Muslim Chinese—the Hui in Rural Ningxia: Internal Migration and Ethnoreligious Identification 9783112209486, 9783879974931

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Xiaoming Wang Muslim Chinese—the Hui in Rural Ningxia

ISLAMKUNDLICHE UNTERSUCHUNGEN • BAND 340 begründet von Klaus Schwarz herausgegeben von Gerd Winkelhane

ISLAMKUNDLICHE UNTERSUCHUNGEN • BAND 340

Xiaoming Wang

Muslim Chinese— the Hui in Rural Ningxia Internal Migration and Ethnoreligious Identification

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at .

Cover photo: Shagou gongbei, the place where Ma Yuanzhang died in an earthquake in 1920. Photo X. Wang —D 188—

www.klaus-schwarz-verlag.com All rights reserved. All parts of this book are protected by copyright, in particular the texts, photographs, and graphics. All rights are reserved, including duplication, publication, editing, and translation.

© 2019 by Klaus Schwarz Verlag GmbH Berlin First edition Producer: J2P Berlin Printed in Germany on chlorine-free bleached paper ISBN 978-3-87997-493-1 (Hardcover) ISBN 978-3-87997-497-9 (e-Book PDF)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ............................................................................................9 Prologue ............................................................................................................11 Chapter 1 Introduction .....................................................................................................16 1.1 Identity and migration of the Hui: background ...................................16 1.2 Current state of research .......................................................................20 1.3 Aim and focus of the study ...................................................................21 1.4 Fieldwork ................................................................................................22 1.5 Outline of the book ................................................................................28 Chapter 2 Who are the Hui: a historical review ..............................................................31 2.1 From newcomers to locals .....................................................................31 2.1.1 Tang dynasty (618–907): arrival and first migration waves...............31 2.1.2 Song dynasty (960–1279): gaining economic and social strength.....33 2.1.3 Yuan dynasty (1279–1368): improvement of status............................35 2.1.4 Ming dynasty (1368–1644): formation of the Hui population...........37 2.1.5 Qing dynasty (1644–1911): struggles for existence............................40 2.1.6 Republic of China (1912–1949): integration and indigenisation........44 2.1.7 People’s Republic of China (1949–): Hui as a shaoshu minzu............47 2.2 The Jahriyya: “the order of bloody necks” ............................................49 2.2.1 Sufism’s entry into China and the formation of menhuan ...............50 2.2.2 Jahriyya Muslims: hagiography and present situation ........................54 2.2.3 Religious structure and organisation .................................................60 Chapter 3 Ecological and labour migration in rural Ningxia ..........................................67 3.1 China’s internal migration: an overview ..............................................68 3.2 Ecological migration in Ningxia ............................................................71 3.3 Labour migration: an example from Qingtongxia ................................79 3.4 Hui vis-à-vis Han at their new homes ...................................................85 Chapter 4 Qingzhen and its changing values ...................................................................96 4.1 Religious purity and pollution in general .............................................96 4.2 Qingzhen on the local level ....................................................................99 4.2.1 Pork issue ...........................................................................................100 4.2.2 Gender differences ............................................................................106 4.2.3 Qingzhen and its dilemmas ...............................................................108

Chapter 5 Fasting and Ramadan in an immigration area .............................................112 5.1 Introduction ..........................................................................................112 5.2 Ramadan fasting ..................................................................................115 5.2.1 Authorised Islamic traditions ...........................................................115 5.2.2 Local practices of the Jahriyya peasants in Ningxia ........................120 5.3 Voluntary fasting ..................................................................................135 5.4 Brief summary ......................................................................................136 Chapter 6 Perspectives on death and the afterlife .........................................................138 6.1 Ermaili and its socioreligious meanings to migrants .........................138 6.1.1 Introduction .......................................................................................138 6.1.2 The performance of ermaili ...............................................................141 6.1.3 Social functions of commemoration rituals .....................................149 6.1.4 Migration and its impact on ermaili rituals .....................................151 6.2 Gongbei: the centres of spiritual power ..............................................155 6.3 The tending of family tombs ...............................................................161 Chapter 7 Social and religious position of migrant women ..........................................168 Chapter 8 Conclusions ....................................................................................................189 Glossary ..........................................................................................................197 Bibliography ...................................................................................................206

List of Figures

Figure 1: Map of Ningxia .................................................................................23 Figure 2: Barren earth in southern Ningxia ....................................................72 Figure 3: MYQ is cleaning her compound ......................................................76 Figure 4: Corn and goji fields in Yongxin Village ...........................................76 Figure 5: The Jahriyya mosque in Yongxin ......................................................77 Figure 6: Returning to the village after zhuma, the Friday prayer ................78 Figure 7: Qingzhen restaurants in Wuzhong (2012) ........................................98 Figure 8: Handmade youxiang .......................................................................121 Figure 9: Liaoye at the Great Mosque of Minning .......................................123 Figure 10: Women preparing food for kaizhaijie (Eid al-Fitr) .......................130 Figure 11: Women and a young girl performing duwa .................................144 Figure 12: Guodie ............................................................................................145 Figure 13: Saints’ tombs with shandan ..........................................................148 Figure 14: Men praying at the back of their family tomb ............................163 Figure 15: The corner for women attendants in a Jahriyya mosque ............180 All photographs, if not noted otherwise, are taken by the author.

Acknowledgements

While dried goji berries are becoming more and more common in European markets, as they are presented as extremely healthy and nutritious, few people in the West are aware of the Hui in Ningxia, who make a hard living by cultivating the thorny plants and harvesting the tiny fruits by hand under the summer heat. This book aims to provide an image of Hui peasants’ life in Ningxia and allow their voices to be heard in the West. It is based on the dissertation I submitted in the spring of 2018 to the Freie Universität Berlin. Many people have helped me during the years-long preparation for the thesis. First and foremost, I would like to express my profound gratitude to PD Dr. Ingrid Schindlbeck, who suggested the initial idea to me of conducting fieldwork among the Hui. This study has been guided by her in all its phases: literature research, data collection and evaluation, and finally writing the manuscript. Without her patient supervision and comprehensive advice, the thesis would never have been completed. I also owe special thanks to Prof. Dr. Thomas Stodulka, who has read through the manuscript and provided me with many important suggestions to improve its structure and clarity. In the writing stage, I received considerable input from Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Mechthild Leutner and her work group at the Institute of China Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. I am deeply indebted to their hospitality and support. In addition, my heartfelt thanks go to Prof. Ma Zongbao, head of the Institute of Hui Studies at Ningxia University, for introducing the institute and its teaching staff to me. The academic exchange with him and his work team has enhanced my knowledge of the current research dynamics in China. I would like also to express appreciation to Prof. Dr. Michael Banton for his warm reception at LSE and his criticism of my work. My deepest gratitude and affection go to Ningxia’s Hui villagers, who accepted me as their daughter, granddaughter, sister, and good friend. Despite a heavy workload and hard living conditions, they have always been patient in telling their stories and generous in sharing their food with me. Through participation in their everyday life, I have gained perspectives I would never have received in an urban and secular context. In this regard, I am extremely grateful to my aunt Shi Guifen and her husband in Ningxia, who introduced me to their Hui friends. Without their 9

Acknowledgements

support, I would not have been able to quickly gain access to a Muslim community to which I had been a stranger and outsider. During the fieldwork, their home in Zhongwei City was my best resort where I always obtained consolation and encouragement in frustrating times. Special thanks also to my Jahriyya friends Ma Xiaohu, Zhang Ju, and Su Jingxuan, alumni of Ningxia University, who assisted me in finding more informants and making sense of many local customs. They did not only voluntarily lend me aid during the fieldwork, but also answered numerous questions that emerged while I was evaluating the field data in Berlin. I owe a debt to Markus Fiebig, who generously shared his research findings about Islam in China with me and read through early drafts of my work. I wish to thank Dr. Chris Hank for the intellectual dialogues on racism and ethnicity based on American history and modern society, which have helped to broaden my views on issues like domination and periphery. Peter Stear carefully proofread the draft of the longest chapter and provided me with useful suggestions on composing the thesis. I would like to express my sincere thanks to my friend Victor Fleurot, who has accompanied me throughout the years-long phase of writing the manuscript. His constant interest in the topic, and insightful comments on many details, has been indispensable. I am further grateful to Daniel Jarrett, who thoroughly edited the entire manuscript and improved my English language. In regard to the Islamic terms in Arabic, I thank my friend Khouloud for checking their spellings. I would like to thank Thomas Wendt for professionally creating the map of Ningxia. (Map data copyrighted OpenStreetMap contributors and available from ) Lastly, my heartfelt gratitude goes to my nuclear and extended families for their patience, encouragement, and endless support in everyday life. Of course, I alone take the responsibility for any shortcomings in the study. I want to dedicate this dissertation to my mother, who had migrated to Beijing as an illiterate single woman from the countryside and strived hard against poverty and discrimination for most of her life. She was very proud and excited to see me beginning the “pilgrimage”. Sadly, her unexpected death hinders her from witnessing the day when it has finally been completed. Stavanger, January 5, 2019 Xiaoming Wang 10

Prologue

It was approaching noon and I was still waiting in my aunt’s apartment in Zhongwei City for WXZ to pick me up. WXZ is an old Muslim friend of my uncle who was working in another place in Ningxia at that time. He wanted to come over at 11 am. After a warm shower and a big breakfast, and then having packed my suitcase and drunk enough tea, I did not know what else I could do except wait. Finally, there was a knock on the door. I opened it and saw WXZ for the first time: He was tall, lean and darkskinned, wearing a thick army winter coat. The middle-aged man was married to a divorced woman with whom he had had four children. I called him “Uncle Wang”. “Ninhao! (Hello)” I smiled, trying to react in a self-confident way in order to convince him of the seriousness of my fieldwork. It was the first time I had greeted a Muslim Chinese. He nodded and replied with the same words. At that moment, my aunt was just coming out of the kitchen. Once he saw my aunt, he began to complain immediately: “It is so difficult to find you! I have asked almost everyone in the street and nobody knows your name!” “I am just a house wife, who knows me,” my aunt replied unsurprisingly. “In the city it is not like in your village where everyone knows each other. Even within the same house, if you ask my neighbours about my name they might not be able to tell you. Once you have moved into such high buildings, you become anonymous to everyone,” my aunt said apologetically. “But come in and take a seat!” she continued. “We have not seen each other for years! How are you doing right now?” “I am learning to drive. When I have a driver’s license, I will buy a car and take our villagers to the towns and back. It is more convenient than taking the rare buses.” “Do you want some tea? It is cold outside, isn’t it?” my aunt asked. “Yes, it is. Do you have enough clothes with you?” he asked me considerately, staring at my thin sweater. It was over 20 degrees in my aunt’s apartment. 11

Prologue

“Yes, I do. I heard about the cold weather here when I was still in Beijing. I am well prepared,” I reassured him. “In the countryside, life is very tough. It is very different from the city. I am not sure if you can stand it. And the villagers have a strong dialect. They do not speak as clearly as I do.” “It does not matter,” I said. “My mom comes from the countryside too, so I know how it looks like.” “Have some tea!” my aunt interrupted and put a glass of hot tea in front of him. “Do you want to have lunch with us together?” my aunt asked. “I am going to cook some pork-free dishes then.” “No, no, I just wait,” WXZ answered decisively. “Sorry, but I want Xiaoming to eat something before she leaves,” my aunt apologised. “Take your time, it is okay with me,” our guest answered briefly. Within less than an hour, my aunt had conjured up a large meal again, consisting of four or five dishes. It was obviously too much for two small women like us. But it had always been the way my aunt shows her hospitality. When we finished lunch, it was already around 1 pm. WXZ took neither the tea nor the fruit my aunt had offered him. I wondered if he ever ate lunch at all. Once we finally got on WXZ’s motorbike, my thoughtful aunt did not forget warning her friend. “Please tell your wife not to put too much chili in the dishes. The Beijingers do not eat as much chilli as we do here in Ningxia.” The trip from Zhongwei City to WXZ’s village took almost an hour by motorbike. As soon as we crossed the border of the urban area, we rode upwards into a huge treeless hilly land. Similar to what I had already seen out of the window when my train was approaching Ningxia, the single landscape was yellow sandy earth and large rocks hidden partly in the earth. Now I was in this landscape by myself and became even more impressed by the immensely vast area of uncultivated land. For most of the time we rode on concrete streets, except for a four-kilometre-long dirt road, which was the only path connecting the village to the concrete road where buses to the towns regularly run. WXZ’s wife was chatting in her neighbour’s house when we arrived. 12

Prologue

She quickly recognised the sound of her husband’s motorbike and ran to meet us immediately. She took down my suitcase and the groceries her husband had bought in the city and brought them into the house. She was very short, skinny, and looked older than her husband. However, the way she put away the heavy groceries like the rice and mutton demonstrated that she was not physically weak or inefficient. WXZ’s wife was warm-hearted and hospitable, like all the Hui housewives I met throughout my fieldwork. She took my arm and led me into their house. It was quite dark in the house, because all the windows had a thick layer of coal dust on them, and it was indeed much colder than my aunt’s apartment in the city, so I kept my winter jacket and woollen scarf on the entire time. I had not realised how strong the dialect in the countryside was until WXZ’s wife began to talk. With a lot of effort, I tried to understand her, but I could only grasp an occasional few like “cold”, “poor”, and “embarrassing”. As I did not want to give the impression that I barely understood her dialect, I just nodded without asking her to repeat herself. However, I imagine she became aware of this later herself, due to the fact that I was unable to even tell the difference between a statement and a question. On several occasions, I did not respond to her questions because I did not realise that I was being asked. My slow and spare replies made it clearer and clearer how difficult our communication was becoming. WXZ saw this and made a long phone call. After he put the phone down he told me that his biaomei (cousin, mother’s brother’s daughter) will come by for dinner. After a short moment, I heard the sound of a loud motorbike. MYQ, the cousin of my Muslim “uncle”, hurried into the room. She looked at me and inquired loudly: “Jiushi zhege? (Is it this one [you mentioned]?)” I was a little annoyed by the word “zhege”, because in standard Chinese it is only used to refer to objects, not to humans. It was not until a few weeks later that I realised the usage just belongs to the local dialect, the same as some other words which are used differently in standard Chinese. MYQ was obviously surprised by my appearance and said with some disappointment in her voice: “[She] looks just like a little girl, not a writer! And [she] is not white!” She did not step forward but remained just behind the open door, staring at me from head to toe. Fortunately, her accent was not as strong as my “uncle’s” wife, so I quickly sensed her neg13

Prologue

ative feeling. I explained to her immediately, “I live in Germany and I speak German, but I was born and grew up in Beijing, so I am Chinese like you, not European.” After hearing this, MYQ closed the door and sat down next to me on 1 the kang opposite her cousin. She started asking him many questions about me. Then she told him about her recent situation: about her fields with goji berries and apple trees, about her husband and her son. I could not catch every word, but I was able to follow her main points, while my eye was caught by the uncommon way she dressed herself as a Muslim woman: She had a scarlet short jacket and a black miniskirt on. Her highheeled shoes had the same shiny colour as her jacket. Except for the black headscarf, you would not recognise any difference between her and a modern Han woman in the city. For a long while, MYQ just talked to her relatives, leaving me alone, sitting still and observing a completely new environment: The house where we were had only one room which was about 40 square metres. It served as a living room, but also as a bedroom and a kitchen at the same time, since there was only one single coal stove in the middle of the house which functioned also as a radiator to keep the room as warm as possible. A thick curtain hung behind the wooden door which helped prevent the chill from outside invading the house. Because of the stove, there was a dense smell of coal in the room; however, I appeared to be the only person whose breathing was irritated by the smell. Opposite the kang, there was a large rectangular digital clock hung on the wall, framed in the background of a mosque in Saudi Arabia. The clock did not only show the time, but also the date in both the Gregorian and Chinese lunar calendars. After a long talk to her cousin and his wife, MYQ turned towards me and said in summary: “We are all uneducated peasants. We can neither read nor write. Most of us cannot even speak standard Chinese either. It will be very difficult for you to follow us. I worked a few years in Xinjiang, therefore I can speak a little Mandarin. Whenever you have a question, just let me know.” I thanked her for her willingness to help, while at the same time I had to accept the fact that the kind of Mandarin she spoke was also just borderline standard. When the nearest mosque was chanting Koranic verses, telling its be1

The kang is a traditional long sleeping platform, mostly made of bricks, which is heated through a flue system underneath its surface during winter.

