The Kiyikov Convolute: Sufi Knowledge and Written Culture of Muslims in the Ural-Volga Region of Late Imperial Russia

Abstract

Introduction. The study focuses on a rather unique source within the Muslim book culture of the Ural-Volga Region. It is a convolute primarily compiled and authored by the Kiyikovs, father and son, who were Sufi mentors of the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya, historiographers and writers. They lived in the north of present-day Bashkortostan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Goals. The article attempts a general and archaeographic description of the manuscript, analyzes its structure and content, and provides an overview of its key themes. Results. The paper resumes the compendium be an important artifact of Muslim written and book culture, and can be described as a unified source. It expands the existing understanding of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century book culture of Volga-Ural Muslims, and specifically the tradition of Sufi knowledge transmission during this period. The breadth and diversity of the Kiyikovs' cultural ties with centers of Muslim scholarship in the Ottoman Empire, Hejaz, Central Asia, and India reflected in the source may serve to rebut the prevailing view in modern academic literature that Russian Muslims' interest in Sufism declined during this period.