What changes took place in Uzbekistan when the country attained independence from the Soviet Union, and why did they result in mass job insecurity for the population?

Author

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Franco Galdini

Franco Galdini is a Lecturer in Global Political Economy in the Department of Politics at The University of Manchester.

Land decollectivization mediated independent Uzbekistan’s development as a global cotton exporter. The state distributed collectively-used land to small private farmers to guarantee the continuation of cotton production, whose export went to subsidize domestic industries rather than rural employment and infrastructure. With little land and no stable jobs, most people entered the precarious informal economy, including as daily workers and labor migrants.

References:

Rise of the Surplus Population? Land Decollectivization, Class Stratification, and Labor Precarization in Uzbekistan: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0147547923000121

Introduction to the Special Issue Precarious Labor, Capitalist Transformation, and the State: Insights from Central Asia: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0147547923000182

University of Manchester page: https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/persons/franco.galdini

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3467-5466

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) [grant number ES/X006069/1]

As the war in Ukraine continues and Russia remains under heavy international sanctions, its political allies, economic partners, and geographic as well as cultural neighbors in Central Asia are being engaged in incredible levels of diplomatic activity. In recent months, the region has been visited by Vladimir Putin, Emmanuel Macron, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and a number of other high-ranking international officials, who have discussed their competing visions for the region’s energy, as well as diverse transportation and investment projects. The countries of Central Asia are using these new opportunities to rebalance their global relationships and secure their own interests. The flurry of international interest has opened up the prospect of a new future for these states—potentially with much less dependency on their former metropole, Russia.

Is Central Asia moving beyond Russia? How can Russkii Mir be viewed through the lens of decolonization? Has populism won in Kyrgyzstan? And finally, what is the outlook for Central Asia? We discuss these questions in an interview with Dr. Johan Engvall from the Swedish Institute of International Affairs.

An Interview with Johan Engvall

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Johan Engvall, PhD, works at the Swedish Centre for Eastern European Studies (SCEEUS), based at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs. He is also a non-resident senior fellow of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute. He holds a PhD in political science from the Department of Government at Uppsala University. His dissertation dealt with corruption and the state in Kyrgyzstan.

The war in Ukraine has shifted some patterns in Eurasia. We see a lot of worries in Central Asia, where the war represents a great challenge from various angles: security, economics, transportation, trade, labor migration, and of course geopolitics. These states’ relations with Russia are also changing, as you mention in your recent article “Central Asia Moves Beyond Russia.” How are they are changing and in what domains? Do you think this change is temporary or long-term?

The Central Asian states have to walk a fine line in trying to distance themselves from Russia’s actions. They are all under intense pressure from Moscow, and Russia-Central Asia relations run deep. Military, political, economic, and cultural links between the Central Asian countries and Russia developed over a long period and will not disappear overnight.

It is also evident that Central Asia is becoming more important for Russia, not least economically, as other trade routes have been closed off and redrawn. Since 2022, an increasingly politically isolated Vladimir Putin has been on something of a charm offensive in the region, holding numerous meetings with national leaders in an obvious attempt to tie the countries closer to Russia. For their part, national leaders are trying to take advantage of Russia’s political and economic isolation and the newfound international attention to the region.

Since February 24, 2022, Russia-Central Asia relations have not so much been ruptured as seen trends accelerate. The developments in this period have reinforced the gradual but steady weakening of Russia’s hard and soft power in the region. Preoccupied as it is in Ukraine, Russia’s role as the dominant security actor in Central Asia is being eroded. The CSTO has proven toothless when it comes to addressing security concerns—and not only between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but also between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, both members of the alliance. The Eurasian Economic Union is becoming less popular among member states and ever more unattractive to prospective members like Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. So Russia is definitely losing some of its appeal in the region. Putin’s privileged position in Central Asia is now challenged by other leaders, chief among them the Chinese and Turkish leaders.

How has the war in Ukraine affected identity? We hear a lot of opinions and debates about colonialism and identity, and these debates long predate the war—arguably, they were among the reasons why the Soviet Union collapsed. From that perspective, it was no surprise that President Tokayev recently chose to open a joint conference with Vladimir Putin in Kazakh. At the same time, however, Tokayev has promised to support the Russian language in Central Asia. How do the decolonization lens and Russkii Mir interact in Central Asia? Can they coexist?

To my mind, there are several mutually reinforcing processes at play that are contributing to the gradual removal of the colonial yoke in Central Asia. First, it has now been more than 30 years since these states became independent. After 70 years of uniformity under Soviet socialist rule, they are finally becoming themselves. They have embarked on their own paths, developing distinct national identities and protecting their sovereignties.

Second, if anything, Russia’s aggression and denial of Ukraine’s right to independent statehood have provided the impetus for a re-examination of colonial legacies in Central Asia as well. A critical look at the past is now reaching broader segments of the public in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, two countries that have never constituted their independent statehood on an anti-colonial basis. And in Uzbekistan, President Mirziyoyev has become increasingly assertive in addressing the injustices that Moscow inflicted on the country during the Soviet era.

Third, like a thread through these transformative processes runs a generational divide. Central Asia is undergoing rapid societal and demographic transformations with an impact on identity formation. More than 70 percent of the region’s population is under the age of 40. A large post-Soviet generation with no personal experience of the Soviet Union is now coming to the fore. This generation, formed by developments since independence, is changing the countries of the region both politically and culturally. For this generation, the attractiveness of Russia is less ideological and sentimental than it is related to Russia’s status as a source of employment and material opportunities.

No doubt, Russia is hyper-sensitive about these developments and is constantly taking steps to reverse them. Russian media are the Kremlin’s main tool for shaping public opinion in Central Asia: they are effective at hammering home messages on everything from Ukraine’s alleged status as a Nazi state to the evils of the West. In this civilizational confrontation, Russian propaganda depicts the Central Asian countries as brotherly nations of Russia, extensions of the “Russian world” that share Russian values and norms.

Since the lingering role of the Russian language undergirds Russia’s influence in the region, every attempt to downgrade Russian is taken as an act of hostility. In the same way, any attempt to uncover national traumas and critically review aspects of Soviet colonial rule is feverishly rejected by Moscow. Russia uses various tools to advance its cultural influence, especially targeting Central Asia’s youth. In this context, Rossotrudnichestvo is the main organization financing modern Russian schools and other institutions to ensure that Russian culture retains its presence.

Accordingly, we see an increasingly uneasy mixture of liberation and reclaiming the past, on the one hand, and continued subjugation and a sense of an unbreakable historical bond, on the other hand. A step in one direction tends to be followed by a corrective step in the other direction. Taking a long-term view, however, there is little doubt that Russia’s influence over domestic processes in Central Asia is waning. Moreover, this process is hardly reversible; instead, Moscow is forced to rely ever more on invoking fear.

We in Central Asia generally do not like talk about the Great Game, but it inevitably recurs, especially in the current context, where Central Asia again appears important as an energy resource and a crossing space. On that point, we saw European leaders visit Central Asia more frequently this year. What is your view of Central Asia’s geopolitical importance and the room for maneuver of its foreign policy? Do you think the Central Asian states have done a good job, over the past three decades, of leveraging their foreign policy to cement their independence?

The Central Asian states all understand the risks of leaving the fate of their economies, their national security, and their sovereignty in the hands of an unreliable and revisionist Russia. We have already seen the Central Asian states push to create—or resurrect—various initiatives in the spheres of trade and transportation, as well as intensify their search for alternative security partnerships. The Caspian Sea is becoming increasingly important as the region’s window to the West, and European leaders have probably never been as welcomed in the region as they have during the past year.

All countries in the region continue to strengthen their economic ties to China, and Russia’s growing dependence on China is likely to have consequences for Central Asia too. Meanwhile, Turkey is expanding its geopolitical role not only in the South Caucasus, but also in Central Asia. Ankara’s economic and cultural ties to the region are now complemented by a stronger security partnership, as the Organization of Turkic States is transforming into more of a security organization. Investments are sought from many different sources, including the Gulf countries. Finally, to build security and stability from within, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are pushing to further strengthen regional collaboration.

So we see a flurry of activities pointing in the direction of balancing their external relations. Building on their longstanding multi-vector foreign policies, the Central Asian states are trying to take advantage of the geopolitical void resulting from Russia’s weakness by doubling down on their efforts to build alternative diplomatic alliances that would serve their own interests. In this sense, multivectorism has turned out to be a very useful policy idea, as it has laid the foundation for the Central Asian states to carve out some room for agency in a very difficult geopolitical situation. This would not have been possible if they were Russian satellites, as they are often erroneously depicted in Western media.

Religion is another marker of identity—and, as you wrote in an article on Kyrgyzstan, it has increased in importance in the region. In that article, you posed the interesting question of what will happen as a new generation comes to power, specifically whether they will maintain the separation between politics and religion. Do you have any possible answers to this question?

Central Asia is an outlier in the Muslim world, going against the tide of mixing religion and politics. The steady religious revival since independence, however, poses a challenge for the Central Asian states’ secular systems of government. As societies become more religious, the role of Islam—as a factor in political legitimization and a resource for mobilizing and attracting voters—is increasing. Symptomatically, in Kyrgyzstan, mosques are no longer built by foreign sponsors, but by local businessmen involved in politics. There is also a trend toward deeper ties between politicians and clerics, with politicians using clerical support to strengthen their local electoral bases. In this light, secular statehood cannot be taken for granted.

The future of secularism in Central Asia will likely depend on several factors. One of these is the developments of religious ideas in the rest of the Muslim world. But from a regional perspective, it will depend on the policies that governments pursue in the coming years. Moving forward, it will be critical for the countries to build stronger ties between state and society. Corrupt governments perceived as unjust and as failing to respond to public expectations would likely increase the risk of religious movements being able to tap into people’s frustration and call for an entirely different type of social and political order.

It is also questionable whether the restrictive and repressive approach to maintaining secularism on which the Central Asian states predominantly rely will be sustainable in the long run. It is necessary to break away from the Soviet legacy of relying on controlling society through the security services. Here, some differences are emerging between the states of the region. Whereas Uzbekistan is embracing a more positive approach, focusing on promoting traditional and tolerant Islam in society, Tajikistan retains a strictly defensive approach where the relationship between the state and religion continues to center on restrictive and repressive measures.

Then there is the issue of broader societal transformations. For example, in Kyrgyz society, three main attitudes can be identified in the religious sphere (even if this is admittedly an oversimplification). First, there is the predominantly secular political, economic, and intellectual elite in Bishkek. This group is gradually losing its position as society becomes less secular. Second, there is a large group of nationalist-minded citizens who increasingly embrace moderate Hanafi Islam as part of that identity. Third, there are Islamic currents—generally influenced by foreign Islamic ideas—that try to convert existing Muslims to more conservative versions of Islam. The outcome will depend in part on which one of these “groups” will constitute the key pillar of future decisionmakers.

You mostly specialize in Kyrgyzstan and its domestic politics—in particular its parliamentary model, which you describe as a struggle or interplay between “bandits and bureaucrats.” The presidency of Sadyr Japarov has been surprisingly stable, despite elevating its base to the detriment of the (smaller) liberal segment of society. What are your views on the current politics of Kyrgyzstan? Has populism won and is there any way to reverse some of the democratic losses?

Unfortunately, democracy and effective governance are not synonyms. A country can be democratic but have terrible governance—and vice versa. Kyrgyzstan’s decade-long parliamentary experiment failed to live up to expectations. It proved ineffective, fragmenting political power and weakening the country’s governance. More political competition translated into more competition over corruption. The parliament, which should have been the main political body, became paralyzed by competing economic interests. Among ordinary citizens, it was seen more as a club for shady business executives than as a responsible institution concerned with the country’s development. Paradoxically, therefore, this system further alienated citizens from the political elite.

I believe it is against this background that Sadyr Japarov’s meteoric rise to power needs to be understood. There was a demand for a new kind of political leadership, and Japarov portrayed himself as something new, an alternative to the discredited political class that had dominated the country in recent decades. His populist platform appeals especially to traditional and nationalist-oriented segments of the population, particularly among youth and the rural population. As scholar Aksana Ismailbekova has shown, Japarov established himself as an authentic representative of the people, someone who stood in contrast to the corrupt former leaders.

It is clear that political changes under the current leadership have set the country on a more authoritarian path. However, returning to the earlier distinction between type of political system and governmental effectiveness, some would definitely argue that while Kyrgyzstan’s democracy rating has plummeted, decision-making processes have improved in the sense that government bodies are working more effectively, which is obviously something ordinary citizens appreciate when it comes to accessing public goods and services.

That said, Kyrgyzstan’s civil society is under a worrying amount of pressure. But Kyrgyzstan’s civil society, including Western-financed NGOs as well as more indigenous forms of voluntary collective mobilization, has proven to be remarkably resilient despite recurring oppression from the state in recent decades. In fact, in times of crisis, Kyrgyz society has often compensated for an incapacitated state. Spontaneous collective action has a long track record of resolving social problems and providing goods and services. Citizens, not least youth groups, have voluntarily organized to uphold law and order amid recurring political upheavals, dragged the country out of the Covid-19 pandemic, and effectively provided humanitarian support to people affected by the violence along the border with Tajikistan.

There is also a new form of democratic activism emerging among the youth. This new form of activism differs from Western-financed civil society organizations, for it is organized through social media, using art and other forms of resistance. Thus, civil society is not standing still; engagement is simply taking other forms than the nongovernmental organizations associated with an older generation. For Western partners, there therefore seems to be room to devise new ways of interacting with and supporting Kyrgyzstan’s younger generation.

In conclusion, what is your outlook on Central Asia in light of the war in Ukraine? Will any of the impacts of the war—Russian relocation, the decline in Central Asian labor migration, or any other societal change that is occurring right now—have a longer-term impact?

The only thing we can be sure about is that there will be unanticipated changes. For example, when the war broke out and Western sanctions were imposed on the Russian economy, the immediate projection was that many Central Asian labor migrants would have to return home, carrying the risks of increased unemployment, a decline in remittances, and the overall destabilization of society. But despite growing challenges, Central Asian laborers continue to arrive in Russia. In fact, because of the war, Russia’s own supply of labor is shrinking dramatically, which might even reinforce the need for labor migrants to fill the shortages.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine represents a watershed moment, an event likely to produce a new geopolitical landscape. Even though regional political rearrangements are visible in the form of new and renewed initiatives, the full implications of these developments are yet to be seen. Ultimately, much depends on the outcome of the war. If Russia loses in Ukraine, this could cause a seismic shift in Central Asia as well. But the region’s leaders are hedging their bets. Indeed, many in the region cannot imagine that Russia will lose; they therefore need to be as well prepared for a Russian victory as possible. Regardless, there is no returning back to business as usual. Thus, to quote the Canadian hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, the challenge for them is to anticipate “where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”

The traditional clothes of Central Asian peoples, made from abr silk and semi-silk fabrics in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—chapans and munisaks, burqas and kuylaks, skullcaps and kultapushaks—became the objects of a thrilling hunt for various collectors and foreign connoisseurs.

Author

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Elmira Gyul

Doctor of Art History, Institute of Art History of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan

Here we recall the brief history of such collection efforts, discuss the most significant private collections, and reflect on the challenges of preserving cultural heritage.

One Man’s Everyday Attire, Another Man’s Treasure

Uzbek traditional clothing and abr fabrics came to be collected later than, for example, carpets or interior embroidery, known generally as suzani. Neither abr fabrics nor the clothing made from them were considered an elite product, as we imagine today. These fabrics were used by everyone—rich and poor, men and women, adults and children—as can be seen in archival photographs of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Testifying to the non-elite status of these garments, if you look at the ceremonial photographic portraits of the Bukhara, Khiva, and Kokand rulers, you will often see that they are dressed instead in more expensive robes made of imported brocade.

As the American researcher Andy Hale has noted, “Although abr textiles were included in many of the early exhibitions of Central Asian material culture that were presented throughout the Russian Empire, they did not seem to attract as much attention or love [as] suzani embroidery or famous Turkmen carpets.” This is confirmed by a series of unique photographs taken on the territory of the British diplomatic mission in Tehran between 1897 and 1899. In the images, mission employees inspect the Shakhrisabz suzanis and Karakalpak yurt ribbons spread before them by a merchant.

Perhaps abr fabrics simply seemed too exotic and strange to Europeans. Indeed, the nineteenth-century Hungarian orientalist and traveler Arminius Vambery wrote: “The poverty … of the inhabitants of Central Asia is especially visible from their clothes. It is extremely difficult for someone unaccustomed to get used to the simple paper material or bright silk in which absolutely everyone dresses—both men and women, both old and young.”

Great Game, Great Finds

Nevertheless, international interest in abr silk gradually gained momentum. Once the region came to the attention of European powers and Russia, following the vicissitudes of the Great Game, a market for local textiles gradually emerged, and some were even exported.

Almost all of the famous travelers who came to the region on various missions were involved in the purchase and export of local fabrics and clothing as objects of ethnographic interest. One of those who appreciated the peculiar beauty of abr fabrics was the British explorer Robert Shaw, who visited East Turkestan in 1868. Shaw’s mission—to map the unexplored territory of the Pamir Mountains—was not military, but primarily commercial. After his death in 1879, members of the Shaw family donated the rarities he had brought back with him from Central Asia to various British museums (including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archeology in Oxford).

Ole Olufsen, a Danish military officer and explorer, made several expeditions to the Bukhara Emirate in the 1890s. He brought back samples of textiles that are now housed in the National Museum of Denmark. Another collector was Willi Rickmer Rickmers, a German climber, scientist, and of course scout who in 1903, 1913, and 1928 went on exhibitions in the Caucasus and the Pamirs, as well as visiting other mountains of Central Asia. His textile acquisitions have been held by the Linden Museum in Stuttgart since 1905.

In Russia, abr silk was known mainly as an item of trade (including in the form of dyed warp threads, which were used by Russian fabric-makers) and as a diplomatic gift. Such gifts—sent by caravans to the imperial capital, St. Petersburg—became especially numerous after the conquest and annexation of the Uzbek khanates. After the revolution of 1917, all this luxury was transferred to state museum collections (the Russian Ethnographic Museum, the Kunstkamera, the Hermitage, etc.).

Commemorated in Art

Abr robes are now seen not as something exotic and tribal, but as something elitist and artistically significant. Such depictions began in the early twentieth century with those Russian artists who painted the portraits of representatives of creative circles and the early Soviet intelligentsia. Thus, Boris Kustodiev chose to feature his son in an abr robe (“Portrait of a Son,” 1922). Similarly, Mikhail Nesterov’s images of famous figures show them dressed in brightly colored chapans (“Portrait of academician, biologist A.N. Severtsov,” 1934, “Portrait of A.V. Shchusev,” 1941).

In the work of avant-garde artist Lyubov Popova (1889–1924), who visited Bukhara and Samarkand in the spring of 1916, we can see more implicit aesthetics of abr fabrics. In turn, Yulia Razumovskaya (1896–1987) clearly depicts the patterns of these fabrics in her graphic sketches. In 1925, she graduated from VKHUTEMAS and went to Uzbekistan. The artist’s works dedicated to Bukhara, Samarkand, and Tashkent, in which special attention is paid to the bright, decorative local clothing, are now held by various museum and private collections.

Traditional Clothes Become Antique

As Uzbeks moved around during the Soviet era, their textiles went with them. In the early Soviet period, some Uzbeks fled to the Pamir mountains or beyond the Amu Darya, taking all their belongings with them. Almost all the Lakai left Uzbekistan, spreading their glorious culture and magnificent textiles around the world. While the Lakai were cattle breeders who did not cultivate silk, they—like all ethnic groups in Uzbekistan—did wear clothes made from silk. As a result of the mass migration of Lakai and other Central Asian semi-nomadic tribal groups to the territory of Afghanistan, Herat became a real mecca for collectors and fans of traditional textiles. Following the coup d’etat in Afghanistan in 1973 and the outbreak of civil war there, however, the center of trade in Central Asian textiles moved to Istanbul.

It was also in the 1970s that textile lovers were rediscovering the phenomenon of reserve-dyed fabrics, which include abr fabrics, thanks to fundamental research in this area. This research included Alfred Bühler’s three-volume German-language text Ikat Batik Plangi: Reservemusterungen auf Garnun Stoffus Vorderasien, Zentralasien, Südosteuropa und Nordafrica (1972), as well as his English-language work with designer Jack Lenore Larsen. Gerret Pieter Rouffaer, a Dutch researcher who studied Indonesian reserve-dyed fabrics, had coined the term “ikat” (from the Malay “mengikat,” meaning “to tie” or “to entwine”) in the early twentieth century to denote reserve-dyed fabrics. As the twentieth century progressed, ikat became fashionable, moving from traditional markets to haute couture and from there to high-street clothing stores.

Global interest in Central Asian chapans and abr fabrics grew dramatically in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, individual shuttle traders helped to revitalize the export of antiques from Uzbekistan. Female “shuttle traders” brought antiquities from their regions to the markets of Istanbul and returned home with everyday goods purchased in Turkey.

According to Turkish collectors, the Istanbul market was most active in 1992-2004. This was a golden era for the formation of the largest private collections of Uzbek textiles. It was here, in the ruins of ancient Istanbul, that fans of abr silk from all over the world acquired the product. In parallel, dealers and intermediaries rushed from Turkey and other countries to Uzbekistan, literally devastating the markets of Bukhara, Samarkand, and other cities and villages. Ancient textiles were sometimes exchanged for factory goods: machine-made synthetic carpets, casual clothing, lurex scarves, etc. The export of ancient textiles was supplemented by a new wave of Jewish emigration: upon leaving Uzbekistan, they took their family valuables with them.

Even as the market soared and demand for abr fabrics from Uzbekistan grew, there remained an extreme lack of knowledge about them. This deficit was remedied to some degree by Kate Fitz Gibbon and Andrew Hale’s Ikat: The Silks of Central Asia (1997). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the West finally recognized abr fabrics as an undoubted artistic phenomenon. Often, in an effort to explain their uniqueness, parallels were drawn to abstract art, namely the canon-breaking transformations through which European painting went in the early twentieth century.

By the end of the 1990s, the Uzbek authorities recognized the need to introduce a ban on the export[1] of antiquities from the country. The 1998 law “On the Export and Import of Cultural Property” states that “cultural values are not subject to export from the Republic of Uzbekistan: those created fifty or more years ago; included by the state in the protected lists and registers.” That is, textile items produced before 1948 and exported from Uzbekistan after 1998 are automatically considered smuggled.

We do not have reliable data on the scale of the export of antique textiles (including items of traditional clothing) from Uzbekistan after 1998, but it certainly continued at least along with the notorious “shuttle trade,” active until the mid-2000s. Moreover, even if the flow of illegal exports has subsided, foreign markets are saturated with previously exported items. The process of forming collections and moving items from one collection to another is ongoing. The world market is full of Uzbek silk from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, primarily thanks to various auctions at which well-known collections or individual items are sold, allowing for the formation of new collections.

