Journal of Persianate Studies 4 (2011) 117-145

brill.nl/jps

Shrine Traditions of Wakhan Afghanistan
John Mock1
University of California, Santa Cruz (retired)

Abstract
This study, based on ﬁeld work from 2004 to 2010, describes the religious, social and historicalcontext of shrines in Wakhan District of Badakhshan Province, Afghanistan. Scholarly analysisof the signiﬁcance of the shrines is balanced with the perspective of the people of Wakhan forwhom the shrine traditions are part of a living landscape. Translated excerpts from interviews
conducted in the Wakhi language at the shrines bring the Wakhi voice to the study, which
focuses on one shrine (the shrine of the miracle of Nāser Khosrow in Yimit village) as an exemplar of shrine traditions. The study draws comparisons between documented shrine traditions inadjacent Wakhan Tajikistan and in Hunza-Gojal of Pakistan, locates the traditions within Pamir
Ismaʿilism, and suggests outlines of a broader Pamir interpretive community.
Keywords
Wakhan, Afghanistan, Pamir, Ismaʿilism, saints, shrines, religion

The people of Wakhan consider all Wakhan as a ring and Khandut as its nagina(“jewel”).
Religious scholar Gholām ʿAli of Qāzideh

It is generally accepted that the development of Pamir Ismaʿilism involved theabsorption of local customs and traditions (Dodykhudoeva, 151; Iloliev
2008b, 64). From the perspective of a cultural focal area, it may equally be said
that the culture of Wakhan (Vakhān) and the Pamir assimilated Ismaʿili andSuﬁ concepts as it had assimilated previous concepts and traditions. In eﬀect,
the Pamir and, of particular emphasis for this paper, Wakhan are a sort of1
Support for research in Afghanistan and Tajikistan was provided by a grant from the Christensen Fund of Palo Alto, California. Additional support was through a Fulbright Senior ScholarAward for Pakistan and a Fulbright Regional Travel Grant for Tajikistan. The American Instituteof Pakistan Studies provided facilities in Islamabad. Consulting work with the Wildlife Conservation Society’s USAID-funded Afghanistan Biodiversity Project and with the Aga Khan
Foundation—Afghanistan and GTZ of Germany enabled me to identify many of the shrines
and sites. My thanks to Mr. Fazal Amin Beg, M.Phil., who worked with me on collection,transcription and translation of the Wakhi language material.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011

DOI: 10.1163/187471611X600350

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cultural palimpsest, a recipient of a complex series of inﬂuences. The process,however, should not be viewed as unidirectional.2 Rather, Wakhan and thePamir participate in an ethno-linguistic area that is also an interpretive area,
where neighboring communities share signiﬁcant features of meaning thattranscend linguistic and cultural boundaries.3 The diachronous threads of history and tradition weave together with the synchronous threads of interpersonal and intercommunity relations to form the broader social fabric of theregion, in which the predominant interpretive mode today is that of Ismaʿili
and Suﬁ thought, in a distinctive form that is called Pamir Ismaʿilism.

Historical and Cultural Threads
For more than a thousand years, a fairly steady stream of merchants, monks,
travelers, and occasionally armies passed through Wakhan along the so-called
Silk Road4 from at least the ﬁrst century BCE (Franck, 2; Zelinksky, 54). The
religious traditions that came with these travelers include Zoroastrianism(from Samarkand and Sogdiana to the north and west), Buddhism (fromBalur just to the south, Kabul and Balkh to the west, and Khotan to the east),
Manichaeism, and Nestorianism (both from the west via Sogdiana).5
Numerous rock carvings demonstrate a human presence in Wakhan fromthe prehistoric Bronze Age, when wild yaks were hunted by mounted bowmen
on the Pamir, to the ﬁrst millennium CE (Hauptmann, 24-28; Middleton andThomas, 600-06; Mock and O’Neil 2005, 13; Miller, 54-59; Naumann 1973,252). Many of the rock carvings depict wild game animals and hunters, andmay have been part of ceremonial or ritual practices (Hauptmann, 25). Rockcarvings of wild goats in the Scythian animal style can be associated withseventh century BCE Saka people resident in the Pamir (Litvinsky, 148).
Whatever the original cultural relevance of these rock carvings, it is unknown
to today’s inhabitants, who have told me that the rock carvings were “made by
fereshta (angel[s]).”2
The dialogical process of incorporation of indigenous tradition into Islamic discourse andnativization of outside (Islamic) tradition into indigenous discourse is a well-known Central Asia
phenomenon. See DeWeese 1994, 445-46.
3
Shared features of the Pamir, Dardic, and Nuristani languages deﬁne a Pamir-Hindukush
ethnolinguistic region (Payne 1989, 420-23) that is a transitional zone between South Asia andCentral Asia (Tikkanen 1995).
4This trade route was termed die Seidenstrasse by Baron Ferdinand von Richtofen in thenineteenth century, although Chinese silk had been traded along the route from its inception.
5
The scholarly essays in Whitﬁeld 2004 elucidate the historical currents generated by trade,travel, war, and religion on the Silk Road.

