The Dizbad School in Ismailism: Traditions and the Present Day

Dizbad Vatan e Mast, offer this Article to those who are interested to read more about Dizbad from foreign languages. 

Saidanwar SHOKHUMOROV

Saidanwar Shokhumorov, Learned Secretary, Institute of Oriental Studies and Written Sources, Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tajikistan

Ismailism is one of the largest trends in Islam today with over 20 million followers scattered all over the world and concentrated in larger numbers in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Kenya, the Persian Gulf countries, Iran, the Lebanon, Syria, the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, France, and other countries. One of largest Ismailite communities is found in Tajikistan, in Gorny Badakhshan. 

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Ismailism appeared in the eighth century when Caliph Ali and his supporters, together with Fatima, daughter of the Prophet, and followers of Imam Ismail spoke against the violation of the principle of inheritance of the Imamat. Ismail died before his father Imam Jafar al-Sadiq. Upon the latter’s death his younger brother Qasim, rather than his son Muhammad, was recognized an Imam.1

The movement which started as a group of support soon developed into a powerful religious, political, social and philosophical trend. It influenced Islam and contributed to the traditions of free thinking in it. In its turn it gave rise to new trends, philosophies, and political movements.

Late in the tenth century the Ismailites spread into the Near East and Andalusia in Spain. They captured political power in Maghreb and set up a powerful state, the Fatimid Caliphate with the capital in Cairo which was destined to remain on map for 200 years.

In the tenth and eleventh centuries Ismailism came to the Middle East and Central Asia as a religion and philosophy which offered new explanations to many key questions of being and spirit. It differed from other Islamic trends. This attracted the most educated groups, prominent thinkers and state figures who little by little developed a system of rationalist ideas, sophisticated religious philosophy, dogmas, rites, etc.

Still, throughout its history Ismailism concentrated on the question of Imamat, total obedience to the Imam as the source of religious and philosophical knowledge.

This proposition caused repeated splits among the Ismailites, the largest of them occurred when al-Mustansir billah (1039-1094) died. He was the most powerful ruler of Egypt and Caliph and Ismailitic Imam from the Fatimid dynasty. His sons Nizar and Mustali fought over succession. Old Nizar lost and had to flee the country. Mustali took over the country and the post yet many of his Ismailite subjects refused to recognize him over the head of Nizar. The fight between the brothers’ supporters grew bitter; the Nizarites lost once more, had to leave the Fatimid state and found Imamates of their own. In Iran, in particular, Nizar supporters headed by an Ismailitic preacher Hasan Sabbah founded a small Ismailitic state with the capital in Alamut.2

These squabbles damaged the Ismailitic cause and toppled down the Fatimid State. In 1130, Mustali’s descendants lost power in fratricidal fight. Part of their supporters fled to Yemen where large influential Mustali communities had been in existence. There a new spiritual Mustali center was established.3

As soon as the Imamat was moved to Iran the Ismailitic community there became Nizaritic—in this way the Iranian factor came to the fore. There a vast and varied religious and philosophical literature appeared on all apsects of the Ismailitic teaching and dogmas.

The Iranian period can be divided into the Alamut (1090-1256) and post-Alamut stretch which extended well into the mid-nineteenth century. The Alamut period coincided with increasing feudal disintegration in Iran which allowed the Ismailitic Nizarites to successfully fight for an independent Ismalitic state. The Alamut state united independent possessions and fortresses scattered across Iran. There were also smaller independent Ismailitic states between Syria and Badakhshan.

The Nizarites of Iran actively contributed to the struggle against the Mongols. It was only in the 1250s that the latter overcame the Ismailitic resistance and destroyed their fortresses. The conquerors set the task of exterminating Ismailites and uprooting their centuries-old culture. A rich Alamut library of precious manuscripts on Ismailitic philosophy and theology was plundered and burned down.

The post-Alamut period which covered the second half of the thirteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries abounded in dramatic events and difficult situations.4 The Ismailitic community was split, the ties between the Imam and his followers became lax with the principle of Takia (prudential concealment of faith) gaining prominence.

