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

Nevertheless, the anti-religious atheistic policy of the Communist government, which had strict control over all academic institutions, restricted the study of religion in general and religious scholars in particular.² Several famous Islamic mystics, scholars and theologians, like Rudakī, Nāir-i Khusraw, āfi, Rumī, Khayyām and many others, were portrayed only as ‘national’ Tajik poets, whose poetry, as the Communist scholars believed, expressed ‘anti-feudal sentiments’ and promoted ideas such as ‘equality’, ‘freedom’ and ‘patriotism’, in order to support the dogmatic Communist doctrine of the class struggle and inequality in the feudal oppressed society. Their religious aspects were almost ignored, because religion, as such, was interpreted like Karl Marx, as “the opium of the people”. The case was far worse for local religious scholars like Mubārak, whose Ismāīlī esoteric philosophy was probably, in fact, less ‘communistic’ than that of others.

There are few references to Mubārak in Tajik and Russian sources that only mention his name and some of his major works. The first written reference to him detected so far occurs in his own manuscript entitled Tarjamat al-Bayān (the Clarity of Meaning) which is written in a poetic panegyric style by the local Badakhshani historian, Falalī Bek Surkhafsar. He praises Mubārak for his devotion to the chosen path:³

Bertels was the first Soviet orientalist to introduce Mubārak’s name to the academic world. During his research project in Pamir (1959–63), Bertels compiled an index of the region’s old manuscripts, in which seven books of Mubārak were also included.⁵ Although there is not much evidence about Mubārak in Bertels’ report, this may be one of the first scholarly references to the poet’s name and works.