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People speaking Eastern Iranian languages have lived in the vicinity of theupper Amu Darya since at least the seventh century BCE and the Pamiri
languages,6 most notably Wakhi, are their closest living descendants (Bailey,
68; Payne 1996, 367; Skjærvø, 370). The Wakhi language (or more accurately‘pre-Wakhi’) was in close contact with Indic languages from very ancient times
when Indic and Iranian were mutually intelligible. Wakhi has continued fairly
intensive interaction with the neighboring northwestern Indic language,
Khowar, up to the present (Bashir 2001, 3; Morgenstierne, 441-42).
It appears that Wakhan or wukh watan is the homeland of Wakhi or
wakhikwor-speaking Wakhik people, as evidenced by the shared onomasticsof the toponym,7 the ethnonym and the language (Bashir 2009, 825), andthat the people were part of the initial wave of Iranian settlers in the Pamir(Morgenstierne, 435). Wakhi and the modern Pamiri languages are unwritten
languages. Although there is ample evidence of their long presence in the
Pamir, they are not attested through texts, in contrast to their historical
Eastern Iranian relatives.
Written references to Wakhan as a kingdom are found not only in theeighth century CE Tang dynasty annals, but in the ninth century Akhbār
Makka,8 the tenth-century Hodud al-ʿĀlam,9 and in the thirteenth century
writings of Marco Polo.10 These references all use the toponym Wakhan,
underscoring the continuity of the language in its place.
By the end of the ﬁrst century CE, China’s Han Dynasty was the predominant Silk Road power as far east as the Pamir, although the majority of thateastern population was not Chinese (Groussett, 41-42). Tibet emerged as a6None of the modern Pamiri languages spoken today are direct descendants of the historic
Eastern Iranian languages (although the neighboring Yaghnobi is a descendant of Sogdian). The
Khotanese, Khwarazmian, and Sogdian languages are attested from texts, but these languages
have died out (Bashir 2009, 857; Edelman and Dodykhudoeva, 776; Payne 1989, 422).
7
The earliest conﬁrmation of the toponym is in China’s Tang dynasty annals, which record
interaction of the Tang court with the Kingdom of Wakhan in 720 and 742 CE, and a battle
between Chinese and Tibetan forces in Wakhan in 747 CE. The Tang annals transcribe the nameof Wakhan as Hu-kʾan, and Beckwith (133 fn) notes that Hu would have been pronounced as/γwak/ in Central Asia. This would give a pronunciation of /γwak-kan/, remarkably close to
today’s pronunciation.
8
Al-Azraqi chronicles that the armies of the Caliph al-Maʾmun, under the authority of his
viceroy for the east, Fazl b. Sahl, campaigned against the Kābolshāh and the Qaghan of Tibet,
and defeated Wakhan around 814-15 CE (Beckwith, 160-62).
9
Wakhan is mentioned as a region with “Sikashim (Ishkāshim)” as its “chief place.” Khandut(Khamdādh) is described as the location of the “idol-temples (but-khāna-hā) of the Wakhis,” and“on its left side is a fortress occupied by Tibetans” (Minorsky, 121).
10
Polo evidently passed through Wakhan around 1273. He mentions “Vokhan . . . [where]
the people worship Mahommet, and have a peculiar language” (Polo, 162).

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major power in the seventh century CE and between 650 and 850 CE China
and Tibet vied for control of the kingdom of Wakhan and of the trade route
through it (Beckwith, 89-91, 123, 132-33; Stein 1922, 115-16). The Chinese
Buddhist monk Xuanzang passed through Wakhan some time shortly after
640 CE on his return from India. He mentioned the village of Khandut as thecapital of Wakhan and described a Buddhist vihara in the center of the town
(Stein 1981, 866).11 This corroborates the description given in Hodud al-ʿĀlamof Khandut (Khamdādh) as the location of the vihara (“idol-temples”) of theWakhis with a separate Tibetan fort nearby (Minorsky, 121) and indicates thatthe vihara was not for the Tibetans (or the Chinese, or other religious travelers
alone), but was part of the religious life of the indigenous (Wakhi) population.
Numerous old forts (qalʿa) in both Tajikistan and Afghanistan Wakhan, suchas the fort at Panja and the forts associated with the Kaﬁr king QaQa, datefrom this era or perhaps even earlier (Iloliev 2008b, 65; Miller, 37-43). The
QaQa12 forts are linked into the present religious fabric not as shrines or the
locus of religious practice, but rather through the ascription of the defeat of
the Kaﬁr king by ʿAli, the forth caliph succeeding the prophet of Islam.
Although the army of the Caliph al-Maʾmun campaigned against the Qaghanof Tibet and defeated Wakhan around 814-15, it is historically impossible that
ʿAli should have been physically involved in the campaign. These forts arelocated in Qāzideh and Korkut in Afghanistan and in Namadgut in Tajikistan,with additional secondary locations associated with the daughters and thegeneral(s) of QaQa. The large fort in Qāzideh is recorded as being last occupied in the late nineteenth century (Miller, 39). The Kansir fort at Korkut
dates to the eighth or ninth century and ﬁgures prominently in the battle
between Chinese and Tibetan forces in 747 (Miller, 43; Mock 2008; Stein
1907, 9) (Figure 1). The Tibetans appear to have reasserted their authority in
Wakhan shortly after their defeat in this battle, but by the end of the ninth
century the high water mark of Buddhism in the Hindukush and Pamir had
receded, the Tibetan empire no longer reached to Wakhan, and the region wasincreasingly inﬂuenced by Islam (Beckwith, 172; Hauptmann, 32).

11

Stein, like Wood and Olufsen before him, did not visit Khandut and the villages on thetrue left (southern) bank of the Panj River. Hence, Stein never actually saw the vihara, nor haveany subsequent travelers described it.
12
The legend of Qa Qa-e jodu and his fort at Hissar near Dushanbe is well known in
Tajikistan (Middleton and Thomas, 122). The legends of QaQa in Wakhan are less well known,
but equally of interest. Conjecture as to any historical identity for QaQa has yet to appear inscholarly work.

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121

Fig. 1. Kansir Fort above Korkut village
Ismaʿili missionaries were active in Samarkand and Bukhara, where the Ismaʿilimessage found acceptance at the Samanid court in the beginning of the tenthcentury (Stern, 79). Subsequent opposite reaction in Bukhara and from neighboring states induced a relocation of the Ismaʿili message into the Pamir region(Iloliev 2008a, 28). There, Ismaʿili teaching encountered the earlier magus andshaman traditions. Ismaʿilism was clearly present in the region when Nāser
Khosrow (Nasir Khusraw) came to Badakhshan at the invitation of a local
Ismaʿili ruler (Schadl, 72), but the Ismaʿili community today universally
regards Nāser Khosrow as the founding ﬁgure.

Wakhan Shrine Traditions
Wakhan is home to numerous shrines. Abdulmamad Iloliev, in his study ofsaints and shrines of Wakhan in Tajikistan, notes, “there are at least two or
more shrines in almost every village of Wakhan” (Iloliev 2008b, 64), which isequally true for Afghanistan Wakhan. Indeed, taken as a whole, all of Wakhan
would appear to match Ghulam Ali’s description of a ring (nagina), or as

