Word: shamyl
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Hurled Heads. The leaping apparition was Shamyl the Avar. He was one of two fighting men to escape the ruins of the aoul. Two years later, in 1834, he was elected Imam of Dhagestan-the absolute spiritual and temporal ruler of most of the tribesmen in the Caucasus. He fired his subjects with a fanatic brand of Mohammedanism, and his dedicated Murids, or holy warriors, kept the armies of Czar Nicholas at bay for the next 25 years. As the years passed and the Czar's frustration continued, Shamyl became a European hero. Russophobic Britons forgave the raider...
...wild tribesmen Shamyl ruled lived by the shashka (saber) and kindjal (long dagger). "They sabre each other in the way of friendship," wrote the Russian Poet Lermontov, who, like Pushkin, served in the Caucasus and died in a duel there...
...Shamyl had a flare for such dramatics; his men regularly lobbed the heads of spies into Russian camps. And when one faction persuaded his mother to suggest the possibility of surrender, he disappeared into a mosque for three days, then announced: "It is Allah's will that the first person who spoke to me of submission should be punished by a hundred lashes! And this first person is my mother!" He flogged the old lady five times; then, glaring contemptuously at the tribesmen, accepted the rest of her punishment himself...
Cruel Gallantry. Shamyl respected courage above all other qualities and was capable of a cruel gallantry: once he halted the execution of a Russian prince because he liked the way the captive faced the firing squad. His character impressed itself upon his enemy, and when he was finally subdued and sent to Moscow, he was cheered the entire length of the journey. He submitted to captivity with grace, and for the rest of his life was treated as a Russian hero...
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