The Caucasian Imamate (Arabic: إمامة القوقاز‎‎ `Imāmat al-Qawkāz), also known as the Caucasus Imamate, was the state established by the imams in Dagestan and Chechnya during the early and middle of the 19th century in the Northern Caucasus, to fight against the Russian Empire during the Caucasian War, where Russia sought to conquer the Caucasus in order to secure communications with its new territories south of the mountains.

Previously in the Northeast Caucasus, there had, since recordable history, been a large array of states.

Caucasian Albania had existed in Southern Dagestan, for most of its history being a vassal under the direct rule of the Parthians and later the Sasanid Persians, but eventually, the majority converted to Islam following the Muslim conquest of Persia, as their overlords did. Traveling Arabs proved to be instrumental in this, and after they left, they relinquished the new Muslim states of Lezghia (centered in the Islamic learning center of Derbent), Lakia (centered in another, rival city of Islamic learning, Kumukh) and their less important neighbors. In these areas (Southern and Southeast Dagestan), where interethnic conflict was often present, Islam served a unifying role, and it was often the clerical establishment which mediated disputes. To this day, this is the most devotedly Islamic region of the Caucasus, with this as one of the major reasons.

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