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Zikri or Zigri (from the word dhikr-remembering, repeating the names of Allah) is a small Muslim sect that is widespread in Pakistan, as well as in some parts of southern India, Afghanistan and in Iranian Balochistan. In Pakistan, the Zikri mainly live in the territory of Balochistan, in the south-west of which, near the city of Turbat, is their main shrine Kuh-e-murad ("Mountain of Desire"). In the Gwadar district, the Zikri constitute a confessional majority, with some groups living in Karachi, Quetta, Las Bela and Makran. According to rough estimates, about 750 thousand people belong to the sect in Pakistan. This statistic is inaccurate, since many Zikris are accused of heresy by the majority Sunni Muslims in Pakistan, and they simply hide their religious affiliation.

Keywords: Zikri sect, Sufism, Mahdism, "female" gender role

The standard charges against zikri are that they replace the obligatory ritual prayer (salat) with dhikr, do not fast during Ramadan, and instead of performing Hajj perform the ritual of ziyarat ("visiting") of their shrine. Most of all, the Zikri are afraid of repeating the fate of another, more famous and numerous Islamic sect, the Ahmadiyya, whose members were declared non-Muslims in 1974 by a decree of the Pakistani parliament and on this basis were subjected to the most severe persecution for many years (the latest example is the armed attack on Ahmadiyya mosques in Lahore in May 2010).

In contrast to the Ahmadiyya, among whom there are many educated middle-class people who have managed to create large communities in Western countries (the head of their state).

The article was written with the financial support of the Russian Foundation for National Research, grant "Female leader in Traditional Muslim Society: the Benazir Bhutto phenomenon", N 10-03-00014a.

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The majority of Zikri are fishermen, farmers, and small artisans (in particular, basket makers). Fear of reprisals, isolation, and the constant threat of" excommunication "from Islam shaped their" secular " political leanings. Although the majority of Zikri are ethnic Balochis, they make up the electorate of both the Nationalist Baloch Union (Baluch Ittehad) and non-ethnic secular parties, notably Altaf Hussein's Muhajir National Movement (MQM).

The spiritual head of Zikri is considered to be a certain Nur Pak ("pure light"), who lived in the XV century. It is sometimes called Huda-Dad ("God's gift"). These are just local nicknames that gave zikri a famous historical figure-the Mahdi of Jaunpur. Sayyid Muhammad Kazimi (1443-1505), a Sufi theologian originally from Jaunpur (once the capital of Sharqi Sultanate, now Uttar Pradesh), traced his genealogy to the seventh Shia Imam Musa al-Kazim (745-799). He was originally a member of the Chishtiya Sufi brotherhood, but in 1495, during the Hajj, while in Mecca, he declared himself a " promised mahdi "(mahdi al-ma'ud).

Most of the world's religions contain in one form or another the idea of the coming of a "coming prophet" at the end of time, who will prepare people for the Last Judgment and establish the Kingdom of God on Earth. In Islam, this problem has its own specifics, which are expressed in the traditions outside the Koran about the coming of the Mahdi Messiah at the end of time. Initially, Islam focused not on eschatology, but on the full and unconditional worship of God. The prophecy of Muhammad should continue until the Day of Judgment. But the eschatological principle in Islam still exists, but it is based not on the Koran, but on hadiths and other non-Koranic traditions.

Mahdi ("guided [in the way of Allah]") is considered a harbinger of the near end of the world, a kind of messiah. Even in the early period of Islam, the Mahdi was perceived as the expected ruler who would appear as the" lord of time " (Sahib al-Zaman) in order to restore the original purity of Islam. In orthodox Sunni Islam, the Mahdi is a descendant of the Prophet who will be the leader of the Muslims and will come to earth at the time of the second coming of Isa (Jesus). Messianic ideas became more widespread in Shiite Islam, where the belief in the coming of the Mahdi merged with the belief in the return of the twelfth "Hidden Imam" [A Brief History..., 2004, p. 85].

Mahdism has often inspired social and religious movements in the Muslim world. They were the foundation of the Fatimid dynasties in North Africa (909-1171) and the Almohad dynasties in North Africa and Spain (1130-1269). A variant of Mahdism was the Babite religious movement in Iran in the first half of the 19th century. The last major Mahdist movement was the uprising in Eastern Sudan at the end of the 19th century under the leadership of Muhammad Ahmed, who declared himself Mahdi. The attitude of Sayyid Muhammad Mahdi of Jaunpur to his mission was purely Sunni, and at the same time he claimed descent from Shia imams. This has led some researchers to call Indian Mahdism "ecumenical" (Hastings, 2003, p. 277).

