy skin and a long, thin face like the blade of a knife. His pointed beard made it look even thinner. Of medium build, his wiry body projected not power, but a stamina and agility that resulted from years of training himself to push beyond his limits. He seemed as nervous, nimble, and irascible as Shamil seemed leonine, placid, and calm. It was a distribution of roles that gave them an advantage over strangers. Shamil had not chosen Yunus to serve as his eldest son’s tutor, or atalik, by chance. He was a man of honor and a steadfast companion.
Today, as naïb and administrator of Chirquata, Yunus had a matter of importance to discuss with Shamil. Their spies at the nearby fort of Temir-Khan-Chura had just informed him that the padishah Nicholas, the “Great White Czar of the Infidels,” was expected to arrive in these mountains at the end of September. He planned to travel from far-off Saint Petersburg to Tiflis, the capital of Georgia and the seat of the Russian viceroyalty of the Caucasus. During his tour of inspection, he might very well stay at one of the forts along the line. If that were the case, should they resume hostilities? Harass the dogs everywhere? Stage a grand coup? Or profit from this extraordinary visit to negotiate?