Notable Private Collections

What are the most famous private collections of Central Asian clothing—and particularly abr silk? The private collections of Tair Tairov and Alexander Klyachin, made up of purchases in Uzbekistan, have become widely known thanks to exhibitions in Moscow and the publication of catalogs. According to open Internet sources, Tairov began his collection in the 1980s, purchasing rarities at bazaars and from resellers. Klyachin likewise became interested in collecting in the late 1980s, when he visited Central Asia as a student of the Faculty of Geography at Moscow State University. Both not only bought antiques for themselves, but also acted as dealers. Thus, it was from Klyachin that such well-known collectors and donors in the United States as David and Elizabeth Reisbord purchased abr and other clothing from Uzbekistan.

In 2006, Tairov displayed part of his collection of embroideries at the Tashkent Gallery of Fine Arts of the National Bank of Uzbekistan (NBU) within the exhibition “Unknown Lokais,” initiated by the art gallery “Caravan.” His Moscow exhibitions, of which there have been at least 10, have also been very popular. They include: “Clouds Frozen on Silk” (State Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin, 2002); “Silk and Chintz: Dialogue of Cultures” (All-Russian Museum of Decorative, Applied and Folk Arts, 2014–2015); and “Silk Streets, Hanging Gardens: Objects of Textile Art of Central Asia from the Collection of Tair F. Tairov” (Central House of Artists, 2019). Select artifacts from his collection have been published in the catalog “Ikats of Turkestan from the Collection of Tair F. Tairov” (2002).

Klyachin’s rarities were presented to lovers of antique textiles in the 2019 exhibition “East Jazz/East West Jazz,” alongside works of abstract painting from the collection of Jean-Claude Gandur (Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, 2019).

In Turkey, the largest private collections were formed in the 1990s and belong to Mehmet Cetinkaya, Murat Megalli, and Umit Taftali, among others. Çetinkaya is a world-class trader who has been buying and selling carpets and other textiles since 1986. He first presented Uzbek ikat textiles in 1990, at the International Oriental Carpet Conference (ICOC) in San Francisco. In 1992, when ancient clothes from Uzbekistan began to appear in the markets of Istanbul, he became interested in collecting chapans.

With the emigration of Bukharan Jews, large collections of Uzbek artifacts, including abr textiles, appeared in Israel (the collection of Jor Mordechai [Ovdoni]) and Russia (Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, Moscow, “Bukharan Jews: At the Crossroads of Civilizations” exhibition, 2023).

The largest American collections of Central Asian abr fabrics and clothing also began to form in the early 1990s. Chief among them is Guido Goldman’s famous collection of Uzbek ikat, which he formed most actively in the mid-1990s. Shortly before his death, he divided this uniquely beautiful collection between 11 American museums. The largest donations were made to the Textile Museum at The George Washington University and to the Smithsonian’s Sackler Gallery.

Chapans from Uzbekistan also feature in the collections of other Americans. One of the most striking is that of David and Elizabeth Reisbord, which was donated by its owners to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Dr. Reisbord first visited Uzbekistan in 1992. Reflecting on that trip, he wrote later: “The Soviet Union had just collapsed, and everywhere on the streets of Bukhara, beautiful products made of ikat and suzani were being sold and hung on the walls. That was incredible.” Reisbord later began purchasing abr textiles from dealers and other collectors around the world. Before the couple’s donation to LACMA, the collection included 120 chapans and wall panels, as well as more than 20 suzanis.

The owner of another collection, Dr. David Paley, planned to donate some of his rarities to three American museums following a 2022 exhibition.[2] The owner of a fourth significant collection in the United States is Sheri Hunter, who has been captivated by Uzbek fabrics and chapans since her first trip to Uzbekistan in the early 1990s.

The list of famous foreign collections of abr textiles goes on. And as we admire them, it should be observed that this exported cultural heritage has become a global triumph for Central Asian chapans and fabrics, which have taken a victory march through museum halls, galleries, and the catwalks of leading fashion houses. Today, these delightful textile products, preserved in excellent condition thanks to the care of people who love them, act as ambassadors of Central Asian culture, telling the whole world about the amazing weavers who lived on Central Asian soil and created masterpieces of global significance.

Preserving Cultural Heritage

How should the heritage of abr fabrics, clothing, and other antique textiles be preserved in Uzbekistan? What is the correct way to store and exhibit them? How could more people be attracted to this traditional art and collections replenished? Here, the lessons learned from collecting, exhibiting, and studying Uzbek ikat and clothing abroad could be valuable.

It bears repeating that traditional Uzbek clothing and fabrics attract great interest around the world. In 2022-2023, the exhibition “Road to Samarkand: Wonders of Silk and Gold” at the Paris Institute of the Arab World, which presented samples exclusively from museum collections of Uzbekistan, was held with great success—and even attended jointly by French President Emmanuel Macron and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. Paradoxically, however, these same items are not displayed so impressively at home as to attract the massive flow of visitors they receive abroad; their potential is not fully exploited.

There is almost no tradition of making private collections in Uzbekistan. Indeed, the author knows of only one such collection, owned by Akbar Khakimov and available to view at his gallery, “Akbar House,” in Bukhara. Yet it is private collections all over the world that serve to replenish museum collections by providing donations. Uzbek museums, meanwhile, must depend on very limited government assistance to acquire new items. As a result, the exhibitions are built on stock items acquired in the last century.

Ancient fabrics and clothing are scattered across various museums and are often stored in storage rooms. Storage conditions leave much to be desired; there are no cleaning standards. Moreover, there is no dedicated museum for silks or for traditional costumes. As a result, it is not possible to collect or exhibit items properly—and often we do not even know what is in museum collections, as it is difficult even for specialists to access them. In this regard, at a minimum, centralized digital cataloging of the traditional textiles and costumes in state collections is necessary. We must finally gain an understanding of how much of this unique heritage is held by Uzbek museums.

Modern masters often turn to the patterns of ancient fabrics, both creating copies and experimenting within the canon. Some of them have been able to gain worldwide fame, among them the Margilan weaver Rasuljon Mirzaakhmedov.

Conceptual artist Dilyara Kaipova has opened up a new world of Uzbek textile art with her original chapans, which, with stunning success, weave in the traditional abr style an array of globally recognizable symbols of mass culture: the logos of Captain America and Batman, Darth Vader’s helmet, the Ghostface mask from the horror film “Scream,” etc.

Read more: “Captain Ikat”: Textile Fantasies of Dilyara Kaipova

But aside from these few exceptions, many modern market-sold handmade products have sparked criticism due to their low standard of color and decoration. Will modern abr silks become highly collectible in decades to come, or will only products from the “golden period” be in demand? This question—like those posed earlier in the article—calls for careful consideration and a thoughtful answer.

Cited and mentioned literature, sources:

1. Buhler, Alfred. Ikat Batik Plangi: Reservemusterungen auf Garnun Stoffus Vorderasien, Zentralasien, Südosteuropa und Nordafrica, Basel, Pharos-Verlag Hansrudolf Schwabe, 1972.

2. Fitz Gibbon, Kate, and Hale, Andrew. Ikat: Silks of Central Asia. Laurence King Pub, 1997.

3. Krody, S. B. Colors of the Oasis: Central Asian Ikats. The Textile Museum, 2010. 304 pp.

4. Larsen, Jack Lenor, with Buhler, Alfred. The Dyers Art: Ikat, Batik, Plangi, New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1976.

5. Salleh, A. Robes and dresses: sartorial elegance of Central Asia // Book – album “ Collection museum Islamic art Malaysia ” series ” Cultural heritage Uzbekistan “. Tashkent, 2022.

6. Umesh Charan Patnaik, Aswini Kumar Mishra 1997, 38; Ghosh 2000.

7. Vambery A. Essays on Central Asia. M., 1868.

8. Embroidery and carpets of Uzbekistan in foreign collections. Book-album of the “Cultural Heritage of Uzbekistan” series. Volume 4. Tashkent, 2020.

9. Gul E. The charm of Uzbek abr fabrics: collecting as a vocation // Book-album “Traditional clothing of Uzbekistan in private collections in Turkey” of the “Cultural Heritage of Uzbekistan” series (in print). Tashkent, 2023. Ss. 152–173.

10. Zhumaev K. Divine art. Be’er Sheva, 2017.

11. Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan on the export and import of cultural property https://lex.uz/docs/13906 Opened: 08/23/2023.

12. Ikats of Turkestan from the collection of Tair F. Tairov. Catalog. Authors of the text: Ermakova E., Makhkamova S. M., 2002.

13. How billionaire Alexander Klyachin became a collector of Central Asian robes // Tatler, October 1, 2019. https://www.tatler.ru/heroes/kak-milliarder-aleksandr-klyachin-stal-kollekcionerom-sredneaziatskih-halatov Opened 08.23.2023

14. Dreams of the East: Russian avant-garde and Bukhara silks. Exhibition catalogue. St. Petersburg, 2006.

15. Created in the sky: unique Uzbek textiles from a private collection // Sputnik Uzbekistan. https://uz.sputniknews.ru/20190307/Sozdannye-na-nebe-unikalnyy-uzbekskiy-tekstil-iz-chastnoy-kollektsii-10981045.html Opened 09/05/2023.

16. Tairov T. Bold aesthetics // Journal “Our Heritage”, No. 115, 2015. http://www.nasledie-rus.ru/podshivka/11521.php Opened 08/23/2023.

17. Uzbekistan. Heirs of the Silk Road. Exhibition catalogue. Stuttgart, 1997.

18. Hale E. Woven impressions: abr fabrics from the Paley collection. Book-album “Cultural Heritage of Uzbekistan in Private Collections of the USA and Canada” of the “Cultural Heritage of Uzbekistan” series. Volume 31. Tashkent, 2020. pp. 286–303.

19. Chetinkaya M. Cultural heritage of Uzbekistan – abr fabrics // Book-album “Traditional clothing of Uzbekistan in private collections of Turkey” of the series “Cultural heritage of Uzbekistan” (in print). Tashkent, 2023. Ss. 34–49.

20. Esguerra K. Collection of Uzbek abr fabrics and suzani by David and Elizabeth Reisbord // Book-album “Cultural Heritage of Uzbekistan in Private Collections of the USA and Canada” of the “Cultural Heritage of Uzbekistan” series. Volume 31. Tashkent, 2020. pp. 136–159.

[1] The first law—“On the Export and Import of Cultural Property” No. 678-I—was signed on August 29, 1998. On March 23, 1999, the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan No. 131 “On Streamlining the Issues of Export and Import of Cultural Property in the Republic of Uzbekistan” was issued. On April 26, 2017, Resolution No. 245 of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan was issued.

[2] The author does not have further precise information.

An ethnically diverse region that abuts the Caspian Sea in southwestern Russia, Astrakhan Oblast is home to the country’s largest Kazakh community. Almost 150,000 people, or 18 percent of the oblast’s population, identify as ethnic Kazakhs. Although Astrakhan does border Kazakhstan, most of them are not recent immigrants from the neighboring country. Their families have been living in what is now Astrakhan since long before the current national borders were drawn.

Author

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Dor Shabashewitz

Dor Shabashewitz is a Russia-born Israeli journalist and political analyst with a background in anthropology and sociolinguistics. He worked as a junior researcher at the RAS Institute for Linguistic Studies and conducted extensive fieldwork in Astrakhan’s Kazakh and Nogai rural communities as a part of his Master’s studies at the European University at St. Petersburg. In 2021, the Russian Federal Security Service forced him to leave the country following politically motivated accusations of “extremism” and “separatism.” These days, he covers ethnic minority rights and regional politics in the Lower Volga and Central Asia for RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir Service.

*The article that follows provides a brief overview of the sociolinguistic situation among those Kazakhs living in the Russian part of the Volga River delta. It is based on field research conducted by the author during his master’s studies between 2019 and 2021.

In the Middle Ages, Astrakhan was part of the Golden Horde and, later, an independent khanate. In 1556, it was conquered by the Russians and eventually incorporated into the Russian Empire as a governorate. The first major wave of Kazakh migration to Astrakhan Governorate began between 1799 and 1801, when Bökey Khan, son of the Junior jüz leader Nuraly, led several thousand nomadic families from across the Ural River to a more fertile area in the Volga River delta. A steady influx of Kazakh settlers continued well into the mid-nineteenth century. The new Astrakhan Kazakh community led by Bökey enjoyed the status of a semi-independent vassal state for several decades before gradually ceding most of its autonomy under pressure from the Russian authorities.

The early Soviet years revived the idea of a Kazakh autonomous area in Astrakhan. In 1919, some of the Kazakh districts of Astrakhan Governorate were grouped together under the name Volga-Caspian Kirghizia and transferred to what later became the Kazakh SSR. Most of them stayed and became part of Kazakhstan upon its independence, but some of the transfers were reversed in the 1920s. Thus, the Volodarsky and Krasny Yar districts ended up in Russia’s Astrakhan Oblast despite 70 percent and 50 percent of their inhabitants, respectively, being ethnic Kazakhs.

Notwithstanding the omnipresent linguistic Russification of the Soviet era, Kazakh enjoyed certain formal privileges in the Kazakh SSR as a co-official language that was used in many schools, especially in rural areas. State-funded magazines, newspapers, books, and movies were produced in the language. Government support for the national language and its social prestige only increased after Kazakhstan became a sovereign country in 1991. This was not the case in Astrakhan Oblast—the region’s Kazakh community had no linguistic autonomy or representation under the Soviets, and this did not change when the USSR fell apart.

Vitality Factors

In what state, then, is the Kazakh language among Astrakhan’s Kazakhs after decades without formal recognition? In what domains is it still spoken? What do the Astrakhan Kazakhs think of their ethnic language, and what role does it play in their identity? These were the questions I hoped to answer when I set off on a fieldwork trip to my home region’s Volodarsky district as a master’s student in social anthropology back in 2019.

During my fieldwork, I visited numerous rural settlements of varying sizes, ethnic compositions, locations, histories, and economic conditions. It became evident that all of these factors played a significant role in the vitality of Kazakh in any given village, but the relative weight of each factor was rather unexpected. My analysis showed that the share of ethnic Kazakhs in a village did not correlate strongly with how much they used the language in their daily lives. I have been to monoethnic Kazakh villages that spoke almost exclusively Russian, as well as mixed ones where Kazakh was still maintained by some members of the younger generations.

Geography and the perceived history of a settlement turned out to be the two most defining factors. Inhabitants of villages that are close to Astrakhan City and have a stable public transport connection to the city tend to switch to Russian more quickly than residents of more remote ones. Career opportunities in rural areas are scarce, prompting villagers to look for jobs in the urban center. When logistically possible, many opt to continue living in their villages and commute to work several times a week instead of moving to the city. Despite its impressive ethnic diversity, Astrakhan City is overwhelmingly Russian-speaking. Kazakh rural commuters tend to integrate into this environment and “bring it home” after work, influencing the linguistic landscape of their communities.

“Perceived history” deserves an anthropological study of its own. Many of the Astrakhan Kazakhs I interviewed explained that their villages were originally founded by Russian peasants or created by the Soviets in a centralized way and populated by collective farm workers of diverse origins. Many settlements with such histories gradually became majority-Kazakh, but most locals believed they were “not really Kazakh villages” and thus considered Kazakh a rather inappropriate language to use in public spaces. In settlements such as Vinny, this mentality led to Kazakh becoming a family language only, with Russian as the sole means of communication in all other domains—even between Kazakhs.

This stands in stark contrast to the village of Altynzhar, which was founded by Kazakh settlers and has a long tradition of local pride. The renowned nineteenth-century Kazakh composer Qurmangazy is buried in Altynzhar; the village hosts a museum dedicated to his life and to the culture of the region’s Kazakh community more generally. Altynzhar was also home to the Kazakh poet and language activist Mäjilis Ötejanov. Due to its history and cultural significance, Altynzhar is often viewed as the informal capital of the Astrakhan Kazakhs. This status, combined with the lack of reliable public transportation, helps the local population to maintain their language and identity better than elsewhere.

Language Use

Despite the differences between individual settlements, home is by far the most common domain of use for the Kazakh language across Astrakhan Oblast. For most of my respondents, constant code-switching between Russian and Kazakh is the default register when they talk to their relatives. The ratio of elements from the two languages, however, varies widely. Kazakh may dominate or it may only be represented by several words—but, as my experience shows, it is never fully absent.

In Vinny, I interviewed a young Kazakh man who was born and raised in the village but went to an urban high school and later moved to a different part of Russia for university. These days, he lives and works in Astrakhan City. At the time I met him, he was visiting Vinny to see his parents, who still lived there permanently. During the interview, he said he spoke no Kazakh at all: “I do not speak Kazakh… Never wanted to learn it, thought it was useless. Grandma would talk to me in Kazakh, and I am like… I do not understand everything, but I can get the general idea.”

Just an hour later, I overheard him using numerous Kazakh words in a Russian-language conversation with his mother. Answering my ensuing question, the young man explained: “There are still some words that are easier for me to say in Kazakh. Like ‘scoop’ or ‘ladle’—I just say ojaw.” Later, I discovered other Kazakh words in the speech register he used at home. They were terms related to farming, as well as the names of certain traditional foods and houseware items.

This case is by no means unique—in fact, it is very typical. Lexical domains related to rural ways of life and things you find in a traditional household seem to be the least likely to be forgotten by young and predominantly Russian-speaking Astrakhan Kazakhs. This may be because they lack any similar rural experience gained in a non-Kazakh context.

Leaving the “Kazakh” village for the “Russian” city, one practically replaces one’s entire vocabulary—but with exceptions. The array of subjects discussed in urban settings is at least as wide as that in rural areas, but the two sets of lexical domains do not always coincide. Traditional ethnic cuisine, cattle farming, agriculture, and culturally specific rural household items are not things that city dwellers usually speak of, hence the words for them are not as easily replaced with Russian equivalents in the speech of first-generation urbanites. Sometimes, the Kazakh words remain the only ones they know. The lack of need or even opportunity to talk about these things in Russian makes this set of Kazakh vocabulary more resistant to attrition. It is only natural for urban Kazakhs to use these terms when they go to a rural area to visit their family. This may be viewed as a “light version” of cue-dependent language retrieval.

Equally, even among those Astrakhan Kazakhs who live in rural settlements and use Kazakh-Russian code-mixing as their default home register, one can point to specific domains that almost universally trigger the use of a much higher share of Russian-language elements. This includes all of the “complicated” domains, as the respondents call them. For example, a middle-aged man from the village of Novy Rychan said: “When fixing a TV set, we are most definitely talking in Russian.” In a different settlement, I witnessed four men talking in almost “pure” Kazakh—that is, using few Russian elements. Then one of them mentioned the COVID-19 pandemic, and this change of subject, combined with “complex” vocabulary related to healthcare and government policies, triggered an instant switch to almost equally “pure” Russian.

As is evident from these situations, Kazakh is often regarded and used as a rural and “simplistic” language, fitting for discussions of farming but not technology or anything modern. This set of associations speaks to its low social prestige—but may also be viewed positively by some. Many heritage speakers of Astrakhan Kazakh associate the language with a sense of home and strong family ties. “Kazakh is… It is something about your home, you know, where you feel most comfortable and secure. It is the mother language, after all. Whenever I hear it, I think of those evenings I spent in the village of Multanovo with my parents and grandma as a kid. I miss this feeling now that I live in the city,” said one of my respondents.

Two other important domains associated with Kazakh, which are intertwined with each other, are religion and ethnic celebrations. While overwhelmingly secular in daily life, most Astrakhan Kazakhs identify as Muslim. Many hardly ever go to mosques—in fact, there are large, exclusively Kazakh villages with no mosques at all. Moreover, the minority that does adhere to a strictly Islamic way of life is viewed as odd and even suspicious by the more secular majority.

Still, events such as weddings and funerals almost universally have an Islamic element to them. Interestingly enough, many of my respondents think of Islam as inseparable from the Kazakh language. “When the Quran is being recited, you are supposed to talk in Kazakh,” said a middle-aged man from Novy Rychan. Obviously, the recitation itself happens in Arabic, and one is supposed to listen to it rather than talk simultaneously. What this respondent meant was that the “religious” and “traditional” atmosphere of such events triggered increased use of Kazakh before and after the recitation and other rituals.

Kazakh as an Unwritten Language

While still widely spoken in some of the more remote villages, Astrakhan Kazakh remains a practically unwritten language. In the early Soviet years, Kazakh was used at numerous village schools as the primary language of instruction, but it was quickly downgraded to being taught as a subject only. By 1966, it had disappeared from the region’s school system entirely.

The perestroika era brought a surge in ethnic activism, with Kazakh language lessons being reintroduced in almost a hundred village schools in the late 1980s and 1990s. Unfortunately, this did not last long: Vladimir Putin’s rule brought another wave of linguistic Russification as part of his “unity through uniformity” policy. Kazakh was soon downgraded to an optional, once-a-week class. Today, fewer than 20 Astrakhan Oblast schools offer it in any form, even though over 140 of the region’s rural localities have a Kazakh majority or plurality.

This lack of Kazakh at school has resulted in entire generations having little exposure to written Kazakh and being functionally illiterate in it, even when perfectly literate in Russian. This can be seen from the way the names of many Astrakhan Kazakhs are written in their Russian IDs and passports. When giving their children legal names, many parents opt for naive phonetic approximations that do not match the way a name is normally spelled in Kazakhstan (eg., Kuvanshkirey rather than the more typical Qwanışkereý in Kazakh or Kuanyshkerey in Russian). Many of my respondents said they had trouble understanding and distinguishing the “weird letters” used in Standard Kazakh, referring to the additional and modified Cyrillic characters that are absent from the Russian alphabet.

Lack of language-specific literacy is not the only linguistic barrier between Kazakh-speakers in Astrakhan and those in Kazakhstan. As explained above, Russian dominates all of the “formal” domains in Astrakhan Oblast, from education to technology and interactions with the government. This means that most Astrakhan Kazakhs never discuss these topics in Kazakh and may be unfamiliar with the more “complex” vocabulary in that language, even when fully proficient in the registers related to home, family, traditions, and rural lifestyle.

“The Kazakh word for ‘proof’ is dälel, which I only know because I looked it up. My neighbor grew up speaking Kazakh, but she would not understand me if I used it when talking to her. She just uses the Russian word, dokazatelstvo,” said a respondent from Multanovo. This is a perfect example of a term perceived as “complex” and thus unknown to many Astrakhan Kazakhs.

Most Astrakhan Kazakhs are well aware of the differences between their ethnic language and the Kazakh of Kazakhstan. A middle-aged, native Kazakh-speaking respondent from Novy Rychan talked about his trip to Atyrau, Kazakhstan, saying that he felt insecure about his Kazakh skills while there. He opted to talk to locals in Russian because he feared they would mock his “incorrect” Kazakh. This perception of Astrakhan Kazakh as “simplified” and “Russified” is fairly common among its speakers. While somewhat negative, it may also serve as a marker of the community’s identity, helping to distinguish between “us” (Astrakhan Kazakhs) and “them” (Kazakhstan Kazakhs).

Future of Kazakh in Astrakhan

The case of an Astrakhan Kazakh person looking up and memorizing a “complex” word associated with the Kazakh language of Kazakhstan illustrates a small but important tendency. A growing number of young, native Russian-speaking Astrakhan Kazakhs are deliberately immersing themselves in Kazakhstani media, explaining that they want to learn the “proper” way to speak their language and reconnect with their culture, which has been partially lost to colonization and assimilation.

