# Paths of Care: Following the Ismaili Right Path through Caring for Roads and Walkers in the Karakoram Mountains, Pakistan

Thibault Fontanari

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## To cite this version:

Thibault Fontanari. Paths of Care: Following the Ismaili Right Path through Caring for Roads and Walkers in the Karakoram Mountains, Pakistan. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 2024, 25 (5), pp.354-371. hal-05499508

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The Version of Record of this manuscript has been published in The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology (TAPJA), in the special issue “In(tangible) Circulations: Pathways of Sociality in Highland Asia.”

*For quotation please refer to the published version: Fontanari, Thibault. 2024. “Paths of Care: Following the Ismaili Right Path through Caring for Roads and Walkers in the Karakoram Mountains, Pakistan.” The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 25(5): 354-371.*

# Paths of Care: Following the Ismaili Right Path through Caring for Roads and Walkers in the Karakoram Mountains, Pakistan

Thibault Fontanari<fnref n="1" />

This article explores the correspondence between walking, caring, gaining respectability, and progressing towards Allah among the herders and farmers of the Shimshal Valley in the Karakoram, northeast Pakistan. As Ismailis, the inhabitants are morally obliged to show solidarity in the name of God. This solidarity occurs during their daily circulations as they care for others and the infrastructure in the face of environmental fluxes and hazards. Mutual help contributes to the way people give and receive, and the circulation of gifts is shaped by gendered relations and hierarchy and renews them in return. In doing good, people grow their souls and progress to salvation. This progression is objectified by the greetings they receive on the way and the place they are offered inside homes.

Keywords: Walking; Gift; Social Recognition; Respect; Ismaili; Spiritual Progression

## Introduction

<footnote n="1">¹ University of Louvain, Laboratory for a Prospective Anthropology (LAAP), Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. Email: thibault fontanari@uclouvain.be</footnote>
Didar Karim opened the door of his home to me for the first time in 2011. As a
mountain guide, he was keen to show me around his valley, Shimshal, in the
Karakoram mountains. Like the other Wakhis of the Hunza district, the
inhabitants are pastoralists and farmers. They grow wheat, barley, and potatoes
on around 150 hectares, irrigated by canals that carry meltwater from the
surrounding glaciers.<fnref n="2" /> They also lead their herds of sheep, goats, and yaks to
high-altitude pastures in an area of around 2,700 square kilometres. It was by
walking with Didar Karim along these irrigation canals and mountain paths that
I learned the importance of greeting those who would become my future
fieldwork partners. Whether at home or while walking along irrigation canals and
mountain footpaths, everyone greets each other with two questions: ‘Tu’t kumər
taťk? Tu’t kumər reťtu’ (Where are you going? Where are you from?).<fnref n="3" /> Knowing
the destination of the people one encounters is tantamount to understanding the
activities that they are seeking to carry out.<fnref n="4" /> Wakhis perform their tasks and move
around their territory in prescribed ways according to their gender, age, and
status: elders precede the youth, and men the women. They thus assume their
place in space according to the position they are given in their community. Their
relationship to eldership and gender is shaped by male domination: only men can
pass down their land and herds to their male descendants, just as they pass on the
name of their lineage. Following this logic, men have historically monopolised
agricultural activities and, to some extent, pastoral practices.

During my fieldwork, these spatial orders of precedence and gendered
divisions of labour were nevertheless changing before my eyes. As David Butz

<footnote n="2">² This technique was essential for cultivating these plots, located at an altitude of around 3000 metres and receiving around 130 mm of precipitation annually (Kreutzmann 2000, 94).</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ In this article, I use a latinised version of the wakhi transliteration system proposed by Ivan Michajlovitj Stebline-Kamensky (1999).</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ Walter (2022, 63) describes a similar greeting among her informants, the inhabitants of Gilgit (capital of the Gilgit-Baltistan region). According to the author, when they greet each other by asking ‘where are you going?’, they display mutual social control.</footnote>
and Nancy Cook pointed out, since 2003 when a road linked Shimshal to the Karakoram Highway<fnref n="5" /> (see Figure 1), more and more men and youth migrated to work seasonally or study in urban areas, which led more and more women to take part in agricultural work to compensate for the absence of men (Cook & Butz 2020, 8–9), a process that again reflects male domination. In all circumstances, the women have continued to fulfil their domestic obligations, and the men to show bravery (*badur*).

I spent most of my days walking. Every time I returned to Didar Karim's home, his mother—Safida Begum — would call out to me: ‘*Wisdita?*’ (are you coming back ?) — a question that obviously echoed the other two that locals would ask each other along the way — to which I would reply, ‘*Yan, wisdim!*’ (I'm coming !) before telling her about the footpaths I had taken, the people I had met, and the tasks I had tried to perform as well as possible. She would then offer me the place in her home that she thought was the most appropriate: that of the guest. But while finding myself close to the hearth, where the elders sat, all my efforts were focused on moving backwards to find myself among men of my age, who were themselves trying to progress towards the place of the elders. It was in this way that I came to realise that respectability is earned while walking along with others, and then expressed in the home by the place people are given. This position, in turn, determines the way people walk.

