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

Preface

The materials utilised in this work are original manuscripts, which I examined during my several research trips to Tajikistan as a PhD student at Cambridge University. Most of those manuscripts, belonging to Mubārak-i Wakhānī, have never before been the focus of sustained research coverage; indeed, their very existence was known only to a very restricted circle of Mubārak’s relatives, and some local scholars, who have hitherto been unable to either study or analyse them in any great depth. Therefore, the originality claimed for this work is in its attempt to be the first introductory study of Mubārak-i Wakhānī and his contribution to Ismāīlī thought and the Persian poetic tradition. It advances a broader argument concerning the impact of cultural and religious diversity on the composition of the Ismāīlī tradition, a dimension of Ismāīlī studies hitherto largely overlooked by historians and Islamic specialists.