While most young Astrakhan Kazakhs seem to have no interest in using their ethnic language in any form, this minority tendency offers hope that Kazakh will live on in Astrakhan Oblast. If the language policy does not change in the decades to come, the local dialect may eventually die out as a natural form of communication in rural communities, but Standard Kazakh is likely to be maintained by the conscious activist minority.

That being said, the continuity of the language policy is a big “if.” Russia’s government has been increasingly unstable since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. In many regions, ethnic minorities feel that they are unfairly overrepresented among those sent to fight in Ukraine, and this is especially true for Astrakhan Kazakhs. At the same time, the federal government is cracking down on indigenous activism more heavily than ever.

The growing dissent among minorities has led to the emergence of numerous secessionist organizations. An overview of pro-independence movements that view Astrakhan as a part of their hypothetical states can be found in my recent article for New Eastern Europe. It is hard to make predictions about the success of these movements, but in the event that they succeed, language policy and power dynamics between the region’s ethnic groups are more than likely to change.

All photos by

Dor Shabashewitz and Valery Maslov

The nomadic people of Eurasia left behind rich treasures that rival those of sophisticated settled societies. Many of these precious items, which can be seen today in museums around the world, were made of gold, bronze, and silver with unique animal-inspired designs. They served decorative, practical, ritual, and spiritual purposes and were widely exchanged along the continent’s trade routes.

In this interview, Dr. Petya Andreeva from Parsons School of Design, New York, discusses some findings from her research into the decorative and funerary art of Eurasia.

An interview with

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Petya Andreeva

Assistant Professor of Asian Art and Design History, Parson School of Design, New School

Petya Andreeva received her Ph.D. from the East Asian Languages and Civilizations Department at the University of Pennsylvania. Her upcoming book entitled Fantastic Fauna from China to Crimea: Image-Making in Eurasian Nomadic Societies, 700 BCE-500 CE will be publsihed by Edinburgh University Press in March 2024. The book draws from her dissertation, Fantastic Beasts of the Eurasian Steppes: Toward a Revisionist Approach to Animal-Style Art which received international recognition in the Best Asian Humanities Dissertation category at the International Convention for Asia Scholars (ICAS) in 2018. Professor Andreeva has broad research interests inlcuding funerary art in China and Inner Asia, arts of the Silk Roads, nomadic material culture, art of Soviet Central Asia, and the global history of ornament. Her main field of research is the cultural and artistic transmissions along premodern trade networks, namely the Silk Roads and their precursor – the Eurasian steppe. She is particularly interested in the display of portable luxury and the formation of collective memory in nomadic communities along the porous borders of sedentary empires (China, Persia and Greece). Her research aims to challenge Euro-centric narratives in the study of decorative and funerary art.

Originally from Bulgaria, she is fluent in Mandarin, Bulgarian, Russian and has a working proficiency in Japanese and Mongolian.

https://www.newschool.edu/parsons/faculty/petya-andreeva/

The decorative art of Eurasian nomadic peoples is a great subject to study. Going to the roots of this art, what do you think led to its development and the apparent love for exquisite decorations, given that nomadic people led otherwise simple lives and had to travel a lot?

This is a really important question. Contrary to traditional narratives that highlight the “monumentality” of sedentary empires (palaces, large reliefs etc.), early pastoral societies left behind numerous treasures that rival those of their settled neighbors. The majority of these valuable items are adorned with animal-inspired designs, which feature composites or what I call zoomorphic junctures. These are highly conceptual designs that we sometimes overlook, as we tend to focus on the large amounts of gold found in nomadic tombs and hoards. In steppe imagery, it is common to encounter an animal body combining deer antlers, a raptor’s beak, the mane of a feline, and the snout of a wolf—all elaborately rendered on gold surfaces via casting, hammering, soldering, and a number of other sophisticated techniques.

Species tend to be represented metonymically and then fused together; the resulting animal bodies are inverted in conceptually interesting ways that we would not normally encounter elsewhere in the ancient world. In my work, I have argued that these counterintuitive animal images were inspired by both political and ecological factors that are rooted in nomads’ exposure to diverse ecosystems and their anxiety about the inexplicable whims of nature. Environmental challenges led to economic concerns, which in large and reluctant nomadic alliances would have jeopardized the position of the super-elite (what I call the “elite nucleus”). As they were exposed to different ecological conditions at least semiannually, nomads started to visualize the fauna on which they staked their lives as being perpetually in flux—hence the hybrid, unstable bodies we encounter in the so-called “animal style” of the steppe. Eurasian nomads are still rarely mentioned in theoretical discourses on design concepts, but their image system was incredibly intriguing and complex and very indicative of how climate change and political instability might affect people’s creative products.

Across the five-thousand-mile Eurasian steppe network, we find a great number of metalworks—mostly gold and bronze (less often silver)—as well as felt textiles. These meticulous arrangements give us better insights into the curation and decorative scheme of the mortuary space, instead of just a glimpse into the individual objects. We often encounter images of the same hybrid animal body on the jewelry adorning the body, and on the textiles enveloping the floor of the tomb: in the Pazyryk culture of the Altai, for instance, bird heads attached to deer antlers are a particularly ubiquitous motif seen across media and modes of making. Animal-style designs were highly transferable and malleable, and so we encounter them on metalwork, woodwork, bone carving, felt, and other materials consistent with the nomadic lifestyle.

Most nomadic tombs contain portable items of great value. Many of these were used during the tomb occupant’s life on earth as currency exchanged for safe passage, for strategic commercial transactions with sedentary neighbors like China, or as a symbol of political clout within the diverse nomadic alliance. But once arranged inside the tomb and attached to the deceased’s body, they entered a new lifecycle and took on new functions. This is to say, what we often refer to as “decorative art” might also have fulfilled other important roles in political and economic decision-making in nomadic societies. During a burial, the body of the deceased noble and probably some parts of the barrow would have been exposed to the scrutiny of an excitable and possibly highly divided audience of members of different clans—and so the curatorial approach to the space and the body’s adornment were of paramount importance. The glittering gold would have been viewed by both allies and potential rivals of the deceased leader just as a new power vacuum opened in a relatively unstable confederation. And, ultimately, fluency in this complex visual language became a political tool used by a very small elite nucleus to define their agency in the reluctant alliance of different nomadic groups. It also helped the elite to manufacture collective bonds in these rather unstable nomadic confederations.

When we imagine the luxury and decorations of the Eurasian nomads, we mostly think of Scythian treasures and animal style. Can you elaborate on what happened later and how this art developed?

Animal style flourished along a far more extensive geographical, cultural, and temporal expanse than one might expect. It was present in every cultural sphere on the steppe, as well as adjacent regions, from the frontiers of China to the Hungarian plain. Indeed, the so-called Scythians have often been designated as the primary creators and carriers of the animal-style tradition. But there are a few caveats worth mentioning here. While it retains some usefulness as a category, “Scythian” has become something of an umbrella exonym in itself, often applied arbitrarily to ethnically or culturally unrelated nomadic groups on the Eurasian steppe. We often think of Peter the Great’s Siberian collection in the State Hermitage Museum as containing classic examples of “Scythian art,” but the objects are of unclear provenance and came into the tsar’s collection from plundered Siberian tombs at a time when looting and illegal excavation were especially frequent occurrences in southern Russia. There are, of course, a great number of Pontic Scythian tombs that fit Herodotus’ descriptions, many of which are in Eastern and Central Ukraine. Because of the intensive Greco-Scythian interactions in this region, we see a departure from zoomorphism and a higher proclivity for depicting human figures in these nomadic works.

But while we mostly associate animal-style design with Eurasian nomads—be they Scythians, Xiongnu, Donghu, Sarmatians, or otherwise—it is also true that these animal-inspired designs penetrated the porous boundaries of neighboring sedentary empires like China and Persia. This is significant because for far too long, nomads have been viewed as the passive recipients of the “enlightened” traditions and inventions of China, Persia, and Greece, or as mere intermediaries between those empires. Now we know that steppe-style objects appeared in the aristocratic tombs of major Eurasian empires, whose elites wanted to showcase their worldliness and access to the most “unconquerable” of domains. Indeed, while both the Greeks and the Chinese continued to indulge in labeling the nomadic Other as “barbarian” in their writings, their funerary and commercial practices tell a rather different story. As long as it did not overshadow the local, showcasing nomadic gold was a new status-defining token. This is why we see nomadic-style plaques and buckles in locations as distant as the tomb of the King of Nanyue in South China and China’s Lelang outpost in modern-day North Korea in the second century BCE.

In my forthcoming book, I study the politics behind the adoption of such motifs and objects by societies that, for the most part, viewed themselves as enemies of or superior to the steppe nomads. I even go so far as to suggest that grand structures in Achaemenid Persia, like the Apadana palace in Persepolis, feature animal combat scenes that were inspired by Scythian and Saka decorations and might have involved nomadic labor. This makes sense considering the defeats the Persians suffered at the hands of the Scythians (recorded by Herodotus) and all the Scythian prisoners of war taken by Darius. The Persians sort of “delimited” animal style in the grandness of the Persian relief: animal style was there to denote control over the “Barbaric Other,” but it did not feature prominently enough to overshadow the grandeur of the local format. This visual and political strategy is what I refer to as “governable Otherness.” Visual references to the Nomadic Other were helpful political tools as long as they were inscribed in a local monumental format.

Finally, animal style endured for much, much longer than previously acknowledged. We see traces of Iron-Age nomadic design in later periods, including some of the gold of the Tibetan empire in the seventh and eighth centuries—recently excavated examples of Tibetan gold come from Dulan county in Qinghai province in northwestern China. The Komi and Udmurt settlements in Western Siberia and the Ural lowlands have also yielded some great examples of possible “offshoots” of Iron-Age animal style (known in the Russian literature as “Permian animal style”), most dating to between the fifth and tenth centuries. I would argue that in the Migration period, these Permian motifs reached northern Europe, where they were subsequently incorporated into the designs of the Germanic tribes.

My most recent work has focused on an even later resurrection of animal style. In the westernmost segment of the Mongol empire, a return to this long-forgotten decoration might have been politically motivated. The Mongols of the Golden Horde had to reconcile two distinct identities: that of a worldly, astute trade partner and that of the legitimate successor to an uninterrupted, centuries-old nomadic tradition. It is therefore not surprising that some ancient animal-style designs feature prominently in the arts of the Golden Horde, which was centered on the Western steppe.

Trade was obviously a major factor in the exchange of goods. Can you tell us a little more about how trade influenced the value of these goods?

Yes, trade was certainly an important factor in the dissemination of animal-style art (and design). We can identify a few “commercial hotspots” on this steppe route, which was a precursor to the more widely known “Silk Road” network. On the western end, there were the commercial interactions between the Greeks and the Scythians (and later the Sarmatians). There is great evidence of this in the diverse inventories of royal Scythian tombs in Crimea. Herodotus mentioned cities like Olbia and Chersonesos, and in fact most of the Bosporan Kingdom centered around Crimea, a strategic trade center and hotbed of cross-cultural encounters. The archaeological record supports this. On the easternmost end of the steppe route, China bought into the increasingly lucrative nomadic market from around the fourth century BCE, even before the emergence of the first nomadic empire (the Xiongnu). There are textual records that the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty rewarded a stockbreeder in northern China who facilitated trade with the Rong nomads. We know that Chinese imperial workshops started to produce animal-style goldworks and export them to the nomadic market, receiving much-needed livestock in return. I have previously suggested that China was probably the only power player in Eurasia between the fifth and third centuries BCE to truly see and realize the great potential of the nomadic market. How they did that so successfully is a more complicated question that I explore in my book, but a major reason might be that Chinese art had been entirely zoomorphic from its inception, and likewise relied on abstract and composite animal designs. In other words, Chinese artisans were primed to embrace the zoomorphism of their nomadic clientele, whereas the Persians’ and Greeks’ designs concepts were much more reliant on human figures and narratives.

Is there any spiritual meaning to these decorations? Are they still heavily defined by an animal spirit?

Several trail-blazing studies have indeed proposed that the emergence of certain design motifs, chief among them the reindeer antler in South Siberia, might have been inspired by shamanistic practices. Shamanism is often the “go-to” explanation for the artistic innovations of ancient societies in Siberia and Mongolia. I certainly think that there is merit to these interpretations and do not reject the search for “meaning” behind these animal motifs. But I myself am more interested in the function (rather than meaning) of animal-style designs. This is necessary because my studies tend to adopt a “macro” perspective: I am dealing with an enormous geographical and cultural expanse inhabited by many diverse nomadic societies. There must be a reason for the incredible transferability and longevity of certain design idioms (like the zoomorphic juncture, for instance)—how did tropes like the bird with deer antlers travel so swiftly from the northern Chinese periphery to eastern and central Europe? It is highly unlikely that the motif meant the same thing in every single micro-zone on the Eurasian steppe route. So we have to ask a different question: could it be that these zoomorphic designs fulfilled a similar function in all these different nomadic confederations, which had some political and ecological concerns in common? The animal images in question present an alternative, skewed version of ecological reality. They feature fragmented, dissected, and reconfigured animal bodies, which are based on the signature anatomical parts of various real-life beasts—from stags to wild goats to snow leopards. These unstable anatomies, so to speak, indicate a very particular response to changes in the ecological environment, including environmental shifts bigger than just the seasonal migration patterns, which had profound consequences for many nomads. With this idiosyncratic image system, nomadic makers visualized an alternative and more manageable ecological system that was at their disposal and mercy. This was perhaps a coping mechanism that enabled them to deal with real-life environmental and political anxieties. Look, for instance, at the so-called Golden Man of Issyk in Kazakhstan, or the no less awe-inspiring Golden Woman of Taksai. Such warrior suits consist of thousands of elaborate gold adornments, most featuring animal-style designs. The wearer was seen as the master of this newly formed fantastical biota, and this helped them reaffirm their legitimacy to an awestruck audience. In short, animal images were much more than mere spiritual symbols or totems; they also served as important political tools for establishing a leader’s legitimacy. The body became praxis through which important political messages could be sent to the viewers of the burial-turned-spectacle.

Can you tell us about funerary art in China and Inner Asia? What items would usually go into a tomb and why?

I actually started my academic career as a Sinologist, and continue to work in both Central Asian and Early China studies. I have gained many valuable skills from my extensive Sinological training. My interest in Central Asia started in graduate school, where my professors inspired me to start exploring China’s relationship with its neighbors and long-distance trade partners, including the steppe people on its frontier, which Chinese texts often label as barbarians. Early Chinese chronicles tend to be the most detailed, even if not always reliable or nuanced, in their ethnographies of steppe peoples. As I mentioned earlier, I was curious to find out why we often find animal-style plaques in the inventories of early Chinese tombs.

In the Bronze Age, Chinese burials feature bronze ritual vessels as the highlights of their inventories. In the fourth and third century BCE, many bronze casters also gained skill in goldsmithing, at Beikangcun near Xi’an, and there is an excavated tomb of a Chinese bronze caster from the Warring States who was buried with tools and matrices for the production of both nomadic animal-style objects and Chinese ritual bronzes. Chinese burials from the Han dynasty (third century BCE to third century CE) embrace a more diverse repertoire. They tend to have elaborate murals featuring cosmological guides to the souls of the deceased, procession scenes, directional animals, and Confucian and Daoist narratives, among other images. Some members of the imperial family wore extremely rare and luxurious “jade suits”—burial garments made of hundreds of small jade pieces joined by gold wire or silk thread. This opulent personal adornment is in some ways reminiscent of the golden men and women of Kazakhstan.

Chinese tombs from the Han dynasty also tend to feature mountain-shaped incense burners, bronze mirrors, lacquer items, and “mingqi” spirit articles (architectural models, figurines of dancers, acrobats, servants, etc.). A great number of painted silks have also been found in Han dynasty burials. My all-time favorite tomb to teach and study is the famous Mawangdui burial complex of noblewoman Lady Dai and her family. The lacquer, silks, and brocades found here are really of top-notch quality and point to the ways aristocrats in China visualized and “regally ensured” their afterlife. Food vessels and even chopsticks, as well as cosmetic boxes – all made of lacquer—have been discovered there.

Even more interesting is the appearance of lacquer, bronze mirrors, and other Chinese imports in the tombs of Xiongnu elites north of the Chinese border. Clearly, diplomatic gifts and intensive trade defined the rather tumultuous relationship between the two entities. To cut a long story short, I am really fascinated by the opportunistic reciprocity between China and its northern neighbors—various steppe groups that, over time, became a growing threat to China’s hegemony in North Asia.

Your forthcoming book is entitled Fantastic Fauna from China to Crimea: Image-Making in Eurasian Nomadic Societies, 700 BCE-500 CE. Can you tell us about this research?

I am thrilled that my first monograph is already under production with Edinburgh University Press and is scheduled to be published in March 2024. The book builds on my dissertation and explores hundreds of objects from every micro-zone on or adjacent to the Eurasian steppe route: the Mongolian-Manchurian grasslands, South Siberia, the northern Korean peninsula, the Kazakh steppes, the Ural lowlands, the North Caucasus, Crimea, and parts of the Hungarian plain. The main argument of the book is that due to concerns over political legitimacy, the elite nucleus in every nomadic alliance—from the Pontic Scythians and Sarmatians to the Xiongnu—embraced animal-style design as their de facto visual rhetoric in order to construct collective bonds in otherwise reluctant political alliances that were structured not around ethnic ties but rather around shared geopolitical goals and enemies. I also seek to understand why and how animal style entered the aesthetic systems of sedentary empires like China and Persia. Steppe nomads were consistently “othered” by their geopolitical enemies, but they were also increasingly recognized as worthy opponents and potential trade partners that power players like China needed to interact with if they wished to expand their economic influence in Eurasia. I am interested in the visual and material manifestations of this reluctant symbiosis, which never resulted in true reciprocity yet shaped much of the political landscape of Central Eurasia.

My second inquiry throughout the book is inspired by one of my academic idols, Ernst Gombrich: I am fascinated by the psychology and logistics of image-making. I am especially interested in the factors that contribute to abstraction. At what point do designs become “abstract” or “semi-abstract”? Early nomadic images do not fully embrace abstraction and are not entirely divorced from ecological reality, even if they feature fabricated hybrids. This changes dramatically with the later and more powerful nomadic confederation of the Xiongnu, who were well on their way to forming the first-ever nomadic empire and needed more standardized designs to make them more legible to various trade partners and rivals across an increasingly global Eurasia. In the book, I link abstraction to political and economic agendas as well.

I have invested years of research into this project, including fieldwork in Kazakhstan, Russia, China, Mongolia, South Korea, and my home country, Bulgaria. It was important to me to look at as many primary sources as possible from the cultural zones in question because of the study’s unprecedented geographical scope. To that end, the materials I present are combined with textual sources in Modern and Classical Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Mongolian, and Bulgarian.

What legacy did this decorative and funerary art leave for us today? Do we see it in contemporary art or commercial goods, fashion, jewelry, or furniture?

I really appreciate this question because far too often, the arts of ancient societies are viewed in a historical vacuum, as detached from modern-day developments, when in reality, they provide important antecedents and lessons for contemporary societies. This is especially true in the case of pastoral nomads, whose lifestyles can certainly add to our present conversations around sustainability and efforts to combat climate change. Also, the relationship between images, politics, and manufactured collective memory in these ancient nomadic confederations is quite relevant to present-day discourses around nationalism, borders, and cross-cultural exchange.

Traces of animal-style art have endured to this day. We certainly see the reliance on metonymically conveyed animal bodies in the textile production of much of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, parts of Xinjiang, and Mongolia today. I am thinking of the “shyrdak” and “ala kyiz” felts that one finds in many Central Asian bazaars. Producing these stitched and colored felts is a very labor-intensive collective process, and the skills behind these lived practices are usually transmitted from mother to daughter. Many of these traditional felts feature abstract deer antlers, which, interestingly can be found on much of the Pazyryk textile corpus from the Altai Mountains all the way back to the fourth century BCE. Clearly, this penchant for conveying animals through their antlers, beaks, horns, or other representative body parts (in a sort of “synecdoche”) can be traced back to the animal-style period.

I am also reminded of how animal-style design has been interpreted in Kazakh fashion in recent years. A great number of amazing designers from Kazakhstan have adopted references to ancient nomadic motifs in their own takes on “national costume,” reinterpreting deer antlers, goat horns, and other animal-inspired motifs through a modern lens, as well as drawing on the traditional manipulation of felt and fur. One can hardly overlook the famous Golden Men (and Women) of Kazakhstan. At least six such figures have been excavated from various parts of Kazakhstan since 1969. Many modern silhouettes in couture fashion in the country are inspired by the elongated and sumptuous figure of the Golden Man. So ingrained are these phenomenal discoveries in the collective consciousness of Kazakhstan that one can even find a statue of the Golden Man standing on a winged lion in front of the Kazakh embassy in Washington, DC (and its counterpart on Republic Square in Almaty).

All photos provided by 
Petya Andreeva

Usto Mumin, or Aleksandr Vasilievich Nikolaev (August 30, 1897 – June 27, 1957), was an artist who lived and worked in the Uzbek SSR. Nikolaev arrived in Tashkent after demobilization in 1920, and from that moment on his life and artistic creativity were bound up with Central Asia. His pupils called him Usto Mumin, which means “Faithful Master.” One of his best-known paintings, “Pomegranate Zeal,” tells the love story of two young boys. He was persecuted by the Soviet authorities and spent four years in prison between 1938 and 1942. Following his release, Nikolaev returned to Uzbekistan and continued to work as an artist, illustrator and theatre designer. He received an Honorary Award from the Central Executive Committee of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic for his role in establishing the Uighur Theatre in Tashkent. Nikolaev died in Tashkent in 1957.

His life and work are the subject of two recently published books: Eleonora Shafranskaya, Usto Mumin: transformations. Moscow: Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, 2023 (Элеонора Федоровна Шафранская Э.Ф. Усто Мумин: превращения. Москва: Музей современного искусства “Гараж”, 2023), and Boris Chukhovich, ‘Love, Friendship, Eternity’ by Usto Mumin. Prague: Artguide s.r.o., 2023.

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Eleonora Shafranskaya

– Doctor of Philology, Professor of the Moscow Humanitarian Pedagogical Institute. Born in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, lived in Tashkent until 1997, taught philology at the Tashkent State University and the Republican Pedagogical Institute of Russian Language and Literature. Since 1997 she has been living and working in Moscow. In 2008 she defended her doctoral dissertation on the theme “Mythopoetics of a foreign cultural text in Russian prose of the 20th – 21st centuries” at the Volgograd State Pedagogical University.

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Boris Chukhovich

 – Central Asian art and architecture historian, independent curator, associate researcher at the University of Montreal, President of the Central Asian Cultural Heritage Observatory Alerte Héritage.  Until 1998, he worked at the Research Institute of Art Studies in Tashkent, after immigrating to Canada, he collaborated with various universities in Montreal, Quebec, Toronto, was a visiting researcher at the Fondation de la Maison des sciences de l’Homme (Paris, 2014) and Politecnico di Milano (2022-2023). Curated exhibitions of Central Asian contemporary art in Montreal, Ottawa, Venice, Bishkek, Alma-Ata. Author of numerous publications on the art and architecture of Central Asia in the 20th and 21st centuries. Lives and works in Montreal.

In this interview, Eleonora Shafranskaya and Boris Chukhovich talk about their research and their books dedicated to this incredible yet mysterious artist.

