Naseem Ahmad

The thirteenth century Persian poet-philosopher Maulana Jalal al-Din Rumi is one of the foremost spiritual geniuses of human history. His perennial wisdom is yielding profound spiritual insights and his exceptional creativity is globally being acknowledged in our times and climes.

In Turkistan the two century period following the Mongol invasion was a time of ferment, crucial for the future of Islam in the region for, the immediate consequences of the Mongol conquests had been the displacement of Islam as the state religion throughout the region. Islam had now to accommodate itself to non-Muslim rulers, Shamanists, Buddhists or Crypto-Christians. It was a time pregnant with meaningful possibilities and the outcome was the triumph of Islam as the dominant religion of Turkistan. By the mid 15 th century Sufi Sheikhs of Turkistan had become extremely influential and their spiritual prestige and religious authority was compounded with political and economic power. In this environment the Naqshbandi Tariqa was rapidly expanding and reached its zenith with Khawaja Ubaidulla Ahrar the third generation successor of Khawaja Bahaud-din. Furthermore his numerous Khalifas insured its wide diffusion throughout the Muslim world and turned into one of the most widely spread Sufi orders. Sufis' role in Turkistan was of considerable significance for, not only the common masses but even the rulers, often surpassing the Ulema, showed utmost allegiance and faith in the Sufi saints. It is significant that two of the first Mongol princes to adopt Islam, Berke and Ghazan, sought out a Sufi rather than an Alim before whom to make their public declaration of adhesion to Islam. Turkistan was therefore an area of mission. In the Sufi tradition of missionary activities, Naqshbandiyya played a distinctive role. Bahaud-din Naqshband, who gave Silsilat-al Khawajagan its name and form, simply carried on one of the most strongly established Sufi traditions. Its widespread appeal and acceptance resulted into its rapid progress, in second half of 15 th century, from Turkistan westwards into Anatolia and southwards into Indian sub-continent. In the proposed paper we shall elaborate on the life of Bahaud-din Naqshband and the development of Naqshbandi Silsila in Turkistan with a focus on the prominent Naqshbandi Sheikhs and their writings: Sukhari and others. Our paper will be lavishly enriched with primary as well as secondary sources.

In the outset I congratulate my Turkmen brothers and sisters for appreciating the need of re-visiting their glorious past. His Excellency the President Gurbanguly Berdimukhamedov deserves all praise for having permitted the Academy of Sciences to hold this prestigious conference on Mahmoud Pahlivan. On my own and on behalf of the Indian delegates we are thankful to His Excellency the President and the Director of the Academy of Sciences and to his colleagues in the organizing committee for inviting us to this conference. My thirty years long academic association with Central Asian peoples makes me to salute the brilliant and path breaking contributions of Turkmen scientists, artists, technologists, engineers, artisans, poets, literatures, Sufis, religious scholars and a host of those learned men whose contributions are unanimously acclaimed throughout the world. The paucity of time does not allow me to mention even hundreds among the thousands of them. The nations which are conscious and proud of their heritage are bound to regain the same. This consciousness inculcates the spirit of achievement and adventure among the minds of the people of that nation. Turkmen nation is an ideal example of this reality. The history of the Turkmen people is interwoven with that of the peoples who inhabited Central Asia from earliest times. Margiana and Parthia were the most economically developed regions in Turkmenistan in the middle of the first millennium B.C. The region known as Hyrcania was located on the southeastern coast of the Caspian Sea; the steppes to the north were inhabited by nomadic tribes of the Massagetae and Dahae. In the period between the ninth and 11th centuries, the territories along the lower and middle course of the Syr Darya and the northern and eastern coasts of the Caspian Sea were settled by the tribes of the Oghuz, some of whom had adopted Islam in the eighth century. In 1040, headed by leaders from the Saljuq clan, these tribes conquered Turkmenistan. Thus Oghuz became one of the chief elements in the formation of the Turkmen nationality. After mixing with the settled population, they came to be called Turkmens (Turkomans, Turcomans). Soon afterwards Turkmen developed their own distinctive spoken language. The inclusion of the territory of Turkmenistan in the Saljuq

