Text and Performance in the Hikmät of Khoja Ahmad Yasawi

Abstract

In this chapter I discuss an aspect of Uyghur religious practice, which is at the time of writing under severe threat in the Uyghur homeland. I trace the patterns of circulation of sung hikmät, considering the ways that these Turkic language prayers link the Uyghur communities of Xinjiang to other parts of the Turkic speaking world through the circulation of written and published texts. I draw on recent debates on the relationship between orality and literacy, and consider how they help us to think about hikmät as they were performed in ritual contexts in Uyghur communities until very recently. I argue that oral and textual traditions of hikmät interact constantly and closely, creating "feedback loops" of transmission and performance. This perception impels a reassessment of our assumptions around projects of canonization of Central Asian performance traditions.