One of the most prominent themes discussed in the literature on ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« Islam is the practice of religious secrecy and dissimulation, known most commonly under the Arabic term taqiyya,1 referring to a doctrinal dispensation that permits the obfuscation of oneâs religious afï¬liation in order to avoid harm or persecution. Defenders of taqiyya uphold its legitimacy through reference to a range of prophetic and scriptural precedents, in particular QurʾÄn 16:106: âAnyone who, after accepting faith in Allah, utters unbeliefâexcept under compulsion, his heart remaining ï¬rm in faithâbut such as open their breasts to unbelief, upon them is wrath from Allah, and theirs will be a dreadful penalty.â2 The observance of taqiyya has held a particularly prominent place in the history and literature of the minority IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« branch of ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« Islam, whose members have historically faced persecution not only from Sunni Muslims, but from other ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« Muslims as well.3
While the doctrinal and theoretical bases for taqiyya as a precautionary practice have been relatively well explored in the academic literature, much less consideration has been given to the matter of taqiyya as praxis and its relationship to broader considerations of secrecy and identity within a given religious community. One of the central concerns for minority communities who observe taqiyya is the danger that prolonged observance of dissimulation may eventually lead to permanent assimilation into the majority community and to the loss of communal identity and integrity. While this risk is widely acknowledged in scholarly discussions of taqiyya, rather little attention has been paid to the question of how religious communities seek to mitigate this risk and to grapple with the social and psychological pressures imposed by the prolonged observance of dissimulation. In this chapter I will examine this issue through a case study of the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« community of the mountainous BadakhshÄn region of Central Asia.4 In particular, I will reassess the place of taqiyya within the relationship between IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lism and Suï¬sm, which has frequently been cited as constituting a form of disguise for IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s engaged in the practice of dissimulation. I will demonstrate how a closer examination of Suï¬ themes within the literary and oral traditions of the Central Asian IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s may shed new light on the particular strategies of secrecy adopted within the community in the past, and I will explore how these strategies may have functioned to resolve the psychological tensions inherent in the observance of taqiyya. I will begin with an overview of some of the major approaches to the study of taqiyya within Western scholarship, before turning to an examination of its role within the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« tradition. Following this, I will turn to a discussion of the relevance of Suï¬sm for the performance of taqiyya within the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« tradition and will present a new framework for rethinking the role of Suï¬sm for the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« experience of dissimulation.
1 Approaches to Taqiyya in Western Scholarship
The very nature of taqiyya naturally poses an enormous challenge for scholars seeking to study it, being a phenomenon which, when conducted successfully, renders itself invisible and hence practically immune to inquiry. As a result, scholarship has traditionally focused on discussions concerning the practice within literature rather than on the social praxis of taqiyya itself. While scholars including Devin Stewart have adopted innovative approaches toward understanding the performative aspects of taqiyya,5 as a whole this topic still remains largely opaque to scholarship. Yet even as the practical aspects of taqiyya remain largely unexplored in scholarship (and perhaps necessarily will remain so), it has also long been clear that the observance of the practice holds a wider range of signiï¬cance and beneï¬ts within those communities who observe it, beyond its defensive function.
Some initial insight into the broader signiï¬cance of taqiyya among the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s of BadakhshÄn may be seen already in one of the earliest Western accounts of the community, given by the Russian orientalist Aleksandr Semenov. While serving with the Russian colonial administration in Central Asia in March 1912, Semenov met a group of IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« travelers from BadakhshÄn who had come to the Russian colonial headquarters in the city of Tashkent to ï¬le petitions seeking assistance against the predations of their Sunni neighbors. The IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s at that time had for centuries been known in the West via a mixture of legends and historical accounts inherited from medieval sources but had only just recently become known to British and Russian authorities as living communities residing within their colonial possessions. Semenovâs report of this meeting stands as one of the earliest and most sympathetic outsider accounts of this community and hence provides some critical insight into the relations of the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s with other communities. It is noteworthy, therefore, that Semenov begins his account with a stark observation on the importance of secrecy within the community: âLiving among Muslims, they typically pass themselves off likewise as Muslims and carry out all the prescriptions of the shariat, in every way attempting to avoid discussion of the subject of their beliefs. Aside from this, their religious ethics, by virtue of oaths given to their pirs (spiritual masters), may not be revealed to people of other faiths. Their religion is secret; its truth, being above the understanding of ordinary men, cannot be communicated to outsiders. Those guilty of breaking silence on this matter are subjected to severe punishment.â6 Semenovâs observations succinctly highlight the multiple levels on which the observance of taqiyya functioned among the community of his informants. Aside from its defensive purpose, Semenov points to how the practice of taqiyya reï¬ected a belief in a hierarchical scale of human intellectual capacity, one in which his informants naturally occupied a superior level in relation to other religious communities, which necessitated the adoption of secrecy in interacting with those of weaker capacities of comprehension. Semenov also points to a severe internal sanction leveled against those who violate the practice of secrecy within the community, likely motivated by the ubiquitous threat posed by the possibility of out-conversion and assimilation to the majority Sunni community.
Taken as a whole, Semenovâs observations reveal not only an external or defensive function of taqiyya among the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s but an internal purpose as well. This latter aspect of taqiyya has been explored in a number of studies, which have highlighted the role of secrecy not only as an evasion strategy but also, and perhaps more importantly, as a discursive practice intended to strengthen communal bonds. As Lynda Clarke argues:
In order to understand the importance of taqiyya ⦠it is necessary to focus on the form rather than supposed content of the secret. Prohibition against revealing knowledge serves to increase its value. This is the principle of the secret; human imagination enlarges that which it does notâand even more that which it cannotâknow. ⦠For, quite often ⦠the actual contents of the âsecretâ of a sect or organization are either not very signiï¬cant in themselves, or not, in reality, hidden. As the sociologist Simmel puts it ⦠the secret is instead primarily âa discursive strategy that transforms a given piece of knowledge into a scarce and precious resource, a valuable commodity the possession of which bestows status, prestige, or symbolic capital on its owner.â7
Clarkeâs arguments echo those of a range of scholars of religion who in recent years have explored the internal dynamics of secrecy among diverse religious communities.8 The importance of secrecy as a discursive strategy has been reinforced by another development in the ï¬eld of religious studies, one that has built upon Pierre Bourdieuâs notion of âsymbolic capitalâ to propose the theory of âreligious capital.â This idea was ï¬rst raised in an inï¬uential article by Laurence Iannaccone, who deï¬ned it as such: âFamiliarity with a religionâs doctrines, rituals, traditions, and members enhances the satisfaction one receives from participation in that religion and so increases the likelihood and probable level of oneâs religious participation. Conversely, religious participation is the single most important means of augmenting oneâs stock of religious human capital. Religious activities yield a stock of specialized skills that enhance the satisfaction received from subsequent religious activities.â9 The concept of religious capital has been further developed in recent years to study phenomena varying from patterns of conversion and interfaith marriage,10 to the impact of religious afï¬liation in business competition.11 When measured from the perspective of religious capital, practices of secrecy may present a positive advantage for religious communities, helping to cultivate an increased sense of group cohesion through a shared notion of communal uniqueness and exclusivity.
Yet an appreciation of the value of secrecy to the cultivation of religious capital also points to a profound paradox in the social praxis of taqiyya. On the one hand, the internal or discursive practice of secrecy within a community may serve to strengthen the accumulation of religious capital, and hence the organizational adherence of its members. On the other hand, the outward practice of taqiyya places the community members at a distinct disadvantage, in which this stock of religious capital is not only unavailable but in fact may be considered an outright obstacle to the successful employment of taqiyya. In other words, the more invested one is in the social life of one religious community, the more difï¬cult it becomes to convincingly pass off oneself as a member of another community. Those living in an environment requiring the consistent observance of taqiyya may face the challenge of cultivating religious capital among two communities simultaneously in order to carry out their social obligations. Such situations are of particular concern for communities like the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s of Central Asia, whose marginal economic position required frequent travel among and exchange with their Sunni neighbors for basic subsistence.
Hence, the paradox of taqiyya lies in the fact that, while as a discursive measure it may present beneï¬ts to a religious community and its members, in practice it is likely over time to have a corrosive effect on communal integrity. A ubiquitous concern regarding taqiyya is that a community engaged in the practice, especially over multiple generations, may inevitably forget their prior afï¬liation and come to understand themselves as legitimate members of the majority community. Indeed, IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« tradition today is littered with stories of former IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« communities across the Muslim world who abandoned their faith as a result of a prolonged experience of taqiyya. A few such examples have been considered in the academic literature, relying upon correspondences in doctrine and rituals, as well as circumstantial historical evidence, in order to posit the existence of âpermanently dissimulatedâ IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« communities.12 Within Central Asia there is scattered evidence pointing to the existence of IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« communities down to the early twentieth century in regions that today are entirely Sunni.13
My objective here, however, is not to uncover or recover the existence of such communities but rather to examine the strategies of secrecy pursued by self-identiï¬ed IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« communities in Central Asia that addressed this inherent paradox of taqiyya. In this chapter I analyze a series of both oral and written narratives preserved among the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s in order to demonstrate how the circulation of these narratives may have served to mitigate against the threats of assimilation and out-conversion posed by the practice of dissimulation. In doing so, I aim to address a signiï¬cant gap in our understanding of taqiyya, namely the relationship between its discursive and practical aspects. Before turning to this discussion I will offer a brief overview of the Central Asian IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« community and the role of secrecy practices within it.
