The Ismailis are one of the largest Muslim minority populations of Central Asia, and they make up the second largest Shiʿi Muslim community globally. First emerging in the second half of the 8th century, the Ismaili missionary movement spread into many areas of the Islamic world in the 10th century, under the leadership of the Ismaili Fatimids caliphs in Egypt. The movement achieved astounding success in Central Asia in the 10th century, when many of the political and cultural elites of the region were converted. The movement later reemerged in the mountainous Badakhshan region of Central Asia (which encompasses the territories of present-day eastern Tajikistan and northeastern Afghanistan), where it was introduced by the renowned 11th-century Persian poet, philosopher, and Ismaili missionary Nasir-i Khusraw. Over the following centuries the Ismaili movement expanded among the populations of Badakhshan, reaching a population of over 200,000 in the 21st century. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Ismailis suffered a series of severe repressions, first under local Sunni Muslim rulers and later under the antireligious policies of the Soviet Union.
The Origins of the Ismaili Movement in Central Asia
The Ismaili movement traces its origin to a schism in the nascent Shīʿī Muslim community over the question of succession to the Imām Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 765). One faction championed the imāmate of his second son Ismail, while the line of imāms constituting the Ithnāʿasharī or “Twelver” Shīʿī branch, today the majority Shīʿī community in Iran, Iraq, and elsewhere, extended from his younger son Mūsā al-Kāẓim (see Farhad Daftary, The Ismailis: Their History and Doctrines). Supporters of the Ismaili movement appeared in northern Africa in the late 9th century, where they founded the Fāṭimid dynasty under the Imām Abū Muḥammad ʿAbdullāh al-Mahdī in 909. Later establishing its capital in the city of Cairo, the Fāṭimid Empire persisted for over two centuries as one of the leading cultural, political, and religious centers of the Islamic world, presenting a formidable challenge to the Sunni ʿAbbāsid caliphate. From an early period, the Fāṭimid imāms placed a strong priority on the expansion of the Ismaili missionary movement, known as the daʿwa (summons), throughout the Islamic world. In the 10th century, the Ismaili daʿwa achieved success in many far-flung corners of the Muslim world, including, for a time, Central Asia. Although the Central Asia region had long been host to a number of Shīʿī movements, the earliest records of the Ismaili daʿwa in Central Asia appear only in the late 9th century, and little is known about these early missionary figures aside from their names.
The Fāṭimid daʿwa was established in Central Asia in the early 10th century by a dāʿī named Abū ʿAbdullāh al-Khādim, who established the seat of the daʿwa in the city of Nishapur (see Yahia Baiza, “The Shiʿa Ismaʿili Daʿwat in Khurasan: From Its Early Beginning to the Ghaznawid Era,” Journal of Shi‘a Islamic Studies 8.1 (2015): 37–59; and Samuel M. Stern, “The Early Ismailī Missionaries in North-West Persia and in Khurāsān and Transoxania,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 23, no. 1 (1960): 56–90). In the 10th century, the regions of eastern Iran and Central Asia were home to a significant number of prominent Ismaili scholars and missionaries, including such renowned figures as Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī and Muḥammad b. Ahmad al-Nasafī, who are credited with forming a “Khurāsān school” of Ismaili Neoplatonist philosophy (see Paul E. Walker, Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī: Intellectual Missionary (London: I. B. Tauris, 1996), 1–25). Consequently, the Ismaili daʿwa in Central Asia in this period appears to have been focused primarily on the conversion of the political and military elites of the Sāmānid court rather than the common population.