How did your scientific interest in the work of Usto Mumin come to be?

Eleonora: I would say that a lot came together here. The personality of Usto Mumin (the nickname of the artist Alexander Nikolaev) became interesting to me after watching the play Pomegranate Zeal, directed by Mark Weil (Ilkhom Theatre, Tashkent), for which Usto Mumin was imprisoned.

I turned to the FSB office (ex-KGB) in Moscow to become acquainted with the artist’s investigation file. He was arrested in 1938 in Moscow, at the exhibition of achievements of the national economy—then the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition—where Usto Mumin was the leading artist of the Uzbek pavilion. A month later, I received copies of the pages from his case, which were forwarded to me from the relevant structure in Uzbekistan. It is really a rare case; I think that I was just lucky to access the FSB archive files.

My attention to Usto Mumin was sparked by a research interest in the fate of creative figures (writers, scientists, artists) who suffered under the Soviet regime. To date, this layer of the history of the twentieth century has not been fully explored. There is still a lot of work for more than one generation.

Boris: In October 2001, the 6^th World Congress of the International Association for Visual Semiotics was to be held in Quebec. I had not studied semiotics before, but it suddenly became clear that after the September attacks, many European scholars had decided not to experience the hardship and abandoned the transatlantic flight. Hotels, banquets, and congress halls had been paid for in advance, and the organizers of the congress, trying to somehow compensate for the costs, invited scientists who were already in Quebec to participate in the forum. Thus, I ended up participating in a scientific event with an unusual profile for me. The sensations were surprising. I was particularly struck by the ability of semioticians to extract new information layer by layer from the same image. This fundamentally distinguished their analysis from what I had encountered in Uzbekistan. In Uzbekistan, historians of art aimed for the widest possible coverage and chronological scale. For instance, Lazar Rempel and Galina Pugachenkova wrote The History of Art of Uzbekistan from Ancient Times to the Middle of the 19th Century, which encouraged their colleagues to enlarge themes and corpus of study as much as possible. Visual semiotics, on the contrary, plumbed the depths of micro-facts and micro-stories. In contrast to panoramic breadth, which is fraught with simplification and schematism, they cultivated deep readings and thorough consideration of each specific problem. In parallel with semiotics, many participants in the congress appealed to the iconological tradition of studying art, represented, in particular, by the texts of Abu Warburg and Erwin Panofsky.

This congress had two consequences for my scientific activities. In a relatively short period in 2003, I wrote voluminous texts about two works of art: the Monument of Independence of Uzbekistan (the so-called “globe” on the main square of Tashkent) and Usto Mumin’s tempera Love, Friendship, Eternity, as it was called at that time. Ultimately, these texts resulted in two long projects. One is an eight-year multimedia project that undertook an extensive exploration of the image of the sphere in representations of power in the history of world culture. Another is a 20-year book project in which I tried to provide a comprehensive analysis of Love, Friendship, Eternity. As can be seen from the combination of a semi-amateur monument erected by direct order of then-President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov and one of the most famous works of art in 20^th-century Central Asia, it was not the object of study that was important to me, but the method of analysis itself. At the same time, I can say that Usto Mumin’s works were at the intersection of many areas of my interests. Since my immigration to Canada, I had been interested in cross-cultural hybridities, creative expressions of exile, and gender history, not to mention Central Asian art of the 20th and 21st centuries. Mumin turned out to be the pivotal figure for all these issues.

How would you describe his creative path? Where does such a fine painting come from and how does it combine different worlds—European and Eastern?

Eleonora: Questions of art criticism are not within my sphere of expertise. However, I will answer as I see fit. This synthesis is associated both with the atmosphere of Samarkand, where Nikolaev ended up in the 1920s, and with colleagues who influenced the artist, chief among them Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin and Daniil Stepanov. Nikolaev, judging by his biography (including his parents’ hobbies) and the recollections of his colleagues, was a knowledgeable man; he knew the history and theory of painting very well.

Boris: This question contains the presumption of a binary structure of the world, which allegedly consists of the East and the West. I don’t have that division in my mind. I prefer to talk not about the amorphous East, supposedly opposed to the West, but about Samarkand, which is unlike other cities in Central Asia, never mind the world as a whole. To describe Samarkand, I don’t need to define it as an eastern city. After all, it is far west of Novosibirsk and Irkutsk, which have never been described as “eastern”. In Samarkand, Nikolaev joined Daniil Stepanov’s circle, the members of which cultivated love for Quattrocento and tried to use his legacy to portray the people of Samarkand. In addition, Usto Mumin’s language combined to varying degrees the influence of Russia’s Silver Age graphics, Persian miniatures, and to a lesser extent Suprematism, as well as Russian icons. I called the search of this group pre-Raphaelite. I showed that Usto Mumin was not the sole inventor of this approach; by the time he appeared in Stepanov’s society, the circle’s aesthetic program was already fully developed. If earlier art historians wrote that Usto Mumin synthesized East and West, I believe that, first of all, he synthesized what such artists as Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Alexei Isupov, and Daniil Stepanov himself had brought to the activities of Stepanov’s circle. Nikolaev was, however, perhaps the only one to add to the program of the Samarkand Pre-Raphaelites the substratum of Persian or Central Asian miniatures. Neither Petrov-Vodkin, Isupov, Stepanov, Nikolai Mamontov, nor Alexander Samokhvalov were ever inspired by this, while Nikolaev experienced a brief surge of interest in it between 1923 and 1927.

Tell us about his stories. In what are they rooted: Persian miniatures, Arabic or local tales, or his own world?

Eleonora: His relocation to Central Asia became a powerful trigger for his artistic nature. Everything you listed; all the influences came together. Certainly, he created his own imaginary world. By the way, my book contains his publication of a legend composed by himself based on the folklore plots of Central Asia. Thus, I state that Usto Mumin was also a literary writer.

Boris: Having established that Usto Mumin’s first cycle was based on a very definite narrative, I tried for a long time to establish its basis. In my opinion, there were three possibilities. This plot could be: 1) literary, 2) life, or 3) autobiographical. Although the Persian-language classical literature is full of homoerotic motifs, I did not find a structural correspondence between the lovers from these works, e.g., Saadi or Hafiz, and the young men from Pomegranate Zeal, who ask the permission of a religious person for a ritual entry into a love union that legitimizes their relationship. On the contrary, in the stories of Nikolaev himself and the memoirs of his close friend Galina Kozlovskaia, there are at least two plots from real life that are related to the Samarkand cycle. First, this is the story of two old men whom the artist met in a teahouse next to Shah-i Zinda. The story of their life, which readers will learn about from my book, was one of the triggers for the creation of the tempera Love, Friendship, Eternity. Another plot that influenced Nikolaev remained in the archive memoirs of Galina Kozlovskaia, who described the Pomegranate Zeal ritual as she heard it from Usto Mumin. In her description, young men in white robes gather in the garden on an autumn night to share slices of ripe pomegranates to music and dance and, having exchanged with others, taste them, drinking water from a large silver bowl. This ritual was supposed to bind the participants in a single circle of friendship. It is interesting, however, that the Samarkand cycle of Usto Mumin did not literally reproduce one plot or the other. The personages of the tempera Pomegranate Zeal do not accept new adherents into their ranks, but clearly honor the newly formed couple. In turn, the personages of Love, Friendship, Eternity do not reproduce anything from the plot of the story of the old teahouse owner with his friend, but are only partially associated with them. Finally, one of the drawings of the Samarkand cycle – When I saw Samarkand… – contains an expressive allusion to the inner presence of the artist himself in the scenes he depicts. All these factors indicate that Nikolaev, who did not know Farsi and could not read Persian literature, was inspired not by book plots, but by direct life stories that he witnessed in Samarkand.

You cite several quotes in your book, one of which sounds like the artist’s moral code: “be sincere, be content with little, love yourself and boldly pick forbidden fruits.” Was Usto Mumin a Sufi? How is the philosophy of Sufism reflected in his work? Is there an invisible connection between the artist and the world of mystical Islam?

Eleonora: Usto Mumin was not a Sufi. This is one of the myths that accompanies his biography. My book describes in detail, with references to facts (conversations, interrogations, personal confessions), his initiation into Islam, which was of a purely artistic nature. It was not banter; it was a completely sincere game, the life of an artist. He wanted to organically reincarnate into the Other, to look at the world through the eyes of this Other. There was a new phase coming in his life. He just as sincerely and organically reincarnated into another role.

Boris: I have not been able to find any biographical facts testifying to Usto Mumin being a Sufi. This claim became very popular in the 2000s-2010s, not due to the discovery of new information about the artist, but because society broke with Soviet values and was in search of new points of support. Along the same lines, some art historians at that time managed to present Alexander Volkov as a Sufi mystic, but he was always indifferent to religion and never made any attempts to merge with the Muslim population of Turkestan in clothing, language or lifestyle. Uzbek art at the beginning of the 21st century was going through a stage of intense dervishization: the main characters of Uzbek art were qalandars, hermits drying in the deserts, blissful sleepy vagabonds, as well as birds illustrating the poems of Navoi or Attar. Certainly, Alexander Nikolaev converted to Islam, but there is a significant distance between a Muslim and a Sufi, which the art critics who wrote about Mumin forgot too quickly. The texts of Nigora Akhmedova, Tigran Mkrtychev, and to some degree Eleonora Shafranskaya are full of Sufi interpretations of the artist’s work. However, all these associations seem to me excessively free. In assigning certain Sufi meanings to Mumin’s paintings, the art critics have avoided any documentary analysis of the artist’s thoughts or statements on this matter. As a rule, this was pure fantasy on a topic set by the critics themselves, and not a systemic study of the artist’s intentions.

His work is loaded with scandal because of the obvious homoeroticism. How do you describe it in your book?

Eleonora: The answer to this question can be considered a continuation of the previous one. One of the key words in the title of my book is transformation. The biography of Usto Mumin is a chain of transformations, but not always ones conceived by him. Some transformations were dictated by changes to the paradigm within which he was forced to exist (e.g., from his former social status into a Soviet citizen).

The homoeroticism of a number of plots of his Samarkand works (1920s) is also an imaginary world. This world appears most pronounced in the work Pomegranate Zeal, created in the genre of a hagiographic icon as a narrative about the acquaintance of two young men: their love, wedding, and death.

The main character of this icon is located in the center. Apparently, this is Usto Mumin’s dreaming young man holding a paradise fruit in his hand, an incised pomegranate. The whole plot presented in the hallmarks is imaginary. This is one of the transformations of the artist, his artistic nature. It does not matter whether the transformation is real or imaginary.

Boris: Any erotica remains a phenomenon of psychology and culture. Certainly, I had to take into account that, both in the time of Nikolaev and today, homoerotica is perceived as scandalous in many places.

Some colleagues ask: “Does it matter whether Nikolaev was homosexual or not—what’s the difference?” For me, such indifference is inexplicable. After all, the self-perception of a young man in the process of growing up and his whole subsequent life—which would have developed either according to the prevailing normative gender attitude or in contradiction to it—depends on whether he was or was not. Equally unacceptable to me are attempts to silence homoerotic motifs in the artist’s work.

By the way, the Sufi interpretations appeared in the 2000s and 2010s as a form of camouflage for these motifs. Therefore, I took seriously all the evidence I had collected about the artist’s biography and, based on this factual information, built my own interpretation of both the key facts of Nikolaev’s life and his main artistic cycle. Since I am not religious, I perceive homosexuality as one of the natural attractions and behaviors of a man. I write about this side of the artist’s life calmly, as well as about any other property of his personality. Needless to say, this matter is not scandalous, shameful or embarrassing to me.

In what sense is Usto Mumin an innovator: only in terms of plots or also with regard to technique?

Eleonora: In terms of plots, sure. Usto Mumin portrays young boys. As far back as the 19th century, Russian artists (e.g., Vasily Vereshchagin and Nikolai Karazin) painted Bachas with something of an ethnographic tinge, evoking condemnatory emotions in the viewer. Usto Mumin captures the aesthetic and, apparently, the philosophical facet of this phenomenon, possibly inspired by medieval Sufi poets.

As for technique, I recommend that you familiarize yourself with Boris Chukhovich’s book Friendship, Love, Eternity by Usto Mumin, which was published simultaneously with mine. By the way, an unprecedented fact in history: two books about Usto Mumin were published simultaneously, and the presentation of both took place at the same time in Tashkent.

Boris: Your question fits into a linear system of ideas about progress in art. According to this system, an artist’s work only gains meaning if he succeeds in being an innovator, either in terms of language or in promoting some new artistic content. However, this approach does not reflect the specifics of human sciences, which deals with unique phenomena and often cannot be integrated into some “objective” line of progress without aberrations.

As for Mumin’s technique, it has long roots. He learned it from Daniil Stepanov, who studied the secrets of Renaissance painting for the restoration of old canvases. Nikolaev himself emphasized more than once that this technique coincided with that used by the Samarkand nakkoshi, who painted the walls of houses with traditional patterns. To call this technique innovative would be a clear misunderstanding. As for the subjects, I also trace the genealogy of the depiction of gender-indeterminate couples in the paintings of different countries, from Europe to Iran. Perhaps only the enigmatic plot of Pomegranate Zeal, with the culmination of its 11th scene, the tempera Love, Friendship, Eternity, was truly unique for the Islamic context in which these images appeared.

Overall, what is the artist’s legacy? Did someone imitate him or were his aesthetics banned?

Eleonora: Usto Mumin forbade himself to write on a homoerotic topic. He was aware of the corresponding articles that were introduced into the Criminal Code. Here is a quote from my book:

“The campaign that began in 1933 in the USSR to introduce an article on sodomy into the Criminal Code equated the suspects of homosexuality with spies, counter-revolutionaries. First, they are arrested for homosexuality, after a few years, for counter-revolutionary activity. Most often, the arrests ended in execution.

Whether Nikolaev got into this meat grinder because of his non-traditional orientation, or he was such is unknown, but his interest in the handsome young men who became the heroes on his canvases was probably enough to start the persecution. So, that rumors began to spread, eventually leading to the birth of a myth.”

Nowadays, Usto Mumin is imitated by many artists. Usto Mumin is now in vogue. These days, the Nukus Museum of Art is hosting an exhibition by the artist Djengis Lepesov. These works are seemingly a clear homage to Usto Mumin. Moreover, the museum shop sells crude copies of Usto Mumin’s works made by modern painters.

Boris: Indisputably, Nikolaev came to be criticized with increasing frequency by his contemporaries for the horrifying eroticism of his works, and after his arrest, his art was banned for several years. Since the 1960s, however, it has been gradually rehabilitated and then glorified.

The last chapter of my book shows the influence exerted by Usto Mumin on subsequent generations of artists in Uzbekistan. This influence is paradoxical. On the one hand, many of the leading artists, starting with Chingiz Akhmarov, and then Bakhodir Jalalov and Javlon Umarbekov, consciously or unconsciously created images inspired by the aesthetics of Usto Mumin’s early works. On the other hand, the general muminization of the official art of Uzbekistan during the decades of Islam Karimov’s rule emasculated the inner content of the homosexual love drama narrated by Nikolaev in a coherent sequence of scenes. Only its formal signs remained: slumbering young men with a rose over their ears, birds in cages, and juicy pomegranates.

What does your book reveal for a reader who is not familiar with the spirit of that time?

Eleonora: It is precisely the spirit of the times that is one of the main components of the book. The period broke people; twisted their destinies, mentally and physically; instilled in people a fear that has not been eliminated to this day. Well, and one more thing: my book contains previously unknown facts of the biography of Usto Mumin.

Boris: I would prefer that readers themselves speak on this score. I hope everyone will find something of their own.

Photos provided by
Boris Chukhovich

Central Asia is known for its long tradition of exquisite textile production. To this day, scarves or chapans woven using the ikat technique remain sought-after items for fashionistas around the world.

Carpets—rich, beautiful, and bright—are likewise a product of complex techniques that have been passed down for generations in the “rug belt,” which extends across Central Asia to include Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, part of Egypt, North Africa, and Spain. Textile production and carpet-weaving may have been born out of a creative synergy between nomadic and settled peoples.

In this interview, Carol Bier discusses the origins of this craft, its symbolism, and the complex techniques used to produce these textiles.

An interview with

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Carol Bier

Carol Bier is a historian of Islamic art. She has published widely on cultural aspects of geometry in Islamic art that inform a beauty of form, pattern, and structure. She is currently a Research Scholar at the Center for Islamic Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. Concurrently, she is a Research Associate at The Textile Museum in Washington, D.C., where she long served as Curator for Eastern Hemisphere Collections (1984-2001). She was President of the Textile Society of America from 2006 to 2008.

You have published many articles on the cultural aspects of geometry in Islamic art, and we in Central Asia see a lot of ornaments and symbols in our culture that surely have a recurring pattern. How is geometry manifesting itself in Islamic art?

I have studied a lot of geometry in Islamic art and architecture, an interest born of my earlier studies of textiles and textile patterns. The patterning in textiles is very much related to the technology of weaving or embroidery or resist-dyeing—ikat, or Abrband (from the Persian “abr”—a cloud, “band”—to tie), as it is called in Central Asia, at least in Uzbekistan. So my interest in geometry and Islamic architecture and arts is very much tied to the relationship between craft and technology—building technologies in the case of architecture. What my studies have revealed is the emergence in the Islamic World of an algorithmic aesthetic—so repetition itself has meaning, and that meaning, in my understanding, is very much tied to the geometry, to making geometry manifest.

What we know in the history of geometry is that in the early Arab world—and this then spread to the Persian world and beyond (Central Asia, Spain, North Africa)—there developed translations of, and commentary on, the ancient Greek texts about mathematics and philosophy. So my understanding and interpretation has taken several different directions. One is the study of Qur’anic inscriptions on monuments that have geometric patterns—and I would argue that Qur’anic inscriptions, the passages selected for those monuments, may help inform us as to the meaning and the significance of the patterns as well as the buildings themselves. And in particular the word is Amthal, which is the plural of Mithāl. That term has many different meanings in relation to allegory, in relation to parable, but, for mathematicians, it means geometric problem. And I think that the Qur’anic passages can be interpreted in light of the geometric patterns on the buildings, such that the geometry is precisely making geometry manifest. That, in essence, is the interpretation that I have come to in my study of geometry, art, and architecture in the Islamic world.

You mainly explore the textile culture of the East, which includes the Central Asian region. How did these people come to treasure their textiles so much? After all, they might have led simple lives, but they also had great carpets and silk clothes. Is there any spiritual meaning to these decorations and textiles?

The spiritual meaning is not something that I have particularly explored. The primary ways to investigate this would be by looking at the textual tradition and, today, conducting interviews with practitioners—whereas I have for the most part worked with the primary sources (the materials themselves), so the material culture.

But what I can say is that all of the textile traditions—from felt-making (shyrdak) in Kyrgyzstan and embroidery (suzani) in Uzbekistan to carpet-making (qali), rug products, and so forth—rely on renewable resources that are readily available in Central Asia. So there is a very long history, dating back to prehistoric times, of felt-making and textile manufacture.

The techniques for textile production in Central Asia are just absolutely extraordinary and many of them are still practiced today. There are very rich productions of ikat in, for example, the Fergana Valley. Ikat is a resist-dyed warp that is woven in Central Asia (and elsewhere). You have the cultivation of cotton. You have the procurement and preparation of the dye materials. You have the yarn preparation of the fabric itself and then you have the dyeing technology and then the weaving technology. So a simple product like a scarf, for example, with its warp ends showing, is already the product of multiple technologies. In shyrdak/shyrdok, the cutting of the felt into two layers, and then the placing of one layer on top of the other, produces two identical patterns, but with the colors are then reversed. So that’s a brilliant use of very simple technology, heat and compression, to make felt from wool yarns and then play with the color and the ornament. But then there is symbolism—or symbols—in the designs, such as the horns of sheep, the beard of a goat, or elements of tools that are fundamental to society. You also have in Central Asia a sharp contrast between the herding cultures and the agricultural cultivators. You have nomadic populations, on the one hand, and settled populations, on the other hand. That contrast reflects the varied geography of the region, with desert areas, river valleys, and oasis towns.

Silk and wool production technologies in Central Asia, Turkestan Album, Library of Congress

You have an article on “Traditional Weaving from Pre-Soviet Central Asia” (1992-93), in which you discuss the textile arts of Bukhara, such as embroidery (suzani), pile carpet-weaving, ikat weaving, and so on. Can you tell our readers about that? Are these ancient methods still in use today?

Ikat, as I mentioned, is called abr-bandi (tying of the clouds) and it has to do with the resist-dyeing of the warp yarns before weaving. And that is practiced very widely in the contemporary Fergana Valley, where multiple studios, ateliers, workshops, and factories produce what in English we have come to call ikat. There is also a strong tradition of producing silk embroidery (suzani) in the areas around Bukhara, Samarkand, and Shakhrisabz, for example. As far as I know, we can only trace ikat and suzani back to the nineteenth century, maybe the late eighteenth century, but we have earlier examples from elsewhere in the Islamic world. I am not sure how these technologies came to be transmitted to Uzbekistan, but they were definitely present by the nineteenth century and are very strong today.

Madina Kasimbaeva in Tashkent is a contemporary suzani embroiderer. Her contemporary embroidery in a historical idiom has been very well recognized internationally. Within Uzbekistan, she has received one of the presidential awards for artists; her work is also exhibited in the British Museum in London.

Read more: How Ikat Accompanied History in Central Asia

Your research covers such interesting topics as the Kyrgyz kurak korpe. It is known that “kurak korpe” comes from the Turkic “kura”. But Kazakhs also have such blankets, most often called “kurak korpe” or “oyu korpe.” There are also traditional pillows: in Kazakh, they are called “zhastyk”, in Turkmen “ýassyk”. What is the origin of such terminological similarities? Are there other similarities between the textile arts, their names, and technologies in Central Asian countries?

“Yastık” is the word used for a pillow in Turkey, as far as I know, and all of those words are closely related. You also find that sharing of vocabulary in other contexts—from Persian to Turkish, Turkish to Persian, or Tajik to Turkic languages. Many of the words are the same. So “zhastyk,” “ýassyk,” “zazdyk,” and “yastık” are all related (with a few dialectical differences), and there are also similarities between the arts they use. Such cultural similarities can be seen not only in techniques for producing textiles and in architecture, but also in food.

That being said, the ornaments depend on which type of culture people these countries belong to. For example, some Central Asian ornaments are much more of an urban product; others are a nomadic product. Different designs are chosen and repeated to make patterns among settled urban populations than are selected among nomadic populations.

The premier product of nomadic culture, of course, is carpets. You see them used not only on the floor, as we do in the West, but also as doors and covers, for example, to cover trunks or as furnishings, as well as to cover the floor of a tent (yurt) structure. Pile carpets may have wool warp, wool weft, and wool pile—it is the pile in the carpet that features patterns and designs.

Let’s talk about patchwork traditions and Oriental carpets. What is the meaning of patchwork? What are its cultural origins?

Patchwork is a very important domestic technique—it is something that is done in people’s homes rather than in factories. Scraps of older textiles are put together to make quilts, covers or horse covers, or horse head ornaments.

