The centuries-old contradictions between Shiites and Sunnis have taken the form of not only confessional, political or diplomatic conflicts. They seriously affected the mutual perceptions of Muslims of two confessional trends within Islam, which sometimes resulted in almost physical hostility between Sunnis and Shiites. In a centuries-old dispute, both sides have attached the label "wrong" to each other. Sometimes it was difficult to separate simple religious rejection from political confrontations, which, in turn, often became a reason for mutual military expansions, bloody clashes, etc. Most of all, hostile relations between the Shiites of Iran and the Sunnis of Central Asia were manifested from the beginning of the XVI century., when power in Iran passed to the Safavids (1502-1736) and many Sunnis fled from Iran, including to Central Asia. It was these Sunni immigrants who added a new impetus to mutual claims. Interesting observations of academician V. V. Barthold, who noted that the difference between the newly formed Safavid state in Persia and Turkey in the west and the Uzbek khanates in the east was that Shi'ism in the first of them became the state religion. Further, V. V. Barthold states the opinion of the Turkish historian of that time Cevdat Pasha that Shah Isma'il (1502-1524), the founder of the Persian state, deliberately made Shi'ism the official religion of Persia, since he understood that there could be no other Sunni state next to such a Sunni state as Turkey [Barthold, 1963, p. 750]. Such a peculiar ("imperial") perception of Iran by a Turkish historian, of course, did not reflect all the complexity and palette of relations between this Shiite state and its neighbors. However, we can see a very significant legitimation of mutual political ambitions through arguments based on confessional alienation. Keywords: hajj, route, impressions, poems, Sunni, Shiite environment, confessional borders, religious culture, adaptation, elite. As a result of politi ... Читать далее