Russia is attempting to quell Muslim unrest in Dagestan, a mountainous nation located in the Caucasus Mountains. Dagestan is a “federal subject or republic of Russia” with its largest city and capital being Makhachkala. It is home to many different ethnicities but only 4% of its population is ethnic Russian. Dagestanis are traditionally Muslim and recently events in Dagestan have started to mirror those in neighboring Chechnya. At the heart of a lot of the unrest seems to be unfulfilled economic promises and Dagestanis feeling left out of Russian economic development. This has taken form in a form of Islam that is politically active and mobilized against the Russian state. A particular form of advocacy detailed here is a Salafi Muslim who promises that an independent Dagestan ruled by Sharia law would provide social services that the current state neglects. Salafism and Sufism are the two competing strands of Islam in the region, with Sufism having an edge politically. Sufism accepts a secular state while Salafism does not.