Beket Ata: Reimagination of Sainthood in Contemporary Kazakh Hagiographies

Abstract

This article is an ethnographic study focused on the figure of Western Kazakhstani (Manghïstaw) Kazakh Muslim saint Beket, via participant observation of pilgrimage to his shrine and via gathering printed materials documenting of the ongoing hagiographic process. This present research offers one of the first systematic studies of Kazakh contemporary manaqib tradition (legendary narratives about the life and deeds of a specific saint), where the author argues that: first, in hagiographic texts since the early nineteenth century, Beket Ata appears as a warrior and a model of masculinity for periods of high conflictuality: among the Aday tribe of Manghïstaw, of which he took his origins, he is praised for his miracles and struggles against the Turkmen established south of Aday Kazakh territory. Second, generations of notables of the Adays have shown instrumental in the construction of the successive versions of the saint’s vita; they have also developed his shrine – now a major pilgrimage place (mazar) of Western Kazakhstan. Third, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, however, pilgrims have been flocking to the mazar from areas wider than the Aday territory, as far as Southern Russia and other Central Asian states.