© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011 DOI: 10.1163/187471611X600378
Journal of Persianate Studies 4 (2011) 171-188 brill.nl/jps
Paving the Way:
Ismaʿili Genealogy and Mobility along Tajikistan’s
Pamir Highway
Till Mostowlansky1
[please supply affiliation]
Abstract
This article is an ethnographic study of Ismaʿili communities along the Pamir Highway. “The
road,” as it is referred to locally, links Southern Kyrgyzstan with settlements in the eastern part of
Tajikistan; its construction traces back to Soviet modernization policy. However, the highway’s
construction in the course of the twentieth century led not only to a physical, but also a social
transformation of the region. Labor migration of Ismaʿili Tajiks to various settlements along the
road resulted in ethnically and confessionally mixed communities. Thus, the Pamir Highway as
an ethnographic point of reference provides an entry to discussion of topics such as genealogy,
identity, diaspora, and the notion of an Ismaʿili heartland.
Keywords
Ismaʿilis, Tajikistan, roads, modernity, genealogy, diaspora, identity
Roads may look resilient but their lives are finite and,
in the great scheme of things, short.
(Joe Moran, On Roads)
Introduction
Up in Murghab, the Eastern Pamirs’ administrative center, there is a place
called PATU. The acronym stands for the Russian term Pamirskoe avtotransportnoe
upravlenie and denotes the transport directorate that was in charge
of road maintenance in Tajikistan’s easternmost region. In Soviet times, the
PATU of the district town of Murghab was a housing estate that included a
garage and a motel for lorry drivers as well as shops and a snack bar. PATU, or
“lorry fleet” (avtobaza) as it is sometimes called, provided work and shelter for
1
I would like to express my gratitude for comments and criticism to Jo-Ann Gross (The
College of New Jersey) and Karénina Kollmar-Paulenz (University of Bern).
AU1
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several Ismaʿili families, most of whose members were involved in driving,
road construction, car repair work, or the food service industry.
According to its inhabitants, PATU used to be a “happy” and “busy” place
until the 1990s due to dense traffic on the Pamir Highway from Osh to
Khorog. Today, business has gone. The motel and snack bar have moldered,
cattle grazes on the desert soil and there is not much work except for that
occasioned by infrequent visits by Chinese lorry drivers. However, despite the
stressed economic situation in Murghab, the Ismaʿili families with whom I
conducted fieldwork2
from 2008 to 2010 have no intention of leaving PATU,
to which they migrated from the 1960s onwards. In this article I seek to
explore reasons for the mobility of Ismaʿili families and communities along the
transport routes in the Tajik Pamirs. Furthermore, I attempt to analyze how
migration and settlement are explained and legitimized through genealogy,
history, and the notion of an Ismaʿili heartland.
Along the Road
The term “Pamir Highway” describes a part of the Central Asian road network
that connects the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) with the
Tajikistani capital Dushanbe as well as Osh in Southern Kyrgyzstan. While far
from being a “highway” in the strict sense of the term, the Pamirskii trakt (as
it was officially known in the Soviet Union) is locally referred to as “the road”
(roh in Tajik, jol in Kyrgyz, and doroga in Russian). The road, which constitutes
an essential supply line between Osh and Khorog, has been under construction
since the 1930s and led to a fundamental reshaping of the region.3
The construction of the Osh-Khorog road link not only facilitated movement
between two geographical points but also provided access to Murghab, a
region located between the two, which had been sparsely populated before the
1930s (see Bliss, 98). Nowadays, Murghab is a district (nohiya) of the GornoBadakhshan
Autonomous Region and includes large parts of the Eastern
Pamirs’ desert high plateau. The maintenance of the road under conditions of
extreme climatic differences, high altitude, avalanches, and erosion means
constant reconstruction. That is why in the course of the twentieth century a
network of settlements, car repair shops, and duty posts was established along
2
This article is based on data I collected during twelve months of field research in Tajikistan
and Kyrgyzstan between 2008 and 2010. I choose to anonymize my informants’ names and to
blur their identities when necessary.
3
For the social impact of road construction, see Dalakoglou; Khan; Kreutzmann; Masquelier;
Roseman.
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T. Mostowlansky / Journal of Persianate Studies 4 (2011) 171-188 173
the road. While there is a long history of mobility through the Eastern Pamirs
prior to that, the road and its infrastructure provided a framework for the first
permanent settlements and subsequent migration to Murghab district.
The administrative center of Murghab district (of the same name) is located
halfway between Osh and Khorog. Murghab is a small district town with
a population of approximately 7,0004
that is divided into Sunni-Kyrgyz and
Ismaʿili-Tajiks. Whereas the road section between Murghab and Osh is almost
exclusively inhabited by Kyrgyz, the settlements along the road to Khorog are
mixed as far as Koitezek, a mountain pass that indicates the descent to the
Ghunt valley.
