ABSTRACT
In some Central Asian oasis towns, the patron saints of craftsmen, known as pirs, have continued to be venerated, despite the repression of Islam and changes to the industrial structure during the Soviet Era. This paper analyses the social function and individual significance of pir veneration in the modern era, using ethnographic observations and interviews conducted in a ceramics town in Uzbekistan. Today, many old customs practised in pottery studios have become mere formalities, and the controlling role of the pirs over ceramist groups is declining. However, this is not necessarily indicative of an immediate decline in the pirs’ power. Some ceramists believe their highly skilled masters to be quasi-pirs and that the pir provides them with desirable goals, in addition to an ideal form to which to aspire.
View correction statement:
Acknowledgements
I am deeply grateful to Mr Anvar, the Rishton ceramists, and the locals who helped me carry out my research. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for valuable comments, and Editage (www.editage.jp) and the editor of Central Asian Survey for English-language editing.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Pir was originally a Persian word that meant ‘old’ or ‘elderly person’. It later began to indicate Sufi masters. Subsequently, workers’ collectives started to use the term to refer to their patron saints (Kawamoto Citation2002, 819).
8 Case studies have been conducted (Dzhabbarov Citation1959; Tursunov Citation1972) on kasaba and also on similar organizations in Khorezm and Tajikistan.
11 Copies of the ceramists’ risala do exist in the State Institute of Oriental Studies in Tashkent, but most of the people in Rishton did not know of these copies’ existence.
12 According to accounts given in December 2012 and November 2014 by Ganizhon, an esteemed ceramist in his sixties who was born into a family of successive ceramists, the sole self-proclaimed descendant of Amir Kulol had died during the revolution, leaving only daughters behind.
13 At the time of the research, there were 130 ceramics masters holding membership in the national craftsmen’s collective; Anvar told me that ‘there are between 70 and 80 truly gifted ceramists working in Rishton today’, for whom I calculated there to be two or three apprentices per master.
14 Instead of ceramics, many of the residents have started to make their living by going to Russia to find work; see Kikuta (Citation2016) for more on this labour migration.
16 Some elder masters remembered this taboo when interviewed in 2003.
17 See Rasanayagam (Citation2006) on re-Islamization among healers.
Kawamoto, M., et al. 2002. “Pir.” In Iwanami Islam Dictionary, edited by K. Otsuka, 819. Tokyo: Iwanami. [in Japanese]. Babadjanov, B., et al. eds. 2002. Katalog sufischer Handschriften aus der Bibliothek des Instituts für Orientalistik der Akademie der Wissenschaften, Republik Usbekistan. Stuttgart: F. Steiner. Kikuta, H. 2013b. Uzubekisutan no seijya suukei [Veneration of Pir Saints in Uzbekistan]. Tokyo: Fukyosya [In Japanese]. Sukhareva, O. A. 1984. “Risala kak istoricheskii istochnik.” In Istochnikovedenie i tekstologiia: Srednevekovogo Blizhnego i Srednego Vostoka, edited by G. D. Girs, and E. A. Davidovich, 201–215. Moscow: Akademiya Nauk SSSR. Aščerić-Todd, I. 2007. “The Noble Traders: The Islamic Tradition of “Spiritual Chivalry” (Futuwwa) in Bosnian Trade-guilds (16th–19th Centuries).” The Muslim World 97: 159–173. doi:10.1111/j.1478-1913.2007.00168.x Baer, G. 1964. Egyptian Guilds in Modern Times. Jerusalem: The Israel Oriental Society. Floor, W. M. 1987. “Asnāf.” In Encyclopædia Iranica, edited by E. Yarshater, 772–778. New York: Bibliotheca Persica Press. Hamed, R. 1990. “Guilds and Trade Unions in Modern Egypt: A Case Study of Work Organization and Work Ethics.” Journal of Asian and African Studies 39: 85–91. Eunjeong, Y. 2004. Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-century Istanbul: Fluidity and Leverage. Leiden, Boston: Brill. Gevorgyan, K. 2013. “Futuwwa Varieties and the Futuwwat-nāma Literature: An Attempt to Classify Futuwwa and Persian Futuwwat-nāmas.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 40 (1): 2–13. doi:10.1080/13530194.2012.734955 Goshgarian, R. 2013. “Opening and Closing: Coexistence and Competition in Associations Based on Futuwwa in Late Medieval Anatolian Cities.