Photo Story
The women sufi mystics of the Pankisi valley
Ten women sit in a circle, shoeless on the rug blanketing the small room, which is cloaked, in dim light. They are wrapped in silence, deep and still. Their heads are covered in a white foulard, their eyes closed. The chanting starts slowly.
“La-ilaha-ilallah” — “There is no God but God.”
At the beginning, the singing is almost imperceptible, then it grows in speed and fervor. The women start clapping their hands and, as the intensity of the clapping grows, they stand up and start moving around the circle faster and faster while chanting.
“La allah ilallah” — “There is no God but God”.
The group starts stamping and continues to clap along with the chorus, then they almost run, driven by a state of trance.
“La allah ilallah” — “There is no God but God”.
When they reach the final pitch, the movement starts to slow down, the chant turns into a mystic calmness. The ritual comes to an end.
“Marshua Kavkaz” — “Peace in the Caucasus”
The women hug each other, passing along peace and blessings.
The zikr is over.
Every Friday at noon, the women Sufi mystics of Georgia’s Pankisi gorge gather to perform the zikr, a centuries-old ritual performed in Sufi Muslim communities around the world. It includes singing, dancing and recitation, often leading to ecstasy and trance. Literally translated from Arabic as “remembrance,” the zikr, also spelled dhikr, is traditionally performed privately, in single-sex groups. It used to be a men-only practice, at the turn of the 20th century, female-only groups began forming in Chechnya and it soon spread into Georgia, in Pankisi gorge.
Cut into the Greater Caucasus mountain range, Pankisi is a hidden alpine gem, stretching for 10 kilometres, close to the border with Chechnya and mainly populated by Sunni Muslim Kists, an ethnic group descendent to the Chechens. For centuries, moderate Sufism, a mystic brand of Islam, has dominated the region. Most Kists identify themselves as Hajists, followers of the 19th-century Chechen Sufi mystic and pacifist Kunta Hadji-Kushiev, who preached a doctrine of brotherly love and nonviolent resistance.
The gorge has a chequered recent history. In the 1990s, Pankisi became a harbor for refugees from the Second Chechen-Russian War, among them there were also Chechen separatist fighters. In the mid-2010s, there were cases of young men who travelled to Syria to join the Islamic State. A more radical and austere Salafi strain took root in the gorge, attracting mostly youngsters who rebuff Sufi rituals and are increasingly distanced from the older generation. Locals have rejected the label of Pankisi as a jihadist hotbed and have reached out to the world beyond the gorge with cultural centres and folk groups.
And one message: “Marshua Kavkaz” — “Peace in the Caucasus”
A group of five chanters gather in a meadow in the village of Jokolo. Their green dresses, symbolizing heaven, blend with the valley’s spring colours. On the left, in black, is their leader Leila Achishvili, who guides them to chant the nazms, religious hymns.
Nadia Achishvili, 75, singing a specific nazms chanted by mothers as their sons leave for the battle. She is the mother of Leila, who leads the ensemble.
Duisi village
(left) Dzaro Bagakashvili, 83, is one of the oldest women performing the zikr.
(centre) Raisa Margoshvili, 65, leads and guides the ritual performed by the sisterhood of the Qadiriyya Order.
(right) Sarizha Khangoshvili, 69, resting after the ritual.
Several times during the ritual, participants pray for God’s forgiveness and blessing. As they chant La-ilaha-ilallah - There is no God but God, they hold a rosary with 100 beads.
Sonia Kavtarashvili, 80, before starting the ritual in Duisi. Despite the Soviet Union’s official anti-religious policies and the closure of mosques, the zikr survived as families continued to perform it in secret, passing on the practise through generations.
Murshid Raisa Margoshvili leads the ritual in Duisi. Raised in a musical family in the village of Jokolo, Raisa was introduced to Alznei Margoshvili, a leader of the sisterhood in Duisi. She was enchanted by her voice and she named her as her successor.
Duisi village. The room where the sisterhood of the Naqshbandiya Order gathers every Friday. Locals maintain that Sheikh Isa Efendi, a preacher from Azerbaijan who brought the order to the gorge in the early 20th century, lived and prayed in this room. Sanibat (centre) is the murshid, the guide who leads the zikr. In the Naqshbandiya Order women perform the whole ritual seated, in the dark and away from other people’s eyes. The ritual is intense, touching the participants’ deepest feelings—Sanibat says that they retrace their whole life from birth.
Makvala Margoshvili, better known by her childhood nickname Badi, was a driving force in the valley’s cultural renaissance for decades, until her death in the spring of 2021. She was 83. In the 1990s, as the war in Chechnya was raging, she founded the folk ensemble Daimokhkan Aaznash—meaning “native tunes” in Chechen language—to challenge the stereotypes that would portray the gorge as a den of terrorists and criminals. She took some chants from the zikr and started performing them in public. “I wanted to show the world the beauty of our culture, our faith, our people,” she used to say. “There is more to Pankisi, and to us.”
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