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TAJIKISTAN: CULTURAL HERITAGE AND THE IDENTITY ISSUE
Pulat SHOZIMOV
Pulat Shozimov, Ph.D. (Philos.), research associate, Institute of Philosophy and Law, Academy of Sciences of the Tajik Republic (Dushanbe, Tajikistan)
Cultural heritage has always been a controversial issue in Central Asia. And its newly acquired independence has only added heat to the already ongoing debates.
Each layer of Central Asian cultural heritage consists of many elements. Tajik culture, for example, comprises many peacefully coexisting cultural forms: they include elements of the Iranian, Turkic, Russian, Indian, and Chinese cultures. And the artificially constructed models of pure culture offered by certain intellectuals cannot stand up to the practical test.
Any discussion of the Sunni religious-cultural tradition of Tajikistan within the context of field research leaves the impression that a monistic idea of the dominating religious and cultural tradition of the Tajiks and the Turki peoples associated with the Sunni tradition is not totally correct. Indeed, not only the common Muslims, but also religious figures in Jilikul, Matcha, Hissar, Isfara, and Chorkukh do not strictly separate Sunnism from Shi‘ism. For example, until quite recently the Arabic inscriptions (khufi graphics) found in the Khazrati-Shokh mosque (in the village of Chorkukh, one of the republic’s most religious places) dated to the 9th-10th centuries remained undeciphered. Arabic specialists, who recently visited the mosque, read the inscriptions and explained that the tomb inside the mosque contained Hussein’s son imam Zaynollobiddin (both were Shi‘a imams). The Arabs wanted to know whether the young man who looked after the tomb discerned the contradiction between the Sunni and Shi‘a traditions created by this fact. The young man shrugged his shoulders and said there were no contradictions since both were parts of the single Muslim tradition.
Francis Fukuyama has said in this connection that revived religious feelings will assume much softer and…………………..
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