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A Sufi Saint in Sixteenth-Century East Turkistan: New Evidence Concerning the Life of Khwāja Isḥāq
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 September 2014
Abstract
The rise of Khwāja Isḥāq, one of the most influential figures in the history of Central Asian Sufism, has often been explained by the patronage of particular royals. This “royal patron” model has, however, been based on a flawed reading of hagiographical sources by which crucial questions of genre are overlooked in the effort of mining these complex narratives for apparent historical facts. New evidence, presented here, allows us to question the “royal patron” model, along with the commonly-accepted chronology of Khwāja Isḥāq's life, and calls for a different approach to Sufi hagiography as a historical source.
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References
1 See, for example, DeWeese, Devin, “The ‘Competitors’ of Isḥāq Khwāja in Eastern Turkistan: Hagiographies, Shrines, and Sufi Affiliations in the Late Sixteenth Century”, in Horizons of the World: Festschrift for İsenbike Togan / Hudûdü’l-Âlem: İsenbike Togan’a Armağan, (ed.) Binbaș, E. and Kılıç-Schubel, N. (Istanbul, 2011), pp. 133–215 Google Scholar; Papas, Alexandre, Soufisme et politique entre Chine, Tibet et Turkestan: Etude sur les khwajas Naqshbandis du Turkestan orientale (Paris, 2005)Google Scholar; the facsimile and Kazakh translation of the Taẕkira-i ‘azīzān by Muhammad Ṣādiq Kāshgharī published in A.Sh. Nūrmanova (ed.), Qazaqstan tarikhy turaly turky derektemleri vol. 4 (Almaty, 2006); the facsimile of the sixteenth-century hagiography of Muḥammad Sharīf published in Orxun, Abliz and Jun, Sugawara (eds.), Mazar Documents from Xinjiang and Ferghana, vol. 2 (Tokyo, 2007)Google Scholar; a translation, into Japanese, of another copy of this hagiography in Masami, Hamada (ed.), Hagiographies du Turkestan Oriental: Textes čaġatay édités, traduits en japonais et annotés avec une introduction analytique et historique (Kyoto, 2006)Google Scholar; and, perhaps most significantly, we can welcome the ongoing efforts to digitise the immensely valuable archive created by Gunnar Jarring, now known as the Jarring Collection, at Lund University in Sweden (MS Jarring Prov. 1–560, Lund University Library).
2 Exceptions to this manner of employing hagiographical literature can be found, however. See, for example, a recent dissertation by Rian Thum (“The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History”, unpublished PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 2010); the above mentioned article by DeWeese, “The ‘Competitors’ of Isḥāq Khwāja in Eastern Turkistan”; and notable recent works by John Renard: Friends of God: Islamic Images of Piety, Commitment, and Servanthood (Berkeley, 2008)Google Scholar; and Renard, (ed.), Tales of God's Friends: Islamic Hagiography in Translation (Berkeley, 2009)Google Scholar and Bashir, Shahzad Sufi Bodies: Religion and Society in Medieval Islam (New York, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 I use the term “hagiography” here in the most basic sense, indicating a text that recounts events in the life of a Sufi master. More specifically, however, nearly all of the sources upon which I will draw in the course of this paper likewise fall into John Renard's useful sub-category of “biohagiography,” indicating a work which not only highlights the subject's spiritual qualities and miracles but which also “adds significant information about the subject's personal, public, and political life” (Renard, Friends of God, pp. 241–242; 245).
4 On the Taẕkira-i ‘azīzān, see below. A substantial portion of the Tārīkh-i Churās, along with a Russian translation and extensive introduction, was published by Akimushkin, O.F.: Shāh Maḥmūd ibn Mīrzā Fāzil Churās, Khronika (Moscow, 1976)Google Scholar. The source is, in fact, untitled, but it has long been referred to in scholarship as the Tārīkh-i Churās, so we will use this title here.
