Portrait of a Soviet Islamicist

Muhammad-Said Saidov (1902-1985) was a prominent Daghestani scholar whose long career saw him a witness to, and participant in, many of the social and intellectual shifts that occurred over the turbulent course of the 20th century. He was also a defiantly independent-minded thinker, juggling and combining the roles of Muslim scholar and Soviet academician at a time when many assumed that such professional identities were mutually incompatible. In this book, the first detailed biography of this remarkable individual, Shamil Shikhaliev draws on Muhammad-Said Saidov's various writings, together with his personal archive and manuscript collection, to reconstruct the various overlapping dimensions of Saidov's life and thought. The book offers a unique perspective on the modern Muslim experience in the Northern Caucasus, which will be of interest to historians, anthropologists and political scientists alike.