Manuscripts are the original texts or scripts which are manually written and are the basis for learning all Humanities, Social Sciences, Exact Sciences and Technology. Hence Manuscriptology is considered as the " fountainhead " of all knowledge. Besides being the source of unknown and undiscovered, Manuscripts are identified as the basic tool for pursuing knowledge, science and technology in the contemporary world. Manuscripts are the powerful medium for preservation of our literary, linguistic, artistic, cultural and civilisational heritage. A Nation's pride rests in its heritage and richness of archaeology, monuments, arts , crafts and manuscripts. The holdings of libraries, museums, archives, and other documentation centres are the priceless heritage of mankind. Not only in the context of ancient lore but also in the context of medieval and modern age, manuscripts are considered as the most important source of authentic learning and knowledge. Having realised the importance and scope of Manuscripts, our attention immediately goes to the issue of their preservation. This issue has ever since been the focus of attention of Custodians, Librarians, Information scientists, Archivists, Curators, and Scholars. Without preserving the written heritage no society will be able to transmit the annals of wisdom and learning to its posterity. The problem of preservation of rare documents has continued ever since human beings acquired the knowledge of writing. From ancient times several indigenous methods have been used for preservation of manuscripts. The people were also quite aware of the basic factors of deterioration of the manuscripts namely light, dust, heat and humidity. So in order to protect the manuscripts from these possible factors, the manuscripts were usually covered by clothes, kept in wrappings of silk, wooden boxes, earthen pots etc. Alongside some traditional practices, which were adopted in the past in Babylonia, Assyria, Sumeria, China, Central Asia or India; the scribes were always worried to preserve their writings for posterity with whatever means they had. Scholars like Aristotle, Ovid and Horace were also worried about the safety of the manuscripts from the insects. In spite of the advent of modern conservation technologies like digitisation and suitable preservative chemicals, traditional methods for preservation are still in practice across the world. In the proposed paper we shall endeavour to summarise: 1. The importance of Manuscripts in producing authentic research and disseminating the true knowledge. 2. The important traditional methods of conserving the Manuscripts. 3. Some innovative practices and methods of preserving the written heritage with a special focus on digitisation of Manuscripts.

The Volga-Ural region that has been the habitat of Bulghars (ancestors of Tatars) since the 5th century A.D. is historically an outstanding region mainly due to three reasons: 1. The Region has been one of the chief commercial emporiums of the Medieval period and a ferry-point of East-West trade that introduced not only the commercial commodities of Middle-East and Central Asia to Europe but at the same time worked as an important channel to disseminate the Islamic culture to West in particular to Eurasia and Eastern Europe. Given its strategic importance the Region was at the high priority of the Caliphate of Baghdad in 10th century (the zenith of the political supremacy, military superiority and economic prosperity of the Muslims) to introduce Islam in the Region and to extend military support as well as political and diplomatic assistance to the king of Bulghar. 2. The Region has been since 13th century A.D. (after the Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus) the habitat of Tatars — a people who proved to be the champions of Tolerance in the Golden Horde Period and on whose persuasion the Mongols were admitted into the fold of Islam. Apart from being as a Reference Culture among the Mongols it is the Tatars who were at the forefront of the process of interaction and assimilation, first during the pillaging decades of Mongol menace and later on throughout the days of onslaught of imperialism on the erstwhile Golden Horde and contemporary Central Asia. 3. Seldom do we see in the history, the instances of the vanquished people re-emerging with such force of national character and reinstating their position with such success as the Tatars did after Mongol conquest. And very rare are the examples of once subjugated people (Tatars) influencing the conquerors and assimilating them into its own system of Polity, Culture and Religion. The Tatar-Mongol ethno-genesis provides an impressive field of study of this context.

The empire of Shirvanshahs has been home to many ancient societies and cultures being located at the cross roads of economies, cultures and languages. The whole of southern Caucasian region demonstrates unique example of intertwining histories of people who for thousands of years kept their traditions alive and struggled for their national identities. Caravans of men and streams of thought constantly enriched the empire of Shirvanshahs that lead to mutual interactions, acculturations, assimilations and influences of different cultures, ideologies, arts and crafts, resulting into the making this empire the mosaic of a incredible composite culture. By the 10 th

Nizami Ganjvi was born between A.H 535 and 540 (A.D 1140-46) and that his background was urban. Modern Azerbaijan is exceedingly proud of its world-famous son and insists that he was not just a native of the region, but that he came of its own Turkish stock. If he visited royal courts in his early years, he soon abandoned the practice; he was no court sycophant, indeed his whole way of thinking was against it. No doubt he did dedicate his great epics as well as occasional ghazals to princes; but it was then customary to do so. Nizami was essentially not a court poet for; he feared loss of integrity in this role and craved primarily for the freedom of artistic creation. Nizami could be called the pioneer of Existentialist philosophy. His romantic epic is full of such instances that unmask the sensuous profile of human mind. He explains what makes human beings behave as they do, revealing their follies and their glories, all their struggles, unbridled passions, puzzlements, perplexities and tragedies. The plot in his romantic stories is carefully constructed to enhance the stories' psychological complexities. The present paper is an attempt to highlight the similarities and resemblance between the poetry of Nizami Ganjvi and Indian poetic tradition particularly Amir Khusraw taking into consideration his Mathnawi.

