PAX ISLAMICA 2 (5) / 2010
ABSTRACTS
The paper of Yuriy Averyanov analyzes collections of stories describing miracles of eminent Sufis as a distinct genre of Wilayet-Namah appeared in Sufi hagiography following earlier manaqaba (menqabe) narratives of tabaqat or tadhkira biographies during the Mongol conquest of the Muslim Central Asia and Middle East. As a sort of sacred texts representing particular Sufi community and these works were to justify intimacy with the God of such or such Sufi master appealing to the tatter's miraculous deeds. The main object of the study is the famous biography of Hajji-Bektash-Wali al-Khurasani (13th century), which reached us in numerous versions written in prose and verses. The author reveals Christian and Buddhist influences, as well as legacy of Shi'i legends in Bektashi hagiography.
Basing on their archival and field studies of Islamic practices including holy places, mosques and waqf endowments in Western Siberia I.V. Belich and A.K. Bustanov argue the importance of Sufi traditions in the spread of Islam in the area under study. A comparative study of narrative sources and field oral materials allows them to formulate new goals of Islamic studies in today's Siberia concentrating on biographies of ulema and Sufis as main actors in the history of Islamization of the region.
The paper of Igor Alexeyev deals with the problem of religious legitimation of supreme political power under the rule of the early Umayyads. Drawing on historiografical discussion on this problem, the author disproves widely recognized conception of an absolutely secular character of Umayyad politics. He finds additional arguments in support of a view formulated by W. Montgomery Watt and later developed by P. Crone and M. Hinds, who argued that the Umayyads developed an original political discourse to legitimate both of their calif status as mulk inherited from the third "rightly guided calif" 'Uthman b. Affan and their own voluntaristic intervention to the religious affairs and attempts to regulate a shari'a law by their own political decision by changing the title from khalifat rasul Allah (succeder of God's Messenger) to khalifat Allah (deputy of God). Basing on complicated combination of both Islamic and pre-Islamic Arab discourses Umayyads created extremely unstable political equli-brum which had collapsed at the period of the Abbasid revolution. Its collapse, however has not resulted in the absolute abolishments of such conceptions as mulk and khalifat Allah in the Islamic political discourse.
Dagestani Orientalists Amri Shikhsaidov and Shamil Shikhaliev study the Arab Period of Islamization in Dagestan in the seventh-ninth centuries. As is known, the spread of Islam in different frontier regions of the Arab Caliphate happened in the context of rapid Arab conquests in the form of jihad raids. In the North-East Caucasus the Arabs encountered serious resistance from the Khazar Khaganate and local feudal political forces. Medieval written sources show continuity of Dagestani resistance against the Arab advance in the region. By the mid-tenth century Islam was established only in the town of Derbent and neighboring lands. The process of Islamization of the region passed two distinct periods. In the first of them Islam was propagated by the Arab missionaries. In the second period from the tenth through the sixteenth centuries Islamization was carried out by succeeding waves of Turkic conquerors including the Seljuks, Timur as well as local ghazis. Gradually, Islam and Arabic language became an integral part of the culture of different Dagestani peoples.
In his article Pavel Shabley examines social make-up of Muslim officials of the Russian empire in the Kazakh Steppe in the historical context of Islamization of the region, protectorate and vassalic relations between Russia and Kazakh nobility and their reforms happened from the end of the 18t'1 to the middle of the 19^ centuries. Basing on a wide range of archival data and first-hand narrative sources author shows ambiguity of social perceptions concerning mullahs and other representatives of Muslim spiritual elite among the native populations. This situation reflected complicated character of relationship between different actors of the imperial power in the region including the Frontier Commission, The Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly, Kazakh nobles and state officials.
Examining Muslim descriptions of bright bolides after medieval chronicles, A.G. Yurchenko argues that rituals of jinn mourning related to them should be taken not for signs of popular superstitions but rather important religious rites whose function was to diminish psychological tension and restore balances of spiritual and corporal worlds in periods of social and natural catastrophes.
The work of Alexander Djumaev is about religious perceptions and practices related to the ritual of 'ashuro (rawzakhoni) in the Iranian Shi'ite community of Uzbekistan. It resulted from comparative analysis of medieval written sources, pre-revolutionary and contemporary ethnographic field data. There are three main objects of the study: Shi'ite 'ashuro perceptions and ceremonies ('ashuro) in the Sunnis historical context of Central Asia; particularities of performing 'ashuro in the town and district of Bukhara; musical and poetical elements of this ritual. Ceremonies of the ritual differs depending or the place where it is performed, such as memorial prayer house (Husayniyyakhona) or private house. Performing activity (reciter, singer, preacher) in the 'ashuro tradition corresponds with main phases of dramaturgical development of the 'ashuro ceremony, such as manqabat (or manqabatkhoni), nawhak-honi and rawzakhoni. Each of them has its own style of performing and social cultural status.
The article of Vladimir Bobrovnikov, Amir Navruzov and Shamil Shikhaliev gives a general survey of Islamic education as it is practiced at republican, district and village levels in contemporary Dagestan. The focus is made on curricula, methods and institutional networks of reproduction of Islamic knowledge with a special emphasis on Soviet legacy in re-Islamization of Russia's North Caucasus. The paper is based on a wide range of first-hand archival and field materials gathered in the North Caucasus during the work under the project on Islamic education in the Soviet Union and its successor states supported by Volkswagen Foundation in 2002-2004. As such the paper continues studies of the same authors published in PI 1 (2) 2009 and 1 (4) 2010.
In his article Aydar Khabutdinov gives a historical analysis of three forms of autonomous regimes set up for Muslims in the Volga-Ural region under the imperial and socialist rules. In 1788-1917 they were granted with a limited religious autonomy in the framework of the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly as an official umbrella association established for all the Muslims in the region. This form was substituted with national cultural autonomy under the rule of Milli Idare government in a short period between the February Revolution of 1917 and the end of 1919. From the 1920s onward territorial autonomy became the principal form of the regional organization in Soviet Russia. Nowadays none of these forms is representative for the majority of Muslim population what leads to vacuum of power in the region.
The paper of A.R. Ayupova deals with answers of Muslim communities in Great Britain to challenges of the modern globalizing world. In the twentieth century Muslim diaspora in the country changed a lot. First, its identity was much influenced by colonial legacy of the British Empire. Massive immigration was caused first by reasons of economic development in England of the mid-twentieth century. From the 1980s British Muslim population increased due to political immigrant flows from the Middle East and other Asian and African countries of the Third World. In the 1990s 68,000 immigrants are estimated to have been installed in Great Britain. In diaspora they formed communities according to their ethnic, confessional and regional origin. Adherents of Islam constitute today the second largest confession after Christianity. Transformation of Muslim diaspora is going on.
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