Genealogy of Sayyid, Shaykh Jamāl al-Dīn al-Gazikumukhi (1788–1867) in the Light of the Newly Discovered Written Source of the 19th Century

Abstract

This article is devoted to the study of genealogy of Dagestani Shaykh of Naqshbandi tariqa Jamāl al-Dīn al-Gazikumukhi (1788–1867) — prominent figure of state Imamat (1829–1859) in the North Caucasus. The newly discovered written source from the late 19th century, which is being introduced into scientific circulation, builds a genealogical chain from Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, to Shaykh Jamāl al-Dīn. The letter also offers his version of the route of his ancestors’ migration from Arabia to Dagestan. This source is a letter written by Shaykh Jamāl al-Dīn’s son to his nephew, the son of his sister Zahidat, who married Shamil, the Imamate leader (1834–1859). He managed to find this information in a document drawn up by his father in the 1840s, when he married his daughter to Shamil. At the same time, the documents on Shaykh Jamāl al-Dīn’s belonging to the Sayyid estate were checked by the Imamat alim board, which had no doubts about their authenticity. The source we study gives the names of the shaykh’s ancestors only up to the beginning of the 17th century, and we reconstructed the rest of the genealogy on the basis of other written sources. The other part of the genealogy we reconstructed on the basis of independent sources. Representatives of this genealogical chain of earlier period in the alternative written sources we could not identify. Based on the results of our study, it is difficult for us to assess the reliability of the entire corpus of information of this source, according to which Shaykh Jamāl al-Dīn was a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad in the 38th generation.

Keywords:

Dagestan, Kumukh, Istanbul, Sayyid, Quraysh, Imam Shamil