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Iloliev phrases the local description of Wakhan, “the stepping place of the pirs”(qadamgāh-e pirān).
Iloliev describes three types of shrines in Tajikistan Wakhan; oston (standard
Persian āstān “threshold”), qadamgoh (i.e. qadamgāh “stepping place”), andmazar (i.e. mazār “tomb”). Oston in Afghanistan Wakhan are typically trees,
often decorated with colored strips of cloth, or a collection of stones withunique shape, color, or markings. Qadamgohs are places where saints reputedly
visited. A rock with the mark of a footprint or the impression of a staﬀ (osoyi)
apparent on it may mark such sites, or a grove of trees or a spring may markthe site of a saint’s visitation. Mazars are typically burial places of a saint.
Shrines where trees are not present often have numerous sticks, with coloredcloth strips tied to them, placed around them. The horns of wild ungulates(ibex and urial) are also frequently placed at shrine sites.13
Iloliev further describes three types of saint: the well-known saints of Shiʿiand Suﬁ tradition; the travelers and dervishes signiﬁcant mostly to Pamir
Ismaʿili tradition; and local pirs and great men or buzurgwor (i.e. bozorg(a)vār)(Iloliev 2008b, 63-64). Shrines of Shiʿi and Suﬁ saints tend to be either oston
or qadamgoh. Shrines of travelers and dervishes tend to be qadamgoh. Shrines
of local pirs and buzurgwor tend to be mazar.14 Not infrequently, dervish travelers and local pirs or buzurgwor have a mazar shrine in Wakhan along withseveral qadamgoh shrines, such as Shah Qambar-e Aftob (Āftāb), whose mazaris in Langar village in Tajikistan Wakhan, but who has qadamgoh shrines
in Afghanistan Wakhan. Khoja Big Ali and Khoja Maribor, local pirs, haveqadamgoh in Sost village of Sarhadd-e Brughel but mazar in Langar, both inAfghanistan Wakhan.
Following Iloliev’s typology, the shrines and village locations (given inparentheses) of Afghanistan Wakhan are shown below.

13
Ibex and urial live in almost all of the side valleys of the Wakhi settlement area of Afghanistan Wakhan. Argali sheep live in the Pamir above the elevation of Wakhi settlements. Argali
horns occasionally decorate shrines, but are heavy and must be brought from some distance. The
concept of wild ungulates as “pure” creatures associated with the spiritual world is widespreadthroughout the Pamir-Hindukush region. See Mock 1998, 45-46.
14
Hopkins describes a similar typology of religious authorities in the Pakistan-Afghanistan
frontier region, distinguishing men of religious learning who were charismatic outsiders andindigenous religious dignitaries (Hopkins, 1462-63).

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Shrines
Shiʿi and Suﬁ
oston (āstān)Gisu-e Hazrat
Muhammad(Qāzideh) ShohMubarak Mard-e
Wali (Shkharv)
Chiltan (Paghish)
Hajat Murod(Paghish) Poy-e
Duldul (Khandut)
Savz Pushon(Pekuy) Panja Shoh(Pinja) Bi Fotima(Gozkhun) Shoh-e
Vilayat (Wardif )Khoja-e Khizer(Brughel)mazar (mazār)

Chihel Dukhtaron(Shkharv) Panja-e
Shoh (Khandut)

qadamgoh(qadamgāh)

Shoh-e Najaf (Putr)
Pir-e Guliston(Putr) Khoja-e
Khizer (Sast)
Mard-e Wali Savz
Pushon (Yizik)
Qadamgoh-e Ali(Ali Su, Pamir-eBozorg)SaintsTravelers anddervishes

123

Local pirs andbuzurgwors

Ziarat-e Shams(Kuzget)Mir Khuja Aziz
(Putr) Alus
Malak-Fatah Ali
Shoh (Khandut)
Khoja Big Ali(Langar) Khoja
Maribor (Langar)
Shoh-e Odil
(Qāzideh) Nasiri
Khusraw (Yimit)
Khoja-e Rabon(Yimit) Shoh-e
Obod (Yimit)
Shohbozi Buland
Parwoz (Yimit)
Ziarat-e ShohQambar(Gozkhun)
Chiroghdon-eShoh Qambar-e
Aftob (Rurung)

Khoja Shams(Qāzideh) Khoja
Sheikh (Khandut)
Khoja Maribor(Sost, Sarhadd-e
Brughel) Khoja
Big Ali (Sost,
Sarhadd-e
Brughel)124

J. Mock / Journal of Persianate Studies 4 (2011) 117-145

At shrines in Afghanistan Wakhan, one immediately notices that, unlike
shrines in Tajikistan Wakhan where a process of “museumization” is the recent
trend (Iloliev 2008b, 68), there is little sense of museumization. Rather, there
is a sense of concealing the shrine traditions. This can be associated with taqiya
practices among the Badakhshan Ismaʿili community and longstanding concern over hostility and discrimination by other sects of Islam (Dupree, 16;
Emadi, 110-14; Schadl, 73). One corollary of such attitudes is a reported waveof looting of cultural sites during the mujahiddin period (Mock 2007). The
overall fragility of cultural sites, including shrines, historic monuments andprehistoric rock carvings, is of concern given the increase of visitors, bothforeign tourists and Afghan traders, since 2001 (Mock and O’Neil, 14).
At each shrine, one notices a speciﬁc place where oil or clariﬁed butter isapplied. If there is a depression in the rock, a wick may be placed in the oil/butter and the shrine illuminated, or open oil lamps may be placed at the spot.
As Iloliev notes, “shrines were constructed by believers in order to have a more
direct contact with supernatural powers at the places where the saints wereburied or were believed to have performed some kind of miracle . . . and toreceive spiritual blessing (barakat) from them” (Iloliev 2008a, 46). Such places
where the relationship with the sacred could be mediated were likely partof the indigenous belief system prior to the coming of Islam. Shrine sites are
the locus for integration and assimilation of indigenous beliefs into Islamic
discourse and for reaﬃrming and mobilizing a shared sense of the sacred in
the landscape.

Oston (Āstān) Shrines
The oston of Panja Shah in Qila-e Panja is an example of this category of shrine
in Afghanistan Wakhan. According to the family of Nasir al-Din Shah, thegreat grandson of Mir Fāteh ʿAli Shah and grandson of Mir Sarboland Shah,the shrine and panja stone were once located at the Qila-e Panja (i.e., qalʿa“fort”), but were moved sometime after the end of the Mirdom of Wakhan.15
A small shrine can still be found at the fort (Miller, 41), but the oston whereoﬀerings are made is now located near to the home of Nasir al-Din Shah. This
small oston is decorated with some strips of colored cloth on sticks and has astone with a hole in it that serves as the spot where oﬀerings are placed. Nasir
15
The last mir of Wakhan, ʿAli Mardaʿn Shah, elder son of Fāteh ʿAli Shah, ﬂed Wakhan alongwith many of his subjects in 1883. He had hosted Russian explorers and feared retribution from
Kabul. In 1886, when the British Colonel Lockhart visited Wakhan, he found it under the ruleof Kabul, with Gaﬀār Khan Kirghiz serving as governor (Alder, 193-95).