I have studied much more about carpets than about patchwork. Starting with the terminology of “Oriental carpets,” that is already an indication of an outsider’s perspective. To call something oriental is to suggest that it comes from the Orient, which in the nineteenth century—to which the history of European collecting of carpets dates—was anywhere east of Istanbul. It was not the Far East as we think of it today.

The very fact of the phenomenon of “oriental carpets” demonstrates that these textiles transcended their cultural origins in the “rug belt,” which extends across Central Asia to include Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, part of Egypt, North Africa, and Spain. This region is arid (with dry/low rainfall), making cultivation problematic, so sheep husbandry and herding provide people’s primary economic livelihood. Wool, of course, is a renewable resource: you shear the sheep once or twice a year and then the wool grows back. It is not like shish kebab (in Turkish ṣiṣ kebab), which is not renewable.

The carpets produced in these areas became a favored product traded or gifted (whether as ambassadorial gifts or otherwise) to the colonial powers of Europe. Thus, carpets transcended the eastern world and became a feature of the western world—which gave rise to their being called “Oriental carpets” as a category. For the most part, that category still holds, although it is considered politically incorrect today to refer to them as such. But no one ever wove an “Oriental” carpet. A woman would simply weave a carpet. That is what it would be called in her own culture.

As for patchwork, it is less a commercial product and more, as I mentioned, a domestic product often made from scraps of older textiles. One of the thoughts is that the arrangement of those little squares of fabric may ward off evil. So it has a protective quality for those who use it or wear it.

Historically, it was predominantly women who used to do this type of work. I think men tended to be responsible for the herding of the animals, the maintenance of the herd, and animal husbandry. Meanwhile, the women tended to be in charge of milking the animals and making milk products, as well as the craft traditions of yarn preparation and weaving. I have seen men involved in felt-making—it is traditionally a male-dominated field because it takes a lot of stamping and pressure to turn the wool into felt. Felt was typically used to make shepherd’s coats, felt floor coverings, or dervish hats. As for embroidery, that is also—in the domestic context—a women’s realm. In the commercial context, I have seen men involved in embroidery in northern India, Western China, and Central Asia. But there are, within these different textile technologies, certainly gender roles and gender differentiation.

Carpet-weaving is difficult work, but people in Central Asia seem to see them as a canvas for their creativity. How would you explain this strong carpet tradition that survived so many centuries?

Carpet-weaving has a much longer history than the Islamic world, which in Central Asia dates back to the eighth century of our era.

The oldest carpet we know of comes from a kurgan (barrow) grave in Siberia in Russia. It is called the Pazyryk carpet from the Pazyryk kurgan. It was discovered in 1949 in the permafrost of Siberia. Based on its style, our best guess is that it dates back to the fifth or fourth century BCE—a time before Alexander the Great. What is interesting about it from my perspective is that it has extraordinary technical properties. It is an example of the advanced technology of weaving, and yet we do not have any knowledge of how it came to be. So it has very tightly spun yarn, plied yarn—beautifully knotted. The pattern is already laid out like much later oriental carpets, with a square or rectangular field, repetition of a design, and multiple borders surrounding the central field.

Read more: The Treasures of Pazyryk Kurgans in the Hermitage Museum

Thus, carpet-weaving dates back to at least the fifth or fourth century BCE. We have fragments of carpets from a thousand years later, in the Seljuk era, and then we have entire carpets from the fifteenth century and more recently.

In the Soviet era, during the period of collectivization, factories were established for the weaving of carpets, and so the tradition continued, but more in a commercial environment than in a domestic or nomadic one.

How did trade and commercial value influence the development of these textiles?

There is both the domestic tradition—where textiles were made for home use and for use by local populations—and commercial production. Tribal materials were also sold when money was needed; they became a commodity for monetary exchange. The greatest collecting efforts occurred during the Russian Empire. The greatest museum collections in the world thus became those in St. Petersburg and then, in the Soviet period, in Moscow. The ethnographic museums in those cities have some of the finest holdings of Uzbek carpets, for example. Their bright colors are still fresh today if they have not been exposed to too much light or too much washing. They are really beautiful.

What interests you most about this subject: symbols, spirit, methods, colors?

One aspect that I personally love studying is the beauty—the pattern, shape, design, color… and then, as I mentioned earlier, I am fascinated by the interrelationships of craft and technology, craft production, and the manufacture of products, whether for home use or for commercial use. I can extend that further and say that I am fascinated by the interrelationships of design – structure – technology – and function. Throughout this interview, I have mentioned some of those connections, whether it is the resist-dyeing of the warp, and then the weaving, and then the manufacture of scarfs; or the animal husbandry and the yarn preparation and the dyeing and the weaving of carpets and the different methods of making patterns. The warp resist is one, and that is what gives the ikat pattern all this variation of up and down within the design motifs. But in carpets, patterns are formed by individual knotting of segments of yarn one by one in sequence. So it is a fascinating subject to study.

Ira Mukhoty is an Indian writer who writes about forgotten heroines of Indian history.

Two of her books—Heroines: Powerful Indian Women of Myth and History and Daughters of the Sun: Empresses, Queens and Begums of the Mughal Empire—are about women who played outstanding roles in history but have not made it into textbooks as their male counterparts have.

In this interview, we discuss these female heroines of the Mughal Empire, from Babur’s mother and grandmother; to Gulbadan Begum, who wrote the biography of Emperor Akbar; to Sultan Raziya, the first and only female Sultan to ascend the throne of the Delhi Sultanate.

An interview with

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Ira Mukhoty 

Ira Mukhoty is an Indian author. She studied natural sciences at University of Cambridge. Her book Heroines: Powerful Indian Women of Myth and History (2017, Aleph Books: ISBN 978-9384067496) tells the tales of mythical heroines including Draupadi and Radha, and “six real women who played extraordinary roles but who weren’t written into textbooks as were their male counterparts”, including Jahanara Begum, Rani Laxmibai and Hazrat Mahal.

Her second book Daughters of the Sun: Empresses, Queens and Begums of the Mughal Empire which was about the disappeared women of the great Mughals, was published by Aleph Book Company on 25 April 2018. In 2020 she published Akbar: The Great Mughal (Aleph Book Company, ISBN 978-9389836042). A reviewer in the Asian Review of Books described it as “an ambitious work crafted with great imagination about how the past and the present intersect”.

In 2021, her debut novel Song of Draupadi was published. The book reimagines Mahabharata through the narration of its women characters, particularly Draupadi. 

How did you start researching female heroines of the Mughal Empire? How did it all begin?

My first book was a result of my thoughts. I had two small daughters, and I was just thinking of stories to tell them, and I was reading all the popular books that we have in India. I was looking at female role models and I realized that in our culture, a lot of the women are presented in a particular stereotypical, patriarchal way. They have to fit within the mold of being very good women according to the Indian system, which means getting married, having sons, and sort of propagating the male line. Somehow the end result is always that story. If we think of Sita from Ramayana, that is what is held up to us—that is the perfection of Indian womanhood. So that was troubling me a little bit and I thought there must be other women from history or maybe from the epics that are culturally Indian symbols, but a bit different from the ones we are normally shown.

That’s how I started looking at these women. My idea, when I was speaking to a publisher, was to find Indian women across a large span of time—maybe 2,000 years. The first woman I talked about was in the sixth century BC, the time of the Buddha; she was a courtesan who later became a nun.

I thought if we were to write about different sorts of Indian women and the different ways in which they had been able to live out their passions, fulfill their ambitions, become rulers or do something worthwhile, then maybe we could find a different model for being an Indian woman. Maybe we could show that you do not have to be like Sita—that obeying your husband’s commands and being sexually chaste is not the only way to be a good Indian woman. And that’s really how the idea started and that’s how I found Raziya Sultan, one of the great Indian women that we do not talk about enough considering how extraordinary she was.

Your books deal with women in Indian history in the pre-Mughal and post-Mughal periods. Generally speaking, how were women viewed in these periods? Did anything change with the arrival of Mughals?

I think throughout recorded history, in most societies, women have been constrained within patriarchal systems. From the age of the Buddha, we can note that it was with great reluctance that women were allowed to join the Sangha and become nuns. Even then, there were great strictures on them: they had to submit to male monks even if the monks were younger and less experienced than they, etc. With the rise of Brahminical Hinduism, women’s role was further circumscribed. Married women were respected in society, no doubt, but their role was to bear children so as to honor the memory of their ancestors. They were not educated or encouraged to do anything other than marry and have children. Then by the fifteenth century, Rajput women began to be put into purdah, because men’s honor was heavily dependent on the chastity of their women. And because the Rajput tribes were constantly warring with each other and with invaders from the north-east from the fifteenth century on, elite men encouraged a strict purdah for their women. With the arrival of the Mughals, and especially from the time of Akbar onwards, this system of purdah became de rigueur among elite women, Hindu and Muslim alike, because Akbar married into Rajput houses. These ideas also reinforced Mughal notions about women in purdah.

How are strong women depicted in Indian epics? Sita from Ramayana was a very tragic yet strong character. What other myths surround strong women in pre-Mughal India?

Besides Sita in the Ramayana, the other great Indian woman from the epics is Draupadi, from the Mahabharata. I am very interested in her story, because if we examine the writings on her, it is clear that unlike Sita, Draupadi rails against her fate and voices her anger with the men in her life very powerfully. I think this is important to remember, because female anger is very frightening to the patriarchy, and it is rare to come across such examples in the ancient texts. But Draupadi is acknowledged to be learned (she is called a pandita) and virtuous but also argumentative, dismissive and critical of her husbands, and volatile.

The heroines of the Mughal Empire come from Central Asia, and it was customary—at least in the Chingisid Empire—for women to be active in politics. But the women of the Mughal Empire are not only strong and political but also intelligent and knowledgeable. How did they become so educated?

The Mughals were not only Chingisid, but also Timurid. In fact, it may be said that they claimed their Timurid legacy more visibly than their Chingisid one. Timur himself put a great deal of emphasis on education, on culture, on architecture, and on urban etiquette, since he was adopting some of the Persianate culture. And so we have a legacy of highly educated Timurid women, including the mother (Kutlug Nigar Khanum), grandmother (Aisan Daulat Begum), and sister (Khanzada Begum) of Babur, the founder of the Mughal dynasty. The Mughals greatly revered these famous matriarchs, who enabled Babur to retain his throne and empire even when he was vulnerable and in great danger. As a result, generations of women would continue to receive a thorough education similar to that given to male Timurid elites.

Could you provide us with more information about these women? What do we know about their personalities, their bravery, and what set them apart?

I came across them when I was writing my book on Akbar (Akbar: The Great Mughal) and on Daughters of the Sun before Akbar.

On Babur’s mother and grandmother, I think he would probably not have managed to do what he did in India without the help of these women. The following story is told about his grandmother. She was married to a nobleman and they were always engaged in battle, and one day her husband lost and she was captured by the enemy. So the enemy captured her and the ruler gave her to one of his noblemen to be his wife. She spent one night waiting and she pretended to be very happy and accepting of all of this—and then when that man entered her room, she and all her maidservants got hold of him and threw him out of the window, and he hit the ground and he died. And the ruler was really shocked; he said, “What have you done?! You have killed my nobleman.” And she very proudly said, “I am already a married woman! You can kill me if you want, but I am already married.” And this ruler was so impressed that he sent her back with an entourage and made sure that she was returned to her husband.

So we see the physical bravery of these women, in addition to the fact that they understood their own value and they put a worth on their own value—they were not just there to be slaves or to be passed from man to man. I find that self-belief to be quite extraordinary.

Khanzad Begum, who was Babur’s sister, had a similar thing happen to her. She was captured by Shaibani Khan Uzbek. Shaibani Khan married her, then divorced her and married her to somebody else. For over 10 years, she lived in the court of Shaibani Khan. Then after 10 years, Shaibani Khan was killed in another battle, and Khanzad Begum was sent back to India, to Babur’s court. And amazingly, after all these years, Babur took her back into his court and he made her Padshah Begum—that is, she was the most senior woman of the Harem and she was the one who controlled the administration and the running of the Harem. And that was a position of power that showed great respect for the woman who she was. It almost came as a shock to learn this because in Indian society we usually view divorced and widowed women as somehow not deserving of the same respect as married women. That is just kind of an Indian/Hindu tradition, unfortunately.

And to see that the Mughals were so pragmatic about the fact that women could be captured in battle, married off against their will, and widowed, but that it was not their fault and there was no blame laid upon them—there was no unnecessary value placed on their sexual chastity—I thought that was a very powerful message to bring to India, as we often put too much emphasis on Indian women’s sexual chastity.

The fact about Gulbadan is also huge—we see that a lot of importance was accorded to women because they were educated. It was expensive to educate people—you had to call tutors, you had to get people in to teach them—and these women were extremely educated. For example, Gulbadan Begum wrote a biography. She was not just educated and literate, but she was able to write. So Akbar asked her to write a biography that could be included in a larger biography of his life by Abu’l-Fazl. She started writing it and she wrote all her memories of Humayun and Emperor Babur. I think it was one of the only cases of a Muslim woman of that century writing a biography from within the Harem. This is a woman who lived in a Harem, who lived a long life; she wrote from within that structure and was able to give us her insights into that life.

It is a unique document and very little use has been made of it. Historians tend not to use it as much as all the male sources of writing. Yet we know that these women were educated and were able to produce works like this. So this was also something that I thought was very important to talk about: that all this effort was made to educate these women.

In Central Asia we learn only a little about Sultan Raziya, the first and only female Sultan to ascend the throne of the Delhi Sultanate, and the only one of Turkic origin. What can you tell us about her?

Raziya ruled during a time of extreme effervescence in Hindustan in North Northern India. It was the time of the Slave dynasty. Her father was Iltutmish, and before him there was Qutb ud-Din Aibak. They came with Muhammad of Ghor from Central Asia. Muhammad of Ghor had brought his Turkish slaves with him, and in time these Turkish slaves rose to become kings. So there was a lot of turmoil at this time. There were always competing factions. After all, these were men who had come from Central Asia. There were other, local men who were opposed them. There were other Freeborn Turks and Persians who opposed them. So it was a time of great uncertainty and it was incredibly difficult to rule for any length of time because you had to balance all these different factions and manage to keep everybody more or less happy.

The first extraordinary thing Raziya Sultan did was to put her claim forward. So when her father, Iltutmish, died—he was on the throne for 25 years and then he died—his second son became the ruler automatically, his eldest son having already died. But he was a very bad ruler and his mother started playing politics in the Harem and all sorts of things. So Raziya appealed to the military: she said, “I would like to be king now that my father has passed away.” And I think that it is extraordinary that she was not limited by her gender. All the biographers who wrote about her in her time said that she was a great ruler, a just ruler—she brought justice, she brought stability and peace to the empire—and that it was just unfortunate that she was not a man.

I think the fact that she came from this nomadic background—from this Turkish slave background—is very important. It was this semi-nomadic background that made Timurid and Mughal women so, in a way, brave about being on an equal playing field with the men. They do not seem to find their gender to be any restriction because when you are a nomad or semi-nomad and you travel from place to place for most of the year, you are on horseback, or you are walking, or you are traveling with the king’s entourage—and under those circumstances, it’s very difficult to keep women completely hidden in purdah.

Even when Babur came to India for the first time, his mother and grandmother were extremely important sources of advice. I think he was 14 years old when his father died, so he was extremely young, very vulnerable, and anything could have happened at that time. But his mother and grandmother gave him military advice and accompanied him physically—went from place to place. So these women had that strength of character that came from their nomadic steppe background. They brought that to Hindustan, and I think that’s why we suddenly find these examples of strong women in the middle of Indian history. I mean, Raziya Sultan is the only Islamic woman to have ruled in India. She is remembered, but with not a great deal of detail. The same is true of Gulbadan—the early Mughal women were completely unknown. When I wrote Daughters of the Sun, I don’t believe there was another book on the Mughal women. We had heard about the men, of course, the men were extraordinary, but the women were completely ignored, especially the early ones like Gulbadan and Hamida Banu Begum. Only the more recent ones were remembered. But now there is more interest. A scholar called Ruby Lal, who is based at an American university, is bringing out a biography of Gulbadan this year. So I am very excited. She has already written a book on Nur Jahan, she has written an academic book on early Mughal women, and now she is releasing a biography of Gulbadan. So I am hoping that now people are more excited to find out about the feminine side of Mughal rule, as well as the men who are so well known.

What are your favorite heroines of that time? Can you share some of the unknown stories?

I am very partial to the story of Jahanara Begum, who was the daughter of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan. After the death of her mother, she became Padshah Begum (head of the harem) at the age of 17, and from that moment onwards became a very wealthy and influential woman. She left behind a great legacy in architecture—she built a caravanserai, the Chandni chowk, and the hammams of Shahjahanabad (old Delhi)—wrote Sufi texts, considered herself the soul mate of her brother Dara Shukoh, and experienced Sufi trances. She was, in the seventeenth century, arguably the wealthiest and most powerful woman of her time. All the European traders had to negotiate with her if they wanted to carry out trade in India. When her father was imprisoned by Aurangzeb, she gave up all her privileges and followed her father into exile in Agra. And yet today, her legacy is almost forgotten, her buildings having all been destroyed by the British following the uprising of 1857.

Generally speaking, how were women viewed in each of these periods? Did anything change with the arrival of the Mughals?

I think with the arrival of the Mughals, women were given more freedom. They were very used to this sort of nomadic lifestyle, they were used to being part of the political structure, and so we see this in the early women. Later on, especially from the time of Akbar, things started changing because he married a lot of Rajput women. Also, a lot of his courtiers and his main noblemen were Rajput men.

The Rajput system had already introduced the system of Zenana and putting women in purdah because Rajasthan is in the northwest of India, and there were a lot of raids from people outside of India into Hindustan at that time. So the Rajasthan clans felt the need to protect their women, and so they brought in purdah. So this system of keeping women veiled was already there with the Rajput, and then Akbar married these women and it became, in a way, crystallized in the Mughal Empire. It became part of the social structure for elite women to be kept in purdah. It became something to emulate. All the elite clans of India wanted to do the same thing. And they also started increasing the level of women’s seclusion. So unfortunately, even though Akbar himself very much promoted the education of women and had a lot of sympathy for the women that he saw, it became much more normal to keep women in purdah. And then with the coming of the British later on, they brought in their own Victorian values: European women of that era were very much kept at home and did not have much independence at all. Thus, things became very rigid in India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as these Victorian values became part of our culture. So we lost a lot of the freedom that women maybe enjoyed in earlier centuries.

I was nineteen years old when I left the US to study for the first time. I spent five weeks on a summer exchange program at the International University in Moscow, sponsored by my home university in Texas. With twenty or so other students, I listened to lectures, watched Russian films, and went on various tours of museums and historical sites. As part of the program, we were assigned local students—native Russian-speakers—as tutors.

The minute my tutor and I met, we clicked. It was instant—we were sisters. Just like me, she was one of the only Asian people in her group. I am Cantonese-American, with both parents from Hong Kong. My tutor is part Kazakh. Unlike most of the other pairings, we remain close friends long after the end of the program.

Author

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Katherine Leung

Katherine Leung is an independent researcher specializing in youth culture and contemporary art in Tuva. She publishes her work in New Research of Tuva, reviews books for Lossi 36, and has curated multiple art exhibitions showcasing emerging artists from Kalmyk, Tatar, and Central Asian communities. She taught English in Samara, Russia as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in 2014 and at English camps in Tuva, Buryatia, and Primorsky Krai in 2015. She holds dual degrees, having earned a Bachelor of Arts in Russian and a Bachelor of Science in Education from the University of Texas at Austin.

While abroad, I found that I received discreetly preferential treatment from the Central Asian shopkeepers—a smile, an extra piece of candy slipped into my bag. I frequently received dinner on the house from workers at the shawarma stand. I soon realized that my experience was different from that of the other students. While every American was firmly warned against getting into an unlicensed taxi—so-called “gypsy cabs”—I realized that those rules did not apply to people who looked like me. As they did for Uzbek, Kyrgyz, and Tajik people, cars would stop for me, the driver frequently slowing down just to ask if I needed a lift. It was a constant, and it was safe—even in the bustling expanse that is Moscow.

Three years later, I returned to Russia, this time to a small city in a southwestern province. I was a part of a group of American English teachers sent to work in every corner of the country. The town in which I was placed relied on hundreds of marshrutki, vans driving specific routes and charging ten rubles a ride, as the main method of transportation. These vans were driven by Central Asians blasting their own music, to the chagrin of elderly riders. Frequently, drivers instructed me to climb into the elusive front passenger seat when the cab was full. Nobody else got to sit in the front. The drivers rarely accepted my fare.

I wasn’t prepared for my first winter. A Kazakh beautician struck up a conversation with me on social media, and the next day she helped me pick out a real jacket at a mall to which I would have never ventured on my own. My experience in other cities mirrored this kindness. On my way home on a minus-twenty-degree night, a Bashkir guy picked me up and took me to the city center in Ufa, saving me from a two-hour wait for the next bus. In Novosibirsk, a Kalmyk and Tuvan couple waited for me at the train station with snacks, just because some fellow Asian friends in Buryatia had mentioned to them that I would be in town (for half an hour, the entirety of the train’s stop in that city). On the road from Abakan to Kyzyl, a Tuvan woman took me under her wing, going so far as to order my meal for me at the sole rest stop in the 400-kilometer stretch between the republics of Khakassia and Tuva. In Tuva, strangers declared that I was Tuvan just because I look Tuvan.

With white Russians, I faced prejudice, whether it was the police profiling me as a sex worker or uninhibited drunks shouting “China!” or “Kazakhstan!” at me on the street. But in reflecting on the hospitality I experienced, as an outsider, from people who look similar to me, I couldn’t help but wonder what aspect of my privilege spoke to other Asian people. Obviously, I was a young female with youth on my side. Maybe it was naive to accept free food and bus rides, embedded in cultural routines and stigmas I didn’t understand. I didn’t exactly wear my Americanness on the outside, though my innate financial capital must have helped.

Perhaps it’s a trait of diasporic peoples, a minority outside our “homeland.” I was a perpetual foreigner in Russia, just as I had been my entire life in the US. I was used to this community care in the homes and worship centers of my pan-Asian immigrant community—and found it replicated on Russian soil.

Being Asian in the US

In the US, Asian American political movements are taking hold. Asian Americans are winning key political offices. Our vice-president is Indian-American. Simultaneously, media representation is starting to be noticed by non-Asian audiences. Films and media created by Asian Americans are gaining recognition from white Americans. On the surface, we are having a moment.

The US has always been a mixing pot of cultures and our mainstream media are trying to show that. In large cities, foods served in immigrant-owned restaurants are a mainstay of American life. Crimes against Asian immigrants are no longer ignored.

Absent from these narratives and cultural representations are Central Asians. The consumables to which Westerners have grown accustomed favor Eastern Asian diasporic narratives and the stories of Southern Asian creators over anything else. The ethnic groups originating from East and South Asia are much more populous than Central Asian countries, and the global immigrant diaspora reflects that. But let’s get real: even many Russians are not familiar with the Asian republics within their country’s borders.

Mainstream discourse centering on identity politics really falls short when it comes to Central Asian representation. Conversations about diversity or “seeing yourself represented” in the media are self-absorbed at best and a sinister commodification at worst. Much like the co-opted LGBTQ+ movement, Asians represent a growing market share that capitalism has opportunistically included without any real sense of solidarity.

