On Khorezmian Connectivity:

Space, Mobility, Imagination

An International Workshop under the auspices of the START project Seeing Like an Archive: Documents and Forms of Governance in Islamic Central Asia (18th – 19th Centuries)

Organizers Institute of Iranian Studies Christine Nölle-Karimi October, 9-10 2014 Paolo Sartori Apostelgasse 23, 1030 Vienna

October 9, 2014

9.00 Registration

9.30 Welcome Address Florian Schwarz

9.40 Introduction Paolo Sartori, On Khorezmian Connectivity: Two or Three Things I Know about It

10.15 Coffee Break

10.45 Panel One Program Jeffrey Eden, The Slave-Trade Beyond the Bazaars: Decentered Trade Networks and the Myth of Urban Commercial Omnipotence in Central Asia Akifumi Shioya, On Water Management System in Pre-Soviet Khorezm Elena Smolarz, On the Move against their Will: Mobility of Russian Slaves in 19th century Khiva 12.15 Discussion

13.00 Lunch Break

14.00 Panel Two James Pickett, Conflicted Allegiances: The Politics of Khanate and Sufi Order between Bukhara and Khorezm Al’frid Bustanov, Najm al-Din Kubra's Uwaysi Sufis among the Tatars of the 19th Century Devin DeWeese, Mapping Khorezmian Connections in the History of Sufi Traditions: Local Developments, Regional Networks, and Global Ties of the Sufi Communities of Khorezm 15.30 Discussion

19.00 Dinner for participants

October 10, 2014

9.30 Panel Three Ulfat Abdurasulov, Connectivity in Practice: The Steppe and the Sown under the Early Qungrats Christine Nölle-Karimi: Locating Khiva: The Khanate in the Perception of Qajar Envoys 10.30 Discussion

11.00 Coffee Break

11.30 Panel Four Paolo Sartori, Seeing Like a Khanate: On Archives, Cultures of Documentation and 19th Century Khorezm Bakhtiyar Babajanov, Epigraphy in Khorezm: Decoration, Information, Memory William Wood, Yuri Bregel and the Study of the Khivan Archives in the Soviet Period 13.00 Discussion

