Dargwa People - Religion

Religion

The main religion is Islam, which first reached the area in the 8th century. However, general acceptance of Islam did not reach the area until the 15th century.. The Islam of the Dargins has a strongly syncretic nature, with a substantial heritage of pre-Islamic pagan beliefs given Muslim form. The agricultural calendar and ceremonies and household and family rites have retained many elements of paganism: practices for warding off evil and initial, imitative, and other forms of magic. They are reflected in the rite of the first furrow, the most important and ceremonially richest Dargi rite; in the spring New Year holiday, with its personification of winter and summer and their dispute in dialogue; in the rites for making and stopping rain, calling out the sun, completing the harvest, beginning springtime work in the vineyards, and pasturing cattle; and in the holiday of flowers, the thanksgiving for plowing, the sacred trees and groves, and so on.

The Dargins see death as predetermined by faith. They believe in an afterlife, a judgment day, the bridge Sirat, heaven and hell, etc. Funerals follow the Muslim rite, with prayers for the deceased, generous funeral feasts, and memorials on the fortieth or fifty-second day.