Benjamin Gatling makes good use of language to illuminate the subtleties of life in Dushanbe, the capital and largest city of Tajikistan. For example, when discussing a statue of an ancient king, Ismoil Somoni, he describes him as “the progenitor of the country’s latest national mythology” (5). Gatling makes every word count, and as a result, the book is brief but deeply informative. There are many Tajik words in the book, which can feel cumbersome to the uninitiated, but fortunately, Gatling has provided a glossary to help the reader along.
The author is a self-aware ethnographer, and he frames his scholarship honestly through its limitations. He writes: “This is a particular story, as all ethnography is. For one thing, it is gendered. It is a story about men and homosocial events.” This is the case in part because custom dictated that Gatling’s socialization with Tajik Sufi women be brief (7). A true ethnographer, Gatling is able to convey important contextual information even about what he was unable to experience fully. The author is also aware of geographic limitations and the subjectivity of his collaborators. He writes: “I am not a Muslim, nor a Sufi. My Sufi collaborators were quick to point out that my ethnographic knowledge was not their transcendent truth . . . . Ethnography, too, bucks the norms of Sufi comportment. Sufi knowledge only exists within the context of an initiate’s ongoing relationship with a pir [teacher]” (8). Gatling is aware of his positionality as a person outside the community he studies, and he is also aware of how his collaborators view him. Again, by admitting to his own subjectivity, Gatling reveals the bigger picture within which he carried out his research.
The book opens with a description of a viral video capturing an ecstatic Sufi ritual. Gatling goes on to explain the political and social context around it through the perceptions of one particular Sufi collaborator, Parviz. The video, and the reactions which various local and political government actors have to it, serve as an indicator of the position of Sufism in Tajikistan. Gatling sets the stage for his later arguments by following two men: Muhammad Ali, a Sufi who owns a teahouse; and Ibrohim, a former Sufi who is an academic. Gatling routinely hears his collaborators claim that there are no Sufis in Tajikistan in order to articulate “the feeling of this seeming disjuncture, between perceptions of the religious present and the imagined past” (22). This claim is also a response to enormous political and social change, as Islam is brought back into the national picture after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Gatling in this chapter also discusses how Tajik Sufis see their tradition as separate from other forms of Islamic knowledge and ritual (28). The government has made various attempts to regulate how Islam is practiced in the context of Tajik identity, pulling men off the street to shave their beards, allowing only Tajik names for children, and making Tajik pilgrims to Mecca wear Tajik garb over the standard white robes worn by most Muslims.
Chapter 2 is concerned with nostalgia as a shared strategy of identity among Tajik Sufis. Gatling discusses how nostalgic narratives connect people across generations, and how they serve as counter-hegemonic discourse. The tales told by Gatling’s collaborators emphasize a secret, mystical reality, which contrasts with the nationalistic brand of Islam promoted by the government. The author emphasizes nostalgia as a political strategy that legitimates Sufi identity. Chapter 3 focuses on narratives (Gatling specifically calls them historical narratives) as expressive genres of nostalgia. Gatling’s collaborators are keen to “establish discursive connections between the pre-Soviet and present religious environments” (73). The paradoxes of the present motivate his collaborators to preserve a sense of continuity with the past. Creative uses of the past help Sufis to navigate their present and evaluate possible futures.
The fourth chapter is about written texts as forms of communication among Sufis. Gatling writes that the value of these texts goes beyond their narrative content; the texts are also important artifacts that bridge moments in time. He describes the texts as objects imbued with “traces of saintly power and authenticity” (103). This chapter is particularly rich with theory. Gatling discusses the material sainthood of books through the folkloric concepts of decontextualization and recontextualization. Gatling writes that “interpretation never remains self-evident,” but since the books are imbued with the holiness of their authors, they empower their contemporary Sufi readers to shape their present situation.
The last two chapters discuss the embodiment of Sufi principles. In chapter 5, Gatling documents a zikr performance, a gathering where poetic chants are sung. Being immersed in participation is a means by which a certain mystical knowledge is gained. Gatling documents this ritual intimately and viscerally; his collaborators weep, sweat, and tremble as they chant each syllable of the name of God. The manifestation of a mystical reality in this ritual is yet another strategy to create continuity between the past and present, empowering participants. In chapter 6, we see Gatling’s collaborators build a mosque. The author argues for this physical act as embodied nostalgia, but also, as a subtly subversive act against the government; Gatling concludes that being Sufi is both embodied memory and also the result of possessing ritualized knowledge.
Something Gatling does particularly well in this ethnography is to paint striking pictures of his collaborators. For example, in chapter 4, he offers several anecdotes about the self-promotional efforts of a man named Rustam. When Gatling first meets him, Rustam casually gives him two CDs that he had made, mentioning that he sells them but that he was “not objecting when I took money from my pocket and handed it to him. I liked him instantly” (101). Gatling’s depictions of his interlocutors remind me a bit of Henry Glassie’s writing. He is a human character in his own description of events, affecting how they unfold, but he acknowledges this fact for the reader’s evaluation. He is aware, for example, that as a foreign researcher, his presence draws attention to the group he is studying, and this is dangerous for them as potential targets of the government. Gatling lets his collaborators decide when it is or is not appropriate for him to attend certain events, and he waits to be invited. The events which he is allowed to attend reveal as much about the group he studies as those from which he is excluded; for example, as noted, he only has access to men’s spaces.
Gatling writes concisely, but does not lose depth. One might even say that this book is deceptively short. The reader watches Gatling’s progression through his research as a Westerner in a non-Western context. He is honest about his frustrations, particularly about things that appear logically inconsistent to him, but his relationships with his collaborators bring him into a deeper understanding of his subject. His journey is one to which many ethnographers will relate. I recommend this book to any student of ethnography (especially folklorists), to scholars of Central Asia, and to scholars of religion, especially the Sufi traditio
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[Review length: 1180 words • Review posted on March 26, 2020]