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Ahya Hadji Zhangurazov was a prominent Islamic figure of the Balkar people and one of the initiators of anti-feudal, and subsequently anti-Soviet protests. He was a supporter of the separate development of Balkar society. He enjoyed great respect and authority among the people. From 1926 to 1929 he was in exile on charges of anti-Soviet activities, and from 1929 he was forced to hide in the mountains becoming an abrek. In 1934, he was killed by an OGPU task force during a prayer near the Doguat area.

The corpse was scourged by the Bolsheviks, then beaten with stones and thrown into an underground crypt without the right of burial. He was reburied in 1957 in the rural cemetery of Upper Balkaria. The gravestone stele was installed in 2006.

Early Life
Ahiya-Hadji Zhangurazov is a prominent Islamic figure of the Balkar people, whose name was known far beyond the borders of his native gorge. This is a bright personality with a dramatic fate, full of suffering and torment for a just cause, of which he was a zealous champion. He is a stocky man who had a huge amount of energy, a little tough, but not cruel.

He had a piercing gaze and, perhaps, the most stately gait among his fellow tribesmen - he was recognized everywhere and immediately. Ahiya Haji was respected by everyone, regardless of class. His sentences, passed according to the laws of Allah, were honest and fair for everyone. Even in tsarist times, he began to engage in legal proceedings, always said what he considered correct, came into conflict with the occupation administration, for which he was already persecuted by them.

He taught people Islam, for which he was disliked by the Soviet authorities. But he continued to go his own way. I tried not to curse anyone, even my fierce enemies. Having been sentenced to three years in a concentration camp through their fault, having served his sentence and returning home, he did not lose his best qualities, did not falter and did not give up.

Four months later he was slandered again, after which Ahiya-Hadji joined the Mujahideen. The Russian invaders kill him, and then mock the corpse. But be that as it may, he remained in the people's memory as a worthy son of his people.

Ahiya Zhangurazov was born in 1870 in Upper Balkaria, in the village of Kyunnyum. He was the fifth child in the family. At the feast organized by his father Tavshur in honor of the birth of his son, Aslanmurza-Hadji Abaev was present, who, in the midst of the conversation, said that he would like to see a zealous servant of Islam in the boy. Tavshur liked it, and he thought: “At least he doesn’t need anyone else like you.”

The elder of the Zhangurazov family, Abrek, gave him the name of the prophet Yahya (peace be upon him). Subsequently, his name will change a little, since the Balkars pronounce it as Ahiya, but he himself, having become an adult, will always sign “Yahya Bin Zhanguraz”, which translated from Arabic means “Yahya son of Zhanguraz”, that is, from the Zhanguraz family.

As a child, Ahiya differed from his peers, first of all, in the strength of his character. He was goal-oriented and also willingly participated in sports.

At the same time, he was also interested in Islamic sciences, a love for which was instilled in his father. He himself was illiterate, but he really wanted to teach his son to read and write, especially since the boy himself expressed a desire.

According to legend, Ahiya initially studied with the famous sheikh in Balkaria, Kumyk Abu Salam Omayev. The latter greatly influenced the boy with his stories and, seeing Ahiya’s abilities, began to work with him more intensively.

Ahiya’s desire for knowledge was also noticed by Aslanmurza-Khadji Abaev, who was considered the most zealous preacher of Islam in Balkaria and became a Hadji at a very early age (about thirty). Moreover, Abaev also had a spiritual education, and in terms of authority in society he had no equal at that time.

When the boy turned 16 years old, his father, on the instructions of Omaev and Abaev, sent him to study in Dagestan.

Ahiya loved classes in Arabic, because, having studied it, he would be able to read the Koran and all Islamic literature, which he had previously only heard about from his teacher in Balkaria. In addition, here in Dagestan, the memories of the Caucasian War were still very vivid, and he listened with great admiration to stories telling about the jihad of the Muslim mountaineers against tsarism and Russia’s colonial policy in the Caucasus.

Of course, he was attracted by the personality of Imam Shamil, whose image was presented here by different storytellers in different ways, sometimes even contradictory. In any case, all this had a powerful impact on Ahiya's worldview. In his free hours, when all the tasks were completed, he loved to read Arab and Persian authors.

Having passed all the exams and received a document on Islamic education, he went to Hajj with his friends, for which he received special permission from the puppet authorities.

So, Ahiya sets off on a long journey for the purpose of pilgrimage and, if possible, will continue her education in the land of Arabia. Ahiya went on his first Hajj with his friends, with whom he studied for 3 years in Dagestan, and his teacher Gamzat, who had made the pilgrimage more than once. Along the route through Azerbaijan and Georgia, everything was new for young graduates of the madrasah: people, morals, customs, architecture, other cities, other languages.