14

Prologue

lievers that it was time for shamu, the sunset prayer of the day, WXZ’s wife stood up and began to cook dinner for us. Because of her menstruation, MYQ did not help. “Whatever food I have touched will become unclean,” she explained, “like what you have touched as a Han.” Occasionally, she stood up and poured some used water into the courtyard. Since dinner was relatively late, there were only a few hours left be fore bedtime. In the meantime, I went out twice to breathe some fresh air. WXZ was the only man in the house at the time: Two of his three daughters were married and lived with their husbands, the youngest daughter worked in Beijing, and his single son slept in the mosque as ahong’s companion. Due to this, WXZ went to a wing-room on the west side of the compound to sleep, despite the lack of a stove. His wife, his cousin and I stayed in the same room for the night. Once I lay down between MYQ and her saozi, as she called her cousin’s wife, she began to tell me her story: “You come from a big city, so you cannot imagine how difficult our life in the village is. My father never wanted me to go to the school and learn how to read and write. As soon as I became mature, he was busy with matchmaking almost every day in order to marry me off quickly. Unfortunately, I am not beautiful, so he could not find a suitable husband for me until I was twenty. A 20-year-old girl is considered very old to get married in our laojia (homeland). My father could therefore not demand a high bride price. Beyond that, the family of my designated husband was so poor that they were unable to afford any high price. I sometimes wonder if my father still resents me for this even today...” MYQ kept on talking, although I became more and more tired. “Tomorrow, I will take you to my house,” I heard her say before I finally fell asleep.

15

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1

Identity and migration of the Hui: background

In today’s China, “Huizu” or “Huimin” is the general name for all Chinesespeaking Muslims who were classified and recognised as one of the fiftyfive “shaoshu minzu” (ethnic minorities) by the state. They are “[...] descendants of foreign Muslim merchants, militia, and officials who came to China in large numbers from the seventh through fourteenth centuries and later intermarried with the local Han populace.” (Gladney 1996: 68) According to the 2010 census, the Hui are the largest Muslim group in China and its third largest ethnic minority with a total population of almost 10.6 million (Zhonghua renmin gongheguo guojia tongjiju 2012a). Due to their extensive geographic distribution and long-term acculturation or assimilation by the atheist Han majority, the question of Hui identity is rarely raised in social and cultural anthropology either in China or abroad. The nature of the Hui as an ethnic group and as a Muslim minority is, unfortunately, exceedingly hybrid, elusive, and volatile as a result of the historical, economical and local framework within which the Hui were, and are, active. In large eastern cities where there has not been intense Islamic influence, the Hui can hardly be distinguished from non-Muslims. Residents in Northwest China’s Hui villages, by contrast, regularly hold religious ceremonies wearing their Islamic costumes and apply many Islamic words in their vernaculars. On a national scale, the Hui demonstrate a highly diverse identity which includes not only distinctive, but also contrasting, and sometimes even conflicting components. As Gladney points out: “At various levels Hui can identify themselves as co-religionists of the international Muslim community, Chinese citizens of the PRC, members of the Hui nationality, adherents to a Sufi brotherhood, and residents of a local village or lineage.” (Gladney 1987: 510) Being aware of the great discrepancies between urban and rural Hui populations and of the large variety of local deviations in terms of being Hui, this book mainly concentrates on rural Jahriyya Hui in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (Ningxia Huizu Zizhiqu). Ningxia is the only Hui 16

1.1 Identity and migration of the Hui: background

autonomous region with the largest Hui population density throughout the country. While the Hui make up less than one percent of the entire Chinese population (Zhonghua renmin gongheguo guojia tongjiju 2012a), their percentage in Ningxia amounts to nearly 35 according to the 2010 census (Ningxia Huizu zizhiqu tongjiju et al. 2013: 101). The Jahriyya is a menhuan (Sufi path in China) attributed to the Naqshbandī tradition which can be traced back to India and Yemen. Founded in the 1760s, this menhuan is today one of the largest Sufi groups in China and is densely populated in the Northwest of the country, with its centre in Ningxia. Due to their particular history of political and religious persecution, the Jahriyya Hui have undergone many migration waves within the northwestern provinces. A major part of the population previously lived in the barren areas in southern Ningxia before China’s ecological migration (Chinese: shengtai yimin) policies were issued at the beginning of the 1980s to help the poor peasants (both Hui and Han) remove themselves from poverty. At the same time, a large number of young people have left their villages to search for better-paid job opportunities in areas around the cities and in the northern parts of the province which have better agricultural conditions. In recent years, migration has become a popular research theme of many social science disciplines focusing on Ningxia. Against this backdrop, my main interest is to find out what impacts the current migration waves have on the Hui’s Islamic beliefs and practices. “To inquire into and to write about other cultures means crossing boundaries.” Strasser makes this assertion in her monograph on purity concept and gender relations in a Turkish village (Strasser 1996: 20 –1). I think not only our research interest, aim, methods, and political standpoint are crucial to the outcomes of our study, as explained by Strasser (Strasser 1996: 21), but also our own cultural and ethnic identity plays an essential role in the ways and the aspects in which we represent the “other” culture. This is even truer when we are dealing with identity issues of another culture or ethnicity. In this book, I apply the words “identity”, “identities” or “identification” primarily following Martin Sökefeld’s understanding of the concepts, with an emphasis on difference, intersectionality and plurality. In brief, the starting point is that identities are constructed not upon selfsameness but upon difference, that identity does not exist in the singular, but only in plurality, and that different identities intersect one another 17

Chapter 1

(Sökefeld 2001: 537). The Hui have never been a homogeneous ethnic group. The difficulties in their ethnic identification were vividly illustrated by Dru Gladney in his attempt to find out who the Hui are by conducting fieldwork in four communities in urban and rural, northern and southern, interior and coastal areas across China (Gladney 1996). The wide geographic distribution of the Hui and their long-time and extensive appropriation of the Han Chinese culture render it almost impossible to find a common ground upon which a nationwide Hui identity can be based. For this reason, I think it is more meaningful and promising if we restrict our scope to a special region and/or distinct Islamic group. I can anticipate that my findings, based on fieldwork among peasants, may vary greatly from research results from studies concerning urban Muslim Chinese. However, the aspects I have opted to describe in this book are lively, immediate, microscopic, and in some ways, represent a majority of rural Muslims dwelling in China’s vast northwestern regions beyond Ningxia. In rural areas of Ningxia, the formation and maintenance of ethnic identities are closely connected with boundary drawing as elaborated by Fredrik Barth: “To the extent that actors use ethnic identities to categorize themselves and others for purposes of interaction, they form ethnic groups in this organisational sense” (Barth 1969: 13–4). Barth places special emphasis on the part social organisation plays in its dealings with cultural differences. In his view, ethnic identity as a status is superordinate to most other statuses. It implies a series of constrains on the roles a group member is allowed to play and the partners he or she may choose for inter-ethnic transactions (Barth 1969: 17). Ethnic awareness is stronger is Ningxia than in many other parts of China, where the presence of ethnic minorities is hardly visible or perceptible. In the autonomous region, mosques, as well as Muslim shops and restaurants, are ubiquitous. In rural areas, there are Hui villages with hundred percent Hui residents. A small minority of the villages consist of members of only one menhuan. Massive migration waves which started at the beginning of the 1980s have exposed the Hui to encounters with the majority of Han Chinese on an almost daily basis. It is during these frequent inter-ethnic interactions that the Hui’s consciousness of ethnic and religious belongings is strengthened and boundaries are drawn to protect their Islamic heritage. To the present day, the anthropology of migration has engaged in a 18

1.1 Identity and migration of the Hui: background

burgeoning number of issues, such as religion, education, health, remittances, identities, family and kinship, the construction of “home”, workplace and labour markets (Vertovec 2010: 1). However, an overwhelming majority of these studies focus on rural-to-urban migration, which is the most common pattern of worldwide population movements because of the disparate economic development between rural and urban areas in many countries. Rural-to-rural migration is comparatively understudied in many areas in social sciences (Carr 2009: 355–6). In Ningxia, both ruralto-urban and rural-to-rural migration are present, while the former generally characterises labour migration of individuals, the latter is typical of ecological migration initiated by the Chinese state. Although the majority of the rural population would choose cities as their destinations to find a better-paid job, there is still a small percentage of migrants who remain engaged in agriculture in other places outside their hometown (Liu Xiaomin 2013: 305–6). This monograph primarily concerns itself with rural-to-rural migration while taking both labour migration and stateorganised resettlement into account. In looking at the incentives, benefits and problems of migration, my main interest is to find out how ethnic and religious traditions are maintained or changed against the background of migration flows. One of the most influential assertions Barth proposes in his initial work on identity and boundaries is that identities are not immutable but subject to change (Barth 1969). Migration exposes people to new cultural environments, social settings and interactions with unfamiliar ethnic groups. Identities of migrants are thus situational and can change in relation to the groups they face and the opportunities they encounter. As a result, group boundaries are afresh defined and new ethnic characteristics are developed (Schlee 2011: 238). In present day Ningxia, a large number of impoverished villagers are leaving the barren mountainous areas in the south of the province where the Hui population density has been compar2 atively large. In their search for a better future in the north, they have to deal with increased communications and interactions with the nonMuslim majority. These migrants are experiencing a crucial time in which their traditional norms and values are challenged by their daily encounters with a new world. In this context, I spent several months both in the 2

See the table on population by nationality in cities and counties in 2012, in “Ningxia Tongji Nianjian,” 2013, pp. 107.

19

Chapter 1

northern (receiving) and the southern (sending) areas of the province, observing the impacts migration has had on the ethnoreligious self-definition of the Hui people.

1.2

Current state of research

Literature on Hui identity in contemporary China is rare in European languages. Up to the present day, most of the inquiries published in European languages are historical surveys. While Israeli has emphasised the incompatibility between Islam and the Confucian order (Israeli 1977a), other historians have described a long history of the Hui’s adoption of Han cultural elements on the one hand and their resistance to absolute assimilation on the other (Mees 1984; Lipman 1997; Dillon 1999; Leslie 1986). In general, these historians propose that the Hui successfully maintained their ethnoreligious identity and continue to think of themselves as inherently different from Han Chinese. Ethnographic field studies on Hui identity have been only minimally carried out until now. Barbara L. K. Pillsbury could be considered as a pioneer in this area. In the early 1970s, Pillsbury spent two years in Taiwan conducting research for her dissertation and collected much empirical information about the social and religious position of Muslim women there (Pillsbury 1973). Her publications also highlight the significance of pork avoidance among Chinese Muslims as one of the critical factors in perpetuating ethnic separateness (Pillsbury 1976; Pillsbury 1978). However, Pillsbury did not strictly distinguish the Hui as a unique Muslim group from other Muslim minorities, using it instead as a general term for all Muslims in China. Moreover, due to the difficult political situation in mainland China in the early 1970s, Pillsbury could only hypothesise on Muslim women’s position in the PRC on the basis of the data she had collected in Taiwan. Another anthropologist who significantly contributed to clarifying Hui identity was Dru C. Gladney. For his dissertation, Gladney conducted extensive fieldwork between 1983 and 1985 throughout the whole of mainland China with a focus on the question of who the Hui are. He concluded that “the wide diversity of local Hui ethnic identity, and their national unity under the state’s minority policy, has led to the emergence of a new ethnoreligious identity in China [...]” (Gladney 1996: xvi). Furthermore, this new ethnoreligious identity is based on the shared idea of de20

1.2 Current state of research

scent from common ancestors and it continues to sustain the Hui’s sense of solidarity and collectiveness (Gladney 1996: 114–5). In mainland China today, more and more surveys are conducted in Ningxia by Chinese social scientists, promoted by China’s Western Development programme (xibu dakaifa) launched at the turn of the 21st century. Chinese anthropologists concern themselves with diverse issues such as the Hui’s qingzhen (halal) concept, veneration of Sufi shrines, com memoration rituals, migration flows, and Muslim children’s education. Their findings provide not only auspicious theories but also the latest empirical figures collected from fieldwork in various regions. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the outcomes are published in Chinese and are thus only useful to a minority of academics worldwide. Besides, scholars in China are often inclined to have a strong focus on ethnic identities while the role of religion is, at times, underrepresented. This tendency can be partially traced back to the state’s minority politics which attempts to highlight the ethnic elements of Hui identity while more or less con3 sciously minimising the religious ones. By and large, Islam is not treated as a core issue in social and cultural anthropology when discussing the Hui in China.

1.3

Aim and focus of the study

This monograph utilises a large number of firsthand data published in Chinese in its attempt to cast light on the question of the Hui’s selfperception of being Muslim. It brings the divergent peculiarities and traditions of Western and Chinese anthropology into a dialogue. Returning to the issue mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, the identities of a researcher are often important determinants with regard to the vantage point from which the “others” are represented. As describes by Rosaldo, “[t]he ethnographer, as a positioned subject, grasps certain human phenomena better than others. He or she occupies a position or structural location and observes with a particular angle of vision. [...] The notion of position also refers to how life experiences both enable and inhibit particular kinds of insight.” (Rosaldo 1993: 19) As a non-Muslim from the dominant ethnic group of China, my months-long presence in the Hui villages in Ningxia appeared to be puzzling as well as challenging, both to me and 3

It unfortunately exceeds the scope of the book to discuss the interplay between politics and academic discourses.

21

Chapter 1

the locals. Han Chinese are generally considered contaminating by the Hui, due to their lack of knowledge regarding Islamic purity prescriptions and ritual washing. It is highly unusual for pious Hui to have a Han living in their house as a long-stay guest. Even today, I appreciate the courage and patience my host family had during the period of my fieldwork to accept me as a family member. Having grown up without a religion, it is enticing for me to find out how Islamic beliefs influence Muslims’ worldview, outlook on life and values, as well as their social and individual behaviours. As an atheist Han, I paid a lot of attention to the Islamic characteristics of Hui life, which was of course most conspicuous in the eyes of a non-Muslim in her daily interactions with the Hui. The aim of the study is not to provide a model for Hui identity all over China, but to demonstrate a host of values, norms and cultural codes which are mainly shared by the Jahriyya Hui I encountered in rural Ningxia. In other words, the book attempts to clarify the aspects in rural Hui’s religious and secular life, which distinguish them clearly from the non-Muslim ethnicities in the northwestern context of contemporary China, as the prologue has already implied. In present Ningxia, the Hui’s self-portrait as Muslims is situated in the larger context of intra-provincial migration, which takes place almost everywhere and influences almost everyone’s daily life. The main question this study pursues is thus: what impact does internal migration have on the ethnoreligious self-ascription of Hui peasants? Based on the data collected in several rural areas in Ningxia from 2011 till 2013, this study attempts to clarify the question by investigating three reference points: the Hui’s purity concept, fasting, and their conception of the afterworld. These aspects play a central role in rural Hui’s philosophy and understanding of life and, in my view, they primarily contribute to the effective maintenance of a unique Hui identity.

1.4

Fieldwork

Empirical data for this study was collected through three periods of fieldwork in rural Ningxia: February to April 2011 in two villages with dominant Hui residents in Zhongwei Prefecture in central Ningxia; June to August 2012 in a vineyard in Qingtongxia Prefecture in the north and in Xiji County in the south of the province; March 2013 in the capital city Yinchuan and in one of the same villages in Zhongwei Prefecture (Figure 1). 22

1.4 Fieldwork

Figure 1: Map of Ningxia. Map data copyrighted OpenStreetMap contributors and available from 23

Chapter 1

I had made the decision to visit rural Ningxia in different seasons because peasants’ activities vary considerably depending on the temperature and weather. Fieldwork includes chains of interactions between the anthropologist and his or her research protagonists. Amidst the spatial and social networks and confusion, the anthropologist needs to constantly reflect upon his or her positioning towards and involvement with the people being studied (Stodulka 2014: 200). Undertaking fieldwork among the Hui, as a Han Chinese with an academic background in the West, meant dealing with multi-level identities and confronting diverse expectations: Villagers in Ningxia were very confused by my background in the beginning and could not understand my intention to learn about their lives by living with them. It was also difficult for me to explain my stay since I noticed that everyday life in a Chinese village runs in a very different way than in an urban and intellectual environment. For example, when asked how I earn my living, nobody seemed to believe that I was paid by just sitting in front of the computer and typing letters. In today’s China, however, it is essential to provide a reasonable answer to such a key question in order to gain one’s trust. Maybe because my response could not satisfy the villagers’ curiosity, in the first few weeks of my stay, rumours spread among the them: Someone said I was a reporter sent by the central government (I was born in Beijing and had my pre-university education there). Others 4 passed on the news that I was a writer like Zhang Chengzhi who was interested in the Hui history and wanted to collect folklores to compose a book. Unfortunately, there were also villagers who believed that my true and final intention was to promote some useless commodities from the city or to break into their houses. Therefore, to find enough informants and to gain their confidence took many weeks and even on the last day of my stay, I still could not claim that everyone in the villages believed in the seriousness of my study. Trust was gradually developed over time in which I did my best to tell the villagers about my life, while making an effort to understand their accent, learn their lingua franca and eventually align myself with Islamic 5 clothing. Cheater notes the various elements involved in the communica4 5

For Zhang Chengzhi and an analysis of his ethnoreligious historiography of the Jahriyya, see chapter 2.2.2. I realised later that to clothe oneself in an Islamic way, especially on hot summer

24

1.4 Fieldwork

tion of a social reality beyond language: situational context, occupational role, historical relationship, choice of words, intonation and facial expression. According to her, it is advantageous for a native speaker to conduct fieldwork in his or her own country, since only few anthropologists working in foreign societies actually develop the linguistic skills to the level of competence and nuance necessary to account for all the components of communication (Cheater 1987: 175). It was indeed very helpful to be able to capture the fine “signals” in the dialogues with my informants when they were not interested in, or had conservations on, the themes I was asking about. However, I had to admit, that my use of Mandarin as the sole medium for oral communication limited the scope of my inquiries. Depending on their personal experiences, including education, social surroundings, migration experiences, the Hui I encountered in rural Ningxia had very uneven skills in understanding and communicating in Mandarin. 6 Fortunately, my ability to understand the local dialects increased during my daily communications with the rural population, and the fact that I 7 learnt and applied many words unique to the Hui enabled me to gather more information from the fieldwork. The main research method I adopted was participant observation, “[...] a method in which a researcher takes part in the daily activities, rituals, interactions, and events of a group of people as one of the means of learning the explicit and tacit aspects of their life routines and their culture.” (DeWalt/DeWalt 2002: 1) During all three periods, I closely followed one single migrant family and lived with them as well: In the winter of 2011, I lived with the family in their migrant village in Zhongwei Prefecture. In the summer of 2012, I lived in a settlement built for contract workers of a wine company as MYQ, the wife of my host family, worked in the vineyard that year. Together with MYQ, I visited her left-behind relatives in Xiji County in southern Ningxia during the same summer, shortly before Ramadan was over. A year later, I paid a further short visit to my host

6 7

days, is very significant in order to gain more acceptance among the Hui. In a mosque or at a gongbei (Sufi shrine), admittance was only possible if visitors wore long-sleeved shirts and pants, regardless of their religious beliefs. For Ningxia’s divers local dialects see Lin Tao’s publication with comprehensive examples from linguistics: “Ningxia Fangyan Gaiyao” (Outline of Ningxia’s Dialects). Yang Zhanwu’s monograph “Huizu Yuyan Wenhua” (The Culture of Hui Language) provides a deep insight into the etymology of Hui vocabulary.

