Central Asian Survey

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccas20

Polymaths of Islam: Power and networks of

knowledge in Central Asia
by James Pickett, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2020, xviii + 301 pp., US
$54.95, ISBN 9781501750243

Daniel Beben

To cite this article: Daniel Beben (2021): Polymaths of Islam: Power and networks of knowledge in
Central Asia, Central Asian Survey, DOI: 10.1080/02634937.2021.1975974

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2021.1975974

Published online: 27 Sep 2021.

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CENTRAL ASIAN SURVEY

BOOK REVIEW

Polymaths of Islam: Power and networks of knowledge in Central Asia, by James

Pickett, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2020, xviii + 301 pp., US$54.95, ISBN
9781501750243

In recent years we have seen an outpouring of high-quality Anglophone scholarship on Central

Asian history from the eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries (Beben 2020). James Pick-
ett’s Polymaths of Islam, based on a decade of research conducted in archives across Central
Asia and beyond, is a momentous addition to this scholarship, one that also offers engaging
forays into broader debates within the fields of Persianate and Islamic studies. Pickett focuses
on the Bukharan ulama, a group that he classifies broadly as those who received a madrasa
education within Bukhara, and their role within society during a period he terms the ‘even
longer nineteenth century’, extending from the death of Nadir Shah in 1747 to the Bolshevik
Revolution of 1917. Pickett argues for a substantial reordering of our understanding of the
ulama, moving beyond discussions of the conflict between conservative and reformist
jurists that have dominated previous discussions of this group to look more broadly at their
diverse and often seemingly contradictory roles.
Pickett takes Sheldon Pollock’s concept of the literary cosmopolis as his starting point.
While previous research has established a similarly themed Persian cosmopolis, Pickett
argues for closer attention to the social dimensions of this realm. He coins the concept of
the ‘little Persianate sphere’, or ‘locally circumscribed exchange networks [ … ] with dynamics
shaped by the larger cosmopolis of high culture, but not reducible to it’ (74). Bukhara served as
the centre of one such sphere. Yet, rather than a uniform sphere of influence, Pickett instead
argues for a gradated model comprised of an inner ring encompassing Balkh, Badakhshan and
the Ferghana Valley, and an outer ring encompassing Khorezm, Xinjiang, Siberia and the
Volga–Ural region of Russia. Drawing chiefly upon a prosopographical approach to biographi-
cal dictionaries and memoirs, Pickett arrives at these ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ designations not
merely in terms of their geographical distance from Bukhara, but by how frequently individuals
originating from these regions find their way into the ranks of the Bukhara elite who are rep-
resented in his source base. Pickett’s admittedly Bukharan-centric approach offers a useful
complement to the centrifugal approach taken by scholars such as Frank (2012), who have
illustrated the role of Bukharan-trained scholars within the outer ring.
A major theme in the book is the relationship between the ulama and the class that Pickett
refers to as the Turkic nobility, or the governing and military elite of the Emirate of Bukhara.
Pickett acknowledges that the border between these groups was more complex than the
strict binary that is often posited in earlier scholarship, but only to a point, as the requirements
for entry into each group varied significantly. For members of the Turkic nobility, lineage and
access to patronage was paramount, whereas for the ulama a madrasa education was the key
requirement. The requirements for membership in the former class, being determined in large
measure by one’s birth, made it virtually closed to outsiders (save through outright military
conquest), whereas the more meritocratic requirements of the latter allowed for at least a
limited number of ‘self-made men’ to enter the ulama. Moreover, Pickett argues that the
boundary between the two classes was in certain cases permeable, but only in one direction,
as members of the Turkic nobility could refashion themselves as members of the ulama
through education. He provides illustrative examples of this, showing how such an option
2 BOOK REVIEW

