Abstract
Although the political significance of client-patron
networks and extended family ties has been documented throughout the
Soviet Union, including Central Asia, it remains unclear how the
Soviet experience impacted the traditional family networks associated
Sufi shaykhs and Islamic scholars. This paper navigates Soviet
archival materials dealing with Islam in Central Asia to reevaluate
the nature of these networks in the five decades following World War
II. Did master-disciple networks survive the anti-religious violence
of the 1920s and 1930s, and, if so, in which direction did they evolve
during the stable decades following World War II? In what areas of
religion life did some connection to a broader network of religious
authority, family-related or otherwise, NOT matter? To answer these
questions the paper will look at archival evidence concerning several
shrines as well as the Boboxonov family (sometimes referred to as
"dynasty"), which ran Central Asia's only legal Islamic organization
from 1943-1989.
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