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125

al-Din’s son, Zalmay, said to the author of this article that the shrine needed
to be in a less public and more protected place. The panja stone, which has ﬁvesmooth and parallel ﬁnger-like grooves in it, is kept at Nasir al-Din’s home(ﬁgs. 2 and 3). In Shiʿi Islam, the number ﬁve signiﬁes the Five Pure Persons:the Prophet Mohammad, his daughter Fatima, his son-in-law ʿAli, and his
grandsons Hasan and Hosayn. In the Pamir, the Shiʿi traditions blended withSuﬁ and Ismaʿili thought to form a unique Pamir Ismaʿili belief and practicecalled Panj-tani, “ﬁve bodies” (Iloliev 2008a, 41), often symbolized by a handprint. The stone carries the same signiﬁcance for today’s community, but, as
Zalmay stated to the author, may well pre-date the introduction of Islam in
the Pamir. Its unique size and shape may have been signiﬁcant for earlier
beliefs.16 The religious leader of Panja, Pir Shah Esmāʿil, described the tradition surrounding this stone:17
The name of this village was Panja-e muborak (mobārak “auspicious”) and not
Qala-e Panja. Its earliest name is Panja-e muborak, because here is a shrine. In the
middle of our mountain, there is a stone. On this stone, Hazrat ʿAli [. . .], King ofmen, is said to have oﬀered prayers. The signs of his ﬁve ﬁngers, shin, and his staﬀ,
these signs still exist. From that point, he has then rolled down/thrown a stone
towards this village. The stone is like a lump, small. The ﬁve ﬁngers of Shoh-emuborak (Shāh-e mobārak) are imprinted there on the stone. The stone hascome down on top of the fort. God knows, however, if the stone has come downon the top of the fort or not. But we should not tell a lie to you. Who brought thestone to the top of the fort and where was it placed, etc.? That stone is still present.
Afterwards, this name, as I described earlier, whether any inﬁdel or someone else,
I don’t know that, has changed it. Afterwards, this fort was constructed here in
the name of Panja-e muborak, and then they called it Qala-e Panja.

The jamat khana18 of Khandut is located in the center of the village. Khandut
is one of the oldest settlements in Afghanistan Wakhan, and is presently
the district headquarters. Khandut is known from historical records as thelocation of a large Buddhist vihara, whose location has never been identiﬁed
in modern scholarship. Next to the jamat khana and built into the wall

16
The shrine Panja Shah in Chapursan Valley, a Wakhi population area in northern Pakistanthat is linked to Wakhan via a pass, has a stone with ﬁve claw or ﬁnger marks, on which libationsof clariﬁed butter are oﬀered. Similar rock marking shrines in Chapursan led Aurel Stein,
who visited Chapursan in 1913, to remark on their resemblance to Buddhist rock shrines as“a case of continuity of local worship reaching back to pre-Muhammadan times” (Stein 1981,
52; Mock 1998, 308).
17This and all other narratives in this article are translated from the Wakhi language interviews recorded during ﬁeldwork in Wakhan in 2007.
18
Jamat khana, (Pers. jamāʿat-khāna) the Ismaʿili house of prayer, study, and community.

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Fig. 2. Nasir al-Din Shah holding the Panja stoneJ. Mock / Journal of Persianate Studies 4 (2011) 117-145

Fig. 3. The Panja stone of Qila-e Panja

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surrounding it is a small oston with several unique stones, some ﬂags on sticks
and wild ungulate horns, all located next to a large tree. The oston receives oilor butter, as indicated by the oiled appearance of the small stones. In thisrespect, it is similar to other shrines. However, an opening in the wall leads
into a dilapidated circular structure made of sun-dried bricks, neatly arranged
to form a larger base circle with an upper, smaller circle. The shape of this
now-ruined structure is reminiscent of old Buddhist vihara found in India,
and the sun dried bricks are seemingly identical with the bricks used in construction of the Kansir fort at Korkut, which dates to the eighth or ninth
century CE. Could it be that these are the remains of the famous vihara ofKhandut? Without additional archaeological study and perhaps radiocarbon
dating, it must remain as speculation. However, we might assume that thelocation has long been linked with the sacred and that the oston most likely
predates the jamat khana, demonstrating a continuation of religious practicein this location (Figure 4). 19

Mazar Shrines
Actual mazars—that is, burial shrines—are the least common type of shrinein Wakhan. Two are burial places of mirs, and one mazar is the burial placeof two local miracle-workers, Khoja Big Ali (Khwāja Beg ʿAli) and Khoja
Maribor. Their mazar is at Langar, the highest elevation area that Wakhi people have cultivated. Langar is located along the upper Wakhan River, about
two days’ walk above the highest permanent settlements at Sarhadd-e Brughel.
There is a small house at Langar used by herders going to and from the Little
Pamir.20 A broken irrigation canal leading to a now untended ﬁeld shows thatcultivation (probably barley) once took place.
The rectangular earthen mazar is located on top of a ridge. It is decorated
with poles on which are tied strips of colored cloth, with ibex horns and pilesof small stones. A small, somewhat dilapidated mosque structure is next to themazar. Along the ridge are other graves. Some graves are inside low rectangular mud walls with no roof, a style common throughout the Wakhi settlement
area. There are no domed graves, which are typical of Kyrgyz burials in the
Pamir. Wakhi people state that any Wakhi person who dies on the Little Pamir
19
The establishment of an Islamic shrine at the place of a Buddhist shrine is attested fromThol in Nager (Hunza Valley) in northern Pakistan, which is on the ancient route from Gilgit via
Hunza to Wakhan (Frembgen, 75; Stein 1907, 20).
20
The Little Pamir (Wakhi Wuch Pamir, Pers. Pāmīr-e khord) is the high elevation U-shaped
valley about 100 km long and 10 km wide at the eastern end of Wakhan.