The categories “Kyrgyz” and “Ismaʿili” are only schematic representations of
much more complex descriptive patterns in everyday life. These categories are,
however, important terms of self-representation in Murghab. While the term
“Kyrgyz” refers to ethnicity, but also indicates a Sunni orientation in regard to
religion, “Ismaʿili” means belonging to the transnational Ismaʿili community
(see Steinberg, 87-106), but subsequently also refers to an Iranian mother
tongue, Pamiri (pomirī) origin and official Tajik ethnicity.5
It is important to
note, however, that the function and application of these terms vary from
context to context.
PATU, Murghab’s former “lorry fleet,” is not the only place where Ismaʿili
families started to settle from the end of World War II onwards. Generally,
Murghab is divided into Kyrgyz, Ismaʿili, and mixed quarters. Even though
these boundaries are not consistent, they play a vital role when inhabitants of
Murghab refer to the spatial dimensions of their town. From a Kyrgyz perspective,
visiting an Ismaʿili family6
would often mean that “you go to PATU”
(PATUga bara jatasyng) or “you go to the customs office” (tamozhnyiga bara
jatasyng). Thus areas are indicated where the majority of Ismaʿilis lives and
where most governmental institutions have been located since Soviet times.
The area between PATU and the customs office is usually called “center,”
markaz in Tajik or tsentr in Russian. Both geographic points are connected
through an alley called “Lenin Street” where the KGB and other governmental
agencies were situated and which is hallmarked by an imposing Lenin statue.
The fact that many Ismaʿili families still live and own houses in the district of
former Soviet authority indicates their important role in reshaping the Eastern
4
This figure is based on data from the local administration in Murghab for the year 2008.
5
For historical descriptions of the Ismaʿili tradition in Central Asia, see Niyozov; Elnazarov
and Aksakalov. For recent ethnographic accounts, see Almazova, ed.
6
While Ismaʿilis mainly use three terms of self-description, “Ismaʿili,” “Pamiri,” and “Tajik,”
the Kyrgyz refer to Ismaʿilis by the term pamirlik (“Pamiri”). Pamirlik, however, includes being
of Ismaʿili faith and having a Pamiri mother tongue.
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Pamirs’ political, cultural, as well as socio-economic landscape in the course of
the second half of the twentieth century.
The Modernization of Belonging
Sultonsho (Soltān-shāh) was fixing a white Tangem when I met him for the
first time in PATU. Tangems are Chinese minibuses that are slowly replacing
Soviet cars in Tajikistan. Due to its low fuel consumption the Tangem became
popular in the Pamirs in recent years, though it is hardly the type of car that
best fits the bumpy highway. That and its lack of cargo room provoke numerous
jokes about the Tangem all over the region. Sultonsho’s funny remarks
from the car pit about the luxurious appeal of the Tangem’s cramped seats to
small Chinese guys made us both laugh. These laughs were the beginning of a
friendship that gave me a deep inside perspective into the Ismaʿili life of the
Eastern Pamirs. Every time I returned to Murghab between 2008 and 2010 I
learned more about Sultonsho’s extended family network within and beyond
Murghab. And I soon realized that the existence of this network, which began
to grow over the last four decades, influences the worldview of its members
even if they do not frequently move in the tracks of their relatives and friends.
Sultonsho is in his late-thirties. Just after he was born in a village in the
Upper Ghunt valley in the 1970s, his family moved to Murghab where his
father had found work as a car mechanic. Sultonsho’s father describes life in
the lower parts of the Pamirs as difficult at that time. “There wasn’t much land,
we were a lot of children in the family, and the village was growing in general.
That’s why I decided to take the job in Murghab,” explains Sultonsho’s father
during one of the many afternoons we spent drinking tea together in PATU.
Moving from a village in the Ghunt valley to Murghab meant a change from
a linguistically and religiously consistent community to a place shaped by
the presence of different ethnic and religious groups. Founded as a Russian
military fort (Post pamirskii) at the end of the nineteenth century,7
Murghab
developed into an important road supply station in the 1930s.8
As Sultonsho’s
father remembers, the population of Murghab mainly consisted of Kyrgyz,
Soviet army, and Tajiks (which mostly means Ismaʿili families) at the time
he moved there.
7
See Bliss, 73. For Soviet opinions on political and economic change in the Pamirs in the
course of the twentieth century, see Masov, ed.; Maanaev and V. Ploskikh, eds., 99-141.
8
For the early history of the road, see Slavinskii, ed.
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T. Mostowlansky / Journal of Persianate Studies 4 (2011) 171-188 175
The move from Ghunt to Murghab not only involved a fundamental
change in terms of the cultural environment, but also signified an ecological
and climatic movement from an agricultural mountain village (qishloq) to
high altitude desert (pustina).
Sultonsho explains this process of change to me in terms of a binary
opposition:
While people in the village (qishloq) remained as they were, we took on different
jobs (digar kor) and developed a different life-style. We became modern (zamonavī)
and are very modern (khele zamonavī) now. Pamiris in Murghab were well educated.