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 40 (1): 36–52. doi:10.1080/13530194.2012.734957 Ohlander, E. S. 2013. “Inner-worldly Religiosity, Social Structuring and Fraternal Incorporation in a Time of Uncertainty: The Futuwwat-nāma of Najm al-Dīn Zarkūb of Tabriz.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 40 (1): 14–35. doi:10.1080/13530194.2012.734956 Yildirim, R. 2013. “Shī’itisation of the Futuwwa Tradition in the Fifteenth Century.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 40 (1): 53–70. doi:10.1080/13530194.2012.734958 Andreev, M. 1927. “Po povodu protsessa obrazovabiya primitivnykh Sredneaziatskikh drevnikh tsekhov i tsekhovykh skazanii (risalya).” Etnografiya 2: 323–326. Gavrilov, M. 1912. Risolya: Sartovskikh remeslennikov izsledovanie predanii musul’manskikh tsekhov. Tashkent. Samad, A. ed. 1996. Nurnoma. Tashkent: Yozuvchi. Sugawara, J. 1998. “Sinkyou, uiguruzin no syokugyoubetu kitou handobukku risala.” Nairiku Ajiashi Kenkyu [Inner Asian Studies] 13: 71–84. Tosheva, Sh. 2002. “Risala.” In Katalog sufischer Handschriften aus der Bibliothek des Instituts für Orientalistik der Akademie der Wissenschaften, Republik Usbekistan, edited by B. Babadjanov, et al. 278–308. Stuttgart: F. Steiner. Dağyeli, J. E. 2011. ‘Gott liebt das Handwerk’: Moral, Identität und religiöse Legitimierung in der mittelasiatischen Handwerks-risāla. Wiesbaden: Reichert. Jasiewicz, Z. 1991. “Professional Beliefs and Rituals among Craftsmen in Central Asia: Genetic and Functional Interpretation.” In Cultural Change and Continuity in Central Asia, edited by S. Akiner, 171–180. London, New York: Kegan Paul International. Zarcone, T. 2004. “Sufi Brotherhoods and Saint Worship in the 20th Century’s East Turkistan and Modern Xinjiang.” Kobe University yearbook of history 19: 10–21. (in Japanese). Pemberton, K. 2006. “Women Pirs, Saintly Succession, and Spiritual Guidance in South Asian Sufism.” The Muslim World 96: 61–87. doi:10.1111/j.1478-1913.2006.00118.x Werbner, P. 2003. Pilgrims of Love: The Anthropology of a Global Sufi Cult. Indiana: Indiana University Press. Dzhabbarov, I. M. 1959. “Ob uchenichestve v remeslennykh tsekhakh Srednei Azii v kontse XIX i nachale XXv. Po Materialam Khorezma.” In Materialy vtorogo soveshcheaniya arkheologov i etnografov Srednei Azii, edited by S. P. Tolstov, A. A. Semenov, A. M. Belenitskii, T. A. Zhdanko, and M. A. Itina, 81–88. Moscow, Leningrad: Akademiya Nauk SSSR. Tursunov, N. 1972. “Iz istorii remeslennykh tsekhov Sredney Azii. Na Materialakh tkatskikh promyslov Khodzhenta kontsa XIX-nachala XX v.” Sovetskaya Etnografiya 1: 110–118. Abashin, S. 2001. “Potomki svyatykh v sovremennoi Srednei Azii.” Etnograficheskoe obozrenie 4: 62–83. Sartori, P. 2009. “Who Can Employ Offerings to Shrines? A Steppe Mullah Against Descent Groups.” In Kazakhstan: Religions and Society in the History of Central Eurasia, edited by G. L. Bonora, N. Pianciola, and P. Sartori, 211–221. Turin: Umberto Allemandi. Dağyeli, J. E. 2012. “By Grace of Descent: A Conflict between an Īšān and Craftsmen Over Donations.” Der Islam 88 (2): 279–307. doi:10.1515/islam-2011-0014 Davlatova, S. 2011. “Sovet davri ijtimoiy islohatlar sharoitida an’anaviy hunarmandchilik.” O’zbekiston tarixi 4. Skallerup, T. M. 1990. “Artisans between Guilds and Cooperatives: A History of Social and Economic Change in Russian Turkestan and Soviet Central Asia, 1865–1928.” Thesis (PhD). Indiana University. Kikuta, H. 2016. “’Remittances, Rituals and Reconsidering Women’s Norms in Mahallas: Emigrant Labour and Its Social Effects in Ferghana Valley.” Central Asian Survey 35 (1): 91–104. doi:10.1080/02634937.2015.1088229 Peshchereva, E. M. 1959. Goncharnoe proizvodstvo v Srednei Azii. Moscow, Leningrad: Akademiya Nauk SSSR. Rasanayagam, J. 2006. “Healing with Spirits and the Formation of Muslim Selfhood in post-Soviet Uzbekistan.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 12: 377–393. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9655.2006.00296.x Sultanova, R. 2011. From Shamanism to Sufism: Women, Islam and Culture in Central Asia. London: I. B. Tauris. Rasanayagam, J. 2011. Islam in post-Soviet Uzbekistan: The Morality of Experience. New York: Cambridge University Press. Kikuta, H. 2011. “Ruh or Spirits of the Deceased as Mediators in Islamic Belief: The Case of a Town in Uzbekistan.” Acta Slavica Iaponica 30: 63–78. Additional information
Funding
This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS KAKENHI) [grant no. 15H05983].