Following the death of Imam Rukniddin Hurshah in 1257 the Nizaritic imams fearful of Mongols had to live in secrecy, their homes being known only to the chosen few. The ties with the Ismailitic communities, especially in far-away places were severed. The Nizaritic Ismailites of Badakhshan, India, Afghanistan, Syria and other places knew nothing about where their imams lived throughout the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. An absence of a single ideological center caused ideological dissent inside the community. New trends appeared and early in the fourteenth century the Nizarites split into Muminshahs and Kasimshahs.5

In 1501, the Safavides came to power in Iran. The country was reunited and the Ismailitic movement began to revive. Under Shah Tahmasp I Ismailitic Imam Abuzar Ali (1496-1509) married the shah’s sister thus establishing close contacts with the court.

Later the Nizaritic imams restored the center in Anjidan, then moved it to Mahallat (at the city of Qum). They managed to restore the ties with the Nizaritic communities of India, Badakhshan, Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere. Under the Zands (1760-1794) and Qajars (1794-1925) the imams were active on the Iranian political scene. Imam Shah Halilullah (1780-1817) was rather friendly with Fath Ali Shah Qajar (1797-1834). When the former died in 1817 at the hands of religious fanatics in Yezd Fath Ali Shah married his daughter to the deceased’s son Hasan Ali Shah by way of consolation. Fath Ali Shah appointed the latter the ruler of Qum and made him Aga Khan, the honorary title that has become hereditary since that time. It belongs to the imams of the Nizaritic Ismailites.

Under Muhammad Shah Qajar (1834-1848) all sorts of court intrigues and squabbles among various groups soured the relations with Imam Aga Khan I. He was removed from the post of the Kirman ruler and persecuted.6

According to official Ismailitic historiography Imam Hasan Ali Shah could not improve the relations with the Qajar court: he had an influential enemy in the person of Prime Minister Haji Mirza Agasi. Confronted with an army Aga Khan I had to flee Iran. In 1841 he, together with his retinue, crossed into Afghanistan and reached Kandahar. Very soon he moved to India and founded a new Nizaritic center in Bombay.

This step opened a new period in the history of Ismailism. In British India, Aga Khan I as head of one of the largest Islamic trends, enjoyed state support and protection. His social status consolidated, too. The Bombay period lasted for nearly 30 years during which Aga Khan I managed to rally around himself the numerous isolated Nizaritic communities. In India the community of Hoja Nizarites proved to be best organized; it had been prepared to unify with others. Its experience was employed to modernize the Ismailitic community—something which required careful and painstaking work. In this way the Nizarites strengthened their positions in India under Aga Khan II (1881-1885) and Aga Khan III Sera Sultan Muhammad Shah (1885-1957).

The latter played a great role in strengthening the community, especially in India and East Africa. He paid particular attention to social and economic changes to transform the community into a modern, progressive and flourishing society.

This aim required adequate organizational and administrative structures free from traditions of the past and the religious hierarchy that had been dominating the Nizaritic society for centuries. The situation in India in which tectonic political and economic shifts occurred also dictated changes.

Aga Khan III did not spare efforts to set up, in India and East Africa, a flexible system of administration known as Councils of Nizaritic Ismailites.

Their functions and internal structure were determined by the Fundamental Law of the Nizaritic Ismailites elaborated under the Imam’s personal supervision.7

It was planned to first realize the fundamental law in those of the communities in India and East Africa which were best suited for this. The Hoja Nizarites of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda were the first to test the institute of the council. The Nizarites had come there in the seventeenth century as merchants engaged in transit trade between Western India and East Africa. By the early nineteenth century they had started settling down, their first small community founded in Zanzibar. The Hoja Nizarites built there the first jamaat-khane; it was administered by two officials: a muki responsible for the religious affairs and kamria responsible for the economic affairs. This traditional organization had been brought over from India. With time it became accepted by all the Ismailitic communities in the region. Between 1840 and 1870 Hoja Nizarites started coming to Zanzibar in great numbers: trade flourished while back in India, Gujarat was hit by draught and famine. The land-tilling Hoja had to leave and follow the merchant caravans heading for East Africa.