5 There are three extant copies of this work. For this paper I have consulted the manuscript copy held in the Houghton Library at Harvard University (MS Persian 95). Another copy is held in St. Petersburg, and is the subject of a partial translation into Russian by V.A. Romodin; see Romodin, (ed.), Materialy po istorii kirgizov i kirgizii vol. 1 (Moscow, 1973), pp. 177–184 Google Scholar. Another copy is held in the Oriental Institute of the Academy of Sciences in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
6 A brief treatment by Joseph Fletcher remains the only critical comment on this work of which I am aware. See , Fletcher, “Confrontations between Muslim missionaries and nomad unbelievers in the late sixteenth century: notes on four passages from the ‘Ḍiyā’ al-qulūb’”, in Manz, Beatrice Forbes (ed.), Studies on Chinese and Islamic Inner Asia (Aldershot, 1995), pp. 167–174 Google Scholar. Fletcher recommends in his essay that a comprehensive study be done of this work, taking all three extant copies into account; such an effort has yet to be undertaken. It would be very helpful indeed, as we remain uncertain even of the extent of the similarities between the three. It is clear, as Fletcher notes, that the Żiyā’ al-qulūb existed in some form even in Khwāja Isḥāq's lifetime (see below).
7 See Nūrmanova et al, p. 34.
8 Shaw, Robert Barkley, The History of the Khojas of Eastern-Turkestan, summarized from the Tazkira-i-Khwājagān of Muḥammad Ṣādiq Kāshgharī (Supplement to the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal LXVI/1 [1897])Google Scholar. Another summary of the Taẕkira-i ‘azīzān was published several years later, in German: Martin Hartmann, “Ein Heiligenstaat im Islam: Das Ende der Čaghataiden und die Herrschaft der Choğas in Kašgarien”, in Der Islamische Orient: Berichte und Forschungen, vol. 1 (Berlin, 1905), pp. 195–374. Most recently (and at long last), a full facsimile of the work, made from a copy held in St. Petersburg, has been published by Nūrmanova et al (see above), and for this paper I have consulted this copy as well as a manuscript copy digitised by archivists at Lund University (MS Jarring Prov. 313). In all, there are over 20 extant copies of this work, including seven in Saint Petersburg, three in China, two in the United Kingdom and two in Germany (for comprehensive catalogue information, see Nūrmanova et al, pp. 36–38).
9 As Renard notes, this problem has its parallels beyond scholarship as well: “Common American parlance”, he writes, “casts ‘myth’ in a losing battle with ‘fact,’ dismissing at a stroke much of the world's collective wisdom. Such binary thinking misses the point entirely: there is a middle ground where poetry and hagiography live” (Friends of God, p. 247).
10 Bashir, Sufi Bodies, p. 19.
11 It has long been claimed by scholars that this figure was the leader of a Sufi ‘order’ called the Uvaysīyya. The idea is treated most extensively in a work by Baldick, Julian, Imaginary Muslims: The Uwaysi Sufis of Central Asia (New York, 1993)Google Scholar. There has been surprisingly little comment, however, on Devin DeWeese's contention that an Uvaysī ‘order’ did not exist (see , DeWeese, “The Tazkira-i Bughrā-khān and the ‘Uvaysī’ Sufis of Central Asia: Notes in Review of Imaginary Muslims ”, Central Asiatic Journal 40 (1996), pp. 87–127 Google Scholar; “An ‘Uvaysī’ Sufi in Timurid Mawarannahr: Notes on Hagiography and the Taxonomy of Sanctity in the Religious History of Central Asia”, Papers on Inner Asia 22 (Bloomington, 1993); and “The ‘Competitors’ of Isḥāq Khwāja in Eastern Turkistan”, pp. 149–155). DeWeese argues that no source explicitly presents Muḥammad Sharīf as the leader of an ‘Uvaysī’ group, and that such a claim is absent even from the hagiographical literature on Muḥammad Sharīf himself; he argues that it is much more likely that the term ‘Uvaysī’ was used to refer to a “category of sainthood” and that it reflects the idea of Uvaysī saints “in conceptual terms” rather than with reference to a tangible, self-designated order of Sufis (DeWeese, “The ‘Competitors’ of Isḥāq Khwāja”, pp. 151–152). As for Muḥammad Sharīf himself, there are at present many extant copies of his taẕkira; their whereabouts and catalogue information are provided in DeWeese, “The ‘Competitors’ of Isḥāq Khwāja”, pp. 137–139. For this paper I have consulted a digitised MS held at Lund University (MS Jarring Prov. 327).
