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THE NEW YEAR'S FESTIVALS AND THE SHRINE OF'ALI IIIN ABI TALIB AT MAZAR-I SHARIF, AFGHANISTAN by Jonathan Leonard Lee 0-- Submitted in accordancewith ilic requirementsfor the degreeof PliD The University of Leeds Department of Theology and Religious Studies September1999 The candidate confirms that the work,submitted is his osviiand that appropriate credit has been given where referencehas been made to the svork-of olhers. ii ABSTRACT This study examines the customs and origins of three spring festivals at the shrine of 'Ali b. Abi Talib, Mazar-i Sharif, Afghanistan; namely Nauroz, Janda Bala and Gul-i Surkh. Since these festivals are not part of the Islamic religious calendar, we seek to locate their origins in the pre-Islamic religions of Iran and record the contemporary traditions of these festivals. Since the festivals are assimilated to a shrine dedicated to the fourth Caliph of Sunni Islam, we examine the processes which gave rise to this juxtaposition and how it came about that this shrine came to be considered a rival to Najaf. The Sa1juq and Timurid discovery narratives are examined (Chapters 1-2) in their wider religious and cultural context, followed by an examination of Afghan folklore re- lated to Nauroz and the pre-Islamic religious traditions of Bactria (Chapters 3-4). We con- clude that an important impetus for the founding of this shrine is the fact that, until the arrival of Islam, Bactra had been the paramount pilgrimage and cult centre of the region. Over the millennia, whilst the dominant religious tradition had changed, Bactra adapted to such ideological fluctuations in order to maintain its dominance of the. lucrative pilgrimage traffic. Marginalised by Islam, whose heroes and foci of pilgrimage lay in the Arab world, the alleged discovery of the body of Hazrat 'Ali at the site, provided an acceptable Islamic framework for the revival, or continuation, of indigenous Bactrian New Year customs. Our examination of Gul-i Surkh, or 'Red Rose', festival (chapters 5-6) finds a parallel in the Annenian Vardavar festival. Originally this festival appears to have been derived from a blending of Iranian and Babylonian religion in Bactria, namely the cults of Anahi- ta, Adonistrammuz and custoins associated with the Iranian hero, Siyawush. Janda Bala (Chapter 7), on the other hand, appears to be rooted in ancient Vedic and Shamanistic tradition. All three festivals, though, we argue, also rcprescnt different aspects of ancient Indo-Aryan and Babylonian fertility rites connected with the spring and vernal equinox. CONTENTS A hetrnot ............................................................................ Preface IV ........................................................................................................................... Field Work X Sourcesand their Evaluation: ........................................................................ Oriental xiii manuscripts and publications ............................................................ .. European xv manuscripts and publications .......................................................... ... Transliterations xviii .......................................................................................................... Reference System xix ......................................................................................................... Dates xix .......................................................................................................................... .. Abbreviations xix ............................................................................................................... 1: The Saljuqs I Chapter and al-Khair ................................................................................ Khwaja Khairan 49 Chapter 2: 'Me Timurids and .............................................................. Folklore Religious Tradition 75 Chapter 3: Nauroz in Afghan and ...................................... Nava Vihara Naubahar 97 Chapter 4: Bactra, Zar-i Aspa, and ............................................ Customs Traditions 127 Chapter 5: Nauroz and Gul-i Surkh: and ..................................... .. History Religion 164 Chapter 6: Gul-i Surkh in the context of the of ................................ .. Nauroz Janda Bala 222 Chapter 7: and ............................................................................ .. Conclusion 256 ................................................................................................................ .. Bibliography 265 ............................................................................................................. .. MAPS Central Asia xx I Afghanistan and .............................................................................. .... Afghanistan xxi 2 Northern .......................................................................................... ... Nalir (18 Canals) Balkh, 17/18th 3 The Hazlida of c. century .................................. ... xxi New Yearjan(las 231 4 Locations in Afghanistan where are raised ................................ .. PLATES 'Ali b. Abi Talib, Mazar-i Sharif, 1996 I The shrine of spring ................................ .. xxii during 1996 Nauroz 2 Pilgrims entering tile inner shrine the celebrations ................ .. xxii SaIjuq in Mazar-i Sharif 25 3 The inscription the shrine of .......................................... .... in Mazar-i Sharif 25 4 The Timurid tombstone thesl[inc of ......................................... .... 5 Raising thejanda in the western quarter of the rauzza,Mazar-i Sharif, Nauroz, 1978 223 ................................................................................................. .. Mazar-i Sharif, April 1996 223 6 The raised janda in western quarter of rauzza, ............. .. 7 Devotees eager for cures, surround the newly-raisedjanda, Mazar-i Sharif, Nauroz, 1996 223 ................................................................................................ .. Sakhi Jan, Kabul, March 1996 223 8 The raised janda at the shrine of ........................... .. iv PREFACE The inspiration for this research project originates from two periods of residence in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, during the 1970s and early 1980s, which in total amounted to just under six years. During this time in Afghanistan, I encountered for the first time popular Islamic culture, or 'folk Islam', as exemplified in shrine rituals. Follow- ing a visit to Mazar-i Sharif and Balkh in 1978, during which I attended the Nauroz cel- ebrations at the shrine of Shah-i Mardan, I deterniined to devote time to a study of the originsLiliese New Year festivals and how they came to be associated with an Islamic shrine. However, it has only been in the last few years that personal circumstances, com- bined with a unique opportunity to undertake further formal study in a university environ- ment, have allowed me to devote time to this subject. In undertaking this study, therewere three primary objectives. (i) To understandmore fully how the shrine at Mazar-i Sharif came to be acceptedby the majority of Sunnis in Afghanistan as the authentic burial site of 'Ali b. Abi Talib, and to examine the processwhich allowed them to reconcile this belief with the well-documented history of the Commander of the Faithful which contradicts this claim. (ii) To record whatever remainedof the traditions and customsof the New Year festi- vals at the shrine and more specifically those of JandaBala and Gul-i Surkh. As a co- rollary to this, to establish the reason why these unique festivals came to be associatedwith a shrine dedicatedto 'Ali b. AbiTalib. (iii) Given the fact that both the Janda Bala and Gul-i Surkh appearedto be unique survivals of one, or more, pre-Islamic traditions, to attempt to identify the origin of thesetraditions in the religions of Iran and Central Asia. This presentstudy is thus phenomenologicallyand descriptively based,rather than a case study in the sociological, anthropologicalor psychological role played by the shrine or its festivals in one specific locality, or a particular religious or social grouping. There is a chronic lack of any systematic description of shrine cults in modern Afghanistan and what there is tends to be unsystematicand far too brief. Nor has there been any serious scholarly attempt to analysis the relationship of these customs to ancient cultures or other religious traditions of the region. Given that much of the indigenous V tradition associatedwith these festivals has already been lost, as well as the volatility of the current political situation, the adoption of a plienomenologically-basedmethodology for this thesis, I believe, is thereforejustified on the basis that it is always better, in the in- itial stagesof construction, to lay a bare foundation of facts, rather than trying to cover a non-existentstructure with the ornate roof of theory. Much of the descriptive material is basedon field work and interviews, which sought to record and preservewhatever remained of the oral tradition and local custom Of the festivals which take place in connection with the shrine of Mazar-i Sharif every Nauroz. Such an undertaking was deenied to be particularly apposite since over the last century and a half much of the indigenous traditions of the Turco-Tajik population of northern Afghanistan has disappeared as a result of Balkh's incorporation in the state of Afghanistan in the latter half of the last century. In more recent tinies this processhas been further acceleratedby two decadesof
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