Late in the nineteenth century highways and railways brought more settlers into East African heartland. The Ismailitic trade and industrial groups also moved from Zanzibar to continental Africa. By the beginning of World War I Ismailitic communities of Indian origin had been already settled in East Africa; new arrivals lived in cities in the developing part of the region: Zanzibar, Mombasa, Dar Es Salaam, Nairobi, Kampala, and Tanga.

The Nizaritic community of East Africa was very developed so its experience was used when compiling the first Fundamental Law.

This law envisaged a single system of administering the Nizaritic community in the form of a council made up of elected and appointed members (the latter selected from among the most respected people). The Law also prescribed the main norms of personal and social life related, in particular, to marriages, divorces, inheritance, etc.

The first council appeared in Zanzibar, the center of the Nizaritic Ismailites of East Africa. It administered the local jamaat-khanes, strengthened morality among the members and controlled all the Nizaritic communities across the region. These were the first steps toward reorganization and rejuvenation of the East African community according to the plan of Aga Khan III.

In the early 1920s new cities were springing up in East Africa encouraged by advancing trade and industry. Enterprising Hoja Nizarites moved there and Zanzibar stopped being the heart of trade. It was no longer the center of the Nizarites, either. Administrative structures that would meet the demands of the time were needed to reunite the communities scattered across East Africa. In 1926, Aga Khan III decided to revise some of the provisions of his Fundamental Law related to the councils. Independent councils were set up in three regions: Tanganyika, Kenya and Uganda, their members being hand-picked by Aga Khan III himself. He also supervised the main aspects of the councils’ activity. At first the Central Council of Zanzibar was controlling the regional councils, later this function was transferred to the newly established Supreme Council independent of it. To control what specialized structures were doing in the economy, education and health protection committees were set up in each of the three regions.

During the last thirty years of Aga Khan III’s rule the structure of the councils and their independent organizations were revised several times together with the revisions of the Fundamental Law in 1937, 1946, and 1954.

The Fundamental Law of 1954 was elaborated after a conference of the council members of East Africa which discussed the problems of internal life and prospects of their society.

It should be noted that it was Aga Khan III’s privilege to introduce amendments into the Fundamental Law which demanded an absolute submission to his authority. At the same time Aga Khan III was maintaining close contacts with prominent Nizarites across the world and sought their opinions about reforms in the Ismailitic community. As the head of his flock he instructed the Nizaritic society through firmans (written decrees) read in the jamaat-khane.

In an effort to change the Ismailitic society and improve its well-being he spent huge amounts of money on social and economic programs through a network of organizations and financial institutions. In 1935, he set up in East Africa an insurance company, in 1936, a company of depository investments to supply private persons and cooperatives with low-interest housing mortgages.

It was at that time that the Association for the Welfare of the Muslims of East Africa was set up, Aga Khan III being among its founders. The Association started building schools and mosques for the local Muslim communities.

Housing was Aga Khan III’s main concern—several building companies were set up in East Africa where Nizarites were living in great numbers. Educational establishments, libraries, hospitals, outpatient clinics were also built with corresponding controlling structures added to the councils.

The 1954 Fundamental Law remained in force until 1962 when the new Imam, Shah Karim Al Huseini Aga Khan IV sat down to update it. Preparatory committees in Tanganyika, Kenya and Uganda were created to carry out the job. In 1962, the text was ready and discussed at meetings and conferences. It was endorsed by the Imam of the Time together with amendments and additions suggested by committees. The new Fundamental Law created a new hierarchy with the Imam of the Time on top of the pyramid, the Supreme Council of East Africa (as an interregional organization coordinating three regional councils) coming immediately after him.

The Supreme Council with a permanent office in Nairobi and branches in other large East African cities wielded real power as a judicial organization of second instance. The Imam of the Time was the highest judicial instance. It was the Imam’s responsibility to appoint his representatives to the three East African regions. Regional councils came after the Supreme Council, they were deployed in Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda and enjoyed a certain degree of autonomy. With time, as the countries had gained independence united provincial councils were set up to supervise the local, communal and district councils. The Fundamental Law established auxiliary organizations, such as economic committees, charity women’s organizations, etc. controlled by the provincial councils.

The 1962 Fundamental Law paid particular attention to personal rights, divorces, guardianship, apostasy, etc. The Ismailitic councils of all levels and the associated legal organizations had the right to pass decisions within their competence that were binding on the entire community.

