Text and Performance in the Hikmät of Khoja Ahmad Yasawi, Rast Musicology Journal, 7(2), S.2152-2168

RAST MUSICOLOGY JOURNAL | Special Issue 2019, 7(2) RAST MUSICOLOGY JOURNAL | Special Issue 2019, 7(2) Original Research Harris, R. (2019), Text and Performance in the Hikmät of Khoja Ahmad Yasawi, Rast Musicology Journal, 7(2), s.2152-2168. Doi:https://doi.org/10.12975/pp2152-2168. Text and Performance in the Hikmät of Khoja Ahmad Yasawi Rachel Harris* Corresponding Author: *Professor of Ethnomusicology, School of Arts, SOAS, University of London, [email protected] Abstract In this chapter I discuss an aspect of Uyghur religious practice, which is at the time of writing under severe threat in the Uyghur homeland. I trace the patterns of circulation of sung hikmät, considering the ways that these Turkic language prayers link the Uyghur communities of Xinjiang to other parts of the Turkic speaking world through the circulation of written and published texts. I draw on recent debates on the relationship between orality and literacy, and consider how they help us to think about hikmät as they were performed in ritual contexts in Uyghur communities until very recently. I argue that oral and textual traditions of hikmät interact constantly and closely, creating "feedback loops" of transmission and performance. This perception impels a reassessment of our assumptions around projects of canonization of Central Asian performance traditions. Keywords hikmät, yasawi, text, performance, sufism, uyghur The sung performance of hikmät is firmly hikmät is linked across space to traditions embedded in community life amongst maintained in Uzbek communities in the the Turkic speaking Muslim Uyghurs of Ferghana valley. All of these traditions Central Asia. They play a part in rituals are believed to derive from a collection of of mourning and healing, and as part of texts which are attributed to the medieval regular spiritual practice in both men’s and Central Asian Sufi sheikh, Khoja Ahmad women’s gatherings. They are an integral Yasawi, whose shrine lies in the town of part of what practitioners term tärikät yol Turkistan in southern Kazakhstan. These (the way of the tariqah or Sufi orders). texts, gathered together in collections Hikmät are maintained and transmitted named the Diwan-i Hikmät, circulated in through performance traditions which are manuscript form across Central Asia well widespread across Uyghur communities, into the twentieth century, and they have transmitted from master to apprentice more recently circulated more widely in (ustaz-shagit) in continuous chains of printed book form, released by publishers transmission through families or ritual from Istanbul and Ankara to Kazan, specialists. The Uyghur tradition of reciting Tashkent, Almaty and Ürümchi. 2152 RAST MUSICOLOGY JOURNAL | Special Issue 2019, 7(2) Harris, R. In this chapter I trace the patterns of several months immobile in bed. Now she circulation of hikmät, considering the was slowly moving around the home on ways that these Turkic language prayers crutches and beginning to take back some link the Uyghur communities of Xinjiang to of the burden of household chores. She other parts of the Turkic speaking world. I was a devout woman who had completed draw on recent debates on the relationship the hajj a few years previously, but she did between orality and literacy, and consider not regularly participate in khätmä rituals. how they help us to think about hikmät On this occasion though, her sister-in-law as they are performed in ritual contexts who was a keen participant in khätmä in Uyghur communities today. I ask: to had arranged a visit from the büwi ritual what extent, and in what ways do oral specialists. It was quite normal for villagers traditions of hikmät transmission and to combine recourse to institutional performance interact with the textual medical support with religious rituals to circulation of hikmät? It has traditionally promote healing. been assumed that these oral practices were passed down through linear chains of The bulk of the khätmä ritual was devoted transmission, taught directly by teacher to to the repeated recitation of short Arabic pupil. If written texts were involved, these prayers and supplications and short ayat were assumed to be equally localized, from the Qur’an. After the completion of written by individual learners to serve as each cycle of prayers, the women blew personal aide-memories (Light 2008). I noisily into a bowl of water, “Ffsheeuw!” challenge the common assumption that This transferred the spiritual benefits and the hikmät performed in ritual contexts in healing properties of the recitation into the Uyghur communities are isolated, locally water (ayat su), which would be carefully maintained, discrete traditions. Instead, I preserved by the sick woman and sipped argue that these Uyghur traditions of ritual regularly over the coming weeks. As the performance encompass more diverse and women recited the Arabic prayers, several complex forms of circulation which bridge “came to the