The Politics of Sacred Lineages in 19th-Century Central Asia: Descent Groups Linked to Khwaja Ahmad Yasavi in Shrine Documents and Genealogical Charters

Abstract

Khwaja Ahmad Yasavi, the celebrated saint of Central Asia who lived most likely in the late 12th century, is perhaps best known as a Sufi shaykh and (no doubt erroneously) as a mystical poet; his shrine in the town now known as Turkistan, in southern Kazakhstan, has been an important religious center in Central Asia at least since the monumental mausoleum that still stands was built, by order of Timur, at the end of the 14th century. While Yasavi's shrine, owing to the predilections of Soviet scholarship, was extensively studied by architectural historians and archeologists, its role in social and religious history has received scant attention; at the same time, Ahmad Yasavi's legacy as a Sufi shaykh has itself been the subject of considerable misunderstanding, resulting from two related tendencies in past scholarship: to approach the Yasavi tradition as little more than a sideline to the historically dominant Naqshbandiyya, and to regard it as a phenomenon definable in “ethnic” terms, as limited to an exclusively Turkic environment. Even less well known in the West, however, is one aspect of Ahmad Yasavi's legacy that is of increasing significance in contemporary Central Asia, as the region's religious heritage is recovered and redefined in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse—namely, the distinctive familial communities that define themselves in terms of descent from Yasavi's family, and have historically claimed specific prerogatives associated with Yasavi's shrine.

Documenting Kazakh Funeral Rituals through Material Life Indicators (1960s–1980s)

“…While Soviet authorities did attempt to eradicate lineage relations in favor of class relations in their project to eliminate the "backwardness" of Central Asian 32 After 1992, it was renamed "oblast of Southern Kazakhstan". 35 Bourdieu 1972, 71-128;Jacquesson 2010, 23-52;DeWeese 1999. societies, 36 a sense of lineal belonging continued to inform matrimonial strategies, particularly in rural areas, as well as in ancestor worship. If one wishes to explain why religious funerals during the Soviet period were so widely practised, however, it is insufficient to point to the centrality of the funeral rite and its sacred links to ancestors and to the otherworld.…”

Sacred Geographies in the Eurasian Steppe: The Aqkol Shrine as a Symbol of Kazakh Ethnicity and Religiosity

“…Since at least the late 19th century the Aqkol area has been home to Islamic sacred lineages. Qozhas are highly praised among Kazakhs, just as in other parts of the Muslim world and Central Asia (Basilov 1970;Demidov 1976;DeWeese 1999;Privratsky 2001). They are thought of as descendants of the Prophet Muhammad and his relatives.…”

Architectural Importance of the Ahmed Yassawi Memorial-Complex

“…One of the foremost experts on the medieval architecture of Central Asia, and the chief curator of the restoration of the mausoleum of Khoja Ahmad Yasawi in 1951-1959, L. Yu. Mankovskaya, called it a veritable city monuments (Deweese D., 1999) Iti is not only the architecture of the monument that is unique. An entire range of the masters of the 14 th -15 th centuries is preserved within it: an enormous bronze cauldron, bronze lamps, a banner with a bronze ornamented pommel and engraved doors.…”