The law also envisaged an executive council in Africa to finance all sorts of organizations especially those engaged in general and religious education and health protection. They were set up in all three countries and were headed by Imam-appointed ministers.

All council members, councilors and other high officials were appointed for two years; it was Imam alone who could extend their terms. The councilors on administration were mainly professional lawyers and other specialists. Their posts did not fetch salaries—moral remuneration by the Imam in the form of honorary titles and ranks was considered enough. The system survived under Aga Khan IV: the most deserving got the titles of divan, vizier, roy, and alijah.

The Nizaritic communities of East Africa preserved their traditional structures at the local level based on the jamaat-khanes in which all religious and public functions were conducted. All public affairs were supervised by the muki and kamria appointed by the provincial councils. They had to perform traditional marriage and burial rites, jubilees and festivals and other important functions. An Ismailitic Way and Religious Training organization was set up to deal with religious issues of great public importance. It was first tested in East Africa as an independent organization responsible directly to the Imam. The organization looked after publication and dissemination of religious writings, collections of firmans, the Imam’s speeches and his addresses to Ismailitic society. The organization, the religious officials, muki and kamria among them had no right to spread Ismailism among the proselytes.

There were professional preachers who could preach only among the Nizarites as well.

Aga Khan IV managed to erect a logical and flexible organization in East Africa with a smoothly functioning administration. It ensured the Imam an absolute power, protected the traditions and spiritual values, guaranteed security and reliability of the Islamic teaching and was an instrument of changes and modernization. It contributed to the Nizaritic communities’ economic and social flourishing.

Similar structures were set up in India and Pakistan. There a unified system of councils adjusted to the local conditions was created under a direct guidance of the Imam of the Time. In Pakistan, the administrative functions belonged to the Federal Council in Karachi. It coordinated the activity of five Supreme Councils that represented the country’s regions, including East Pakistan (Bangladesh since 1972).

The 1962 Fundamental Law ruled that in Pakistan each of the Supreme Councils was responsible for corresponding regions and controlled twenty-three territorial councils that, in their turn, were divided into district and local councils. The Supreme Council had the right to consider the applications, requests, complaints and demands coming from the lower councils and community members related to community affairs. It could issue recommendations on all aspects of communal life.

In India, the Supreme Council was stationed in Bombay; it supervised the regional councils in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Southern and Eastern India. There were twenty-eight local councils under it. Each council consisted of a chairman and members either appointed by the Imam or selected on his recommendation. All the councils were judicial instances for civil cases.

Ismailitic Way and Religious Training organizations were planted in Pakistan and India with the centers in Karachi and Bombay. They preserved their independence until the late seventies.

Little by little the Ismailites acquired an organizational network responsible for education, upbringing, health protection, housing construction, etc. and supervised by the corresponding Federal Councils.

It should be said that in all these countries the economic, cultural, and humanitarian programs realized through the Aga Khan Organizations for Development brought great economic and social advantages to those who worked with him. In the last three decades Aga Khan IV set up a network of organizations engaged in specific tasks in the field of economic advance, health protection, education and culture in the Third World countries.

The network includes international, non-commercial and non-governmental organizations open to all people irrespective of their faith, race, etc.

The Aga Khan Fund set up in 1967 is the leading organization in the field of agricultural developments, health protection, and education. Its headquarters are based in Geneva with branches in East Africa, South Asia, Europe and America. In 1994, the Fund opened its office in Tajikistan.

The Fund gives money and supports projects designed to improve economies, health and education of the poor in Third World countries. The largest educational projects, The Family and Children, cover over 300 schools, 200 clinics, polyclinics and medical centers; they also provide professional training and pay for research.

The Aga Khan Organizations for Development and the Fund work hand in glove with the major international organizations and higher educational establishments (Harvard and Oxford universities and the universities of Toronto and other cities).

The Fund sees it as its aim better living conditions in East Africa and Central Asia.

There is also a housing program of Aga Khan that provide technical advice, contributes to reconstruction of ancient cities, building of new settlements, medical institutions, schools, and higher educational establishments.

The Aga Khan Fund for economic development is working in three directions: industrial advance, promotion of tourism and project realization. It uses latest technologies and local resources to pursue the most promising lines. Tourism is one of them as a potential source of hard currency and new jobs.