After returning to India, Mahdi from Jaunpur settled in Ahmedabad (Gujarat), from where he began his preaching activities. Mahdi died in Farah in Eastern Khorasan (now Afghanistan), where his tomb is a place of pilgrimage. Although the ulama are the most authoritative chroniclers (like Abul Fazl and Badauni) the claims of the new Mahdi were treated as heresy (zandaka) and godlessness (kufr), and he managed to create a large community of Mahdavi followers. Among them, at various times, were such prominent personalities of the Indian Middle Ages as the saint

1 Some consider Zikri descendants of "ichthyophages" in the terminology of the historian Arrian, i.e. people who ate fish, who inhabited the coast of Makran during the campaigns of Alexander the Great [The Imperial Gazetteer, 1929, p. 321].

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Burhanuddin of Kalpi, poets Malik Muhammad Jayasi and Qadi Kadan, a courtier of Padishah Akbar, Sheikh Mubarak Nagori and many others.

Some rulers of Gujarat were also inclined to Mahdism. Thus, Sultan Mahmud Begra (1458-1511), in particular, refused to comply with the fatwa requiring the execution of the Mahdi of Jaunpur (Schimmel, 1980, p. 42-43). In the territories of Gujarat and Deccan, there were most Mahdavi communities called daira (lit. "circle"). However, by the beginning of the 17th century, the Mahdavi movement was weakened by constant armed clashes with the armies of local authorities and later finally defeated under the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb (1658-1707). Separate Mahdavi communities have been preserved in Gujarat, Jaipur, Punjab, Sindh and Mysore, and today there is even an international organization calling itself the Global Mahdavia Society2.

The biography of the Mahdi of Jaunpur suggests that he had never been to Balochistan [Furnish, 2005, p. 312-319], but the Zikri tradition ignores this historical fact and suggests that their spiritual leader fled the persecution of the Ulum and spent several years on the coast of Makran, choosing a place for his own people. Kuh-e-murad prayers and meditations. Following the Mahdi (Nur Pak, or Huda-Dad) in the XVI century, the part of his followers who later called themselves Zikri allegedly moved to the territory of Makran. Their settlements were located on the outskirts of villages and towns and were surrounded, like a magic circle, by a fence made of stones, also called da'ira [Khanam, 2005, p. 105]. This word meaning "settlement, city" is widely used in the toponymy of Pakistan, both in its original sound and in the distorted form of dera or dero. Hence the names of the cities Dera Murad Jamali and Dera Allah Par (Balochistan), Dera Darazo and Naudero (Sindh), Dera Ghazi Khan and Dera Ismail Khan (Punjab). The latter were once Mahdavi settlements and are named after the warlords of Aurangzeb, whose troops destroyed these cities.

Initially, the Zikri found support in their new place of residence in the Sardars (tribal leaders) of the two major tribes that ruled Makran: Buledi and Gichki, who adopted their religious teachings. But in the middle of the 18th century, the Zikri were again persecuted by the rulers-khans of the Baloch principality of Kalat, one of whom - Mir Nasir Khan (1749-1794) - declared jihad to the members of the sect and sent nine army expeditions against their settlements in order to convert them to Sunni Islam or destroy them [Baloch, 1996, p. 184]. It is believed that during these punitive expeditions, on the orders of Mir Nasir Khan, the leader of the Zikri community, Malik Dinar, was killed and all written sources of the sect, including the records of the teachings of the Mahdi and his deputies (caliph), were destroyed. Fleeing from the Khans of Kalat, the Zikri took refuge in Sindh, which was then ruled by the Kalhora dynasty (1701-1783), many of whose members professed Mahdism [Bozai]. In the territory of Iranian Balochistan, the Zikri were also the target of religious persecution as pagans (kafirs), which caused their mass flight from Iran after the creation of Pakistan [Boyajian-Sureniants, 2004, p. 199 - 213].

