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13. It is necessary to mention that the first historic dīdār of the Ismā
īlī Imam, with his followers in Pamir, occurred after almost a thousand years of the Pamiris’ conversion to Islam. In May 1995, the present Imam Aga Khan IV visited Tajikistan and gave dīdār in several districts of Pamir. This visit was an important historical occasion in the lives of the Pamiris, both in the spiritual and political senses, for it occurred during the Tajik civil war (1992–1997) in which the Pamiris, as one of the main victims, were suffering from socio-economic and political problems. The twenty fourth of May, the date on which the first dīdār occurred, is now widely celebrated as ‘the day of light’ (rūz-i nūr) all over VMKB and other parts of Tajikistan where the Ismāīlīs live.
īlī Imam, with his followers in Pamir, occurred after almost a thousand years of the Pamiris’ conversion to Islam. In May 1995, the present Imam Aga Khan IV visited Tajikistan and gave dīdār in several districts of Pamir. This visit was an important historical occasion in the lives of the Pamiris, both in the spiritual and political senses, for it occurred during the Tajik civil war (1992–1997) in which the Pamiris, as one of the main victims, were suffering from socio-economic and political problems. The twenty fourth of May, the date on which the first dīdār occurred, is now widely celebrated as ‘the day of light’ (rūz-i nūr) all over VMKB and other parts of Tajikistan where the Ismāīlīs live.
14. Wladimir Ivanow, “An Ismaili Interpretation of the Gulshani Raz” JBBRAC 8 (1932): 67–68.
15. For Badakhshani dialect, see Anna Rozenfeld, Badakhshanskie Govory Tadzhikskogo Yazika (Leningrad: Leningradskiy Gosudarstvenniy Universitet, 1971).
16. Nā
ir-i Khusraw, Dīvān, ed. Na
r Allāh Taqavī (Tehran, 1961), 5, 190–191, 205, 272–273, 297, 298, 299, 331, 387, 429, 456, 467, 469 and 489.
ir-i Khusraw, Dīvān, ed. Nar Allāh Taqavī (Tehran, 1961), 5, 190–191, 205, 272–273, 297, 298, 299, 331, 387, 429, 456, 467, 469 and 489.
17. Nāir–i Khusraw, Jāmi
al-
ikmatayn, ed. Henry Corbin and Muhammad Mumin (Tehran: Institu-i Iran va Faransah, 1953), 15, 17, 314, 316.
ir–i Khusraw, Jāmial-ikmatayn, ed. Henry Corbin and Muhammad Mumin (Tehran: Institu-i Iran va Faransah, 1953), 15, 17, 314, 316.
18. There are still two main religious clans in Pamir: (1) sayyids, those whose genealogical line claims to have originated from the Prophet Muhammad and Alī; and (2) khujas, who claim to belong to the family of Sūhrāb-i Valī, who is believed to have been appointed by Nāir-i Khusraw as his rightful spiritual successor. To date, historically, Sūhrāb-i Valī was born four centuries after Nāir-i Khusraw’s death. For more details on him, refer to Farhad Daftary, “Badakhshānī Sayyid Sūhrāb–i Valī”, in Dāirat al-Maārif-i Buzurg-i Islāmī, edited by Musavi K. Bojnurdi (Tehran: The Great Islamic Encyclopaedia, 1996), 1131.
Alī; and (2) khujas, who claim to belong to the family of Sūhrāb-i Valī, who is believed to have been appointed by Nāir-i Khusraw as his rightful spiritual successor. To date, historically, Sūhrāb-i Valī was born four centuries after Nāir-i Khusraw’s death. For more details on him, refer to Farhad Daftary, “Badakhshānī Sayyid Sūhrāb–i Valī”, in Dāirat al-Maārif-i Buzurg-i Islāmī, edited by Musavi K. Bojnurdi (Tehran: The Great Islamic Encyclopaedia, 1996), 1131.
19. According to the Islamic ‘science of letters’ (ilm al-abjad), the following letters correspond to the following numbers: ghayn –1000, rā – 200, min – 40, wāw – 6 which makes it 1246 (1860). For further details on abjad calculations see Lalah Bakhtiar, Sufi: Expression of the Mystic Quest (London: Thames and Hudson, 1976), 114.
ilm al-abjad), the following letters correspond to the following numbers: ghayn –1000, rā – 200, min – 40, wāw – 6 which makes it 1246 (1860). For further details on abjad calculations see Lalah Bakhtiar, Sufi: Expression of the Mystic Quest (London: Thames and Hudson, 1976), 114.
20. There is another copy of the Gawhar-Rīz (preserved in the library of the IIS), whose date of completion (1244/1828) differs from that of our version. The content of both copies are almost the same, apart from the fact that the former lacks some concluding pages.