Sheikh al-Islam Salam Bikijev
Islamic Stories
Although Islam did not reach Ingushetia, one of the countries in the Caucasus region, until roughly two centuries ago, Muslims in this land have endured hardships unlike any other people on Earth, facing oppression, brutality, and persecution. Their stories are stranger than fiction, given the enormity of their suffering.
After embracing Islam voluntarily and peacefully, without combat, despite being fierce warriors, they faced the tyranny of the Tsarist governments, which forced the population to convert to Christianity and subjected dissenters to various forms of torture. This was followed by the Communist era, which persecuted all believers and killed hundreds of thousands of them. The most prominent of these atrocities was the deportation of the Ingush people to Siberia during the bitter winter, where a third of the Muslim population perished from cold and hunger under Stalin.
Kuwait News
Finding a Quran or any religious book in any Muslim’s home meant execution and persecution. Hundreds of scholars, muftis, and imams were killed during that dark period.
Elderly people recount chilling stories, either experienced by themselves or passed down from their fathers and ancestors.
Amid these successive tragic eras, this exceptional man emerged, through whom Allah protected Islam in the Caucasus region.
Sheikh Salam Bek was born in 1937 in the city of Ali-Yurt in Ingushetia. At the age of six, he found himself and his family in exile along with his Ingush people. He endured the tragedies of civil wars, yet never ceased seeking knowledge and secretly spreading it among Muslims.
He was distinguished by his sharp intellect, strong attachment to Islamic sciences, humility, and excellent manners.
He acquired knowledge from his father, studying jurisprudence according to the Shafi’i school, as well as language and Quranic sciences, along with other Islamic sciences, secretly from his father. His father had similarly received this knowledge secretly from his grandfather. May Allah have mercy on them all.
He combined knowledge with asceticism, jurisprudence with worship and remembrance. He dedicated long hours of his day to dhikr (remembrance of Allah), purifying, and refining his soul.
People, both scholars and the general public, trusted his vast knowledge and referred to him for fatwas and difficult issues. When he could not provide an answer, he would correspond with scholars in Islamic countries and return with their responses, thanks to his proficiency in the Arabic language.
Out of fear of persecution and pursuit, he concealed his study of Islamic sciences behind his engineering specialization. He was a brilliant and exceptional engineer.
He obtained a patent in mechanical engineering and progressed in his engineering career, starting as a technical instructor, then becoming department head, and finally chief engineer in the energy department at the "Gabur Akhriev" factory.
He passed away on February 14, 2008. The Islamic Center in Karelia was named after him, and streets in the Ingush cities of Nazran and Ali-Yurt were also named in his honor.
He made an active contribution to preserving Islam in the Caucasus region.
"According to the resolve of the resolute, resolutions come,
And noble deeds come according to the worth of the noble.
Their smallness appears great in the eyes of the small-minded,
And their greatness appears small in the eyes of the great."
May Allah grant him wide mercy and admit him into the spaciousness of His Paradise.
$ Imam and Preacher