could become attractive for members of the Turkic nobility whose status was threatened by
the inconstant politics of patronage.
While law is often considered to have been the preeminent area of expertise of the ulama,
their training also extended to Sufism, literature, poetry and even occult studies (hence, the
relevance of the term ‘polymaths’ to describe graduates of this system). Pickett adopts the
term ‘High Persianate Intellectual’ to describe members of the ulama and demonstrates that
not just jurists, but also poets and even itinerant ascetics (qalandars) belonged to this same
class. He addresses the issue of seeming contradictions that might arise from fulfilling these
varied roles, for example, the case of a member of the ulama who praises wine-drinking in
his poetry while simultaneously condemning it in a legal ruling. As Pickett notes, the key
issue here is not a conflict between freewheeling poets and puritanical jurists, as in most
cases these writings were done by one and the same individual, nor is it necessarily a
matter of moral hypocrisy. Rather, it is a matter of consideration of genre, as the ulama oper-
ated within multiple spheres of knowledge that corresponded with a diverse array of social
roles. Pickett also notes how certain forms of knowledge, such as occult practices, which are
often assumed in Western scholarship to be extra-Islamic, were in fact considered normative
among the ulama.
Pickett argues that the Persianate realm was an inherently Islamic one, in contrast with
earlier approaches that have described Persian as a secular and transcultural lingua franca.
He demonstrates how the ulama consistently strove to maintain their authority as guardians
of the Persianate Islamic tradition, over and above political vicissitudes. This scholarly and
moral autonomy was one key reason why the ulama were able to largely retain their position
after the Russian conquest, when the Turkic nobility found their authority to be suddenly and
severely circumscribed. In an epilogue, Pickett explores the fate of the ulama into the Soviet
era and beyond. In this era the category of the Persianate intellectual essentially dissolved.
While some members of the ulama were able to retain a circumscribed position within reli-
gious institutions, their role was now reduced to a narrow legal one, isolated from the
broader constellation of skills that characterized the ulama in the pre-Soviet era. Meanwhile,
Soviet nationality policy had the effect of alienating Bukhara from its Persianate past, being
now reimagined as a unique heritage of the Uzbek people.
Pickett’s work is commendable for its humble and innovative approach to sources, one
which recognizes their limits while also applying resourceful methods, both qualitative and
quantitative, for unlocking their potential. The book covers much thematic territory and
addresses issues that could be explored in future. Given the significance that his study
places on madrasa education as the unifying factor for the ulama, specialists could have ben-
efitted from a more detailed exposition of the texts and topics covered (perhaps in an appen-
dix). While Pickett hints at certain commonalities between Bukhara and curricula in Iran and
India, a comparative examination of madrasa education across the early modern Persianate
sphere remains a major desideratum.
Pickett also offers some major forays into broader debates concerning the concept of the
Persianate. His argument that New Persian can be understood as an ‘Arabic vernacular’ (27) is
provocative but unproven; the circumstances surrounding the emergence of New Persian
remain opaque and it is not nearly as obvious as Pickett suggests that it meets Pollock’s
definition of a vernacular. To be fair, this critique chiefly concerns periods much earlier than
that which is the main focus of Pickett’s study. It does, however, speak to a related point,
namely Pickett’s contention that the Persianate is inherently Islamic in nature. Pickett makes
a compelling argument that this was indeed the case in pre-Soviet Central Asia, although it
is not clear if this claim can be defended on a broader scale. It may simply reflect the fact
that, in Central Asia, nearly all users of Persian were Muslim (although the Bukharan Jews
 CENTRAL ASIAN SURVEY 3

are an important exception). This may be contrasted with more religiously diverse contexts,
such as early modern India, where Persian was employed widely as a bureaucratic language
even by non-Muslims. This claim risks simply swapping one sweeping characterization of
the Persianate sphere with another and stands at odds with the more modest approach
taken elsewhere in the work. Pickett’s own conception of ‘little Persianate spheres’ provides
an ideal framework for approaching this issue and is one that should inform future research
in the Persianate field.
Meticulously researched, Polymaths of Islam also accomplishes the rare feat of being acces-
sible to non-specialists (even those unfamiliar with Central Asia) while offering significant con-
tributions to debates among specialists. The book, and especially the first two chapters, which
include an informative use of text boxes, could be profitably used in both undergraduate and
graduate courses. One also hopes that the work will help to draw Central Asia into broader
discussions in fields including the history of colonialism, scholarly networks and the history
of education.

References
Beben, D. 2020. “Recent Scholarship on Early Modern Central Asia.” Journal of Persianate Studies 13: 105–117.
doi:10.1163/18747167-12341337
Frank, A. J. 2012. Bukhara and the Muslims of Russia: Sufism, Education, and the Paradox of Islamic Prestige. Leiden:
Brill.

Daniel Beben
Department of History, Philosophy and Religious Studies, Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan,
Kazakhstan
daniel.beben@nu.edu.kz
© 2021 Daniel Beben
https://doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2021.1975974