Cult and Belief: The Role of ziyarat (Pilgrimage) in Present-Day Karakalpak life

Makset Karlibajev (Humboldt University, Berlin | Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography, Nukus, Uzbekistan)

Email: karlmaks@yahoo.com

 

ABSTRACT:

1. During the Soviet period when atheistic policies prevailed, local Islam has undergone quite significant changes. In mass perception “Islam” was preserved as a cultural phenomenon and a way of life that expressed itself in traditional rites and especially in the cult of “sacred space” and “saints”. Ziyarat was sort of a hideout where Islam remained vivid and active all over the Soviet period and until this day, and ziyarat is what many people have come to understand as the actual core of their personal Islam.
   
   The Soviet scholars used to consider the cult of sacred places and saints as a so-called “remainder of the outdated past”, but these “remainders” did not only exist and persist, but enjoyed wide acceptance. When the end of the Soviet Union brought about freedom of belief and religion, the years of national independence not only observed an increase in activity around the ziyarat phenomenon, but the State has even come to actively support and strengthen the ziyarat cult.
   
   
2. The mazars of Karakalpakstan today – which are assemblies of graves including or not including distinguised ziyarat locations of famous local saints – (change this if it is not correct) present themselves as actual “little towns” with a particular architecture of their own. Over the last period of time these mazars and their specific mazar architecture as we might call it, have constantly grown in physical extension and in social importance. Many of them today enjoy broad popularity and attract a whole lot of pilgrims. New forms of cult come into being. Around the mazars and specific ziyarats legends are collected or even new ones are being created.
   
   Over the last period of time these mazars have constantly grown in physical extension and in social importance. Many of them today enjoy broad popularity and attract a whole lot of pilgrims. New forms of cult come into being. Around the mazars and specific ziyarats legends are collected or even new ones are being created.
   
   Thus we may say that the cult of saints and sacred places does not only still exist, but it is flourishing, developing and growing in importance. On top of everything, by the end of the 20th century a social institution has undergone an interesting development and has gained more and more importance with national independence: The so-called sheykhchi, who is the guardian of the mazar.
   
   
3. Over time and in dependence of historical circumstances, the status of the sheykhchi (guardian) has changed, and so has the relation between the guardian and the mazar itself.
   
   In pre-Soviet times only very distinguished sacred places had a shaykh, that is, a specific person who looked after the place and was entitled to collect alms from the visitors. Today almost every mazar and other place of pilgrimage has its own sheykhchi. In pre-Soviet times a mazar would belong to a given sheykh (or ishan, that is, member of a spiritual descent line) and this attribution would be handed down within the so-called sacred families. From the Soviet period on, guarding a mazar has been transformed into a profession of its own kind. This is clearly shown in the very term that is now being used: (Karakalpak) sheyikhshi < sheykh+shi, with the suffix chi that denotes persons who professionally occupy themselves with the given item”. Interestingly enough, cases have been reported of madrasa students who found employment as sheykhshi of a given sacred place, or even as “deputy sheykhshi”. More recently there have been right-out sheyikhshi elections, the electorate being local communities or the mosque community.