Inal the Great

Prince Inal (Circassian: Инал, Yinal), called Inal the Great by Georgian sources was a medieval Circassian prince of the Kabarday tribe who took the sovereign power, or authority in the Kabardia region of Circassia in the 15th century and had taken as his goal to unify all of the Circassians who were divided into several tribes into one state. Each Circassian tribe maintained a distinct region in Circassia and had a ruling class of their own. The Circassian princes, more specifically the Kabarday princes called themselves the sons of Inal and boasted their descent from him and regarded him as their patriarch, or hypothetical father and their progenitor. Prince Inal, surnamed Nexw (and Nef in the western regions of Circassia), which in the Circassian language means the "bright", the one who casts light. He was considered by the Kabarday princes as their common ancestor and described him as a mighty khan. Before his death in the year 1453, Prince Inal, the valiant and the prudent had succeeded in uniting all of Circassia as well as Abkhazia into one state, but split up again into separate feudal principalities after his death.

Inal's name is also present in geographical names in Caucasus. There is mount Inal (2990 m) between Baksan River and Tyzyl valleys.

References

• Caucasian Review. Vol. 2. Munich (München), 1956. Pp. 19
• Caucasian Review. Vol. 2. Munich (München), 1956. Pp. 35
• Klaproth, Julius Von, translator Frederic Shoberl. Travels in the Caucasus and Georgia: Performed in the Years 1807 and 1808, by Command of the Russian Government. London: Printed for Henry Colburn, and Sold by G. Goldie, Edinburgh, and J. Cumming, Dublin, 1814.
• Latham, Robert Gordon. Descriptive Ethnology. London: Voorst, 1859. Pp. 51