Sharia courts in the North Caucasus

One of the main slogans of the 1917 revolution in the North Caucasus was the restoration of the Islamic legal system in full. In May 1917, at the First Congress of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus in Vladikavkaz, a decision was made to create the first Sharia courts (abbr. "Sharsud"). City Sharia courts opened in Vladikavkaz, Nalchik, Grozny, Temir-Khan-Shur (now Buinaksk ) and other large cities, rural courts - in separate villages. The functions of the so-called verbal and people's courts passed to the Sharia courts ^[1] .

During the years of the Civil War, these Sharia courts were transformed into Sharia courts, which played the role of military field tribunals. In January 1919, the Council of Ministers of the Mountain Republic approved the "Regulation on the Sharia Military Court." The courts continued to operate under the Turkish occupation authorities, under the authority of Colonel L. F. Bicherahov and the Volunteer Army General A. I. Denikin. Independently of them, from September 1919 to March 1920, courts of the North Caucasus Emirate of Shaikhul-Islam Uzun-Haji operated in some Chechen and Dagestan villages. In the territories controlled by the Bolsheviks, revolutionary Sharia courts worked. Shariah courts were used for reprisal against political enemies. So, in July 1919, the main Sharia military court of Temir-Khan-Shura sentenced Ulubiy Buinaksky to death, and in March 1920, members of this court were shot under the Bolsheviks following a verdict from the Temir-Khan-Shurinsky revolutionary Sharia court ^[1] .

After the end of the civil war in the Adygea, Kabardino-Balkarian, Karachay-Cherkess, North Ossetian, Chechen and Ingush Autonomous Regions, laws on Sharia courts were developed. Each Soviet autonomy has created its own hierarchy of Sharia courts. In the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the organization of Sharia justice was three-stage. At the lower level, there were rural and city courts - “Sharia trios” of two members and a chairman (dibira). The cassation instance for makhkam Sharia of all levels was the Sharia subdivision and investigative commissions under the People's Commissariat of Justice of the DASSR. In the Highland Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the main link in Sharia justice was not rural and city courts, but the district “Sharia trios” led by Kadi (effendi). The Sharia courts had the broadest powers in Chechnya and Ingushetia, where their decisions could only be appealed to the Supreme Court of the RSFSR. In Kabardino-Balkaria and Adygea, the cassation instance for Sharia courts was the local People’s Commissariat of Justice ^[1] .

Every year, Sharia courts dealt with from 30-50 (in the North-West Caucasus) to 70-80% (in Dagestan and Chechnya) of all court cases ^[1] .

On the eve of collectivization, the stronger Soviet state decided to destroy the Shariah legal proceedings. In August-December 1922, the Sharia courts of the Mountain ASSR were liquidated. In January 1925, the courts in Kabardino-Balkaria and Adygea were canceled, in January 1926 in Chechnya and Ingushetia, and in April-October 1927 in Dagestan. According to the chapter “On crimes constituting the remnants of everyday life” introduced in 1928 in the Criminal Code of the RSFSR X convicted of participation in Sharia courts for a year were referred to a concentration camp ^[1] .

The forcible unification of Muslim peasants into collective farms and the persecution of Sharia courts caused a wave of long-term peasant unrest, one of the main goals of which was the restoration of Sharia courts. The uprisings were brutally crushed by the Soviet authorities. In 1944, Chechens, Ingush, Karachais and Balkars were deported to Kazakhstan and Central Asia. However, despite the repressions in the 1930s and 1950s, Sharia courts continued to operate secretly in many rural areas of the North Caucasus and even in Central Asian exile ^[1] .

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the restoration of Sharia courts began in the wake of the Muslim revival movement. In the rural and urban Muslim communities of the North Caucasus, several dozen courts were established. In 1996, Articles 212 and 235 were removed from the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which equated the application of Sharia law to a serious crime, but Sharia courts were never recognized in the Russian Federation. In 1996, Sharia courts began to operate in the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, and in Ingushetia, where in December 1997 a law was passed that obliged justices of the peace to “be governed by the norms of the Adat and Sharia.” In the 21st century, the Sharia court most often represents the imam (dibir / effendi) of the cathedral mosque, which on Fridays performs the duties of the local Kadi and presides over meetings of the council of elders of the community ^[1] .

• Misrokov Z. Kh. The disappearance of Sharia in the autonomies of the North Caucasus. - M., 1979.
• Misrokov Z. Kh. Adat and Sharia courts in the autonomies of the North Caucasus. Abstract. Cand. dis. - M., 1979.
• The Union of the United Highlanders of the North Caucasus and Dagestan (1917-1918). Mountain Republic (1918-1920): documents and materials. - Makhachkala, 1994.
• Islam in the territory of the former Russian Empire. Encyclopedic Dictionary. Issue 2., M., 1999.

• Mahkama Sharia (Sharia court) (neopr.) . Caucasian Knot (March 29, 2009). Date of treatment September 29, 2015.