The history of Central Asia is that of the cradle of mankind, as a result of the region's interaction, from times immemorial, with widely diverse nationalities like Iranians, Greeks, Scythians, Chinese, Arabs, Turks and Russians. This Region has been the hub of great civilizations and the fountain-head of incredible human experience. The Region has made room for the particularities of the peoples who came into it. It is a rainbow and an extraordinary network of such cultural unity as rested upon similar geographical features and similar ways of life. The study of

The Volga-Ural region, encompassing in broad terms, the middle Volga river valley, the middle and lower Kama valley and the southern Ural Mountains, has been the habitat of Muslims since the early 10 th century1. Islam reached Caucasus region in the middle of 7 th century as part of the Arab conquest of the Iranian-Sasanid Empire. The archeological evidence points to the existence of links between the people of Bashkorstastan, located in the contemporary Russia's Ural mountainous region, and the Islamic world dating back to the 8 th century A.D.2 But Islam officially reached the Volga-Ural region in 922 A.D. when the Bulgar king Almash bin Yaltwar accepted Islam at the hands of Ibn Fadlan, the ambassador of Caliph Muqtadir Billah, making thereby the Kingdom of Bulgars as an integral part of Abbasid Caliphate3. This proved a turning point in the history of contemporary Eurasia. With the acceptance of Islam, the present day Tatarstan became one of the most influential independent states in Eastern Europe resulting in the development of great cities of Muslim culture and scholarship. The spectacular and the most remarkable instance of this phenomenon is that the Tatars were the first to have impressed the Mongols and attracted them to embrace Islam4.

Nizami Ganjvi was born between A.H 535 and 540 (A.D 1140-46) and that his background was urban. Modern Azerbaijan is exceedingly proud of its world-famous son and insists that he was not just a native of the region, but that he came of its own Turkish stock. If he visited royal courts in his early years, he soon abandoned the practice; he was no court sycophant, indeed his whole way of thinking was against it. No doubt he did dedicate his great epics as well as occasional ghazals to princes; but it was then customary to do so. Nizami was essentially not a court poet for; he feared loss of integrity in this role and craved primarily for the freedom of artistic creation. Nizami could be called the pioneer of Existentialist philosophy. His romantic epic is full of such instances that unmask the sensuous profile of human mind. He explains what makes human beings behave as they do, revealing their follies and their glories, all their struggles, unbridled passions, puzzlements, perplexities and tragedies. The plot in his romantic stories is carefully constructed to enhance the stories' psychological complexities. The present paper is an attempt to highlight the similarities and resemblance between the poetry of Nizami Ganjvi and Indian poetic tradition particularly Amir Khusraw taking into consideration his Mathnawi.

At the onset of Ramadan Muslims all over the world start fasting from dawn to dusk daily for 30 days as ordained in Quran: " O you who believe! Fasting is prescribed to you, as it was prescribed for those before you (Jews and Christians) so that you may (learn) self-restrain " (2:183). But why do we need to fast? It is our experience that temptations and ways of the world tend to spoil our purity and austerity. Ramadan is a period of fasting, reflection, devotion, generosity self-regulation, self-training, and sacrifice observed by Muslims around the world. If the lessons learned during Ramadan, whether in terms of dietary intake or righteousness, are lived with, it is beneficial for one's entire life. Like other religious obligations and rituals fasting too possesses a strong rationale planned with innumerable temporal and spiritual benefits for Muslims. Besides the fact that this obligation is most loved and cherished before Allah, its usefulness can be judged by the fact that it has been either permitted or ordained almost in all major world religions. Apart from many psychological, spiritual, economic and societal benefits that have been discussed and explained in the traditions of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), that are widely known and recognized in Islamic culture, the modern scientific and medical research has discovered the amazing benefits of Islamic fasting. Spiritual Benefits: Ramadan is a period of fasting, reflection, devotion, generosity and sacrifice observed by Muslims around the world. While major holidays of other faiths have largely become commercialized events, Ramadan retains its intense spiritual meaning. Fasting, according to Islam, is primarily a spiritual discipline: On two occasions in Quran (9:112; 66:5), those who fast are called sa'ih (from saha meaning he travelled) or spiritual wayfarers; and according to one authority, when

The empire of Shirvanshahs has been home to many ancient societies and cultures being located at the cross roads of economies, cultures and languages. The whole of southern Caucasian region demonstrates unique example of intertwining histories of people who for thousands of years kept their traditions alive and struggled for their national identities. Caravans of men and streams of thought constantly enriched the empire of Shirvanshahs that lead to mutual interactions, acculturations, assimilations and influences of different cultures, ideologies, arts and crafts, resulting into the making this empire the mosaic of a incredible composite culture. By the 10 th