Sufism and Interethnic Coexistence in the Southern Region of Uzbekistan on the Post-Soviet Era: Focusing upon the Ritual of Jahr

Abstract

This paper focuses on a religious ritual called jahr practised by the mountain Tajik community in southern Uzbekistan in former Soviet Union. Jahr is a type of folk medicine, or folk belief, that performs zikr (especially vocal zikr, dhikr in Arabic), which plays a very important role in Sufism (Islamic mysticism), and uses the effects of the ritual to treat illness. On the one hand, as a rule, the healers of the jahr ritual in this region are all Tajik men known as soʿfis (ṣūfī in Arabic, Islamic mystics). On the other hand, the patients are not only local Tajiks but also former nomadic Uzbeks such as the Qoʿngʿirot, Turk, and other nomadic tribes who live in the surrounding village. By focusing on this religious ritual with the abovementioned characteristics, this paper clarifies one aspect of Sufism in the region and, simultaneously, examines the coexistence of the Tajiks and the former nomadic Uzbeks. The existing literature on the jahr rituals in this region or Central Asia after the dissolution of Soviet Union is lacking. Therefore, in this paper, we have tried to document the entire jahr ritual by describing in detail its process and the conditions and to contribute to the accumulation of empirical studies. In addition, this paper will also discuss how the ritual was established as a disease treatment, its condition under the Soviet regime, and the situation of the ṣūfīs of the region.