I must say that the persecution of Zikri continues to this day. In 1993, one of the religious leaders of Zikri, speaking in a discussion (munazara) about the nature of the sect's rituals, accused Sunnis (Zikri call them Namazi) of deliberately distorting the teachings and traditions of Zikri in order to create an "image of the enemy". Almost all religious organizations in Pakistan considered this speech a provocation and once again demanded that the government declare the sect a "non-Muslim minority".

27th of the month of Ramadan (when dhikri is performed as their main ritual) Crowds organized by the Jamaat-e-Islami religious party gathered in Turbat to prevent members of the sect from performing ziyarat. The timing of the Zikri ritual itself offends the religious sensibility of Sunnis: on the night of Ramadan 27

2 http://www.globalmahdaviasociety.org/

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all Muslims around the world celebrate the Night of Predestination (Laylat al-Qadar) in memory of the revelation of the first Surah of the Qur'an to the Prophet Muhammad in 610. In 1993, the conflict in Turbat reached such an acute stage that the police did not help, and army units were called to help disperse the opposing crowds of Dhikri and namaz [Khan, 1995, p. 33-39].

Since the written tradition of the Zikri sect has not been preserved, the presentation of its religious doctrine is rather an interpretation of how the Zikri represent themselves and how they appear to the rest of the Muslim world. The teachings of the Zikri were formed under the direct influence of Mahdavi theology, which declared their spiritual leader to be equal in everything to the Prophet Muhammad, except for the gift of prophecy (nubuvvat) and messenger (risalat), of which Muhammad was the "seal". Not being the Prophet (nabi) and Messenger (rasul) of Allah, the Mahdi as His vicegerent (khalifatullah) supposedly surpasses all other "righteous caliphs" and ranks second in the spiritual hierarchy of Islam after the Prophet [Life History of Mahdi].

The most important part of the Zikri teaching is the voluntary refusal to acquire worldly goods and absolute equality in their distribution, which is similar to the practice of some Sufi fraternities. Against the background of the general egalitarianism of Islam, the Zikri preach radical equality (saviyat), property, up to the rejection of private property, social and gender, which the Pakistani researcher Durre Ahmad calls "liberal socialism" (Ahmed, 2002, p. 218). Despite the extremely conservative cultural context of Balochistan, women of the Zikri sect remain outside the strict restrictions imposed on other Balochis by tribal customs and religious orthodoxy. Therefore, it is not surprising that the women of Zikri not only participate in the main rituals of the sect on an equal basis with the men, so to speak, in a mixed congregation, but also play an important role in these rituals.

It has already been said that the description of dhikri rituals is a matter of interpretation and directly depends on the relationship of the source of the description to the sect. Authors who are "friendly" to Zikri emphasize the sect's affinity for common Muslim rituals, in particular, they claim that Zikri, although they do not observe Ramadan, fast monthly for a week; if possible, they perform Hajj like all other Muslims, and send their dhikr six times a day (while the traditional salat is performed). five times) [Ahmed, 2007, p. 28 - 35]. However, most authors who write about the sect consider it to have fallen away from the Islamic "mainstream" and cite as proof the "creed" adopted by Zikri: "There is no god but God, and Muhammad Mahdi is his vicegerent", which is fundamentally different from the canonical Kalima [Azhar, 1998, p. 68].

Since all dhikr rituals are strictly forbidden to non-members of the community and are not based on available written texts, the content of their dhikr is not well known. Like many Sufi fraternities, which are essentially zikri, they call their main ritual dhikr-e ilahi, that is, we are talking about the ritual repetition of the names and attributes of Allah, as well as individual verses of the Koran. In addition, dhikr traditionally includes recitation of selected poems of Baloch mystic poets, in particular Jam Durrek (1714-1784) and Tawk Ali Maet (1825-1892) [Baloch, 1984, p. 256].

Like Sufis, dhikris send loud (jali) and quiet (hafi) dhikr, both individual and collective. The premises for holding collective dhikr are called Zikr khana (or zigrana), which differ from the canonical mosque in the absence of a minbar (pulpit for the preacher). One of the most significant accusations of Dhikr deviating from the rules of Islam is that their collective prayer (dhikr) is not focused on Qibla (direction to Mecca). If the worshippers in the mosque are arranged in straight rows and face Mecca, then the dhikris form a living circle (da'ira) and at the end of the prayer prostrate in prostration within this circle. Thus, the heads of the worshippers are turned towards each other, and do not look in the direction of the sun.

