2025年10月19日に、今年11月より本研究所で日本学術振興会外国人特別研究員を務めるShamim Homayun博士を講師とする講演会「Legends of ‘Ali b. Abi Talib and Sacred Geographies in Central Asia」が開催された。講師は、アフガニスタンのバーミヤン地域におけるアリー・イブン・アビー・ターリブのドラゴン退治伝説と聖地信仰の展開について、人類学的視点から研究を進めている。今回の講演では、バンデ・アミール湖でのフィールドワークをもとに、伝説の物語構造と歴史的背景を整理しつつ、具体的な場所設定と参詣者の儀礼の実践によって、それらの伝説が現実のものとして人々に認識される過程を理論的に検討した。本講演はオンラインで行われたが、17名の参加者があり、講演後には、聖地の管理体制など様々な観点からの質疑が行われた。
題目: Legends of ‘Ali b. Abi Talib and Sacred Geographies in Central Asia
発表者: Dr Shamim Homayun (JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow, IASA, from November 2025)
司会: 森本一夫(東京大学東洋文化研究所)
日時:2025年10月19日(日)、16:00-17:30
会場:Online via Zoom
要旨:
Sacred places associated with ‘Ali b. Abi Talib (d. 661) exist widely across Afghanistan and Central Asia. In this lecture, I trace these place narratives to legends that flourished in the Turko-Persianate world after the Mongol conquests. These popular legends, which portray ‘Ali as a warrior hero, appear to have become localized to explain the arrival of Islam and the formation of unusual geographies such as the Band-i Amir lakes in Bamiyan. But ‘Ali is not merely a culture hero who intervenes in local history and geography. He is the object of intense devotion via his epithets Shah-i Mardan (“the king of men”) and Mushkil-gusha (“the problem solver”). Why did legendary accounts of ‘Ali flourish so widely across the region? Did a process of syncretization occur in which ‘Ali was integrated into pre-Mongol cosmological landscapes? And how do these legends cohere with more “orthodox” representations of the historical ‘Ali?
This event is co-organized by the Kakenhi Grant-in-Aid “‘Sunnis’ and ‘Shiʿis’: Historical Inquiries into Confessional Identities and Mutual Perceptions” (23K25371), the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo (organized by the Regular Research Project W-1: Approaches to the “Persianate World” as a Tobunken Seminar), and the Japan Office of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies (as a Gilas Lecture).