2 The ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« Tradition in Central Asia
In common with the broader ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« tradition of Islam, the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s maintain that spiritual guidance after the death of the Prophet MuhÌ£ammad inheres within the position of the ImÄm, who stands in a line of succession traced back to the Prophet through his daughter FÄá¹imah and son-in-law Ê¿AlÄ«. The IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« branch of ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« Islam to which Semenovâs informants belonged traces its origin to a schism in the nascent ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« community over the question of the rightful succession to the ImÄm JaÊ¿far al-SÌ£Ädiq (d. 765), with one party championing the claim of his son IsmÄÊ¿Ä«l, while the line of imÄms constituting the IthnÄÊ¿asharÄ« or âTwelverâ ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« branch, whose supporters today constitute the worldâs majority of ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« Muslims, extended from his younger son, MÅ«sÄ al-KÄzim. Supporters of the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« movement appeared in northern Africa in the late ninth century, founding the FÄtimid dynasty under the ImÄm Ê¿AbdullÄh al-MahdÄ« in 909 and later establishing its capital in the newly founded city of Cairo. The FÄtimid dynasty for several centuries stood as a leading cultural and political force in the Islamic world, constituting a formidable challenge to the Sunni Ê¿AbbÄsid caliphate in Baghdad.
From an early period, the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s placed great importance on notions of secrecy and an initiatic hierarchy of knowledge. This emphasis on initiatic knowledge was reï¬ected within the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« doctrine of the taÊ¿lÄ«m or âauthoritative teaching,â which stressed the fallibility of human reasoning and the necessity of following the ImÄm. The IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«sâ doctrine of taÊ¿lÄ«m and their opposition to the Ê¿AbbÄsid caliphate earned them widespread opprobrium in the Sunni heresiographical literature. Among Sunni Muslim authors, the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s were frequently criticized for excessive attachment to esoteric teachings and for disregard of the sacred law (sharÄ«Ê¿ah). The historian Ê¿AtÄ-Malik JuvaynÄ«, for example, writing in the thirteenth century, relates his understanding of IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« doctrine as such: âAs for the sharÄ«Ê¿ah, it bore an inner and an outer meaning. The inner meaning was the real one, and when men had ascertained this inner meaning of the law they would come to no harm from disregarding the outer meaning. On this account their beliefs are considered to stand outside those of all other sects, i.e., of Islam itself.â14 Such condemnations necessarily led to the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s being forced to adopt the observance of taqiyya in Sunni environments. A succinct statement on the importance of taqiyya is offered in a text titled PandiyÄt-i javÄnmardÄ«, a collection of sermons by the ImÄm Mustaná¹£ir biâllÄh II (d. 1480):
O believers, bearers of (true) faith, keep until the last the secrets of your lord, so that the unworthy shall not penetrate these. One must not discuss his personal matters with strangers while travelling. God told the Prophet to conceal the mysteries of the true religion from the ignorant people of his time. ⦠O, truly faithful believers ⦠do not mention myself and the name of your ImÄm ⦠in the presence of the ignorant and unbelieving people who have an innate hatred of prophethood and imamate. ⦠Conceal my whereabouts from the irreligious people of today, so that you may for this attain the perfect reward and a righteous life.15
The IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« community of Central Asia traces its foundation to the Iranian poet and philosopher NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw (d. after 1072), who was appointed as a missionary (dÄÊ¿Ä«) to his native region of Balkh by ImÄm Mustaná¹£ir biâllÄh I (d. 1094).16 NÄá¹£ir was later forced to ï¬ee from Balkh due to opposition to his missionary work and took refuge further to the east, in the region of BadakhshÄn, where he was given protection by a sympathetic local ruler. An extensive body of legends and hagiographical traditions developed in later centuries surrounding NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw among both IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s and Sunnis in BadakhshÄn, crediting him with the conversion of the inhabitants of the region to Islam.17 While the life and works of NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw have been relatively well studied, the history of IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lism in Central Asia in the centuries following his death remains almost entirely obscure. The Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century and the destruction of the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« headquarters at the fortress of AlamÅ«t in northern Iran in 1256 dealt a signiï¬cant blow to the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s. For centuries in the West it was believed that the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s had perished entirely in the course of these assaults. It is now clear that IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« communities continued to survive in various regions, including in BadakhshÄn.18 Still, for centuries after the Mongol invasions, the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s were sparsely mentioned in historical sources, likely due in no small part to their intense observation of taqiyya.
The Safavid conquest of Iran in the early sixteenth century, which subsequently established Twelver ShÄ«Ê¿ism as the state religion of Iran, and the ensuing wars with the Sunni Uzbek rulers of Central Asia rendered the position of ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« communities within Central Asia even more precarious.19 These conï¬icts culminated in a ruling (fatwÄ) issued by the Sunni religious authorities of Central Asia in 1589 anathematizing ShÄ«Ê¿ism and declaring it a form of unbelief, permitting the murder or enslavement of ShÄ«Ê¿Ä«s and the theft of their property.20 In this context, the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s found themselves in a double bind: while the Safavid rulers of Iran considered the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s to be heretics and subjected them to persecution, even executing one of their imÄms, the Sunni rulers and scholars of Central Asia, for their part, declined to recognize any distinction between the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s and the Twelver ShÄ«Ê¿Ä«s (to which the Safavids belonged) and likewise treated them both indiscriminately as heretics.21
The later entrance of BadakhshÄn into the colonial competition between Great Britain and Russia served in many ways to further straiten the situation of IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s in the region. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the British and the Russian empires established protectorates over Afghanistan and the Amirate of Bukhara, respectively, both of which claimed suzerainty over parts of BadakhshÄn.22 Finding their opportunities for outward expansion blocked by the colonial powers, local Sunni rulers chose instead to embark on programs of internal consolidation, initiatives that came at great expense to a range of minority communities within their territories, particularly the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s. The period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century is still remembered today as an exceptionally difï¬cult one for the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s of Central Asia. It was in this context that Semenov had his ï¬rst encounter with members of the community, which led him to observe the importance of taqiyya among them.
3 Taqiyya and IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«-Sufi Relations in Central Asia
Discussions of the observance of taqiyya among IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s have long focused on the important role that Suï¬sm may have played in shaping the particular form of dissimulation practiced among the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s. The Russian émigré scholar Wladimir Ivanow was the ï¬rst to suggest that taqiyya may have been observed among IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s in the era following the Mongol conquests in the guise of Suï¬sm. This tendency, Ivanow noted, was most evident in the practices of IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« authors and poets: âThe great extent of the practice of the taqiyya, or lawful precautionary concealment of oneâs real religion, often was carried to such a degree that in the case of some poets it was impossible to decide whether the ideas dealt with by them were really Suï¬, or Ismailitic.â23 In a later work, he writes of IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« authors in post-Mongol Persia: âBeing accustomed in everyday life to what may resemble a âdouble personalityâ, Ismaili and Suï¬c, those few who wanted and could create something, usually took the line of the least resistance, and adopted the most slavish imitation of the great Suï¬c and moralizing poets of Persian literature. Reading the majority of the literary productions of this period, one often ï¬nds it very difï¬cult to decide as to what the work perused isâis it Suï¬c with strong Ismaili colouring, or an Ismaili work, too enthusiastically camouï¬aged as Suï¬c?â24
Ivanowâs perspective emerged from a strongly negative view of Suï¬sm itself, which he viewed as obscurantist and inherently antithetical to the essentially rational spirit of IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lism. Hence, in his view, the appearance of Suï¬ themes within IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« literature would necessarily constitute a corruption or merely a convenient disguise at best. This interpretation, however, leaves little room for the possibility that such themes may have reï¬ected a more organic development in IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« doctrine and literary practices, not necessarily connected with the practice of taqiyya. A very different approach to this question was taken by Ivanowâs colleague, the French scholar Henry Corbin. Corbin saw both IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lism and Suï¬sm as manifestations of a distinctly Persian mode of religiosity, with roots in the religious traditions of pre-Islamic Iran.25 Hence, for Corbin, the turn toward Suï¬ modalities in the post-Mongol period was not merely a cloak or guise, as Ivanow saw it; rather, he envisioned it as a return to its roots: âIt is the survival of Ismailism under the mantle of Suï¬sm which comes nearer perhaps to revealing its true grandeur and the inspiration of its distant origins, rather than in the brilliant setting of the Fatimid court.â26
The differing approaches offered by Corbin and Ivanow linger in an uneasy tension in the ï¬eld of IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« studies today. On the one hand, Corbinâs proposal of an organic link between the two schools continues to inform much of the scholarship on the literary engagement between Suï¬sm and IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lism. On the other hand, Ivanowâs framework of âSuï¬sm as disguiseâ continues to dominate discussions of the social history of IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lism in the post-Mongol era. Farhad Daftary, for example, argues that âduring the earliest post-Alamut centuries, the Persian [IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s] increasingly disguised themselves under the mantle of Suï¬sm, without establishing formal afï¬liations with any one of the Suï¬ orders or tariqas which were then spreading in Persia.â27 Thus far, however, research on the relationship between IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« and Suï¬ communities has suffered from a lack of attention to, or indeed a lack of evidence of, concrete examples of historical relations between these communities. The only concrete example that has been documented, namely the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« relationship with the Twelver NiÊ¿matullÄhÄ« Suï¬ order in Iran, in fact belies the claim that such relationships were cultivated for the purpose of taqiyya.28 The NiÊ¿matullÄhiyya, despite their ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« orientation, were steadily persecuted alongside the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s by members of the Twelver Ê¿ulamÄʾ in Iran, and hence would have posed an odd choice as a cover for purposes of taqiyya.29 As I have argued elsewhere, the relationship between the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s and NiÊ¿matullÄhÄ«s in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Iran developed simply through personal affections between the leadership of the two communities (a bond no doubt strengthened by their shared experience of persecution) rather than through any effort at dissimulation.30
As I will demonstrate below, neither the framework of âSuï¬sm as disguiseâ nor the one emphasizing the intellectual afï¬nity between Suï¬sm and IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lism is sufï¬cient for fully understanding the role of Suï¬sm in the observance of taqiyya among IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s. Aside from the Suï¬-themed literature produced by IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s, there is another body of evidence that I suggest may provide important clues toward the strategies of taqiyya employed among Central Asian IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s and the role of Suï¬sm therein. I refer here to a corpus of IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« narratives regarding a number of prominent non-IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« ï¬gures from Islamic history, chieï¬y from the Suï¬ traditions, which imagine and portray these ï¬gures as having been IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s themselves. It has long been known that IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s in Central Asia have retained and circulated the works of Sunni writers and poets within their literary tradition. Among others, IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s have preserved works by famous Sunni Persian poets and authors including JalÄl al-DÄ«n RÅ«mÄ«, FarÄ«d al-DÄ«n Ê¿AttÌ£ÄÌ£r, HÌ£Äï¬z-i ShÄ«rÄzÄ«, Ê¿AbdullÄh Aná¹£ÄrÄ«, and many others. A number of scholars have even noted the tendency among IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s to consider these authors as having been IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s themselves, although the signiï¬cance of these claims has not been explored at length in the literature. The manuscript record alone, however, provides insufï¬cient evidence for understanding the reception of these authors within the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« tradition. For this it is necessary to examine as well the body of oral traditions connected with these ï¬gures and their texts. While ethnographic studies from the Soviet era paid very little attention to such questions, we are fortunate to have available a handful of accounts from the pre-Soviet era that provide us with some valuable insight into this question.
