"This book presents two texts - The Shining of Daghestani Swords by al-Qarakhi and a new translation for a contemporary readership of Leo Tolstoi's Hadji Murat, illuminating the mountain war between the Muslim peoples of the Caucasus and the imperial Russian army from 1830 to 1859. The editors offer a complete commentary on the various intellectual and religious contexts that shaped the two texts and explain the historical significance of the Russian-Muslim confrontation. It is shown that the mountain war was a clash of two cultures, two religious outlooks and two different worlds. The book provides an important background for the ongoing contest between Russia and indigenous people for control of the Caucasus. The two translations are accompanied by short introductions and by a longer commentary intended for readers who desire a broader introduction to the tragic conflict in the Caucasus whose effects still reverberate in the twenty-first century."--Jacket.