13.30 Lunch Break

14.30 Christine Nölle-Karimi, Reflections on Regional History: Variables of Connectivity

Abstracts

Ulfat Abdurasulov such inscriptions was to create a public sense of the past; 4) Texts of the Connectivity in Practice: endowment deeds on marble stones as a part of the architectural epigraphy The Steppe and the Sown Under the Early Qungrats of Khiva. I’ll try to compare two different kinds of texts: the original waqf The centralization policy of the Qungrats, the dynasty that came to power deed of Shir Ghazi Khan (early 18th century) on paper and his poetic in Khiva at the turn of the 18th and 19th century, brought about a number of arrangement carved on marble stone. shifts in governance of the contact zones between the oasis itself and the steppes. This study examines the various strategies that the first Qungrat rulers developed to shape a new political landscape in the northern Alfrid Bustanov provinces of Khorezm (the so-called Aral region) as well as in the south- Najm al-Din Kubra's Uwaysi Sufis among the Tatars of the 19th Century western fringes of the oasis, which were inhabited by various Turkmen In my paper I will discuss a Chaghatay narrative from the late 19th clans (Northern Khorasan). On the basis of two case-studies, the paper century. The manuscript accounts the story of Najm al-Din al-Bulghari, who traces the Qungrats’ mental-mapping and illustrates their strategies to travelled from the Volga-Ural region to Khorezm in search of a Sufi master situate the geography of Khorezm in a wider spatial context which included in the wake of his dismissal by Tatar shaykhs. In Khorezm, Najm al-Din did the Turkmen deserts in the south and the Qazaq steppe in the north. not find a living teacher and liaised, instead, with a famous Khorezmian Sufi. The latter was the famous Najm al-Din Kubra who had appeared to Najm al-Din al-Bulghari in a vision. I want to suggest that this hagiographic Bakhtiyar Babadjanov source reflects a critique of Islamic institutions in the Russian Empire, Epigraphy in Khorezm: Decoration, Information, Memory which were perceived as corrupt. Najm al-Din al-Bulghari did not accord In my paper I will offer a survey of the sources illustrating aspects of the Volga-Ural region the status of abode of Islam as he considered it a land Islamic epigraphy in medieval and early-modern Khorezm. I intend to of ignorance. I will also attempt to situate this narrative in the context of examine the following set of sources 1) Inscriptions on the wood columns Kubra’s pious image in the Volga-Urals. I will do so by examining other of the Jamiʿ mosque in Khiva (11th century); 2) Inscriptions on the instances in which Uwaysi Sufis associated themselves with Najm al-Din tombstones. I intend to offer a brief overview of the features of Arabic and Kubra and by reflecting on the presence of his “grave” and the graves of his Persian texts embedded in epitaphs from the 12th and the 14th century. The descendants in the region. later texts include a number of hadiths legitimizing shrine pilgrimage. This phenomenon, I believe, illustrates the development of the cult of saints in the region; 3) Architectural epigraphy. I will present a number of monumental inscriptions as part of the architectural landscape of the “Inner City” (Ichan-Kala) of Khiva. I hope to be able to show that the function of Devin DeWeese Jeff Eden Mapping Khorezmian Connections in the History of Sufi Traditions: The Slave-Trade beyond the Bazaars: Decentered Trade Networks and Local Developments, Regional Networks, and Global Ties of the Sufi the Myth of Urban Commercial Omnipotence in Central Asia Communities of Khorezm Revising an age-old narrative about the age-old tension between The history of Sufi traditions in Khorezm reveals patterns of sedentary empires and the nomads at their peripheries, scholars have, in development that broadly correlate with patterns and alignments evident recent decades, emphasized aspects of their symbiosis, especially in the in the region’s social, political, and economic history; this is not unexpected, realm of trade and commerce. Focusing on Central Asia, Alessandro of course, but this correlation provides a convenient vantage point from Stanziani has recently extended this line of argument to the slave-trade: which to explore Khorezmian Sufi traditions, and it also lends significance while it has been typical to present nomads' trade in slaves as a symptom of to the literary and folkloric legacies of those traditions, which can instability at the imperial “margins” where this trade was often propagated, illuminate aspects of Khorezmian history for periods otherwise poorly Stanziani proposes instead that the thriving “borderland” slave-trade was represented in written sources. The present contribution will offer a broad actually a sign of stability and strength among neighboring sedentary outline of Sufi activity in Khorezm, from the 12th century to the 19th, with powers, since this trade, like any other commerce in “luxury” commodities, particular attention to ‘mapping’ the links of Sufi communities based there required and benefited from the presence of stable markets. While with other groups—both in distinctive configurations of regional Central Stanziani's argument has some intuitive appeal--slaves were indeed Asian frameworks (i.e., northern Khurāsān, Manghïshlāq, the Syr Daryā “commodities,” after all--I will argue that this approach is both flawed in its valley, the Dasht-i Qïpchāq), and in wider ‘global’ frameworks connecting reasoning and undermined by available evidence on the slave-trade in Khorezm with the broader Muslim world (the holy cities, Istanbul, Crimea, Central Asia. First, I will contend that this approach is predicated on a Kashmīr and India). Particular attention will be given to the sparse but longstanding and ubiquitous misunderstanding which posits the urban significant evidence on Khorezmian Sufis of the 14th and 15th centuries, centers of Khiva and Bukhara as the necessary linchpins of the slave trade. perhaps the most poorly known era of Khorezmian history in the Muslim This same flawed reasoning has engendered a vision of Turkmen and era, and to the much richer source base for the flourishing of “Kubravī” Kazakhs as perennial “dealers,” and of urban sedentary populations as the communities—in Khorezm and in the regions closely connected with it— sole embodiment of commercial “markets” in the region. (One may envision during the 16th century; the continuation of these patterns, but also the worker-ants lined up to deliver goods to their sedentary “queen.”) I will emergence of distinctively local Khorezmian variants of other Sufi then argue, by contrast, that 1) Kazakhs and Turkmen were not only the traditions (Yasavī and Naqshbandī), from the 17th century to the early 19th dealers of slaves, but also, very often, their purchasers; and 2) that the will also be addressed. centrality of the urban centers of Khiva and Bukhara has been greatly exaggerated in appraisals of the slave-trade in Central Asia--and, I suspect, in appraisals of Central Asian commerce as a whole. By re-orienting visions of the region’s economy toward what I will call “decentered” trade- to the nineteenth century: At stake is the relationship between Persian as a networks, I hope to reveal new levels of connectivity among nomadic lingua franca and the beginning construction of separate language zones. populations, and to offer a novel vision of the spaces occupied by their The third space arises from the central concern of the Iranian negotiators: commerce. Slavery, formerly a routine aspect military and economic life, is criticized by the Iranian authors, at best, as a state to be remedied, or, at worst, as a severe moral transgression. I will argue that the accounts capture a specific Christine Nölle-Karimi moment in