A new stage of reforms in the Ismailitic society started in December 1986 when Aga Khan IV signed a new Fundamental Law.8

The system of administration through councils of all levels was considerably simplified.

It was planned to create a unified system that would meet the needs of all Nizaritic communities both in the West and the East. The new Fundamental Law established a system of councils for the new communities of the Nizarites who had emigrated to Europe, America, and the Persian Gulf countries; the system of councils for the old communities was streamlined and improved.

There are Nizaritic communities covered by the new system of councils in 14 countries and regions. Each of them has a National Council to supervise the provincial, regional, and local councils and all other organizations at the lower levels. Aga Khan alone may extend the area of responsibility of any National Council.

The 1986 Fundamental Law envisaged independent organizations in those countries where there are National Councils. The Ismailitic Way and Religious Training organizations are also active there. The new Fundamental Law regards the Ismailitic Nizaritic faith as an Ismailitic tariqa (the meaning of the word coinciding with that in Sufism and is interpreted as “faith” or “ path to religion”).

Under the 1986 law eleven countries with Nizaritic communities received Commissions on Gifts and Rejuvenation to control finances in the councils, tariqas, and other central organizations that receive money from the Imam or the community.

Consultative and arbitration commissions were created in the eleven countries with National Councils to discuss cases of broken obligations in trade, civil cases, family relations and community affairs. They have the right to apply disciplinary measures to erring community members.

There is an international advisory commission of arbitration which is the court of first instance after the Imam to discuss cases submitted by the national advisory commissions. The Imam remains the highest judge of all vital problems. The Imam of the Time is responsible for appointing the muki and kamria. It is up to him to outline their competence.

In this way, by the early nineties the Nizaritic society had received a flexible and all-embracing administrative structure that included vertically aligned organizations. Very soon it was spread to the majority of countries where Ismailitic Nizarites lived.

At the same time, some of the countries and regions with considerable Ismailitic communities (Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan) were left outside the Nizaritic administration for various reasons.

Syria received the system of councils only after the Fundamental Law was adopted in 1986.9

In the nineteenth century the Nizarites there lived in the Syrian countryside under the guidance of traditional descendants of pirs, emirs and mirs.

In the 1840s Amir Ismail, the Nizaritic emir of Kadmus, united a considerable part of the Syrian Nizarites. His activity was supported by Ottoman Sultan Abdulmajid I (1839-1861) who allowed him to gather the Nizarites in the town of Salamia, the cradle of the movement in Syria. By that time the city had been ruined and abandoned. The newcomers restored it and turned into a developed economic and cultural Ismailitic center.

Late in the nineteenth century the Syrian Nizarites came into contact with Imam Aga Khan III who resolutely reintegrated the Syrian Nizarites into the common family. He extended economic assistance to them and sent there teachers and specialists from East Africa.

Today, Syria is the home for about 100 thousand Nizarites living in Salamia and around it. Until quite recently the community was ruled by the descendants of Amir Ismail, supporters of two last Aga Khans. In their administrative efforts the emirs are helped by muki and kamria appointed by the Imam. All the councils and other organizations envisaged by the 1986 law are present in Syria.

In Iran where there is one of the largest Ismailitic Nizaritic communities there are no Ismailitic councils.

Back in 1841 when Aga Khan I and his followers left Iran his flock was left without guidance. Many of the Ismailitic communities disintegrated.10

In Iran the Ismailitic communities led complicated lives. The agents appointed by the Imam to administer them were often found wanting. In the early twentieth century a certain Murad Mirza, one of such agents, caused a split in the Nizaritic community in Iran. A new trend called murad mirzai contended the authority of Aga Khan III. By the early 1920s the Imam remedied the situation: the hereditary muki and kamria were replaced with elected ones; rites were considerably simplified—it was recommended to the Nizarites to finally detach themselves from isnaasharites. At the end of daily prayer they were ordered to enumerate all the Nizaritic imams. They were also instructed to perform those rites that are prescribed directly by the Imam.

Aga Khan III called on the Iranian Ismailites to strictly follow the major Islamic principles. He said that all the Muslims as followers of the single God, single Prophet, and single religion were all equal.

