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

It is worth clarifying at the outset that the term ‘Pamir’ and its adjective (Pamiri) is deployed in the context of the modern autonomous province (vilāyat) of Tajik Badakhshan (Gorno-Badakhshan) or VMKB (Vilāyat-i Mukhtār-i Kuhistān-i Badakhshān), which was established in 1925 on the basis of its ethno-cultural differences four years prior to the formal creation of the Soivet Socialst Rebulic of Tajikistan as an equal member of the USSR.

Pamir, a mountainous area in the southeast of Tajikistan and northeast of Afghanistan, is the only region in the world where the Shīī Ismāīlī Muslims have subsisted compactly in their homogenous historic land since the eleventh century. Demographically, Gorno-Badakhshan is a unique place for the Ismāīlīs, as they are in the majority and formally constitute a semi independent political entity within the Republic of Tajikistan.