12 MS Jarring Prov. 327, f. 2.
13 MS Jarring Prov. 327, ff. 2–3.
14 Ḍiyā’ al-qulūb, MS Persian 95 ff. 4v-5. The parallel sequence in the Taẕkira-i ‘azīzān is found in Nūrmanova et al, MS facs. 18b (p. 64 of the Kazakh tr.); MS Jarring Prov. 313 f. 20.
15 The motif of prodigal “Friends of God” being identified in their pre-pubescence is quite common in Islamic hagiography beyond East Turkistan as well, with the age of seven years being particularly common as a turning point in a young saint's development: cf. Renard, Friends of God, pp. 25–30.
16 On the collection in question, see Kim, Hodong, “Eastern Turki Royal Decrees of the 17th Century in the Jarring Collection”, in Studies on Xinjiang Historical Sources in 17th–20th Centuries, eds. Millward, James A., Yasushi, Shinmen and Jun, Sugawara (Tokyo, 2010)Google Scholar. All of the documents in Harvard's archive bear a small Chinese stamp in the upper left-hand corner which, in red ink, reads “Radlov” (I am grateful to Donald Sutton and Eric T. Schluessel for this reading). The correspondences between these documents and those found in the Jarring Collection of the Lund University archives are as follows: Harvard's MS Turk 70 Doc. 6 corresponds to MS Jarring Prov. 222; MS Turk 70 Doc. 7 corresponds to MS Jarring Prov. 223; MS Turk 70 Doc. 9 corresponds to MS Jarring Prov. 224; MS Turk 70 Doc. 11 corresponds to MS Jarring Prov. 225; MS Turk 70 Doc 10 corresponds to MS Jarring Prov. 227.
17 The item in question is MS Turk 70 Doc. 13.
18 I will refer also to the Żiyā’ al-qulūb, though this source has had less of an impact among historians, due no doubt to its relative inaccessibility; it has never been published, except in the very fragmentary Russian translation noted above. Two other sources pertinent to the life of Khwāja Isḥāq were accessible to me at the time of writing only in similarly abbreviated Russian translations—the Rafīq al-Tālibīn, which is apparently a Chaghatay Turkic translation of the Anīs al-Tālibīn of Shāh Maḥmūd Churās, and the Jalīs al-Mushtaqīn of Mavlavī Shāh Muḥammad (Materialy po istorii kirgizov i kirgizii, pp. 190–199 and pp. 185–189, respectively).
19 Nūrmanova et al, MS facs. 18a (p. 64 of the Kazakh tr.); MS Jarring Prov. 313 f. 20 (here, Khwāja Isḥāq's mother is referred to as Būbī rather than Bībī).
20 Nūrmanova et al, MS facs. 19a (p. 65 of the Kazakh tr.); MS Jarring Prov. 313 f. 21. Here the Turkic of the Taẕkira-i ‘azīzān is nearly a direct translation of the Persian Żiyā’ al-qulūb: “āvāze-ye īn farzand-i dilband sharq va gharb-rā mīresad” (MS Persian 95 f. 5v).
21 Nūrmanova et al, MS facs. 19a (p. 65 of the Kazakh tr.); MS Jarring Prov. 313 f. 21. Again, the model seems to be the Żiyā’ al-qulūb: “ay mullā dar man darvēshī namībāshad” (MS Persian 95 f. 5v).
22 Here I have quoted the Jarring MS, as the text is clearer. MS Jarring Prov. 313 f. 21; Nūrmanova et al, MS facs. 19a (p. 65 of the Kazakh tr.).
23 Nūrmanova, et al, MS facs. 19b-21a (pp. 66–67 of the Kazakh tr.). See also MS Persian 95 ff. 9–10. Papas provides an excerpt of this episode in French translation from the Tashkent MS of the Żiyā’ al-qulūb (see Papas, Soufisme et politique, p. 42). The Jarring MS omits the sequence involving Khurdak entirely, passing directly to the illness of the ruler's son, and its author provides a sort of editorial comment on the episode by seemingly framing the entire event as hearsay, pointing out—in anticipation of the following sequence—that Khwāja Isḥāq had in fact not yet received the requisite licensure from his superiors to perform such feats (MS Jarring Prov. 313 ff. 21–22).