In the 1930s, on an instruction from the Imam, the Nizaritic villages of Khorasan got first schools. The very first of them appeared in 1932 in Dizbad and was called after Nasir Husrawa venerated by the Khorasan Ismailites.

Local communities paid for the schools—on an order from Aga Khan III 80 percent of collected taxes went to school building and education.

Positive shifts were prompt to come: the educational level grew while the number of Ismailitic students in the higher educational establishments of Meshed and Teheran increased. Upon graduation they remained in cities as teachers and state officials. The traditional countryside structure of the Nizaritic community began to change.

In 1951, Aga Khan III visited Iran to establish closer ties with the Ismailites; as a result he appointed as his representative one of his distant relatives on the paternal line Amir Asadshah Khalili.

When Aga Khan IV came into office Asadshah Khalili became much more independent, as official Ismailitic sources reported. The new Aga Khan removed him from office. To sort things out Aga Khan sent to Iran two representatives from among the Hoja. Later, according to the Imam’s instructions two committees (in Teheran and Meshed) created in 1973 were entrusted with administering the Ismailitic community in Iran. Their members appointed by the Imam from among the candidates suggested by the community were under the Imam’s direct control.

The Meshed committee responsible for the largest Nizaritic community in Iran scored considerable successes in socioeconomic and cultural programs. It built a new jamaat-knane, a cooperative Ihwan us-safa that gives low-interest credits to the Nizarites of Khorasan.

The Teheran committee is administering scattered groups in Teheran, Mahallat, Yezd, and Kirman.

The committee leaders maintain direct ties with the Imam, they visit him in Europe and Pakistan and receive instructions directly from him.

The Nizaritic Ismailites of Iran preserved the traditional communal structure, each of the communities uniting people from several neighboring villages, with their own muki and kamria. The muki supervise the religious affairs while the kamria are entrusted with money, documents and tax records. They are elected by the community and approved by the Imam.

There is no information about the numerical strength of the Nizarites in Iran yet there is a general idea that there are over 100 thousands of them. About half are concentrated in Khorasan, in the south and in the towns of Kain, Birjand, the village of Hoshk (with an agency of a Meshed committee) and also in Muminabad, Nasrabad, Mozdab, etc. Meshed is the home of several thousand Nizarites. They can also be found in the towns of Nishapur, Turbat and Haydaria, in smaller towns, in the villages of Dizbad, Kasymabat, Shah Taki and elsewhere.

Nizarites also live in Iran’s central regions, especially in Teheran; there are jamaat-khanes in nine villages around Mahallat. Small numbers of Nizarites can be found in the province of Kirman, mainly in the towns of Kirman, Serjan, Babak, neighboring villages and in Yezd.

The Ismailitic community of Afghanistan is one of the largest—about 1 million according to various authors,11 it is not covered with the 1986 Fundamental Law.

In Afghanistan there are two large Ismailitic communities: the Khazareans headed by hereditary pir Sayid Shah Naser Nodiri and the Ismailites of Afghan Badakhshan (Darwaz, Shugnan, Ishkashim, Wahan, Munjan) headed by hereditary pirs and khalife (pir deputies).

The Khazareans live mainly in Hazarajat, in the district of Doshi of the Baghlan province and in Kabul. For certain historical reasons this community is preserving its traditions and has avoided reforms. For two centuries now the community has been headed by the Kayani clan.

Shah Abdul Hadi was the community’s first official head. In the 1830s he visited Iran where he met Hasan Ali Shah Aga Khan I, the Ismailitic Nizaritic Imam, was blessed by him and was appointed the pir of the Ismailitic Nizarites of Afghanistan. Inspired and encouraged he showed no mean enthusiasm in uniting the Nizaritic groups; his descendants inherited the title from him.

The relations between the Kayani pirs and the Afghanistan officials were far from simple and very much depended on the policies the rulers pursued in relation to religious and ethnic minorities. Under Sher Ali Khan (1863-1879) for example Pir Sayid Shah Husein was one of his councilors and was trusted with decision-making. The Afghan authorities used him as an official go-between in their relations with Aga Khan I. Under Emir Abdurahmon Khan (1880-1901), however, a large part of the Khazareans had to flee when their armed revolt of the early 1890s had been cruelly crushed. The pir and his family had to escape to the Bukhara Emirate where they spent ten years in the city of Kulyab (the Republic of Tajikistan).

