by Shamil Shikhaliev, Amsterdam
Back in 1999, when I was a graduate student at the Institute of History in Makhachkala, my supervisor Amri Shikhsaidov recommended that I familiarise with Islamic manuscript traditions from the region. To get me started, he pointed me to studies published by the Institute of History between the late 1980s and early 1990s, which examined texts crafted in Arabic, Turkic and Persian. It was then when I came across a study by a scholar known as Ali Kayaev (1878-1943), which was devoted to the two largest Islamic manuscript collections today known in Daghestan.
The first collection belonged to one Muhammad al-Ubri (1682-1751), a prominent scholar who specialised in Arabic grammar and Islamic law. The second, no less important collection, belonged to one Rafi‘-hajji (1863-1932), a scholar from the village of Shangoda and it is this collection that I would like to discuss here. (Fig. 1)
This is what Kayaev wrote about Rafi‘-hajji’s collection:
“One of the largest private libraries in Daghestan was the impressive and large library created by Rafi‘-efendi in the village of Shangoda. A great bibliophile and antiquarian, Rafi‘-efendi traveled all over Daghestan, collecting books, and thus managed to create a library, which was considered the first for its scope in the region... It can be said that there are no books in any areas of Daghestan which would not have seen Rafi‘-efendi. And till present day, Rafi‘-efendi, even in his old age, continues to expand his library, collecting books for it. Rafi‘-efendi’s library includes rare books on medicine, astronomy, philosophy, logic, and other sciences, including one copy of Ptolemy’s Almagest in Arabic, as well as various works on geometry, among others.”
Being a manuscript collector myself, I was very intrigued by this story of a fabulous library. But where to find it? Was there any chance that Rafi‘-hajji’s collection could have survived the Soviet draconian policies which had crippled Daghestani Islamic culture? To answer this question, I turned to Amri Shikhsaidov in the hope of finding out about the fate of this collection. However, he told me that in 1932 Rafi‘-hajji was arrested by the Soviet secret police (OGPU), and consequently his entire library was confiscated and most probably destroyed. But the library’s exact fate remained unclear. By that time, I had already begun to participate in expeditions, and during one of my trips in 2003, I finally persuaded Amri Shikhsaidov to go to the village of Shangoda, the homeland of Rafi‘-hajji, to find out about the fate of this collection. He agreed and together with our colleagues, we immediately headed to this village. (Figure 2)
When in the village, we met up with the imam of the local mosque. He received us warmly, but he was adamant about the fate of the manuscript library: “Nothing from his collection has survived in the village,” he declared solemnly. While the imam’s words left little hope to find anything, I assumed there was a chance that a number of his books could survive and would be scattered today across the many manuscript collections that exist today in Daghestan. My interest in Rafi‘-hajji’s texts grew even stronger, for locals told me that he had compiled a massive work on medicine, describing various diseases and methods of treating them, using plants that grew in his region. The villagers explained that Rafi‘-hajji spent a lot of time in the forests, collecting herbs and describing their beneficial properties. In search of books from his collection, I asked my friends - former classmates, and Muslim scholars who collected manuscripts too. Nobody knew anything about the fate of Rafi‘-hajji’s library. After years of research, I grew disillusioned and began to reconcile to the fact that Rafi‘-hajji’s library had been destroyed and that I would not be able to find the manuscripts from his collection.
15 years after my first trip to Shangoda, in spring 2018, I was working at the Institute in Makhachkala, when a lady by the name of Arafat walked into my office. She was carrying a small bag and said that someone referred me to her as a specialist on manuscripts. She had manuscripts in her bag and asked me to identify what they were. By that time, people often came to me with such requests; I assumed that there was nothing here to get excited about. I was rather apathetic leafing through these texts. I asked the woman about the history of the manuscripts. She replied that they once belonged to her grandfather, a scholar, who had performed the pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj). While listening to her, I thought to myself that the owner of this collection was probably an ordinary, in fact a mediocre intellectual, for I had encountered similar aggregate of texts many times before. I was skimming through a work on logic, copied in Daghestan at the beginning of the 18th century, when she said: “Besides, my grandfather was widely known in Daghestan as a skilled doctor and even wrote a book on medicine.” There weren’t many scholars in Daghestan who practiced medicine before Sovietization. I immediately asked with desperate hope: “What was his name?!” She replied, “Rafi-haji.” I exclaimed: “From Shangoda?!” She answered with surprise: “Yes, how did you guess?” Me: “It doesn’t matter! I read about your grandfather! So the library has survived?!” She replied: “Not completely, just a small part, about 50 manuscripts.” I was astonished! The library that I had been searching for more than 15 years in vain, had just come to me!
This was the beginning of a wondrous journey of discoveries. My first move was to digitize what Arafat had brought. Then, I asked her: “Could it be that another part of the collection has survived in Shangoda?” Since she had lived in Buynaksk for a long time, she wasn’t terribly familiar with the situation in the village, she said. Thinking about my first visit to the village in 2003, I suddenly realized that the imam’s behavior had been particularly circumspect. In fact, he did not show us anything. He was probably somewhat suspicious of Orientalists, fearing that we might take away the manuscripts which had been preserved. So I told myself that if I go with Arafat, the granddaughter of this highly respected Rafi‘-hajji, I will perhaps stand a good chance to win the imam’s trust.
