Tolstoy's Enigmatic Final Hero: Holy War, Sufism, and the Spiritual Path in Hadji Murat

Considered an incredibly “anomalous” masterpiece, Tolstoy’s last work of fiction, Hadji Murat (1896–1904), renders the life and death of the legendary Avari warrior, Hadji Murat. The novella is aesthetically stunning and surprisingly devoid of Tolstoy’s opinionated authorial voice. With its ideologically muted nature, Hadji Murat has provoked “indecision and controversy” among critics, particularly since it impartially narrates phenomena the moralistic Tolstoy normally decried, like smoking, fornication, and especially violence. In this essay, I reconsider the question of Hadji Murat ’s problematic place in Tolstoy’s oeuvre. I focus on the very aspects that have inspired the novella’s designation as an anomaly–Tolstoy’s depictions of brutal violence. Starting with the quagmire of violence, I show that Hadji Murat is not nearly so anomalous, but profoundly connected, precisely through violence, to Tolstoy’s later ideological beliefs. To this end, Islam, which has so far been omitted in scholarly discussions of Hadji Murat , is an essential component of my analysis. In particular, there has been no consideration of ties between Tolstoy’s faith and mainstream Sufi Islam, as practiced in nineteenth‐century Chechnya and Dagestan. A form of Islamic spirituality, Sufism informed the military resistance led by imam Shamil and his lieutenant Hadji Murat. Tolstoy, who spent time in the Caucasus, cites Sufi spirituality in early drafts of Hadji Murat . Sufi spirituality is implicitly significant in the novella where it motivates individual actions, especially during crisis moments on the violent battlefield. I argue that Sufism serves as the connecting thread between the violence in Hadji Murat and Tolstoy’s later spiritual beliefs. At different stages of his life, Hadji Murat has different motivations for fighting until he finally takes up the cause of jihad or “holy war” (termed gazavat in the North Caucasus). Tolstoy focuses on this concept, but moves beyond its conventional understanding in Sharia Islam to explore jihad in a wider spiritual context that intersects with Sufism. As I show, “holy war,” broadly conceived by Tolstoy as spiritually‐driven warfare, becomes the basis for bringing together outward practice and inner spirituality in Hadji Murat .