J. Mock / Journal of Persianate Studies 4 (2011) 117-145

Fig. 4. Khandut oston at Jamat Khana

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is not and cannot be buried on the Pamir. Instead, the body is brought toLangar for burial.
The mazar is the burial place of Khoja Big Ali. His brother, Khoja Maribor,is also said to be buried there. The Khoja clan of Wakhan are the religious
leaders of the Ismaʿili community. They claim descent from Sayyed Sohrāb-eVali, a ﬁfteenth-century Ismaʿili missionary of the Alamut tradition (Iloliev
2008a, 34). There is a local tradition that the Sayyed was a companion of
Nāser Khosrow, although this genealogy cannot be veriﬁed, and, from thedate of 1453 of Sayyed Sohrāb-e Vali’s work “Thirty-six pages,” it seems
that the two Ismaʿili missionaries were not actual historical contemporaries(Ivanov, 93, cited in Iloliev 2008a, 49). Nevertheless, the Khoja clan claims
Sayyed Sohrāb-e Vali came from Yamgān, where Nāser Khosrow lived.21
Khoja Big Ali and Khoja Maribor resided in Sost village, in the upper Wakhi
settlement area of Sarhadd-e Brughel. There they met Khizer (Khezr), themysterious saint guide, who caused a hot spring to emerge. After meeting
him, they performed miracles. Subsequently, they went to Langar and displayed more miracles. Khoja Big Ali and Khoja Maribor have qadamgoh
shrines, but their mazar in Langar is the main shrine.
The current resident of the house in Sost where the brothers performed
miracles gave this narrative:
Sost is the highest of all the settlements in Wakhan. There are springs here, hotbaths (hammām) are here. That spring here is Hazarti (Hazrat-e) Khoja Big Ali’s.
Hazrat Khoja Big Ali has actually seen the sight (didor, Pers. didār) here. He has
seen Hazrat Khizer here. In the house where I live, that is Hazrat Khoja Big Ali’s.
About that house, the story is like this. Khoja Big Ali and Khoja Maribor
were brothers here in Sost. They too were people of this soil like us. They didsome communal work here, for many people like this, as this brother is preparing
food here. They prepared bat,22 the bat of our old heritage. Then the people
had eaten and for him they left some in a small bowl (pil ), like this. He wasa bit lame of foot.

21
The historical traditions of the Khoja clan are found in a book titled Gowhar-riz. Iloliev
examined two versions of this manuscript held in private collections in Tajikistan, one in Shughnan and the other in Yamg village of Eshkāshm (Ishkashim) District (Iloliev 2008a, 11-14).
I heard reference to the book in Wakhan, but did not see it. Iloliev notes that a copy is held at
the Institute of Ismaʿili Studies Library in London, of which Qudratbeg Elchibekov, fromthe Institute of Oriental Studies and Written Heritage in Dushanbe, is preparing a translation(Jo-Ann Gross, personal communication). Khoja clan members in Wakhan stated there is also a
copy in northern Pakistan, most likely held by one of the religious leaders there who also claims
descent from Sayyed Sohrāb-e Vali.
22
Bat is wheat ﬂour cooked in butter and water, with meat often added. It is served on
ceremonial occasions, cooked in a large cauldron to feed many.

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He said, “Hey brother! This wood beam doesn’t reach; I must go to Sarhadd inorder to borrow a beam. This beam doesn’t reach to other side so I’ll add to it.”
Khoja Big Ali said so to his brother Khoja Maribor. He said, “Okay, go.” Theothers ate the food and left some for him in a small bowl ( pil ). When he reaches
this spring, Hazrat Khizer comes from the other side, and he recognizes him.
Khoja Maribor goes, and Khoja Big Ali encounters him. As grandpa Gulbast used
to tell us, they were brothers. That is, he went to the spring, o dear! Thus, herecognizes Hazrat Khizer. After recognizing him, he gets down from the donkey.
Hazrat Khizer asks, “O Khoja Big Ali! Where are you going?” He replies,“Your honor! I constructed a house, but the beam was short.” Hazrat Khizer says,“Over there near your donkey’s foot, water has emerged. Go and wash your face,
as a spring has erupted.” Hazrat Khizer advised, “Go and bathe there. First take abath there and go home. They will present you this bat. Distribute the bat to all
therein. They should take from your part of the food. They, your co-workers inhelp (kiryar), have eaten their part of the food, and they have left your part to you.
At the end, when you’ll eat, the food will not ﬁnish. Then keep the small bowl
aside and ask your brother to come and pull the beam. They will laugh at you.
After touching/pulling the beam thrice, you ask your brother to hold the otherside of the beam and pull.”Thus, he comes and takes a bath there where the spring has erupted. Afterwards
he comes here in the house. His brother is surprised and says, “Oh! How quickly
you returned?” He says, “I got the beam.” He asks, “Where is that?” He replies,“Wait, it will come, a person will bring it.” Then he comes and gives his part ofthe bat to him that has been left for him. Then he oﬀers the bat in the small pot
to everyone, and they laugh at him. Everyone takes from the food. The ﬁrst person takes from the food, second takes, third takes, everyone turn-by-turn takes,
but the food is not ﬁnished. Each one of them blames each other that you do nottake fully from the food and they reply, “Oh dear! I have taken fully but the foodﬁlls in the bowl again.” When all of them are ﬁnished with taking from the food,the food is not ﬁnished. They then say there must be some unknown secret.
Then he ascends onto the wall and asks his brother to come up. He asks, “Whatto do?” Khoja Big Ali tells his brother, “Let’s pull the wood/beam.” Khoja Maribor replies, “The people will laugh at you. Is it possible to pull wood?” Khoja Big
Ali insists, “Okay, it doesn’t matter if they laugh at us. But come on! Let’s try.”
After touching the beam three times, Khoja Big Ali asks his brother to hold theother side of the beam. He holds the beam and Khoja Big Ali pulls. The beamthus stretches beyond the required limit. Then the people say, “Oh God! There
must be something, some secrecy herein.”
Khoja Maribor pulled it. Khoja Big Ali held it and he pulled it and it became
long. Then when it stretched he had didor of Khizer at the spring, and Khizer said,“Don’t stay there at the house you made, your place will be in Langar.” The Langarof our Pamir. Then he said, “Your place will be there.” He said, “True.” Then hemade the house and went to Langar.
After construction of the house, he goes to Langar. When he is in Langar, he goesto the top of a cliﬀ (buq). There he constructs a mosque and oﬀers prayer. Now
his grave is also there. This brother has seen it. His house is there, downward. He

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then oﬀers prayer there and his brother is also there. Behind his brother are twodogs, like a wolf, of course, wolves. They are still alive and sometimes they appear
and both are white. He thus takes his prayer-mat ( jāy-e namāz) on the Panj River,puts it on the surface on the river and oﬀers prayer. The Panj River has a hugeamount of water that covers our riverbed during summer. His brother sees that heshowed him his miracles. This Khoja Big Ali laid his pustek (prayer-rug of skin) on
the surface of the river and oﬀered prayer. He showed his miracle. There was ice
there. He took that ice and broke it, and put it in the cave and he left the teakettle
on it and the ice burned. It brought the tea to a boil. They showed each other their
miracles, Khoja Big Ali and Khoja Maribor.