25

Chapter 1

family in their permanent residence in the migrant village in Zhongwei Prefecture. Through my host family, I came into contact with many of their close or distant relatives and friends, most of the latter also living in rural Ningxia. Beyond short stays in a few cities such as Yinchuan, Zhongwei, Wuzhong and Xiaoba, I spent the vast majority of time in rural areas. The few overnight stops in Ningxia’s cities helped me to understand the great discrepancies between urban and rural Hui’s lives, and provided further proof that it was important to confine my research focus on rural areas. The majority of the information was gained through informal conversations, mainly with Hui women, since being of the same sex allowed me to spend more time with them than with men. In and with my host family, I engaged myself in light agricultural work, housekeeping, shopping, tutoring children, and last but not least, some religious activities like visiting mosques and gongbei (Sufi shrines), and joining in wedding or ermaili ceremonies (commemoration ceremonies). Most unstructured interviews were conducted using the methods mentioned by Bernard, such as the silent probe, the echo probe, the uh-huh probe, the long question probe (Bernard 1994: 208–236). During the conversations, I abandoned taking notes simultaneously, as I noticed that writing down what they said often made my informants nervous. Beyond that, taking notes in a conversation distracted me from understanding people’s responses quickly and developing improvisational, situation-dependent questions. Instead, I managed to find time to take notes of the daily happenings in the early afternoon 8 and evening, when my host family were resting in front of the TV or after they had gone to bed. Four semistructured interviews were conducted during the fieldwork, since gaining access to the interviewees was not easy and an appointment had to be made beforehand. The interviewees were a faculty member of the Huizu Yanjiuyuan (Hui People Research Institute), an officer and organiser of the Ecological Migration Bureau in Xiji, and two ahong (imams) in Zhongwei Prefecture (one in the city of Zhongwei and another in the 8

Despite its status as a Hui Autonomous Region, Ningxia’s TV programme does not vary a lot from the popular TV programme one can receive elsewhere in China. The TV channels which interest the Hui peasants are not largely different from the ones which attract their atheist Han neighbours. You may sometimes witness all family members gathering together in front of the same popular melodrama in many Hui and Han houses on the same evening.

26

1.4 Fieldwork

village where my host family lived). I took notes in the semistructured interviews, as the interviewees were more familiar with face-to-face surveys than many peasants and some of them had even taken time to prepare themselves for the interviews (researching relevant data, publications and so on). The visit of the Huizu Yanjiuyuan in the capital city of Yinchuan gave me an overview of the current research activities and results in China on the subject of the Hui. Through the meeting with the officer from the Ecological Migration Bureau, I was provided with a general idea of the ongoing population relocation programme, initiated and organised by the state. My questions regarding how many peasants have been, or will be, resettled and from which area to which area could be answered with concrete numbers. At the same time, it was not irrelevant to my study to know about the successes and difficulties reported from the perspective of the state’s executors, some of them being Hui themselves. My conversations with the two ahong on the urban and the rural level enabled me to make a comparison between the conditions of migrant peasants dwelling in the city and those making a living in a village. All the interviews ran smoothly apart from the fact that many rural ahong were not willing to talk to someone who was not from their own religious branch, much less a non-Muslim. MYQ accompanied me to visit many families in her village at the beginning of my fieldwork. Her company helped me to gain the trust of the villagers and sometimes she functioned as an interpreter when the peasants’ accent was too strong to be understood. Later on, especially on my second and third stay in Ningxia, I was able to visit some of her relatives and friends by myself or make an appointment to go out with them together. The villagers were generally happy once they knew that a nonMuslim was interested in their tradition and religion. Thus, they did not appear to have any reservations in telling me their stories once the rapport had been built. Indeed, the longer I stayed in the villages and the more often I was seen by their residents, the stronger the feeling I had that I was accepted by the Hui and I could even become a Hui if I wanted. As a minority who have experienced severe suppression throughout history and as a relatively unknown Islamic school in ethnically heterogeneous China, the Jahriyya Hui were very glad when their history and current situation were inquired about. Many of them contacted me months, and even years later, after my fieldwork wanting to know if my 27

Chapter 1

“book” about the Jahriyya had finally been published. During the course of my stay, taking photos proved mostly barrier-free: Many villagers did not hesitate being photographed themselves or having their properties photographed. Both Hui men and women preferred being photographed in their traditional costumes (men with a white hat on the head and young married women with a colourful headscarf), even though they did not always dress themselves religiously in a secular context. The only difficulties I had in taking photos were in some solemn situations, for instance, during the chanting in an ermaili ceremony in the mosque where there were exclusively male Muslims involved. Like many other Hui branches in China, the Jahriyya generally do not support women’s chanting in public. I therefore could only watch a prayer by standing next to an 9 open door or through the window. In addition, I did not manage to gain permission to access the chanting room in every Jahriyya mosque. I believe my female and non-Muslim identity made the request very difficult to be fulfilled, regardless of how friendly I was welcomed by Muslim clerks working in a mosque.

1.5

Outline of the book

Based on the fieldwork, this book is organised into eight chapters: Chapter 1 introduces the research theme and method. Chapter 2 gives a brief review of the history of the Hui, spanning approximately 1300 years from their arrival in the 7 th century until the early period of the PRC, when the Hui were identified and recognised by the state as one of its 55 shaoshu minzu. The same section includes a sub-chapter devoted to the comparably short history of the Jahriyya brotherhood, which was not established until the end of the 18th century. Subsequently, I introduce the religious structure and organisation of the Jahriyya, which can, in some respects, be traced back to the foundation phase of the Sufi paths in China, but have gone through numerous modifications until they assume today’s form. This small passage is integrated into the historical part, although it describes religious structure and organisation both in the past and the present. Chapter 3 deals with intra-provincial migration, which can be divided into state-initiated ecological migration and voluntary labour migration in 9

Fortunately, the Jahriyya appeared to prefer keeping the door open during their chanting.

28

1.5 Outline of the book

Ningxia’s case. This chapter illustrates the background of migration, the incentives or motivations to move, and the economic improvements as well as problems which coincide with relocation. Following this, it analyses stereotypes and ethnic antagonism between the Hui and the Han majority since migration has brought the two groups much closer together than before. The chapter provides a description of the overall social setting in which Hui or Jahriyya identity, to be exact, is challenged and seeks to find new expressions. In the subsequent chapters, migration is always involved as an important factor influencing the Hui’s self-perception as Muslims and their dealings with Islam. Chapter 4 focuses on qingzhen, the Hui purity concept, which plays a key role in their boundary-drawing and identity-perpetuation. Islamic conception of purity and pollution is applied in particular by the Hui when facing the Han majority. As a strategy in social interaction, qingzhen proves effective in preventing undesirable transgressions and thus protects the Hui from being completely assimilated by the non-Muslim majority culture. This chapter takes both Islamic purity concept and the Hui’s strong sentiment against pork in particular into account. Additionally, it discusses gender differences and the Hui’s dilemmas in dealing with purity prescriptions. Chapter 5 concerns itself with fasting. It begins with an introduction of the performance and meanings of Islamic fasting in general. The stress is then put on Ramadan, a time during which Islamic fasting is practised most intensively and its religious merits are considered the most desirable. A short sub-chapter is devoted to voluntary fasting as an additional act of expressing piety and godliness. Chapter 6 discusses the Hui’s perspective on death and the afterlife, which distinguishes them strongly from the atheist Han majority. This chapter includes three parts: ermaili ceremonies, the Hui’s worship of Sufi shrines and their tendering of family tombs. All three issues are closely associated with the Hui’s belief in the final judgement and the eternal life after death. Finally, Chapter 7 deals with migrant women and their shifting social and religious positions. As Pillsbury has previously stated, for centuries Muslim women in China have not only occupied a subordinate status in relation to men but also, along with Muslim men, they have occupied a subordinate status to the Han majority. Being female in a Muslim minority, wo29

Chapter 1

men have to seek to achieve equality with men and also, along with Muslim men, they have to struggle to gain equality with the dominant non-Muslim majority (Pillsbury 1978: 652). In this respect, migration and the concomitant commercialisation in China’s rural areas provide Hui women many opportunities to access money and other resources to improve their socioeconomic positions, both in the family and in society at large. Chapter 8 summarises the key results of the study and discusses its main research themes (migration, identity, power relations and socioethnic marginalisation) in a larger, sociopolitical context. In addition, it looks at areas which need further or deeper investigations as long as Hui identity is at stake.

30

Chapter 2 Who are the Hui: a historical review

2.1

From newcomers to locals

In order to find out who the Hui are it is inevitable to first outline their history. Muslims have lived in China for more than one thousand years. This chapter chronicles the long process of Muslims’ acculturation and assimilation in China, covering the time from the 7th century, when the earliest Muslims arrived, until the early period of the PRC, when the Hui were institutionalised as a separate nationality by the Chinese state. 2.1.1 Tang dynasty (618–907): arrival and first migration waves Contacts between China and Central Asia can be traced back to as early as the 2nd century BC, when the imperial envoy Zhang Qian (ca. 164–114 10 BC) visited Da Yuezhi by the Amu River in 141–126 BC and subsequently in 119–115 BC. Although Zhang Qian failed to achieve the original aim of his political mission, namely to ally the Yuezhi people to join Emperor 11 Wu’s battles against the Xiongnu, he brought firsthand information about regions in Central Asia and made a major contribution to the formation of the Silk Road. From the 1st century BC, Chinese embassies paid regular visits to Parthia. Accounts drawn up by these embassies might have served as the sources for descriptions of Central Asia both in “Shiji” and “Hou Hanshu” (Leslie 1986: 7), the two earliest and most authoritative dynastic histories of China. As early as the mid-7th century, the name Dashi was used in Chinese historical accounts to refer to the Arab Empire (Bai Shouyi 1983: 3). In “Jiu Tangshu”, “The old Book of Tang”, there is a brief record describing the visit of an embassy from Dashi to the Tang Court in the year 651 (Yang Huaizhong 1981: 53–4). This could be the first encounter of the Chinese with Muslim foreigners officially evidenced in Chinese sources (Mees 10 Yuezhi is used to refer to ancient Indo-European people who may have been closely related to the Tocharians. They were originally settled in today’s Gansu and Qinghai, before they split into two parts and one of them, the Da Yuezhi, migrated to areas along the Amu River (Pulleyblank 1966). 11 The Xiongnu were nomadic-based people who formed a state north of the agriculture-based empire of the Han dynasty (Lin Gan 1999: 149).

31

Chapter 2

1984: 12). The increased visits by Arab embassies to the Chinese Court in the 7th and 8th centuries (Mason 1922: 4) confirm the growing amount of contact between China and the Arab world. Noteworthy here is the fact that in Chinese records not all Dashi (Arabs) or Bosi (Persians) were Muslims. It is likely that many of them were Manichaeans, Mazdaists, or Nestorian Christians (Lipman 1997: 25). The first indication of Islam is found in a record of a meeting between the Chinese Court and their guests from the Islamic Empire during the Kaiyuan era (713–742) (Mees 1984: 13). In 756, the Tang Empire was threatened by the rebellion of military governor An Lushan (ca. 703–757) who seized the capital city of Chang’an with his troops. Emperor Xuanzong (685–762) was forced to flee to Sichuan where he abdicated soon after his arrival. The new proclaimed Emperor Suzong (711–761) decided to borrow troops from the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur (714–775). The latter sent over 22,000 Arab mercenaries to join the Tang forces in 756. With this assistance, the Tang Empire recaptured its capital city, Chang’an, and the previous capital, Luoyang. After the war, most Arab mercenaries stayed in China and intermarried with Chinese women. Descendants of these Arab soldiers are considered the origin of a large Islamic population group in Northwest China (Mees 1984: 14; Yang Huaizhong 1981: 61–3). Beyond diplomatic envoys and mercenaries, merchants from Central Asia also played a significant role in China’s economic life, especially along the Silk Road and in the port cities of the southeastern coast (Lipman 1997: 25). These foreign merchants brought spices, ivory, jewellery, medicaments, and rhinoceros horns and conveyed Chinese silk, tea, and porcelain back to their home countries (Wang Guoqiang 2010: 45). Dashi and Bosi traders provided a considerable share of the empire’s tax revenues and could therefore take advantage of a relatively friendly foreign policy under the Tang and Song. During the Tang and Song, extraterritorial quarters were built for Muslim merchants in the major port cities of Guangzhou, Quanzhou and Hangzhou. These quarters are called “fanfang”. Within the fanfang, Muslim sojourners were free to dress, eat and pray in the way they did in their hometown. They spoke their native languages among themselves and learnt some Chinese for the purpose of trading. There were headmen appointed by the Chinese central government who regulated public matters 32

2.1 From newcomers to locals

in terms of tribute payments and offences against Muslims in the fanfang. Beyond their social and legitimate functions, the headmen also organised 12 religious prayers and gave sermons. Since most foreign merchants were male, some Muslims intermarried with Chinese women who converted to Islam and taught their children their local Chinese dialects (Lipman 1997: 13 31). Early forms of Sino-Muslim communities were founded in this way, especially in the southeastern ports and in the two capital cities of Chang’an and Luoyang. 2.1.2 Song dynasty (960–1279): gaining economic and social strength When the Tang dynasty was fatally weakened by the Huang Chao Rebellion (878–884) and finally overthrown by its military governor who established the Later Liang (907–923), an era of political upheaval called the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms began in China. In Northwest China, the Silk Road was under the control of the Western Xia Empire (1038– 1227), founded by the Tanguts, an ancient patrilineal nomadic tribe active in North China at that time. The traditional trade route was thus blocked by the Tanguts for centuries. Inevitably, the Song governments became more dependent on the sea route as the main channel of trade with Central Asia. Merchant shipping, which was run predominantly by Arabs and Persians, was supported by the governments and therefore increased rapidly in dimension. Import duties paid by the foreign merchants had become a major source of the state’s revenue during the Song (Mees 1984: 17–8). Zhao Rukuo (1170–1231), a customs inspector in Quanzhou, South China, published a two-volume book entitled “Zhufan Zhi” (Records of Foreign Nations) in 1225 describing 158 countries and regions based on the material he collected from the foreign merchants. According to Zhao and the “Songshi”, “History of the Song Dynasty”, the tax rate lay between 10 and 50 per cent, according to the type of imported merchandise and different foreign trade policies during the Song (Hirth/Rockhill 1911: 21–2). 12 For historical records about fanfang, see Wang Dongping, 2004, pp. 30 and Leslie’s translation in Leslie, 1986, pp. 37. 13 Lipman mentioned that even though the Tang government discouraged Muslims’ acculturation through intermarriage or the learning of Chinese, some of them did study Chinese, marry and remain in China for extended periods. See Lipman, 1997, pp. 26.