<footnote n="5">⁵ The Karakoram Highway was built by China and Pakistan between 1966 and 1978 to link Kashgar to Mansehra north of Abbottabad, through Khunjerab Pass and therefore the Hunza Valley (Kreutzmann 1991, 723–724; Hussain 2015, 110).</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

**Figure 1.** Shimshal Valley showing the location of the Karakoram Highway, the Shimshal road and the main pastoral routes. (Map created by Dr Mathilde Minotti, 2021). Source: Kreutzmann 2015, 481, modified.

The more I walked alongside my fieldwork companions, the more I tried
my hand at farming and pastoral practices and became aware of the dangers that
threaten inhabitants. I learned that in this environment, anyone can easily be
taken by surprise by an unexpected snowstorm that can freeze the hands and feet
of walkers, as well as flooding rivers that threaten at any moment to sweep away
the most intrepid travellers when they are not on the backs of yaks—only the
most robust and reckless of which are capable of braving the current. Then there
are the rockfalls that can tackle the legs of travellers or even hit them on the head.
They often occur after the first rains of spring, heralding landslides that block
and wipe out entire sections of paths and canals. To cope with all these situations
and return home safe and sound, walkers can hold onto each other in weather
snowstorms; encourage one another to find the strength to cross a river; and
throw stones lying on the path out of the way in order to keep walking on their
footpaths or, in another context, continue using their irrigation canals. All these
actions fit an attitude that the inhabitants call ‘nang xak’, that is, standing by
someone.
If the patriarchal relationships already instituted between walkers
influence the way they journey together, ‘standing by others’ contributes to
(re)shaping their relationships through the movement of their walking and
exchange of care. I found the epistemology I needed in Jo Lee Vergunst’s and
Tim Ingold’s works. Long before me, they had explored how ‘social relations are
not enacted in situ but are paced out along the ground’ (Ingold & Vergunst 2008,
1). I came to realise that to give these combined phenomena of walking and
caring their rightful place in the study of social life in Shimshal, it was necessary,
as Ingold (2011, 67–75) had claimed, to move away from a conceptual
framework whereby beings and things are considered as entities a priori closed
in on themselves and separate from one another. The same holds true for the
atmosphere and the substances of the ground, which should not be considered as
entities a priori distinct from beings and things if we are to understand why and
how living beings move and take part in the movements of others and, more
broadly, in the generation of life. From this perspective, for living beings, life
therefore amounts to the open-ended process of coming into being, as they move
through the world and become entangled with others and things in an open world:
they are not actors reproducing practices that they have incorporated and are
merely expressing (Ingold & Vergunst 2008, 1–2; Ingold 2011, 67–75).

In this process of coming-into-being, perception plays a fundamental role
since it provides a practical and bodily knowledge of the world.<fnref n="6" /> It is through
their perceptions that beings make their way through an open world—inhabit it—
and join other beings and things to create particular social configurations (Ingold
2013, 199). I learned in Shimshal that if people are indeed related to one another,
even if only momentarily, they are first and foremost related by the paths they

<footnote n="6">⁶ More precisely, beings immersed in the immediate experience of the world act pre-reflectively or pre-objectively depending on what they perceive. In this sense, neither beings, nor the ground on which they walk, nor the things they grasp and handle, can be said to have passive or active agentivity (Ingold 2017, 15–17).</footnote>
travel and on which they come into contact with one another, for varying lengths
of time, before resuming their journey. It is in this context that, Ingold suggests,
we should grasp ‘care’: it is first and foremost a response that beings give to and
receive from one another as a function of what happens to them as they progress
through an open world, and this response is obligatory, since they inhabit the
same world that matters to them (Ingold 2017, 20–21).

Although these epistemological perspectives afford an essential approach
to the place of pathways, atmospheric flows, and environmental hazards in the
act of caring—and to their importance in the way inhabitants walk—care and
walking are by no means an end in themselves: both are irrevocably the objects
of a social recognition that takes Allah as its witness. As one of the most
experienced inhabitants in agricultural and pastoral work told me after a day
spent clearing an irrigation canal that had been buried by a landslide on 23 March
2014: ‘we will pray for you’. Caring for others along the way, an obligatory
response to action, is just as much a religious and communal form of commitment
to Allah. Shimshalis are Ismailis. Like the other Wakhis of the Hunza Valley, they
see in Shah Karim, the Aga Khan IV—a descendant of Ali, the Prophet’s cousin
and son-in-law—their 49th Imam and spiritual guide who shows them the Right
Path that will lead them to social and economic success, and salvation. The Right
Path is a teaching that the Imam regularly gives to his murid, and which makes
service (*khidmat*) to the transnational Ismaili community (*jamaʻat*) one of the
means of progressing towards Allah and his current Imam. In Shimshal, as in the
other Ismaili communities in the Hunza Valley, *khidmat* takes many forms, from
organising religious ceremonies and festivals to teaching children about religion.
As the Shimshalis liked to repeat to me, their service far extends this, since it
most often involves helping others when they are affected by environmental
hazards, as well as repairing or building infrastructure. Locally, standing by
others (*nang xak*) is one of the expressions of service (*khidmat*) and, in this sense, falls under the concept of giving.