24 According to Papas, Mavlānā Lutfullāh Chustī was a disciple of a Bukharan Sufi named Muḥammad Qāzī, but not of Makhdūm-i Aʿẓam. He nevertheless invokes Makhdūm-i Aʿẓam's name in conferring this ‘license’ on Khwāja Isḥāq. Papas provides an excerpt in French translation of this episode, and offers some ideas about its implications (Papas, Soufisme et politique, pp. 38–41).
25 Nūrmanova et al, MS facs. 22a (p. 69 of the Kazakh tr.). This episode is not included in the Jarring MS, which proceeds directly to Khwāja Isḥāq's activities in Kashgar (MS Jarring Prov. 313 f. 23).
26 I found no mention of this figure in the Jarring MS, which also omits a few other proximate episodes contained in the MS published by Nūrmanova, et al.
27 Nūrmanova et al, MS facs. 22b (p. 71 of the Kazakh tr.). As a sign of his distaste, this ruler sends Khwāja Isḥāq a dishonorable “gift”, apparently some sort of old horse (bir tutī āt).
28 Nūrmanova et al, MS facs. 22b (p. 71 of the Kazakh tr.). These miracles are briefly listed; they include Khwāja Isḥāq's raising the dead, curing the ill, and bringing sight to those afflicted with cataracts.
29 MS Persian 95 f. 4v.
30 Nūrmanova et al, MS facs. 23a-24a (pp. 70–72 of the Kazakh tr.).
31 Nūrmanova et al, MS facs. 24b-26a (pp. 73–75 of the Kazakh tr.).
32 After asking Muḥammad Khān his name and receiving the answer “Muḥammad”, Khwāja Isḥāq replies, “Apparently I had been drawn by this name to come to this land” (ghalib-an āmadan-i man be-īn diyār bekashish-i īn nām būda-ast): Chūras, Khronika, Persian text, 49b (p. 162 of the Russian tr.).
33 Churās, Khronika, Persian text, 50a (pp. 162–163 of the Russian tr.). Another work by Churās, the Anīs al-ṭālibīn, apparently offers a different version of the development of ill-will between these two figures, noting ‘Abd al-Karīm's association with a shaykh named Muḥammad Ṣūfī, who is himself connected with Khwāja Muḥammad Sharīf (mentioned earlier). There is also another work, the apparently little-known Taẕkira of Mawlānā Sayyid ‘Abd al-Mannān, which embellishes the story of Khwāja Isḥāq's inhospitable demeanour toward ‘Abd al-Karīm with portents of their enmity; on both of these sources, see DeWeese, “The ‘Competitors’ of Isḥāq Khwāja in Eastern Turkistan”, pp. 135–137, pp. 186–204.
34 Churās, Khronika, Persian text, 50b (p. 164 of the Russian tr.).
35 Shutur is clearly the same khalifa referred to as “Ushtur” in the Taẕkira-i ‘azīzān. Some elements of that source are incorporated in new contexts here, as we find Shutur using a walking-stick (‘aṣā) to strike “iniquity” (munkar) to the ground (Churās, Khronika, Persian text, 50b [p. 164 of the Russian tr.]). This episode is clearly related to the passage in the Taẕkira-i ‘azīzān noted earlier, in which Khwāja Isḥāq strikes down a bird with his walking-stick. Notably, however, there is no hint in Churās’ work that we are to understand this event as an omen of ‘Abd al-Karīm's fall from power.
36 Churās, Khronika, Persian text, 50b (p. 164–65 of the Russian tr.).
37 Churās, Khronika, Persian text, 50b-51a (p. 165 of the Russian tr.). In this instance, however, Khwāja Isḥāq's presence in Turfan obviates the miraculous commute from Samarqand that we find in the Taẕkira-i ‘azīzān.
38 Churās, Khronika, Persian text, 51a (p. 165 of the Russian tr.).
39 Churās, Khronika, Persian text, 54a-54b (pp. 173–174 of the Russian tr.).
40 Anna Bigelow offers a similar observation on hagiographical texts from Punjab: “If political and worldly leaders appear in these accounts, the encounters often seem intended to demonstrate the superiority of spiritual authority. Even saintly figures possessing temporal powers tend to be esteemed for their conformity to models of piety rather than of royalty” (“A ‘Tazkira’ for the Times: Saving Islam in Post-Partition Punjab”, in Tales of God's Friends, p. 219).