33

Chapter 2

It was also during the Song period that more and more Muslims settled and became permanent inhabitants. Muslim mosques and cemeter14 ies were increasingly built in the southern port cities. The earliest mosques in China include the Huaisheng si in Guangzhou, the Shengyou si 15 in Quanzhou and the Zhenjiao si in Hangzhou. Historical accounts and Islamic tombstone inscriptions available today provide sufficient evidence of the existence of Muslim cemeteries in both Guangzhou and Quanzhou (Yang Huaizhong 1987: 108 and 114–6; Lu Yun 2007: 95–6). In the Song, Muslim foreigners were allowed to intermarry, while at the same time they were also encouraged to learn Chinese language and culture. Muslim intellectuals proficient in Chinese studies could even take official positions offered by the government (Lipman 1997: 29; Yang Huaizhong 1987: 127). Chinese historians rendered accounts of influential Muslim merchants holding official titles in the Song, e.g. Pu Luoxin and Pu Shou16 geng (Lai Cunli 1988: 76). Although the Silk Road was interrupted by numerous wars and invasions in the north and the maritime trade in the south had become the main part of China’s commercial relationship with Muslim merchants, some of the trade routes in the northern regions remained open. Trade centres including Qingtang, today’s Xining in Qinghai, and Lintao, today’s Linxia in Gansu, expanded and gained in importance (Yang Huaizhong 1987: 99–103). Compared to Muslims in the Tang, fanke in the Song gained more political, economic and cultural contact with their host country of China. Although most of them still lived in fanfang, special quarters for Muslim sojourners, some of them settled down permanently and it was during the Song when the term tusheng fanke (native born foreigners) or wushi fanke (fifth-generation foreigners) were first used to refer to Muslims who had 14 There is an ongoing debate regarding when the earliest mosques and graves emerged in China. Most western scholars tend to agree with Leslie who ascertains that no reliable source exists that proves a foundation of Muslim mosques in the Tang, while Chinese scholars like Yang Huaizhong make it clear that there were already mosques with political and religious functions in the fanfang in that period. For each argument, see Leslie, 1986, pp. 40 and Yang Huaizhong, 1981, pp. 80–1. 15 All three are in existence today. 16 Scholars have suggested that the family name “Pu” might be derived from the Arab name Abū, “father of”, and could thus be considered an identity marker for Muslims or Arabs. See Leslie, 1986, pp. 65.

34

2.1 From newcomers to locals

been living in China for generations. The tighter connection of Muslim sojourners to the social life of Chinese citizens in the Song provided a basis for the faster and more intensive proceeding of Muslims’ sinicisation during the Yuan period. 2.1.3 Yuan dynasty (1279–1368): improvement of status By the time the Mongol conquered China and brought the situation of centuries-long political segmentation to an end, another migration of Muslims occurred with the Mongol conquest. Since the Mongols were short of suitable architects and craftsmen while building Karakorum, and later Dadu, today’s Beijing, large numbers of Muslim artisans were transported from Central Asia into the Mongol Empire. Alongside architects, there were also Muslim merchants, engineers, officials, astrologers, and soldiers that made up the Islamic population in the Yuan (Leslie 1986: 79). As an ethnic minority, the Mongol governors divided the population into four classes: Mongols, Semu (Muslims and other foreigners of differ17 ent races), Hanren (northern Chinese) and Nanren (southern Chinese) in a descending hierarchical order (Leslie 1998: 21). For the first time, Muslims in China could enjoy a higher social and political status than the Han majority and could take advantage of the various favourable conditions provided by the Mongol ruling class. Muslims had preferential treatment in imperial examinations, official appointments, punishment, and possession of soldiers and horses (Bai Shouyi et al. 1957: 13). More than a few Muslims held important offices in central court and local governments and much of the trade with foreign countries, both by sea and by land, lay in Muslim hands (Leslie 1986: 88). It was also during the Yuan dynasty that sources on Muslims in China became more extensive and reliable. Detailed biographies of influential Muslim officials including Sayyid Ajall (1211–1279) (Chinese name: Saidianchi) and Ahmad Fanakati (1220–1282) (Chinese name: Ahema) can be found in numerous Chinese and Western 18 sources. Aside from politicians, Muslim scholars, technicians and artists 17 The Nanren refers to Chinese and other ethnic groups living under the Southern Song regime (1127–1279). Because they were the last resisters against the Mongol conquest, after the Mongol Empire was founded, the Nanren were classified as the lowest social group in the hierarchy. 18 For Sayyid Ajall’s biography see e.g. Leslie, 1986, pp. 83; Chen Yuan, 2000, pp. 25– 6 and Yang Huaizhong, 1983, pp. 177–95. For Ahmad see Lipman, 1997, pp. 31–2 and Bai Shouyi, 1985, pp. 51–63.

35

Chapter 2 19

made a major contribution to astronomy, architecture, medicine, fine arts, and the like (Bai Shouyi et al. 1957: 12; Lipman 1997: 33). Under the Mongol government, the term Dashi, which had been the most common term to designate Arabs or Muslims during the Tang and Song dynasty, died out and was replaced by “Huihui” or “Hui”, a notion including various ethnic groups of Islamic faith. Israeli hypothesised that this change was related to the collapse of the Abbasid Empire (1238) and its fall to the Mongols. “The Chinese, the Mongols and the Muslims in China, aware as they were of the new dominating power, set aside the 20 outworn Ta-shih as a relic of the past and adopted the new term, Hui and its derivatives” (Israeli 1977b: 34). Hui households were included in the Yuan Empire’s census register and were counted from this time as indigenous (Wang Guoqiang 2010: 48). Compared to the fanke during the Tang and Song, the Huihui under the Mongols had an increased sentiment of accepting China as their homeland rather than host country. From the Mid- and Late Yuan, more and more Huihui changed their family names 21 into Chinese ones in fondness of the Chinese culture. Chen Yuan exemplifies several individual cases from historical sources in which Muslims adopted a Chinese ming (given name), zi (alternative given name) or even 22 a xing (family name). Due to the political and financial role of Muslims as civil officials, tax collectors and money-lenders, they were easily seen by the downtrodden Han Chinese as exploiters, serving the Mongol overlords. Several sources clarified however, that the Muslims acted as intermediaries between the Mongol rulers and the suppressed Chinese and they were indeed used as scapegoats against whom Chinese antagonism was directed (Leslie 1983: 112; Dillon 1999: 26; Lipman 1997: 35). Leslie notes: “For the first time, we 19 Noteworthy here is the “Huihui Yaofang” (“Prescriptions of the Hui People”), a medical encyclopedia composed at the end of the Yuan dynasty. The “Huihui Yaofang” includes 36 volumes, of which unfortunately only 4 are extant today. The 4 preserved volumes contain 749 prescriptions which are divided into detailed subjects such as internal medicine, surgery, gynaecology, paediatrics, orthopaedics, dermatology, and so on. See Yang Lijuan et al., 2017, pp. 435. 20 Ta-shih is the Wade-Giles Romanization of Dashi. 21 It should be noted that there was no political or economic force imposed on the Muslims to change their names. For the Huihui, the way to ascend to a higher social rank was through cooperation with the Mongols rather than through acculturation into the Han majority. 22 See Chen Yuan, 2000, pp. 102–10.

36

2.1 From newcomers to locals

find unequivocal references to the hui-hui (Muslims) in China. Several of these reports are biased against the Muslims, for they were written by Chinese scholars still loyal to the Sung who looked on the Mongols (whom they called Tartars) and their henchmen the Muslims as usurpers” (Leslie 1986: 92). Despite a privileged social and political status, Muslim religious practices were subject to Mongol suspicion and restraints. In “Yuandianzhang”, a collection of jurisdictional edicts from the Yuan period, there is a separate paragraph formulating the prohibition of Huihui’s slaughter of sheep and circumcision: “[...], from now on Mussulman Hui-hui and Chuhu (Jewish) Hui-hui, no matter who kills (the animal), will eat, and must stop slaughtering sheep themselves, and stop the rite of circumcision” (Leslie 1986: 89). Towards the end of Yuan, Muslims, and other religious groups, were no longer favoured. For instance, the official role of the religious judge, the Qādi, was abandoned and special colleges for Islamic studies set up at the turn of the 14th century were abolished. Muslims were no longer exempted from taxes or duties (Leslie 1986: 90). The anti-Muslim laws of the Mongol rulers and the hostile sentiment of the Han majority led to Muslims’ growing dissatisfaction with their situation under the Yuan. 2.1.4 Ming dynasty (1368–1644): formation of the Hui population It came as no surprise that many Semu chose to fight on the side of Zhu Yuanzhang (1328–1398), the founder of the Ming dynasty and later known as Ming Taizu, when he mounted campaigns against the Mongol rulers. After the overthrow of the Yuan, many Muslims were employed in high offices by the Ming court, including generals like Mu Ying (1344–1392), Lan Yu (?–1393) and scientists in the imperial bureau responsible for astrology and calendar making. The Ming dynasty was a significant period for the sinicisation of Muslims. Ming governors released numerous statutes resulting in the acceleration of Muslim assimilation in Confucian China. For instance, “Da Ming Lü Jijie Fuli” (“The Ming Code: Statutes and Commentaries”) prescribed that non-Chinese were prohibited from marrying within their own ethnic groups (Bai Shouyi 1983: 26). This prescription brought forward the intermarriage of Muslim males with Han Chinese women who then converted to Islam. The increasing number of Chinese-speaking wives in Hui com37

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munities played a large role in contributing to the population growth of the Hui and the spread of Mandarin as a home language. Beyond the regulation on intermarriage, an edict was issued in the first year of the Hongwu regime (1421) which placed a ban on foreign clothes, languages and surnames (Jiang Xin 2010: 79). Such strenuous attempts by the Ming to acculturate Muslim “aliens” reveal Han governors’ fear of the “others” on the one hand, and on the other, the strong economic and cultural influence of the Hui population at that time. In the face of the state’s pressure to assimilate, some Hui communities lost their Muslim identity completely, while a majority of them only abandoned their Persian, Arabic or Turkish clothing, surnames and languages but preserved their religion. It is worthwhile noting that during the process of the Hui’s extensive assimilation into the Han Chinese culture, regional differences in Hui’s dealings with their religion emerged: in some eastern and southeastern areas, Muslim communities were heavily secularised. By contrast, in the Northwest, the Hui’s consciousness of their separateness was preserved (Dillon 1999: 31). From the early years of the Ming to the middle of the 15 th century, trade between China and Central and Western Asia continued to flourish. In the first half of the 15th century, naval explorations were actively promoted by the government. Zheng He (1371–1433), the most eminent navigator in Chinese history and a Muslim Chinese, contributed not only to the imperial sea trade, but also to Muslim connections with the Islamic world in Western Asia and Africa. Between 1405 and 1433 Zheng made seven expeditions and reached as far as the coastal areas of the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa. Numerous Muslim scholars, navigation experts, translators and merchants were involved in his expeditions and played an essential role in establishing contact with foreign countries (Ge Zhuang 2002: 120). On his last voyage in 1431, seven Muslim members in his crew were sent to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca (Zheng Hesheng/Zheng Yijun 1983: 663) and compiled first-hand accounts regarding the geography, 23 economy, and religion of the Islamic countries in Western Asia. However, starting from the second half of the 15 th century, the imper23 Zheng Hesheng and Zheng Yijun’s collection of accounts, mainly composed during the Ming, on regions related to Zheng He’s voyages is well-structured and concerns subjects like location, climate, products, resources, commerce, administration, customs and language. See Zheng Hesheng and Zheng Yijun, 1983.

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ial court changed its open foreign policies into defensive ones which climaxed during the reign of emperor Jiajing, between 1522 and 1566, when 24 a ban on both private and state-run maritime trades was imposed. This directly resulted in a breakdown of communication between Muslims in China and their religious “homelands” in Central and Western Asia. It could be ascertained that, during the Ming, Muslims lost their original languages completely and Chinese became their lingua franca (Yang Zhanwu 2010: 75–87). Although Muslim communities continued to grow both in size and in number, and began to take root in different localities all over China, Islamic doctrines were increasingly interpreted and passed down in Mandarin. Being aware of the acculturative pressure and the enormous power of the state’s attempts to educate children of ethnic minorities in Han culture and language, in the middle of the 16 th century Muslim authorities systematised an Islamic curriculum along with the jingtang jiaoyu, i.e. Islamic education in the mosque. The new educational system has been passed down to this day, although it has been practised differently in various regions. Generally, jingtang jiaoyu is divided into two levels: the elementary level is aimed at teaching young children Arabic and basic religious knowledge, while the advanced level qualifies adult Muslims to become religious professionals such as ahong (imams) or manla (students in preparation to become ahong). A special kind of Hui speech associated with jingtang jiaoyu emerged at the same time. The so-called jingtangyu is based on Chinese grammar and vocabulary while incorporating many phonetic loan words from Arabic and Persian for Islamic terms and everyday communication amongst believers (Zhongguo Yisilanjiao xiehui 2012). It could be speculated that by Late Ming, many Muslims could no longer understand Arabic. The need for interpretations of sacred texts in Chinese increased tremendously. By this time purely Arabic inscriptions at mosques and graveyards had disappeared, replaced first by ArabicChinese bilingual texts and then by steles completely in Chinese (Feng Zenglie 1981: 221). Wang Daiyu’s “Zhengjiao Zhenquan”, dated 1642, is 24 For an analysis of the reasons behind the Ming governors’ proscriptions of maritime trades, see Han Qing, 2011. It should be noted here that compared to the voyages of Vasco da Gama and the circumnavigation of Ferdinand Magellan, which contributed substantially to capital accumulation, Zheng He’s navigations had a character of extravagance and chauvinistic show-off. As a result, his expeditions heavily impoverished the imperial coffers.

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argued to be the earliest Islamic book in Chinese which is still available today (Leslie 1986: 117). During the transition phase between Late Ming and Early Qing, numerous Islamic works were either translated into, or composed in, Chinese by Muslim scholars. The most influential ones are: “Qingzhen Daxue” by Wang Daiyu, “Guizhen Zongyi” by Zhang Zhong, “Guizhen Yaodao” by Wu Zunqi, “Qingzhen Zhinan” by Ma Zhu (Bai Shouyi 1983: 34–6). By mentioning these books, Leslie points out that “almost all the Islamic writings in Chinese are imbued with Confucianism, quoting the Sage rulers Yao and Shun, Confucius and Mencius. Buddhism and Taoism are not acceptable, but the attempt to accommodate with Confucianism is patent at every turn” (Leslie 1986: 119). 2.1.5 Qing dynasty (1644–1911): struggles for existence In the early Qing dynasty, the emperors held a relatively open attitude towards Chinese Muslims, although the latter did not support the Manchus to overthrow the Ming and ground a new dynasty, but rather struggled with the Ming survivors against the Manchus’ conquest (Leslie 1986: 122). After the establishment of the Qing, the Manchu government adopted a rather tolerant position in their dealing with Muslim issues. This can be verified if one takes a look at the early Qing emperors’ edicts, the onward development of Muslims’ population and economy, and lastly, the introduction of Sufism in China together with the formation of menhuan. Due to the pre-existing Han chauvinism and ethnic prejudice, the Qing government often had to deal with accusations against Muslims. Early Qing emperors generally showed very respectful attitudes towards Islam and its believers. For instance, an edict by the emperor Kangxi, dated 1694, states at the end: I hereby instruct all the provincial authorities that, in the future, should any Chinese accuse a Muslim with the allegation of rebellion during any quarrels among them, let the offenders be beheaded first and make a report to me later. All the Muslims in my empire shall devote themselves to their religion and shall not ignore 25 my appreciation of their faith. Be obedient to this order (Leslie 1986: 122). 25 The original text in Chinese can be found e.g. in Ding Wanlu’s article “Qing qianqi Huizu zhengce jianlu”, pp. 48.