boil” emotionally; they wept the oral and textual spheres, and traverse noisily and one began to hyperventilate. international borders. Contemporary After around an hour the women moved Uyghur reciters of hikmät are rooted in into spoken Uyghur language prayers for the oral tradition but they also engage Hurriyät Hajim’s recovery. This section actively with circulating texts, and they of the ritual concluded with a surah from have re-appropriated the transnationally the Qur’an, and finally a melodious and circulating print tradition and re-vivified rhythmic hikmät, sung in unison by all the it within the performative context of their women present. rituals. Aghzingning nimi qashqay, amin Hikmät in a healing ritual Közum nuri öchkäy, amin One afternoon in the late summer of Tupraq ichigä köchkäy, amin 2012, twelve women including two büwi Wäyran qilur bu ölum, amin ritual specialists paid a visit a household in the Uyghur village of Yantaq in southern It will dry the saliva in your mouth Xinjiang. Their purpose was to perform a You will enter into the dust khätmä ritual for Hurriyät Hajim, who was Extinguish the light in your eyes recovering from a back operation. This was Be fearful of death her second operation, which had involved a long journey to the regional capital Qul Khoj’ Ahmäd sän oyghan, amin Ürümchi, several weeks in hospital, and Yoqtur bu sözlär yalghan, amin 2153 Text and Performance in the Hikmät of KhojaAhmadYasawi RAST MUSICOLOGY JOURNAL | Special Issue 2019, 7(2) Tupraq ichidä qalghan, amin the celebrated Central Asian saint who Wäyran qilur bu ölum, amin most likely lived in the late twelfth century.2 Yasawi is popularly known Awake Khoja Ahmad, slave of God throughout Central Asia as a Sufi sheikh These words are no lies and a mystic poet, author of the Diwan-i You will be left in the dust Hikmät. His shrine lies in the town now Be fearful of death known as Turkistan in southern Kazakhstan. In the twelfth century this was the town of Saraylirini buzup, amin Yasi, the place where Yasawi is said to have Bostanlirini köchurup, amin studied under the probably mythical figure Hämimizgä barawär, amin of Sheikh Arslan Baba. Yasawi’s shrine Kälgän ölum ämäsmu, amin has been an important religious center and pilgrimage site at least since the Palaces will be destroyed monumental mausoleum that still stands Orchards moved away today was built on the orders of Amir Timur, It is the same for us all founder of the Timurid dynasty, at the end Death will come, will it not?1 of the fourteenth century. A smaller shrine to Arslan Baba lies outside the town. The performance of this hikmät formed a Yasawi’s biographical details are obscure great contrast to the overlapping wash of and contested in the historical record, and sound and the emotionally charged style of Fig. 1. Transcription of a hikmät, led by Nisakhan, Yantaq Village, 2012. the preceding Arabic language recitation. even his relationship to the Yasawi Sufi The women’s voices sounded out confident order and what we know of its silsila or and strong, easily keeping together to a spiritual genealogy is not straightforward. strong pulse. Although the lyrics reflected The Yasawi as an organized Sufi order did on the inevitability of death, and its power not survive competition from the rival to erase all earthly things, the mood was Central Asian Naqshbandi, which restricted not one of fear and apprehension, but was Yasawi activities and later appropriated its confident and calm. Singing the hikmät legacy and subordinated it to Naqshbandi seemed to serve the purpose of bringing interests. But the Yasawi tradition has had the women back down from the excitement lasting and far-reaching influence in the of the khätmä, and providing resolution realm of popular religious practice and after the emotional upheavals they had the shaping of communal identities across experienced. Central Asia, including contemporary Xinjiang. Its broader legacy includes many Khoja Ahmad Yasawi aspects of religious practice maintained The reference in this sung text to Qul today, including styles of zikr, aspects of Khoj’Ahmad denotes Khoja Ahmad Yasawi, shrine veneration, and narratives of the 2154 RAST MUSICOLOGY JOURNAL | Special Issue 2019, 7(2) Harris, R. spread of Islam in the region. It also had or Miskin Ahmad (Poor Ahmad). lasting influence on notions of communal identity. The Yasawi tradition’s political and The opening series of hikmät in the written social role was not expressed through a Sufi collections recount in highly formulaic order as such, but through intimate bonds fashion the life of Yasawi, listing his with local communities. In this tradition spiritual achievements in every year of his of social organization, whole villages life verse by verse up to the age of 63 (the or nomadic communities were formally age of the Prophet at his death) after which recognized as disciples of hereditary he retires to an underground existence in a sheikhs linked with the Yasawi tradition, cave.

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