The tens of thousands of Ismaili Muslims of the Tajik
Autonomous District in China's north western Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region
are isolated from their fellow-Ismailis across the border in Tajikistan and elsewhere
in the world, Forum 18 News Service found on a visit to Xinjiang between 8 and
10 September. There is only one Ismaili mosque functioning in the Tajik
Autonomous District, in the district capital Tashkurgan, whose imam was
appointed by the Chinese secular authorities.
The imam-hatyb of Tashkurgan's Ismaili mosque, Shakar Mamader, admitted to
Forum 18 on 9 September that under Chinese law children are forbidden from
attending the mosque up to the age of 18. He also admitted that the Chinese
authorities do not allow the Fourth Aga Khan (the Ismaili spiritual leader) to
offer any aid to the Tajik Autonomous District. However, Mamader believes
"there is absolutely no need for such help as the central government
provides very substantial funding to the region". He stressed that the
Fourth Aga Khan had visited the region in 1980.
Mamader also declared that Ismaili preachers and clerics from neighbouring
Pakistan (Tashkurgan is situated 100 kilometres or 60 miles from the checkpoint
at the Chinese-Pakistan border) do not work in China. He believes there is no
need for them to do so. "We have enough of our own experts on
Ismailism," he insisted. However, other local Ismailis who preferred not
to be named told Forum 18 that Pakistani Ismaili clerics are not allowed to
preach on Chinese territory. Xinjiang's Ismaili community has no contact with
Tajik Ismailis as there is not one checkpoint on the Chinese-Tajik border.
The Tajik Autonomous District is situated in the eastern Pamir mountains and
borders Pakistan and Tajikistan's Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region. There are
about 50,000 people living in the Tajik Autonomous District identified as
Tajiks in the Chinese census. However, these people can be called Tajiks only
in the broadest sense. The Sarikoli and Wakhi Chinese Pamir nationalities, as
well as the Tajik, Pakistani and Afghan Pamir nationalities who live in Chinese
Pamir, speak languages belonging to the Eastern Iranian language group, whereas
Tajik is linked to Western Iranian.
Unlike the Tajik Sunni Muslims, the Pamir nationalities practise Ismailism - a
branch of Shia Islam which bears the clear influence of Buddhism and
neo-Platonism. The current Aga Khan is the 49th hereditary imam of the
worldwide Ismaili community. In contrast to other Muslims who pray five times a
day, the Ismailis recite prayers only twice a day. They do not observe the
Ramadan fast, nor do they ban the consumption of alcohol.
Externally, the villages of Chinese Pamir are virtually indistinguishable from
the villages of Tajik Pamir. For example, the homes have an almost identical
structure - the interior of the building has to have five columns, a number of
sacred significance for Ismailis. However, there are substantial differences in
the religious life of the Ismailis of the Chinese and Tajik Pamir.
In contrast to the ban on aid to the Ismailis of Xinjiang, the Aga Khan gives
so much aid to the population of Tajikistan's Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous
Region that this area depends on his financial support. The headquarters of the
Mountain Societies Development Support Programme, which the Aga Khan funds, has
opened in the city of Khorog, the capital of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous
Region. A similar office operates in the city of Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan,
from where shipments of aid are dispatched by road to Tajikistan.
On 30 August the Tajik president Emomali Rahmonov laid the foundation stone for
a new Ismaili Centre in the Tajik capital Dushanbe. In his remarks at the
ceremony, the Aga Khan said the new centre would be "a place for
contemplation, upliftment and the search for spiritual enlightenment".