By
Igor Rotar, Forum 18 News Service
The
tens of thousands of Ismaili Muslims of the Tajik Autonomous
District
in
isolated
from their fellow-Ismailis across the border in
elsewhere
in the world, Forum 18 News Service found on a visit to
Xinjiang
between 8 and 10 September. There is only one Ismaili mosque
functioning
in the Tajik Autonomous District, in the district capital
Tashkurgan,
whose imam was appointed by the Chinese secular authorities.
The
imam-hatyb of Tashkurgan's Ismaili mosque, Shakar Mamader, admitted
to
Forum 18 on 9 September that under Chinese law children are forbidden
from
attending the mosque up to the age of 18. He also admitted that the
Chinese
authorities do not allow the Fourth Aga Khan (the Ismaili
spiritual
leader) to offer any aid to the Tajik Autonomous District.
However,
Mamader believes "there is absolutely no need for such help as
the
central government provides very substantial funding to the region".
He
stressed that the Fourth Aga Khan had visited the region in 1980.
Mamader
also declared that Ismaili preachers and clerics from
neighbouring
from
the checkpoint at the Chinese-Pakistan border) do not work in
of
our own experts on Ismailism," he insisted. However, other local
Ismailis
who preferred not to be named told Forum 18 that Pakistani
Ismaili
clerics are not allowed to preach on Chinese territory.
Xinjiang's
Ismaili community has no contact with Tajik Ismailis as there
is
not one checkpoint on the Chinese-Tajik border.
The
Tajik Autonomous District is situated in the eastern
and
borders
Region.
There are about 50,000 people living in the Tajik Autonomous
District
identified as Tajiks in the Chinese census. However, these
people
can be called Tajiks only in the broadest sense. The Sarikoli and
Wakhi
Chinese Pamir nationalities, as well as the Tajik, Pakistani and
Afghan
Pamir nationalities who live in Chinese Pamir, speak languages
belonging
to the Eastern Iranian language group, whereas Tajik is linked
to
Western Iranian.
Unlike
the Tajik Sunni Muslims, the
Ismailism
- a
branch of Shia Islam which bears the clear influence of Buddhism and
neo-Platonism.
The current Aga Khan is the 49th hereditary imam of the
worldwide
Ismaili community. In contrast to other Muslims who pray five
times
a day, the Ismailis recite prayers only twice a day. They do not
observe
the Ramadan fast, nor do they ban the consumption of alcohol.
Externally,
the villages of Chinese Pamir are virtually
indistinguishable
from the villages of Tajik Pamir. For example, the
homes
have an almost identical structure - the interior of the building
has
to have five columns, a number of sacred significance for Ismailis.
However,
there are substantial differences in the religious life of the
Ismailis
of the Chinese and Tajik
In
contrast to the ban on aid to the Ismailis of Xinjiang, the Aga Khan
gives
so much aid to the population of
Autonomous
Region that this area depends on his financial support. The
headquarters
of the Mountain Societies Development Support Programme,
which
the Aga Khan funds, has opened in the city of
of
the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region. A similar office operates in
the
city of
dispatched
by road to
On 30
August the Tajik president Emomali Rahmonov laid the foundation
stone
for a new Ismaili Centre in the Tajik capital
remarks
at the ceremony, the Aga Khan said the new centre would be "a
place
for contemplation, upliftment and the search for spiritual
enlightenment".
(END)
(c)
Forum 18 News Service. All rights reserved