The miracles in Sost are made possible through the didor of Khizer. Khoja Big
Ali and his brother are engaged in beneﬁcial work when they realize that thebeam for the house is too short. Faced with this diﬃculty, Khoja Big Ali
departs to obtain more wood. Outside, he meets Khizer, the saint who canremove diﬃculties.23 Khizer, who is associated with water, causes a hot spring
to emerge from the ground. This hot spring exists today in the Sost settlement
area of Sarhadd-e Brughel. It is very helpful to the people there, providing
warm water for bathing and washing clothes in the high-altitude settlement.
Khizer advises Khoja Big Ali to wash in the water, and after doing so, Khoja
Big Ali is imbued with barakat so that he performs several miracles: the foodcannot be ﬁnished and is replenished, and he stretches the beam. A bowl thatprovides unending food is a well-known motif of South Asian and world oral
tales (Aarne, 205-06; Thompson and Roberts, 85-86). The motif of stretching
the roof beam, however, is a miracle attributed to several northwest Indian
religious leaders: ʿAbd al-Ghafur, the Ākhund of Swat, and Ram Singh,24 a
Sikh leader from Firozpur (Temple, 325-26).25 Temple comments that “thesame stories are told of all of . . . the religious leaders in the Punjab” and that“tales radiate from a few central stories which are probably very old.” Temple’scomments on multiple existence and variation, hallmarks of oral tales, indicate that Khoja Big Ali’s stretching of the beam is acknowledged as a proof of
miraculous powers and barakat that is recognized throughout not only the
Pamir, but also the northwest region of South Asia. The story from Sarhadd-e

23
See the discussion of the qadamgoh shrine of Khoja-e Khizer below for details about
Khizer.
24
Ram Singh is regarded by some as the 12th guru in the Sikh guru lineage, although
the orthodox Sikh tradition closes the guru silsila (selsela) after the 10th guru, Gobind Singh(d. 1708), after which the Guru Granth Sahib becomes the ﬁnal and eternal guru of Sikhs.
25
Temple’s brief article is based on a 24-page pamphlet by Rev. T.P. Hughes, “The Akhund of
Swat, a Muhammadan Saint, and Dilawar Khan, the Converted Afghan Brigand,” published in
Calcutta by the Christian Intelligencer in 1876.

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133

Brughel of Wakhan dips deep into the signifying well of oral narratives to tap
a regional source for spiritual authority.
After performing miracles in Sost, Khoja Big Ali again encounters Hazrat
Khizer who instructs him to move to Langar. There, he and his brother display
miracles demonstrating control over the solid and liquid forms of water byburning ice and praying on top of the river. Khizer’s barakat and his association with water enable the two brothers to perform their miracles involving ice
and water. From a landscape perspective, Langar marks the extent of Wakhi
settlement in Wakhan. In eﬀect, it is the upper limit of Wakhi and henceIsmaʿili inﬂuence, a boundary whose existence is demonstrated by the customof bringing the bodies of any Wakhi who die on the Pamir to Langar for burial
in the ground made sacred by Khoja Big Ali. It is ﬁtting that Khizer, who aids
those traveling in the wilderness, instructed the two Khoja saints to go andoccupy this remote and aptly named settlement.26 Located at the uppermost
edge of the Wakhi and Ismaʿili area of Wakhan, Langar needed powerful saints
to protect this border. Even today, the authority of Khoja Big Ali and thesanctity of his mazar are acknowledged and respected by all who travel throughLangar. Moreover, his authority is maintained by the two white wolves mentioned in the narrative. A separate narrative underscores the power and authority of the saint. When outside people came to dig the mazar of Khoja Big Ali
for artifacts, the two wolves appeared and attacked the would-be robbers, whowere also pelted by stones piled at the grave. The power of the saint at his site
is such that the site cannot be desecrated. In their daily lives, Wakhi people
moving between the Pamir and the lower settlements stop here to oﬀer prayer
and seek the saint’s blessing (Figure 5).

Qadamgoh (Qadamgāh) Shrines
At the west end of the village of Sast is the qadamgoh of Khoja-e Khizer(Khwāja-ye Khezr). Khizer, “the Green One,” is a prophet made immortal bydrinking the water of life. Although identiﬁed with the guide of Moses mentioned in the Koran, Khizer is closely associated with mystical Islam as a guideand aid for travelers, especially those in out-of-the-way places (Hodgson,460-61; Omar, 286; Renard 2011; Wensinck 2011). Because Khizer appears
to help those in need, his shrine in Wakhan is both oston—that is, a place
where one can receive his blessing—and qadamgoh, where he appeared to26
Langar means a kitchen or rest-house where food is prepared for the poor or for travelers or
pilgrims.

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Fig. 5. Khoja Big Ali mazar at Langar

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135

guide or aid those in need. In Sast, the shrine is amid a grove of trees and isbounded by a low wall. The grove borders on barren land and is an appropriate
location for a saint associated with vegetation and life.
An elder of the village described his own experience with the shrine:
Here is a qadamgoh of Hazrat Khoja-e Khizer. This is a very sensitive shrine. It ishere on the lower side of the road, among the trees. Hazrat Khoja-e Khizer is alive.
He is always alive in this world. He is always in movement. Khizer is alive in allplaces. The miracles are indicated, if you go with pure heart and ask of him, whatever it is, it is fulﬁlled. For example, if you go with clean mind and pure heart andwash your face and go on Friday night, whatever you request, it will come to you.
For instance, when my brother passed away, I had no children. I went there andbowed my head and said, “I need nothing else in this world other than children
because alone I cannot maintain my livelihood.” So at present, he has bestowed
upon me four sons. One is currently teacher in the school. And sir, my daughter
is also in the school. I made a vow and went weeping to the court of Khoja-e
Khizer and Almighty God and here I washed my face in the water at the shrine of
Khoja-e Khizer Hayat (i.e. hayāt “life”) and he fulﬁlled my intentions.

The color associated with Khizer is green and an epithet of his in Wakhan
is Savz pushon (Pers. sabz-push), the green-clad one. Khizer has also been
described as “a venerable man clad in white raiment” (Omar, 289; Nicholson,
13). This depiction resonates strongly with the image of the venerable man
clad in white, well known throughout the Pamir-Hindukush region (Mock
1998, 76-77) (Figure 6).
The Ismaʿili communities in the Pamir and Hindukush regions, as has been
noted, trace their origin to the eleventh-century Ismaʿili missionary, poet, andphilosopher Nāser Khosrow (Iloliev 2008b, 63; Schadl, 71). He lived thelast ﬁfteen or twenty years of his life in the small village of Yomgān, deep inthe Hindukush mountain region of what is today Badakhshān Province ofAfghanistan (Hunsberger, 227). In Yomgān, Nāser found refuge and patronage under an Ismaʿili ruler, and a place to write. Most of his written works that
we have today were completed in Yomgān. And it is in Yomgān, south of thetown of Jorm on the road to the famous lapis lazuli mines at Sar-e sang and
the Anjoman pass to the Panjshir Valley, that the tomb and shrine of Nāser
Khosrow is located today (Dupree, 10-21; Schadl, 64).
Nāser’s writings give no indication of how he may have carried out missionary activities in the region. Yet the wide dispersion of Ismaʿili traditions andthe universal reverence for Nāser as a saint and as the chief proponent (pir-e
qodus) of Pamir Ismaʿilism incontrovertibly demonstrates that his mission andteachings indeed spread from Yomgān throughout the region.

