Imam Shamil was born in 1797, in the small village (aul) of Gimry, which is in current-day Dagestan, Russia. He was originally named Ali, but following local tradition, his name was changed when he became ill. His father, Dengau, was a free landlord, and this position allowed Shamil and his close friend Ghazi Mollah to study many subjects including Arabic and logic. Shamil established himself as a well-respected and educated man of Quran and Sunnah among other Muslims of the Caucasus.
Shamil was born at a time when the Russian Empire was expanding into the territories of the Ottoman Empire and Persia (and Russo-Turkish War). Following the Russian invasion, many Caucasian nations united in resistance to harsh Tsarist rule in what became known as the Caucasian War. Some of the earlier leaders of Caucasian resistance were Sheikh Mansur and Ghazi Mollah. Shamil was actually childhood friends with the Mollah, and would become his disciple and counsellor.
In 1832, Ghazi Mollah died at the battle of Gimry, and Shamil was one of only two Murids to escape, but he sustained severe wounds. He went into hiding and both Russians and Murids assumed him dead. Once recovered, he emerged out of hiding and rejoined the murids, led by the third Imam, Gamzat-bek. When the latter was murdered by Hadji Murad in 1834, Shamil took his place as the premier leader of the Caucasian resistance and the third Imam of the Caucasian Imamate. In 1839 (June-August), Shamil and his followers, numbering about 4000 men, women and children, found themselves under siege in their mountain stronghold of Akhoulgo, nestled in the bend of the Andee Koisou River, about ten miles east of Gimry. This epic siege of the war lasted eighty days, resulting finally in a Russian victory. The Russians suffered about 3000 casualties in taking the stronghold, while the rebels were almost entirely slaughtered after extremely bitter fighting where typical of the war, no quarter was either asked or given. Shamil and a small party of his closest followers, including some family miraculously managed to escape down the cliffs and through the Russian siege lines during the final days at Akhoulgo. Following his escape he once again set about regaining his following and resisting the Russian occupation. Shamil was effective at uniting the many, frequently quarreling, Caucasian tribes to fight against the Russians. He made effective use of guerrilla warfare tactics and the resistance continued under his leadership until 1859. On August 25, 1859 Shamil and his family, by agreement with the Russian Czar, were guests for some days. The emperor respected him much, and his Generals also gave due respect to the Imam
After his capture, Shamil was sent to Saint Petersburg to meet the Emperor Alexander II. Afterwards he was exiled to Kaluga, then a small town near Moscow. After several years in Kaluga he complained to the authorities about the climate and in December, 1868 Shamil received permission to move to Kiev, a commercial center of the Empire's southwest. In Kiev he was afforded a mansion in Aleksandrovskaya Street. The Imperial authorities ordered the Kiev superintendent to keep Shamil under "strict but not overly burdensome surveillance" and allotted the city a significant sum for the needs of the exile. Shamil seemed to have liked his luxurious detainment, as well as the city; this is confirmed by the letters he sent from Kiev.
In 1869 he was given permission to perform the Hajj to the holy city of Mecca. He traveled first from Kiev to Odessa and then sailed to Istanbul, where he was greeted by Ottoman Sultan Abdulaziz. He became a guest at the Imperial Topkapi Palace for a short while and left Istanbul on a ship reserved for him by the Sultan. After completing his pilgrimage to Mecca, he died in Medina in 1871 while visiting the city, and was buried in the Jannatul Baqi, a historical graveyard in Medina where many prominent personalities from Islamic history are interred. Two elder sons, (Cemaleddin and Muhammed Şefi), whom he had to leave in Russia in order to get permission to visit Mecca, became officers in the Russian army, while two younger sons, (Muhammed Gazi and Muhammed Kamil), served in the Turkish army.
Said Shamil, a grandson of Imam Shamil, became one of the founders of the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus, which survived between 1917 and 1920 and later, in 1924, he established the "Committee of Independence of the Caucasus" in Germany