They were teachers, mechanics, drivers, party members, road constructors,
and border guards. And they traveled the region.
Becoming modern, on the one hand, meant to be involved in the Soviet enterprise
to uplift all people and regions to a similar degree of modernity.9
This is
implied by the Russian term sovremennyi (or zamonavī in Tajik and zamanbap
in Kyrgyz) that is commonly used in Central Asian languages. Sovremennyi
means not only “modern” but also “contemporary,” and therefore points to a
notion of development that is based on overcoming a backward past. On the
other hand, sovremennyi is often used in Central Asia to distinguish between
city and village culture. The example of Murghab shows, however, that such
cultural differences are not necessarily defined through the size of a settlement,
but rather through its function in a region and its inhabitants’ lifestyles.
The town of Murghab was built in order to administer the sensitive border
region with China and Afghanistan and to serve as transport hub for supplying
other parts of Gorno-Badakhshan. In contrast to surrounding Kyrgyz
villages, the district town (rayon) is not only ethnically mixed, but its inhabitants
are also of very diverse regional backgrounds. While the Kyrgyz inhabitants
of the town self-identify as members of various descent groups (uruu), the
Ismaʿilis often emphasize their regional belonging and respective languages
and dialects.
Although Sultonsho was born in the Ghunt valley where Shughni is predominantly
spoken, his mother tongue is Bartangi. Bartang is a river valley
just north of Ghunt and belongs to the district of Rushon. Whereas both
dialects, Shughni and Bartangi, belong to the Pamir branch of the Southeastern
Iranian languages, there are differences in grammar and vocabulary. In
Sultonsho’s family, however, the most important element of difference is
expressed through a dimension of identity that is defined by genealogy. The
9
For the concept of “multiple modernities,” see Eisenstadt. For its adaption to a Central
Asian environment, see McBrien.
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majority of Bartangis who now live in the Upper Ghunt valley migrated there
at the beginning of the twentieth century. Sultonsho’s uncle Faruh (Farrokh),
who still lives in a village in Ghunt, calls the period that followed migration
“after Sarez” (baʾdi Sarez). He points to an event that is still widely discussed
in Murghab as a dramatic period in the history of the Eastern Pamirs.
In 1911, an earthquake led to the formation of a gigantic natural dam in
Bartang (Abdullaev and Akbarzadeh, 187). When part of the narrow valley
started to fill up with water and turned into a lake, many Bartangis lost their
property and land. The lack of land is also what Faruh defines as the main
reason for migration. While pastures in Bartang were disappearing, there was
still land left in the high altitude part of Ghunt. For Sultonsho and his family,
Bartang is not only a contemporary place with living relatives, but also a point
of remembrance with its own historical time. This became clear to me on
several occasions while talking to Bartangis, but it especially struck me during
a walk with Sultonsho through the small bazaar of Murghab. It was a freezing
winter day, but when the intense mountain sun came out of hiding we stopped
at the entrance from where one can view the long-stretched town at the slope.
After a while Sultonsho said, “Every single person in Murghab has some home
place outside the town. But this town is still the place where most of us have
grown up. It’s homeland now (rodina).” Back home in PATU, I tried to find
out more about Sultonsho’s other place of belonging:
Till: You talked about other places Murghabi people come from earlier at the
bazaar....
Sultonsho: Yes, I mean as we come from Bartang, there are Ishkashimis, Shughni
people, and of course Kyrgyz who used to live in different places according to
their family descent. I think Murghab itself wasn’t an important pasture in earlier
times.
Till: And you still go and visit Bartang?
Sultonsho: Yes, of course. From time to time if work allows me.... Bartang is a
pure, serene place. Wherever you go, people will invite you to their homes and
feed you with meat. My wife and me, we couldn’t eat for a week after our last visit.
While we were both still smiling about Pamiri hospitality and its few unpleasant
side effects, Sultonsho went on with his talk and told me about his ancestors’
migrations. During an unspecified time (davno, davno), Sultonsho’s
ancestors supposedly migrated from Iran to Bartang. According to his father’s
memories, the Iranian ancestors were part of the religious elite—a status that
the family has inherited until today. Sultonsho’s contemporary relatives still
include Ismaʿili khalifas and domullos, professions that often include access to
supernatural powers.
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Till: Iran is far away from Bartang. Why did they come to the Pamirs? And how
did they come?
Sultonsho: I have no exact idea why they came to Bartang, but I suppose they
were guided. In our family, it is said that they traveled on trunk trees.
Till: Oh, amazing... I didn’t think about that option....
Sultonsho: Yes, at that time, it was a very common thing for domullos. I can’t
imagine myself, but this was really in ancient times (v drevnosti).
Till: You mean that this skill doesn’t exist anymore?
Sultonsho: No, of course not. People are modern (sovremennye) now, we don’t
have such skills and would only abuse them.
