The Avalanche Reading List 

by Carlos Casas

FOOD 

With Our Own Hands: A Celebration of Food and Life in the Pamir Mountains of Afghanistan and Tajikistan 

Frederik Van Oudenhoven, Jamila Haider — LM Publishers, Volendam, 2017. 

“… Through the lens of local recipes, Our Own Hands describes Pamiri food and its origins, people’s daily lives, their struggles and celebrations. In a context where poverty, conflicts and political upheaval have made it difficult for people to express and define their identity, food becomes a powerful tool for its survival.”

• Browse the book here.

MUSIC

The Music of Central Asia 

Edited by Theodore Levin, Saida Daukeyeva, Elmira Köchümkulova — Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2016. 

“… The book is divided into four major sections: an overview of the region’s music and musical instruments; sections on ‘The Nomadic World’ and ‘The World of Sedentary-Dwellers’, which explore music and musical life in the context of Central Asia’s two great axes of civilization; and ‘Central Asia in the Age of Globalization’, whose focus is ‘the future of the past,’ or how musical heritage is being revitalized and reimagined in the contested cultural landscape of contemporary Central Asia.” 

• Visit the companion website to the book here.

PHILOSOPHY

The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism 

Henry Corbin — Sulūk Press / Press Omega Publications, Amherst, 2005.

“… In the present volume, Corbin weaves the fiber of Sohravardi's metaphysics into a tapestry resplendent with the colors of German romanticism, Mazdaism, Manicheism, Hermeticism, and the Sufism of Ruzbehan Baqli, Najmoddin Kobra, Najmoddin Razi, Shamsoddin Lahiji, and Alaoddawleh Semnani. The awakening of the body of light is the theme.” (from the Foreword by Pir Zia Inayat-Khan)

• Read here an abstract of this book.

• Browse or download a PDF made available here by traditionalhikma.com, a repository of articles and lectures by leading scholars spanning the spectrum of all traditional branches of Islamic knowledge

Other references in philosophy: 

Nasir Khusraw, the Ruby of Badakhshan: A Portrait of the Persian Poet, Traveller and Philosopher 
Alice C. Hunsberger — I.B. Tauris and The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, 2000. 

• Read here an abstract of this book.

An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines 
Seyyed Hossein Nasr — SUNY Press, New York, 1993. 

• Read here an abstract of this book.

POETRY

Make A Shield From Wisdom: Selected Verses from Nasir-l Khusraw's Divan 

Annemarie Schimmel — Routledge, New York / London, and The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, 1993. 

“… Nasir Khusraw (1004–ca. 1077), one of the most fascinating figures not only of Ismaili and Islamic history, but also of the entire Middle Ages, has left a rich legacy behind, both in his own considerable writings and in the imaginations of those who believed in him and those who sought his downfall. Of his writings that still survive, we have his Safarnama (a record of his seven–year journey from Central Asia to Jerusalem, Cairo, Mecca and back home again)…”

• Read here an abstract of this book.

Minstrel Poetry from the Pamir Mountains: A Study on the Songs and Poems of the Ismailis of Tajik Badakhshan 

Gabrielle van den Berg — Reichert Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2004.

• Read here an abstract of this book.

Picture from the book With Our Own Hands: A Celebration of Food and Life in the Pamir Mountains of Afghanistan and Tajikistan, by Frederik Van Oudenhoven, Jamila Haider — LM Publishers, Volendam, 2017.