One particularly informative account is provided in another article by Semenov, in which he recounts a narrative related to him by an elder from the BadakhshÄni village of Porshnev concerning the renowned Persian poet JalÄl al-DÄ«n RÅ«mÄ«, who is considered by many IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s to be among their co-believers.31 The story, in brief, tells of JalÄl al-DÄ«nâs encounter with his teacher Shams al-DÄ«n TabrÄ«zÄ«, who is here depicted as an IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« dÄÊ¿Ä«. One day JalÄl al-DÄ«n overheard Shams speaking of IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lism; intrigued, he pressed Shams for more information, but was rebuffed. Later Shams was directed personally by the ImÄm to teach JalÄl al-DÄ«n and to induct him into the secrets of the faith. Shams remained hesitant, believing that JalÄl al-DÄ«n was not yet ready, and demonstrated visible annoyance at JalÄl al-DÄ«nâs repeated overtures. Finally, one day JalÄl al-DÄ«n approached Shams and offered him a copy of his book of poetry, the MathnavÄ«, expecting him to be impressed, but Shams threw it into a fountain. JalÄl al-DÄ«n, clearly offended, demanded to know the reason for this bizarre act, at which point Shams recovered the book from the fountain, showing it to be undamaged. JalÄl al-DÄ«n, having witnessed this miracle, then pledged himself as a disciple of Shams, embracing IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lism. The narrative concludes by stating that RÅ«mÄ« went on to write new verses for his MathnavÄ«, whose inner meaning encompassed the secrets of IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lism.
The story depicted here of the meeting between RÅ«mÄ« and Shams, including Shamsâs feigned destruction of RÅ«mÄ«âs books in the fountain, is a well-known one from among the hagiographical lore surrounding RÅ«mÄ«, but it is rendered here with a distinctly IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« twist. Hence, in this rare specimen of oral tradition we ï¬nd a succinct example of the way in which these authors were narrated within the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« historical imagination, as ï¬gures who are revered among their Sunni neighbors are rendered into secret purveyors of IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lism, and with well-known stories from the broader Islamic tradition adapted to express speciï¬cally IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« mores.32 A number of more recent examples were documented by Gabrielle van den Berg in the course of her research into the minstrel traditions of the BadakhshÄni IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s in the 1990s. She records a number of cases in which famous Persian Suï¬ poets were reported by her informants to have been IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s, noting that âfrom the Badakhshanian point of view, the majority of classical Persian poets have been IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s in disguise.â33
As noted above, it has been frequently argued that the acceptance of so many purveyors of Persian mystical verse and philosophy as co-religionists among the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s is due to an inherent similarity, and even a common origin between these various schools of thought, and was both motivated and facilitated by the similarity and adaptability of Suï¬ thought to the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« philosophical tradition.34 Yet this fact alone does not provide a sufï¬cient basis to account for the full range of historical ï¬gures who have been imaginatively integrated within the Central Asian IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« tradition. In particular, it cannot account for the inclusion of a number of ï¬gures whose legacy is not primarily textual in nature (which I will discuss shortly). Furthermore, an evaluation of the Suï¬-IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« encounter on the basis of literature alone is insufï¬cient for understanding the social reality of that engagement, which in turn determined the particular strategies of taqiyya that drew upon it. For the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s of Central Asia, the primary encounter with organized Suï¬sm in the early modern period was with the Naqshbandiyya, which particularly from the sixteenth century onward was generally quite hostile toward ShÄ«Ê¿ism.35 Many of the Afghan and Central Asian rulers who subjected the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s to persecution and slave-raids were also adherents of the Naqshbandiyya. Accordingly, whereas there may be ample room to argue for a literary fraternization between Suï¬sm and IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lism, the real world encounter between the two was often quite a bit less accommodating. As Gabrielle van den Berg notes, many IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s in BadakhshÄn today show a strong dislike of the term âSuï¬smâ on account of the enmity shown by Suï¬s toward their community in the past.36
In this regard, we may note another oral narrative recorded by Semenov from among the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s of BadakhshÄn, this time regarding the ï¬gure of BahÄ al-DÄ«n Naqshband, the eponym of the Naqshbandiyya, whose shrine on the outskirts of the city of Bukhara is one of the most popular sacred sites throughout Central Asia.37 The story, in short, tells of how one day BahÄ al-DÄ«n left Bukhara to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca, leaving his son to tend to the community in his stead. During his absence, the people of Bukhara sexually assaulted his son. Upon hearing of their deeds on his return, BahÄ al-DÄ«n called on God to destroy the city; however, the people repented and pleaded with him to spare them, upon which he interceded to avert the divine punishment that awaited them. Finally, toward the end of his life, BahÄ al-DÄ«n resolved to leave the people a book of guidance; however, rather than offering it to the people directly, he elected instead to bury the book by a tree and trained a donkey to lead the people to it after his death.
While in this case the narrative does not directly identify BahÄ al-DÄ«n as having been an IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« himself, it nonetheless conforms to the broader pattern of such narratives in that it upholds the sanctity of one of the great saints of the Sunni Suï¬ tradition of Central Asia while belittling the common adherents of that tradition. It should be noted that the story was recorded at a time when the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s of BadakhshÄn had only very recently been removed from the occupation of the Amirate of Bukhara and the legacy of the persecution and rapaciousness of its ofï¬cials would have been fresh on the mind of its listeners. The story clearly alludes to BahÄ al-DÄ«nâs reputation as the balÄ-gardÄn, the âalleviator of afï¬iction,â for which his shrine is renowned today, suggesting that the afï¬ictions for which the people of Bukhara seek his intercession are a result of their own sinfulness, while also showing them as having been reduced to literally following a donkey in search of spiritual guidance upon BahÄ al-DÄ«nâs death.
Earlier scholars of the Suï¬-IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« engagement, such as Ivanow, drew upon a framework for understanding Suï¬sm which held its essence to be embedded primarily in the mystical writings and poetry of its early representatives. Recent surveys of Suï¬sm have quite thoroughly rejected this framework, focusing instead on an understanding of Suï¬sm as a more broadly based social reality in the Muslim world.38 Suï¬sm, especially in Central Asia, has been shown to be not simply a discrete school of Islamic thought, but also a popular mode of religious practice, centered particularly on the tombs of saints. Consequently, Suï¬sm, as a mode of Islamic practice, was by no means restricted to self-identiï¬ed members of Suï¬ orders; to the contrary, it reï¬ected a popular mode of religiosity which permeated the social landscape of Central Asia. Hence, a knowledge of these religious traditions would be a prerequisite for any individual seeking to convincingly participate in the social life of the region. Given this, below I will explore another narrative tradition among the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s that may shed some further light on the formulation and function of taqiyya strategies within the community.