time that marks the transition from expansive early modern Locating Khiva: The Khanate in the Perception of Qajar Envoys notions of political space to a new conception of Iran, as well as its My contribution will address those aspects of connectivity that come to neighbors, as tightly bounded entities. the fore in Iranian travelogues of the mid-nineteenth century. In the most immediate sense, the two travelogues to be discussed here – the reports of Muhammad Ali Khan Ghafur’s and Riza Quli Khan Hidayat’s missions to James Pickett Khiva in 1842 and 1851 - detail physical connections. On the most basic Conflicted Allegiances: The Politics of Khanate and Sufi Order between level, the travel narratives furnish information about the conditions along Bukhara and Khorezm the route to Khiva. The emphasis on logistics reveals strategic The frequent wars between Khiva and Bukhara during the eighteenth - considerations but also serves a wider purpose: Observations on the nineteenth century were among the most acrimonious conflicts described geography are intimately linked with ideological assessments of the by chronicle sources. Yet during this same period those two city-states relationship between the Qajar domain and the Khivan khanate. Finally, the enjoyed constant human exchange through Sufi brotherhoods. This actual encounters in Khiva highlight the manner in which the preliminary treatment considers both the limits and possibilities of Sufi representatives of the Iranian and Khivan governments engage with each organizations as trans-regional networks by highlighting instances in which other and bring underlying assumptions and mutual perceptions into relief. Sufi connections transcended the political split as well as examples of Sufis The points of contact, as well the act and substance of negotiation reveal the were condemned for putting brotherhood above khanate. It also considers texture of regional relationships and the manner in which they are enacted. some of the other, non-Sufi vectors through which exchange was Filtered through the lens of Iranian government officials, the protocol of the conspicuously limited, such as appointment of Khorezmians in the diplomatic proceedings in Khiva reveals the construction of three Bukharan religious establishment. Ultimately, these different episodes are interrelated spaces. Foremost is the projection of political space: The deployed to reflect on the commensurability of politics and culture between interaction with the Khivan Khanate raises the problem of Iranian two polities generally considered to be squarely part of "Central Asia" as an statehood, its self-definition and the political claims arising therefrom. The area construct. second space to be discussed is of a linguistic nature and is likewise specific Paolo Sartori to situate slave trade in the Khivan Khanate within a larger research agenda Seeing Like a Khanate: On Archives, Cultures of Documentation and 19th on migration patterns across Bukhara, Khiva and in the Kazakh steppe. I Century Khorezm intend to do so by examining memoirs and reports of escaped and While long ago have students of imperial and colonial history begun to ransomed Russian slaves. Some reports were published in the Russian investigate the culture of documentation that informed the production, press of the 19th century. Others can be found today in archives in Orenburg disposition and concealment of text in archives, little has been done to and Almaty. By examining circumstantial evidences of enslavement, routes understand how chancery practices and record keeping activities in the and means of transportation, and hubs of slave trade, I intend to address modern Islamicate world relate to forms of governance. Material coming the problem of spatial mobility. Furthermore, I aim to carve out and explain from the Khivan archives lends itself to provide for a corrective to this the network of actors involved in the slave trade, which crossed political situation. By examining reports penned by leaders of mosque communities affiliation as well as social and ethnic boundaries. By analysing forced and reflecting on local archival practices, I want in this paper to address the mobility, the paper provides a deeper understanding of mobility processes following questions: Why did the Qungrats create and run an archive? What as well as of spatial and social connectivity in Central Asia. were the goals that the Qungrats wanted to achieve by developing and sustaining a project of documentation? Why did they adopt a vernacular language (Chaghatay) for chancery practices, thereby severing a Akifumi Shioya longstanding tradition of epistolography in Persian? I think these are Traditional’ Water Management System in Pre-Soviet Khorezm pressing questions for anyone who sets out to make sense of trends of From the eighteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century Khorezm textualization in 19th century Central Asia without succumbing to the witnessed several political and social upheavals: the invasion of Nadir Shah somewhat facile narrative of modernization. and the establishment of a new dynasty by the Qongrats, which was supported by sedentary elements in the oasis; the occupation of Khiva by the Imperial Russian Army and the establishment of a protectorate. State- Elena Smolarz led reforms and the intensification of political and social instability during “On the move against their will”: Mobility of Russian Slaves in 19th WWI, the Revolution of 1917, and successive internal wars brought the Century-Khiva khanate to an end in 1920. Throughout these periods, how did the system The slave trade in Central Asia was a crucial factor in the European of water management function in Khorezm? Situated as it is in the lower power discourse in the 18th and 19th centuries. The debates regarding the basin of the Amu Darya and surrounded by the arid areas of Qizil Qum and enslavement of Russians as well as slave trade in Bukhara and Khiva were Qara Qum, Khorezm is entirely dependent on the Amu and has maintained instrumental to establish “the secure border” and legitimize the Russian networks of artificial irrigation since ancient times, particularly since the expansion in Central Asia in the 19th century. Little has been done, however, period of Achaemenid rule. In recent years, some remarkable works on the irrigation of Central Asia in the pre-Soviet period have appeared. However, such works have almost exclusively relied on the observations of Russian administrators and have described water management in Central Asia as a static system regulated, in theory, by sharia and affected in practice by corruption. By examining a richer set of sources, this paper aims to disclose a different and more dynamic picture of water management in pre-Soviet Khorezm.

William Wood Yuri Bregel and the Study of the Khivan Archives in the Soviet Period After the pioneering work of P.P. Ivanov, Yuri Bregel was the central contributor to research utilizing the Khivan Khanate’s archives in the Soviet Union until his emigration in 1974. While the remainder of his career largely focused on his magisterial text edition and translation of the 19th century Khivan historian Munis, he continued to make occasional contributions to the study of the documentary heritage of the Khivan Khanate even though he was no longer able to access the archival material directly. This was possible because of Bregel’s detailed notebooks which he retained from his research in the Soviet archives, as well as his personal photographs of numerous documents. This paper will present the preliminary findings of my attempt to catalog and make available Bregel’s unpublished materials for use by a new generation of scholars researching the social and economic history of the Khivan Khanate.

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