Bonjour,

La deuxième séance de l’Atelier Eurasie centrale pour l’année 2024 aura lieu le mardi 16 janvier, de 11h00 à 13h00 en ligne exclusivement via le lien https://unige.zoom.us/j/67123818579

Nous y accueillerons une communication de : Vladimir Bobrovnikov (Ecole des hautes études économiques de Saint-Pétersbourg) et Shamil Shikhaliev (Institut d’études iraniennes, Vienne), sur le thème :

Sufis, new saints and migrants in post-Communist Muslim hagiography : three year of fieldwork in Southern Daghestan (2021–23)

Based on a fieldwork carried out in Southern Daghestan in the framework of the RedGold ANR programme, between 2021 and 2023, we shall discuss the transformation of Muslim hagiography, its new saints and the public debates on the veneration of saints in a context of de-secularisation and massive migration since the last decades of the Soviet era. Our argument is that, in spite of the apparent continuity of pilgrimage practice, hagiographic literature and texts have changed, in connection with modern Sufi, Soviet, as well as national narratives. In parallel, new holy graves were making their appearance, dedicated to modern-day Sufi masters, venerated in place of the early Muslim Arab missionaries, of the martyrs of jihad wars and of renowned ulama whose tombs had dominated the sacred Islamic countryside of Southern Daghestan until the mid-20th century. An unexpected type-figure of Islamic sainthood has emerged in this cult: that of holy-fools, or antinomian saints, who were active under Soviet rule. One of them, Shaykh Waghuf Buba (1894–1972) of the village of Lutkun, has become posthumously one of the region’s most famous men of God. The current development of his veneration appears to some as a possible rampart against the propagation of Salafi trends, disseminated in the countryside by migrants based in towns. Dans l’attente de vous y retrouver, fût-ce sous ce format, Stéphane Dudoignon, Léo Maillet, Lina Tsrimova