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Articles

Dagestan in transnational Sufi Networks: Sheikhs from Kikuni and their shrine in Turkey

Vostok/Oriens '2018, №5

DOI: 10.31857/S086919080001847-8

 
This case-study relates to the history of shared transnational Sufi networks. The Naqshbandiyya-Halidiya brotherhood of the Ottoman origin once moved from the Middle East to Russia's borderlands in the Eastern Caucasus and then came back to the Ottoman Empire from the North Caucasus. Dagestani Sufi networks and holy places represent a specific kind of interaction between the Muslim elites in the Middle East, the North Caucasus, the Volga-Ural region, and Anatolia from the late nineteenth century up today. The biographies of Muhammad and Sharaf ad-Din from Kikuni are well-documented in various written sources, epigraphs, and oral histories. They participated in the 1877 Uprising, were exiled in the Volga region, then emigrated to the Ottoman Empire. Their biographies show that the Naqshbandiya-Khalidiyya often crossed political boundaries and ideological barriers established in the region during the demarcation of the possessions of the Ottoman Turkey and the Russian Empire. The exchange of territories and subjects between Turkey and Russia over the past one and a half centuries led to the emergence of hybrid identities. A micro-history of an identity in the Mukhajir village in Western Anatolia is traced in the article. Contrary to popular belief, the tariqa never represented a single elusive player in the “Big Game” between the great powers. Rather, it included numerous rival factions whose leaders entered into complex relations with each other and with local political elites. Sufi ritual networks were and still are closely connected to more local networks of holy places (ziyarats) in the regions.

Keywords: Sufi networks, the cult of saints, political exile, Muhajir movements, hybrid identity, Naqshbandiyya-Khalidiyya, Naqshbandiyya-Mahmudiyya, epigraphy, correspondence, oral history

Pages: С. 21–36

 
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