Islam penetrated the mountain terrain of Central Asia as early as the 2nd/8th century. It was Shiʿi Islam, however, which firmly established itself in Badakhshān which is now divided between Tajikistan and Afghanistan. The oral and literary traditions of the Ismailis in Badakhshān are generally of a Shiʿi Ismaili and Sufi nature (see for example Bertel’s and Baqoev, passim).

Chirāgh-i rawshan (in the local Pamiri languages the ceremony…