Yet I still vividly remember the first time I saw a Central Asian character on American TV. It was a Netflix reality show based on the lives of New York socialites, Bling Empire. Released just a few years after Crazy Rich Asians, it was clearly riding the coattails of that phenomenon. The show featured a Thai heiress; a Taiwanese billionaire’s daughter; a Cantonese-American influencer; and a Taiwanese ABC entrepreneur dating a Kalmyk-Korean model, Vika Abbyaeva from Russia. At first quiet and often talked over, Vika slowly came into her own during the arc of the season (but not enough to break up with her lame boyfriend).

Upon seeing her face on TV, I wondered if this was the representation we all hoped for. Suddenly, more shades of the world’s largest continent were being shown to us in the mass media. But Vika was a beautiful supermodel—hardly relatable to the average diasporic Asian. She wasn’t a representative for all of us, and she shouldn’t have that responsibility placed upon her.

One character on a reality show isn’t an attempt to rectify the countless injustices perpetrated against Central Asians by colonizers in the last century. Leaving aside the complication that Kalmykia is presently located in Europe, Asians—or rather, Asian-looking peoples—in Russia have long had a complex relationship with Russian colonization.

Kalmyks found temporary solace under the Russian Empire but experienced mass atrocities and forced migration under Stalin with Operation Ulusy. In American academic discourse surrounding decolonization, researchers focus on Native Americans and enslaved Africans because of the clear power imbalance and bloodshed. It’s difficult for the average diasporic Asian person to place oneself in that colonizer/colonized dichotomy. Identifying the colonizer and source of oppression is not always clear when there have been long centuries of conflict, immigration, and colonization between historic people groups. Vika from Netflix’s Bling Empire is not the amalgamation of her ancestors dating back to the Kalmyk Khanate, nor am I the direct product of the civilizations before me. Dominant perceptions of identity politics can be inconsistent and exhausting.

Diasporic Solidarity

I feel kindred to other Asians, and while I don’t speak for the people I met while studying and working in Russia, I imagine they might have as well. The way nomadic peoples have historically been welcoming to guests probably influenced the generosity with which I was treated while living in Russia: attributing hospitality to a shared Asian bloodline and hypothetical “big Asian family” are remnants of old customs still present today. Language barriers, including sometimes not even having Russian as a mutual language, didn’t impact understanding for me.

Leaving behind capitalistic definitions of representation and diversity, I often wonder how to consolidate shared experiences with identity politics and history. We are not black or white, but occupy a third space left out of academic discourse on race, class, and power in the white-majority countries in which diasporic Asians reside. When white majorities discuss anti-Asian racism, it should be addressed only in combination with community care and mutual aid. Mutual aid between Turkic peoples and Mongol groups within Central Asia is embedded in their customs.

Real solidarity between Asian people is not about parades or visible political offices, but rather about systematically restructuring social norms to support everyone, with an emphasis on the most marginalized. I don’t think people consciously realize that what they seek is an efficient welfare-based social system, instead of citizens building one in the gaps left by existing institutions. Mutual aid is not charity, but the building and continuing of new social relations where people give what they can and get what they need, outside of unjust systems of power. Free shawarma and taxi rides are surely versions of this idealized mutual aid.

Without extrapolating too much from my personal experiences and realizing that I wasn’t able to return the care shown to me, I write from a place of appreciation and the hope to do more. Asian culture could not be any more different across ethnic groups, but there are a few similarities. One is the anti-blackness prevalent in all our societies. It’s reflected in how Asian Americans navigate culture in the West, but it’s also evident in everyday language.

In Buddhist-majority populations, there’s prevailing Islamophobia. In Kyzyl, I was told that the market was dangerous, as Muslims might steal “girls like us” for ISIS brides. In Buryatia, I was praised for my light skin. This behavior is entrenched across Asian society. Addressing it, discussing ways to end it, and ultimately working to end anti-blackness would take us one step closer to a world where all marginalized peoples can live in solidarity.

As diasporic Asians, we cannot give into white supremacist rhetoric that ultimately divides us. The idea of a hierarchy of religions that determines our outcomes is drawn directly from the playbook of white supremacy. Identifying that this exists in our culture and combatting it via education, interfaith meetings, and mutual aid will overcome rigid institutions. Solidarity will look like unity against wars, apartheid, and neocolonialism. The easy answer to the complex issues is to build solidarity networks amongst ourselves first and foremost.

Another factor that turns identity politics on its ugly head is the growing influence of the Chinese government in Central Asia. Old narratives of colonization as the purview of Russians or Western Europeans are changing rapidly as the Chinese government exerts ever more control over Central Asia, building new infrastructure, destabilizing daily life, and using every form of capital to dominate these smaller countries. The Belt and Road Initiative builds infrastructure in the name of development, not unlike British colonization in previous centuries. Journalists and NGOs in Central Asia have been speaking out against this for years, yet governments continue to—and always will—make decisions without the consent of the people.

The Asian solidarity we seek does not entail excluding Asians from more powerful or wealthier groups (i.e. Chinese nationalists), but banding together to understand the presence of real oppression. Authentic solidarity develops when ordinary people work to end oppression together, a charge that is rooted in care and love for one another. Mutual aid has always included taxis and community care, but I know it will ultimately play a huge role in uprooting broken systems.

All photos by
Katherine Leung

The most famous woman with a camera in Central Asia, Umida Akhmedova—a photographer and the author of significant documentary works—talks about herself, her creative and personal path, self-realization in the face of public censure and rejection, a lawsuit against her, and the changes that women in Central Asia feel today.

An Interview with

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Umida Akhmedova

Umida Akhmedova is a photographer and photojournalist working and living in Central Asia. In 2010 she was convicted of “slander of the Uzbek nation” after making a documentary. Since 2010, she can not participate in any official exhibitions in Uzbekistan. As a photographer she has participated in exhibitions addressing urban and rural issues and has collaborated on film and book projects including the presentation of the short film The Burden of Virginity. As an Associated Press photographer, her images have been published in the photography sections of the online editions of The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail.  In the course of her work she has documented the traditions, disparate cultures and everyday events in the modern borders of Uzbekistan.

 Wikipedia

About Myself

I always start a story about myself with the fact that when a person is 17 years old, he/she does not always know what he/she needs in life, hence he/she has no idea what he/she needs to do in life, and ambitions usually lead somewhere. Ambitious people always know that they need to do something so as not to disappear from the earth without a trace. It was with such thoughts that I unexpectedly found myself at the door of the Vladimir Kultprosvet (a cultural and educational school in the Vladimir Oblast of Russia). After failing to gain admission to Moscow State University as a girl from Parkent (in the Tashkent district of Uzbekistan), I could not return home. Now I understand, soberly assessing my academic preparedness at that time, that I could not have entered the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University, but as a young girl I had high hopes. The school in Vladimir was not at all a prestigious educational institution. As my husband says, I was pressed against the wall. I had to study because I had left my home in Parkent for good. This school helped me find myself: I connected my life with photography. We were given FED cameras, and we took pictures ourselves, processed the pictures ourselves. At that time, I had a symbolic dream that foretold my future fate: I saw my photos and they were moving.

After graduating from the cultural and educational school in Vladimir, I resolved to continue my studies in the camera department of VGIK (the Moscow cinematography school). To do this, it was necessary to work as an assistant cameraman at a film studio. Before hiring me, the director of the film studio summoned my father. He told him that no girl had ever been hired as a cameraman, but that after looking at my photos, he was inclined to give me a chance. It was hard to work as an assistant cameraman, because the male operators did not really want a girl to carry the equipment behind them.

Nevertheless, I was preparing to enter VGIK, where there were strict criteria for admission. By a happy coincidence, I met on the set the chairman of the Panorama photo club, Mikhail Stein, who really helped me to prepare for the exams and later to become a photographer. Due to the experience of working in a photo club, I gained the knowledge for the creative competition for admission to VGIK. I passed that test—at VGIK they really liked my photos—and enrolled in the “feature cinema operator” department. I continued to work and studied via distance learning. In my third year, I asked the director of Uzbekfilm (the film studio) to hire me, as I wanted to become qualified as a feature film operator?. However, this time I had no luck. So I have stayed in the documentary industry, which I no longer regret at all. I would add that it is almost impossible to combine films and photography. I “departed” from photography during the perestroika period—or, as I like to say, the period “when socialism had not left, but the time of ‘Mustakkilik’ (independence) had not yet come.” It was a good period for creators because there was no state censorship or strict control thanks to Gorbachev’s short-lived Glasnost (publicity).

Later, when the Soviet Union collapsed, there was no point in staying at UzKinochronika either morally or financially. At that turbulent time, I threw myself headlong into my family and into photography. I have always photographed what I liked or what I considered significant. The image of my hometown, Parkent, did much to inspire my works. Even when I left my father’s house and later moved to Tashkent, that image was always with me.

See more photos by Umida Akhmedova: A visual journey through Uzbek society: Ten iconic moments by photographer Umida Akhmedova

Parkent

In general, I have great respect for cosmopolitans, people who can live and create far from their roots. Unfortunately, I have a different story. It’s okay to be a globalist, a cosmopolitan, but to me, it is important to have a connection to your roots, the place where you were born.

There were many people—among them my parents—who were not obsessed with the issues of patriotism or sources of roots. Speaking of my parents, I would like to note that I consider my parents to be intelligent people, although my mother did not work officially anywhere. She had a phenomenal memory. In her life, she learned three alphabets: Latin, Cyrillic, and later Arabic, as she was deeply religious and wanted to read the Quran in its original language. She read many books. If all believers were like my mother, then there would never have been a single conflict on religious grounds. My dad was a doctor, a participant in the Second World War (1941-1945). All my relatives lived in Parkent. My maternal grandparents were progressive, they were literate. It seems to me that being a pioneer meant more in those years than it would later.

I think the intelligentsia are the intelligentsia everywhere; this does not depend on nationality. It is about spirituality, and my father understood this very well. He taught us to respect other cultures. Despite having been a soldier who fought on the front lines, he was not against German culture. He could distinguish between politics and art, and knew that one should not be confused with the other. This affected my family. My sister, for example, became a literary editor, writer, and translator. She has been translating world classics into Uzbek. I think the role of my family in my development is very important. Moreover, my love for Parkent—as my source, my family-related roots—is very important to me.

Husband

I will not say that Oleg [Oleg Karpov, her husband] was immediately accepted by my family. In our society, there was and still is a certain concern about shame, prompting questions like “What will people say?” and “How will we look in their eyes?” Such questions overwhelmed my parents, but I am grateful to them for not throwing tantrums. My parents showed wisdom, understanding that what is good for a child is good for the child’s parents. They treated my husband with great respect. From the very beginning, our relationship was based on mutual respect. Nobody was going to win over—or submit to—someone else. That is, no one was going to become Uzbek—or, conversely, become Russian. We understood that we were different and accepted our differences with great respect. That is, as usual in my environment, there was no cursing (“ok kyldym”). I knew a family in which the girl’s mother was Russian and her father was Uzbek. Despite the fact that the girl was not a pure Uzbek, her father cursed her for marrying a non-Uzbek. That friend put her son in an Uzbek kindergarten, and when the child went to his grandparents’ house and greeted his bobo (grandfather) in Uzbek, the grandfather kicked the child out. The child peed out of fear. This hostility toward people of different nationalities, which reaches horrific proportions in some families, did not happen in mine. I cannot say that I have felt discrimination or humiliation. This has not happened to us.

Women with Cameras

I was the first girl from Central Asia to graduate from the Cinematography Department of VGIK. Previously, I did not emphasize that I was the first and only, because I thought that I had not done enough for this. However, I accept it as a fact now.

As I said above, the cinematic community met me with suspicion; they did not trust me completely. The male directors were in no hurry to work with me. Gradually, once I proved that I was a serious specialist, they began to work with me. At the film studio, I had my own teachers among the cameramen, in particular Kakhramon Khasanov. I admired his attitude toward the profession. I received credence from a woman director, Galina Ogurnaya. She and I made such films as “The Deadlock of Baysun,” “Milky Way,” and “Zainuddin’s Golden Apple,” among others. She was a film director, I was a director for cinematography, but unfortunately, I did not work in the film industry for long. I consider men as techno whizzes; they are much more inclined to follow the technical rules. It is always more interesting for me to reflect the mood or the atmosphere than to pay attention to the correctness of the frame, staging, and composition while filming. It seems to me that this is less about gender than about your psychotype—your sensitivity and perception of the world. It also depends on your type of thinking.

Men are often more organized than women—but again, not always. Everyone is an individual, and therefore I can’t say that there are big gender differences between men and women’s works. Let’s take a look at the work of Margarita Pilikhina, a director of cinematography for the film Ilyich’s Outpost. It seems to me that a man would never have filmed as she did. She was an extremely talented artist. Unfortunately, she passed away early. I grew up at a time when the operator was a co-author of the film director. Now I don’t see this. We were taught to show our visual version of the scripts. We were taught to develop our handwriting. It seems to me now that cameramen shoot beautifully, evenly, but almost everyone has the same handwriting; few people have a creative personality. Certainly, this does not mean that they shoot badly; there is simply no individual style in the camera work.

Creative Path

It is very difficult for us to be creative in Central Asia. It always used to be hard, but now it’s even harder, I think. In general, we consider a woman with a camera extraordinary. I am still not considered an “earthly” person by my neighbors in Parkent. People are always surprised when I tell them that I have children and grandchildren. There is an opinion in society that a woman with a camera cannot have a family, and everyone is surprised at my “normality”—having a family is the norm in our society. I remember when I was shooting in my Parkent in Soviet times, I felt the same as those who had taken off the veil. From all sides, I heard ridicule, mockery. Yet although it was difficult at that time, there was a better attitude toward women with cameras; now, I think, the situation has deteriorated. Back then, there was the excuse that people were building the future, and therefore the difficulties of becoming were understandable, but today, people no longer have faith in the future.

The attitude toward women here has always been suboptimal. From my perspective, I came into the profession from nowhere. During the Soviet times, a recommendation was important—it mattered “who brought you there.” It was important who was backing you; there were all these behind-the-scenes games on the path to professional growth. It was hard for me because I was not just a girl with a camera, but also a girl “from nowhere,” without connections and support. However, I had a strong desire to become a professional in my field. It was very difficult to grow without this extra support. I remember everyone who hurt me, but I don’t want to say their names right now. Many of them are no longer in this world. Besides the negativity, there was a lot of positivity too. There were always friends nearby, most of whom were professionals in my industry.

Trial

Exactly 13 years ago, in February 2010, there was a trial not only against me, but against a large group of people.[1] The witch hunt began due to a fear of the Color Revolutions that were taking place in the post-Soviet space. That was the first reason. The second one was about the gender programs that bothered the authorities. It was important for the State Prosecution to know on whose initiative we had made our films, which organizations had commissioned them, what goals we pursued in our work. I have to admit that independent people are not liked everywhere. There is always a bit of annoyance toward people who are outside control. This is always an unpleasant feature of authoritarian societies, as it is believed that only the authorities have the right to public spaces. I remember accusations against the Soros Foundation, the Tashkent branch of which was closed in 2004. Then we had the Andijan bloody events in 2005. After these occurrences, repression of civil society increased, and many public organizations and activists suffered. They treated civil activists very rudely and unceremoniously.

My husband and I produced a film, The Burden of Virginity, that was the main argument for the charge of “insulting the feelings of the Uzbek people.” This film was accepted neither by the Gender Program at the Swiss Embassy in the Republic of Uzbekistan nor by the public. However, we screened it at the Cinema Museum founded by my husband, Oleg Karpov. There was a newsbreak due to Fergana.ru and therefore Oleg and I turned out to be the main defendants in this case. We were all granted amnesty later on, but I still do not like to remember that time. I felt great irritation that this was an insult to all active creative work and a clear civic position. I felt an echo of the Soviet legacy in the fact that I had to report to the authorities, who sought to control us all, in front of everyone. I’m glad that I had strong support in my family; thanks to the support of my husband, Oleg Karpov, I survived everything.

Women’s Creativity

Whether Uzbek or Tajik, as women from traditional societies, we have always had limited rights in terms of our actions. Nevertheless, I always have great respect for our women: it seems to me that if our women want something, they always achieve it. Unfortunately, there are few examples, but they still exist. I believe that self-realization requires inner strength. You can’t go anywhere without it. Your life is in your own hands, and an ability to take risks is required for self-realization. “You can’t be a little pregnant” is a saying in Russian. If you worry about what people say, you will never achieve anything. You have to hold on; do not be afraid to stand out from the crowd. My neighbors got used to me, and your neighbors will get used to you. I remember that when I used to walk around with cameras hanging around my neck, everyone used to stare at me, but then they got used to me and I got used to them. I think no one in the neighborhood can now imagine me without a camera. The environment accepted me for who I am.

You have to get what you want for yourself. No one will come and do it for you. In general, what is the recipe here? We understand very well where we live, in what kind of society we reside. For example, sometimes I am asked about not covering my head. I reply that it is my choice to go without a headscarf. That is it. Women should do what they want to do, not what society expects from them. I love our rituals and traditions very much, but I do not always want to follow them. For example, why should I have a grand wedding to please society? I won’t do something to please anyone. We have to learn to rise above conventions. Actually, I am the same wife, mother, grandmother, I just spend more of my time on my profession, on self-realization. I realize that it is absolutely impossible to become free from society, but why not become an example of staying above convention?

Unfortunately, nowadays the situation is not very good for positive changes. If in Soviet times there was an ideology supported by the main Party Committee or the Komsomol, now this is all gone. Previously, in our youth, what we desired was knowledge, perseverance for excellence, but this is no longer the case. Now everyone wants to get married, if not legally, then at least illegally as a second, third wife, but always “to a wealthy man.” It makes me wonder why the victims of the liberation of the women of the East were needed, if my sisters are so comfortable being “slaves” to the rules. Ichgari (the inner side of the house where only a woman’s husband could enter) has become a symbol of young women’s success. Now, women are ready to endure many humiliations just to have the status of being married.

Success

I am quite successful. I consider my education, the realization of my goals in my distant youth, to be my first achievement. The opportunity to meet new people and cultures is a further achievement. I feel empty if I don’t travel around the world. It is very important to travel and return home. My next achievement is my family. I am happy that I have a family, children and grandchildren. My husband is my co-author, my colleague, and my support. Despite the difference in our cultures, we have been able to create a strong family. My son (Timur Karpov), who is in the same profession as my husband and I, is different. I learn from him, because he belongs to the generation of younger modern visualists. There is always something new to learn about and to grasp.

[1] Umida Akhmedova was convicted of “offense through mass media” by the court in the capital, Tashkent, after government experts found her documentary “offensive to the Uzbek nation.” She could have been sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, but was released under an amnesty in honor of the 18th anniversary of Uzbek independence.

All photos by
Umida Akhmedova

In Persia and the greater Central Asian region, two religions once fought for dominance. In the end, Zoroastrianism—which still enjoys adherents to this day—was forced to give way to the more powerful Islam. While at first some Muslims found ways to incorporate Zoroastrians into the empire of Islamic law, they subsequently had been less accommodating.

In this interview, Andrew D. Magnusson describes the interaction between Zoroastrianism and Islam and notes its flexibility. He also discusses how Zoroastrianism, which originally came from Central Asia, coexists with Islam in the Islamic Republic of Iran today and how it has influenced other religions.

Interview with

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Andrew D. Magnusson

Andrew D. Magnusson, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern history in the Department of History & Geography at the University of Central Oklahoma. Before coming to UCO, he taught at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. Magnusson earned a Ph.D. in Islamic history at the University of California in Santa Barbara. 

 Bio

In your book Zoroastrians in Early Islamic History: Accommodation and Memory, you examine the historical inclusion and exclusion of Zoroastrians in Islamic society. What were the differences and/or similarities between the Zoroastrians and the ancient Muslims? Who were Zoroastrians really, according to your findings, and why have they had such a lasting legacy?

Zoroastrianism is a modern umbrella term for a group of religious beliefs that center around recognition of a prophet known as Zoroaster (Ζωροάστηρ) in Greek, or Zarathustra in Persian. This is a prophet who lived in Central Asia, probably near Balkh, what is today Mazār-e Sharīf in Afghanistan. Maybe as early as 1800 BCE, or as recently as 1200 BC — it’s a little bit difficult to determine Zoroaster’s time period. But in any case, Zoroaster was an Indo-European priest who taught people to worship Ahura Mazda. Central Asians at that time recognized a wide variety of angelic figures and demonic figures. But Zoroaster brought this message that Ahura Mazda was the one to focus on; he also taught that Ahura Mazda was engaged in a struggle with Ahriman, who was this force of darkness and the personification of evil. People who worshiped Ahura Mazda could engage in this struggle: they could weaken Ahriman by practicing purity in their lives. This was purity not only in the physical sense of washings and things like that, but also in the sense of moral behavior that conformed to the teachings of Ahura Mazda. This purity could be maintained by connecting with the priestly class—Zoroaster being a member of this priestly class, known as the Magi—who would perform rituals or liturgies. These liturgies were often hymns; they were later collected and now form a book that is today known as the Avesta. The Avesta is kind of the Zoroastrian book of scripture, if you will, although other books, commentaries, etc., have been added since then.

Zoroastrians built places of worship for the Magi for these ritual ceremonies. These were called “fire temples” in English. I would say Zoroastrianism really became established when, in the third century CE, the Sasanian Persian Empire made Zoroastrianism its official religion. Before that, it had perhaps been the official religion of various emperors, Persian and otherwise. But when it became the official state religion, that’s when Zoroastrianism began to spread, and we know that it had great influence from what is today Turkey to maybe as far as China—certainly in the Middle East, from places like Armenia all the way to Yemen. So it’s one of the great world religions and one of the most significant in the history of the world, but it’s not very well known today, in part because the number of Zoroastrians has declined significantly over the years. The reason for this decline is actually one of the mysteries that got me interested in this research.

We know that in antiquity Zoroastrianism is very influential and by modern periods there were relatively few Zoroastrians, so what happened in the middle? This is what my research looks at. There are so many stereotypes or assumptions about what happened to Zoroastrians in this middle period, and my research really tries to plug some of those holes with actual facts from the sources.

One of the interesting issues that comes up in the study of Zoroastrianism is to what extent Zoroastrianism is a monotheistic religion—that is, believes in one God—or a dualistic religion—that is, believes in two gods, because there are Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, of course. So one of the fun and difficult parts of studying Zoroastrianism is simply classifying it: Is it monotheistic, dualistic, or polytheistic? I would say most Zoroastrians today consider themselves monotheistic, which I think is an important thing to note.

Islam obviously started in the seventh century with the Prophet Mohammed in Arabia, who preached the idea that God is one—which is similar, in a sense, to Zoroaster’s message about Ahura Mazda being the singular deity to worship. The Prophet Mohammed provided a series of Arabic-language revelations or recitations that were later gathered into a book called the Quran. This message that Mohammed brought spread very quickly from Medina, where he was initially based and established his political power, to conquer Mecca, which was his hometown, where he had not originally been successful in spreading his message. Ultimately, Mohammed became the political leader of most of Arabia. But after his death, Muslims struggled about what to do next.