In Murghab, it is a widespread opinion that Soviet modernization led to the
rationalization and oblivion of ancient cultural skills. While this is also true
for many Ismaʿili villages, Murghab is perceived as a distinctively modern
place since the town itself is a product of the Soviet planning landscape. Such
places can be found all over the former Soviet Union and were often meant to
support specific infrastructural projects (such as the Pamir Highway). Another
prominent example in Tajikistan is the dam town of Norak in the western
part of the country. Norak was built in the 1960s in order to provide shelter
for engineers and workers (and their families) involved in the construction
and maintenance of the dam and hydroelectric station (Abdullaev and
Akbarzadeh, 156).
Since the beginning of its existence, Murghab has served three main purposes
that are closely interconnected: to provide access to and administration
of a sensitive border region, to provide a support line to the town of Khorog
at the Afghan border, and to involve the region’s inhabitants in broader Soviet
discourse by the means of education and mobility. These points and their side
effects have led to what Sultonsho defines as “modernity” (sovremennost’ ) in
the sense of a deficient, but (positively) developing category. This category
includes everything that defines the status quo of human development in the
Eastern Pamirs—the loss of specific skills through abandoning a distinctively
religious way of life, an ever growing, mobile family network from Osh, London,
and Moscow, as well as a means of technology and infrastructure that
allows a glimpse beyond the peaks of Gorno-Badakhshan.10
10
This first of all applies to the context of trade and labor migration. For literature on labor
migration from Tajikistan, see Olimova and Bosc; Olimova and Olimov; Jones et al.
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From Osh to Khorog and Back
During field research conducted between 2008 and 2010, I traveled approximately
7,000 kilometers on the road between Osh and Khorog. Thus, being
on the road in shared taxis became an important aspect of my work. I could
observe how people of different ethnic origin and citizenship interacted on
these long and tiring trips through potholes and rivers, how they welcomed
the journeys as a change from daily routine in summer, and how they established
strong feelings of community commitment when we got stuck in the
winter. At the beginning, I was considered an exotic outsider in these cars
since I had not yet learned what “being from the Pamirs” is all about. But with
growing experience in leading a local life, which includes appreciation for
shir choi11
as well as organizing fuel in the middle of nowhere, I was finally
described as somebody who has “learnt the Pamirs” (sen Pamir okudung). Step
by step, I also got to know most officials at checkpoints, road constructors in
their camps along the highway, and the dormasters who live with their families
in duty stations at the roadside and are responsible for monitoring damage,
climate, and movement. Due to these contacts I was usually invited to homes
along the road and could explore the extended Ismaʿili family networks of the
region. Thus, I not only had encounters with Sultonsho’s relatives but also
with other families that frequently travel between Osh and Khorog.
It was a chilly summer morning when a Murghabi Kyrgyz driver picked us
passengers up at our houses. When it was my turn, there were already four
passengers in the cream-colored Volga. I squeezed into the backseat together
with three other men and we went off to Osh in a city car that was hardly
suited to cross-mountain passes above 4,000 meters. On the 16-hour journey
from Murghab to Osh, with various car breakdowns and hassles at checkpoints,
I got to know all of the passengers. But one of them became my friend
and a constant source of information on the region.
Holiknazar (Khāleq-nazar) is a middle-aged Ismaʿili. He was born in
Murghab and still lives in the house where he was born on the hill above the
bazaar. However, he married an Ismaʿili girl from Osh and usually travels
to the Kyrgyzstani city twice a year. In summertime, he sends his children to
Osh so they can stay there with their grandparents and eat fruits and vegetables
that are not available in the Eastern Pamirs. The day we met he was on the
way to Kyrgyzstan to visit his family. After an exhausting journey we decided
to meet regularly in Osh and afterwards spent many an evening together
11
Shughni for “salty milk tea with butter” (Kyrgyz ak chai). Shir choi serves as basic meal
throughout the Pamirs.
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T. Mostowlansky / Journal of Persianate Studies 4 (2011) 171-188 179
drinking beer and waiting for the coolness of the night. Holiknazar’s family
owns a house in Osh that is located in the eastern part of the city. As in
Murghab, most of the Ismaʿili families live in the district of the former PATU.
And as in Murghab, this district was built for workers who were involved in
the organization and realization of supply traffic to Gorno-Badakhshan. From
the 1930s onwards, Osh used to be the center for the establishment of a supply
line to the Pamirs, and the need for a well-organized road network from
the Fergana Valley to Khorog became obvious.
An insightful source of information in regard to the early process of paving
the way between Osh and Khorog is a collection of essays about the construction
of the Pamir Highway that was published in 1935 (Slavinskii, ed.). In the
preface, the editor emphasizes the fact that “the fight for the road” (borʾba za
dorogu) was perceived as an essential part of establishing socialism in the
periphery (okraina) of the country.
The recent years brought a final stroke to the roadlessness of Kyrgyzia. By now we
have highways instead of mountain paths in many districts. Instead of camel and
ox now the Soviet car speeds up on these roads. And instead of isolated districts
there is now one connected and unified economic whole where there used to be
inaccessible periphery until recently (idem, 3).