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Kangxi’s successor, emperor Yongzheng, issued an edict in 1729 which states: All over the direct (-rule) provinces, the Hui people, having resided there from of old, are enumerated as part of the population and are all children of our country. It follows that they cannot be regarded as separate. Over the years, secret memorials have frequently been submitted arguing that the Hui people maintain their separate religion, speak a foreign tongue, wear strange clothes, and are fierce, perverse and lawless, and demanding that they be strictly punished and placed under restraint. I deem, however, that the Hui people have their religion because their ancestors bequeathed them their family habits and local customs. In this they are like the people of the Middle Kingdom who, according to their place of origin also vary in tastes and dialects. Equally the Hui people’s use of the term li-pai-ssu and differences in dress and language derive from custom and ideas of what is fitting. As long as they peacefully keep their customs they are not to be compared with traitors, lawbreakers or those seeking to delude and lead people astray [...] (Leslie 1986: 123–4). In the early time of Qianlong’s regime (1735–1795), the emperor also demonstrated a tolerant approach to Islam and laid stress on ethnic equality. Based on the benevolent polices of the early Qing governors, the Hui’s population was able to continue growing and their economy flourished for a long time in different regions. While the Hui migrated into more areas, including today’s Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet, the northwestern region became their largest population concentration throughout the country. In rural areas, the Hui worked both on farming and animal husbandry. In some places, the Hui’s agricultural skills reached the same level as the Han’s. Besides agriculture, the Hui also developed their traditional competence in commerce. The main commercial activities of the Hui were fur and leather trade, as well as the transport and sale of local specialties. The adoption of Han children by numerous Hui families gives conclusive evidence of the economic power of the Hui in the early Qing time (Ding Wanlu 1994: 52). It was also during the early Qing dynasty that various schools of Islamic teaching emerged, based on the jingtang jiaoyu, which was estab41

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lished in the Ming dynasty and developed further during the Qing. Further books on Islamic education were written and published by Muslim scholars and were used in schools and mosques in different regions throughout China (Ding Wanlu 1994: 51). Among all the progress that occurred during this period, the most monumental event may have been the entry of Sufism and the foundation of the menhuan system, which I will discuss in the following chapter. Despite the generally harmonious relationship between the Hui and the Han majority under the Manchu rule, antagonism against the Hui and small-sized local feuds did exist during the early Qing period. By the middle of the Qing dynasty, however, there arrived a turning point regarding the empire’s attitude towards the Hui. In 1781, a violent dispute broke out between the Jahriyya, the xinjiao (New Teaching) and the 26 Khufiyya, also known as the laojiao (Old Teaching) —two major Islamic groups which had emerged in central China during the early regime of Qianlong (mid-18th century). Although the conflict was solely of a religious nature, the Qing government intervened quickly in the struggle and eventually suppressed both groups. Since then, the Qing’s policies towards the Hui turned gradually from tolerant to distrustful and oppressive (Li Xinghua 1981: 8). Many followers of the xinjiao were lower-class peasants who suffered the Qing’s exploitative and suppressive rule and had already been deeply dissatisfied with the government. The ruling class’s blind butchery of the Hui caused then more disaffection and eventually led to numerous insurrections in many places of China during the middle and late Qing period. Lipman writes in his book “Familiar Strangers” as follows: “Every sixty years a big rebellion” and “[e]very thirty years a small rebellion” (Lipman 1997: 115 and 138). After the 1781 violent uprising, during which the Jahriyya’s founder and first leader Ma Mingxin was imprisoned and later executed by the Qing, numerous rebellions occurred in central China (Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai) causing tens of thousands deaths. Among all the menhuan, the Jahriyya were the fiercest strugglers against the Qing government, and this resulted in the most radical and extensive annihilation 26 In the following chapter on Sufism’s introduction in China and the formation of menhuan, I will go into detail about the foundation of and points of conflict between the two Islamic schools.

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carried out by the ruling class. The large-scale murdering and depredation of the Hui caused enormous changes in their population size and distribution: Millions of the Hui died during the calamitous rebellions and the Qing’s elimination politics. Some of the Hui abandoned Islam and became Han. Some turned their weapons against their co-religionists for fear of the Qing’s slaughter and many others fled or were banished to barren 27 mountainous areas. According to a survey, approximately 1.6 million Hui died, fled or abandoned Islam solely in Shaanxi Province towards the end of the Qing dynasty (late 19 th century), making up 91.4 percentage of the local Hui population at that time (Lu Weidong 2003: 74). Lipman concludes the consequences and lessons from the violence as follows: The violence between some Muslims and Qing loyalists and allies of various cultures had devastated a fourth of a province, killed tens of thousands, and sustained the worst fears of all. The Qing officials retained their conviction that religious disputes among the Muslims, particularly those caused by the New Teaching (whatever that may have been) and the menhuan, led to conflagration and bloodshed. The local non-Muslim Chinese verified their tradition, that their Muslim neighbours were bloodthirsty fanatics. The Muslims confirmed that they were to be discriminated against, excluded, even slaughtered, because they were Muslims, and thus different (Lipman 1997: 165). 28

Under the Late Qing’s threatening policies against Muslims, the Hui’s population shrank to a large degree, their economic power was debilitated, and their religious activities in public were monitored. Many preexisting Hui communities fractured (Li Jianbiao 2009: 149–51). Some local Muslim leaders recognised the Qing’s capacity to control its territories during the fighting so they surrendered themselves to the Manchu power 29 in order to preserve their local authorities and lineages. Many of them 27 Some Hui villagers in the mountainous areas in southern Ningxia told me similar stories about the banishment of their ancestors and they claimed to be the descendants of migrated Hui from Shaanxi. 28 Not only the Hui, but also the Salars, a Turk-speaking Muslim folk in Northwest China who were in large part adherents of the Jahriyya, suffered from the Qing’s suppressive and discriminatory policies, see Lipman, 1997, pp. 103 –7. 29 To list a few names: Ma Zhan’ao, Ma Wuzhen, Ma Yongrui, Ma Haiyan and Ma Anliang, see Li Xinghua, 1981, pp. 34–5.

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were given military titles and power and became allies of the Qing government. This local leadership was able to sustain their forces even after the fall of the Qing dynasty and continue to be influential in Northwest China during the Republic period (1912–1949). 2.1.6 Republic of China (1912–1949): integration and indigenisation In the numerous local feuds between the menhuan and in Muslims’ rebellions against the Qing government, a few militant Muslim warlords 30 emerged in Northwest China. The period between 1916 and 1928 was called the Warlord Era in the history of the Republic. With reference to this time, Lipman notes that “most of the menhuan, originating as revivalist Sufi institutions, had evolved into essentially conservative local soli darities, organized to preserve the community power and wealth of important lineages” (Lipman 1997: 166). Hui warlords took control of a large majority of territories in Northwest China and excised influential military, economic, and political power. After the Warlord Era, many of them were co-opted into the reunified national state and became officers of Kuomintang’s National Revolutionary Army. As loyalists and allies of the Kuomintang, Hui warlords such as Ma Zhongying and Ma Zhancang ousted the First Eastern Turkistan Republic’s regime in Kashgar and quickly brought the independent Turkic Muslim republic to an end (Millward/Tursun 2004: 77–9). Apart from their military activities, some Muslim generals like Ma Hongkui and Ma Fuxiang strongly promoted Muslim’s education and Islamic cultural studies in the Northwest which enabled some Hui to improve their social and political status through better knowledge, both of their religion and of secular subject areas (Li Shirong 2013: 50). Despite many regional wars and the brutal power struggles between the warlords, the Hui experienced a mild renaissance in the Republic of China. The positive development of Islamic culture can be found in the following areas: a rising number of pilgrims to Mecca; the increased translations of the Koran and other religious publications in Chinese; the improved education system for young Muslims; and last but not least, the emergence of Islamic periodicals and organisations. According to a local statistic, 69 pilgrims went to Mecca solely from Linxia Prefecture (Gansu Province) between 1933 and 1949. 61 pilgrims re30 Some Chinese sources refer to the entire Republic time as the Warlord Era.

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turned to China and 8 people stayed (Ma Tong 1983: 118). It was also during the Republic that Hajj became a type of organised group tour instead of an individual trip, as was the case in the Qing dynasty (Li Shirong 2013: 48). The increased exchange with Central Asia and the Arabic world facilitated the spread of Islamic culture throughout China. While the contact with the Arabic world was strengthened, the need for Chinese translations of the Koran became more and more perceptible. It is noteworthy that before the Republic, there was no single Chinese translation of the complete Koran (Ma Mingliang 2011: 122–3). Due to the fact that the Koran was revealed in Arabic, the language and script has played an essential role in religious education and performances in China, as was the case in many other Muslim countries. Despite the lack of Arabic skills among a vast majority of ordinary believers, many Hui leaders were fiercely against the idea of translating the Koran into Chinese. Mees sets out several probable explanations for the Hui elites’ concerns at this issue: Firstly, they were afraid that the disclosure of their doctrine could cause negative reactions on the side of the Han once the latter noticed any contradictions of the Koran to the overwhelming Confucian values. Secondly, Islam in China had experienced a long period of isolation which resulted in many deviant religious practices from the requirements documented in the sacred text. The Hui leaders intended to avoid internal unrest and separation among their adherents. Thirdly, the “New Teaching” that had gained a large number of believers since the Late Qing and became one of the most influential Islamic branches in the Republic, offered massive opposition to translating the Koran (Mees 1984: 82–4). For the reasons mentioned above, the publication of the Koran in Chinese did not appear until the 1920s. It is interesting to note that the earliest translations were composed by non-Muslim scholars (Mees 1984: 84–5). Wang Jingzhai (1879–1948) was the first Muslim scholar who compiled the complete Koran during the first half of the 20 th century. As an ahong and Muslim teacher who visited various Muslim countries and brought a large number of Islamic classics back to China, Wang dedicated himself for decades to release three editions of the Koran, both in classical and modern Chinese. Beyond Wang’s editions, there were some more translations in different length available to Chinese readership at that time. The most popular Koran translation, which has still been frequently cited even today, was completed by Ma Jian, one of the few Muslim schol45

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ars who obtained a scholarship to study at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo. Ma, too, provided the translation both in classical Chinese and in modern language (Ma Mingliang 2011: 123–5). In addition to Koran translations, the history of the Hui or Chinese Muslims became the main focus of Islamic studies in China. Monographs published on this subject were “Zhongguo Huijiaoshi Yanjiu” by Jin Jitang in 1935, “Zhongguo Huijiao Shijian” by Ma Yiyu in 1940, “Zhongguo Huijiaoshi” by Fu Tongxian in the same year, “Zhongguo Huijiao Xiaoshi” by Bai Shouyi in 1944 (Li Shirong 2013: 51), to name just a few titles. In education, modern subjects such as Chinese, geography, and general history, gained much attention compared to the traditional jingtang jiaoyu developed in the Ming dynasty which focused exclusively on Islamic studies. Moreover, middle schools and teachers’ colleges were grounded throughout China by and for Muslims. Some of these schools placed even more emphasis on secular rather than religious curriculum (Li Shirong 2013: 50). It is noteworthy that Muslim girls were also given the opportunity to obtain formal education in the elementary and middle schools grounded exclusively for women (Xue Rangsan 2007: 77). From 1931, each year a group of graduate students from the teachers colleges were sent to the eminent Al-Azhar University in Cairo for further training (Mees 1984: 76). While more and more educational institutions were established, Muslim organisations also emerged across the country. The Hui societies and associations, many of which were located in large cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing, worked in the field of Islamic education and publishing. Most of them also functioned as patriotic organisations with the aim of protecting China from the Japanese invasion. Various periodicals were released by Muslim organisations during the era of the Republic. At the same time, Islamic periodicals were also initiated or released by the Japanese occupation forces and by some other non-Muslim associations. Mees mentions that before the Republic was founded, no single special journal or newspaper had existed focusing on Islam or the Hui; however, by the year 1937, the number of periodicals increased to around one hundred (Mees 1984: 76–7). During the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), both the Japanese government and the Kuomintang applied Muslim-friendly policies in order to gain the latter’s support in their struggle for territories. While the 46

2.1 From newcomers to locals

Japanese attempted to initiate research institutions on the Hui, establish Muslim schools and release different periodicals demonstrating their fondness for Islam, the Kuomintang propagated the same idea with similar approaches. At a time when Japan’s colonial purpose became clearer and clearer, most of the Hui identified themselves with the Chinese nation 31 or Chinese race (zhonghua minzu) and devoted themselves to the Anti32 Japanese War together with the Nationalists and the Communists. One can conclude that it was by the end of the Republic of China when the Hui realised that their Muslim identity only made sense within the framework of the Chinese culture and polity. 2.1.7 People’s Republic of China (1949–): Hui as a shaoshu minzu By the time the People’s Republic of China was inaugurated in 1949, a multi-national polity was proposed pursuing ethnic equality and autonomy as its tenets. The state promised to guarantee at least one representative to each officially recognised ethnic minority regardless of population size. In addition, larger minorities would receive a level of representation reflective of their size (Mullaney 2012: 38). With this aim, the first national census was conducted between 1953 and 1954, during which a registrant was given the unfettered right to dictate his or her nationality to the census taker, who then transcribed it into Chinese characters (Mullaney 2012: 32). As a result, over 400 names had been recorded nationwide by 1955 (Fei 1981: 60). The number, however, greatly exceeded the assessment of the Communist authorities, whose experiences with minorities had only been based on the less complex groups in North China. To investigate and identify these minority groups, research teams were sent out to conduct extensive fieldwork in the 1950s, especially in China’s most multi-ethnic province, Yunnan. The identification and categorization work was mainly carried out by Chinese ethnologists and linguists (Mullaney 2012: 39). By applying language in the first place as a surrogate for minzu identity, 55

31 Fitzgerald provides a detailed analysis of the various Chinese terms applied to describe the nation against the background of China’s modern history, see Fitzgerald, 1995. 32 Details on Japan’s Muslim policies and Chinese Muslims’ responses see Mees, 1984, pp. 86–102.

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minorities had been classified and officially recognised as shaoshu minzu by the end of the 1980s (Fei 1981: 61) and this number remains to date. During the ethnic classification process, nine Muslim minorities were recognised based on their distinct language: the Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Dongxiang, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Salars, Tajiks, Bonans, and Tatars. The Hui were then employed by the Communist government as an ethnonym for the residual Muslim populations who do not have a language of their own but speak the dialects of the people among whom they live, as opposed to the other nine groups listed above (Gladney 1996: 19–20). Thus, the name Hui, as a shaoshu minzu in the PRC, remains a hybrid and elusive term. In order to define nationality in China, the Communist authorities borrowed the 4 Stalinist criteria which had profoundly shaped the Soviet policy towards nationalities. The criteria include a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological makeup manifested in a common culture (Gladney 1996: 66). None of these, however, adequately apply to the identity of the Hui: They do not share a common language but rather speak the dialect where they live; they do not have a common territory but are distributed throughout the whole country; they do not share a common economic life since their occupations vary from peasants to tradesmen and even state clerks; finally, they do not share a common culture, as the Hui in different regions have incorporated abundant local customs rather than having developed a pan-Hui “psychological makeup”. Despite its ambiguities and volatile nature, the ethnonym has been utilised as an official ethnic status describing the remnant Muslim populations in the whole country. These peoples, in turn, will occasionally attribute themselves to the Hui in some contexts due to the fact that the word is written on their ID card. Nevertheless, among the rural Jahriyya in Ningxia whom I came into contact with, the word “Hui” is rarely used in terms of nationality as defined and classified by the Communist government. Instead, the term is often mentioned with reference to their Arabic genealogy and their sense of belonging to the Jahriyya lineage, whose identity is strongly formed by a martyrish hagiography.

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2.2 The Jahriyya: “the order of bloody necks”

2.2

The Jahriyya: “the order of bloody necks” “Who would have ever imagined 33 within the national boundary is my boundless prison.”

Since this thesis focuses on the Jahriyya Hui, one of the largest Sufi menhuan in China, it is important to illustrate Sufism’s entry into China and the formation of Muslim menhuan in the 18th and 19th century. The thesis keeps to the use of “menhuan” because it is a unique Chinese term which will lose its multiple meanings by translating it into an English or Arabic word. Gladney explains the word as follows: “‘saintly descent group or school’, sociopolitical institution based upon the family of the saint and his followers, or his appointees” (Gladney 1996: 407). Nevertheless, no small number of publications in English place “menhuan” on the same level as “order”. Gladney applied the word “order” as an equivalent to “jiaopai” (Gladney 1996: 404), religious fractions to which menhuan are subordinate. Chinese Islamic scholars strictly distinguish the two terms: Traditionally they have classified three major jiaopai (Gedimu, Yihewani and Xidaotang) and four menhuan (Khufiyyah, Jahriyya, Kubriyya and 34 Gādiriyyah). Recently, this traditional classification was challenged by a new perspective: Based on the fact that neither Kubriyya nor Gādiriyyah is uniquely Chinese, in contrast to Khufiyyah and Jahriyya, and the former two have their teachings and subbranches in different countries and continents, it does not prove plausible to call them menhuan. They should be ascribed to “jiaopai”. On the contrary, as both Khufiyyah and Jahriyya are derived from the Naqshbandī teaching, a Sufi order rooted in Central Asia, and both exist only in the Chinese context, it is more appropriate to refer to them as menhuan (Ding Shiren 2014: 253–5). Indeed, menhuan as a term came with Sufism’s entry into China and is viewed as the indige33 From Zhang Chengzhi’s “Xinling Shi” (“History of the Soul”), pp. 140. The English translation is derived from Choy, 2006, pp. 705–6. 34 The most influential publication that represents this classification is Ma Tong’s “Zhongguo Yisilan Jiaopai yu Menhuan Zhidu Shilüe” (A Historical Outline of Sectarian Institutions in Chinese Islam), released first in 1983. In my thesis, I prefer using the Arabic transcription of these menhuan names to the Chinese transcription, because the Arabic form is more commonly used in English sources on Islam in China. In the index, I have added the Chinese transcription and characters, which are widely applied in Chinese sources.