For Katherine Miller (2015, 113), who described the service of *khidmat* among the Ismailis of the Burusho community in the central Hunza Valley, ‘volunteerism is a gift of the volunteer’s time and labour to God through the intermediate recipient of the *jama‘at*, or, rather, it is a counter-gift, a paradoxical return for God’s unrepayable gift of creation’. For her, this service is reminiscent of the one Amira Mittermaier analysed among Egypt’s Resala volunteers (2014, 539). For the latter author, by giving to others only in order to give to God, the volunteers ‘invite us to think beyond society’s horizons as the one and only framework for questions of the good’. Miller nevertheless insists that while Ismaili service is addressed to God, it is just as much a matter of cooperation between those who provide it (Miller 2015, 130, 139). To grasp the various ways Shimshalis stand by others or volunteer, it appears necessary to take into consideration all the beings involved and the nature of the relationships that link them and that are renewed by the logic of gift exchange and the threefold obligation to give, receive, and return (Mauss 2002). These acts create a circulation of gifts that brings the exchangers closer together while also creating a hierarchical distance between the recipient and the giver—for giving generates a debt. Accepting a gift and giving in return is therefore obligatory, as to do otherwise would be tantamount to refusing to enter into a relationship, with all the risks that this entails. There is, thus, an interest in obliging others, and an obligation to sacrifice one’s own interest in order to nurture social ties through the things that circulate. This circulation may take multiple directions: horizontally between the living, transversally between the living and the dead, and vertically between human and invisible beings (Tarot 2000, 146). For their part, Shimshalis Ismaili volunteers give themselves to others in the name of God in order to progress towards him as much as to gain respectability and cherish,
as it were, both their horizontal relationship with the inhabitants and their vertical relationship with Allah.

In this article, I first show that both parents and Ismaili volunteers adopt the posture of *nang xak*: either as part of their agricultural and pastoral work or as their service to Allah and the Ismaili *jamaʻat*. By giving of themselves for others, they sacrifice their bodies, grow their souls, and progress towards spiritual salvation to a point where they can see Allah through their Imam, a divine vision (*didar*) manifested in the form of light (*nur*). I then show that the posture of *nang xak* arises as the inhabitants move around, illustrating this point by recounting the clearing of a landslide on the road linking the Shimshal Valley to the Hunza Valley. This example reveals how walkers' perceptions of the road and obstacles leads them to help each other and, in so doing, express and renew their hierarchical and gendered relations. Finally, I point out that people express their respect for others and recognise their spiritual progression in two ways: through the greetings they address to one another on a daily basis; and through the positions they adopt and give others within their homes. In conclusion, I propose to call journeying the process whereby people progress spiritually and gain respectability by caring for others in the name of God in order to cope with events as they occur.

## Giving to Others in the Name of Allah

In Shimshali memory, the performance of agricultural work has always brought together relatives (*sukkin*) from the same patrilineage, while pastoral migrations require all the members of the sub-clan. Everyone contributes in their own way. In the course of thirteen months' research conducted during the period 2011–2016, ploughing, tilling, and irrigation work were male activities, while both men and women harvested. Although all are responsible for the migration of goats, sheep, and yaks during the summer, only the men keep the yaks in the high
pastures during the winter, when goats and sheep are brought back to the village
to be fed the hay harvested in the summer. While dairy making is a female
activity, shearing and weaving are performed by the men. Women take care of
housekeeping and men build and maintain infrastructure. The young men
undertake the hard labour, while the elders advise them and supervise the youth.
Likewise, the young women, and particularly the daughters-in-law, are in charge
of preparing the food under the watchful eye of the elders and the girls.

In addition to these relationships between *sukkin*, there are the
relationships between friends (*dust*) and neighbours (*amsaya*), who can be called
upon to carry out work ranging anywhere from raising a low wall around an
enclosure, to building or repairing part of a house, or helping with agricultural or
pastoral work. Anyone who agrees to carry out any of these tasks is known as a
*këryar* (helper). During the month of March—after the winter and before the
farming season begins early April—it is not uncommon to see men criss-crossing
the village with a brother or cousin (*vrut*) in search of *këryar*. The helpers are
always fed by the initiator’s wife, mother, or sisters. This work may bring
together a large number of people or, on the contrary, turn into a dismal affair if
those who are asked for a favour feel that the applicant has not contributed
enough to their own work and do not show up where they are expected.
Compared to the kind of mutual help people called *këryar, nang xak* appears as
a form of solidarity that any inhabitant would show another in need, irrespective
of their family, neighbourhood, or friendship ties.

Both notions, however, designate forms of giving that nurture people's
bonds: anything a giver gives creates a debt that obliges the recipients to give
back, that is, to help others in turn. Giving brings the giver closer to the receiver
while also placing the two at a distance from each other, for it establishes a debt.
However, as Edmund Leach (1982, 153–155) points out, a counter-gift is not a
repayment because the debt contracted is never erased and each gift implies a
new debt that links people to one another. This circulation of the gift follows a
particular dynamic in Shimshal where it is up to the youth to take on the heaviest
work while the elders are responsible for advising them. Giving in this context
meant forging relationships between the youth and strengthening those between
them and their elders, thus renewing the hierarchy between the inhabitants.

