Gamzat-bek Hamza-Bek, (1789 — October 1(September 19), 1834) was the second imam of the Caucasian Imamate, who succeeded Ghazi Mollah upon his death in 1832.

Gamzat-bek was a son of one of the Avar

Caucasian Avars

Avars or Caucasian Avars are a modern people of Caucasus, mainly of Dagestan, in which they are the predominant group. The Caucasian Avar language belongs to the Northeast Caucasian language family ....

 bek

Bey

Bey is a title for chieftain, traditionally applied to the leaders of small tribal groups. Accoding to some sources, the word "Bey" is of Turkish language In historical accounts, many Turkish, other Turkic and Persian leaders are titled Bey, Beg, Bek, Bay, Baig or Beigh. They are all the same word...

s. He was educated under the supervision of Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

 preachers and became an avid follower of a sufi order. In August 1834, Gamzat-bek launched an assault on Avar khans

Khan (title)

Khan is an originally Altaic and subsequently Central Asian title for a sovereign or military ruler, widely used by medieval nomadic Turko-Mongol tribes living to the north of China. 'Khan' is also seen as a title in the Xianbei confederation for their chief between 283 and 289...

, who had been supporting the Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n government and who had been hostile towards the sufism

Sufism

Sufism or ' is defined by its adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a '...

 movement. He succeeded in capturing the Avar capital of Khunzakh and executed its female ruler Pakhubike and her sons. Within the next eighteen months, Gamzat-bek had been actively fighting against the Russians. The supporters of the Avar khans, including Hadji Murad

Hadji Murad

Hadji Murad was an important Avar leader during the resistance of the peoples of Dagestan and Chechnya in 1811-1864 against the incorporation of the region into Russian Empire.-Alliance with Russia:...

, conspired against Gamzat-bek and killed him (Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...

's story Hadji Murat

Hadji Murat (novel)

Hadji Murat is a short novel written by Leo Tolstoy from 1896 to 1904 and published posthumously in 1912 . It is Tolstoy’s final work...

is based on this event). After the death of Gamzat-bek, Imam Shamil

Imam Shamil

Imam Shamil also spelled Shamyl, Schamil, Schamyl or Shameel was an Avar political and religious leader of the Muslim tribes of the Northern Caucasus...

 became the third imam of Dagestan.

Further reading

• Kaziev, Shapi
  Kaziev Shapi
  Shapi Magomedovitch Kaziev, is a Russian writer, playwright and script writer. He is the author of historical novels and other books.-Life and career:...
  
  . Imam Shamil. "Molodaya Gvardiya" publishers. Moscow, 2001, 2003, 2006, 2010