Mohamed was generally recognized to be the last prophet, and so after his death there was some question about the status of his political power. That tended to devolve to a Caliph—a successor to Mohamed. Then those Caliphs ended up spreading Islam all the way across North Africa into Central Asia. So looking at some of the similarities and differences between Zoroastrianism and Islam, there’s an emphasis on prophets. Although Muslims recognize Mohamed as the last prophet, they would not necessarily recognize Zoroaster as a prophet. There are different scriptural traditions: Muslims generally recognize Jewish people and Christian people as having legitimate books of scripture, whereas Zoroastrians have a book called the Avesta that is not always recognized by Muslims as legitimate scripture. So there are many similarities between Islam and Zoroastrianism, but not all of them are recognized as similarities. In fact, ironically, they are often emphasized as differences.

If you look at early Islamic history, Muslims were not the majority in the Middle East or anywhere for a very long time. So early on, I think there was much more of a sense of connection with other religions—for instance, Islam got its start in Arabia, where there were a lot of Jewish people and so there were some interactions. There were also some tensions and some problems there, admittedly. The same with Christianity: I think that Islam initially differed from Christianity, for instance, in saying that Jesus is not divine, but there was also a lot of praise for Christians in the Quran, in Mohamed’s life, and so on. So I think some of the tensions and some of the ideas that Muslims are different from all other believers may in fact represent modern understandings of Islam, or even just later understandings, but not this early period. This early period, I would say, is much more ecumenical in the sense that there is a shared connection between these groups that is generally recognized.

You write that some Muslims considered Zoroastrians pagans and sought to limit interaction with them, while others found ways to incorporate them into the empire of Islamic law. How did the final acceptance of the Zoroastrians happen, and why, according to Arab historians, is there no shared history between Zoroastrians and Muslims?

That’s a really great question. That’s the question that really motivated this history. And I think the title of the book gives you some insight into how I approached this question.

The title of the book is Zoroastrians in Early Islamic History: Accommodation and Memory. So I’m really looking at the encounter between these two peoples through two lenses: accommodation and memory.

Accommodation is the idea that powerful groups in society would give special privileges or exemptions to groups that were not normative—that didn’t fit the mold. I think Zoroastrianism fits this description because Muslims, as I said earlier, struggled to classify Zoroastrianism. Where did it fit? Were these people like Jews and Christians? Were they different? You might be familiar with the idea of “people of the book” —this is a Qur’anic term that generally refers to Jews and Christians, who read the Bible. Could Zoroastrians be “people of the book”? Well, they had a book, the Avesta, but that book wasn’t in the Bible. So Muslims struggled with that idea. The Quran says that “people of the book” are people that Muslims can interact with, can socialize with, can tax, and can marry. Could they do those things with Zoroastrians? That was the question that really perplexed a lot of early Muslims. So this is what I was studying as I was reading Quran commentaries and taxation manuals and judicial rulings.

I was looking for answers to this question: Can they interact? Can Zoroastrians be accommodated? And the answer that I found was “yes.” Muslims generally agreed that they could tax Zoroastrians, that Zoroastrians could exist in their empire and live side by side with them. But at the same time, Muslims generally agreed that they would not recognize Zoroastrians as “people of the book.”

So this is where the idea of accommodation comes in. Muslims decide to allow these people to integrate in their society, but at the same time do not recognize them as one of the acceptable classes theologically. And that, to me, beautifully describes accommodation. To accommodate means to extend a special privilege or exemption to a group in order to benefit from their useful endeavors.

So Zoroastrians could usefully pay taxes, which would help the Muslim empire thrive, but Muslims didn’t have to recognize them as “people of the book.” So that is the first way that I studied Zoroastrians and the Muslim encounter: through the idea of accommodation. Muslims are willing to be flexible in allowing these people in, but they’re not willing to compromise their standards.

The second way that I chose to look at this issue was through memory. Because even though there was this idea of flexibility in early Islamic history—recognizing Zoroastrians in some ways, but not in others—Muslim sources later remembered things very differently. As I read sources like local Persian histories, they didn’t talk about accommodation and flexibility when they described what happened; they said Islam arrived in Persia in the seventh century and destroyed all the religions that came before. And so those sources have a very harsh memory of this history. In the Central Asian context, for instance, we’re talking about Ta’rikhi Bukhara (“History of Bukhara,” by Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Ja’far al-Narshaxi), which says something along the lines of “Qutayba ibn Muslim came in—he was the first conqueror that came in—and he destroyed all the fire temples and built mosques on top of them, and then Muslims were in charge.” So those early sources talk about flexibility and accommodation and the later sources talk about inflexibility and conquest and domination.

And so what I try to do in the book is show that this Muslim-Zoroastrian encounter has different shades to it, and has different parts, depending on which sources you read. There are accounts that emphasize flexibility—I think those are the earlier sources—and there are accounts that emphasize domination—those are the later ones that are projecting memories into the past.

After the Arab conquest of Sasanid Iran, many Zoroastrians eventually converted to Islam. Under what conditions did ancient Zoroastrians live under Islamic rule? How severe were the restrictions on and the persecution of Zoroastrians? How did they manage to maintain their traditions, like the Nowruz celebration, which is probably the strongest Zoroastrian tradition that is still alive today?

As I mentioned earlier, I see in a lot of Islamic sources an accommodation of Zoroastrians. But accommodation has limits. There were areas in which Muslims were not willing to be flexible or compromise with Zoroastrians: Muslims allowed Zoroastrians to live in the caliphates, but never recognized them as “people of the book.” So what was the consequence of not recognizing them as “people of the book”?

The Quran says that Muslims can marry “people of the book.” The Quran says that Muslims can eat food, particularly meat, prepared by “people of the book.” But if Zoroastrians were never recognized as “people of the book,” then theoretically Muslims should not marry them and should not eat food, particularly meat, prepared by them. And so when you’re asking about what life was like for Zoroastrians under Muslim rule, there were lots of restrictions. In some cases, Zoroastrians suffered the same restrictions that all non-Muslims did: they had to pay an extra tax called Jizyah, they often had to dress differently than Muslims, they sometimes couldn’t build new houses of worship or other things. But Zoroastrians, because they were not “people of the book,” also had additional restrictions on them—that is Muslims could not marry them and could not eat their meat. And this has been well documented. One of the questions that I ask in the book, then, is: How effective were these restrictions?

Because it’s one thing to say, the law said something, but it’s another thing to say, what did people actually do? And so I started looking at some of the most common restrictions on Zoroastrianism. And if you dig a little bit deeper than just reading the laws, we find ways that Zoroastrians were not following those rules and that Muslims were not following them. This gets into the shared history that they have together. For instance, I mentioned that Muslims were not supposed to eat meat prepared by Zoroastrians. Interestingly, there are many Hadiths—these are statements attributed to the Prophet Mohammed—that permit Muslims to eat cheese made by Zoroastrians. Now cheese and meat are different things, but in the past, the way that people made cheese was they would slaughter an animal—let’s say a cow—that had milk curdling inside it, and then use that curdled milk to make cheese. And so meat and cheese are very similar objects in Muslim conceptions of food laws. So there were all these rules or statements attributed to Mohamed that said, well, it’s okay to eat Zoroastrians’ cheese. Michael Cook at Princeton University has found that these statements were often promoted by Muslim lawyers in places like Kufa, Iraq. Iraq was one of the places that had a large Zoroastrian population in antiquity. And so Michael Cook proposes, and I extend, the idea that Zoroastrians and Muslims interacted in the markets: they bought each other’s food and goods. And so Islamic law became flexible enough to include those goods, like cheese.

There is one more example that I deal with in the book because I don’t want to give the sense that life was just rosy for Zoroastrians under Islamic rule. Obviously, there were restrictions and some of those restrictions were enforced—and they were harsh at times.

One of the ways we know this is because I found a document called the Ahdnameh. It is a document that the Prophet Mohamed supposedly gave to Salmān al-Fārisī. Salmān al-Fārisī was one of the Prophet’s earliest companions. He was Persian, as his name implies, and some sources tell us he converted from Zoroastrianism to Islam.

And so we have this document that Mohammed supposedly gave to Salmān al-Fārisī. This document is not authentic, so let me be clear about that. But it is important as a historical record to see what it says about ways that Muslims and Zoroastrians imagined their encounter with each other. This document supposedly given by the Prophet Mohamed says that Zoroastrians have freedom from many stipulations in Islamic law.

So for instance, this document Ahdnameh says that Zoroastrians do not have to pay Jizyah­—the extra tax. This document says that Salman’s family, for instance, can control their fire temples and that Muslims should not go near their fire temples. This document says that Salman’s family doesn’t have to dress differently than Muslims.

And so a lot of the rules in Islamic law that were there to separate Muslims and Zoroastrians actually, in this document, were flouted. But again, just because we have this document doesn’t mean it was followed. So I’ve been able to study the history of this document and how it got passed down from generation to generation, and I have found that Muslims were very interested in this document. They consistently copied and transmitted this document all the way to the modern period. In fact, Muslims brought this document to India, where there was a small group of Zoroastrians living called Parsis, and Parsis copied this document, and that’s when this document became very famous among Zoroastrians.

So again, on this question of what restrictions did Zoroastrians live with under Islamic law, we have lots of rules, lots of laws, but we always have to ask to what extent they were followed. Because we have documents like Ahdnameh that say some Zoroastrians get exemptions. And then we have other things, like Zoroastrian cheese, that show that Muslims were keen to flout their own restrictions. And so we always have to ask to what extent these rules were enforced.

So how did they manage to maintain traditions like Nowruz?

I think that you’re right to identify Nowruz with Zoroastrianism. It was certainly a practice in the Sasanian Empire—probably earlier, probably as far back as we have Persian history. Nowruz is a celebration of the vernal equinox. It’s very much tied to agricultural cycles, to the position of the sun, which influences those cycles.

So we have Nowruz documented well before the Islamic period. Yet you are right to note that it is very popular as a holiday today in Iran and Central Asia—really, in any place influenced by Persian culture. So I think this again shows that one way that Muslims and Zoroastrians got along is that they found ways to combine their religions to draw on each other’s traditions.

So much so that today I think we would call Nowruz a Persian holiday as opposed to a Zoroastrian holiday or a Muslim holiday, even though Zoroastrians and Muslims both celebrate it. What’s the commonality? They all kind of celebrate Persian culture. This applies equally to Central Asia. Central Asia is a Persian realm—that is, Persian culture had a lot of influence there—and so Nowruz is very influential there as well. So this is a great example of ways that Muslims and Zoroastrians found to get along. There are customs that Muslims adopted from Zoroastrians that are well known and well acknowledged, and there are also customs that Zoroastrians adopted from Muslims.

Have you ever wondered how Zoroastrians’ situation changed with the establishment of the Islamic Republic in Iran?

I admit here, first, that I am an historian of the ancient world and not the modern world. So I apologize for not being as familiar. I also want to acknowledge that because I’m trained mostly in Middle Eastern studies, my knowledge of Central Asia is not always as deep. I’ll tell you what I know. But let me tell you about Iran, which is the area that I have studied the most.

Obviously, big changes came to Iran in 1979 with the revolution that overthrew the Shah. In the 20th century, Iran was very accommodating of Zoroastrianism. The Shah often promoted ancient Persian history as the basis of Iranian identity, and that included Zoroastrian symbols and customs.

Things changed with the revolution in Iran, when Shia (Shīʿa) Islam became the official religion of the new government. But there were spaces carved out for Zoroastrians in this new Islamic Republic. For instance, the Islamic Republic guarantees one seat in the Majles—the parliament—for a Zoroastrian representative. Other ways that Zoroastrians receive special accommodations are that Zoroastrians are allowed to worship in their houses, in their fire temples. They are allowed to mix with each other in mixed-gender groups, which is not possible for Muslims in Iran in the same way. Zoroastrians in Iran are also allowed to consume alcohol. These exceptions exist because they are not Muslim citizens of Iran and the state is explicitly Islamic. So this harks back in some ways to this idea that Muslims should make accommodations for people who are different. But that does not mean that Zoroastrians do not face a lot of difficulty in Iran today.

Let me emphasize just a few. There is a lot of discrimination in Iran, particularly in the areas of employment and education. Zoroastrians often get passed over for promotions or positions of leadership because they are not Muslim. It is also difficult for Zoroastrians to get into universities in Iran because the university entrance exams test your knowledge of Islam. But being Zoroastrians, they are not trained in Islamic theology. In fact, high school curriculums allow Zoroastrians to study their own religious history while Muslims study Islam. Yet when it comes to the admission exams, everybody has to be tested on their knowledge of Islam, which is inherently unfair. Those pose difficulties for Zoroastrians. There are other difficulties. Zoroastrian spaces have been appropriated by the Islamic Republic. So there is a large cemetery in Tehran that’s been owned by the Zoroastrian community for a hundred years, but the Islamic Revolutionary Guard has taken it over and uses it as a training ground. So Zoroastrians have a hard time burying their dead because they cannot get into their own cemetery at times. As a result, a lot of Zoroastrians have ended up migrating. They have left Iran. Many of them come to the United States. They’re able to get special visas related to religious persecution, among others. There are special agencies set up that make that transfer possible. So a lot of Zoroastrians have got out of Iran and the population of Zoroastrians in Iran is slowly decreasing. That represents one side of how Zoroastrians have dealt with this new situation in the Islamic Republic.

In Iran today, there’s a movement that’s slowly gaining ground to identify Zoroastrianism as the original religion of Iran. People who object to the current government of Iran—to its Islamic foundation—say, “Well, Islam is not really true to Persian identity. Persians were originally Zoroastrians. Therefore, if we want to be true to our religious faith, we should revert to Zoroastrianism.” And so there are movements among young people, for instance, to wear the Faravahar, which is a symbol of Zoroastrianism.

Is there anything exciting about Zoroastrians in Central Asia? It is known that the Sogdians were Zoroastrians and were able to spread the religion along the trade routes between East and West. Did they reach China with their religion? How did religious propaganda work in those times?

I like this question because it allows me to talk more about the Central Asian aspect, because I feel like we’ve focused mostly on Iran and other places, but I think this is really important.

I would say the most exciting thing about Zoroastrianism for Central Asia is that Zoroastrianism comes from Central Asia. It was originally born there, on the steppe, with Zoroaster in 1200 BCE in what is today Mazar-i Sharif in Northern Afghanistan, and it became one of the world’s most influential religions. And that’s very exciting because I think that brings a recognition to Central Asia that the region often doesn’t get. It’s too often overlooked. But it was the crucible that brought this religion to us.

I think you’re right to note ways that trade with Sogdians and others took Zoroastrianism beyond its original confines, because of course Zoroastrianism gets established in Central Asia with Zoroaster, then it’s taken to Persia and becomes the official Persian religion. Then it spreads even more broadly from there. And I think it does go all the way to China. And so this was an important point that you brought up.

The Sasanian Empire was the last Persian empire that Muslims conquered, and its last emperor in antiquity was Yazdegerd III. And he ran from Muslim forces as they chased him across Iran. He was ultimately killed in Merv, in what is today Turkmenistan. But his family continued running and they ran all the way to China. They ran to the Tang Dynasty in China and the Tang Dynasty hosted them. So there are a few documents—not many, and most of them are in Chinese—that describe these Persians living in China. And eventually the Tang Dynasty sent Yazdegerd’s son back to Persia. He lived on the frontiers of Persia, what is today Sīstān (also spelled Seistan)—kind of that border between Afghanistan and Iran—and for a while there was hope that he would restore the Persian empire, that he would defeat Muslim forces. Obviously, that didn’t happen, but that does show the interest and the influence of China in Central Asia all the way back to the eighth, seventh centuries.

Zoroastrianism, which comes out of Central Asia, influences almost every other religion in the world that I can think of, particularly the three biggest monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Zoroastrianism is probably the origin of the idea of a heaven and a hell as rewards for believers. Zoroaster emphasized that there’s this god of light, Ahura Mazda, and there’s also this god of darkness, Ahriman, that kind of separates rewards for believers here on Earth into two separate realms. This idea that there’s a malevolent tempter or a devil out there is very Zoroastrian in its origin. The idea that humanity will face a final judgment is straight out of Zoroastrianism. Also, for instance, Jewish people lived in Babylonian captivity for several generations before the Persian empire liberated them. And we now know that Jewish scripture has a lot of Zoroastrian influence in it. Then Christians picked up that influence as well—not only from Jewish people, but also because the Roman Empire interacted with the Persian Empire. These were the two great rivals: the Roman Empire had Christianity, the Persian Empire had Zoroastrianism, and they competed. And so places like Iraq were religiously mixed. Places like Armenia were religiously mixed. And that had an influence on Roman religion. For instance, there was an official kind of cult of Mithras in the Roman religion. Mithra is a Zoroastrian deity. So I think this is a really exciting thing for people to know about Zoroastrianism.

In your book, you draw an analogy between the problems of the ancient Zoroastrians and the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in 2014. What is the link between these historical events?

I appreciate this question because it allows me to demonstrate the contemporary significance of this work. Sometimes people say, “You study ancient history, it’s all in the past, it doesn’t matter anymore,” but this is a very concrete way to show that this history matters today.

One of the things I do in the conclusion of my book is talk about the origins of the Islamic State. In 2014, when the Islamic State came out of Syria and invaded Northern Iraq, they began massacring the indigenous people that live in Northern Iraq. In the Sinjar region of Iraq, there are Yazidi people. Yazidi is a Kurdish religion that has a lot of different religious influences. I think it’s best to describe it as the indigenous religion of that region, but there are certainly some influences that appear to be Christian, some that appear to be Islamic, and some that appear to be Zoroastrian.

When ISIS came into Northern Iraq, they did not recognize the Yazidi religion as legitimate. They said, “Yazidis are not ‘people of the book,’ therefore we can kill them.” And so ISIS massacred Yazidi men and enslaved Yazidi women. It was a horrific scene. And ISIS justified this by reference to the idea that these people were not religiously legitimate.

One of the examples that I point to, then, is the ways that Islamic scholars have challenged this notion that Yazidis are not religiously acceptable. A lot of scholars issued an open letter to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi—a self-proclaimed Caliph of the Islamic State—and called him to account. They comprised more than a hundred Muslim experts in Islamic law from places like Egypt and Malaysia, and even Uzbekistan, and they all wrote and they said, “No, Islamic law regards Yazidis as Zoroastrians and Zoroastrians were accommodated in the past. Therefore, ISIS killing and enslaving them is totally illegitimate on Islamic grounds.” And the arguments that these scholars use for saying that Zoroastrians should be accommodated are the exact same ones that appear in my book.

And so this was an exciting discovery for me: to see the ways that my research has uncovered an authentic Islamic past that people today recognize. And it’s a past that can be used to avoid some of the extremes of the present. If you do research, if you really look at the past, you will find ways that Muslims were accommodating, they were flexible, and they were able to incorporate non-normative groups into their society. I think that’s a valuable lesson for the present.

The commodity supercycle of the 2000s and 2010s gave rise to a rich debate in the academic literature about the potential for resource-rich countries to take advantage of the primary commodity price bonanza to support their development. As in past debates on the rise of Asia as the “world’s factory,” industrial policy was at the forefront of this discussion.

Author

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Franco Galdini

Franco Galdini is an ESRC postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Politics at The University of Manchester.

On the one hand, orthodox scholars insisted that the use of market distortions to channel resources toward industrialization would be a risky gamble with little guarantee of success. Instead, they argued, developing countries—like the Asian “tigers” and China before them—would do well to use the market to identify their comparative advantages. In this view, industrial policy continues to be inefficient and wasteful, especially as it creates plenty of opportunities for corruption rather than development.

On the other hand, heterodox researchers argued that state intervention was crucial to divert resource rents to specific nascent industries that would never be able to withstand international competition without sustained support. Just as both the Asian “tigers” and China had more recently used robust industrial policy to develop globally competitive industries, developing countries should use targeted policy interventions to “upgrade” to higher-value-added manufacturing for export.

Still, one question that both the orthodox and the heterodox literature cannot answer is why, for decades, multinational corporations (MNCs) consistently invested in manufacturing in such resource-rich countries as Argentina, Brazil, and Egypt. This remained true despite the small scale and high costs of production in these markets (making them inefficient, per orthodox scholars), whose output is mostly sold domestically rather than exported (pace heterodox scholars).

In a recently published open access article in Competition & Change, I applied Argentinian scholar Juan Iñigo Carrera’s original elaboration on Marx to the under-researched case study of the car industry in Uzbekistan to answer precisely this question. I found that this orthodox-heterodox binary also dominated the literature on “transition” from the command economy to a market economy in Uzbekistan. Orthodox researchers averred that state-owned auto company UzAvtoSanoat had failed to develop due to inefficiency and corruption, particularly the distortions of the government’s industrial policy. Heterodox scholars instead found industrial policy to be the very reason for the creation of a successful export-oriented car industry, in particular during the commodity supercycle, when some output was exported mostly to Russia. Neither, however, could explain why the Korean Daewoo Motor Company (DMC) and the American General Motors (GM) entered into joint ventures with UzAvtoSanoat despite the small domestic scale (hence high costs) of automobile production in the country, which is mostly purchased domestically.

One of Iñigo Carrera’s crucial discoveries is that resource-rich countries—that is, countries such as his native Argentina that mainly participate in the global economy as exporters of raw materials—are sources of appropriation of ground-rent. Although the latter concept may sound arcane to the contemporary ear, it used to be a staple of classical political economy. While extremely complex, Marx’s elegant solution to “the shitty rent business” consisted in understanding that, instead of being regulated by “normal” competitive conditions, whereby the most productive capitalist firms establish the prices of commodities, the prices of raw materials are regulated by marginal conditions, as prices must rise to encapsulate a ground—i.e., land—rent for the worst (“marginal”) land whose production is justified by solvent demand. After all, not even the landlords of the worst land in production would allow raw materials to be extracted from their land without being paid a rent for this.

Consequently, the sale of primary commodities on the world market results in social wealth—ground-rent—flowing into the resource-rich countries exporting these commodities. Crucially, Iñigo Carrera identified a number of specific policies put in place by the national state of resource-rich countries in order to appropriate and allocate this flow of ground-rent. For example, the state often purchases raw materials at below-market prices domestically in order to sell them at international prices on the world market. The difference—i.e., ground-rent—is then used to (in)directly subsidize manufacturing firms operating in the domestic market, including via the provision of cheap credit by state-owned and commercial banks. Simultaneously, state enterprises in these economies can provide cheap inputs—including energy—to industrial firms and the general population, lowering the cost of living and thus increasing the purchasing power of the labor force, which is therefore able to buy relatively expensive goods manufactured domestically. Finally, the overvaluation of the national currency allows industrial firms to import parts, components, and machinery at subsidized rates.

These multiple forms of (ground-rent) subsidization as mediated by the national state enable manufacturing firms in resource-rich countries to stay in business. As a result, they tend to operate and sell most of their output within the limited scale of the protected domestic market. This is equally true of MNCs and their subsidiaries, which can take advantage of this barrage of benefits and subsidies to valorize small-scale investments (by world-market standards) in these countries. Specifically, the overvalued currencies in these countries enable MNCs to subsidize the import of machinery obsolete for world-market production in order to manufacture relatively old and expensive goods for domestic consumption rather than export. This explains their sustained involvement in resource-rich countries, an answer that has eluded orthodox and heterodox scholars alike. As such, industrial manufacturing firms in these countries, regardless of “nationality,” tend to be small in size and to use what is, by world-market standards, obsolete technology. Following Iñigo Carrera, I call this “backward” industrialization.

