ИЗВЕСТИЯ СОИГСИ

The article analyzes the known historical data on spreading of Islam among the Chechens in the XVI-XIX centuries. The authors discovered the new epigraphic monuments – the epitaphs of the Islam missionaries and their descendants in East Chechnya. These materials allow dating the beginning of the spread of Islam in the region by the XVIth century. Firstly the population of the historic area of Nohchimohk bordering with the Avar regions of Dagestan was involved into the process of Islamization. Then, in the XVIIth c., Islam spread in Central Chechnya, situated at the foothills and mountainous part of the Argun gorge. At least – at the turn of the XVIII-XIXth centuries – Islam spread in the western mountains of Chechnya (Akka, Nashkha, Orstkhoy) bordering with Ingushetia. Using the written sources of the XIXth – early XXth centuries helped to clarify that the process of the spread of Islam in Chechnya actively proceeded in the XVII-XVIII centuries and ended only by the 1820s. Besides the problem of Islamization of the Chechen people, the article considers the history of the Chechen people’s relationships with Kabardians and Avars. The materials introduced by the authors in the scientific using, show that in the XVI-XVII c. Kabardians widely settled not only in the flat part of present-day Chechnya, but also in the foothill part – Nohchimohk. Moreover, they for a long time retained their ethnic identity, which was manifested in existence of Adygs anthroponymy. Written Arabic-language records attracted by the authors show a significant contribution of Avar nutsaldom to the process of Islamization of mountain Chechnya.

Keywords: Chechnya, Nokhchimohk, Kabarda, Avaria, Islam, Bersan, Terman Ol, epigraphy.

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