Nowadays, this erstwhile “economic whole” is no longer directed from the city
of Osh. The Eastern Pamirs and Southern Kyrgyzstan are now separated by a
national border that includes a range of checkpoints with side effects such as
taxes, bribery, and contraband. However, as a point of economic and educational
orientation, Osh remains important to the Pamirs, even though lorries
bound to Murghab and Khorog are now a matter of private entrepreneurial
initiatives. The fading transport between the PATUs of Osh and Murghab has
also affected the Ismaʿili community of the city. Few young people are willing
to stay in Southern Kyrgyzstan, which is above all perceived as politically
unstable and economically underprivileged.
Alisho (ʿAli-shāh) is an elder member of the Ismaʿili community in Osh and
lives in PATU. Despite the fact that he has spent most of his life in the city,
Alisho seeks an opportunity to sell his house and move back to his place of
origin in the Ghunt valley. His life story is closely connected to the history of
the Pamir Highway between Osh and Khorog. In 1949, when he was a young
boy, Alisho set out for a long period of journeys between various locations
along the road. As many boys from the Upper Ghunt valley at that time,
Alisho was forced to leave his home due to existential shortages in the postwar
period:
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There was little food... the time after the war was hard. I had just finished the 8th
grade and stayed home for vacation. Then an older friend asked me why I would
need to go back to school. He would give me a job and I would earn some money.
I then went to the road and caught a car to Murghab.
In Murghab, Alisho met a better economic environment that allowed him to
start a career as a locksmith and driver. Jobs were created due to Soviet infrastructure
investments and the developing road connection between Osh and
Khorog required construction, transport, and maintenance. Alisho remembers
that there were only five Ismaʿili families in Murghab at that time. Only
in subsequent years would the number of Ismaʿilis grow due to engagement in
governmental offices and transport agencies. After a period of training in different
parts of the Soviet Union, Alisho settled in Osh, raised a family and
worked for the Consumer’s Union (Potrebsoyuz) until 2003. Despite the fact
that he holds Kyrgyzstani citizenship and has spent most of his life in the Fergana
valley, Alisho plans to move back to his village of origin in the Upper
Gunt valley—if he only can find a homebuyer for his house.
Alisho’s life story is in many respects representative of the oldest generation
of Ismaʿilis in Osh. After years of mobility without restrictions along the artery
Osh-Khorog, “bad times” (tiazhelye vremena) started with the perestroika
and a growing emphasis on ethnic categories. As turning points in the decay,
Alisho points to the Osh riots in 1990 and the emerging importance of
national borders. Both developments finally contributed to the meltdown
of Soviet road agencies that were experienced as multi-ethnic and transnational
enterprises.
On the other hand, Holiknazar has a different perception of the quality of
time frameworks. Holiknazar, now middle-aged and from Murghab, describes
his youth in the Tajik civil war in the 1990s as problem-free (blagopoluchnyi).
At that time, there was a strong presence of the Russian military in the Eastern
Pamirs, which provided jobs and well-paid salaries for contract soldiers
(kontraktniki). For Holiknazar, who served at the Afghan border for many
years, the time of prosperity in the region was inextricably linked with the
Russian army and it only came to an end when the last units left at the beginning
of the new century. Now, there is little to do in Murghab for people who
do not own cattle. Holiknazar therefore describes himself as “sitting around”
(my sidim), a “loafer” (bezdelʾnik), or “without purpose” (beker). His everyday
routine is structured by drinking tea, spending time with his children, and
taking regular walks through the bazaar. This routine is infrequently interrupted
by trips to the High Plateau in order to collect tersken bushes for fuel
and occasional one-day jobs with Chinese transport companies.
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Trips to Osh would evoke ambivalent feelings, Holiknazar told me many
times when we traveled together from Murghab down to the Fergana valley.
Osh meant fruits, teahouses, and good beer of which the Eastern Pamirs are
deprived. It meant big city life and held the potential of a morally corrupt
lifestyle. Osh was a place of business opportunities and family in exile. And
since spring 2010, Osh means ethnicized conflict, as Holiknazar states, and a
danger to the Ismaʿili community.
Holiknazar’s perception of Ismaʿili life in Central Asia is informed by a
feeling of loss of power in an “uncivilized” (netsivilizovannye), predominantly
Turkic, environment. During our joint trip to Osh in 2009 Holiknazar
explained to me how history has logically led to the present-day situation of
Ismaʿilis in Tajikistan. Since Holiknazar is well acquainted with Ismaʿili and
Central Asian history, he gave many examples from the past which emphasized
his general feeling of unease towards the present.
Holiknazar: You know, we used to be powerful... I mean, we the Ismaʿilis. But
they were always against us, fought wars against us.
Till: Who are they?
Holiknazar: The Mongols, the Turks. . . .
Till: You mean... when . . .? During the Fatimid era... Alamut... or when?
Holiknazar: Yes, Alamut. And then later when they took Bukhara and Samarkand.
