Aggressors may establish their own fully controlled religious posts and structures for the colonized society and appoint hired or recruited clergy to them. Instead of capturing existing institutions, a parallel religious authority loyal to the empire is created, through which the colonizer attempts to seize spiritual legitimacy from resistance leaders and direct preaching toward the people's subjugation. Unlike Seizure of Religious Institutions (T0100), existing institutions are not subordinated but replaced by an appointee; unlike Religious Assimilation (T0116), the work is carried out within the colonized people's own religion, rather than by converting it to the metropole's confession.
In 1836, the command of the Russian Caucasus Corps under General Rozen established under its own control the post of spiritual leader of all the Sunnis of the Caucasus, and appointed to it the hired Kazan efendi (Muslim theologian) Taj ad-Din Mustafin, maintained at the treasury's expense - an attempt to tie the Sunni clergy of the colonized peoples, including the Nokhchi, to a figure subordinate to the empire. The historian N. I. Pokrovsky wrote: "a broad project emerges for subordinating the entire mountain Sunni clergy to a special spiritual person"; the task set was "to turn the highlanders onto the true path, subordinate them to the Russian government, and destroy or hand over Shamil to us alive" (Shamil - imam, leader of the Dagestani and Chechen highlanders' resistance to the Russian conquest)[1]. Only the establishment of the post, the appointment, and the preacher's years-long payment took place; subordinating the clergy did not succeed: "The preacher did not dare to show himself in the mountains"[1]. The empire wound down the project only six years later: Golovin, who succeeded Rozen, agreed to release Mustafin based on a report by Minister of War Chernyshev of 13 November 1841 - "the teaching of Tajudin Effendi over the course of 6 years did not change the highlanders' attitude toward us in the slightest"[1].
Against the religious authority of the Imamate (the state of the highlanders of Dagestan and Chechnya headed by imam Shamil, leader of the resistance to the Russian conquest) the empire fielded Islamic clerics loyal to itself. On 13 March 1845 Vorontsov, viceroy and commander-in-chief in the Caucasus, in a memorandum to emperor Nicholas I reported the dispatch of a Crimean Muslim judge (qadi) to Chechnya: "Qadi Esker Seid Halil Efendi came to me and declared his intention and wish personally to assist our righteous cause in the Caucasus mountains by admonishing the tribes in the name of the Mohammedan faith itself... I gave him for expenses... 400 rubles in silver in all and post-horses for four horses to the Groznaya fortress, charging this expense to the extraordinary sum"[2]. The empire paid for the service with a decoration as well: historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write - "In 1845 the Crimean Tatar qadi Qadiasker Seid-Halil Efendi was sent to the Groznaya fortress; his efforts were soon marked by a high decoration - the Order of St Anna, third class"[3].