The Wandering Dervishes in Samarqand

This time, our gaze turns to images of Central Asian qalandaris—those wandering, mendicant dervishes who embody the spirit of a distant age.

The qalandaris were an order of wandering, mendicant dervishes (Sufi ascetics), who traveled throughout Central Asia, especially across the lands that now form Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. With the Mongol conquests, this Sufi tradition spread further, reaching other regions of the Middle East, including Anatolia, Syria, and Egypt. According to the tenets of Sufism, qalandaris were also bound to live on alms, possessing no property of their own.

In this photograph taken by Sergey Prokudin-GorskyiSergey Prokudin-Gorsky (1863–1944) was a scientist, chemist, and inventor. He became famous for his extensive collection of color photographs taken during his travels across various parts of the Russian Empire. in Samarqand in 1907, we see a group of qalandaris in their characteristic clothes, which were a woolen robe and a pointed fur cap. The turban on one dervish’s head suggests that he might belong to a different order or occupy a different rank within the hierarchy. On the left side, a tall gourd flask for water and alms, a typical accessory, is fastened. Some higher-ranking dervishes also bore the ‘stone of tranquility’, a square selenite talisman adorned with a round turquoise center. This stone of tranquility can be seen on the belts of two dervishes on the right in the photograph.

The Qalandari Khaneh, where the photograph was taken, served as a hostel for dervishes, doubling as a shelter for the destitute, a teahouse, and, reputedly, a buvakhana, a place where, as rumors had it, one could smoke hashish or drink tea infused with kuknar.iKuknar was a narcotic syrup made from poppies.