And now they started to turn Tajiks into Uzbeks. They have to change their
ethnicity in the passports. They have always been against us Tajiks, against us
Ismaʿilis.
This short statement that Holiknazar gave when we stopped for lunch in a
small teahouse somewhere in the Alai, halfway between Murghab and Osh,
led to a moment of silence at our table. The other passengers, all of them
Murghabi Kyrgyz, abstained from comments on Holiknazar’s opinion that
clearly held the potential of conflict. However, in his statement Holiknazar
expressed an anxiety that reveals multi-layered aspects of Ismaʿili identity in
a Pamiri context. Being Ismaʿili means to originate from the Pamirs, but it
also includes being of Iranian descent as well as being part of a transnational
community whose history reaches out well beyond Central Asia. It furthermore
means to be ethnically defined as Tajik within the framework of the
Tajik nation-state. For Holiknazar these categories are not contradictory
but are a matter of positioning in a specific environment. In Osh, for example,
all Ismaʿilis are first of all defined as Tajiks, due to ethnic classification in
their passports. Reference to the Indo-European Iranian heritage of Ismaʿilis
distinguishes them from Kyrgyz and Uzbeks, who are speakers of Turkic
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182 T. Mostowlansky / Journal of Persianate Studies 4 (2011) 171-188
languages and are supposed to have “Mongolian” physical features of Asian
origin.12
Holiknazar talks simultaneously about Alamut, Bukhara, Samarkand, and
recent ethnicity policy in Uzbekistan. While Alamut refers to medieval Ismaʿili
history in Iran,13
the mention of Bukhara and Samarkand references sore
points of Tajik national ideology. The fact that the two supposedly “Tajik
cities” became part of the Uzbek SSR in early Soviet times and are still part of
today’s Uzbekistan fosters a Tajikistani self-perception of an “incomplete
country.”14
The intermingling of Ismaʿili and Tajikistani history does not constitute
a contradiction for Holiknazar, however, as these categories are inseparable
in everyday life. But they are emphasized in different ways respective to
the social context in which they are used.
In Osh, Ismaʿilis are generally referred to as Tajiks. Their ethnicity is defined
as such in Kyrgyzstani and Tajikistani passports and does therefore not require
further differentiation. In the Pamirs, being part of the transnational Ismaʿili
community is mostly reflected in the public sphere, where a majority of
the population is Ismaʿili, or in mixed Sunni-Ismaʿili communities such as
Murghab. In Osh, Ismaʿili discourse remains a matter of the private sphere.
When, in June 2010, violence broke out between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in the
city in the aftermath of the overthrow of the president, Kurmanbek Bakiev,
most Ismaʿilis kept a low profile and quietly supported the Kyrgyz.15
Solidarity
with the ruling group, however, not only points to political positioning in the
context of a destabilized country, but also indicates the power of historical
Central Asian categories when it comes to the construction of difference.
These categories are in turn often used to explain the existence of very recent
conflict lines.
For Holiknazar, the violence that all inhabitants of Osh experienced in the
summer of 2010 was essentially a battle between nomadic Kyrgyz and settled
Uzbeks. Even though both groups have dwelled in houses there since the early
days of the Soviet Union, these categories have not lost their quality as explanatory
models for collective actions. For Holiknazar, former economic modes
of life have evaporated into mentality.16
12
For the foundations of Tajik national identity, see Bergne; Hirsch.
13
In mentioning Alamut, Holiknazar refers to a historical period in Ismaʿili history (1090-
1256) that is often perceived as the foundation of Nizari Ismaʿili political activity. Geographically,
the term Alamut denotes a fortress in Northern Iran which was destroyed during the
Mongol invasion at the end of the thirteenth century. See Daftary, 301-402.
14
See Fumagalli, 575.
15
For the background of this conflict see Liu; Fumagalli.
16
For the construction of cultural distinctiveness in Central Asia in historical perspective, see
Manz.
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T. Mostowlansky / Journal of Persianate Studies 4 (2011) 171-188 183
For example, when we spent many an evening out together in Osh a year
prior to the conflict, Holiknazar praised the distinctive Uzbek sense of cuisine
and culture as well as Kyrgyz open-mindedness and enthusiasm for drinking.
The dichotomy’s negative side included Uzbek greed and deceit as well as an
unprincipled and blurry Kyrgyz attitude towards other ethnicities. A year later
we sat in Holiknazar’s house in Murghab and mourned the loss of the
“old Osh.” The influx of goods from Southern Kyrgyzstan had stopped for
some time then and the watermelon we ate had been brought from Dushanbe
and could never be as sweet and tasty as the ones from Osh. Despite his hatred
for the Uzbeks, who in his opinion had instigated conflict, Holiknazar yearningly
talked about the many peaceful summers he had spent in the city.
Till: Don’t you think that after some time everything will be peaceful again?
