of what is now Afghanistan and Baluchistan, he
set out for the Punjab, where the population was
a mixture of Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs. There
he attempted to displace the local Sikh governor,
Sher Singh (d. 1843), and after several battles and
skirmishes he was killed at Balakot (near Kash-
mir) in 1831. His movement was put into disarray,
but it reorganized itself and became a nonjihadist
reform movement known as the Path of Muham-
mad, based in Patna. Sayyid Ahmad is still remem-
bered by many Pakistani and Indian Muslims as a
martyr (shahid), and his shrine still stands in the
town of Balakot, Pakistan, along with memorials
to those who died in battle with him.
The movement launched by Sayyid Ahmad
in the early 19th century is distinct from a
movement the emerged later in the 1880s called
the Barelwi Movement, under the leadership of
Ahmad Riza Khan (1856–1921) of Barelwi, a
scholar of the sharia. Members of this movement
strongly believed that they were the Indian heirs
of Muhammad and his companions in medina,
and they opposed the reformist ideas of sayyid
ahmad khan (d. 1898) and abU al-kalam azad
(d. 1958). Instead they espoused a combination of
Sufi devotionalism and pilgrimage to saint shrines
with a reformist attitude toward the sharia. Their
understanding of Islam was also at odds with that
of Sayyid Ahmad’s “Wahhabi” movement and the
conservative school based in deoband. Although
the Barelwi Movement began in rural areas, it has
since gained a strong following among educated
Muslims in urban areas of India and Pakistan.
See also hindUism and islam; mUghal dynasty;
reneWal and reForm movements; Wahhabism.
Further reading: Mohiuddin Ahmad, Saiyid Ahmad Sha-
hid: His Life and Mission (Lucknow: Academy of Islamic
Research and Publications, 1975); Ghulam Mohammad
Jaffar, “Teachings of Shah Wali Allah and the Movement
of Sayyid Ahmad Shahid of Bareilly.” Hamdard Islamicus
16, no. 4 (1993): 69–80; Barbara D. Metcalf, Islamic
Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900 (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982).
Basmachi
Basmachi, a Turkic word translated as “bandit,”
was a derogatory term used by Bolshevik and
Soviet authorities to refer to almost all forms
of violent indigenous Central Asia resistance to
Russian power following the Russian Revolu-
tions of 1917. This resistance grew in response
to the economic and social dislocation resulting
from Russian campaigns of land confiscation
and looting. The largest movement labeled Bas-
machi was led by Enver Pasha (d. 1922), one of a
number of former Turkish military officers who
fought in the region under the banner of pan-
Turkism (a nationalist movement among Turkic
peoples). Although he commanded 15,000 to
20,000 troops by spring 1922, he and the other
Turkish officers were seen as outsiders, and they
failed to gain a real following among the popu-
lation. The Soviets made effective use of their
greater military force, and in 1923, the govern-
ment offered amnesty to those rebels who would
give up the fight and surrender their weapons.
Revolts continued, however, with one large
Basmachi group holding out for seven months
in 1924.
Numerous so-called Basmachi revolts con-
tinued into the 1930s with varying intensity in
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. These
revolts were different from those of the 1920s,
as they were unorganized, peasant-based move-
ments with less of a coherent ideology. Soviet
collectivization of agricUltUre, their campaign
to root out “class enemies” in the countryside, as
well as an escalated struggle against Islam caused
the number of these uprisings to increase. Most
of the fighting men came from the peasantry, and
their leaders were village elders, tribal heads, and
Sufi shaykhs. Basmachi revolts were firmly rooted
in local communities, so that organizationally and
objectively they could never coalesce into a mass
uprising large enough to dislodge the Soviets. The
revolts also remained immune to calls to join the
larger national or pan-Turkic struggle. By the late
1930s, through military force and political andBasmachi 93 J