This fluorescence of the Ismaili daʿwa in Central Asia proved to be short-lived. A violent repression of the Ismailis was led by Naṣr’s son Nūḥ, who forced his father to abdicate and reprimanded him for permitting the sect to flourish in his realm. A brief reappearance of the daʿwa under Nūḥ’s son Manṣūr I (r. 961–976) was met with another violent repression led by his governor of Khurasan, Abuʾl-Ḥasan Muḥammad Simjurī. From the late 10th century onward the sources reveal little evidence of Ismaili activity in Central Asia until the career of Nāṣir-i Khusraw nearly a century later. This hostility toward Ismailism was perpetuated under Manṣūr’s son, Nūḥ II. Generally speaking, the early efforts to propagate the Ismaili daʿwa among political elites in Central Asia in the 10th century appear to have had little long-term impact, aside perhaps from a hardening of anti-Ismaili views among the Sunni scholars of the region. Following the collapse of the Sāmānid state at the end of the 10th century, Fāṭimid missionary efforts shifted westward to the Buyid territories of Iraq and western Iran, where the daʿwa was spearheaded by such prominent figures as Muʾayyad fiʾl-Dīn alShīrāzī (d. 1078) and Ḥamīd al-Dīn Kirmānī (d. after 1020). A brief attempt to revive the daʿwa in Central Asia is reported for the year 1045, when a number of Ismaili missionaries, acting on behalf of the Fāṭimid Imām Mustanṣir biʾllāh, appeared in Bukhara and were massacred by the Qarakhānid ruler Bughrā Khān (ʿIzz al-Dīn Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil fiʾl-tawārīkh, ed. C. J. Tornberg, 12 vols. (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1851–1876), ix, 9:358). The modern Ismaili presence in Central Asia, centered in the mountainous Badakhshan region of eastern Central Asia (which today comprises the territories of eastern Tajikistan and northeastern Afghanistan), owes its origins to a later period, and bears little connection with the earlier daʿwa efforts of the 10th and 11th centuries.
Nāṣir-i Khusraw and Ismailism in Badakhshan
The next major phase in the history of Ismailism in Central Asia is associated with the career of Nāṣir-i Khusraw (see Andreĭ Bertel’s, Nasiri Khosrov i Ismailizm; the Ruby of Badakhshan: A Portrait of the Persian Poet, Traveler and Philosopher). Born in the Balkh region of eastern Iran circa 1004, Nāṣir went to the Fāṭimid capital of Cairo in 1045, after a long period of travel throughout Iran and the Near East, during which he was converted to Ismailism. Seven years later, in 1052, he left Egypt to return to Balkh, this time as a proponent of the Ismaili daʿwa. The details of this stage of his career are obscure, but it would appear that at some point over the next two decades, he encountered fierce opposition to his daʿwa activities in Iran and was forced into exile farther east, in the region of Badakhshan, where he was given refuge by a local ruler in the remote province of Yumgān. Nāṣir-i Khusraw composed a number of critical works on Ismaili philosophy and doctrine during his exile, and was among the earliest generation of scholars to compose works of Islamic philosophy in the Persian language. Nāṣir-i Khusraw is widely credited in both scholarship and the communal tradition as the founder of the present-day Ismaili community of Badakhshan, which in the 21st century numbers over 200,000. Yet there remain a number of unresolved questions concerning his precise role in the historical development of Ismailism in the region (Daniel Beben, “Islamisation on the Iranian Periphery: Nasir-i Khusraw and Ismailism in Badakhshan,” in Islamisation: Comparative Perspectives from History, ed. A. C. S. Peacock (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017), 317–335).
There is also the question of Nāṣir-i Khusraw’s reception among the non-Ismaili populations of Central Asia. While early non-Ismaili accounts of Nāṣir invariably deride him as a heretic, beginning in the 14th century (in the wake of the Mongol conquests), we begin to see a drastic shift in the accounts of him circulating among Sunnis communities in Central Asia, which describe him as a great saint and obscure his historical connection with Ismailism (Daniel Beben, “The Legendary Biographies of Nāṣir-i Khusraw: Memory and Textualization in Early Modern Persian Ismailism” ). Likewise, there is evidence of patronage of Nāṣir’s shrine in Yumgān by Sunni rulers as early as the 14th century (see Beben, 173–231; and Marcus Schadl, “The Shrine of Nasir Khusraw: Imprisoned Deep in the Valley of Yumgan,” Muqarnas 26 (2009): 63–93). Subsequent endowment deeds show a continuous record of shrine patronage by Sunni rulers up to the 20th century, including some rulers who are otherwise known for being hostile to Ismailism (Khalīlullah Khalīlī, “Yumgān va vathāʾiq-i tārīkhī darbārah-i Nāṣir-i Khusraw,” Yaghmā 20 (1346 A.Hsh./1967), 438–442, 472–476).
