The Silk-i guhar-riz and the Persianate Ismaili Tradition in Early-Modern Central Asia

The Silk-i guhar-riz is a Persian text authored in early 19th-century Badakhshan which has only recently gained attention in scholarship on the Central Asian Ismaili tradition. The text is in part a philosophical treatise, with commentary on various elements of Ismaili doctrine, but more substantially it presents a historical vision of the Central Asian Ismaili community, tracing its origins to the renowned 11th-century philosopher, poet, and Ismaili missionary Nasir-i Khusraw. To date the text has been considered largely as a conservative repository of traditions concerning the foundation and early history of the Ismaili community of Central Asia. Current scholarship on the work, however, has not given attention to the social, political, and religious context in which the text was produced and circulated in early 19th-century Badakhshan, nor to the question of the particular agendas and constituencies addressed by the text as a case of hagiographical literature.

I argue in this paper that the Guhar-riz must be understood within the context of the competitive religious and political environment of early-modern Badakhshan and Central Asia, an environment which is reflected in the diverse and discrepant biographical traditions concerning Nasir-i Khusraw which developed and circulated in this period. In this paper I will briefly review the biographical traditions surrounding Nasir-i Khusraw which emerged following the Timurid annexation of Badakhshan in the mid-15th century. I demonstrate that the dominant biographical trend construed this figure as a Sunni, disavowing his attachment to Ismailism; more particularly, I introduce evidence to show that communities connected with his shrine in Badakhshan strove to secure legitimacy and privileges through promoting the Sunni orthodoxy of the interred.

Rather than representing a conservative oral tradition connected with Nasir-i Khusraw, I argue that the Guhar-riz in fact presents a direct and competitive engagement from an Ismaili constituency with the various claims advanced on this figure and his legacy in the early-modern era. While the author presents his own unique assertion of both spiritual and familial lineage from Nasir-i Khusraw, the text also directly engages with the multiple narratives concerning Nasir-i Khusraw advanced by non-Ismaili constituencies in Central Asia, in effect “re-appropriating” this figure for Ismailism. Finally, I argue that this text, when considered in the backdrop of a wider body of evidence from this period, should be understood within the context of a renewed Ismaili daʿwa mission in Central Asia originating in the mid-18th century.