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the canonical direction of Qibla. It should be noted that performing dhikr by Sufis or other worshippers standing in a circle, i.e. facing each other, is a common practice of many Islamic sects and peoples-from Turkish Alawites [Dincer, 1999] to Muslims of the North Caucasus.

The most significant and most criticized ritual of zikri is the annual ziy-arat to Mount Kuh-e-murad, which is considered the Mahdi's throne, to which he will one day ascend. Hence the name "Mountain of Desire", in the sense of the goal, the object of worship of Zikri (Pastner, 1984, p. 304). By itself, the practice of ziyarat to the tombs of saints is widespread in popular Islam and is practiced by Muslims in different countries. In the Middle Ages, poor believers living in remote parts of the Muslim world, including India, often used ziyarat as a substitute for the Hajj to Mecca. Ziyarat performed by Zikri is condemned precisely because of its external similarity to some Hajj rituals. In particular, when climbing the mountain, the Zikri kiss a special sacred stone on which the "symbol of faith" is written, which to Sunnis seems to be a profanation of the ritual touch of pilgrims to the "black stone" of the Kaaba. Then the Zikri drink water from a mountain spring, which they call Zamzam, i.e. the name of a sacred spring near Mecca, etc. [Khan, 1995, p. 36].

Turbat is a small town with a population of less than 80 thousand inhabitants and has a single branch of production-the collection, packaging and processing of dates. In addition, he is famous in the folk poetry of the peoples of Pakistan: Punnu, the hero of the romantic legend about the love of Sassi and Punnu, whose numerous adaptations were included in the folklore and literature of Sindhis and Punjabis, was originally from Turbat, and the ruins of the "Punnu fort" are the main attraction of the city [Hashmi, 1986, p. 102]. When about 40,000 Zikri arrive in Turbat on Ramadan 27, it probably seems like a real pandemonium to the locals, bringing the Mahdi's coming closer.

The Zikri gather at the foot of Mount Kuh-e-Murad and, after performing a collective dhikr, begin to climb barefoot to the top. At the top, the main part of the ritual, called chogan, is played out. Participants stand in a circle, marking it with stones; in the center of the circle is a specially constructed temporary building (chaubara). Inside the building sits a" soloist "- malai (literally, "presenter"), a woman with a strong and beautiful voice, who sings the praises of the Mahdi and recites poems of Baloch mystic poets. The participants sing along to it in unison, clap their hands, beating a rhythm, and dance, gradually entering a trance.

The chogan is shaped like a "secular" Baloch folk dance-do-chapi, which is also performed by men standing in a circle, clapping their hands and making rhythmic movements with their feet. The only difference is that do-chapi is performed to the accompaniment of a drum (dhol), while chogan is accompanied only by female solo singing. In addition, chogan is similar to the dhammal ritual dance, which is celebrated on Thursday evening in many Sufi shrines in Sindh and Punjab3.

Another important zikri ritual, called kishti ("boat"), is not tied to a specific date and is performed monthly on the night of the new moon, the day after the Eid al-Adha sacrifice, as well as on private festive occasions such as weddings, the birth of a son, circumcision, etc. Apparently, it is not so much related to its sacred content or representation, but rather dictated by the hereditary profession of the majority of Baloch Dhikris - fishing [Nadiem, 2007, p. 142].

As with dhikr and chogan rituals, kishti participants form a circle with several Malay women standing in the center, performing religious chants.

3 For a description of the dhammal dance in the tomb of Saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan, see [Suvorova, 1999, pp. 222-224].

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in honor of Mahdi, Imam Ali, Holy Pir Dastgir (Abdul Qadir Jilani), as well as fragments of Baloch heroic ballads. The latter are an oral epic of the Baloch people, systematized and recorded at the end of the XIX century by the Englishman M. A. Khabib. Longworth by Dames. The central event of these tales was a long - running war between two rival Baloch clans, the Rinds (led by Mir Chakur) and the Lashari (led by Mir Gwaharam). The reason for the war between the clans was a woman named Gohar, the Baloch "beautiful Elena", with whom the Sardars of both clans were in love. The beginning of the great tribal war dates back to the reign of Mughal Emperor Humayun, i.e. 1530-1539 (Longworth Dames, 2006, p. XXI-XXV).