The obligation to give back, as Marcel Mauss has clearly shown, is just
one of the many reasons for taking part in the circulation of gifts: it is compulsory
to be spontaneous and generous, but it is equally valuable as it obliges others to
be generous in turn (Mauss 2002). To explain the reasons for showing solidarity,
my informants invoked attachment to their loved ones, the joy of sharing
moments, and, above all, the obligation to help others. As Jahad Ali put it, ‘when
the boy becomes a young man, the mother becomes old, so the young man comes
to help her’<fnref n="7" />, a statement that echoes another by an elder—Daulat Amine—that
‘we work hard because we don’t forget our parents’, before adding, ‘we listen to
our parents’ advice until their last breath’.<fnref n="8" /> The obligation to provide assistance
to one’s parents and to anyone else in need is part of a moral obligation rooted in
religious Ismaili beliefs. Those who act on behalf of others grow their souls, draw
closer to God, and will be rewarded by finding heaven (*janat*) after death. As
Aman Ullah summed up: ‘The world is the field of the afterlife. What you sow,
you will reap after your death. Spiritual life and material life are inseparable. My
material life must be very careful: what I do will have consequences. If it’s my
duty to do something for others, someone, then it’s a good thing for my spiritual
life, and if it’s someone’s duty to do something for me, it’s good for their spiritual
life’.<fnref n="9" />

<footnote n="7">⁷ Interview with Jahad Ali, Shimshal Center, Shimshal Valley, Pakistan, 15 November 2011.</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸ Interview with Daulat Amine, Shimshal Center, Shimshal Valley, Pakistan, 25 November 2011.</footnote>

<footnote n="9">⁹ Interview with Aman Ullah, Shimshal Center, Shimshal Valley, Pakistan, 21 October 2011.</footnote>
While the gift (re)creates bonds between people, the circulation of these gifts conforms to a social order, already instituted, its legitimacy founded in religious beliefs, that is, the Right Path. The youth are obliged to follow their elders through the gifts they received to give them a counter-gift by applying themselves to doing things in accordance with the Right Path. This also means to grow up learning to give in turn, according to the position attributed to them, which will be recognised day after day, thus forging ties and reproducing the Ismaili beliefs that have been passed on to them. The capacity of the gift to generate hierarchical relations makes it foundational to society and, as Alain Caillé (2007, 189) has argued, it constitutes the basis of all political and symbolic human institutions. Essential to the regeneration of bonds, giving is no less shaped by religious beliefs—what Maurice Godelier (2010) calls the imaginary—which compels everyone to assume a specific place in society and to act, and therefore give, accordingly.

For Daulat Amine, a respected former teacher in the village, the inhabitants have always shown solidarity towards others and in the name of Allah, but he also added that the meaning of this solidarity and the ways in which it was organised were largely transformed under the impetus of the religious Ismaili institutions that were set up in his village in the second half of the twentieth century.<fnref n="10" /> The first of these was the local Shimshal Ismaili Council, which came into being in 1987. Like all the other local Ismaili councils around the world in charge of an Ismaili community, it is the most basic level of the Ismaili religious transnational network, the aim of which is to administer the Ismailis. Like all local councils, the Shimshal council reports to a regional council, which in turn reports to a national council, which reports to the Imam. According to my fieldwork partners, the Imam uses the channels of this network to address his followers, sending them a message (firman) at every new moon to

<footnote n="10">¹⁰ Steinberg (2011) and Mostowlansky (2023) examined this process.</footnote>
advise them on how to act based on the social and political context of the moment and his interpretation of the Koran. Together, these messages form the Right Path, which is supposed to lead each follower, and consequently the transnational Ismaili community as a whole, towards spiritual salvation and social and economic success. This Right Path serves as a roadmap for the Ismaili council to guide the community under its care and for the mukhis, the Ismaili officiants, to lead the prayers and religious ceremonies in the *jama'at khana*.

To carry out missions or projects that fall within the scope of its work, the council relies on the Shimshal volunteer corps, founded in 1971 thanks to the contribution of villagers such as Daulat Amine and Azeez Ullah. Its members undertake to serve not only the other inhabitants of the Shimshal Valley but also the transnational community (*jama'at*) as a whole, in the name of Allah and his Imam. Depending on their level of participation, the Ismaili Council reserves the right to promote or demote volunteers. The handwritten notes of the volunteers' secretary, kept in their office in the village, make it possible to know who has financed and participated in the various projects. The process of promoting or demoting volunteers must take place at the same time as the election of members of the Ismaili Council, that is, every three years. At this occasion, the Ismaili Council rewards volunteers who have contributed to the wellbeing of the entire Ismaili community (*jama'at*): they can then be promoted from sipahi to captain, in reference to the ranks that have been used in armies in South Asia.

In addition to the volunteer corps, another organisation sits under the remit of the Ismaili Council: the Ismaili Boy Scouts. The Aga Khan's brother, Prince Amyn Muhammad Aga Khan, has been its chief since 1974. Its structure is different from the Ismaili volunteer corps: an Assistant District Commissioner (ADC) oversees three Group Scout Leaders (GSL), each of whom commands all the members from one of the three Shimshal villages (Aminabad, Shimshal Centre, and Khizerabad). When I asked the Assistant District Commissioner
(ADC) of Shimshal Centre about the difference between the organisation of the volunteers and that of the scouts, he told me that scouts can follow training courses, mainly in Hunza, where they are taught specific skills. They can learn how to put up a tent or build a bridge or a road. At the end of each course, they receive a badge. Like the volunteers, their journey is negotiated in several stages. They start out as Shaheen Scouts, then move on to the Rover Scouts, and finish their journey with the Scouts, after which they can choose to join the volunteers.

