Bibi Mushkilkusho, the 'Lady who unbinds difficulty', is invoked across the Tajik and Pamiri lands to loosen the knots of poverty, sickness and misfortune. Her women's rite closely parallels that of Bibi Seshanbe, with whom she forms a paired feminine intercession, and the two are frequently named in a single breath. Sources differ on whether she is an independent being or a feminine reflex of the epithet mushkil-kusho borne by Ali; in either case her veneration is understood to continue the pre-Islamic cult of a protecting feminine power beneath a Muslim name.