From the Mongol Conquests to the 15th Century
The history of Ismailism in Badakhshan post–Nāṣir-i Khusraw, from the 11th century to the Tīmūrid conquest in the mid-15th century, remains almost entirely obscure. The broader Ismaili community faced another schism after the death of the Imām Mustanṣir biʾllāh in 1094, as the majority of the Ismailis in Iran, Syria, and elsewhere followed the lineage of imāms descending from his son Nizār. Although missionaries who advocated for the cause of Nizār and his successors were highly active in Iran, India, and the Near East in the 12th and 13th centuries, there is no record of their activity in Central Asia or in the Badakhshan region until later centuries. The Mongol conquests in Iran in the mid-13th century dealt a devastating blow to Ismaili communities and institutions throughout the region, concluding with the murder of Imām Rukn al-Dīn Khūrshāh and the destruction of the Ismaili headquarters at the mountain fortress of Alamūt, in 1256.
Ismaili missionaries operating in the post-Mongol era appear to have pursued a very different strategy from that of their Fatimid-era predecessors, whose efforts were aimed largely at members of the political, military, and scholarly elite. By contrast, Ismaili dāʿīs operating in later periods pursued more grassroots efforts, aimed particularly at populations within the ‘periphery’ of the Muslim world, including non-Muslim communities. Whereas many of the earlier Ismaili footholds established in major urban centers such as Bukhara, Nishapur, and even in the former Fatimid capital of Cairo later passed from the scene, it was within these more peripheral territories, such as India and Badakhshan, where more deeply-rooted and long-lasting Ismaili communities were established. Another element that played an important role in the history of Ismailism in Badakhshan in the post-Mongol era was the schism that appears to have occurred within the Nizārī community in the early 14th century following the death of Imām Shams al-Din Muḥammad (c. 1310) between the supporters of his sons Qāsim Shāh and Muḥammad Shāh (see further Farhad Daftary, “Shāh Ṭahīr and the Nizārī Ismailī Disguises,” in Reason and Inspiration in Islam: Theology, Philosophy and Mysticism in Muslim Thought: Essays in Honour of Hermann Landolt, ed. Todd Lawson (London: I. B. Tauris, 2005), 395–406; and Wladimir Ivanow, “A Forgotten Branch of the Ismailis,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1938): 57–79).
Ismailism in Central Asia under Tīmūrid and Uzbek Rule
In 1467, the last member of the dynasty of autonomous rulers of Badakhshan, Shāh Sulṭān Muḥammad, was overthrown by the Tīmūrid ruler Abū Saʿīd, and the Badakhshan region was directly incorporated into the Tīmūrid Empire; Sulṭān Muḥammad was executed by Abū Saʿīd in 1467, following a failed plot to retake the region. The Tīmūrids are known for having taken very harsh measures against the Ismailis in their domains in Central Asia and Iran. Among other incidents, the Tīmūrid governor Sulṭān Ways Mīrzā is recorded as having in 1509 violently suppressed an Ismaili uprising in Badakhshan led by the Muḥammad-Shāhī Imām Raḍī al-Dīn ʿAli (see Mīrzā Muḥammad Ḥaydar Dūghlāt, Tārīkh-i Rashīdī, ed. ʿAbbāsqulī Ghaffārī Fard (Tehran: Mīrāth-i Maktūb, 1283 A.Hsh./2004), 346– 347). Like the Tīmūrids and Shïbanids before them, the Astarkhānids faced revolts from the Ismailis of the region. A particularly virulent uprising against the ruler Nadr Muḥammad Khān is recorded in 1635, which was put down with significant violence (interestingly, this ruler is also recorded as having patronized a major endowment of the shrine of Nāṣiri Khusraw in Yumgān in 1620) (Maḥmūd b. Amīr Valī Balkhī, Baḥr al-asrār fī manāqib al-akhyār, India Office MS no. 1496, f. 276b).