Holiknazar: Maybe, but Osh without Uzbeks is nothing. Murghab without Osh
is nothing. Kyrgyz are nomads. They can’t cook... they don’t sell spare parts for
cars and they don’t know how to trade. Uzbeks are traders. They could live everywhere,
believe me. But what is Osh without Laghmon?17
There was always something
going on in Osh thanks to the Uzbeks... new things, products, food...
they’re like Afghans. They just know how to sell and make profit.
Holiknazar’s statements include all aspects of being a mobile member of the
Ismaʿili community in the Tajik Pamirs. Movement to different places along
the road means having to adapt to fundamentally different settings within
a short period of time. While the town of Khorog and surrounding valleys at
the Afghan border are considered to be the heartland of Ismaʿili life, with the
majority of its inhabitants belonging to the Ismaʿili community, this situation
changes with movement eastward. Majority relations suddenly turn into
multi-layered forms of diaspora18
in nation-state settings. As Magnus Marsden
states, it is “the social and moral multidimensionality that borderland life may
inject into even the most apparently bounded forms of collective identity”
(Marsden, 220), and which lead to a constant re-definition of identity in such
roadside communities. When Holiknazar speaks of the Bartang valley and
Khorog as genealogical points of reference in regard to his own biographical as
well as general Ismaʿili origin, Murghab becomes a place of diaspora which
requires a high level of adaption to a predominantly Kyrgyz environment.
Holiknazar considers the Ismaʿili communities in Murghab and Osh as islands
17
A Central Asian/Chinese noodle dish that is often considered well prepared by Uzbeks and
Uighurs.
18
For the conceptualization of the term “diaspora” as analytical category, see Baumann 2000,
2003.
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184 T. Mostowlansky / Journal of Persianate Studies 4 (2011) 171-188
(ostrov) located within an environment that demands constant negotiation
of identity. However, while Murghab is still located within the borders of
Tajikistan and Ismaʿilis are therefore part of the political mainstream, the situation
in Osh differs considerably. Within an altered nation-state environment
and different political hierarchies, other dimensions of identity are foregrounded.
When Holiknazar argues against Uzbeks as historical enemies of
the Tajiks, he refers to very recent conflicts between the two states. While
Holiknazar would hardly sympathize with “those Tajiks in Dushanbe” inside
Tajikistan, in Osh common citizenship becomes an important marker for
him. Being against the Uzbeks in times of violent conflict thus establishes
intimacy and alliance with the ruling Kyrgyz majority.
To Mix or Not to Mix
The question of how to adapt to local conditions without a loss of genealogical
reference points is crucial to Ismaʿili communities in the Tajik Pamirs. In the
winter of 2009 I traveled from Osh to Murghab together with two elderly
Ismaʿili traders. Both women, Gulnor and Ajmi frequently commute between
Southern Kyrgyzstan and the Eastern Pamirs in order to sell clothes in the
bazaar of Murghab. When we stopped at a teahouse on the way to the border
between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, a young Kyrgyz waitress caught the attention
of Gulnor and Ajmi. They started a discussion which indicates that a limit
to local adaption within a non-Ismaʿili environment is often set by marriage
strategies.
Gulnor (pointing at the waitress): Look at that Kyrgyz girl. Of course, they’re
never as pretty (khushrū) as our Pamiri girls, but I have to say they’ve improved
recently.
Ajmi: Yes, you’re right. They’ve improved.
Till: And whom would you wish as wives for your sons?
Gulnor: I’m going to look for a Pamiri girl from Osh or Murghab. Religion has to
be right. And she has to be Tajik.
By a “Tajik with the right religion,” Gulnor meant an Ismaʿili girl. Major
obstacles for marriage would be a Tajik with Sunni background or, even more
complicated, a non-Tajik Sunni. In Murghab as well as in Osh, inter-marriages
between Ismaʿili-Tajiks and Sunni-Kyrgyz rarely occur, and such relationships
that do exist are categorized as mistakes from Soviet times when the ideology
of “the friendship of the people” (druzhba narodov) took its toll.
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T. Mostowlansky / Journal of Persianate Studies 4 (2011) 171-188 185
Apart from orientation towards ethnic and religious differences, contemporary
marriage strategies contribute to the strengthening of people’s affiliation
with genealogical reference points, and in this context to mobility along
the road. There are, for instance, frequent marriages between Murghab and
villages in Ghunt and Wakhan that have strong family ties to the Eastern
Pamirs. As Sultonsho put it once, “very often Ismaʿili girls come from Upper
Ghunt for marriage and we send our girls there.”