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nised form of Sufi paths. In China, it had a strong association with feudal landlord economy and militant political activism in its origin. In spite of its negative connotations in the past, the word is still often to be heard among rural Hui in Ningxia today when it comes to reference their own and the others’ religious affiliations. It seems that the large-scale communist movements and land reforms in the 1950s and 1960s have eliminated the feudal and militant elements of menhuan, so that the application of the word is not considered derogatory today. Nevertheless, Ningxia’s Hui villagers do not clearly distinguish “jiaopai” and “menhuan” in their usage of the two words, in contrast to Muslim scholars. In their oral language, Hui peasants apply “menhuan” to also indicate sub-menhuan. Despite the complex character of the term and the difficulties in defining it, menhuan play an irreplaceable role in the religious self-identification of the Hui in Northwest China. As Dillon stresses, the membership of a given menhuan “is not just a question of religious belief but an expression of individual and family identity” (Dillon 1999: 91). 2.2.1 Sufism’s entry into China and the formation of menhuan In his attempt to explain Sufism, Clifford Geertz notes: Despite the otherworldly ideas and activities so often associated with it, Sufism, as an historical reality, consists of a series of different and even contradictory experiments, most of them occurring between the ninth and nineteenth centuries, in bringing orthodox Islam (itself no seamless unity) into effective relationship with the world, rendering it accessible to its adherents and its adherents accessible to it (Geertz 1971: 48). To examine Sufism explicitly in historical or theological terms exceeds the scope of this thesis. Though being diffuse as a term, Sufism as a worldwide spiritual guide seems to have quickly found its sociopolitical role soon after its entry in China. Moreover, the diverse competitive Sufi paths (Arabic singular “tarīqa”, plural “turuq”) were also able to immediately transform adapting to the given Chinese conditions. The transformation of Sufi paths into menhuan denotes the successful institutionalisation of mystical Islam in the Chinese context. In their zeal for recognition, influence and religious piety of the adherents, the different Sufi paths recognised the exact local powers to which they should ally. 50

2.2 The Jahriyya: “the order of bloody necks”

Sufism was introduced into China mainly in two ways: Sufi missionaries from India as well as Central Asia who came to China, and Chinese Muslim scholars who had visited places including Medina and Yemen where diverse Sufi schools were prevalent. As early as the 16 th century, Sufi missionaries proselytising for their beliefs in China were recorded in Chinese sources. Together with them, these Sufi missionaries brought theories and books on the mystical school of Islam (Jin Yijiu 2013: 28 ff). During the following centuries, the impact of Sufism on Chinese Muslims, particularly on the Hui, has been tremendous: The wide-spread jingtang jiaoyu as mentioned in the chapter above used several Sufi classics as teaching material. Accompanied by Sufi’s entry into China, more and more Islamic books were published in Chinese by Muslim scholars whose theological thinking had been strongly influenced by Sufism (Jin Yijiu 2013: 43–50). The most considerable effect of Sufism on Chinese Islam is the formation of menhuan, a distinctive Chinese pattern of religious and social organisation. Dillon attempts to explain the meanings of menhuan by noting that “[...] it seems to be the equivalent of both the Arabic tariqa (the Sufi path or way) and the silsila, the chain of holy men linking it with Islamic orders in the past, and in China it almost always involves the hereditary succession as head of the order, the veneration of the tomb of the founding fathers” (Dillon 1999: 114). Chinese scholars usually characterise menhuan as the outcome of Sufism’s indigenisation and acculturation in feudal China (Yang Wenbi 2012: 135; Zhang Zhongfu 1999: 48). As far as menhuan is concerned, the majority of its members are the Hui. Although there were, and still are Salars, among both the Khufiyyah and the Jahriyya, they made and continue to make up, only a very small proportion in each menhuan. In Chinese Muslim’s historiography, Ma Laichi is generally declared to be the founder of the first menhuan. As per Ma Tong’s description, Ma Laichi was born in Hezhou in 1681 and died in 1766 at an age of eighty-six 35 (Ma Tong 1983: 223–7). Ma’s father, a 40-year-old, childless, wealthy merchant, spent most of his wealth searching for support to have a son. 35 For the calculation of Ma Laichi’s age, Ma Tong applied the Chinese lunar calendar. According to Fletcher, however, Ma was born in 1673 and died in 1753 – almost ten years earlier than the dates published in Chinese sources. For details, see Wang Jianping, 1999, pp. 20. Unfortunately, Wang neither ascribes accuracy to one of the authors nor gives explanations about the discrepancy in his comparative analysis.

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At the same time, a Naqshbandī Sufi called Khoja Āfāq and known to the Chinese as Hedayetonglaxi (Hidāyat Allāh) was gaining a reputation and considered almighty among the local population in Northwest China. The childless man paid a visit to Khoja Āfāq in Xining, the capital of Qinghai Province. The latter helped him by advising him to marry a certain girl at 37 the West Gate in Hezhou. Nine years later, Ma Laichi was born, but the business of his father was badly destroyed by a sudden fire. For this reason, he was given the name “Laichi”, meaning “Arrived Too Late”. At the age of eight, Ma Laichi was sent by his now indigent father to a friend in Milagou, where he went to a madrasa and studied the Naqshbandī teachings. Ma was not only intelligent but also diligent, so that he could complete the whole Islamic curriculum and become an imam at eighteen. The Naqshbandiyya became popular in Northwest China in the 17 th century mainly due to two Central Asian preachers: Muhammad Yūsuf 38 and his son, the above-mentioned Khoja Āfāq (Fletcher 1995: 11–15). Muhammad Yūsuf travelled eastward from Altishahr to Turfan and Hami, then through the Gansu corridor to Suzhou where he preached and spread widely the Naqshbandī teachings. From Suzhou, he proceeded eastward to Xunhua, the “country of the Salars”. According to Fletcher’s account, he stayed six months and gained a large number of adherents among the Salars (Fletcher 1995: 13). The Sufi preacher returned to Altishahr where he was eventually poisoned by his rivals and died in 1653 (Lipman 1997: 59). His son, Khoja Āfāq, stayed and preached at further places in northwestern China and gained greater influence than his father. As Fletcher writes, “Huis, Salars, northeastern Tibetan Muslims, and undoubtedly also Muslims of China’s other ethnic groups came to hear the khoja preach. Among these Chinese Muslims, Khoja Āfāq won the commitment (Arabic: inābat) of the subsequent initiators of three Naqshbandī saintly lineages (men-huan) that came eventually to dominate Muslim religious life in the Chinese northwest” (Fletcher 1995: 14). 36 Wang Jianping’s “Glossary of Chinese Islamic Terms” gives a brief but comprehensive outline of the foundation of the Naqshbandī order and its development and influences in Northwest China. See Wang, 2001, pp. 84. 37 It is remarkable that Ma Laichi was born nine years after his father’s visit to the omnipotent Khoja Āfāq, according to Chinese accounts. 38 Lipman points out the possibility that many of the acts attributed to the father or son may have been conflated with each other in the Turkish and Persian sources which Fletcher’s account of their lives is based on (Lipman 1997: 59, fn. 4).

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2.2 The Jahriyya: “the order of bloody necks”

Ma Laichi, the founder of the first menhuan in China, received the 39 Naqshbandī mystical path from his supervisor Li Taibaba during his stay in the madrasa in Milagou. Li Taibaba had studied Naqshbandiyya under Khoja Āfāq in his early years. Later on he chose Ma Laichi not only as his son-in-law but also as his successor (khalīfa) (Fletcher 1995: 14). Ma undertook the pilgrimage at a relatively older age. Unfortunately, facts referring to the departure date of Ma Laichi’s pilgrimage, as well as his tours to Mecca, differ greatly in various sources. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that on his journey he stayed for some time in Yemen visiting well-known Sufi imams and leaders, and in Mecca he studied under a Sufi master by the name of Mawlānā Makhdūm. Supposedly, Mawlānā Makhdūm passed the “Mingshale” onto Ma Laichi on the latter’s departure back to China. Ma used it later as a chanting text during religious ceremonies such as the ermaili ceremonies. The identity of “Mingshale” is not clear. Fletcher assumes it could be a commentary on the “’Lamacāt”, an abridged paraphrase from “Wisdom of the Prophets” by a famous Spanish mystic (Fletcher 1995: 17–8). Since it is allegedly much shorter than the Koran, the use of “Mingshale” as a replacement for the Koran shortened the length of the chanting and thus 40 the expenses of ceremonies for the organisers. For this reason, Ma Laichi immediately won a large following among Muslims of the lower class. Ma spent the majority of his life preaching and teaching in Gansu and Qinghai Province, though he also shortly stayed in Yunnan and Guangzhou in southern China to convince the local Muslims of his branch. He founded the first menhuan in China: the Huasi (literally multicoloured mosque) menhuan in Qinghai, which was named after the colourful architectural style of the mosque, which was built for him by the local converted believers. Ma Laichi established hereditary succession as the principle for transmission of religious leadership and emphasised the centrality of Sufi tombs in the ritual lives of the adherents (Lipman 1997: 70). Thus, the Huasi embodied the character of a traditional menhuan from the very beginning. At around 80 years of age, Ma Laichi passed his power on to his third son, Ma Guobao. From then on until today, the leadership of Huasi 39 In Fletcher’s “The Naqshbandiyya in Northwest China” his name is “Ma Taibaba”. 40 Traditionally, a family who organised the ermaili ceremony must give the ahong, who had led the chanting, a certain amount of money as a reward. The amount depended on the length of the chanting.

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remains within the agnate genealogy of Ma Laichi (Ma Tong 1983: 223– 50). The arrival of divisive Sufi paths in China in the 18 th century resulted in the formation of many different menhuan and the inevitable competition for influence between them. Among the many disputes that occurred between the various menhuan, the conflict between Ma Laichi’s Huasi, which belongs to the Khufiyyah menhuan, and the Jahriyya, was one of the most dramatic and long-lasting ones in the whole Hui history. 2.2.2 Jahriyya Muslims: hagiography and present situation A large number of narratives about the Jahriyya’s founder Ma Mingxin are available both in written and oral forms. The most significant work about Ma Mingxin’s life and the hagiography of the Jahriyya menhuan is “Reshihaer” (Arabic: “Rashah”) by Guanliye, a disciple of Mu Xianzhang, Ma Mingxin’s direct successor. The manuscript was written in Arabic and Persian around the turn of the 19 th century (Wang Jianping 1999: 22). As it was a time when the Jahriyya were suppressed and pursued across the country as rebels, the author chose Arabic, and later Persian, languages which were only understandable for few religious scholars. The book was not published in Chinese until 1993. Before then, it is estimated that there had been only about 30 manuscripts of the original copy throughout China (Zhang Chengzhi 1990: 68). A comparable later work is the “Zhehanye Daotong Shizhuan” by the Hui scholar and religious head, Ma Xuezhi, first released around 1933 in Arabic (Arabic title: “Al-Kitab alJahri”). Chinese translations of the book did not emerge until after the Reform and Opening-Up policy in the 1980s (Zhang Zhongfu 2011: 4). Another well-known book on the hagiography of the Jahriyya is Zhang Chengzhi’s “Xinling Shi” (History of the Soul) (Zhang Chengzhi 1996). Zhang was born in a Hui family in Beijing. In order to find out 41 more about his Hui identity, Zhang went to the countryside of southern Ningxia and resided among the Jahriyya peasants for six years. His book is based on many narratives Zhang had collected during his years of stay, refined by his great literary skills and strong empathy for the Jahriyya. The book was first published in 1991. Soon after its release, Zhang gained not only strong praise and acknowledgement, but also fierce criticism, 41 Some critics say “rediscover his identity”.

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partially due to the author’s accusation of the intolerance and suppression of the (Han) Chinese culture against subaltern ethnic groups. The literary critic, Howard Y. F. Choy, remarks that “[i]n Zhang’s historical geography China is less a unified nation than a floating plate of displacements. His geohistoriographic fiction of the marginalized minority has deconstructed the nationalistic discourse that normalizes territorial integrity and economic expansion” (Choy 2006: 706). Despite the controversial responses it received in the 1990s, “Xinling Shi” is today known to almost every Hui in Ningxia and the book is available in many small or large Muslim shops in the province. More recently, the Muslim scholar Yang Xuelin published a monograph entitled “Zheherenye”, depicting the different phases of the 42 evolution of the Jahriyya and the generations of their leadership. This might be the first comprehensive academic work focusing solely on the Jahrriyya. In the appendix, Yang provides useful and informative charts on the names of, and the relations between, the many influential Jahriyya leaders, together with their biographical data. Ma Mingxin is regarded as the founder of the Jahriyya branch. Because of the fact that the Jahriyya had not become a menhuan in the true sense of the word until many decades after Ma Mingxin’s death (Yang Wenbi 2012: 136–9), it is more accurate to state here that Ma Mingxin introduced and established the Jahriyya teaching than to ascertain that he is the founder of the Jahriyya “menhuan”. Ma Mingxin’s father died one year before his birth in 1719. In his young childhood, Ma lost both his mother and his grandfather. As a result, he was sent to his uncle who earnt his living by doing simple and temporary jobs for a mosque while learning Islamic classics at the same time. Ma read Islamic books in Arabic together with his uncle and went on a pilgrimage with the latter at the 43 age of nine (Yang Xuelin 2010: 29). However, on their way to Mecca, the uncle and nephew lost each other during a sandstorm in a desert. Ma Mingxin was found and helped by the local inhabitants to continue the journey. However, there was no record regarding the whereabouts of his uncle. Ma reached Yemen after spending some time in Bukhara studying

42 See Yang Xuelin’s introduction in “Zheherenye” (Yang Xuelin 2010: 1–3). 43 Nine is the age mentioned in most Chinese sources, however, one cannot rule out the possibility that he was slightly younger or older when he started the journey. See Wang Jianping, 1999, fn. 31.

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Islamic teachings from different Sufi scholars. In Yemen, Ma Mingxin received the Naqshbandī teaching from Abd al-Khāliq (ca. 1705–1740), the son of az-Zayn, the Yemen’s leading Naqshbandī master (Fletcher 1989: 45 21). From Yemen, Ma set out for Mecca several times. In 1744, Ma Mingxin went back to China at the age of 25 (Yang Xuelin 2010: 40). On Ma Mingxin’s return to China, Sufi teachings had already spread among Muslims in Northwest China. In order to gain adherents and launch a new religious school, Ma had to implement many reforms: Firstly, he acted against the menhuan system by passing on the leadership to his virtuous and able disciple, but not to his son. Since then, the phrase “chuan xian bu chan zi” (passing on the leadership to the virtuous but not to the son) has become well-known among the Jahriyya followers. Secondly, Ma advocated a plain style of mosque or gongbei ornament and a more modest way of holding religious ceremonies. Last of all, Ma introduced the jahr, the use of exclamation in the remembrance of God, i.e. the 46 vocal dhikr. Due to the application of the jahr, the vocal chanting, the new Sufi path Ma had founded was given the name “Jahriyya”, literally “loud chanting school”. When Ma Mingxin returned to China, his co-religionist Ma Laichi had already taught and disseminated the Naqshbandī teaching for ten years (Wang Jianping 1999: 25). At the same time, Ma Laichi promoted the “sirr”, the secret or silent dhikr and condemned the way of vocal chanting. Interestingly, the discrepancy between the sirr and the jahr did not result in any violent disputes in Yemen, where both Ma Laichi and Ma Mingxin had received most of their teachings. On the contrary, Fletcher notes that “there seems to have been a noteworthy openness to new forms of dhikr among the Zabid Naqshbandīs” (Fletcher 1995: 30, fn. 48). However, in China’s Northwest, where the Naqshbandiyya was just establishing its roots, the conflict between Ma Laichi’s Huasi and the Jahriyya became in44 Fletcher notes that Ma Mingxin might have met Ma Laichi in Bukhara on the latter’s return to China. See Fletcher, 1995, pp. 28. 45 Fletcher holds the opinion that Ma Laichi must have taken most of his lessons from az-Zayn, too. See Fletcher, 1995, pp. 27. Sadly, Ma Mingxin’s Jahriyya and Ma Laichi’s Khufiyyah came into irreconcilable conflict later on in northwest-

ern China, although they had studied similar Naqshbandī teachings from even the same teachers. 46 For the various meanings of dhikr see Gardet, 1965, pp. 230–3 and Glassé, 2001, pp. 116–7.

