The other side

I'm not alone. Probably many of you enjoy the anticipation of finding what is just around the bend or over the hill. You may be wondering where I am going with all this. After years of doing research on Turkic-speaking peoples, I was thrilled just recently to have been introduced to a fellow scholar and be hosted in his home. Bruce G. Privratsky, author of the book “Muslim Turkistan: Kazak Religion and Collective Memory” lived in Turkistan, Kazakhstan, for eight years after the collapse of communism and taught at Ahmet Yesevi University.

Recently in a workshop on writing your memoirs the attendees were challenged to imagine a place where you have fond memories and write a few sentences describing it and the sounds and smells and activity there. Memories of my few visits to Alma Ata, later renamed Almaty, and visits with my Kazakh friends came to mind -- I saw their tanned, round faces with lovely smiles and remembered their friendliness and spending time sipping bowls of green tea to refresh ourselves.

Have you ever sat and listened to someone who has come back more recently from a place where you have been before? As Bruce and I talked about Kazakhs and their spirituality, their pre-Islam state, ancestor worship and the practice of shamanism in the region, two things became very obvious: The first was that Bruce his knew his subject well and the other was I felt as though I was right back there and could understand and relate to all he said. It seems after a decade or two, not that many important things had changed: one of these being the people and their hospitality. Like Turks, relationships are important.

These days the Kazakhs are probably the most known of the Central Asian peoples among Westerners as the land has oil so it is in the news more often. For centuries, though, they were pastoral nomads and engaged in a struggle to preserve their simple lifestyle and live off the land. Although this Turkic-speaking ethnic group survived nearly 70 years of Soviet rule, they have managed to retain their strong cultural ties with their past and take much pride in their heritage. Kazakhs with the help of their Turkish partnerships have transformed their economy and are adapting their culture and lifestyle. History reveals that Kazakhs have always tended to maintain cultural continuity with the practices of the Turkic tribes.

Kazakh spirituality has unique features:

 It has only been recently that the Kazakh population has been more closely tied to urban centers.

 Due to the lack of Muslim scholars (ülama) during the Soviet-era control of Central Asia, the local mullah discretely assumed the role because mosques and Sufi brotherhoods were suppressed.

 Oral tradition including poetry venerated Allah and Muhammad.

 Ahmet Yesevi, a Sufi, and other Sufi holy men traveled the steppe and introduced the way of Islam.  

Yesevi was a Sufi, and a large historic center of the Yesevi Sufi movement was built in Yasi/Turkistan. I had always been convinced Sufis, in general, were a “tariqa,” a Sufi order. Bruce's book has helped me understand how the Sufi heritage in the Kazakh religion has served more as a “communal affiliation.” Bruce affirms this by quotes from Devin DeWeese, another scholar who presented a paper titled "The Politics of Sacred Lineages in 19th-century Central Asia: Descent Groups Linked to Khwaja Ahmad Yasavi in Shrine Documents and Genealogical Charters."

Being an anthropologist allows you the unique opportunity to explore and to listen to people's stories. I've heard a lot of stories from Turkic refugees about their ancestors, their lifestyles in their homeland and their beliefs. Having also visited the Soviet Union on a few occasions, I'd heard the other side as well and seen some of the situation there. Despite all the challenges the Kazakhs have faced, they have borrowed much from other cultures, coloring their life with Islamic, Russian and Soviet influences and still remain uniquely Kazakh.