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Fig. 6. Khoja-e Khizer qadamgoh at Sast

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137

Local tradition does describe Nāser’s activities and places him in locations in
the region. In the village of Yimit in Wakhan, there is today a shrine at theplace where Nāser demonstrated several miracles and brought his message tothe people. Yimit is located approximately four kilometers downstream from
Khandut, the present district headquarters (Mock and O’Neil, Appendix 5).
Nāser was the most important Muslim saint traveler, and his shrine is a highly
signiﬁcant exemplar of the shrine tradition of Wakhan and, by extension, of
the Pamir-Hindukush region.
The Yimit mukhi 27 voiced his concern about the vulnerability of the Nāser
Khosrow shrine complex during an interview, recognizing its importance andthe need to preserve it. Speaking on behalf of the Yimit Ismaʿili community,
he expressed a desire to keep the shrine complex within the compound of the
jamat khana, and asked for the author’s help in notifying the Department of
Jamati Insitutions28 that a compound should be built to preserve the site.
Like shrines in Tajikistan Wakhan, the Yimit shrine complex is visited both byindividuals seeking the saint’s barakat for personal reasons and by the community for annual observances. An annual observance takes place at the timeof the Persian New Year (observed 16-18 March in Wakhan). The community
marks the ﬁrst day of the month of Aries (Hamal) as a day of celebration of
Hazrat Pir Nosir Khusraw (i.e. Nāser Khosrow). In Wakhan, the exact day,called shohgun, is determined through observation of the sun in relation to aﬁxed point on the mountains above the village, as seen from a ﬁxed point
within the village. According to the Yimit mukhi, “When the sun comes
between those two rock peaks on the mountain, on that day we start the newyear. That is our shohgun.” This observational system of calculating the agricultural calendar is used in other Wakhi villages in Tajikistan and Pakistan(Iloliev 2008a, 92).
In Yimit, villagers state that one person makes the observation and that theindividual, called hamal-bin (“Aries-observer”), “should be pious, honest,elderly, and well-liked by the community.” When the hamal-bin sees the sun
touch the point on the mountain, he goes and informs each household toprepare themselves and put on clean clothes. Community members wash, put
on clean clothes, cook special food, and one or two hours before dawn, assemble at the shrine of Nāser Khosrow for the ritual of Shohguni Nosiri Khusraw.
The ritual is described thus:
27

Mukhi is the guardian of the jamat khana.
The Department of Jamati Institutions at the Secretariat of His Highness the Aga Khan at
Aiglemont in France is responsible for coordinating the activities and programs of the Ismaʿili
community’s institutions.
28

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We each carry a small wooden pot (pori) of ﬂour and a large container (kubun)of bread (khech) and go there. People of all the clans go there, but the women are
not allowed and outsiders are not allowed. The tradition is like this, if outsiders
are allowed, for one week there would be a blizzard (zem dama). It would be cold.
The community members gather, eat the food, oﬀer prayers, and then they start
throwing ﬂour on each other. They catch each other and together throw ﬂour at
one another. We throw so much ﬂour that the meadow becomes covered with ﬂour.
Afterwards, the elders kiss each other’s hands, then the gathering disperses and thepeople return to their houses and clean the smoke (duda) for the new year. They
sweep their house and clean the smoke from winter ﬁres. Then small pieces ofwood are put under the roof in the house as an obstacle (shigard ) which we callshohgun band, it is a custom in each house. Afterwards, we take out the seeds. Our
shohgun and our work starts from this date. This is our tradition of our Nāser
Khosrow. Yimit is famous for this. From there onward, the New Year becomeseasy for the people.
Throughout Wakhan, people depend on Yimit for this ritual. From Putr toSarhadd the people commence it. Until the sun reaches the speciﬁed place, we
do not commence the ritual. We wait for our sunlight to reach that point. This
tradition of Nāser Khosrow that is in our village, among all the Wakhi people, thisis ours alone. This tradition arrived here in Yimit, and we have faith in it. We
always calculate by this sun of Nāser Khosrow and we start our work accordingly.
This custom comes from our elders, from our many generations.

The story of how this ritual is connected with Nāser Khosrow is also interesting. In brief, it goes like this: Nāser arrives in Yimit dressed as a wandering
mystic (malang, dervish) in old clothes and carrying a wooden staﬀ (osoy).
There in Yimit, a wedding feast is taking place. Nāser enters the wedding
house (tuy xona), but is rebuﬀed and abused, and the men in the wedding
house throw stones and sand at him. One woman of the house, however,shows him respect and greets him kindly, and Nāser speaks kindly to her. He
then leaves the wedding house and goes to a location at the edge of the village.
There, he plants his staﬀ in the ground and a grove of trees miraculously grows
from the staﬀ. Nāser then changes into regal clothes and mounts his whitehorse (duldul ). He carries a sword (Wakhi xingar = Pers. khanjar) instead of astaﬀ. He returns to the wedding house and is greeted with honor. The men
oﬀer him food but he refuses it, saying that when he came in rags, they would
not oﬀer him food, but now that he has come in robes, they oﬀer him thetastiest delicacies. He then commands his sleeve (drest) and whip (qamchin) to
eat the food. The food turns to stone on the spot. One “green stone” Nāser
touches with his whip and it splits into two. On one side are “ﬁve deep ﬁnger( yangl) marks,” which represent “the qualities of panj-tani.” On the other side
are seven holes (kulkul ) that symbolize the haft hodud-e din (lit. “seven stagesof religion,” the seven steps in Ismaʿili hierarchy). Nāser then rebukes theJ. Mock / Journal of Persianate Studies 4 (2011) 117-145