The situation improved in 1919-1920 when Emir Habibullo Khan (1901-1919) liberated the Khazareans enslaved under the previous emir. Those who were living in exile were allowed to come back. Freed from religious persecutions the Khazarean communities grew in number. In the 1960s and 1970s Pir Sayid Shah Naser and especially his brother Sayid Mansur Nodiri considerably improved the position of their community and introduced important social, economic, and cultural changes into its everyday life. The pir and his retinue went into business and started building schools and hospitals in the Ismailitic villages; the first jamaat-knanes also appeared.

The Kayani pirs are not merely prominent religious figures, they play important political roles in Afghanistan. The Khazareans suffered a lot after the 1978 April revolution. Under Amin hundreds of innocent Ismailites were arrested and then murdered. Members of the Kayani clan were no exception: the closest relatives of Pir Sayid Shah Naser Kayani, his two brothers among them, died. Under Babrak Karmal (1980-1986) and Najibulla (1986-1992) the Kayani pirs were avoiding the civil war as well as they could. Sayid Mansur Nodiri had good relations with the Kabul regime and opposition leaders Rabbani and Ahmad Shah Masud. He managed to outline the borders of his community in the Baghlan province that was immune against either government or opposition intervention. There he set up an administration and armed detachments, a network of trade and financial organizations. A jamaat-khane complex with a library, hotels, etc. appeared in Kabul.

In 1996 the Taliban came to Kabul; the armed conflict acquired ethnic tinges. The Khazareans were obviously anti-Taliban and accused the Taliban of genocide. The leaders joined the anti-Taliban alliance. In 1998 the Taliban captured the Kayani clan home in Imam Saheb, the administrative center of the Baghlan province having killed many civilians and destroyed settlements, cultural institutions and schools. Sayid Mansur Nodiri and other Ismailitic leaders had to emigrate.

There is another large Ismailitic Nisarites community in Afghanistan which lives in Badakhshan according to its traditions and is ruled by ten local pirs. As a rule they inherit their posts and each has a certain number of murids, khalifes (the number of whom depends on the number of households under him) who collect taxes and perform traditional rites.

The Ismailites living on the left bank of Amu Daria are politically active with strong left radical leanings. There are radical groups acting among them: Sitam-e Milli (National Oppression), Shola-ie javid (Eternal Flame), and people’s democratic groups Halk (Nation) and Parcham (Banner). Islamist parties have practically no influence in the area.

Disunited Ismailites of Afghan Badakhshan with no organizations to protect their religious and human rights were pushed out of the political current and found themselves totally dependent on armed groups and local leaders. A considerable part of the people living on the left bank of the Panj either grow drugs or buy, sell and transport them. Drug addiction is the largest local problem; the hereditary pirs and khalifes have practically no say on the issue. The Imam repeatedly returned to it in his addresses to the Ismailites of Badakhshan. The clergy itself is often involved in drug traffic which goes contrary to what the Imam has to say about spiritual and physical renovation of the community.

There is another tragic aspect in the life of the Afghani Ismailites: the best educated and active members of society (doctors, teachers, engineers and other professionals educated in the West, the Soviet Union and Afghanistan) emigrated in great numbers. The intellectual elite has been destroyed leaving no hope for the future.

This and many other reasons keep the Ismailitic Nizarites of Afghan Badakhshan outside the scope of the Aga Khan Fund and of international charities. The people there can count on aid only when facing famine or epidemics. Help comes through check points along the frontier with the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of the Republic of Tajikistan.

The Ismailitic community of Afghan Badakhshan that is separated geographically, socially, economically, and culturally from more prosperous co-religionists is dragging out a wretched existence.

It seems that the situation calls for wider contacts with more developed communities and a gradual transformation of the traditional life style. The Aga Khan development organizations which have already accumulated certain experience in the neighboring region, Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan (GBAR) should come there.

GBAR is one of the largest areas populated by Nizarites which is, at the same time, poorly integrated into the Nizaritic community. It is not covered by the 1986 Fundamental Law for political and socioeconomic reasons.