The linkage of religion, ethnicity, and geographical space is an important
aspect of the process by which the communities of the Eastern Pamirs became
distinct. The example of pilgrimage sites shows that religious belonging
and ethnicity are almost inseparable and connected to specific locations. The
Ismaʿilis of the Eastern Pamirs exclusively orientate towards the many Ismaʿili
pilgrimage sites (mazors) in the Western Pamirs which are defined as Ismaʿili
heartland. The pilgrimage sites of Murghab (mazar in Kyrgyz), on the other
hand, are perceived as “Kyrgyz sites” (mazorhoi qirghiz) and not considered of
particular religious use to Ismaʿilis. However, at some sites connected to hot
springs, different spheres intertwine. In Madiyan, a small settlement in the
Eastern Pamirs, a flourishing pilgrimage site has developed in recent years. The
combination of the grave of a local Kyrgyz “martyr” (sheiit) and hot springs to
which positive healing effects are attributed led to an increase of visitors, both
from the Kyrgyz and Ismaʿili communities of Murghab. However, there is an
ongoing discussion concerning whether the place provides spiritual blessing
(bereke [barakat]) or “just” has a merely medical impact and supports relaxation.
While most Kyrgyz visitors do perform prayers in Madiyan and try to
receive bereke at the grave of the martyr, many Ismaʿilis consider the religious
part a fraud. A common statement is that such rituals might be useful to
Sunni-Kyrgyz but not to Ismaʿilis who have their own mazors in the lower
parts of the Pamirs. The orientation towards mazors shows the spatial organization
of the ethno-religious categories in the Eastern Pamirs. While there are
dozens of pilgrimage sites in the region that are of great importance to SunniKyrgyz,
local Ismaʿilis exclusively orientate towards the Western Pamirs.
The borders of “Ismaʿili territory” are therefore defined at mountain passes.
To the north, the Koitezek pass constitutes the border to the Ghunt valley,
where Ismaʿili pilgrimage sites in relation to ʿAli can be found. To the south,
the Khargush pass constitutes the crossing to the Wakhan valley which offers
a wide range of Ismaʿili sites, from hot springs to shrines.19
Both marriage
strategies as well as the realization of ethno-religious categories lead to the
19
For an excellent study of shrines and their foundational legends in the Western Pamirs,
see Gross.
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186 T. Mostowlansky / Journal of Persianate Studies 4 (2011) 171-188
constitution of two separate communities in the Eastern Pamirs. The Ismaʿili
orientation to the center of religious life in Khorog creates a sense of diaspora
that is connected to the establishment of ethnically and religiously mixed
communities at the roadside. Ismaʿilis were first of all brought to the Eastern
Pamirs and Southern Kyrgyzstan in order to build, support, and maintain the
road. Local economy, such as cattle breeding, remains in the hand of the
“native” Kyrgyz. While the Soviet “friendship of the people” was excessively
celebrated in modernization projects such as Murghab, little actual effort was
made to integrate ethnically and religiously distinct communities.
Conclusion
In this article, I have attempted to show that mobility and the extension of
family networks are essential elements of Ismaʿili history throughout the twentieth
century in the formerly Soviet-influenced part of the border region of
Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, and China. In this context, however, it
must be mentioned that the identity category “Ismaʿili” has become predominant
in comparison to regional (“Pamiri”) or ethnic (“Tajik”) positioning only
in recent years. While being Pamiri already in Soviet times implied an orientation
towards Ismaʿili faith in most places between Osh and Khorog, the
national re-definition of Tajiks as Sunni in post-Soviet Tajikistan has led to a
range of overlapping and competing categories of self-description. I argue furthermore
that the use of these categories is not experienced as contradictory in
everyday life but depends on the specific social context.
Differing social contexts along the Pamir Highway are in large part the
result of Soviet modernization policy. The re-structuring of the Pamirs’ landscape
through the closing of borders, road construction, and migration led
to an enforced re-orientation from Western China and Afghanistan towards
Southern Kyrgyzstan. As a consequence, Ismaʿilis from the Western Pamirs
settled along “the road” and took employment above all in fields such as transport,
army, and infrastructure maintenance. Thus, the formative period from
the 1960s onwards is still remembered as prosperous and characterized by a
freedom of movement.
The recent years were marked by the establishment of a strict border regime
that limits the freedom of movement as it was known in Soviet times. While
the transport agencies lost their importance in providing access to the border
region of Gorno-Badakhshan, neither the Tajik nor the Kyrgyz state seem
interested in maintaining the road connection between Osh and Khorog. This
is expressed in the decay of asphalt parts and frequent closing of the road in
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T. Mostowlansky / Journal of Persianate Studies 4 (2011) 171-188 187
wintertime. In a broader Tajikistani context, the trade route between Western
China and Dushanbe has gained in importance. Trade from Kashgar to the
Tajikistani capital, however, passes through the Pamirs, but for now largely
bypasses local communities.
The members of Ismaʿili communities along the road currently experience
very different political, economic, and cultural contexts. But as I attempted to
show, such differences are dealt with by means of reference to the Western
Pamirs as place of common origin and center of religious life. Genealogical
references to specific mountain valleys, villages, and ancestors are expressed
through the fostering of Pamiri dialects and family networks. With increased
mobility in the course of the twentieth century, but also in the context of labor
migration beyond Tajikistan and Central Asia, these references have provided
a distinction between the territory of diaspora and native land.
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Author’s Query:
AU1 Please supply affiliation
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