By acting on behalf of the community, volunteers and scouts grow their souls and gain respectability from their peers in the form of a rank. Volunteers are also known as fidayan (self-sacrificers). As Shafique Virani recalls (2007, 189), this term historically refers to the Ismailis who sought to protect their people from the massacres they faced during the Saljuqs period (particularly during the 5th–6th/11th–12th centuries). In Shimshal, it names those who risk their lives to ensure the fate of their community in the name of God, his Prophet, and his Imam. During my first field visits in the valley, week after week, my interlocutors saw me coming back with questions: How did people follow the Right Path? What were the practical consequences in their daily lives? Few people told me what they had found or received after years of commitment to their community. Only one of the founders of the volunteer corps pointed out to me that the answer to my question was obvious.<fnref n="11" /> By way of an answer, he mentioned a visit (*didar*) that Shah Karim Aga Khan had made to his followers and which he had been able to witness, telling me: ‘During the *didar*, I couldn’t tell if I was looking at the Imam, or a light’. This divine vision is far from unique. As Michel Boivin (2003) shows, for the Ismailis, divine vision is none other than the vision of Allah through the light of the Imam, which allows one to access salvation here on earth. He adds that, according to the memoirs of the Aga Khan Sultan Muhammad Shah, this divine vision is obtained only by gift or grace from

<footnote n="11">¹¹ Shimshal Center, Shimshal Valley, Pakistan, 19 April 2014.</footnote>
Allah, although the faithful can obtain it by sacrificing themselves for their community (Boivin 2003, 323, 325, 362).

As I asked questions to understand the place of the gift in the actions of volunteers and scouts along their spiritual progression towards the Imam and Allah, the people with whom I spoke made me realise that this was tantamount to asking questions about the nature of Allah, the Imam, and human beings. Each time, they found different words, proposing comparisons and suggesting analogies. Daulat Amine gave me the fullest explanation that his position as mukhi and his place in society allowed:

> Light is infused by Allah, who is all light and power. He is only light and superpower. The light, *nur*, is powerful in each of the prophets Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. They are the most powerful prophets, because it is in them that Allah has infused the most light. Thanks to this power, they were able to guide other men towards the knowledge of *nur* [...] The Imam is a guide in whom Allah has influenced *nur*. He is responsible for guiding other men towards knowledge, the knowledge of *nur*. The *nur* is light, it is to plants what the Imam is to men.<fnref n="12" />

To volunteer in the Ismaili way is to make a personal commitment to the Ismaili *jama'at* in Allah's name—as we can see in other forms of Islamic volunteering (Mittermaier 2014)—and in accordance with the Imam's guidance to get closer to them, and to find salvation. With these notions of light, divine vision, and salvation in hand, I continued my investigation, seeking to understand their role in the commitment of volunteers and scouts. 'That's up to you', the ADC of Shimshal centre told me when I asked why he was a scout. Sceptical about his reply, I asked other people, who all made a point of telling me that progress

<footnote n="12">¹² Interview with Daulat Amine, Shimshal Center, Shimshal Valley, Pakistan, 21 April 2014.</footnote>
towards the Imam and Allah depends on each individual, although getting involved in actions for the wellbeing of others is a duty. Iqbal's comment is particularly enlightening: 'Nur is shared between Allah, the prophets, and the Imams, but humans have none. Men can share strength. It's up to you to go to the Imam and to Allah, that's how we can say there's a link. It's from you that it must come'.<fnref n="13" />

The volunteers' corps and the Ismaili Boy Scouts thus redefine the outlines of village participation in community work in the village. Bulbul Karim, a high-ranking Ismaili scout, summed up this transformation by comparing the situation of the volunteers to that of Shimshal's inhabitants in the past, whose achievements were celebrated by singing their praises: 'volunteers are respected for their work and people applaud them. We used to respect others by writing songs for those who were badur (strong), mistri (foreman), or who crossed the river. Today, things have changed, we don't make songs anymore, but we give them titles'.<fnref n="14" />

This transformation of the religious imaginary in turn shaped the process for achieving respectability. Muhammad Ullah was a lieutenant at Shimshal Centre, while his brother Muhammad Waffa, a volunteer since 1971, was unable to devote himself fully to Ismaili volunteering because of his work as a shepherd, which involved spending long periods in a pasture called Ghujerav, where he voluntarily served the community, for instance by maintaining the irrigation channels to irrigate certain community pastures. However, he received no rank in return. He said he was happy to be able to do this for his community and added that no one was dishonouring him as a result. Nevertheless, these two examples show that only the voluntary work carried out within the framework of

<footnote n="13">¹³ Quasi-verbatim of a discussion with Iqbal Karim, Islamabad, 9 May 2014.</footnote>

<footnote n="14">¹⁴ Interview with Bulbul Karim, Aminabad, Shimshal Valley, Pakistan, 21 October 2014.</footnote>
contemporary Ismaili institutions is recognised and the person performing it
rewarded.

Standing by Others on the Road

In her study of Ismaili volunteering among the Hunzakuts or Burushos of the central Hunza Valley, Miller rightly notes that it is not easy to differentiate between the multiple forms of solidarity that her informants use in everyday life (Miller 2015, 188). This observation can also be made about the inhabitants of the Shimshal Valley: whether in the context of agriculture, animal husbandry, or Ismaili voluntary work, the inhabitants act in the name of others and of Allah.