As in other zikri rituals, the female solo is supported by a male chorus that repeats individual verses and phrases as a refrain. In addition, Malai and other kishti members exchange rhyming questions and answers, which is typical of the spectacular folk forms of many South Asian nations.4 For example, the Malai ask, " Who [guides us]? (Hadiyyah?)". The chorus responds: "[Our] flower is Mahdi " (Gul Mahdiya) [Ahmed, 2002, p. 224]. Since the kishti ceremony is also timed to coincide with secular holidays, in particular weddings,the soloists ' questions and the choir's responses can be humorous, sometimes playful, which leads to new accusations of the obscenity and sexual promiscuity of the Zikri rituals.

From what has been said, it follows that the rituals of zikri are based on several archetypes, including climbing a mountain, kissing a stone, drinking from a sacred spring, and, most importantly, the constantly recurring motif of the circle. "Circle" (da'ira) refers to both Dhikri communities, their settlements, and the initial ritual position - dhikr, chogan, and kishti. The circle as an archetypal model, symbolizing the idea of the divine, is known to all peoples of the world-from the Hindu wheel of Samsara and the Buddhist mandala to the representation of the Trinity in the form of three intersecting circles and the "Celtic cross" (cross in a circle).

The circle is one of the forms of creating space. Ritual architectural structures are often circular in plan, and settlements are built in the shape of a circle. In most traditions, the cosmos, as an ordered space, appears in the form of a system of concentric circles, in the center of which is God. In Zen Buddhism, where there is no concept of God, the circle becomes a symbol of enlightenment as the absolute. The Chinese yang-yin symbol, which looks like a circle divided in half by a wavy line, symbolizes the interaction and interpenetration of two principles of being. The circle is a symbol of protected and protected space, hence its use in performing magical rituals, and, at the same time, a symbol of time (infinity) and movement. As Carl Gustav Jung has shown, the connection of the circle and round forms with the feminine principle is, although not universal, but widespread [Jung, 1964, p. 212-229].

The symbolism of the circle is also extremely significant in Sufism, a variation of which is the teaching and practice of the Zikri sect. The interdependence of the basic tenets of Sufism is sometimes represented as the ratio of the circle, radius, and center of the circle. Being on the circumference of Sufism, the mystic moves outward through the manifested world-this is the advantage of the doctrine, a centrifugal process that leads beyond the individual human form. And the advantage of the method is the centripetal process, when a mystic, thanks to spiritual practices, moves inward, towards the center, revealing the innermost microcosmic secret [Bakhtiyar, 2007, pp. 8-9].

4 This exchange of rhyming lines between actors and the audience exists in the Marathi folk theater tamasha, Gujarati folk drama bhavai and in performances of Punjabi buffoon bhands.

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The process of becoming a mystic spiritually, i.e., reaching the center, activates the feminine principle-the soul (nafs), which in Sufism has a feminine principle, movement and love. The Center is the Spirit, the Logos, the Absolute, the masculine principle contained in all things in a state of potency. However, Ibn 'Arabi said that" The Absolute cannot be contemplated independently of concrete existence, and its contemplation is most perfect in the human form, and not in any other, and it is more perfect in a woman than in a man " (quoted in [Bakhtiyar, 2007, p. 21]). Ibn ' Arabi goes on to explain that to contemplate the Absolute in a woman is to see both aspects of contemplation - the agent and the recipient - simultaneously, and such a vision is more perfect than contemplating It in all the other forms in which It manifests itself. That's why a woman is creative, not created. It shows both properties of the Creator's Essence - activity and passivity [Bakhtiyar, 2007, p. 22].

The concept of Ibn ' Arabi finds poetic expression in the famous lines from Rumi's Masnavi:



Partaw-i haqast ân mashüq nîst Khaliqast ân güyia makhlüq nîst
She is the light of Truth, not the beloved.
She is the Creator, you can say that she is not created.


[Masnavi, 1998, 1: 2441].

In the rituals of zikri, it has been shown that the woman is always in the center of the circle; she leads the male choir of worshippers, setting the meaning and rhythm of the entire ritual action (i.e., acts as an active principle, agent). At the same time, malai is not a secular performer or impersonator; she is the recipient and vehicle of the Divine grace (baraka) that descends upon the participants of dhikr, and therefore in this function she acts as a receptive passive principle.

