In 1990, he took part in rallies, led by the Salafist Sheikh Muhammad Bagauddin, for Soviet Muslims to be allowed to make the Hajj pilgrimage.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a group of Arabs in the Islamic missionary organisation Tablighi Jamaat visited his native village in 1992.
In the same year he reportedly travelled to Chechnya and attended a training camp ran by the Arab field commander Khattab.
In mid-July 2010, Dokku Umarov appointed Vagabov as both the emir of Vilayat Dagestan and the Qadi of the Caucasus Emirate Sharia court, filling the positions previously held by the late Umalat Magomedov and Anzor Astemirov respectively.
[6] Vagabov and 4 other militants were killed during a raid by the FSB in the village of Gunib in August 2010.