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From Kabul words and images of war come our way. At a time of increasing violence, photojournalist Iason Athanasiadis explores part of the city’s underground rarely seen—the Sufi sect’s ecstatic ceremonies—in a photo essay he calls “mystical Kabul.” We see the Sufi tarighat (brotherhood) move to zikr rhythms, a practice banned by the Taliban, as he describes the comeback of Sufi mysticism. Many complexities of the Afghan story were brought into focus when Nieman Reports looked at coverage.
Members of a Sufi order prepare an opium pipe outside their shrine in Kabul during a mystical ceremony.
Dervishes are lost in the power of the moment while participating in the Zikr, an ecstatic ceremony that mystical Muslim groups practice on a weekly basis.
A young boy stands inside a “circle of faith,” surrounded by dervishes swaying to the rhythms of the Zikr. It is believed that patients can be healed when exposed to the powerful energies at work in the center of the Sufis’ circle.
After the conclusion of a mystical ceremony in Kabul, a religious leader known as “The Doctor,” for his medical studies in Pakistan, suggests to a follower a number of weeds and herbs to be boiled and ingested.
Members of a Sufi tarighat (“brotherhood”) sway to the rhythms of the Zikr, an ecstatic ceremony that mystical Muslim groups practice on a weekly basis in Kabul and other cities around the Muslim world. The goal is to enhance human perception through the repetition of stock religious phrases and couplets of Persian poetry and bring participants closer to the divine.
Sufis perform the mystical Zikr ceremony at a khaneqah (“shrine”) in Kabul’s Asheqanoarefan neighborhood.
A wandering dervish known as a malang displays a collection of rings studding his fingers. Such people tend to use color and accessories for dramatic effect in the hope of attracting ordinary believers to themselves.
A Sufi devotee stands reverently in front of the tomb of a Sufi saint in Kabul. The large Afghan flags denote a national hero.
A Sufi prays at a Sufi shrine in front of a banner bearing the Muslim proclamation of faith: “There is no God other than Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger.”
Dervishes hug each other at the end of a two-hour liturgy, during which several of them reached mystical states.