4 The âNarrative of the Four Pillarsâ
As mentioned above, the imaginative integration of ï¬gures from the Suï¬ traditions among the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s of Central Asia is by no means limited to individuals associated primarily with literary legacies. An examination of a wider range of cases may provide important clues toward understanding the role of these narrative traditions in the performance of taqiyya. One narrative that is of particular interest in this regard was recorded in 1901 by the Russian nobleman AlekseÄ BobrinskoÄ, an amateur ethnographer, who traveled through his empireâs newly acquired possessions in BadakhshÄn and conducted a series of interviews with local IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« religious leaders, or pÄ«rs. From a conversation with a prominent IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« pÄ«r, Sayyid AhÌ£mad, he recorded a narrative stating that four prominent missionaries were responsible for propagating the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« doctrine in the past, namely Ê¿AlÄ« b. MÅ«sÄ al-RidÌ£Ä, who propagated it in KhurÄsÄn, FarÄ«d al-DÄ«n Ganj-i Shakar, in India, Ahmad YasavÄ«, in TurkistÄn, and NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw, who delivered it to BadakhshÄn.39 Sayyid AhÌ£mad went on to explain that the chief book of the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s, the KalÄm-i pÄ«r, was composed by ImÄm NizÄr (d. 1095) in the medieval IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« headquarters of AlamÅ«t and subsequently translated by NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw, Ê¿AlÄ« b. MÅ«sÄ al-RidÌ£Ä, FarÄ«d al-DÄ«n Ganj-i Shakar, and AhÌ£mad YasavÄ« into the languages of BadakhshÄn, KhurÄsÄn, HindÅ«stÄn, and TurkistÄn, respectively, and then carried forth and propagated in these territories.40
The three individuals mentioned here alongside NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw are all well-known ï¬gures within the eastern Islamic world. The ï¬rst, AhÌ£mad YasavÄ«, is the renowned twelfth/thirteenth-century saint and eponym of the YasavÄ« Suï¬ tradition, whose shrine is located in the town of TurkistÄn in present-day southern Kazakhstan. The second ï¬gure mentioned here is Ê¿AlÄ« AbÅ«âl-HÌ£asan b. MÅ«sÄ al-RidÄÌ£ (d. 818), eighth of the Twelver ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« imÄms, whose tomb is located in the city of Mashhad in the KhurÄsÄn province of eastern Iran. The ï¬nal ï¬gure, following NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw, is the renowned Indian saint of the ChishtÄ« order, FarÄ«d al-DÄ«n MasÊ¿Å«d Ganj-i Shakar (d. 1265), whose shrine is situated in the town of PÄkpattan in the Punjab province of modern-day Pakistan.
While, as outlined above, a number of different traditions circulate among the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s of Central Asia concerning non-IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« ï¬gures, there is a particularly prominent place for this narrative in which these four ï¬gures are consistently mentioned together. Various hypotheses have been offered over the years to explain the presence of these individualsâ names within IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« texts, generally resorting to a vague and ahistorical assertion of inï¬uence or syncretism between the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« and Suï¬ traditions, while in the case of Ê¿AlÄ« b. MÅ«sÄ al-RidÌ£Ä, it is often assumed that his name is mentioned on account of his status as a ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« imÄm, despite the fact that he is not an imÄm of the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s, hence demonstrating an alleged Twelver inï¬uence on the Central Asian IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« tradition. As I will demonstrate here, these hypotheses miss the mark and do not take into consideration the question of why these four speciï¬c ï¬gures are consistently grouped together. While there is no space here to examine the full prevalence of this narrative within IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« literature and oral tradition, below I will examine a few representative examples of it as it appears within the manuscript record before turning to an analysis of its origins and signiï¬cance.
One such example is found in an anonymous IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« doctrinal work from BadakhshÄn titled BÄb dar bayÄn-i tarÄ«qat va hÌ£aqÄ«qat (Treatise on the Path and the Truth).41 This is a didactic text, evidently designed as a sort of handbook for members of the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« religious leadership, whose structure follows a strict question and answer format (âIf they ask ⦠answer â¦â), addressing a wide range of doctrinal and theological issues. Among the questions addressed in the work is the following: âIf they ask âWho are the four pÄ«rs of the pillars (rukn)?â Answer: âThe ï¬rst, the head of TurkistÄn, is KhwÄjah AhÌ£mad YasavÄ«; the second, the chest of KhurÄsÄn, is ImÄm Ê¿AlÄ« MÅ«sÄ RidÌ£Ä; the third, the foot of HindÅ«stÄn, is Shaykh FarÄ«d Shakar Ganj; the fourth, the back of KÅ«histÄn [BadakhshÄn], is HÌ£adÌ£rat-i SultÄÌ£n Sayyid NÄá¹£ir-i Khusrawâ.â42
A second example comes from one of the most central texts of the BadakhshÄni IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« tradition: the ChirÄgh-nÄmah, or âBook of Illumination.â This textual tradition is employed within the context of the ChirÄgh-rawshan, or âLamp-lightingâ funerary ritual, which is typically carried out on the second night after the passing of the deceased (although the details of the ritual vary by locality). The practice is held to have been introduced to BadakhshÄn by NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw himself, hence the alternate title DaÊ¿wat-i NÄá¹£ir, or âSummons of NÄá¹£ir,â which is often employed for the tradition, although it is clear from the language, content, and manuscript record that the text dates to a much later period.43 Most importantly for our purposes, most manuscripts of the work contain a reference to the narrative under consideration, whose signiï¬cance is demonstrated by its placement very early in the text. After calling for blessing upon the prophets, the family of the Prophet Muhammad, and the imÄms, the text reads: â[O God, let your blessings be upon] the friends and the beloved messengers of the divine court, upon the head of TurkistÄn, KhwÄjah Ahmad YasavÄ«; upon the chest of KhurÄsÄn, ImÄm Ê¿AlÄ« MÅ«sÄ RidÄÌ£; upon the back of KÅ«histÄn, Ḥadrat-i SultÄÌ£n ShÄh Sayyid NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw; and upon the foot of HindÅ«stÄn, Shaykh FarÄ«d Shakar Ganj.â44
As I have noted previously, a common argument for the imaginative incorporation of Suï¬ ï¬gures within the framework of IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lism is the close correspondence between IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« and Suï¬ ideas and literary motifs. However, the presumption of intellectual and philosophical connections is of little utility in explaining the adoption of NÄá¹£ir-i Khusrawâs three companions into the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« tradition in the narrative under consideration. All three of these ï¬gures are associated with literary traditions to one degree or another. To Ê¿AlÄ« b. MÅ«sÄ al-RidÌ£Ä are attributed a number of texts in Arabic, several of which are still extant today. These include a medical treatise and several works of jurisprudence, while later Twelver ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« sources attribute to him a number of prayers and poems as well.45 There is no evidence, however, that any of these texts were known among the BadakhshÄni IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« community, while other early ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« imÄms, particularly JaÊ¿far al-SÌ£Ädiq, are much more renowned within the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« tradition for their scholarly contributions.
The literary legacies connected to FarÄ«d al-DÄ«n Ganj-i Shakar and AhÌ£mad YasavÄ« are more complex. While there are no texts directly credited to FarÄ«d al-DÄ«n, there are attributed to him a wide range of oral traditions (malfÅ«zÄÌ£t), prayers, meditation practices, litanies, and musical traditions (samÄÊ¿ and qawwÄlÄ«), much of it in Punjabi and other Indic languages.46 But again, there is no evidence that these traditions circulated among the BadakhshÄni IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s.47 AhÌ£mad YasavÄ«, for his part, is today widely associated with a body of Turkic mystical poetry known as the DÄ«vÄn-i hikmat, often described as one of the earliest samples of Turkic verse and ascribed a formative role in the Turkic literary tradition.48 Ahmad YasavÄ«âs reputation as a mystical poet led the Russian scholar StanishevskiÄ to speculate that this may have been the basis for BobrinskoÄâs informantâs claim to him as an IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« missionary.49 Yet, as Devin DeWeese has convincingly argued, the ascription of the DÄ«vÄn-i hikmat to Ahmad YasavÄ« is almost certainly spurious; not only does the language itself clearly belong to a later period, but moreover the attribution of the text to YasavÄ« does not appear in the manuscript record until the nineteenth century.50 Furthermore, while this attribution may have been in place at the time of BobrinskoÄâs expedition, there is once again no evidence that the DÄ«vÄn-i hikmat was known within the BadakhshÄni IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« tradition, nor is it likely that the Turkic text would have been accessible to this Persophone community.51
Hence, it is evident that there is no single thread in terms of literary legacies, philosophical ideas, or religious doctrines with which we could link Ê¿AlÄ« b. MÅ«sÄ al-RidÌ£Ä, FarÄ«d al-DÄ«n Ganj-i Shakar, and AhÌ£mad YasavÄ« together with NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw. Such a connection could be proposed only by reducing the intellectual legacies of all four ï¬gures to such a common denominator so as to render it useless for analytical purposes. So what then is the origin of this narrative, and why do these four ï¬gures consistently appear together within it? An important clue in this regard may be found in an iteration of this narrative given in an earlier, non-IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« source. The text in question is a mid-seventeenth-century hagiographical compendium titled the JÄmiÊ¿ al-salÄsil, composed by an author named Majd al-DÄ«n Ê¿AlÄ« BadakhshÄnÄ« in 1641 in India and dedicated to the Mughal emperor ShÄh JahÄn (r. 1628â1658).52 The author was the grandson of a renowned shaykh of the KubravÄ« Suï¬ order from BadakhshÄn, KhalÄ«lullÄh BadakhshÄnÄ« (d. 1593), who was in turn a disciple of the pivotal Central Asian KubravÄ« shaykh of the sixteenth century, KamÄl al-DÄ«n HÌ£usayn KhwÄrazmÄ« (d. 1551).53