For over 70 years GBAR was part of the Soviet Union, the fact that considerably altered the life in the mountains. There are highways, electricity, stable communication and automobile and air transport that connected villages with the capital Horog and further on with other regions. Life in the mountains was bearable.

The community’s spiritual life also changed: the Ismailites got access to free secondary education, libraries and cultural establishments. This changed their ideas about the world and their religious views.

The Communist Party showed no compassion toward religions and the clergy. By the early 1930s the “religious question” in the region had been settled: the most prominent pirs were either arrested or they fled abroad; all traditional religious rites were entrusted to the khalifa, appointed in each village. He was a state official rather than a religious leader. Religious literature was banned while the Ismailitic teaching was branded as a source of anti-scientific ideas and obscurantism.

In 1936 the Soviet Union closed the frontier with Afghanistan thus separating for many years close relatives who lived on the opposite shores of the Panj. This severed the religious ties between the Ismailites of the autonomous regions and elsewhere.

Deprived of all contacts with Ismailites abroad the Ismailites of the Pamir looked at socialism as the only means of leaving poverty and humiliations behind. They were convinced that it had come forever. When the Soviet Union disintegrated and the civil war in Tajikistan was unfolding the illusions collapsed in no time. The region was cut off—the local people and refugees were staring famine in the face.

It was at that moment that international charities and the Imam Aga Khan IV organizations arrived with their help.

His personal contribution to the settlement of the Tajik armed conflict was enormous. This is repeatedly confirmed by both sides. The Fund is engaged in the Program of Aid To and Development Of the Pamir. At first, in 1994-1997 the Fund delivered foodstuffs to make up for the collapsed, during the civil war, Soviet delivery system that supplied this hard-to-reach region. The Fund delivered and distributed thousands of tons of foodstuffs.

Today, when the 1997 peace agreement had been signed and the republic entered a period of peace and stability the Fund is concerned with economic development and advance in agriculture to make the region self-supporting. The kolkhoz-sovkhoz system was transformed into farms and is yielding two or three times more food than before.

The Fund acting within the Program of Development of Mountain Regions is building irrigation canals and brings more lands into agriculture. The Fund also helps small businesses with low-interest loans.

Imam Aga Khan IV visited the region in May 1995 and September 1998 when he met his flock in all regions. He confirmed his desire to establish peace and stability in Tajikistan, to promote economic advance by investing in agriculture, industry, power production and tourism.

He did not speak about spreading the 1986 Fundamental Law to the local Ismailites—so far the domestic situation and legal lacunae do not permit this. Besides, the specific past of the region calls for special approaches to possible reorganization of the local Ismailitic community.

1 See: Farhad Daftari, Tarih wa aqaid-i ismailiya, Teheran, 1375 (1996), p. 112.

2 For more detail see: L.V. Stroeva, Gosudarstvo ismailitov v Irane v XI-XIII vv., Moscow, 1978, pp. 61-201.

3 On the Mustalites see: S.F. Devin, “Kto takie ismaility-bokhra,” Nauka i religia, No. 6, 1974, pp. 68-73; Farhad Daftari, op. cit., pp. 293-367.

4 The post-Alamut period is little studied; details can be found in the work by Farhad Daftari quoted above, pp. 497-575.

5 See: Farhad Daftari, op. cit., p. 510.

6 Muhsin Saye. Aha Khan Mahallati. Firqai ismailiya, Teheran, 1329 Hijra, pp. 32-68.

7 See: Farhad Daftari, op. cit., pp. 584-586, 598.

8 See: Farhad Daftari, op. cit., p. 604.

9 See: Norman N. Lewis, “The Ismailis of Syria Today,” Royal Central Asian Journal, No. 39, 1952, pp. 69-77.

10 See: Farhad Daftari, op. cit., p. 610.

11 See: S.E. Grigoriev, “K voprosu o rodoslovnoi ismailitskikh pirov Afghanistana,” Strany i narody Vostoka. Issue XXX. Tsentral’naia Azia. Vostochny Hindukush, Peterburgskoe Vostokovedenie Publishers, St. Petersburg, 1998, pp. 242-251.

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