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evitable, while Ma Mingxin’s constituency was getting larger and larger. Ma Laichi, especially his son and successor Ma Guobao, were aware of the strong competition and threat due to the increase of the Jahriyya. In 1762, a suit against the Jahriyya was brought by Ma Guobao who accused his competitors of heterodoxy (Yang Xuelin 2010: 44–5). As a result, Ma Mingxin and his adherents were forced to leave Hezhou, the central area of Islamic teachings and the arena for Muslim leaders as well as scholars to advocate for their religious and political ideas. After 18 years of teaching and spreading his ideal in Hezhou, Ma Mingxin moved eastward to Mapo and later to Majiapu in today’s Huining County, adjacent to Ningxia. In the course of the Jahriyya’s second and third leadership, the branch gradually migrated from Gansu to Ningxia (Yang Xuelin 2010: 66–70). Unfortunately, Ma Mingxin’s banishment did not end the doctrinal dispute of the Jahriyya with the Huasi menhuan. In fact, the duel became more and more violent, resulting in mutual killings. Ma Mingxin was accused of fermenting the vendetta and imprisoned by Qing officers in Lanzhou. Ma’s arrest caused more dissatisfaction on the part of his adherents. A rebellion was organised by Ma’s disciple Su Sishisan and his goddaughter Sailimai with the aim to pressure the Qing commanders to release their head. In order to quickly pacify the upheaval, the Qing officers executed Ma Mingxin and put down the rebellion by force. Su Sishisan and Sailimai were both killed in the fighting. Ma Mingxin’s two sons were banished to Yunnan and his two wives and three daughters were exiled to Ili in Xinjiang. A son and a daughter could not stand the agonising conditions of exile and died on their way. Ma’s first wife and his maidservant threw themselves into the river to follow their master (He Zhaoguo 1987: 137–8). After Ma Mingxin’s execution, the Jahriyya’s religious activities became restrained and secretive. Both the religious heads and their adherents feared further persecution. The second and third Jahriyya sheikh completed Ma Mingxin’s posthumous undertaking, which was to gradually relocate their branch from Gansu to Ningxia’s Wuzhong, Lingwu and Qingtongxia. Despite being cautious and prudent with their teachings, both of them were arrested and maltreated by the Qing and subsequently died. In the 1860s, Ma Hualong, the fifth generation of Jahriyya leadership initiated another Hui rebellion against the Qing. The insurgency lasted eight years. During this time, many militarily significant cities and counties in 57

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Gansu and Ningxia were occupied by the Hui and numerous Qing commanders were killed. Based on this fact, Ma Hualong’s insurrection was regarded as the largest one against political rulers in the Jahriyya history. After years of fighting, Ma Hualong eventually had to surrender due to the Qing’s deployment of huge numbers of troops nationwide and the internal conflicts between the insurgency leaders. He was executed by lingchi, using a knife to remove portions of the body over an extended period of time. Around 300 members of his extended family were killed and approximately 1800 Hui soldiers were executed. After the insurgency, the Qing strengthened their administrative control over Ningxia’s Hui communities. Many Jahriyya populations concentrated around the rebellion’s centre Jinjipu in today’s Wuzhong were split up and resettled to barren and isolated areas in southern Ningxia (He Zhaoguo 1987: 141–3). Due to their unique history of persecution and bloodshed since their first establishment, the Jahriyya were given the name “xuebozi jiao”—the order of bloody necks. The name also reveals that many Jahriyya adherents did not hesitate to sacrifice themselves in order to save their branch or to follow their master. Ma Mingxin was supposed to have opposed the menhuan system: He led a frugal and self-sufficient life and passed the leadership to his trusted 47 disciples instead of to his male descendants. The two direct successors appointed by Ma Mingxin both followed their master by fulfilling the same ideal and disseminating the doctrine in other areas. None of them purchased private property or accumulated personal wealth. Therefore, Yang Wenbi ascertains that the Jahriyya did not possess the complete characteristics of a menhuan until Ma Mingxin’s great-grandson took power and founded the Beishan menhuan, a subbranch of the Jahriyya, in Gansu’s Zhangjiachuan (Yang Wenbi 2012: 142). After the fifth Jahriyya leader Ma Hualong was executed, the Sufi branch was in a difficult situation regarding the succession of his mantle: Ma Hualong did not appoint anyone to take over his position and his kinsmen were either imprisoned or put to death. At this important moment, Ma Yuanzhang (1853–1920) and his brother became active in the following respects: First, Ma Yuanzhang and his brother made great efforts to detect and salvage any remnants of Ma Hualong’s family who had 47 Ma Mingxin appointed both the second and the third Jahriyya sheikh during his lifetime.

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survived the massacre. Second, Ma Yuanzhang successfully undertook commercial ventures and improved the economic position of the Hui in northwestern China. Owing to his economic success and solid education in classical Chinese, Ma Yuanzhang cultivated friendships with nonJahriyya Muslims and allied himself with influential warlords in the Republic of China. Under his leadership, the Jahriyya enjoyed a social and religious revival, for they finally did not need to hide their identity in public and undertake their Islamic duties in secret. Lastly, Ma Yuanzhang bribed Qing officers to retrieve the skull of Ma Hualong and buried it in Beishan in Zhangjiachuan. Ma Hualong built a gongbei there in remembrance of the former sheikh (Yang Xuelin 2010: 184–6). Centring on Beishan, Ma Yuanzhang performed his daily prayers, recruited disciples and disseminated the Jahriyya teaching. It was also during this time that a large number of gongbei were built, demonstrating the authoritative and absolute power of the Jahriyya sheikhs (Yang Wenbi 2012: 142). By the time when Ma Yuanzhang established the two centres in Beishan and Shagou for his preaching and teaching, the Jahriyya became a menhuan, as Lipman puts it, “with all of the centralizing and fragmenting possibilities of that complex institution and its commitment to stability and continuity within Chinese society” (Lipman 1997: 185). While Ma Yuanzhang built his headquarters in Beishan, and later in Shagou, claiming the Jahriyya founder Ma Mingxin’s kouhuan (permission or oral transmission of succession) for himself, Ma Jinxi, the grandson of Ma Hualong, established the Banqiao menhuan located in Jinjipu, and considered himself to be the legal inheritor of the Jahriyya’s fifth sheikh. The menhuan’s legitimacy thus split into several sub-menhuan, all centring either on Ma Yuanzhang or Ma Jinxi. These sub-menhuan continue to coexist until today. Due to the fact that both Ma Yuanzhang and his brother married a female descendant of Ma Hualong and thus built up an in-law relationship with the latter’s lineage, the various sub-menhuan acknowledge each other and their coexistence is relatively peaceful rather 48 than competitive. Another factor which fosters a comparably harmoni48 The incidents that happened between 1992 and 1993 in Xiji County have been the single act of violence to this present day, in which the Shagou menhuan and the Banqiao menhuan fought against each other for sectarian domination. The two sub-menhuan’s main leaders involved in or responsible for the brawls were arrested and imprisoned for many years. After the adjudication of their heads, the two opponent groups were pacified.

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ous relationship between the Jahriyya sub-menhuan is the fact that there are few significant differences in their religious practices. In the latter part of the 1950s, there were approximately 300,000 49 Jahriyya throughout China. Approximately half of them were attributed to the Shagou menhuan (He Zhaoguo 1987: 150 and 152). Male Jahriyya members wear hexagonal skullcaps which are usually either white or black. In contrast to other menhuan members, the Jahriyya young men do not keep a beard on their cheeks or chins. Only honoured seniors wear a goatee beard in remembrance of the founder of their school, Ma Mingxin. It is said that the latter’s beard on the cheeks was completely plucked out while he was in jail. Beyond these characteristics in appearance, the adherents are distinguished by houkai, praying first and then eating during 50 an ermaili ceremony. In a Friday prayer, the Jahriyya bow down ten times while a majority of the Hui from other menhuan do it sixteen times. Once a Jahriyya ahong is invited to chanting at a believer’s home, the “Maidayiha” must be recited. Since it is said that Ma Mingxin brought the book from abroad to China, it plays a more important role at Jahriyya rituals than other Islamic books (He Zhaoguo 1987: 153–4). 2.2.3 Religious structure and organisation As set out above, menhuan is the indigenised mode of Sufi paths in feudal Northwest China. As the Chinese Islamic scholar Zhou Chuanbin states: “The transition of Sufi paths into menhuan is a process of institutionalisa51 tion and secularisation” (Zhou Chuanbin 2002: 74). Based on hereditary ruling, the sheikh’s absolute authoritarianism, and a strict hierarchy in terms of religious power, leaders of large menhuan were at the same time landowners, entrepreneurs or businessmen. Some of the menhuan were even equipped with troops and weapons. During the Democratic Reform of the Religious System in 1958, many menhuan’s land and other properties were collectivised. Consequently, the menhuan lost tremendous economic and social power (He Zhaoguo 1987: 156–7). Today, they function as a marker to demonstrate the Hui’s ethnoreligious affiliation and as an Islamic and social organisation. When among themselves, Ningxia’s Hui 49 Unfortunately, a more up-to-date number of the nationwide Jahriyya population cannot be found by the author. 50 For more details about ermaili ceremonies, see chapter 6.1. 51 Author’s own translation.

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in the countryside pay great attention to one’s menhuan-belonging. There has been a tendency that members of one menhuan strongly populate one 52 area and very sparsely populate another in southern Ningxia. In sum, if we consider Islam as a superordinate element enclosing and consolidating all Muslims in the world based on the same belief, menhuan can be understood as a subordinate fact in Northwest China which segregates and sometimes even isolates Islamic adherents. In order to exemplify the religious structure and organisation of a menhuan, it is helpful to introduce the Jahriyya’s early and present patterns of power distribution. Traditional religious structure of the Jahriyya menhuan can be divided into four levels and abstracted with the help of the following chart:

sheikh reyisi

ahong

adherents

The diagram derives its origin from Zhou Chuanbin’s article “Xihaigu Yisilanjiao de zongjiao qunti he zongjiao zuzhi”, published in “Ningxia Shehui Kexue” in 2002, page 75. 52 See the table in Zhou Chuanbin’s article “Xihaigu Yisilanjiao de zongjiao qunti he zongjiao zuzhi” (Religious groups and organisations of Islam in Xihaigu), pp. 72. According to his table, Jahriyya public venues (mosques, teaching halls and gongbei) dominate over other menhuan by a large number in Xiji County (247 out of 504), whereas they are clearly outnumbered by the Khufiyya in Haiyuan (22 in contrast to 419). Zhou’s data was collected in 2001. It will be very interesting to conduct a similar survey now to compare the more up-to-date figures with those over ten years ago when internal migration in Ningxia had just started on a large scale. In doing so, one might be able to shed light on the impacts of migration on the formation or dissolution of menhuan-based population concentrations.

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The model demonstrates a clear hierarchy with the sheikh as its head. The sheikh was considered almighty in terms of religion and he was sometimes placed on equal footing with a saint: His was supposed to be able to answer all religious questions. His handwritings and objects touched by him were seen as sacred. The sheikh’s “kouhuan” was accepted overall and obeyed within his menhuan. He appointed his reyisi, his representatives, as well as the local ahong. There were several reyisi in different areas of Ningxia. They were usually either the sheikh’s relatives or his close and entrusted disciples. The Jahriyya sheikh had and has his settled domicile in Yinchuan, the capital city of Ningxia. His representatives were sent to remote places to meet his responsibilities when it came to, for instance, appointment or transfer of a local ahong (He Zhaoguo 1987: 156). Ordinary believers had and have the chance to see their sheikh on large ermaili ceremonies held at the place of his residence in Yinchuan. Beyond these occasions, it was and is not possible for them to visit the sheikh anytime they want. This strict hierarchical structure has been changed to some degree by the introduction of the siguanhui, the mosque administration committee, which I will discuss later in this chapter. At village level, an ahong played, and still plays, an essential role in the social and religious life of the Jahriyya adherents. The word ahong has its origin in the Persian word “ākhond” which literally means “teacher” or “scholar”. An ahong is someone who has completed several years of Is53 lamic education in an official institution, obtained a certification after graduation and been recognised through an ordination ceremony. The majority of ahong work in a mosque and are involved in all public relations activities centring around the mosque. They are responsible for teaching students, holding ceremonies and conciliating religious and civil conflicts (He Kejian/Yang Wanbao 2003: 2). Generally speaking, an ahong can hold his position in one mosque for a maximum of three years before he is either transferred or voted out in a new election. Nevertheless, an honoured ahong can be reelected several times so that some ahong stay in the same village for a much longer period. In an Ikhwān village in southern Ningxia, I met an elder ahong who had worked his entire life in the same mosque. This phenomenon is unfortunately becoming rarer and rarer in the newly built migrant areas in central and northern Ningxia. By con53 The duration of their Islamic education varies from five to seven years, usually depending on their menhuan affiliation.

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trast, ahong in the “receiving” areas tend to move periodically between townships and even counties. Moreover, I indirectly came to know more and more young ahong who gave up their religious qualification and chose to pursue secular professions. This can be explained by the facts that there is a slight surplus of ahong in some parts of Ningxia and the earnings of a rural ahong are comparatively not as attractive as the income of someone who pursues a non-religious job, e.g. restaurant owners, office clerks or businessmen (Yang Wenbi 2014a: 15–6; Yan Yuxiao et al. 2015: 95–7). Due to their years’ long Islamic education, ahong are able to read the Koran and some other religious scripts in Arabic and thus able to lead public chanting in Arabic during important rituals. A part of the Jahriyya ahong are graduates from eminent Jahriyya daotang (teaching halls) in Ningxia: Honglefu daotang, Xijitan daotang, Shagou daotang. In April 2013, I paid a visit to the Xijitan daotang in southern Ningxia. There were approximately 20 teachers and 160 students at that time dwelling and teaching/learning in the daotang. The students were all male, aged approximately from 16 to 24 years. Most of them were graduates from middle or high school and had thus completed the state’s nine-year secular education. Students stay six years in the daotang receiving lessons both on Islamic classics and on Arabic and Chinese languages. According to my informants, the students’ accommodation, meals and lessons were all for 54 free. The aggregate expenses of 60,000 yuan per month were covered mainly through donations from the Jahriyya Hui. Beside daotang, some large local mosques also offer religious lessons and thus qualify their students to work as ahong. An undergraduate from a daotang or mosque is popularly called “manla” among the Jahriyya. A manla assists or, when necessary, represents an ahong in fulfilling the latter’s religious duties. 55 There are over four thousand mosques in Ningxia. The majority of them can be attributed to a distinct menhuan or jiaopai (order). The foundation and size of a mosque depends strongly on the Hui communities surrounding it. In fact, the Chinese word “si” for mosque is often used in combination with the word “fang”, which is generally considered equiv54 The exchange rate between Euro and yuan varies between 7 and 9 since 2011. 60,000 yuan was equal to approximately 7,353 Euro in 2013. 55 The number comes from the two-volume “Ningxia Qingzhensi Gaiguan”, a collection of detailed descriptions and illustrations of Ningxia’s each mosque.

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alent to the Arabic word “jamīya” which means “gathering” or “congregation”. Rural Hui apply “fang” in the context of a Muslim neighbourhood or a Muslim community centred on a mosque (Wang 2001: 135). The members or households of the community are called “fangmin”. “Si” and “fang” together constitute a solid religious unit in a village. A mosque is the venue of daily prayers and religious ceremonies and the place to hold visitors (the majority of the time) from its fang. The ahong, who usually lives in the mosque, is responsible for the religious requests and behaviours of his fangmin. The fangmin in turn are obligated to donate a sum of money and grains to guarantee the subsistence of their mosque and ahong. In fact, the main source of many ahong’s income is their fangmin’s donations. In the two villages where I stayed in central Ningxia, each household donated around 20 kilos of wheat and approximately 100 yuan to their mosque or ahong every year. The villagers assessed that a rural ahong’s income from this kind of mandatory donations varies from 4000 to 6000 yuan a year, depending on the size of his fang. Additional income for an ahong include the “nietie”, alms or donation, paid voluntarily by the 56 visitors of his mosque, and the money he receives as a reward for performing a requested religious service for a family. Noteworthy is that a fang should not be confused with a Muslim village. A mosque and its fang usually have the same menhuan or jiaopai affiliation. It is rarely the case that a Muslim village consists of adherents of solely one menhuan or jiaopai. Based on their common hagiography and distinct religious practices, members of a certain menhuan or jiaopai (being the Jahriyya or the Khufiyyah) are always prone and fond to form a fang and build a mosque of their own, as long as it is financially possible (Zhou Chuanbin 2002: 72–3). A village is a geographic and administrative concept which has its zones; However, a fang is not to be enclosed by visible zones. For instance, the fangmin of one mosque sometimes live in different adjacent villages. In addition, it is often the case that a village has more than one fang and thus more than one mosque. In the two villages where I stayed in central Ningxia, there is no conspicuous concentration of Jahriyya households, though they are in both places the largest Muslim group. Instead, they live scatted among other menhuan-adherents and (in one village) among the Han Chinese. My general impression is 56 Almost every mosque in Ningxia has a donation box called “nietie xiang” at the entrance of their main chanting hall.