One of the unique aspects of the JÄmiÊ¿ al-salÄsil is that it includes an account of NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw, who is included in the compilation not on the basis of his having been an IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« missionary but rather on account of his reputation as a popular saint in the BadakhshÄn region.54 Following a discussion of his subject drawn from written biographical sources, the author presents a series of oral narratives from the BadakhshÄn region regarding NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw and his shrine. Among these are accounts of visitations to the shrine by renowned Suï¬ shaykhs, including Sayyid Ê¿AlÄ« HamadÄnÄ« (d. 1384) and the authorâs grandfather, KhalÄ«lullÄh BadakhshÄnÄ«, describing how these shaykhs carried out periods of meditation and retreat at the shrine. The author then goes on to relate the following narrative: âAnd that saying from [our] ancestors is also famous and well known: âThe head of TurkistÄn is KhwÄjah AhÌ£mad YasavÄ«; the chest of KhurÄsÄn is HÌ£adÌ£rat-i ImÄm MÅ«sÄ al-RidÌ£Ä; the back of KÅ«histÄn [BadakhshÄn] is ShÄh NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw; and the foot of HindÅ«stÄn is Shaykh FarÄ«d Shakar Ganjâ.â55
A version of this same narrative was recorded nearly two hundred years later in the account of John Wood, the ï¬rst modern European traveler to explore the BadakhshÄn region, who visited NÄá¹£ir-i Khusrawâs shrine in December 1837 and reported an anecdote from the shrineâs custodians: âWe heard, for the ï¬rst time, in this Astanah [ÄstÄnah: âthresholdâ, a reference to the shrine] that the earth is supported on the shoulders of four holy men, of whom it need not be added that the saint of Badakhshan, the before-mentioned Shah Nasr Khusrau, is one. His companions areâSultan Yar Khoda Ahmed [AhÌ£mad YasavÄ«], of Afraziab [TurkistÄn]; Sheikh Fureed Shukkur Gunge, of Hindustan; and Imaum Ali Mooza Raza, of Khoristan.â56
The context of the appearance of this narrative in both BadakhshÄnÄ«âs and Woodâs accounts clariï¬es the reason for the selection of the other three ï¬gures who appear within the narrative along NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw: namely, that it originated in connection with the shrine of NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw, as part of an effort to claim a place of prestige for the site by placing it on parallel with three more well-known shrines of the eastern Islamic world. This tradition, which I have termed the âNarrative of the Four Pillars,â is one among a series of devices that appears to have been employed by the shrineâs keepers and other constituencies connected with the shrine, beginning in the Mongol era, in order to secure patronage for the site from Sunni rulers, and which reï¬ected an effort to obscure NÄá¹£ir-i Khusrawâs identity as an IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« and to establish his reputation as a Sunni holy man.57
The three other sites mentioned in this narrative remain popular pilgrimage sites down to the present. One illustration of their importance can be seen in the fact that all three of the towns in which the shrines sit have seen their names changed to reï¬ect the presence of the shrine. The town hosting the shrine of AhÌ£mad YasavÄ«, formerly known as Yasï, had by the seventeenth century become popularly known as HÌ£adÌ£rat-i TurkistÄn, or âHonored One of the Land of the Turks,â in reference to AhÌ£mad YasavÄ«âs presence there, which in later years became abbreviated simply to TurkistÄn. As Devin DeWeese notes, one of the remarkable features of the legacy of YasavÄ« is that while a substantial hagiographical tradition concerning him did not emerge until the sixteenth century, his shrine was the site of a major construction project patronized by the ruler TÄ«mÅ«r already in the late fourteenth century; in fact, as DeWeese demonstrates, it was the shrine itself which served in large part as both the conduit and impetus for the formation of hagiographical traditions within the YasavÄ« order, and not vice versa.58 Similarly, the shrine of FarÄ«d al-DÄ«n and his jamÄÊ¿Ät-khÄnah in the town of AjÅdhÄn in the Punjab served as a primary channel for the development of communal and textual traditions in the centuries after his death.59 The town was later renamed PÄkpattan, or âHoly City,â by the Mughal emperor Akbar in honor of the shrine and remains one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in South Asia today.
Perhaps the most famous of these three sites is that housing the shrine of ImÄm Ê¿AlÄ« b. MÅ«sÄ al-RidÌ£Ä in the former city of Ṭūs, which later acquired the title Mashhad, or âMartyrium.â60 The presence of this ï¬gure within the narrative as found in later IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« texts has misled a number of observers to conclude that it was his status as a ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« ImÄm that accounted for his mention, despite the fact that Ê¿AlÄ« b. MÅ«sÄ al-RidÌ£Ä is not among the imÄms of the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« tradition. This assumption overlooks as well the context of his mention and its placement within the distinct structure of the narrative, from which it is clear that he is included on the basis of some feature held in common with the other three ï¬gures (which I maintain is his shrine tradition). But it also overlooks the fact that the popularity of Ê¿AlÄ« b. MÅ«sÄ al-RidÌ£Äâs shrine has not been limited to ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« Muslims but historically has been widely revered among both Sunni and ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« communities in KhurÄsÄn. The shrine at Mashhad enjoyed a long tradition of patronage among Sunni rulers, prior to the Safavid conquest of the city in the early sixteenth century.61 Like the shrine of AhÌ£mad YasavÄ«, the shrine of Ê¿AlÄ« b. MÅ«sÄ al-RidÄÌ£ beneï¬tted from the patronage of Timurid rulers, particularly of ShÄhrukh and his wife GawharshÄd, and of the Mongol Ilkhanids before them. Even after the Safavid conquest of the town, the shrine remained a popular pilgrimage site for Sunni communities throughout KhurÄsÄn. The popularity of the shrine may be explained not by its appeal to a narrowly ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« sectarian sentiment but rather as part of the phenomenon that Robert McChesney describes as ahl-al baytism, which is âa popular phenomenon that focused spiritual feelings on the significant ï¬ve members of the Prophet Muhammadâs family,â the same appeal that underlay the development of the reputed shrine of ImÄm Ê¿AlÄ« in the Afghan city of MazÄr-i SharÄ«f in this same period.62 This phenomenon, McChesney argues, transcends the sectarian boundaries of Sunni and ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« and âarose from both the universal phenomenon of saint worship and the often concomitant syncretism particular to speciï¬c regions.â63
Therefore, rather than any particular intellectual or textual legacy, it was above all the shrine traditions of Ê¿AlÄ« b. MÅ«sÄ al-RidÌ£Ä, FarÄ«d al-DÄ«n Ganj-i Shakar, and AhÌ£mad YasavÄ« that constituted their primary legacy within the Islamic world, as well as the principal means by which later communities âinteractedâ with the saint. It was on this basis that these ï¬gures were initially grouped together within the âNarrative of the Four Pillarsâ as a means of legitimizing the shrine of NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw within the broader Suï¬ traditions of the Muslim world. However, the adaptation of this narrative within the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« tradition of BadakhshÄn demonstrates a rather remarkable transformation from its original context, as it seeks to claim these other three ï¬gures as fellow IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s and as propagators of its doctrine. Due to its continuous control under Sunni authorities, the shrine of NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw has remained largely inaccessible to IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s throughout most of its history.64 Consequently, while NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw is broadly revered among the Central Asian IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s as the founder of their tradition, his shrine itself never occupied a central place within that tradition. However, many of the narratives devised by Sunni authorities as a means of legitimating the shrine, such as this one, were later adapted and repurposed by the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s in a manner that obscured their original connection with the shrine and gave them a more explicitly IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« coloring. As such, the narrative asserts not a normative claim regarding NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw and the status of his shrine but rather an empirical claim regarding the status of his three companions: namely that, despite any outward appearances to the contrary, they were also in fact IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s and engaged alongside NÄá¹£ir in the propagation of IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lism. Accordingly, the narrative conveys a vast reimagining of the sacred geography of the eastern Islamic world, one that is replete with the tombs and legacies of a hidden brotherhood of IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s.
5 Conclusion
The âNarrative of the Four Pillarsâ and the other accounts of Suï¬ ï¬gures within the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« tradition that I have discussed above provide evidence pointing to a broader strategy intended to address the challenge that I outlined at the beginning of this essay, namely the psychological pressures induced by the performance of taqiyya and the need to resolve the tensions it poses. It is clear that for IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s this challenge was not merely an intellectual exercise. Given the dearth of economic opportunities in the mountainous territory of BadakhshÄn, IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s from this region were constantly compelled to travel further abroad for trade and employment. Internal IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« sources from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries refer to community members residing in locales far removed from their native BadakhshÄn, including in TurkistÄn and Bukhara.65 Given that references to these communities are almost entirely absent from non-IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« sources, it would appear that their practice of taqiyya was largely a successful one. It is very likely that it was among these âdiasporaâ communities that many of these narratives have their origin.