The car industry in Uzbekistan epitomizes this “backward” form of industrialization. As a cotton and, increasingly, gold and natural gas exporter, the Uzbek state has mediated the inflow of ground-rent to its territory using many of the same policies found in other resource-rich countries. As a result, manufacturing firms in Uzbekistan have also been small and used obsolete technology, as the car industry’s joint venture (JV) with leading MNCs clearly demonstrates. The authorized capital for UzDaewooAvto—the JV between UzAvtoSanoat and the Korean DMC—was only US$200 million, a small sum considering the industry’s multi-billion-dollar norms on the world market. The same can be said of the US$266.7 million that established GM Uzbekistan, the JV between UzAvtoSanoat and the U.S. firm GM, which took over following DMC’s bankruptcy in 2000. Despite their small size and scale, these firms were able to remain profitable because they were subsidized by a range of policies—including the provision of cheap credit via, among others, Asaka commercial bank—as well as cheap inputs such as gas-fired electricity and gas-derived chemical intermediates used in the production of plastic parts like bumper sets and dashboards. In parallel, subsidized energy lowered the cost of living of the labor force, whose purchasing power was thus enhanced, enabling them to buy relatively expensive Uzbek-made cars.

Moreover, the overvaluation of the national currency, the soum, allowed the industry to import parts, components, and machinery to Uzbekistan at subsidized rates. Crucially, DMC and GM were able to subsidize the import of technological platforms, which had by then been superseded by new technology, to manufacture old car models for the Uzbek domestic market. For example, while DMC launched six new car models in Korea between 1996 and 2000, during the same period UzDaewooAvto began manufacturing old Daewoo models like the LeMan in Uzbekistan, where it was rebranded as the Nexia a decade after first going on sale in Korea. Similarly, in 2014, GM Uzbekistan invested more than US$100 million to import the T250 platform, enabling it to start production in 2016 of another Nexia model for the Uzbek domestic market, which would also be exported to Russia as the Ravon Nexia R3. This was the same T250 platform that American GM had developed in the mid-2000s—that is, more than a decade before it was recycled for production in Uzbekistan.

This explains why, while these JVs can profitably stay in business, “[t]he current range of car models are outdated [by an] average of 10-11 years,” as the government of Uzbekistan recently admitted. In particular, the marked uptick in production and exports, especially to Russia, during the commodity supercycle was the result not of the successful creation of an export-oriented car industry, as heterodox scholars posited, but of a sharp increase in the ground-rent available on the Uzbek market to subsidize “backward” industries thanks to rising cotton, natural gas, and gold prices (see Figure 1). Even during this period, more than half of total output was still consumed domestically. Once the ruble’s overvaluation against the soum was cancelled out by recession in Russia in the mid-2010s, Uzbek car exports to the country quickly ground to a halt, as Figure 1 clearly illustrates.

In short, “backward” industrialization is not the result of inefficient or developmental policies, but the concrete form that manufacturing takes in resource-rich countries integrated into the global economy as exporters of raw materials. MNCs and their affiliates, like all other manufacturing firms operating in these national spaces, invest in these countries to appropriate ground-rent.

With this article, I aimed to bring the literature on “transition” in the former Soviet Union into dialogue with broader debates on development, showing how Iñigo Carrera’s original take on the Marxian critique of political economy offers valuable insights for both sets of scholarly work. My hope is that more scholars will apply this approach conceived in the Global South to other resource-rich countries of the Global South, including those of the former Soviet Union.

This article is an expanded version of a blog post that appeared at Developing Economics. This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) [grant number ES/X006069/1].

In his recent book, Hidden Caliphate: Sufi Saints beyond the Oxus and Indus, Waleed Ziad examines the development of Muslim Sufi networks across Asia from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries.

Ziad writes about the power and influence of the Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi Sufis, who inspired major reformist movements until the the early twentieth century. As Sufi saints, scholars, popular poets, and jurists, the Mujaddidis were called upon to mediate between elites, subjects, and communities. They led trade caravans, mediated negotiations, and conducted diplomacy. Their texts and mystical poetry helped to define the contours of Persianate Islam from Delhi through Peshawar to the steppes of Central Asia.

In this interview, Waleed Ziad discusses how Mujaddidi Sufis rose to this role and influence, some of them becoming particularly prominent figures in Central Asia; why a good king was a good Sufi disciple; the importance of Bukhara for Sufi networks; and what Central Asian coins tell us about regional connectivity.

An interview with

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Waleed Ziad

Waleed Ziad is Assistant Professor and Ali Jarrahi Fellow in Persian Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Formerly a Research Fellow at the Abdallah S. Kamel Center for the Study of Islamic Law and Civilization at Yale Law School, Ziad has conducted fieldwork in over 120 towns across Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan.

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“Hidden Caliphate” was awarded the Albert Hourani Prize, the most prestigious prize in Middle Eastern Studies (through the Middle East Studies Association), was shortlisted for the Bloomsbury Pakistan 2022 Book Award, and has recently been shortlisted for the British Association for South Asian Studies 2023 Book Award.

In your book, you focus at length on “a vast, intricate network of scholar-mystics known as the Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi (literally meaning “revivalist”) order.” As you write, the Mujaddidis followed a comprehensive “exoteric” curriculum—ranging from Persian poetry, ethics, and logic to medicine and jurisprudence—before graduating to the higher “esoteric,” or “hidden,” sciences. Could you please tell us more about Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi Sufism and its influence on the Muslim world from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries? Was the emergence of this order in some way a response by the Muslim intelligentsia to the end of the Islamic Renaissance?

To understand the Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi Sufi network, we need to turn to the fountainhead of the tradition, Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi (d. 1624), from the town of Sirhind, located between Lahore and Delhi. His work, I argue, truly transformed Muslim societies from Istanbul to Indonesia. But his contributions are widely misunderstood today.

Sirhindi was part of the Naqshbandi order, which began in Bukhara, and his teacher was the Samarkandi Sufi Baqi Billah who migrated to Kabul and North India. Sirhindi was known as the Mujaddid, or reviver of the second millennium of Islam—and his followers were thus called the Mujaddidis. They became the most widespread Muslim network prior to the twentieth century. Sirhindi is a fascinating figure who in his early career worked with the Mughal administration. He became perturbed by the politicization of Sufism and the careless, cultic use of Sufi practices that he witnessed around him. He critiqued Sufi charlatans claiming spiritual authority, on the one hand, and corrupt, self-serving scholars with no spiritual compass, on the other. In response to these two currents, Sirhindi developed a revolutionary philosophical-practical system.

There are three of his many contributions that define the Mujaddidi order and which spurred the rapid expansion of its networks in the centuries to come. These were the key ingredients of the great revival, the building blocks of the Mujaddidi “hidden caliphate.”

First, Sirhindi was a synthesizer. He effectively bridged the gap between Sufism and sharia, the world of the mystics and that of the jurists. I will not be able to do justice to his philosophical works in this brief discussion, but we can say he insisted that Sufism had to be circumscribed within sharia, and likewise, sharia had to be understood through Sufism.

Second, he systematically laid out the path of Sufi spiritual wayfaring. This inspired a streamlined curriculum combining sciences from hadith studies, law, and logic to breathing exercises and meditation, bringing together the insights of multiple (mostly Central Asian) Sufi orders. His teachings were then disseminated through integrated educational institutions that served as both madrasas (colleges) and centers for Sufi practice. In other words, the worlds of the scholars and of the Sufis were reunited as integral parts of one system.

Third, he had some fascinating ideas on millennial revival and his own role in cosmic millennial transformations—namely that, a thousand years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad (1602), the spirit of Islam required renewal, and Sirhindi and his students—the Mujaddidis—were its agents. So Sirhindi and his successors built a paradigmatic Sufi center at Sirhind, one so famous that the city itself became known as the “Abode of Guidance.” This took place over the course of the seventeenth century.

How did these philosophical and institutional developments translate into the public sphere? How did the Mujaddidi Sufis assume transregional socio-political leadership?

This has a lot to do with the politics of the eighteenth century in South and Central Asia. Older imperial structures broke down, many smaller states emerged from the fragments of the earlier empires, and European powers slowly began to encroach in places like Khiva and Bengal. Local ruling elites on both sides of the Amu Darya and Indus, like Bukhara and Peshawar, effectively entrusted scholastic and social services to Sufi orders, especially the Mujaddidis, whose popular authority appealed to the urban intelligentsia and tribal and rural populations alike. These Sufis then formed institutional networks quite separate from the fiscal-military institutions of the state and with a lot more resilience and longevity. Their Sufi centers, madrasas, and shrines formed a superstructure that enabled a transregional knowledge economy and provided coherence to the politically fragmented region. This coherence was made possible through a constant flow of texts, practices, and human capital. In tandem, their rural institutions and land endowments spurred agricultural production.

The Sufi centers were spaces where multiple ethnicities and classes came together. As in prior centuries, ruling elites did not confine themselves to a parallel “secular” space. Rather, they too spent time in the Sufi centers; their participation as patrons and disciples was inextricably tied to the practices of power. A good king was a good Sufi disciple.

As such, my work is an inquiry into the nature of the “fiber,” to use Joseph Fletcher’s term, that held together parts of Eurasia before the twentieth century.

How was this fiber fashioned? Relying on Sirhindi’s pioneering theological interventions—specifically with regard to reconciling and integrating divergent Sufi pedagogies and sharia—the Mujaddidis became a synthetic tradition, one that was both transregional and local. So they were quite easily able to adapt to faraway places and absorb older sacred communities and spaces. A diversified support and capital base meant that they were not restricted to any one region or dependent on localized sources of income.

They became the arch-intermediaries, the proverbial honest brokers. As Sufi saints, scholars, popular poets, and jurists, the Mujaddidis were called upon to mediate between urban and tribal elites and subjects, antagonistic polities, colonial and local authorities, and agrarian and highland communities. They led trade caravans across the Khyber Pass and the Amu Darya, and, when required, even raised armies. Their institutions became public spaces furnishing a suite of social services that went far beyond education, meditation, and popular religious rituals. They were soup kitchens, caravanserais, and safe houses, as well as loci for trade, negotiation, and diplomacy. They were also sites for the production and propagation of poetry and texts—didactic, polemical, and historical—that helped define the contours of Persianate Islam in this period.

With regard to your question about whether this was a response to the end of an “Islamic renaissance,” I would answer that it is more accurate to describe the Mujaddidi intervention as the next stage of intellectual-spiritual development in the broader Muslim world. This was a time when many sciences that had been forming in places like Bukhara since as early as the tenth century, from cosmology to law and literature, started coming together in a much more systematic, institutionalized way. This was a period that witnessed the growth of vast networks, an unprecedented exchange of scholars and scholarship, where students would travel from Siberia to Bukhara, where they would meet colleagues from Peshawar and Kabul.

At the center of your narrative is the very important question of how the Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi Sufis inspired major reformist movements and articulated effective social responses to the fracturing of Muslim political power amid European colonialism. Could you please elaborate on your answer to this question? There is a contrary view, at least in Central Asia, that Sufi Islam was a major obstacle to twentieth-century reformist movements such as the Jadids and Young Turks.

Throughout the course of the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century, virtually every major social movement and even anticolonial resistance movement in Central Asia and its neighbors was connected to the Mujaddidis.

My book focuses on the career of one particular Mujaddidi Sufi based in Peshawar and Bukhara, named Fazl Ahmad, who died in 1816. (In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Peshawar, now in northwest Pakistan, was one of the two capitals of the Afghan Durrani Empire founded by Ahmad Shah Durrani.) As I immersed myself in Fazl Ahmad’s story, and physically followed his footsteps across the Indus and Amu Darya, it appeared that he was connected to almost every major mystic, intellectual, political figure, and social movement in the Afghan Empire, Central Asia, Tatarstan, and India during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The famed Uzbek state-builders of Bukhara, the kings Shah Murad and Amir Haydar, were not just his disciples but his licensed Sufi deputies, who were assigned by him to teach meditative practices to their own students. They reignited the Bukharan academic scene. Several Afghan kings were his disciples; they relied on Fazl Ahmad for transregional diplomacy and on his successors to help them mobilize against Britain. The notorious English agents and Great Gamers William Moorcroft and Alexander Burnes depended on Fazl Ahmad’s son to get them into Central Asia for the first time. These were the first English forays into Central Asia. Fazl Ahmad’s deputies in Peshawar led the charge against the Mujahidin movement in the 1820s. This is a fascinating moment: the Mujahidin movement was the first attempt to set up a Wahhabi-type puritanical state in the eastern Muslim world. And Fazl Ahmad’s deputies were successful in driving these radical ideologies out of the region and preventing their entry into Central Asia.

A third son, meanwhile, mobilized thousands of tribal auxiliaries in a decisive battle against the Sikhs of Lahore, who had looked poised to occupy Afghanistan in the early 1800s. Yet another disciple was the Akhund of Swat, an incredible ascetic of the Afghan highlands who set up a famous Sufi state in the mountains of the Swat valley in present-day North Pakistan and who led campaigns against colonial forces in the 1860s. The custodians of Mazar-e Sharif, the sacred epicenter of Central Asia, where Imam Ali is believed to be buried, were also disciples of Fazl Ahmad. One of them penned his biography. Several of the great Sufi-scholars of Siberia were likewise from his lineage. One of the largest madrasas in Xinjiang, the Chong madrasa, was part of his lineage via Osh in Kyrgyzstan.

And yet, Fazl Ahmad’s name is all but forgotten. Through his story—and he is one of thousands of these transnational Mujaddidi Sufi figures—it becomes clear that this vast Inner Asian world was entirely interconnected: the pastoral nomads of Central Asia, the urban centers, the ungovernable highlands, and the rural breadbaskets. So at the time of the fracturing of the great Safavid, Mughal, and Uzbek empires in the eighteenth century and the rise of small states, khanates, and the Afghan empire, Fazl Ahmad and his Sufi contemporaries were a force that kept this world together.

With regard to the Young Turks and the Jadids, it is true that many of their critiques centered around the role of Sufi orders in preventing progress. But we should keep in mind that Kursavi and Marjani were both Mujaddidi Sufi shaykhs. Plus, as scholars argue, major reforms in the late Ottoman empire, like the Gulhane edict that launched the Tanzimat reforms, directly reflected a Mujaddidi ethos. In addition, these modern movements inherited many of their critiques of corrupted Sufism from the Mujaddidis.

How do you see Sufis in general—as more of a political network or an intellectual (spiritual) one?

One of the key interventions that this book makes is recognizing that prior to the twentieth century, Sufism was at once spiritual, intellectual, and political. Although Sufis’ primary concern was spiritual development, their efforts reached much further.

First, of course, we have to rid ourselves of the notion of Sufis being recluses. Undoubtedly, all of the protagonists of my book spent a significant amount of time meditating and wandering. Most also passed through spiritually intoxicated phases, lost in contemplation of the divine. But the Mujaddidi Sufis—and, frankly, most of the Sufi schools—did not see God-intoxication and being reclusive as sustainable in the long term. The true guides were meant to be connected to the world and their communities. They were to be those who could practically guide others in their spiritual journey and their worldly affairs.

From the early years of Islam, Sufis and scholars provided leadership to the Muslim world and beyond. This is not a new idea. The notion of the Hidden Caliphate, which I introduce in my book, is a very old concept. For both Sunni and Shia Muslims, after the tragedy at Karbala, political and true spiritual authority were no longer fused. The rulers were not expected to be spiritual guides. Among most Muslims, there was an understanding that true authority lies with the ones of gnosis: imams, jurists, academics, and especially Sufis. These people of gnosis were the Hidden Caliphs, supposedly the true inheritors of the Prophet. The kings and khans were simply the Apparent Caliphate: they provided day-to-day governance and kept order, but purely in the temporal realm. The Hidden Caliphs were the ones who were supposed to guide hearts and provide moral leadership.

In your book, you pay great attention to Bukhara as the center of Sufi networks. Why did Bukhara remain at the center of these networks, what was so unique about it, and what is the legacy of the Sufi orders in this city?

Several chapters of my book concern Bukhara, which is a pivotal node in my study. The establishment of the Mujaddidi order in Bukhara in the late eighteenth century, via the Afghan Durrani Empire, transformed Bukhara into not just a center of scholarship and mysticism, but also a Sufi scholarly-cultural hub linking Siberia and Kazan with North India.

In the 1770s, the main protagonist of my book, Fazl Ahmad, settled in Peshawar, which was one of the two capitals of the Afghan Durrani Empire. From Peshawar, he embarked upon five journeys to Bukhara, where the celebrated khanate-builder of Bukhara, Shah Murad, and his son Amir Hayder became his devoted disciples. Contemporary sources tell us that Fazl Ahmad’s disciples numbered in the thousands on both sides of the Amu Darya, and he appointed over 600 deputies to run centers and manage communities of disciples. Many of these deputies belonged to ancient sacred lineages of Central Asia—Dahbidis, Ahraris, and Juybari Khwajas—thus forging scholastic bridges between Transoxiana and the Mughal and Afghan Empires.

In Bukhara, Fazl Ahmad witnessed Central Asia’s last scholastic renaissance. After decades of political and environmental crises in the early eighteenth century, the Manghit khans of Bukhara fought to reconsolidate Bukhara’s position as a political and academic capital. Starting in the mid-eighteenth century, Bukhara’s own scholarly class received considerable patronage. Students traveled from Bukhara (and Khoqand and Khiva) via reinvigorated trade routes to study with teachers in Afghan territories. Soon afterward, scholars from the Afghan and Mughal Empires came to Bukhara. These migrants included Fazl Ahmad, who was awarded the Mirakon Sufi center at Qarakul gate, where he met the young khan Shah Murad two years after his coronation in 1787.

The Bukharan sources tell us that Shah Murad was deeply committed to Sufism and hadith study. They tell us thatt he lived like a dervish, wearing patched garments, and engaging in manual labor; and that he even refused kingship until pressured by the community. The Peshawari sources, meanwhile, give us detailed accounts of his daily practices at Fazl Ahmad’s Sufi center. We learn that he spent up to four hours a day at the Mirakon Sufi center with his master, Fazl Ahmad.

The sources also give us detailed accounts of the range of sciences taught at this Sufi center, from jurisprudence and scriptural study to poetry, methods of meditation, and spiritual travel through the lata’if (metaphysical energy centers corresponding to points on the body).

Eventually, we are told, Shah Murad excelled in spiritual practices to the extent that he—and later his son Amir Hayder—would become deputies of Hazrat Fazl, with permission to guide their own students.

These sources also reveal that under the influence of Mujaddidi Sufis like Fazl Ahmad, a new ethos of kingship emerged in Bukhara. The kings in fact refashioned themselves as theologians and Sufis. We have detailed correspondence between Amir Hayder and Fazl Ahmad in which the king takes advice from his teacher on how to train his own disciples, on meditative practices, and on questions of adab.

At a library in Peshawar is a fascinating set of letters between Amir Hayder and Fazl Ahmad’s deputy in Peshawar, Hafiz Daraz, who was one of the foremost scholars of the Afghan Empire. Amir Hayder’s letter to this scholar contains 17 highly technical questions—ranging from logic and law to metaphysics and medicine—to which Hafiz Daraz responds.

Both Shah Murad and Amir Hayder patronized education, such that Bukhara boasted 80 madrasas by Amir Hayder’s time and sources claim that over 30,000 students were supported by the state. Amir Hayder often sent personal invitations to the principal scholars of the Afghan and Mughal Empires, like Bibi Sahiba Kalan, the great female scholar and the head of the Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi order in Qandahar, Afghanistan, who is the subject of my next book.

For their part, the Afghan kings began offering stipends for students to study in Bukhara, and by 1800 an extensive academic exchange had developed between Peshawar and Bukhara. Each city had 100 institutes of higher learning, drawing students from as far afield as China and Dagestan.

Fazl Ahmad began appointing his own deputies from the Mughal intellectual centers of Punjab and Peshawar to Balkh, Samarkand, Bukhara, and Khiva, where they were provided for by local elites. These include, among others, a scholar from Punjab who in a matter of years became known as La’l Beg Samarqandi. His shrine and that of his son were revered in Samarkand until the early twentieth century.

Besides Hidden Caliphate, you have written In the Treasure Room of the Sakra King: Votive Coinage from Gandhāran Shrines, which explores copper currency from the Sakra region in northwestern Pakistan, dated from ca. 550 to 1100 and corresponding to the Nezak, Turk Shahi, Hindu Shahi, and Ghaznavid periods. What motivated your research into Sakra coinage? Do you have any interest in Central Asian coinage?

This is actually a book about Central Asian coins! The very idea that Central Asia, and Central Asian empires, were somehow particular to Russian-occupied Central Asia north of the Amu Darya has prevented us from recognizing the scope and connectivity of states like the Kushans, the Hephthalites, the Western Turks, and even the Timurids.

The book focuses on a cave temple and associated sacred sites in the highlands in northern Gandhara (northwest Pakistan) that were inaugurated under the Central Asian Kidarite dynasty in the fourth century and persisted well after the Ghaznawids. This cluster of sacred sites produced hundreds of fascinating copper coins meant to serve as temple offerings for pilgrims; these combined Hellenistic, Saiva, Vaisnava, Zoroastrian, Middle Iranian, Turkic, and even Byzantine iconography.

The period that I cover in this book spans several great kingdoms, most of which had Turkic roots: the Kidarites, the Hephthalites, the Nezak, the Turk Shahis, the Hindu Shahis, and the Ghaznawids. The type of political and religious symbols that appear on these coins will be very familiar to any scholar of Central Asian coinage: tamghas, deities like Anahita, sacred animals that carry divine grace, the fire altar, and Sasanian-style three-quarters facing or facing portraiture of the kind that one typically finds in Sogdiana. Some coins even feature the tamgha of Sogdiana. In fact, one of the first coins I discovered from the site features a Hephthalite tamgha and a duck carrying pearls in its beak, surrounded by a beaded border. This is the earliest datable representation of this sacred animal, which famously appears on the murals of Afrasiab and is now a symbol you will find painted on walls in various locations across Samarkand. Like Hidden Caliphate, this book is also about cultural and religious exchange across what we now call the Turkic, Iranian, and Indic worlds.

How well do you think Central Asia is connected to South Asia, particularly Afghanistan and Pakistan? What is particularly interesting in our shared history? How might we strengthen our intellectual links?

In my work, I conceive of all these regions as one interconnected space. In fact, I would argue that treating them–following modern politics–as three separate geographies prevents us from adequately understanding the history of this vast interconnected and rich zone. Across this whole region, the Persian language was a binding agent, along with many vernacular tongues that were inspired by Persian literature. There were shared sensibilities around kingship, faith, and adab. I argue that Sufi networks sustained this sphere well into the early twentieth century.

So in order to understand the Durrani capital cities of Peshawar or Kabul, one has to look to Bukhara, Khoqand, and Yarkand. These regions have a deep interconnected past, whether in the Mughal period, the Kushan period, or the Achaemenid period. Scholars, priests, literary figures, and armies constantly moved back and forth.

All photos by
Waleed Ziad