Two months later they arrived in a large Turkish city, which housed a whole complex of educational institutions where Islam was studied. Here Gamzat arranged for all the children to study so that they could improve their knowledge in the field of Islamic and “secular” sciences during the year.

The following year, Gamzat announced that they would continue their journey to Arabia. In Mecca, together with pilgrims who had gathered here from all over the world, a group from Dagestan also carefully performed all the rituals of the Hajj and listened to sermons right inside Al-Haram. Afterwards the group went to Medina. At the insistence of Ahiya, they stayed here for a long time: they prayed, listened to the sermons of famous scholars of Islam, and communicated with Muslims who arrived from different countries.

On the way back, he stayed with Gamzat in Iraq for a year and a half, where, after passing the exams, he received a document on higher Islamic education.

Unrest in Balkaria
Upon returning to his native gorge, Ahiya-Hadji, begins to preach Islam, becomes a Sharia judge, and takes an active part in the construction of the central Juma mosque.

As you know, at the end of the 19th century, new unrest began in Balkaria, mainly due to the aggravated agrarian question. Akhie-Hadji had to take an active part in those events, as a result of which friction occurred with representatives of the occupation authorities. But the most dramatic pages from the life of Ahiya-Hadji opened a little later.

In 1917, Ahiya-Khadzhi Zhangurazov called on the residents of the gorge not to participate in the revolutionary movement, because both the Bolsheviks and the Cadets were alien to Muslims in all respects, and ordinary Balkars would be able to arrange their lives according to the laws of Sharia of Allah.

Yet in 1918, Ahiya-Hadji, succumbing to the Bolshevik slogans about equality, justice and freedom, suddenly changed his views on the essence of the revolution. Having gathered 400 armed horsemen in two days, he moved with the flag to Kashkhatau, then to Nalchik. Here the first Balkar detachment helped the Bolsheviks for about a week. But in Nalchik, Ahiya-Hadji realized that behind the beautiful slogans of the Bolsheviks there was something different, different from the external form. And the promises of freedom of religion are false, because this government is against any religion, but why then help them? He urgently gathered all like-minded people and made a speech in which he expressed his attitude to what he saw in Nalchik, declaring that he repented of what he had done and intended to immediately leave with a detachment for Balkaria.

Now Ahiya-Hadji realized that the Bolsheviks, by their actions, would not only not restore order, but would also sow new unrest among Muslims. He had a presentiment of a terrible tragedy and spoke about it during sermons, but did not know that the most terrible grief awaited, first of all, his family and himself.

The establishment of a new government in the Caucasus, as is known, took a long time and painfully. The division of society, constant bloodshed, violence, grief, hunger and destruction - that was the characteristic feature of that time.

After the establishment of infidel Soviet power in Balkar society, as elsewhere, centers of “counter-revolutionary activity” began to be identified and eliminated with the help of anonymous denunciations, manipulation of facts, etc. In the village council of Upper Balkaria in 1920-21, dozens of denunciations accumulated from munafiks about anti-Soviet propaganda and the activities of some residents, including Akhiya-Khadzhi Zhangurazov.

The chairman of the village council tried to arrest him several times, but the excited crowd did not allow this to happen and immediately surrounded the house of Akhya-Khadzhi. The Kuffar authorities understood that they just needed to choose the right time and create such circumstances that Zhangurazov’s arrest would appear to be initiated from the center.

At some point they succeeded. In 1921, the special forces of the invaders began large-scale work to identify and eliminate all centers of Islamic resistance. Ahiya-Hadji and several other people were forced to hide in Svaneti until 1923. After returning to his native gorge, Ahiya-Hadzhi was again attacked, the leaders of the Bolsheviks again began to wait for the right opportunity to get rid of their ideological enemy - Islam in the person of specific people, including Zhangurazov. And this continued for another two years.

In the fall of 1925, a mounted police detachment made two unsuccessful attempts to arrest Ahiya-Hadji. The villagers, armed with clubs and stones, surrounded Zhangurazov in a tight ring and the detachment could not even get twenty meters closer to him.

For the third time, a special group of about four dozen security guards arrived. They quickly dispersed the small group of Muslims, beating them with rifle butts. This happened early in the morning, when Ahiya-Hadji was preparing for morning prayer, but he was not even allowed to put on a hat; one of the Kharbis knocked out his hat and kicked it. Men began to arrive from Cherek. Ahiya-Hadji realized that if someone uses weapons, a lot of Muslim blood will be shed, and he turned to the people: “Everything is in the hands of the Almighty. I’m not guilty of anything, everything will be fine, don’t do anything.” As a result, he was sent into exile on a fabricated case. Ahiya-haji was in captivity from 1926 to 1929 in the Volgograd region.