The service (khidmat) offered by volunteers to build and repair infrastructure, as well as all the care that villagers give and receive along the way (nang xak), provide the best vantage points to observe villagers reconfiguring their social relationships, and those that unite them with Allah and the Imam, as they bring people together beyond their kinship ties. One of the first things I systematically observed was that these forms of solidarity emerged as we walked along the mountain paths, the irrigation canals, and even the road connecting Shimshal to the Karakoram Highway. In fact, in the village, everyone learned and mastered the work associated with their status by walking, because living in the Karakoram first and foremost meant walking along the irrigation canals and narrow mountain paths. How did giving and walking become intertwined and how could progressing along a path and journeying towards Allah and the Imam become one and the same? To grasp these connections, I revisit a striking episode from my fieldwork.

On 23 September 2015, Didar Karim and I sat in a jeep on our way to Shimshal. Since we had left the Karakoram Highway—a double-lane asphalt structure protected by guard rails—to take the Shimshal road, a structure made
of stones running along the cliff and skirting the Shimshal River, the vehicle's occupants were on the lookout. The driver was Didar Karim's brother-in-law, Hussain Karim. Didar Karim sat in the back seat with Hussain's brother, Naveed Karim, and his cousin, Hafeez Rozdar. During the drive, we continuously scanned the mountain wall, fearing that more stones might fall, while the other two occupants in the back, Hussain Karim's brother and cousin, were in charge of getting out of the vehicle and clearing rocks from the road when the jeep could not get around them. Despite Didar Karim's call for protection before the start of our journey—‘bismillah!’ (in the name of Allah!)—and him giving thanks to the spiritual leader of the Ismailis for still being safe and sound—‘Šukriya Hazirimam’ ('thank you Imam of the Time')—we found ourselves stuck behind a jeep and a cargo jeep, stopped by a large boulder and other smaller ones blocking the way.

A pile of rubble drew the attention of the young men who had just stepped out of the cars. They examined the mountainside, trying to identify from where stones might fall. Standing there put them at risk. Very quickly, the youth formed a circle around the smallest rock in order to take a better look. They needed to break the rock to open up the path again and for cars to be able to drive around it. One of the young men picked up a solid and compact stone. He climbed onto the rock, raised the stone over his head, and threw it down with all his might for maximum impact. The sound was muted; the stone bounced off the rock without making a dent. The youth examined the rock's surface, looking for a crack. They needed to strike a vein in the rock or break it by deepening a crack. Hussain Karim took the solid stone and threw it at the side of the rock; its impact made a sharper and more promising sound. A young man and then Naveed Karim tried smashing the rock again, under the encouragement of an elder emphatically shouting ‘šabaš!’ (bravo!). Elders pointed to the weak spot and the youth kept smashing.
In the meantime, the elders had gotten out of the cars and came towards us. One of them slowly followed behind the group. He was wearing a salwar khameez, a beautiful apricot-coloured outfit. His baggy trousers were finely woven, and his wide shirt was covered by a black cardigan and a grey jacket. He was also wearing a skidh (a white hat with a rolled-up brim). This was Ghulam Rasool, Didar Karim's father. Other elders accompanied him. The youth who had not had a chance to greet the elders in Aliabad before setting off took this opportunity to do so, greeting everyone present. When a cadet meets an elder, they first place their right hand on each other's chest and their left hand on each other's hip. Their right arms then move away to engage in a handshake, during which only the cadet bows as a sign of respect.

As the elders approached, the youth who were talking in the distance entered the circle. One of them took the lead and repeatedly threw a stone at the side of the rock that seemed most fragile. He eventually grew tired, and a second young man took his place. The throwing of stones stopped; one of the young men tried to loosen pieces of rock with a wooden stick and to wiggle the weaker pieces. The others continued to look at the rock while scanning the cliff for small stones that might fall. We had been in this dangerous position for a while now, and nothing seemed to be breaking the rock. Six young men tried to lift it; nothing could be done. The stone throwing resumed. The same young men tried again, aided by the cry, ‘šabaš!’, made by the elders. They targeted the veins that looked like strata. After about fifteen launches, the stone being thrown broke in two. Another stone was quickly found and the striking resumed, without success. But many small pieces of the rock had already come loose. Ten young men tried to lift it again. It had to be thrown into the river. They looked around the rock for somewhere to grip a hand or a finger; they gained traction by pushing with their thighs, placing one foot on a stone for leverage. All of them shouted in unison. The rock lifted slightly. A few young men immediately rushed to pull the rock
towards them, while the others continued pushing it. It toppled over. The other
side of the rock seemed far more fragile. One, two, and then three young men
launched the solid stone at it, running to grab it and throw it again as quickly as
possible. We had to finish, fast. This time, whole pieces came off and, on the
third strike, Hussain Karim broke the rock in two under the applause and cheers
of the others. A few final strikes further reduced the bigger part of the rock. The
youth pushed the pieces to the bottom of the road and let them tumble down into
the river. They cleared the road, threw some pieces of rock along the riverside,
and used others to build cairns (*saman*) to mark out the edge of the ravine. The
obstacle had been reduced to crumbs, and the crumbs now delineated the road.
The drivers, alone in their vehicles, negotiated a passage between the second
rock, which remained, and the precipice, applauded by the others.