In evaluating these narratives, it is important to keep an important distinction in sight: that their subjects are not merely portrayed as sharing a common intellectual or philosophical heritage with IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s but rather that they are portrayed, almost invariably, as actual IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s and as co-believers. It may be argued on positivist grounds, and indeed often has been, that the embrace by IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s of so many prominent ï¬gures of Islamic history (by no means limited to the individuals mentioned in this essay) as their coreligionists is so manifestly contrary to known historical fact that it could be explained only by extreme gullibility or ignorance. Yet, I would suggest that it is precisely in the seemingly counterfactual nature of these claims that we may perceive the true value of these narratives from the perspective of religious capital. These stories in effect invite the listener to be privy to a vast conspiracy of secret believers, an imaginary brotherhood of hidden IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s, or what George Simmel described as âthe possibility of a second world alongside the manifest world.â66 Consequently, they allow the believer to participate in the social life and rituals of those outside the community while at the same time retaining the secret knowledge that these are in fact part of his or her very own communal tradition. Accordingly, we might propose here a new species of taqiyya, one in which the act of religious dissimulation in fact entails no such dissimulation at all, thereby allowing one to convincingly participate in the performance of taqiyya without sacriï¬cing oneâs religious capital, and hence without hazarding oneâs attachment to the community.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Devin DeWeese, Artemy Kalinovsky, Daniel Scarborough, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback on earlier drafts of this essay. This article was first published as âReimagining Taqiyya: The âNarrative of the Four Pillarsâ and Strategies of Secrecy among the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s of Central Asiaâ (2019) in History of Religions 59 (2), 83â107. https://doi.org/10.1086/704929 (University of Chicago Press, permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.). The editors and author would like to thank the publisher for granting permission to reprint this article in the framework of this volume.
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For a general overview of taqiyya and references to earlier studies, see Rudolf Strothmann and Moktar Djebli, âTakiyya,â in Encyclopædia of Islam, 2nd ed., eds. P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, and W.P. Heinrichs, 12 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1960â2007). See also Etan Kohlberg, âTaqiyya in ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« Theology and Religion,â in Secrecy and Concealment. Studies in the History of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Religions, eds. Hans G. Kippenberg and Guy G. Stroumsa (Leiden: Brill, 1995). The practice is also known less commonly under the synonymous term kitmÄn.
Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qurʾan. Text, Translation and Commentary (Lahore: Shaik Muhammad Ashraf Publishers, 1934; repr., Elmhurst, NY: Tahrike Tarsile Qurʾan, 2005), 685 (italics added for emphasis). Citations refer to the reprint edition.
For an introduction to the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s, see Farhad Daftary, The IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s. Their History and Doctrines, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). On the history and doctrine of taqiyya within the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« tradition, see Diane Steigerwald, âLa dissimulation (taqiyya) de la foi dans le ShÄ«Ê¿isme Ismaélien,â Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses 27 (1998).
The historical BadakhshÄn region encompasses the modern-day Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province of eastern Tajikistan and the BadakhshÄn province of northeastern Afghanistan, along with neighboring areas of northern Pakistan and northwestern China.
Devin J. Stewart, âTaqiyyah as Performance: The Travels of BahÄʾ al-DÄ«n al-Ê¿ÄmilÄ« in the Ottoman Empire (991â93/1583â85),â Princeton Papers in Near Eastern Studies 4 (1996); Devin J. Stewart, âDocuments and Dissimulation: Notes on the Performance of Taqiyya,â Estudios onomástico-biográï¬cos de Al-Andalus 13 (2003).
âProzhivaia sredi musulâman, oni obyknovenno vydaiut sebia tozhe za musulâman i ispolniaiut vse predpisaniia shariata, vsiacheski stariasâ izbegatâ vesed po predmetam svoego veroucheniia. Pomimo togo, ikh religioznaia moralâ v silu kliatv, prinosimykh imi svoim piram (dukhovnym nas tavnikam), ne mozhet bytâ otkryta liudiam drugoÇ very. Ikh religiiaâtaÇnaia, istiny eia, kak stoiashchiia vyshe obychnago, obshch-chelovecheskago ponimaniia, ne mogut bytâ soobshchaemy postoronnim. VinovnyÇ v narushenii molchaniia po Ätomu predmetu podvergaetsia surovomu nakazaniiu.â Aleksandr A. Semenov, âIz oblasti religioznykh verovaniÄ shugnanskikh ismailitov,â Mir Islama 4 (1912): 523â524; translation mine. By his use of the term âMuslimsâ here Semenov clearly intends Sunni Muslims. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.
Lynda Clarke, âThe Rise and Decline of Taqiyya in Twelver ShiÊ¿ism,â in Reason and Inspiration in Islam. Theology, Philosophy and Mysticism in Muslim Thought. Essays in Honour of Hermann Landolt, ed. Todd Lawson (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005), 48.
For example, see Hugh B. Urban, âThe Torment of Secrecy: Ethical and Epistemological Problems in the Study of Esoteric Traditions,â History of Religions 37, no. 3 (1998): 209â248.
Laurence R. Iannaccone, âReligious Practice: A Human Capital Approach,â Journal for the Scientiï¬c Study of Religion 29, no. 3 (1990): 299â300.
Rodney Stark and Roger Finke, Acts of Faith. Explaining the Human Side of Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 114â138.
Peter L. Berger and S.G. Redding, eds., The Hidden Form of Capital. Spiritual Inï¬uences in Societal Progress (New York: Anthem Press, 2010). The study of the economic aspects of spiritual capital may be traced back to Max Weberâs notion of the âProtestant ethic.â The historian Boris Ananâich has argued, in the context of the Russian Empire, that Weberâs thesis may be considered equally if not more relevant for minority religious communities, such as Jews, Old Believers, and Muslims, whose communal cohesion increased their economic competitiveness; see his âReligious and Nationalist Aspects of Entrepreneurialism in Russia,â in Russia in the European Context, 1789â1914. A Member of the Family, eds. Susan P. McCaffray and Michael S. Melancon (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 85â93.
For example, see Dominique-Sila Khan, Crossing the Threshold. Understanding Religious Identities in South Asia (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004). Parallels may be drawn here as well to the case of the Moriscos of Spain, or Spanish Muslims who were forcibly converted to Christianity in the sixteenth century, some of whom were suspected of secretly continuing their earlier faith; see L.P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005); Devin J. Stewart, âDissimulation in Sunni Islam and Morisco Taqiyya,â al-Qaná¹ara 34, no. 2 (2013).
This is particularly evident in the regions of DarwÄz and the Vanj valley of western BadakhshÄn, where it is believed that a number of IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« areas were forcibly converted to Sunni Islam following their incorporation into the Amirate of Bukhara in the late nineteenth century; see Nikolai A. Kisliakov, âIstoriia Karategina, Darvaza i Badakhshana,â in Materialy po istorii Tadzhikov i Tadz hikistana, ed. B.G. Gafurov (Stalinabad: Gosizdat, 1945), 75â76; Lydia F. Monogarova, âÄtnicheskiÄ sostav i Ätnicheskie protsessy v Gorno-BadakhshanskoÄ avtonomnoÄ oblasti TadzhikskoÄ SSR,â in Strany i Narody Vostoka, vol. 16: Pamir, ed. A.N. ZelinskiÄ (Moscow: Nauka, 1975), 175.
Ê¿AtÄʾ Malik JuvaynÄ«, The History of the World Conqueror, trans. John A. Boyle, 2 vols. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1958), 2: 648.
PandiyÄt-i JawÄnmardÄ«, or Advices of Manliness, ed. and trans. Wladimir Ivanow (Leiden: Brill, 1953), 34â35 (trans.), 56 (Persian text). The translation here is slightly modiï¬ed from Ivanowâs.
On NÄá¹£ir-i Khusrawâs life and works, see Alice Hunsberger, Nasir Khusraw, the Ruby of Badakhshan. A Portrait of the Persian Poet, Traveler and Philosopher, 2nd ed. (London: I.B. Tauris, 2003). For a general survey of IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« history in Central Asia, see Daniel Beben, âThe Ismaili of Central Asia,â in The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History, ed. David Ludden (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), available online at http://asianhistory.oxfordre.com.
See further Daniel Beben, âIslamisation on the Iranian Periphery: Nasir-i Khusraw and Ismailism in Badakhshan,â in Islamisation. Comparative Perspectives from History, ed. A.C.S. Peacock (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017).
On this period, see Nadia Eboo Jamal, Surviving the Mongols. NizÄrÄ« QuhistÄnÄ« and the Continuity of Ismaili Tradition in Persia (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002); Shaï¬que N. Virani, The Ismailis in the Middle Ages. A History of Survival, a Search for Salvation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
On these conï¬icts and their confessional dynamics, see Martin B. Dickson, âShÄh TahmÄsb and the Ūzbeks: The Duel for KhurÄsÄn with Ê¿Ubayd KhÄn: 930â940/1524â1540â (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1958).
For the text of the fatwÄ, accompanied by a ShÄ«Ê¿Ä« response, see Iskandar MunshÄ«, TÄrÄ«kh-i Ê¿ÄlamÄrÄ-yi Ê¿AbbÄsÄ«, trans. Roger M. Savory as History of Shah Ê¿Abbas the Great, 2 vols. (Boulder: Westview Press, 1978), 2: 561â575.
On Safavid persecution of the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s, see Said Amir Arjomand, The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam. Religion, Political Order and Societal Change in Shiâite Iran from the Beginning to 1890 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 112â116; Farhad Daftary, âShÄh TÌ£ahÄ«r and the NizÄrÄ« Ismaili Disguises,â in Reason and Inspiration in Islam. Theology, Philosophy and Mysticism in Muslim Thought. Essays in Honour of Hermann Landolt, ed. Todd Lawson (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005).
On this period see Hakim Elnazarov and Sultonbek Aksakolov, âThe Nizari Ismailis of Central Asia in Modern Times,â in A Modern History of the Ismailis: Continuity and Change in a Muslim Community, ed. Farhad Daftary (London: I.B. Tauris and the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2011).
