Abstract
This paper is a study of the Kalām-i pīr, a text on religious doctrine preserved among the Ismaʿili Shiʿi community of the Badakhshan region of Central Asia, attributed to the fifth/eleventh-century Ismaʿili author Nāṣir-i Khusraw. An edition and translation of this work was first published by Wladimir Ivanow, who judged it to be a ‘forgery’ by the tenth/sixteenth-century Ismaʿili missionary Khayrkhwāh Harātī. Ivanow concluded that while the text overall holds value as a specimen of Ismaʿili doctrinal writing, its first chapter, which purports to be an autobiographical account of its reputed author, Nāṣir-i Khusraw, is an irrelevant appendage to the work. Since then, Ivanow’s interpretation has remained broadly authoritative within the field. In recent years, however, multiple new manuscripts of the work and a range of related materials have come to light, indicating the need for a thorough re-evaluation of the text and its history. In this article I demonstrate that Harātī had no role in the development of the Kalām-i pīr and that its production should be dated to the eighteenth century, rather than the sixteenth. Furthermore, I argue that the attribution to Nāṣir-i Khusraw, elaborated in the first chapter, is not incidental to the text, but central to understanding its significance within the Ismaʿili tradition of Central Asia. The text must be considered within the context of the history of Badakhshan in the eighteenth century, which saw an energetic expansion of the Ismaʿili mission (daʿwa) in the region and the development of a competitive hagiographical tradition connected with Nāṣir-i Khusraw among various constituencies. This re-evaluation of the Kalām-i pīr demonstrates the need for a revision of the broader framework by which we understand both the legacy of Nāṣir-i Khusraw and the historical development of the Ismaʿili daʿwa in Central Asia.
Matteo De Chiara, Evelin Grassi (eds.). Iranian Languages and Literatures of Central Asia. From the eighteenth century to the present