Бурҳониддин марғиноний исми, унвони ва куняси хусусида

Samarkand traditional tales.

Burkhan ad-din al-Marginani and Great Amir Timur

The “Timur-nameh” by Mullah Salah ad-din Tashkandi comprises a mythical history of the Amir Timur’s fight and support of Burkhan ad-din Sahib-i Hidayah (Burkhan ad-din al-Marginani) rendered to Amir Timur in his struggle against the false Prophet Nasir-i Khusraw:

“When Amir Timur reached the age of 14 years old, Nasir-i Khusraw appeared and declared himself to be a Prophet. He began to exterminate all the Ulemas who did not recognize his prophecy. Burkhan ad-din Sahib-i Hidayah, residing in Samarkand, declared Nasir-i Khusraw to be a “kafir” (infidel). Having heard about that, Nasir-i Khusraw sent to Samarkand one of his men in the guise of a healer. At that time, Sahib-i Hidayah had a bad sight due to his old age. Nasir-i Khusraw’s man came to his house and blinded him. The blinded Sahib-i Hidayah, nevertheless, continued to train disciples going down into the cellar of his house, as he was afraid of further intrigues of Nasir-i Khusraw.
During the same period, the false Prophet Nasir-i Khusraw compelled young Amir Timur and his father to recognize him to be a Prophet. Amir Timur made an attempt to find a scholar capable to conduct discussions against Nasir-i Khusraw. He went to Samarkand for ten days. Amir Timur met with blinded Sahib-i Hidayah and asked him to help. However, the citizens of Samarkand, having suspected that Amir Timur was sent by Nasir-i Khusraw, detained him and held in custody, not having believed his oath that he was not Nasir-i Khusraw’s agent. In the same evening, Sahib-i Hidayah had a dream that the Prophet told him, “Burkhan ad-din, get up! That young man says the truth. Find him and go together with him to the infidels. You will inevitably win the victory”. Burkhan ad-din woke up, and his sight had been immediately restored, he began to see everything. The world for him again became bright, colorful, and kind.
Later, Burkhan ad-din helped Amir Timur to defeat completely Nasir-i Khusraw and infidels”.
This brings up the question: how Nasir-i Khusraw (1004 – ca. 1088), Burkhan ad- din al-Marginani (d. 1197) and Amir Timur (1336-1405) appeared in one place in the writing of the author of the 19^th century?
As is known, the great scholar Nasir-i Khusraw was born in the city of Kubadijan in the territory of present-day Tajikistan. In adolescence, he started to study various sciences, and especially he was interested in literature and religious-philosophical subjects.
In his youth, Nasir-i Khusraw got acquainted with life of the royal court of the Gaznevid sultans Mahmud and Mas’ud and for some time was a high-ranking official on financial and taxation affairs at the Seljuq court, then he set out on travels. In his youth, he made travels to India, to lands of Turkestan and modern Afghanistan. During


¹ Author’s field research. 2008. Fergana oblast, Uch-Kuprik district, kishlak Katta-Kenagas.
his seven-year-long travel, the poet visited Hejaz, Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt, got wise to customs and traditions of local people. There is even an assumption that Nasir-i Khusraw went to Egypt, already being a secret Isma'ili. Having met in Egypt with supporters of the Fatimid caliph, the leader of the Isma’ili sect, Nasir-i Khusraw became the zealous follower of Isma’ilism.¹
Returned to Khurasan and stayed in Balkh, Nasir-i Khusraw started openly to preach the Isma’ili doctrine and to gather the followers. It engendered discontent of the Seljuq rulers, and they started to pursuit him. In hiding from prosecutions, he conducted a vagabond way of life, wandering from one city to another. Persecutions never ceased, Nasir-i Khusraw had not managed to escape from prosecutions down to the end of his days. After several years of illegal activity in Khurasan, Tabaristan and Mazandaran he left for Pamir, for Badakhshan where in a mountain village he lived in seclusion the remainder of his life.
Traditional tales about Nasir-i Khusraw were widely spread in Central Asia. With the lapse of time, the image of Nasir-i Khusraw in Central Asian folklore has turned into the image of an infidel. This fact is proved to be true by the above-stated legend.
As the American researchers Ron Sela and Scott C. Levi have established, the occurrence of legendary biographies of Amir Timur in the 18^th-19^th centuries was caused by the crisis in Central Asia. It represented an original response of the milieu that composed these narrations to the challenges of time.²
As has been shown by the research of historical and legendary biographies of Burkhan al-din al-Marginani, this figure takes a special place in the history of intellectual life of Central Asia. It is determined by greatness of the great scholar’s creations, by the role of his descendants, which they played in the history of this region over the length of three centuries. We think that our modest research is one of the first works in series of the ensuing thorough and in-depth studies of life and creative work of Burkhan al-din al-Marginani and his great family clan.




¹ Onthis issue see: Braginskiy I.S. Iz istorii tadjikskoy narodnoy poezii. M.: Izdatelstvo AN, 1956; Bertels A.Ye. Nasir-i Xusrov i ismailizm. M., 1959; Ashurov G. Filosofskiye vzglyadi Nosiri Xusrava (na osnove analiza traktata Zad al-musafirin). D., 1965; Dodixudoyev X. Ocherki filosofii ismailizma (obshaya xarakteristika filosofskoy doktrini X-XIV vv.) D.: Donish, 1976; Saidchaloli Badaxshiy. Bahr ul-asror. Xorug: Pomir, 1992; Nosir Xisrav. Safarnoma. T.: Sharq, 2003.
² Islamic Central Asia. An Anthology of Historical Sources / Edited by Scott C. Levi and Ron Sela. Indiana University Press, 2010, pp. 247-254.