Wladimir Ivanow, âAn Ismaili Interpretation of the Gulshani Raz,â Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 8 (1932): 69.
Wladimir Ivanow, Ismaili Literature: A Bibliographical Survey (Tehran: Ismaili Society, 1963), 11.
On Henry Corbinâs approach to Iranian religious traditions, see Nile Green, âBetween Heidegger and the Hidden Imam: Reï¬ections on Henry Corbinâs Approaches to Mystical Islam,â Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 17, no. 3 (2005); Hermann Landolt, âHenry Corbin, 1903â1978: Between Philosophy and Orientalism,â Journal of the American Oriental Society 119, no. 3 (1999).
Henry Corbin, âNÄsir-i Khusrau and Iranian IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lism,â in The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 4: The Period from the Arab Invasion to the Saljuqs, ed. Richard N. Frye (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 525. This approach was echoed as well by Corbinâs colleague Seyyed Hossein Nasr; for example, see his âShiÊ¿ism and Suï¬sm: Their Relationship in Essence and in History,â Religious Studies 6, no. 3 (1970).
Farhad Daftary, âIsmaili-Suï¬ Relations in post-Alamut Persia,â in his Ismailis in Medieval Muslim Societies (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005), 186.
On this relationship see Daftary, The IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s, 461â462; Nasrollah Pourjavady and Peter Lamborn Wilson, âIsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s and NiÊ¿matullÄhÄ«s,â Studia Islamica 41 (1975).
Terry Graham, âThe NiÊ¿matuʾllÄhÄ« Order Under Safavid Suppression and in Indian Exile,â in The Heritage of Suï¬sm, vol. 3: Late Classical Persianate Suï¬sm (1501â1750), eds. Leonard Lewisohn and David Morgan (Oxford: Oneworld, 2000); Leonard Lewisohn, âAn Introduction to the History of Modern Persian Suï¬sm, Part I: The NiÊ¿matullÄhÄ« Order: Persecution, Revival and Schism,â Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 61, no. 3 (1998).
For further discussion, see Daniel Beben, âIntroduction,â in Muhammad HÌ£asan al-HÌ£usaynÄ«, The First Aga Khan. Memoirs of the 46th Ismaili Imam, ed. and trans. Daniel Beben and Daryoush Mohammad Poor (London: I.B. Tauris and the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2018).
Aleksandr A. Semenov, âSheÄkh DzhelÄl-ud-DÄ«n RÅ«mÄ« po predstavleniiam shugnanskikh ismailitov,â Zapiski Vostochnogo Otdeleniia Russkogo Arkheologicheskogo Obshchestva 22 (1915).
The ï¬gure of Shams-i TabrÄ«z is also reckoned to have been an IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« among some South Asian IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« communities, in which his name is associated with the fourteenth-century IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« PÄ«r Shams; see Tazim R. Kassam, Songs of Wisdom and Circles of Dance. Hymns of the Sat-panth IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« Muslim Saint, PÄ«r Shams (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995); Zawahir Moir, âThe Life and Legends of Pir Shams as Reï¬ected in the Ismaili Ginans: A Critical Review,â in Constructions hagiographiques dans le monde Indien. Entre mythe et histoire, ed. Françoise Mallison (Paris: Librairie Honoré Champion, 2001).
Gabrielle van den Berg, Minstrel Poetry from the Pamir Mountains. A Study on the Songs and Poems of the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s of Tajik Badakhshan (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2004), 108; see also 120â125 on the reception of RÅ«mÄ« and Shams-i TabrÄ«z as IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s.
The most thorough overview of this encounter is given in the groundbreaking work of Abdulmamad Iloliev, The IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«-Suï¬ Sage of Pamir. MubÄrak-i WakhÄnÄ« and the Esoteric Tradition of the Pamiri Muslims (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2008). Among other recent studies, see also Hermann Landolt, âÊ¿AttÌ£ÄÌ£r, Suï¬sm and Ismailism,â in Ê¿AttÌ£ÄÌ£r and the Persian Suï¬ Tradition. The Art of Spiritual Flight, eds. Leonard Lewisohn and Christopher Shackle (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006); Hermann Landolt, âEarly Evidence for the Reception of NÄsir-i Khusrawâs Poetry in Suï¬sm: Ê¿Ayn al-QudÌ£Ätâs Letter on the TaÊ¿lÄ«mÄ«s,â in Fortresses of the Intellect. Ismaili and Other Islamic Studies in Honour of Farhad Daftary, ed. Omar AlÃ-de-Unzaga (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011); Leonard Lewisohn, âSuï¬sm and IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« Doctrine in the Persian Poetry of NizÄrÄ« QuhistÄnÄ« (645â721/1247â1321),â Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 41 (2003).
Hamid Algar, âNaqshbandÄ«s and Safavids: A Contribution to the Religious History of Iran and Her Neighbors,â in Safavid Iran and Her Neighbors, ed. Michel Mazzaoui (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003). On the Naqshbandiyya in early modern Central Asia and BadakhshÄn, see also Baxtiyor M. Babadžanov, âOn the History of the NaqÅ¡bandÄ«ya MugÌaddidÄ«ya in Central MÄwarÄʾannahr in the Late 18th and Early 19th Centuries,â in Muslim Culture in Russia and Central Asia from the 18th to the Early 20th Centuries, ed. Michael Kemper, Anke von Kügelgen, and Dmitriy Yermakov, 4 vols. (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1996); Alexandre Papas, âSouï¬s du Badakhshân: Un renouveau confrérique entre lâInde et lâAsie centrale,â Cahiers dâAsie Centrale 11/12 (2004).
Van den Berg, Minstrel Poetry from the Pamir Mountains, 27.
Aleksandr A. Semenov, âRasskaz shugnanskikh ismailitov o bukharskom sheÄkhe BekhÄ-ud-DÄ«ne,â Zapiski Vostochnogo Otdeleniia Russkogo Arkheologicheskogo Obshchestva 22 (1915).
For examples of this approach, see Carl W. Ernst, The Shambhala Guide to Suï¬sm. An Essential Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of the Mystical Tradition of Islam (Boston: Shambhala, 1997); Nile Green, Suï¬sm. A Global History (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012).
âChetyre glavnykh pira propovednyvali uchenie Ismailâia: Sho Ali Muso-i-Rizo (Musa-Riza) v Khorosane, SheÇkh Farib Shakar Ganch (Ferib Shekiar Giandzh) v Industane, Khadzhi Akhmed Iasawi v Turkestane i Said Nosir Khosrau (Nâsir-i-Khosrov) v Kukhistane.â AlekseÄ A. BobrinskoÄ, Sekta Ismailâia v bukharskikh predelakh SredneÄ Azii (Moscow, 1902), 13.
âGlavnuiu knigu Vadzhi-din ili Kalomi-pir, napisal pir Kalon Maulono Sho Nuzor (takzhe Nizor), syn Malik Solom, v Khorosane, v Maalot-shaar (shekhr). Sho Nosir Khosrau perevel etu knigu na iazyk Kukhistana, Sho ali Muso-i-Rizo â na iazyk Khorosana, SheÇkh Forib Shakar Ganch â na iazyk Industana i Khadzhi Akhmed Iasawi â na iazyk Turkestana,â BobrinskoÄ, Sekta Ismailâia v bukharskikh predelakh SredneÄ Azii, 14. On the KalÄm-i pÄ«r and its role in this narrative see further Daniel Beben, âThe KalÄm-i pÄ«r and Its Place in the Central Asian IsmaÊ¿ili Tradition,â Journal of Islamic Studies 31, no. 1 (2020).
I have consulted MS 1959/14zh in the Bertelâs and Bakoev Collection of the Rudaki Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan. For a description of the manuscript see AndreÄ Bertelâs and Mamadvafo Bakoev, AlfavitnyÄ katalog rukopiseÄ, obna-ruzhennykh v Gorno-BadakhshanskoÄ avtonomnoÄ oblasti ÄkspeditsieÄ 1959â1963 (Moscow: Nauka, 1967), 31, no. 26. The manuscript is undated, but the presence of a Tsarist-era seal from a Russian ï¬rm on fol. 206a suggests it should be dated to the late nineteenth or early twentieth century.
âAgar pursand kih chahÄr pÄ«r-i rukn kudÄm ast javÄb bigÅ« kih avval sar-i TurkistÄn KhwÄjah AhÌ£mad YasavÄ« duvvum sÄ«nah-i KhurÄsÄn ImÄm Ê¿AlÄ« MÅ«sÄ RidÌ£Ä siyyum pÄ-yi HindÅ«stÄn Shaykh FarÄ«d Shakar Ganj chahÄrum pusht-i KÅ«histÄn HÌ£adÌ£rat-i SultÄÌ£n Sayyid NÄá¹£ir-i Khusrawâ (MS 1959/14zh, fol. 154b). The employment of the term pÄ«r here makes it clear that these ï¬gures are intended to be understood in the text as IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« representatives.
On the ChirÄgh-rawshan ritual, see Hakim Elnazarov, âThe Luminous Lamp: The Practice of ChirÄgh-i rawshan among the Ismailis of Central Asia,â in The Study of ShiÊ¿i Islam. History, Theology and Law, eds. Farhad Daftary and Gurdofarid Miskinzoda (London: I.B. Tauris and the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2014); Iloliev, IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«-Suï¬ Sage of Pamir, 42â43.