I have already described this event in an article (Fontanari 2019) where I
explored how sounds perceived during collective actions such as this one frame
a shared place and generate the matrix from which praise songs are composed.
Here I want to highlight that such unforeseen events experienced on the road give
a glimpse of *nang xak*: a commitment to one's community through a sensitive
engagement with the world that is as much about giving as it is about perceiving
the movements of the environment. To put it another way, facing adversity
together implies giving, and giving consists first and foremost in sharing, with
others, one's perceptions of what stands in the way in order to clear it together.
This process echoes Ingold's description of perception while walking (2022, 56–
58): at first, living beings are exposed to the fluxes of the environment and move
through it and act according to what happens to them. But as they act according
to what they undergo, they learn how to masterfully attune their perceptions to
what the environment affords: what the perceivers perceive is what the thing
affords, based on the actions taken by the perceivers, and what is perceived in
turn shapes the action (Gibson 2015, 127–143). On the road, the Shimshalis
learned to perceive, to share their perceptions, and to act together, because this
was the only way they could reopen their road and get on with their lives. The
surface of the rock is never completely visible to each walker, who can only see
part of it from where they stand. The protagonists are thus forced to share what
they see with the other travellers and especially with the one in charge of
throwing stones at the rock. This sharing of what is seen forms part of the
ephemeral, fragile, and fleeting junctions between the walkers, the road, and the
obstacles to be overcome.

However, people perceive, act, and thus give according to the place they
are given on the road, and this is far from trivial. The young place themselves on
the front line, while the elders stand behind to advise them, to welcome
successful strikes and lament those that miss their target. By taking up their
positions on the road in this way, and by congratulating the bravery and action
of the young, both the young and elders fulfil their obligations and express their
social position in their community, making the road the place where their
relationships are reaffirmed. This explains why women stayed in their cars as
they would in their houses, while the men faced the danger outside as they would
when migrating with their herds or working in the fields. This is also why young
people obey the advice of their elders, as Daulat Amine pointed out to me, to
open the way for others, to gain respectability, and to work towards their
salvation.

## Respectability and Spiritual Progression

If the inhabitants progress socially and spiritually by giving while walking, it is
within the home—which reflects Ismaili cosmology wherein everyone finds their
place—that they systematically objectify their social and spiritual position. The
house rests on five main pillars named after the five pure Ismailis (penjutan): the
Prophet, his daughter Fatima, his cousin and son-in-law Ali, and the two sons of
the latter and first Imams of Islam after their father: Hassan and Hussein. These
last two pillars, Hassan and Hussein, form the entrance to the house and remind
all those who enter the house of the imperative to follow the Right Path if they
wish to find salvation. Two other structures recall it also. The framework rests
on the five *istin* pillars and is built around a central opening, the *ritsən*, a set of
four quadrangular wooden frames. The second and fourth levels of the *ritsən* are
placed obliquely to the first and third levels. The last wooden structure is called
the *gardeuš*. The *ritsən* is associated with diverse analogies. Counting four
wooden structures, it refers to the main angels of the *Qur'an*—Jibril, Mechail,
Israfil, and Israil. It is also possible to identify not four, but five levels, as the last
level of the *ritsən* is split into two separate levels in some homes, thus also
representing the *Punjutan*. On either side of the *ritsen*, the beams supporting the
roof once again recall the Right Path. To the west of the *ritsen*, six beams called
*prutšonk* are lined up in parallel from east to west, symbolising the teachings of
the most powerful prophets, who founded the tenets of Ismailism: those of Adam,
Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. To the east of the *ritsen*, and
opposite the six *prutšonk* beams, is another beam called a *giriwas*, on which is a
picture of the current spiritual Imam of the Ismailis. The six *prutšonk* beams and
the *giriwas* beam thus retrace the history of the Right Ismaili path and remind the
inhabitants of its current existence. This social construction is reminiscent of
what Mary Douglas calls a microcosm: a configuration of analogies that links
together material elements referring to symbolic elements to form a totality,
following parallel proportions and orientations. The microcosm thus connects the
universe it represents to the social world and constitutes a framework for the
inhabitants to make sense of their world. It associates people, and more
specifically their behaviour, with the meanings of the elements of the macrocosm
(Douglas 2005, 45–46, 49–50).
Within this microcosm, everyone takes their place at the intersection of three fundamental axes: the male-female axis, the elder-cadet axis, and the vertical axis.<fnref n="15" /> In an eastern-facing house, the first runs from north to south and the second from west to east, with the place of the elders always being closest to the hearth, just below the *ritsen* (the roof opening). The more elders present in a house, the further the youth will move westwards. The vertical axis is the line on which one stands to invoke and evoke Allah. It passes through the *ritsen* that floods the house with light and through which one can see the sky. It brings the inhabitants closer to the sky and what it holds. It also imposes its verticality on the body of the inhabitants, who keep their torso as straight as possible as a sign of respect for others and for themselves.

