The Future of Sainthood: Kubravī Hagiography and Sacred Temporality in Early Modern Central Asia

This paper examines how late Kubravī hagiography in Central Asia imagined the future of saintly authority during political upheaval. It analyzes the Majmaʿ al-faẓāʾil, a hagiography completed in 1606 by Mīr Ḥusayn in honor of his father and master, Pāyanda Sāktarigī (d. 1601). The work survives in a single manuscript preserved at the al-Beruni Institute of Oriental Studies in Tashkent and provides rare insight into the later history of the Kubraviyya in Central Asia. The text constructs a vision of continuing saintly authority through lineage, visionary experience, and prophetic foresight. By situating sainthood within cycles of sacred time and political upheaval, it embeds the present within an ongoing genealogy linking past masters, living disciples, and future saints, highlighting the importance of Central Asian materials for rethinking sacred temporality in Islamic mysticism.