Author:

Aziza Shanazarova (Stanford University)

Paper abstract:

The present paper offers a historical contextualization of Ḥāfiẓ Baṣīr within the Central Asian Sufi tradition based on close examination of the primary sources that includes Mīr Sayyid Muḥammad Sāmānī's Adhkār al-azkiyā, Maḥmūd b. Amīr Walī's Bahr al-asrār, Dūst Muḥammad b. Navrūz al-Kīshī's Silsilat al-ṣiddiqīn, Ḥazīnī's Ḥujjat al-abrār, Muḥammad al-'Ālim Ṣiddīqī's Lamaḥāt min nafaḥāt al-quds and Ṭāhir Īshān's Silsila-yi Khwājagān-i Naqshbandiya. Not only these sources are significant in depicting the historical account of one of our main characters, but they also play a key role in tracing the non-Aḥrārī lineage of the Naqshbandi Sufi tradition passing through Ḥāfiẓ Baṣīr that was active in the region of Khwarazm until the second half of the 18th century.