The Ismaili-Sufi Sage of Pamir: Mubarak-i Wakhani and the Esoteri ...

Likewise, the term Dawat-i Nāir did not arbitrarily lose its religious importance in the post-Nāir period, when Pamiri Ismāīlism was strongly influenced by the Twelver Shīī, Sufi and other Islamic doctrines. Nāir-i Khusraw was indeed the main preacher or in the local context ‘the holy guide’ (pīr-i qudus), who embodied the core Ismāīlī (Fāimid) principles in the diverse frame of the indigenous religious beliefs and practices and laid the foundations of the Ismāīlī community in Badakhshan. It is, however, argued here that his ideas were popularised and their interpretations harmonised with the beliefs, rituals and practices of the indigenous people. Moreover, during the course of Ismāīlī history under certain socio-political circumstances the Dawat-i Nāir faced changes as well as challenges. Theoretically, therefore, this term is perceived here as a symbolic shortcut to the whole religious tradition of the Pamiris since their conversation to Islam, but historically it covers a period from Nāir-i Khusraw’s mission until the middle of the thirteenth century. One of the reasons for this chronological division is the reactivation of the Ismāīlī (Nīzarī) mission in Pamir after the fall of the Alamut strongholds.

The Mongol invasion of the Islamic world, which led to the abolishment of the Alamut strongholds, was followed by the persecution of the Ismāīlis throughout the Middle East and Transoxiana. Consequently, many Ismāīlī dāīs were forced to take political refuge in locations far from the Mongol invaders and their local collaborators. Hence, the process of Islamisation or rather the indigenisation of Islam in the region was strongly influenced by and increasingly activated during the asylum- seeking movement of the post-Alamūt period. The Ismāīlī missionaries acted in accordance with the new strategy employed in the general Ismāīlī context; that is, uul al-taqiyya (a method of precautionary dissimulation of the true religious beliefs), and introduced new ideas connected with Sufism and the Twelver Shīism. Gradually, these ideas became an intrinsic part of the new indigenous faith, that is, the Panj-Tanī, a term which until recent years was a matter of religious identity for the Pamiri Ismāīlīs. Here the Panj-Tanī faith is understood as a combination of certain elements of the pre-Islamic rituals, imbued with Islamic meanings, the Fāimid dawa (Nāir-i Khusraw’s teachings) and post-Alamut taqiyya ideas.