Sayfallāh-Qāḍī Bashlarov: Sufi Networks between the North Caucasus and the Volga-Urals

On the Sufi networks of the Daghestani scholar Sayfallah Bashlarov (d. 1919), with a discussion of his Naqshbandiyya khalidiyya, Naqshbandiyya mahmudiyya, and Shadhiliyya ijazas (teaching licenses). On the basis of these license documents (one of which we offer in English translation), we reconstruct his itineraries. Next to Naqshbandiyya licenses that 'travel' between Daghestan, central Russia (Volga-Urals), Central Asia, and Istanbul, of particular interest is the Shadhiliyya license that Bashlarov obtained via a scholar in Medina; this ijaza brought the North African Shadhiliyya to Daghestan, where the Mahmudiyya attached Shadhiliyya elements to its rituals. This Naqshbandiyya mahmudiyya & Shadhiliyya branch is today the dominant brotherhood in Russia's áutonomous' republic of Daghestan.