A Preliminary Study On Religion And Culture Of The Pamirs

Pamirs, mountainous region of central Asia, located mainly in East Tajikistan and extending into NE Afghanistan and SW Sinkiang, China, is called "roof of the world." As a vital communications channel of the East and the West, Pamirs is in a very important military position and also plays an essential role in promoting the cultural and economical exchanges in these areas. The world famous 'Silk Road' went across Pamirs and winded up to the west and south until it reached to West Asia, East Europe and South Asia. Therefore, Pamirs has become the world exhibition platform of multi-cultural exchanges for China, India, Persia, West Asia, East Europe and Central Asia. All these cultures and civilizations gather here. Living in a harsh natural environment, the native people of Pamirs experienced many tortures, but they never gave up the attempt to create a better life. A number of well-known ancient celebrities left their footprints in Pamirs. This is an area where great contributions were made to human civilizations as well as to the cultural communications between the East and the West.Pamirs was the cross where ancient Western and Eastern cultures met and also the front field that the surrounding powerful countries and nations fought for. In the World Ancient History, It is the interface of many civilizations with primitive religions, which refer to nomadic tribe civilization, Persian civilization, Greek civilization, Indian civilization, Chinese civilization, and some religions, namely, Zoroastrianism, Greek religion, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. These different cultures and religions were joined in Pamirs and then spread further. They have left abundant cultural relics here.Pamiri culture has been characterized by absorbing the merits of other cultures since ancient times. The development of all cultures in the world can only be realized when the diversity of cultures is respected. Culture, belief and the sense of value are the important features and motive of human civilizations. There will not be the development of human civilization without cultural communications. It is necessary to respect the various civilizations and life styles created in human history and to encourage different cultures drawing on each other's merits to overcome their own weaknesses so that the diversity of the world will be preserved and the social development will be promoted.The Tajik who live in Central Asia are the native people of Pamirs. They have created a long history and a splendid culture. 'The Tajik history is actually the history of Central Asia.'Having experienced a long history, the religious culture of Pamirs has its unique characteristics in the world history. Most Pamiri people now believe in the sub-branch of Shiah Islam, Ismailism. At the same time, they also believe in someprimitive religions, the etiquettes and customs of which are still kept and continuing to develop. The religious belief of Pamiri people is stamped with regional traditions. It has both the characteristics of Ismailism and their original customs. Therefore, there is the magnificent cultural collaboration of Islam, pre-Islam and non-Islam (The ancient Iranian Zoroastrianism) in Pamirs. The present extensive and profound Pamiri religious culture is neither the pure Ismailism nor the original Pamiri traditional culture. In Pamirs, cultures of different nature can live in complete harmony while each individual is still playing a dominant role in different aspects of people's life. The collaboration of cultures and religions in Pamirs provides a vivid example to the research on regular patterns of cultures with different nature conflicting, exchanging and finally fusing with regional cultures, so it has important theoretical value and practical significance. The research on Pamiri religious culture will also demonstrate the cultural development theory: 'the joint development of all civilizations can only be achieved when the culture diversity is respected' and the worries on 'the theory of cultural conflicts' can thus be weakened.The recognition of Islamic culture and traditional culture in Pamirs is very complicated; it is also very difficult to define religious culture or traditional culture. The insightful and in-depth research is still blank until now. The author ventures to use this article to try to attract more attention and discussions to this topic.