Since the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001, jihadism has been introduced into the media, political and academic debate in the west, and the wider world. Mark Youngman’s The Caucasus Emirate: Ideology, Identity, and Insurgency in Russia’s North Caucasus contributes to this debate by offering an in-depth study of the ideology and mobilizing strategy of jihadist leaders of the so-called Caucasus Emirate (Imarat Kavkaz, IK, in Arabic), who were operationally, politically, and especially virtually active between 2007 and 2015. The book, which largely draws on over 300 website-based Russian and English-language versions of the IK leaders’ statements, is organized into three parts. The first part deals with some historical and ideological aspects of the IK’s Islamization and regionalization. It also explains the perceived usefulness of the Social Movement framing approach for the study of the IK’s jihadist ideology, which is regarded as the driving force behind the IK’s mobilization. The second and largest part examines the ideological and operational specifics of the jihadist leadership in Russia’s autonomous republics of Chechnya, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, and Ingushetia, which were designated as the IK’s virtual provinces, or wilayats (Ar.), wrongly spelled as vilayyats. The third part re-examines the key factors of continuity and change in the official ideology of the collective IK and identifies the reasons behind the IK’s eventual ideological, as well as operational, subordination to the global jihadist movement and the so-called Islamic State in particular.

To the book’s advantage is its being the first comprehensive research into the ideological component of jihadism in the Russian North Caucasus through the framing lenses of the Social Movement Theory. It competently argues in favor of jihadist ideological pluralism and the importance of understanding a particular jihadist group’s regional grievances and goals. At the same time, the book would have benefitted from a deeper engagement with Islamic Studies scholarship on political Islam and jihadism, including works by Olivier Roy, Giles Kepel, Peter Mandaville, Youssef M. Chouerri, Bassam Tibi, Anna Zelkina and Alexei Malashenko, as well as with scholarship on the correlation between global and local jihads, such as research by Faisal Devji, Tom Smith, and Kirsten E. Schulze. It is also disappointing that the author chose to rely exclusively on the Russian- and English language versions of jihadist leaders’ statements, while not considering their Arabic and Turkish versions despite acknowledging considerable content differences in different languages, as well as IK’s close links with their counterparts in Türkiye and the Arab Middle East. For some reason, the book does not examine the ideological views of Movladi Udugov, Fathi al-Shishani, and Omar al-Saif and their roles in the region’s jihadization, as well as the ideological positioning of jihadists in the Nogai Steppe and the Pankisi Gorge. In addition, given the historically complex relations between Sufism and Salafi Islam in Dagestan and Chechnya, it would have been good if the book also discussed the jihadist leaders’ attitude towards Sufism. The use of the terms “insurgent” and “rebel” as synonymous in relation to IK jihadists is problematic; it would also be useful to know how they were perceived by various groups of local Muslims, as well as in Türkiye and the Middle East. The book’s numerous references to insurgency appeal would have been more credible if supported by relevant statistics.

Overall, not withstanding the outlined limitations, the book is a welcome addition to the political science scholarship on jihadism. As such, it will appeal to scholars, policy-makers and students interested in exploring the role of identity in jihadism and other mobilizing ideologies.