FEMALE SHRINE PILGRIMAGE IN CONTEMPORARY KAZAKHSTAN
Loading...
Date
2022
Authors
Adzhar, Atikah
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Nazarbayev University School of Sciences and Humanities
Abstract
Ethnographies and popular belief posit that women dominate as pilgrims in
Islamic shrine pilgrimage in Kazakhstan. This thesis attempts to examine the larger
phenomenon of female pilgrim majorities in Islamic shrine pilgrimage and what factors
are responsible for it by focusing on a case study of shrine pilgrimage at Aisha Bibi
shrine in Kazakhstan as recorded through fieldwork. Islamic shrine pilgrimage first
developed through Sufi orders and were a tangible mark of Islam in newly converted
lands. Over the years, it has faced recent challenges to its orthodoxy yet it still remains
popular with Muslims around the world, particularly women. This thesis finds female
predominance in modern Islamic shrine pilgrimage as the result of not only the unique
historical and political particularities specific to each host country, such as the impact of
Soviet atheism and modern Kazakhstani nation building in developing Kazakhstani
shrine pilgrimage, but also of broader social traits of shared by women across the world,
which is widely indicative of women’s role in today’s global societies.
Description
Keywords
Type of access: Open Access, Female shrine, pilgrimage, Kazakhstan
Citation
Atikah binti Adzhar (2022). Female shrine pilgrimage in contemporary Kazakhstan. Nur-sultan, Kazakhstan