139

people and, in some versions, he then brings down a ﬂood on the people aspunishment (Figure 7).
As Nāser is leaving the wedding house, the men ask him for guidance andfor his blessing. He tells them that his blessing will remain with them if every
year, from now until forever, they throw sand and stones at each other on the
shohgun rawor, just as they threw sand and stones at him. The people agree,
but later, however, substitute ﬂour for the sand and stones. Today, everyone
agrees that although Nāser’s directive (amr) was for sand, people now throw
ﬂour at each other.29
At the site today, the food that Nāser turned into stone remains as a tokenof the miracle and is the focal point of veneration. The stone objects are displayed under a large willow tree inside a low-walled compound. (Figure 8)
This story of a visitor scorned because of his worn clothing and roughappearance occurs in the Safarnāma of Nāser Khosrow as the well-known
episode of Nāser and his brother at the baths of Basra (Hunsberger, 205-08).
Clad in old and coarse clothes, Nāser and his brother are denied entrance tothe baths by the attendant. Children throw stones at them and chase themaway. Nāser is able, however, to obtain decent clothing and he returns to thebaths, where he is made welcome. The attendant is ashamed of his previous
conduct and is apologetic.
The Yimit story seems an adaptation of this event from Nāser’s travels and,as a conversion narrative,30 is emblematic of the acceptance of Nāser’s message
and teachings by the people of Yimit and Wakhan. The Basra bath episodefrom the Safarnāma, interestingly, is written in Persian at the threshold toNāser’s tomb in Yomgān (Schadl, 85), indicating that it was highly signiﬁcant
to Pamiri Ismaʿili tradition. It seems reasonable to assume that the story circulated through the region and reached Yimit, though it is impossible to ascertain whether Nāser actually visited Yimit. Yimit is approximately a one-weekjourney on foot from Yomgān and it is, therefore, conceivable that Nāser
might have visited the kingdom of Wakhan.

29
For a current account of the Nauroz festival as observed in the Wakhi area of Hunza, which
includes the shogun, the solar observations and the throwing of the ﬂour, see “The Return of
SEMN and Thagam Festival,” in Pamir Times online at: http://pamirtimes.net/2008/03/07/thereturn-of-semn-and-thagam-festival/. Tibetan Losar (New Year) observances also include throwing tsampa (barley ﬂour).
30
The essential equivalence of conversion narratives and founding legends or “legends oforigin” in Central Asia, and the ethnogenic function of such discourse has been thoroughly
described by DeWeese, especially pages 489-90.

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Fig. 7. Naser Khosrow miracle stone at Yimit

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141

Fig. 8. Liver, kidney and heart of sheep turned to stone by Naser Khosrow at Yimit
Tradition does state that Nāser did not go beyond the Yimit-Khandut settlement, as this interview with a member of the Khandut Ismaʿili community
indicates:
If he has gone up to Sarhadd and taken the Ismaʿili daʿvat, if he appeared in someempty place and if any error (ghalati) was made or not, it hasn’t been written inany book and no historical record remains. Perhaps no mistake was made. In the
Wakhan area, the only mistake (ghalati) occurred in Yimit, and then he said,“Yimit! Let the ﬂood go and destroy the cruel settlement (zolm-ābād ).”With this mention of a ﬂood as retribution for the sins of the villagers, theWakhan oral narrative moves beyond the outlines of the story from Nāser’s
Safarnāma and begins to take on the structure of another famous regional narrative; the story of Kampir Diyor (Pers. Diār) “the old woman’s village” in the
Chapursan Valley, a Wakhi population area in Pakistan adjacent to Wakhan(Mock 1998, 319-22). The general shape of this widespread Karakoram
legend is that an old man appears and is refused hospitality by all but an old
woman. The white-bearded saint blesses the old woman and instructs her to142

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leave her home for high ground. She does so and looks back to see the saintupon his white horse, bringing a devastating ﬂood down upon the villagethat scorned him. Her winnowing basket is turned to stone and remains on
the roof of her now-destroyed house as a token of the saint’s power. Stories
following this pattern are known from the Raskam Valley east of the Shimshal
Pamir, the Shigar Valley of Baltistan, and the Darel Valley of Indus Kohistan(Mock 1998, 306). The existence of this story type in non-Ismaʿili settlement
areas demonstrates that the story, even if its roots may be in Nāser’s experienceat the baths of Basra, is retold with a diﬀerent signiﬁcance. For example, all
the valleys are prone to catastrophic glacial outburst ﬂoods, which could suggest a correlation between geophysical context and interpretive constructsof landscape.

Conclusion
Previous religious traditions preserved in places such as the oston at the Khandut jamat khana and in objects such as the Panja stone are now integrated into
Islamic tradition. The power and signiﬁcance of these objects and places, thenarratives told about them, and the rituals connected with them are part of ashared understanding that shapes the identity of the people residing in thelandscape. As long as people have resided there, it is likely that the sacred quality of the landscape and of particular outstanding objects in it have formed
part of the sacred history of the region.
The legend of Nāser Khosrow’s miracles in Yimit is the most fully developed
and detailed of the shrine narratives, and incorporates sacred objects,
rituals, and places. It serves as a powerful paradigm of identity for Ismaʿilis in
Wakhan and in the Pamir-Hindukush region. The narrative itself has links toother narratives, including—through the image of the white-bearded saint—
the widespread legends of Hazrat Khizer. The Khizer narrative also underlies
the narrative of Khoja Big Ali and Khoja Maribor. The narratives together
form a whole that is consistent and cohesive for the community. The legends
of saints and shrines incorporate places, objects and motifs sacred in pre-existing traditions so that the saints and shrines have become part of the intrinsic
system of beliefs and practices, a process also noted in the west Pamir, theHunza Valley, and Central Asia (Dodykhudoeva, 151; Frembgen, 100;
McChesney, 68).
Legends of saints are literally “God’s truth,” providing the interpretive lensthrough which communities represent their past and understand how theycame to be who they are in the present. Such legends are the means by which

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143

the past is made intelligible and are unfailingly described by people as historical accounts. Legend and history are not separable categories from the perspective of those who tell these legends.31 It is our outside analytical perspectivethat problematizes their coherence and unity and views them as two separate
categories. Through telling and hearing these legends, the community constitutes and validates an interpretation of the world as a place where miraculous
events occur.
Such legends draw upon a commonly understood set of signiﬁers andfollow a familiar discursive pattern: a set of topoi that recur throughout theregion, analogous to shared bundles of linguistic isoglosses that deﬁne it as an
ethno-linguistic region. On a more speciﬁc level, the legends are connectedwith sacred places known to all members of the community. In retelling theselegends, community members recreate the landscape within which they live
and revitalize the deeds of their saints and their ancestors in the landscape.

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31
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