The Ismailis in the Soviet Era
The revolutionary events that convulsed the Russian Empire in 1917 had an almost immediate impact on the Badakhshan region, despite its great distance from Moscow. On the establishment of Soviet rule in Badakhshan, see:
Paul Bergne, The Birth of Tajikistan: National Identity and the Origins of the Republic (London: I. B. Tauris, 2007); Hakim Elnazarov and Sultonbek Aksakolov, “The Nizari Ismailis of Central Asia in Modern Times,” in A Modern History of the Ismailis: Continuity and Change in a Muslim Community, ed. Farhad Daftary (London: I. B. Tauris, 2011), 53–57; and M. N. Nazarshoev, “Pobeda Velikoĭ Oktiabr’skoĭ sotsialisticheskoĭ revoliutsii i ustanovlenie Sovetskoĭ vlasti na Pamire,” in Ocherki po istorii sovetskogo Badakhshana, ed. R. M. Masov (Dushanbe, Tajikistan: Donish, 1985), 95–114.
Members of the anti-Bolshevik forces known as the Basmachi, who sought to restore the deposed Amīrate of Bukhara, launched raids into Badakhshan and took control of the former Russian post at Khorogh, implementing harsh measures against the local Ismailis. Finally, in November 1920, the first Soviet forces arrived and, with the support of the Ismailis, established control in the region.
Although the Soviet government was dedicated to a policy of promoting atheism from the very start, Soviet policy toward religion in Central Asia, and in Badakhshan in particular, was initially quite relaxed. In the late 1920s, Stalin ordered that much harsher measures toward religion be implemented throughout Central Asia, and unleashed a vicious policy of repression and persecution that persisted throughout the 1930s. Soviet Propaganda began to accuse the pīrs and other religious officials in the region of being “class enemies” and of disloyalty to the Soviet system. In 1936, the border along the Panj River was completely closed, which put an end to contact with the Ismailis living across the border and prevented delegations from carrying the annual tithe to the Imām. Nearly all the prominent pīrs of Tajik Badakhshan had been arrested, executed, or forced into exile by 1940.
Further Reading
Beben, Daniel. “Islamisation on the Iranian Periphery: Nasir-i Khusraw and Ismailism in
Badakhshan.” In Islamisation: Comparative Perspectives from History. Edited by A. C. S.
Peacock, 317–335. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017.
Bertel’s, Andreĭ. Nasiri Khosrov i Ismailizm. Moscow: Vostochnoĭ Literatury, 1959.
Bobrinskiĭ, Alekseĭ A. Sekta Ismail’ia v bukharskikh predelakh Sredneĭ Azii. Moscow:
1902.
Daftary, Farhad. The Ismailis: Their History and Doctrines. 2nd ed. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Elnazarov, Hakim, and Sultonbek Aksakolov. “The Nizari Ismailis of Central Asia in
Modern Times.” In A Modern History of the Ismailis: Continuity and Change in a Muslim
Community. Edited by Farhad Daftary, 45–76. London: I. B. Tauris, 2011.
Gross, Jo-Ann. “Foundational Legends, Shrines, and Ismaili Identity in Gorno-Badakhshan,
Tajikistan.” In Muslims and Others in Sacred Space. Edited by Margaret Cormack, 164–
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Hunsberger, Alice. Nasir Khusraw, the Ruby of Badakhshan: A Portrait of the Persian
Poet, Traveler and Philosopher. London: I. B. Tauris, 2000.
Iloliev, Abdulmamad. The Ismaili-Sufi Sage of Pamir: Mubārak-i Wakhānī and the Esoteric
Tradition of the Pamiri Muslims. Amherst, MA: Cambria, 2008.
Nāṣir-i Khusraw. Make a Shield from Wisdom: Selected Verses from Nāṣir-i Khusraw’s
Dīvān. Translated by Annemarie Schimmel. 2nd ed. London: I. B. Tauris, 2001.
Nāṣir-i Khusraw. Nasir-i Khusraw’s Book of Travels. Edited by Muḥammad Dabīr Siyāqī.
Translated by W. M. Thackston. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2001.
Nāṣir-i Khusraw. Between Reason and Revelation: Twin Wisdoms Reconciled. Translated
by Eric Ormsby. London: I. B. Tauris, 2012.
Schadl, Marcus. “The Shrine of Nasir Khusraw: Imprisoned Deep in the Valley of
Yumgan.” Muqarnas 26 (2009): 63–93.
Semenov, Aleksandr A. “Iz oblasti religioznykh verovaniĭ shugnanskikh ismailitov.” Mir
Islama 4 (1912): 523–561.