Hagiography in Central Asia - Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
[Article]
Eden, Jeff
Leiden
Brill
(1,375 words)
Islamic hagiography has been written in Central Asia for nearly a millennium, and in that time the prevailing form and evident function of hagiographical texts has shifted dramatically. Elements of hagiography-the lives and deeds of saints, or "friends of God" (awliyāʾ) -can be found in multiple Muslim literary genres, including ṭabaqāt (generations), ḥikāyāt (tales), tadhkira (remembrance), dāstān (story, in Persian), mathnavī (long poem rhyming AA, BB, CC...), and risāla (treatise). Stories about Muslim saints appear in all these genres in Central Asia, defined here as the region between the