Expressions of Sufi Culture in Tajikistan (Folklore Studies in a Multicultural World)

This eloquent ethnography reveals the daily lives and religious practice of ordinary Muslim men in Tajikistan as they aspire to become Sufi mystics. Benjamin Gatling describes in vivid detail the range of expressive forms -- memories, stories, poetry, artifacts, rituals, and other embodied practices -- employed as they try to construct a Sufi life in twenty-first-century Central Asia. Gatling demonstrates how Sufis transcend the oppressive religious politics of contemporary Tajikistan by using these forms to inhabit multiple times: the paradoxical present, the Persian sacred past, and the Soviet era. In a world consumed with the supposed political dangers of Islam, Gatling shows the intricate, ground-level ways that Muslim expressive culture intersects with authoritarian politics, not as artful forms of resistance but rather as a means to shape Sufi experiences of the present. -- Publisher description Contents......Page 8 List of Illustrations......Page 10 Acknowledgments......Page 12 A Note on Transliteration and Translation......Page 14 Introduction......Page 18 1. Sufis in Tajikistan......Page 34 2. Nostalgia and Muslimness......Page 59 3. Narrating the Past......Page 87 4. Material Sainthood......Page 115 5. Remembering God......Page 143 6. Learning to Be Sufi......Page 165 Epilogue......Page 185 Tajik Terms and Phrases......Page 188 Notes......Page 192 References......Page 216 Index......Page 238