Articles · Vol. 2 No. 9 (2026)

The Rise And Evolution Of The Qalandariyya Order In Central Asia

Authors

  • Nilufar TUYCHIYEVA

Keywords

Qalandariyya tariqah dervish jandah takiya Qalandarkhona Sufism Central Asia Samarkand Tashkent National Archive of Uzbekistan

Abstract

In Central Asia, alongside the Yasawiyya, Kubrawiyya and Naqshbandiyya orders, the Qalandariyya also functioned as an integral part of society, its members encountered in every region of the country. This article investigates the emergence of the Qalandariyya in Central Asia in the eleventh century, the reasons for its appearance and its local situation. At first the Qalandars acted not as a tariqah but as a jamaa (group), soon spreading to Iran, Turkey and India, and by the mid-twelfth century they expanded rapidly as a tariqah in Iran. The article shows that the Qalandars carried out their activities mainly in Samarkand and Tashkent, that Khoja Safo Vali (1660–1740) led the “Qalandarkhona” quarter in Samarkand, and that the Qalandarkhona in Tashkent remained the centre for the Qalandars of the Turkestan region until the mid-twentieth century. Drawing on the documents of the National Archive of Uzbekistan, it analyses the orderʼs activity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and establishes that the movement gradually became passive across Central Asia.

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