Tsarist Russia violently dispossessed hundreds of thousands of Caucasian Muslims

Evidence

In the mountains of Daghestan and Chechnya, indigenous Muslim mountaineers declared jihad against imperial forces, amplifying the challenge of incorporating these vast and diverse Muslim populations. Tsarist retribution could be fierce. Beginning with the Crimean War, tsarist military forces had forcibly removed Muslim communities, spurring emigration to Ottoman lands. Tsarist troops unleashed violence across the Muslim highland communities in the Caucasus as well. Tsarist reprisals forced several hundred thousand Muslims from their homes. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 529

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Circassian genocide and the muhajir exodus literature, and to the broader Jewish/Muslim co-exclusion framework the chapter is building.