Bibi Seshanbe
Pamiri · numen · Pamiri traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Bibi Seshanbe, the 'Lady of Tuesday', is the holy patroness of women, children and the home, revered throughout the Tajik and Pamiri world. Her devotion centres on a women's blessing rite held on Tuesdays, in which a small circle cooks special foods, kindles candles of cotton and animal grease, tells her story, and divines fortunes by sprinkling flour. The narrative attached to her is a Central Asian Cinderella: a mistreated girl is befriended by the Lady and lifted to wealth and a good marriage, and the rite is performed to secure the same turning of fate. Scholarship traces her, together with Bibi Mushkilkusho, to the pre-Islamic Iranian cult of a protective and fertile feminine being later clothed in the language of Muslim sainthood.
Domains
- women and household
- protection of children
- fortune and fate
Powers
- reverse the fortunes of the poor and unmarried
- receive the vow of the forty candles
Relations
- companion: Bibi MushkilkushoThe two Ladies are invoked together in women's domestic rites.Basilov, V. N. (1970). Kul't svyatykh v islame, pairing Bibi Seshanbe and Bibi Mushkilkusho as the two great female patronesses of Central Asia. (secondary)
Sources
- Bibi Seshanbe, the 'Lady of Tuesday', is a patroness of women, children and the household whose Tuesday blessing rite and Cinderella-like tale preserve pre-Islamic Iranian veneration of a protective feminine power.: Emelyanenko, T. (2022). 'Rite in Honor of Bibi Seshanbe among the Tajiks of Samarkand.' Kunstkamera, no. 2 (16). (secondary); Basilov, V. N. (1970). Kul't svyatykh v islame. (secondary)