41 Akimushkin, Khronika, pp. 29–30 (introduction). Papas, on the basis of a broader range of sources, notes that Khwāja Isḥāq's numerous elite alliances in Transoxania would have made him appear already to be an important shaykh by the time he arrived in East Turkistan (Papas, Soufisme et politique, pp. 42–43).
42 On the disputed existence of the Uvaysī ‘order’ and their alleged leadership by Muḥammad Sharīf, see above, n7.
43 I will forgo full transliterations in quoting from this document, as a complete transcription is provided (fig. 3). I most graciously acknowledge the efforts and aid of my colleague Lidia Gocheva in translating and transcribing the Arabic portion of this document, and the invaluable assistance of Wheeler Thackston in reviewing our translation and offering his comments and suggestions.
44 Fletcher noted this: “Confrontations between Muslim missionaries and nomad unbelievers in the late sixteenth century”, pp. 172–173.
45 The passage reads, “[A]s they said: whoever gives something as a present to somebody, he owns it so that he may take hold of it and nobody contends [this] and nobody shares in it, and nobody dismisses him and nobody prevents him from it, and nobody—except a hypocrite—opposes him. And whoever is [the hypocrite] and takes the same stance as him, may God nullify his work in this world and blacken his face on the day of resurrection”.
46 I am grateful to Wheeler Thackston for pointing out the longstanding practice of selling the dust from sacred places.
47 Those addressed, as far as I was able to make them out, are as follows: sipāhī (soldier); ‘āmil-hā yasāq [sic!] (court-official?); ālbān (?); carīg (army); ārqūsh (?); qarāvul (sentry); chakrāvul (rearguard); ḥashr (congregants); muzd-kār (salaried worker); beharak (?); chahār-pā-ī (beasts of burden). The Persian text goes on to warn: “Anyone who acts contrary to this in the world becomes subject to the sultan's wrath and all of the angels curse (him) and in the other world he will deserve the wrath of God and he will be deprived of intercession from all of the prophets, and on the day of judgment his face will be black”.
48 ‘Abd al-Jalīl Bāb, called Khurāsān Ata, is said to be an ‘Islamiser’ and educator of the ninth century and is still revered today in modern Kazakhstan, with a newly-renovated mausoleum 31 kilometres from the town of Yanykurgan in the Kyzylorda region. The mausoleum is administered by a direct descendant of Khurāsān Ata, who provides an extensive genealogy of his family on the mausoleum's official website (in Russian and Kazakh). See also Bonora, Gian Luca et al, Guide to Kazakhstan: Sites of Faith, Sites of History (Turin, 2009), p. 178 Google Scholar. Other than the present document, I have not found any further evidence of the influence of this figure in East Turkistan. This is an important contribution to our very limited knowledge of the demographics of Sufism in East Turkistan during Khwāja Isḥāq's lifetime. Evidence of parallel Sufi traditions has typically been used to frame competing ‘orders’ which were allegedly unable to coexist with Khwāja Isḥāq, as is the case with Muḥammad Sharīf or Ālp Ātā. But the evidence here, however slight, points to a site of pilgrimage situated side-by-side with Khwāja Isḥāq's property.
49 The passage reads, “[W]hoever serves the friends of God or the scholars, and somebody curses him or annoys him or treats him cruelly or does anything he hates, or fails to venerate the saints—then there will be discord among the people or dissent or calamity, or there will be an insufficiency of water and blessings for this county, or tribulation that he had not endured or seen in this world [?] will find him, while the people pay no attention to this and keep away from him and seek forgiveness and repentance”.
50 DeWeese, “The ‘Competitors’ of Isḥāq Khwāja in Eastern Turkistan”, p. 134.
51 Renard, Friends of God, pp. 170–174.
52 Ibid ., p. 181.
53 See, for example, Paul, Jürgen, “Forming a Faction: The Ḥimāyat System of Khwaja Ahrar”, International Journal of Middle East Studies 23 (1991), pp. 533–548 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
54 The saint in question is very often depicted as an ‘Islamiser’, such as Khwāja Isḥāq. On Islamisation and the discourse of power in Central Asia more broadly, see , DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde: Baba Tükles and Conversion to Islam in Historical and Epic Tradition (University Park, 1994)Google Scholar.