Aziza Shanazarova

The current article examines autograph manuscripts of three little-known Sufi doctrinal works of the eighteenth-century Central Asian Sufi, Ṭāhir Īshān, a native of Khwarazm. Ṭāhir Īshān is better known as the author of the eighteenth-century Naqshbandī hagiographical compendium Tadhkira-yi Ṭāhir Īshān, which was completed in 1160/1747. The works in question, entitled Ḥujjat al-sālikīn va rāḥat al-ṭālibīn, Rumūz al-kalām, and Risāla-yi sayr ilā Llāh, survived in their autograph copies in a single manuscript codex preserved at the Beruni Institute of Oriental Studies in Tashkent (Uzbekistan), under the inventory number of ms 5121. Given that the Rumūz al-kalām and Risāla-yi sayr ilā Llāh only survived in their autograph copies, ms 5121 serves as a crucial gateway to these doctrinal texts of Ṭāhir Īshān.

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The present study explores the centrality of ʿAlidism in the religious
profile of a Sufi community active in the early sixteenth century in Mawarannahr, which was at the center of the ongoing major religio-political transformations in the aftermath of the decline of the Timurid dynasty. This community was led by a female Sufi master celebrated as Aghā-yi Buzurg (the Great Lady). The misfortunes faced by Aghā-yi Buzurg and her followers during this critical transitional period was related to her group’s upholding the Timurid-era tradition of ʿAlid devotion under the early Shibanid rule. The public proclamation of pro-ʿAlid sentiments in
post-Timurid Central Asia became dangerous in the early sixteenth century when the veneration of ʿAlī and his descendants started being associated with sympathies toward the Shiʿi Safavids. It is remarkable that Aghā-yi Buzurg’s public career as a leader of the Sufi community consisting of male and female disciples was not the main factor provoking the attacks against her community, but instead, it was their
admiration of ʿAlī and his descendants.

The present study is intended to introduce and explore a hagiographical compendium known as the Tadhkira-yi Ṭāhir Īshān which was compiled in the middle of the eighteenth century in Khwarazm and Bukhara. Although this work has drawn minimal scholarly attention, it is a critical text for understanding the Naqshbandī history in Central Asia prior to the transformation of the local Sufi communities in the wake of the arrival of the Naqshbandī-Mujaddidī groups in the region.

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This article explores the Central Asian adaptation of the ʿAqāʾid al-nisāʾ which has survived as a single copy within a manuscript codex located at the Beruni Institute of Oriental Studies in Tashkent (Uzbekistan). Not only does the Central Asian adaptation of the ʿAqāʾid al-nisāʾ lift 'the iron curtain' from the little-known world of rituals and customs practised by women in early modern Central Asian societies, it also serves as an important source to balance the androcentric view of gendered history of the early modern Persianate world, while challenging the preconceived notions of women's agency and authority in pre-modern Muslim societies.

https://tif.ssrc.org/2022/06/01/gender-hierarchy-visibility-and-authority/

The Beruni Institute of Oriental Studies in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, is one of the largest repositories of Muslim manuscripts produced in Central Asia. As I undertook exploratory archival research on gender history in early modern Islamic Central Asia in the institute’s collection, it became increasingly apparent that the female characters “visible” in the primary sources I consulted fall into the category of “old women” who seem to evade gender restrictions imposed upon young women. That’s not to say that young women are absent in the sources but that there is an apparent distinction between the depiction of sexually objectified women and non-sexualized old women in the Central Asian manuscript tradition.

The aim of the paper is twofold. Firstly, to provide a historical contextualization of Ḥāfiẓ Baṣīr, the author of the Maẓhar al-'ajā'ib (circa 973/1565), within the Central Asian Sufi tradition based on historical and hagiographical sources from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Secondly, to locate the non-Aḥrārī silsila of the Naqshbandīya in Central Asia passing through Ḥāfiẓ Baṣīr that survived in the region of Khwarazm until the second half of the 18th century.

Through revealing the fascinating story of the Sufi master Aghā-yi Buzurg and her path to becoming the 'Great Lady' in sixteenth-century Bukhara, Aziza Shanazarova invites readers into the little-known world of female religious authority in early modern Islamic Central Asia, revealing a far more multifaceted gender history than previously supposed. Pointing towards new ways of mapping female religious authority onto the landscapes of early modern Muslim narratives, this book serves as an intervention into the debate on the history of women and religion that views gender as a historical phenomenon and construct, challenging narratives of the relationship between gender and age in Islamic discourse of the period. Shanazarova draws on previously unknown primary sources to bring attention to a rich world of female religiosity involving communal leadership, competition for spiritual superiority, and negotiation with the political elite that transforms our understanding of women's history in early modern Central Asia.

The Maẓhar al-ʿajāʾib is the devotional work written to expound upon the teachings of Aghā-yi Buzurg, a female religious master active in the early 16th century in Bukhara. The work was produced in 16th century Central Asia, when the region underwent major socio-economic and religio-political changes in the aftermath of the downfall of the Timurid dynasty and the establishment of the Shibanid dynasty in Mavarannahr and the Safavid dynasty in Iran.
In its portrayal of Aghā-yi Buzurg, the Maẓhar al-ʿajāʾib represents a tradition that maintained an egalitarian conception of gender in the spiritual equality of women and men, attesting to the presence of multiple voices in Muslim discourse and challenging conventional ways of thinking about gender history in early modern Central Asia.