In June 2018, we traveled to Shangoda and met with the imam of the mosque, Khalid Yusupov. It was the same imam who 15 years earlier had explained to us that none of the manuscripts had survived. We sat in the mosque and talked about many things, including Rafi‘-hajji himself. I gradually redirected the conversation towards the manuscripts, but Khalid deftly steered it aside, casting sidelong glances at the large steel cabinet that stood in the corner of the mosque. I made several attempts to bring our conversation back where I wanted, but he cleverly avoided any engagement with manuscripts. After waiting for the right moment when Khalid came out to perform ablution, I told Arafat: “I think that the manuscripts have been preserved, perhaps they are in that steel cabinet, but Khalid for some reason does not want to show them to us.” When Khalid returned, Arafat asked him sternly: “Khalid, stop beating around the bush! Have my grandfather’s manuscripts been preserved? Are they in that steel cabinet?! If not, then what is stored in this cabinet and why is it locked?!” Khalid hesitated for a moment. But then he answered: “Yes, they have been preserved. They are in this cabinet, in fact!” Taking out a huge key, he hardly opened this cabinet (fig. 3).
When I saw the contents of it, I was completely astonished. I immediately took out these manuscripts and plunged into them, simultaneously listening and recording Khalid’s story about how these manuscripts have survived. Here is his story:
It turned out that when Rafi‘-hajji was arrested at the end of 1931, the OGPU was able to confiscate only a small part of his library. However, most of the codices were still held in his house. Fearing arrest, his relatives hid some of his collection in the basement of the mosque under the minaret (fig. 4).
However, there were so many books in this collection that the small room in the basement of the mosque, already filled to the brim, could not accommodate the rest of the collection. Then the villagers walled up a niche in the mosque (mihrab) with stones, from where there was access to this basement. Subsequently, the mosque was closed, and repurposed into a cultural club. The remaining part of Rafi‘-hajji’s collection, amounting to about a thousand books, which did not fit in the mosque, was inherited by his son Isma‘il, who also feared being arrested, left Daghestan, and resettled in Northern Azerbaijan. After 10 years, Isma‘il returned to his native village, where the rest of the collection was still kept in his house. As a result of Ismail’s death in 1986, his widow A’ishat decided to sell these books. Having learned about all of this, some Dargin theologians came to the village. They spent several days in her house, enough to examine the collection. They selected a large amount of books and bought them. The manuscripts remaining in A’ishat’s possession are fragmentary texts, ordinary textbooks on grammar and logic, and works in Turkic and Persian. This remaining part of the manuscripts was subsequently inherited by Rafi‘-hajji’s granddaughter Arafat. The names of these Dargin theologians and where they came from remain unknown to this day.
Meanwhile, in 1989 the cultural club was closed and Khalid decided that the time had come to bring the mosque back to life. While repairing the building, he removed stones from the niche I have mentioned above. Khalid accidentally came across the entrance to the basement, where he discovered manuscripts that over the past 60 years had turned into dust due to the prevailing dampness and improper storage conditions. Khalid took the remaining part out of the basement, cleaned it, and placed it in the steel cabinet in the mosque. From the rich collection of Rafi‘-hajji, only 102 manuscripts (dated between the 12th and the 20th centuries) have survived in the mosque, while other 53 items have been inherited by Arafat.
By that time I had already described and digitized Arafat’s collection, so I asked Khalid’s permission to come the following year and study, describe and digitize the remaining part of the collection that he had preserved. Khalid replied: “I cannot pay you for this work, but I can provide you with food and housing.” Exactly a year later, in June 2019, I arrived in Shangoda. Khalid welcomed me in his house, and I sat in the mosque from morning till night, in the company of the manuscripts. (fig. 5)
Of course, given that they were in a damp basement for more than 60 years, with water leaking from above when the club floor was washed, they were in a dreadful condition. I spent about three weeks in Shangoda working with the manuscripts, and I have published their description here (https://brill.com/display/db/mm4o ).
In conclusion, I would like to say a few words about the circumstances of the Rafi‘-hajji’s arrest, the last months of his life and what happened after his death, as I was told by his villagers.
In late autumn, on the day of his arrest, Rafi‘-hajji was in the mosque as usual. Suddenly, one of the OGPU employees, originally from the neighboring village of Sogratl’, came to see him. He said: “Rafi-haji, OGPU officers are coming here now to apprehend you. I was an hour ahead of them. If possible, hide.” Rafi‘-hajji was very scared, and without going home, he hurried to leave the village. In order to avoid the OGPU officers, he took a shortcut and had to cross a river, and hide in a cave not far from the village. But the police found him and arrested him. They did not even allow him to change clothes, and sent him under escort to the city of Buynaksk, where Rafi‘-hajji was imprisoned. Since it happened in late autumn, and Rafi‘-hajji was already old, he became seriously ill and died in prison. Prison staff, having found him dead, took his body out to bury it in a local cemetery, naturally, without a proper Muslim funeral . The cemetery watchman (storozh), originally from the neighboring village of Kazanishche, approached them and asked them: “Who are you interring (khoronite)?” They laughed and said: “We’re not interring, old man, but burying (My ne khoronim, starik, a zakapyvaem) some mullah Rafi‘-hajji.” The old man had heard a lot about Rafi‘-hajji in his time. He remained silent, turned around and left. At night, he called his three adult sons from Kazanishche, dug up the body of Rafi‘-hajji, washed him, locked him in a shroud, read the funeral prayer (janaza) and, together with his sons, took this body to Kazanishche. They interred him according to Muslim rites in the local cemetery, and the cemetery watchman told his sons: “Let this man’s blessing remain in our village!” Fearing the consequences of his action, this old man did not place a stele over the grave. Thus, Rafi‘-hajji remained buried in an unmarked grave.
Later in 2016, Shangoda villagers built the shrine (ziyarat) devoted to Rafi‘-hajji and his son Isma‘il on the place where their house had been(fig. 7).