In May 1929, Ahiya Haji returned to his homeland. The news of his return immediately spread throughout all the villages and gorges, but no one dared to visit him. Everyone was afraid, afraid of something. Ahiya-Hadji himself became bald, his face and forehead were completely covered with deep wrinkles. Seeing that he was limping on his left leg, Muslimat’s wife asked what was the matter, but he chose to remain silent.

Times have changed. Now there are even more informers in Balkaria. Soon, new incriminating evidence against Zhangurazov was fabricated. On the morning of August 22, 1929, the sheikh stood in the courtyard and saw a group of soldiers riding from below. They quickly crossed the bridge and stopped at the mosque. Ahijah entered his house. The soldiers, thinking that he wanted to hide, rushed after him. One of them said that they were going to take him to the OGPU in Nalchik. Muslimat came in and started wailing. Ahiya-Hadji told her that everything would be fine and it was just a misunderstanding. Numerous neighbors gathered, but no one said anything. Ahiya-Hadji looked around at everyone. This was the last time: neither he nor they would see him again.

When the news of the arrest of Ahiya-Hadzhi reached Atsikanov Nukhtar-Pasha, Ahiya’s son-in-law, he decided to release his already elderly father-in-law, realizing that the matter would not be limited to a simple investigation, and the sheikh’s health was already very weak and would not withstand a new imprisonment. He managed to catch up with the cart and free Zhangurazov under cover of darkness.

From this moment on, Nukhtar Pasha, now a former party leader, also joins the Mujahideen and suffers trials along the way. Moving from place to place, they finally ended up in the town of Almaly-Doguat, where they dug a dugout in a dense forest under an old tree with a rotten core. The group of Mujahideen was extremely heterogeneous at different times in terms of numbers and composition. There were Balkars, Kabardians, and Ossetians here. Meanwhile, arrests and interrogations of relatives and friends of abreks began in Balkaria.

Five years passed, Ahiya-Hadji and the rest of the Mujahideen experienced many trials and hardships. One early morning, before sunrise, Ahiya-Hadji woke up the two who were sleeping besides him, they performed ablution and stood up for prayer, but the prayer was interrupted by noise from outside.

One of the abreks, Osman, brother of Ahiya-Hadji, was the first to rush to the crack of the dugout and noticed the silhouettes of people at some distance from it, among them he recognized a familiar silhouette. It was one of the Mujahideen who had left to buy food a few days ago. Someone said loudly that they were surrounded and that they had to surrender. Ahiya-Hadji continued his prayer. Osman, snatching a rifle from the second abrek, Sarakuev Battal, wanted to shoot at the traitor, but he disappeared somewhere. Then he opened fire on the first hat that rose... The other side opened heavy fire on the dugout.

The shots stopped, three people approached the dugout, one quickly jumped back when he saw the bloody mess, and the other two, approaching Akhie-Khadzhi, who was still alive, shot him in the head...

Then all the dead were dragged out, tied to the saddles of horses, and dragged along a rocky road. Later the bodies were loaded into a car and taken to Upper Balkaria. Upon arrival, the car stopped near the mosque. They opened the tailgate and threw the bodies onto the ground. They gathered the entire population to “clarify” the situation.

After the “trial” they decided to tie the body of Ahiya-Hadji to the “pillar of shame”. Then they began to beat him with a whip. And the people watched; he clearly understood that they were trying to intimidate him. And what does the corpse of Ahiya-Hadji have to do with it? One old man whispered, looking at all this: “Oh, Almighty, how soon do you allow this people to live on earth? It would be better to die than to see this.” The next day, all three were dragged into the crypt, deciding that this was enough as funeral rites.

Thus, the inhabitants of the gorge “said goodbye” to the mujahid sheikh, who fought against the Russian occupiers, who performed 4 hajjs, who was the fairest judge in the history of Balkar society, and who was on the side of the people all his life. How many prayers he said for him, how many dead people he saw off on their last journey. And now he, a sick old man, with the help of local traitors, was killed like a fierce beast in the forest, stabbed with daggers, his body was violated and thrown into an old crypt, without even allowing him to say a funeral prayer.

The following year Nukhtar Pasha was killed. The infidels also violated his corpse and threw it into the same crypt.

In 1957, after returning from deportation, Ahiya-Hadji Zhangurazov’s niece, Osman’s daughter, ritually interred the remains of her father, uncle, son-in-law and distant relative. She found those people who then carried the corpses out of the village and put them in the crypt. They described everything exactly and showed where, who and when they were placed. In 2006, a tombstone was installed over the grave of Ahiya-Hadji.

It should be noted that it was unheard of barbarity at that time: dragging the body of a dead Muslim, who was a respected person throughout society and had done so much for him. And the occupier was not satisfied with this, they also tied him to a post and beat him with a whip!