Rutul

Rutul stands in the upper Samur valley, among the mountains of southern Dagestan. Its inhabitants call the village Mykha; the name Rutul, used by neighbors and recorded by the fifteenth century, came to designate the people and their language. The village was the center of a union of mountain communities whose members lived along the Samur and its tributaries.

The communities of the valley guarded their independence amid the rivalries of surrounding powers. In 1536 Rutul attacked Akhty, then a stronghold of Safavid influence in southern Dagestan. Local rivalries continued into the eighteenth century, when Rutul and its neighbors fought over villages along the Samur. Arabic inscriptions and the remains of a minaret testify to the long presence of Islam in this mountain country.