The" feminine " element of Sufism, as well as mysticism in general, has long been studied by classical Islamic studies [for example: Corbin, 1987, p. 159-160]. The main concepts of Sufism-knowledge of God through Love, passive expectation of union/merging with the object of Love, ecstatic emotionality, quietism, contemplation, submissive surrender to the Divine beloved (beloved) and the final dissolution of the " I " in the higher substance - all these are, in the broad sense of the word, manifestations of the "female" gender role.

The opposite of Sufism is prophetism-active, offensive, aggressive, mentoring, rational, requiring complete submission and submission, i.e., the "male" archetype of religious behavior. In real religious life, one archetype does not exclude the other, and such prophetic (patriarchal) religions as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam contain a variety of paradigms and parameters of relationship with God, including "female" mystical ones. However, as historical practice shows, when" male "prophetism in the face of orthodoxy is confronted with the claims of "female" mysticism for leadership, for the latter it is fraught with accusations of heresy, restrictions, pressure and the threat of excommunication from the tradition [Ahmed, 2001, p. 211].

In the context of what has been said, it becomes obvious that the Zikri sect represents precisely the" female " stereotype of religious behavior-from gender equality in the life of the community to the central, literally, role that women play in the main rituals of the sect. These rituals themselves seem to embody the ideas of Ibn ' Arabi discussed above about the advantage of contemplating the Absolute-the center of the circle-in the image of a woman. This is all the more surprising since the sect exists in a tribal environment, whose laws are characterized by exceptional patriarchal rigidity. However, it is quite natural that this dominant "female" aspect, although not named, is the real reason for the constant persecution of the sect, threats, restrictions and accusations of heresy by orthodox Ulema and religious parties.

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The steady " Talibanization "of Islam in Pakistan only reinforces its aggressive" masculine " features, emphasizing militant sexism, which implies the complete exclusion of women from public life and the restriction of their role in the family. In the Northwestern Border Province, where the Taliban are strong, and in Balochistan, according to researchers, there are many settlements, villages and small towns where you can not meet a woman on the street at all. If earlier the boy was brought up by his mother until a certain age, now, as soon as he is weaned, he immediately falls into a male environment and grows up without having any idea about the needs and aspirations of his female relatives and women in general, experiencing the contempt for the "weakness" and "impurity" of women and hostility instilled in him from childhood treat it as an image of the Other (Irfani, 1997).

The future of the Zikri sect is uncertain. It continues to irritate the Sunni majority not only with its marginal rituals and "liberal socialism" of community life, but also with the incongruity of the real social situation, which is more than modest, with high spiritual ambitions. The Zikri consider themselves Sayyids, direct descendants of the Prophet Muhammad (through the seventh Shiite imam), i.e. they claim to belong to the highest category of Muslims of "noble" origin (ashraf).

In order to somehow mitigate the atmosphere of intolerance surrounding them, after the events of 1993 in Turbat, some members of the sect converted to Christianity. Under pressure from the Pakistan Human Rights Commission, the sect's annual rituals in Turbat were secured by police. The Orthodox have also changed their tactics, offering a program of" peaceful return " of the sect to the bosom of Sunni Islam. One of the most radical points of this program is the transfer of girls from the Zikri community to Sunni families as second, "younger" wives. Since the Zikri are an endogamous group, and the vast majority of marriages in them are between cousins, such a "transfer" is by no means peaceful, but a violent act, the main victims of which are again women.

The socio-economic situation of the sect can significantly improve the project of development and modernization of the port of Gwadar, in the area of which the Zikri form a confessional majority. The implementation of the project has two goals: first, to further develop the national economy, attract foreign investment to the country, and second, to strengthen integration ties on the Asian continent. Even at the development stage of the Gwadar project, the federal authorities of Pakistan officially announced one of the priority areas-the development of trade and economic ties with China, since the Gwadar port will receive crude oil from Iran and Africa and be transported overland to the north-western territories of China.

