Mapping Khwārazmian Connections in the History of Sufi Traditions

Abstract

The history of Sufi traditions in Khwārazm reveals patterns of development that broadly correlate with patterns and alignments evident in the region’s social, political, and economic history; this is not unexpected, of course, but this correlation provides a convenient vantage point from which to explore Khwārazmian Sufi traditions, and it also lends significance to the literary and folkloric legacies of those traditions, which can illuminate aspects of Khwārazmian history for periods otherwise poorly represented in written sources. The present study offers a broad outline of Sufi activity in Khwārazm, from the 12th century to the 19th, noting the sometimes alternating, sometimes overlapping patterns of locally-rooted Sufi communities, deeply embedded in Khwārazmian social topography, and of regionally- and internationally-connected Sufi groups reflecting large-scale networks; in the latter case, particular attention is given to ‘mapping’ the links of Sufi communities based in Khwārazm with other groups – both in distinctive configurations of regional Central Asian frameworks (i.e., northern Khurāsān, Manghïshlāq, the Syr Daryā valley, the Dasht-i Qïpchāq), and in wider ‘global’ frameworks connecting Khwārazm with the broader Muslim world (the holy cities, Istanbul, Crimea, Kashmīr and India). Consideration of the initial phase of Sufi history in the region, in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, is followed by a focus on the sparse but significant evidence on Khwārazmian Sufis of the 14th and 15th centuries, perhaps the most poorly known era of Khwārazmian history in the Muslim era, and to the much richer source base for the flourishing of ‘Kubravī’ communities – in Khwārazm and in the regions closely connected with it – during the 16th century; the continuation of these patterns, but also the emergence of distinctively local Khwārazmian variants of other Sufi traditions (‘Yasavī’ and Naqshbandī), from the 17th century to the early 19th will also be addressed.