Giving and receiving a place in the home thus comes down to expressing one's position, and recognising the positions of others in the community according to the actions they have taken, depending on their age, gender, and progress along the Right Path. What men and women give to each other during collective work is given back to them every time they cross the threshold of a house. In the same way, these gestures of deference oblige those who receive them to act in accordance with their age, their gender, and according to the values of solidarity conveyed by the Right Path. These gifts and counter-gifts of place occur every time visitors arrive. They are always accompanied by greetings, and both are gestures of gratitude. When a person who is not a relative (*sukuin*), a friend (*dust*), or a neighbour (*amsaya*) arrives, all the hosts stand up to greet them, following the order of precedence: male elders, female elders, and finally the younger men and women. When two men greet each other, the cadet gently takes the elder's right hand between his own while bowing his head. When a woman greets a man or a woman, she swirls her right hand towards her shoulders (dast

<footnote n="15">¹⁵ I use the terms ‘axes’ in reference to Anne-Marie Vuillemenot’s work on the Kazakh people’s relations to the body, the space of the yurt, the environment, and the invisible beings (2009).</footnote>
girven), palm facing away from herself, after which she bows and kisses their
right hand. If the visitor is a man, he will respond with a similar kiss on the hand,
followed by a second kiss on the hand from the hostess, as she always closes the
greeting. If the visitor is a woman, she may show respect to the person she is
greeting by ending the greeting.

If the visitor is a relative, a friend, or a neighbour, the greetings may
differ. In this case, when two men greet each other, their right hands touch lightly,
and they place the palm of their left hand on each other's right hip. When a
woman greets a man or another woman, she may perform a hand swirl if it is her
son or daughter visiting her after a long period of absence. She may even raise
both hands, perhaps above her head. If greeting a younger man who has been
away for a long time, his mother, grandmother, and the other female elders
present will raise both hands high towards the sky and wave them round and
round. They will also address this gesture to any visitor who has performed an
act of bravery (*badur*).

The more the visitor's position and age exceed those of the host, the closer
to the hearth (*buxori*) they are offered a seat, an honour which should always be
refused, after which the younger hosts will insist that they do, under the
injunctions of the older persons present. If necessary, they will force the guest to
do so by pulling on their sleeves to make them sit. These gestures of refusal and
obligation increase in intensity when several visitors attend at the same time.
Once seated, the guest signals to the hosts to sit in turn. Lastly, if the visitor is a
regular, they will usually quickly sit down as close as possible to the door, before
the male members have time to grab them and move them to a more honourable
position.

The more prestige earned by visitors and travellers through their
actions—whether caring for herds and leading them safely to pasture despite the
pitfalls, or helping to repair vital village infrastructure such as irrigation canals or roads—the more deference they will receive, with women sometimes even swivelling both hands and holding them above their heads. Woman may perform hand swirls as a greeting but also in order to offer protection to those who have done something remarkable for the good of the community or to loved ones. The choice of greeting with one or both hands, the height at which they are raised, and the number of swirls add many nuances to this gesture of affection and respect for the visitor. Far from being addressed only to the living, the women's greeting seeks to take Allah and the Imam as witnesses. By turning their hand/s, they ask them to take care of the fragile lives of their loved ones once they have crossed the threshold of the house or walked out of their sight on a dangerous path.

Finally, when a person, man or woman, leaves to spend a long period of time in the mountains or the city, the daughter-in-law (nun) throws flour onto the pillars of the penjutan, as well as the other beams of the house, before putting some on the shoulders and hats of the travellers. Some villages also sprinkle their goats and sheep during pastoral migrations. Flour is associated with good luck and renewal, and the purpose of sprinkling it on those whom one cares about is to wish them a safe journey home. When someone returns home after a long period of absence, it is usually also the daughter-in-law who crosses the threshold and places a little flour (putuk) on the head or shoulder of the person about to enter. In her absence, the eldest member of the household performs this gesture.

The house reflects the Ismaili Right path and the social hierarchy. In the well-ordered domestic space, even more than on the road, people greet one another and give each other a place. By doing so, they recognise their position in the community according to their age, gender, and their progress on the Right Path. In return, they obligate themselves to act in accordance with the religious
Ismaili beliefs of the Right Path, according to which acting for others leads them to progress towards the Imam and Allah.

## Conclusion

In Shimshal, standing by others (nang xak) includes all the actions that the walkers give and receive along the way to cope with environmental hazards that occur, and to reopen any channels or paths that are blocked. These actions merge caring with giving. They encompass caring, for people act collectively to respond to the movements of the environment in the course of their corporeal engagement in the world to protect, help, and support each other's fragility. These actions are, nevertheless, just as much a gift because they relate to a religious commitment to the community in God's name, and those who perform them are then rewarded: they gain respectability and progress towards God and salvation, a progression whose destination is the vision of his light through that of the Imam. This progression towards God and respectability are objectified daily through the greetings that the inhabitants exchange and the places that they take, give, and receive inside their homes.

How do giving and walking become intertwined and how can progressing along a path and journeying towards Allah and the Imam become one and the same? As Ingold has pointed out: 'we perceive when we go along; we interpret when, reflexively, we look back on what we and others have done' (Ingold 2022, 54). This reflexivity, among the Wakhis, shines out most brightly in their home, whose architecture represents the Right Path and schematises the horizontal hierarchical and gender relationships of the inhabitants, and their vertical relationship with Allah. By journeying along the road, Wakhis extend this logic beyond the threshold of their homes, for they take their place on pathways just as they take their place in their homes, according to the position they are given in their community. Then, when walking with others along the way, they help
each other *(nang xak)* to cope with the environmental fluxes that threaten them
according to the spatial position they assume. The circulation of their gift
depends on the concrete circulation of the walkers, which is reminiscent of their
position along the Right Path, their religious imaginary. This is how, in Shimshal,
caring for roads and walkers merges social, spiritual and physical progression,
that is, how people journey.

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