â(AlahÄ«) awliyÄ va anbiyÄ-yi muqarrabÄn-i bÄrgÄh-i kibriyÄ yaÊ¿nÄ« sar-i TurkistÄn KhwÄjah AhÌ£mad YasÄ [sic] rÄ sÄ«nah-i KhurÄsÄn ImÄm Ê¿AlÄ« MÅ«sÄ RidÌ£Ä rÄ pusht-i KÅ«histÄn HÌ£adÌ£rat SultÄÌ£n ShÄh Sayyid NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw rÄ pÄ-yi HindÅ«stÄn Shaykh FarÄ«d Shakar Ganj rÄ.â My citation here is to a version of the text published by Wladimir Ivanow as âSuï¬sm and Ismailism: Chiragh-Nama,â Revue Iranienne dâAnthropologie 3 (1959): 41. The narrative is also noted from another manuscript of the text by AndreÄ Bertelâs, âNazariyÄt-i barkhÄ« az Ê¿urafÄ va shÄ«Ê¿iyÄn-i ithnÄ Ê¿asharÄ« rÄjiÊ¿ bih arzish-i mÄ«rÄth-i adabÄ«-yi NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw,â in YÄd-nÄmah-i NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw (Mashhad: DÄnishgÄh-i FirdawsÄ«, 2535 Sh./1976), 105. In this version the four ï¬gures are identiï¬ed as the chahÄr pÄ«r-i rukn, or the âfour pÄ«rs of the pillars.â In the course of my ï¬eld research in BadakhshÄn I encountered multiple manuscripts of the work that also included this same narrative. Another redaction of the text, evidently produced in Gilgit (in present-day northern Pakistan) in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, contains an abbreviated variation of the narrative, mentioning only NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw and FarÄ«d al-DÄ«n, while omitting references to the other two ï¬gures, who were probably less familiar to audiences in the Indian subcontinent.
Wilferd Madelung, âÊ¿AlÄ« al-ReżÄ,â Encyclopædia Iranica 1 (1985).
Farooq Hamid, âThe Hagiographic Process: The Case of Medieval Chishti Suï¬ FarÄ«d al- DÄ«n MasÊ¿Å«d Ganj-i Shakar (d. 664/1265),â The Muslim World 90, no. 3/4 (2000).
It should be mentioned here that there is some evidence pointing to connections between ChishtÄ« and IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« communities in the Indian subcontinent; in particular, the institution of the jamÄÊ¿Ät-khÄnah is believed to have been adopted by South Asian IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« communities from the Chishtiyya; see Azim Nanji, The NizÄrÄ« IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« Tradition in the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent (Delmar, NY: Caravan Books, 1978), 47â48. See also the recent study by Hasan Ali Khan, Constructing Islam on the Indus. The Material History of the Suhrawardi Suï¬ Order, 1200â1500 AD (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016).
For the classic study in this vein, see Mehmet Fuat Köprülü, Early Mystics in Turkish Literature, trans. Gary Leiser and Robert Dankoff (London: Routledge, 2006), 127â187.
A.V. StanishevskiÇ, ed., Ismailizm na Pamire (1902â1931 gg.). Sbornik dokumentov (Moscow: Glavnoe arkhivnoe upravlenie pri sovete ministrov UzbekskoÇ SSR, 1984), 16â17.
Devin DeWeese, âAhmad Yasavi and the Divan-i Hikmat in Soviet Scholarship,â in The Heritage of Soviet Oriental Studies, eds. Michael Kemper and Stephan Conermann (New York: Routledge, 2011).
There are a number of other references to AhÌ£mad YasavÄ« that appear within the IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« manuscript record of BadakhshÄn, which conï¬rms his incorporation as a holy ï¬gure within the tradition. While there is no space here to explore these additional references, I plan to address this topic at length in a future study.
Two copies of the JÄmiÊ¿ al-salÄsil are known. The earlier copy is located in the Mawlana Azad Library of Aligarh Muslim University, in the Shah Munir Alam collection; see Sayyid Athar Abbas Rizvi and Mukhtar-ud-din Ahmad, Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the Maulana Azad Library, Aligarh Muslim University (Aligarh: Aligarh Muslim University, 1969), 154; MS Munir Alam coll. 3/3, dated Thursday the 6th of ShaÊ¿bÄn 1100 AH (May 26, 1689), copyist not recorded. The second copy is located in the Ganj Bakhsh Library in Islamabad; see Ahmad MunzavÄ«, Fihrist-i nuskhahÄ-yi khattÌ£ Ä«Ì£-yi KitÄbkhÄnah-i Ganj Bakhsh (Islamabad: Markaz-i TahÌ£qÄ«qÄt-i FÄrsÄ«-yi IrÄn va PÄkistÄn, 1982), 4: 2102â2103; MS 5822, dated Sunday ghurrah-i MuhÌ£arram 1104 AH (probably September 14, 1692), copied by Shaykh FaqÄ«rullÄh. The only scholar to have studied the JÄmiÊ¿ al-salÄsil thus far is Devin DeWeese in his article on KubravÄ« hagiographical traditions; see Devin DeWeese, âSayyid AlÄ« HamadÄnÄ« and KubrawÄ« Hagiographical Traditions,â in The Legacy of Mediaeval Persian Suï¬sm, ed. Leonard Lewisohn (London: Khaniqahi Nimatullahi Publications, 1992), 135.
On HÌ£usayn KhwÄrazmÄ« and the Kubraviyya in Central Asia, see Devin DeWeese, âThe Eclipse of the KubravÄ«yah in Central Asia,â Iranian Studies 21, no. 1/2 (1988), reprinted with corrections in his Studies on Suï¬sm in Central Asia (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012).
The account covers fols. 347aâ348b of the Aligarh text and pp. 852â856 of the Islamabad text.
âVa Än mathal nÄ«z maÊ¿rÅ«f u mashhÅ«r ast az pÄ«shÄ«niyÄn kih sar-i TurkistÄn KhwÄjah AhÌ£mad YasavÄ« va sÄ«nah-i KhurÄsÄn HÌ£adÌ£rat-i ImÄm MÅ«sÄ al-RidÌ£Ä va pusht-i KÅ«histÄn ShÄh NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw va pÄ-yi HindÅ«stÄn Shaykh FarÄ«d Shakar Ganj.â The quotation is found on fol. 348a of the Aligarh MS and p. 855 of the Islamabad text.
John Wood, A Journey to the Source of the River Oxus, 2nd ed. (London: J. Murray, 1872), 168. The mention of Afrasiyab in connection with AhÌ£mad YasavÄ« is evidently a reference to the legendary king of TÅ«rÄn in Iranian mythology, whose homeland later came to be associated with the land of the Turks, or TurkistÄn; see Ehsan Yarshater, âAfrÄsÄ«Äb,â Encyclopædia Iranica 1 (1985).
See further my discussion in Daniel Beben, âThe Legendary Biographies of NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw: Memory and Textualization in Early Modern Persian IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lismâ (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 2015), 173â231. On the shrine of NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw see also Marcus Schadl, âThe Shrine of Nasir Khusraw: Imprisoned Deep in the Valley of Yumgan,â Muqarnas 26 (2009).
Devin DeWeese, âSacred Places and âPublicâ Narratives: The Shrine of AhÌ£mad YasavÄ« in Hagiographical Traditions of the YasavÄ« Ṣūf Ä« Order, 16thâ17th Centuries,â The Muslim World 90, no. 3 (2000).
On this shrine see Richard M. Eaton, âCourt of Man, Court of God: Local Perceptions of the Shrine of BÄbÄ FarÄ«d, Pakpattan, Punjab,â in Islam in Local Contexts, ed. Richard C. Martin (Leiden: Brill, 1982); Richard M. Eaton, âThe Political and Religious Authority of the Shrine of BÄbÄ FarÄ«d,â in Moral Conduct and Authority. The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam, ed. Barbara D. Metcalf (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).
Properly speaking, the town presently known as Mashhad does not sit directly on the site of the ancient city of Ṭūs but rather on the nearby town of NÅ«kÄn; however, in medieval geographical works the district as a whole was broadly given the name Ṭūs, and the city of Mashhad today is popularly associated with the ancient city of Ṭūs; see Clifford E. Bosworth, âMas̱hhad,â in Bearman et al., Encyclopædia of Islam, 6: 713.
May Farhat, âIslamic Piety and Dynastic Legitimacy: The Case of the Shrine of Ê¿AlÄ« b. MÅ«sÄ al-RidÌ£Ä in Mashhad (10thâ17th Century)â (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 2002); Maria E. Subtelny, Timurids in Transition. Turko-Persian Politics and Acculturation in Medieval Iran (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 205â207.
Robert D. McChesney, Waqf in Central Asia. Four Hundred Years in the History of a Muslim Shrine, 1480â1889 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 268.
McChesney, Waqf in Central Asia, 268.
This remains the case even today, as a number of IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ« informants who have visited the site in recent decades have reported that they felt unsafe divulging their identity as IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«s while traveling in the region, while in more recent years the area surrounding the shrine has come under occupation by Taliban-linked militia forces.
Beben, âThe Legendary Biographies of NÄá¹£ir-i Khusraw,â 286â295.
The Sociology of Georg Simmel, trans. Kurt H. Wolff (New York: Free Press, 1950), 330; cited in Clarke, âThe Rise and Decline of Taqiyya in Twelver ShiÊ¿ism,â 46.