The development of Gwadar can integrate members of the sect into modern Pakistani society much more painlessly than the matrimonial programs of the Sunni Orthodox. However, the new infrastructure of the area and the scale of the international project may pose a threat to the identity and religious rituals of Zikri, who are used to living in hermetic isolation. And then, leaving their homes, they will once again move on to the place where they can wait for the coming of their promised Mahdi.

list of literature

Bakhtiyar L. Sufi. Images of Mystical Search, Moscow: Enneagon Press, 2007

Маснави-йи Ма'нави бар асас-и нусха-и кунийе ба тасхих ва пишгуфтар Абд ал-Карим Суруш (Джалаладдин Руми. A poem about the hidden meaning). Mujaledat-i avval dov sevv (in Farsi). Тегеран: Ширкат-и энтешарат-и илми ва фарханги, 1998.

Suvorova A. A. Muslim saints of South Asia of the XI-XV centuries. Moscow: IV RAS, 1999.

Hashmi Zahoor Shah. Balochi zaban adab ki tarikh (History of Balochi language and Literature). Karachi: Sayyid Hashmi Akademi, 1986 (in Urdu).

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Ahmed Durre S. Violence and the Feminine in Islam: A Case Study of the Zikris // Ahmed Durre S. (ed.) Gendering the Spirit: Women, Religion and the Post-Colonial Response. London-New York: Zed Books, 2002.

Ahmed Durre S. The Zikris of Pakistan. InterCulture // Journal of the Intercultural Institute of Montreal. 2007, Spring.

Ahmed Durre S. Masculinity, Rationality and Religion: a Feminist Perspective. Lahore: ASR, 2001.

Azhar Munir. Zikris in the Light of History and Their Religious Beliefs. Lahore: Izharsons, 1998.

Baloch Inayatullah. Islam, the State and Identity: the Zikris of Balochistan // P. Titus (ed.) Marginality and Modernity: Ethnicity and Change in Post-Colonial Balochistan. Karachi: OUP, 1996.

Baloch Sardar Khan. A Literary History of the Balochis. Vol. 2. Quetta: Balochi Akadami, 1984.

A Brief History of the Fourteen Infallibles. Qum: Ansarian Publication, 2004.

Boyajian-Sureniants V. Notes on the Religious Landscape of Iranian Baluchistan. Observations from the Sarhadd Region // Iran and the Caucasus. 2004, Vol. 8. No 2.

Bozai N.K. Kalhora Governance of Sindh. An Overview // http://www.promisedmehdi.com/mehdi/lit/sindh. asp

Dincer F. Alevi Semahs in Historical Perspectives. Istanbul: Dogazici University, 1999.

Furnish T. Holiest Wars: Islamic Mahdis, their Jihads, and Osama bin Laden. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005.

Hastings J., Selbie John A. Encyclopedia of Religions and Ethnics. Pt. 11. Kessinger Publishing Company, 2003.

Jung C. Man and His Symbols. N.Y.: Doubleday, 1964.

The Imperial Gazetteer of India. Vol. 6. Baluchistan. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1929.

Irfani S. 'Taliban: the Islamic Challenge' // Dawn. 12.10.1997.

Khan Tahoor. Why the Pressure on the Zikris? // Human Rights Commission of Pakistan newsletter. January, 1995.

Khanam R. (ed.) Encyclopaedic Ethnography of Middle East and Central Asia. Vol. 1. New Delhi: Global Vision Publishing House, 2005.

Life History of Mahdi // http://www.nooriana.com/

Longworth Dames M. Popular Poetry of the Balochis. Vol. 1. Rpt. N.Y.: Hesperides Press, 2006.

Nadiem I. Balochistan: Land, History, People. Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications, 2007.

Pastner S. Feuding with the Spirit among the Zikri Baluch: the Saint as Champion of the Despised // S. Ahmed Akbar, D. Hart (eds.) Islam in Tribal Societies: from the Atlas to the Indus. London: Routledge, 1984.

Schimmel A. Islam in the Indian Subcontinent. Leiden-Koln: EJ. Brill, 1980.

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A. A. SUVOROV, FEMALE SOLO IN A MALE CHOIR: THE ZIKRI SECT IN PAKISTAN // London: British Digital Library (ELIBRARY.ORG.UK). Updated: 06.12.2024. URL: https://elibrary.org.uk/m/articles/view/FEMALE-SOLO-IN-A-MALE-CHOIR-THE-ZIKRI-SECT-IN-PAKISTAN (date of access: 19.02.2025).

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Dora Connors
London, United Kingdom
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06.12.2024 (75 days ago)
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