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that there are more such villages with mixed menhuan in Ningxia’s new immigration areas than in the traditional south. One can assume that the pre-existing concentrations of fangmin have been intentionally broken up by the state’s migration policy which aims to encourage communications and interactions between the different menhuan. The power of the sheikh as well as the ahong has been reduced by the intervention of the siguanhui, the so-called “mosque administration committees”, which were in large part founded after the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949. Members of the siguanhui are elected by the fangmin of a mosque. They should be devout Muslims, the ones who fulfil their religious duties as models and are good at organisation and administration. There are normally at least three members in a siguanhui: a director, an accountant, and a secretary. They are elected every three to five years (Ma Xiaohua 2009: 90). The members take charge in nominating 57 a head ahong for the mosque, collecting zakat and nietie, and organising public rituals in the mosque. Reyisi as representatives of the sheikh have become few in the modern context. The head ahong and the siguanhui both shoulder socioreligious responsibilities for their fangmin. This kind of bilateral governing of the mosque manifests a slightly loose and flexible structure compared to the pyramid-shaped model presented at the beginning of the chapter. Honoured male Hui seniors called “xianglao” seem to have played a more important role in decision-making in the past (before the 1980s) than in the present. In some villages in southern Ningxia, xianglao now function as an executive body of the mosque or siguanhui. But in the immigration areas, one barely notices any existence of the “xianglao”, due to the fact that most of the immigrants are young generations. Beyond religious institutions, the secular “cunweihui” (village committee) exists as another authority whose power cannot be overlooked in the countryside. The cunweihui is a state institution which functions as the executor of central policies and the mediator between villagers and state organs. Although members of a cunweihui can be completely Hui (in the case of villages whose residents are hundred percent Hui), they are engaged in secular affairs rather than religious ones. These issues include economic growth, family planning, poverty alleviation, improving public infrastructure, and the like on the village level (Liu Guangning/Kotaro 57 The nominated ahong still needs to obtain the permission of the sheikh to get the position.

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Takahashi 2002: 129). There are Hui members in the cunweihui who are at 58 the same time members of the Communist Party. During my fieldwork, I did not have any reason or need to acquaint myself with the cunweihui. Upon my arrival, my host family contacted their ahong and asked for his permission to accommodate a Han in their house. When I asked them if I should inform the cunweihui as well about my field stay, my Hui informants replied just briefly: “It is not in their interest.” Indeed, Islamic institutions such as mosques, gongbei or daotang play a more central role in the Hui peasants’ daily life than secular authorities. In conclusion, it seems that both in the “sending” and the “receiving” areas, the availability of an ahong (at best from one’s own menhuan) is essential in the villagers’ religious life. The sheikh in Yinchuan is a too abstract concept and geographically too far away for ordinary rural populations. The cunweihui is only approached or resorted to when it comes to civil legal disputes. For Hui peasants, the ahong of their fang is not only their spiritual guide and head in religious rituals, but also their mentor in terms of moral behaviour and even the healer of unexplainable diseases. The ahong I met in Ningxia’s villages all actively and consciously exerted influence on their fangmin’s social and religious conducts in accordance with Islamic laws. They were involved in dissuading smoking and drinking alcohol, promoting believers’ frequent visits of mosques, and emphasising the importance of Islamic education. The peasants I encountered generally showed respect toward and reliance on their ahong, based on their belief in the latter’s comprehensive knowledge and his closeness to the sheikh. The one exception might be a few Jahriyya women who occasionally complained that their ahong did not respond immediately and wholeheartedly to their issues, such as domestic exploitation and abuse. “He is the ahong for the men,” said some women disappointedly. Gender hierarchy and its social and religious background will be analysed in detail in chapter 7.

58 Dru Gladney paid attention to the contradictory phenomena of party members being Muslim, while he was doing fieldwork in a Sufi community in central Ningxia. One Hui state cadre gave him the rationalised answer, “I believe in Marxism in my head, but I believe in Islam in my heart”, see Gladney, 1996, pp. 128–9. Unfortunately, Gladney did not further explain or examine the contradictory and incompatible elements between communism and religion in detail.

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Chapter 3 Ecological and labour migration in rural Ningxia

Peasants live in a social world in which they are economically and politically disadvantaged. They have neither sufficient capital nor power to make an impression on the urban society. But they have no illusions about their position. Indeed, often they have no notion at all of that imaginary world which offers social mobility, entrepreneurs free to use their talents and resources to create new enterprises, and the possibility of economic growth, rather than a stabil59 ity fluctuating on the edge of disaster (Diaz 1967: 56). After having outlined the Hui’s and the Jahriyya’s historical background and their religious structure, the following chapters focus on the current state of the people. Due to the long-term persecution and ethnic discrimination in the Qing and Republic of China, many Hui populations fled, or were relocated, to remote and barren areas in southern Ningxia. The disadvantageous natural conditions caused many peasants to migrate to other parts of the province either for temporary work or for permanent living. Population relocation has also become a major political project of the Communist Party of China to reduce or eliminate poverty. In this chapter, I will firstly provide a brief review of China’s inland population flow before providing details on the ecological and labour migration in rural Ningxia. By describing the incentives to migrate and the working and living conditions of migrant workers, I intend to show the external factors which have an influence on a minority’s ethnoreligious change. As Keyes puts it while examining changes in ethnic identities: In radically changed circumstances, pre-existing patterns of social action often prove to be no longer viable. New patterns are then evolved and these, in turn, stimulate, either consciously or unconsciously, a reassessment of the appropriateness of the functions of ethnic group identities upon which these affiliations are predicated. Concomitant with the necessary changes in social patterns, those living in new circumstances may also have to adopt new cultural meanings and practices. The experiences of change themselves may 59 From May N. Diaz, “Introduction: economic relations in peasant society”, pp. 56.

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be subjected to cultural interpretation and both these formulations and the newly adopted cultural characteristics may be utilised in the reassessment of ethnic identities. [...] After a period of time—a period that is highly variable but is rarely, if ever, less than a single generation—new ethnic identities are formed, or old identities are invested with new meanings (Keyes 1982: 15). For a better understanding of the main issue I depict in the subsequent chapters, i.e. how Hui identity is challenged and reassessed under the influence of migration, it is essential to first depict the social circumstances to which migrant peasants have been exposed. After changing residences, the Hui’s pre-existing ethnic and religious self-portraits are questioned and need to be adjusted to their new social environments. While traditional norms and ideas are partially being modified, new elements are actively searched and found on which Hui-ness can be based. This dynamic manifests itself in the following areas which I will investigate respectively after this chapter: purity concept, fasting, and belief in the afterworld.

3.1

China’s internal migration: an overview

Since the Reform and Opening-up policy which began in 1978, population flows across regions in China have rapidly increased. A large share of the rural population has flown to urban areas where job opportunities are evidently more available and incomes higher. The uneven natural conditions—large mountains, plateaus and hilly areas in the west and comparatively less extensive flatland in the east—have resulted in a large imbalance in economic development. Inhabitants from poor areas in the west began to move to eastern regions where China’s economy started booming in the 1990s (Long 1999). Another reason for the mass population flows is the surplus of workforce in rural regions, as a result of rural population growth and mechanised agriculture. Beyond this, a wide disparity between urban and rural living conditions has emerged from two very different welfare systems developed in the 1950s. Urban citizens are privileged when it comes to healthcare, pensions, housing, and security (Ire60 dale et al. 2001: 8). Once the state’s control over migration was loosened, 60 It should be noted that the discrepancy between the two welfare systems and the resulting unequal treatments of urban and rural populations have been reduced by recent policies.

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it is evident that tremendous population flows take place immediately afterwards. The surge of labour migration has been transforming China’s social and economic structure, both in the city and in the countryside, from the end of the 1970s until today. According to the data published by the National Bureau of Statistics of China, the so-called “liudong renkou”, liter61 ally “floating population”, reached 236 million in 2012. The intense interprovincial migration waves of the last few decades have led to an overt discrepancy in population density between eastern cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and inland areas like Sichuan, Gansu and Inner Mongolia. The large number of migrants who left their homes to pursue eco62 nomic success stay in the city for months or even years. Remittances are used to facilitate house-holding and to improve the financial well-being of migrant peasants’ families in the countryside. A 2004 survey finds that remittances sent by migrants within China account for 18 percent of rural income and thereby reduce rural poverty by approximately 20 percent (Wang/Cai 2009: 44). China’s internal migration does not only outplay its international (e)migration in migrants’ number and remittances, but it also demonstrates distinct characteristics: Firstly, large population flows take place as part of China’s urbanisation and modernisation. Rural-urban migration has been promoted and facilitated by central and local authorities with the intent of alleviating poverty and narrowing the income gap. Secondly, patriarchal traditions in the countryside continue to play a salient part in influencing migration patterns, resulting, for instance, in a sharp decline in women migrants after marriage and childbirth, aged between 25 and 63 30. Thirdly, China’s hukou system—a household registration system issued by the government during the 1950s—still restrains rural migrants’ possibilities in receiving the same access to various resources as city 61 See . It is important to point out that the number of migrants will vary depending on, among other factors, the different definitions of migration by the authorities. See, for example, Iredale and Guo, 2003, pp. 12; Fan, 2008, pp. 20. 62 Cindy Fan ascertained that the dominant type of internal population flow in China is circular migration, splitting the peasant household into a permanent rural segment and a temporary urban segment, rather than permanent migration. See Fan, 2008, front page. 63 See Fan, 2008, pp. 78.

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dwellers. Thus, rural migrants’ living conditions in the cities are generally miserable due to their deprivation of healthcare and education. This is because they do not have the same rights as in their hometowns, usually the 64 place where their permanent residence is registered. While migration research on rural-urban flows within China has become more and more abundant, only a few studies have focused on the specific theme of minority migration in China. Some exceptions are the papers published in the books “Contemporary Minority Migration, Education and Ethnicity in China” and “China’s Minorities on the Move”, both edited by Robyn Iredale and other authors working in the same field (Iredale et al. 2001; Iredale et al. 2003). In one of the articles, Iredale and her co-author compare propensities of rural migration between the Han and minority groups and find that a higher proportion of minority interprovincial migrants remain in agricultural occupations (55.3 percent to 21.3 percent between 1985 and 1990). Accordingly, there is a higher proportion of employment of the Han than minority migrants in other occupational categories (Iredale/Guo 2003: 20). The fact that minority migrants have limited access to job opportunities compared to the Han majority could partially be explained by the former’s lack of occupational qualifications. However, ethnic and racial discrimination cannot be excluded from the rationale behind minorities’ lack of success in finding well-paid and less labour-intensive jobs. Other findings from Iredale’s comparisons are, among others, that minority migrants seem to be younger and more feminised and their dependence on kinship, ethnic and hometown networks is stronger than their Han counterparts (Iredale et al. 2001: 100–101 and 241). Compared to many other provinces in China, Ningxia has a relatively low inter-provincial migration rate. According to China’s sixth population census conducted in 2010, together with Tibet, Qinghai and Gansu, Ningxia’s inter-provincial migrants account for only 1.5% of the total migrants’ population in China (Ma Hongqi/Chen Zhongchang 2012: 88). This might confirm the hypothesis that minority populations in autonomous regions prefer migration within the same province, whereas special policies enhance their socioeconomic status and foster ethnic identities (Iredale et al. 2001: 14). 64 For hukou and its impacts on migration see Fan, 2008, pp. 40–53.

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3.2

Ecological migration in Ningxia

Despite the low rate of inter-provincial migration, population flows within Ningxia have become evident since the beginning of the 1980s. This has much to do with the government-initiated ecological migrations which have taken place within the framework of poverty alleviation. Ningxia lies in the arid and semi-arid areas in the middle reaches of the Yellow River where the Loess Plateau borders the Inner Mongolia Plateau. Despite its relatively small size (66,400 square kilometres), the region has a large variety of terrain including highlands, plains, hilly areas, terraces and deserts, which results in very uneven economic development 65 in different places. According to the 2010 census, Ningxia has a population of 6.3 million which makes it one of the most sparsely populated provinces in China. The average per capita annual income of Ningxia’s rural residents amounts to 8,410 yuan in 2014 (Ningxia Huizu zizhiqu tongjiju et al. 2015: 314), well below the national average of 20,167 yuan (Zhonghua renmin gongheguo guojia tongjiju 2015). Furthermore, there is a large discrepancy between the per capita annual income of rural households in plain areas (10,275 yuan in Yinchuan) and in mountainous areas (6,395 yuan in Guyuan) (Ningxia Huizu zizhiqu tongjiju et al. 2015: 323), showing that the natural geographical conditions contribute substantially to the income level of the residents in a given locality in Ningxia. Among the economically less developed areas, most of the counties in southern Ningxia have been the poorest areas nationwide for decades. The southern hilly and gully part of the province is commonly called Xi66 haigu region. The geomorphological character of Xihaigu is primarily related to its arid climate and adverse soil quality, which is clearly shown in the increasing areas of salinised and desertificated earth. Xihaigu is located between 35°14' and 38°23' north latitude and 104°37' and 107°39' east longitude, at an elevation of 1248 to 2955 metres above sea level. It accounts for 58.8% of Ningxia’s total area of land. The region has a mean annual precipitation and high rates of evaporation due to the long duration of sunshine (Figure 2). In 1982, before the state-organised migration 65 See: . 66 For the name “Xihaigu” see Ma Weihua, 2011, p. 3. It should be noted that Xihaigu region does not only include the three counties Xiji, Haiyuan, and Guyuan, as the name suggests, but also five more counties in southern Ningxia.

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Figure 2: Barren earth in southern Ningxia projects were launched, 95 percent of the population in Xihaigu were peasants. Their average annual income per capita was only 126.38 yuan, which was just below half of the national average. To make matters worse, from 1949 to 1997, the population of Xihaigu quadrupled. Accord67 ingly, the average cultivable land per head decreased from 14.8 to 3.9 mu 67 One mu equals about 666.7 square metres.

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from 1950 to 1995. Over-population and low per-capita productivity led to the deterioration of poverty which directly affected children’s school education, since the majority of children had to leave school very early in order to work in the field or elsewhere to increase the family’s income. According to the 1990 census, over half of the population in the region were illiterate. The average schooling time per capita was only 3.37 years (Li Ning 2003: 50–62). One of my informants from Xiji County once described the situation of his childhood in the 1980s as follows: “There were enough grains to eat, but we had no cash and did not have enough (clothes) to put on. To buy secondhand clothes and shoes was very common in the villages. Before I became 18 and went to a vocational school in another town, the longest trip I had ever taken was from our village to the county town which was only a few kilometres away. There was no money for us to leave the county of origin and see how the world beyond the mountains looks like.” Beyond poor agricultural conditions and low income per capita, another feature that distinguishes Xihaigu region from other parts of Ningxia is its large share of Hui inhabitants. According to the 2014 census, around half of the population in Xihaigu were Hui, which lies well above the average Hui percentage of the province (35.7) (Ningxia Huizu zizhiqu tongjiju et al. 2015: 121). A study on the demographic structure of the migrants in Ningxia shows that from the launch of Ningxia’s ecological migration at the beginning of the 1980s to the end of the 1990s, 60.7 percent of the resettled residents were of Hui ethnicity (Qin Junping 1998: 62). Compared to the plain areas in the north, there is an overwhelming part of homogeneous Hui villages and long-established Muslim networks in southern mountainous areas. Also, Islamic traditions have been more deeply embedded into the southern villagers’ secular and religious lives than they are in other parts of rural Ningxia. In 2012, when immigrant Hui talked about their left-behind relatives in Xihaigu, they still often used the word “fengjian”, which means literally “feudal” but in a figurative sense rather “conservative” or “backward”. Hence, to relocate a large number of Muslim residents who have been used to their traditional lifestyles and social environment to new, less Muslim populated places has been a great challenge both for the central and local governments, and for the resettlers as well. Ecological migration promoted by the government began in the early 73

Chapter 3

1980s, within the nationwide framework of poverty eradication and land conversion (Zhang 2011: 85). In the course of the last few decades, different migration patterns have been developed by the government to create sustainable ecological environments and improve migrants’ living stan68 dards. In the following, I will introduce the different patterns and their socioeconomic impacts on migrants’ lives whilst paying special attention to the Hui. In the initial phase, migrations took place within only a few designated counties in southern Ningxia. Attempts were made to increase soil fertility by improving irrigation efficiency at places where natural conditions were appropriate. Villagers within the same county were then relocated to these new areas with better agricultural conditions (Kong Weili 2000: 53). In this way, the inhabitants did not risk losing their familiar social environment and breaking up the existing kin networks. The largest advantages of such in-situ migrations were their low costs and rapid effects because of the short distances from places of origin to destinations. In addition, migration within a county causes only minimal social change for the migrant peasants, since they can remain in their familiar surroundings. Hence, one can assume that this migration pattern might have encountered the least resistance on the part of the villagers. However, lands that have the potential to be converted into cultivable fields are limited in southern Ningxia. To solve the problem of mass poverty in Xihaigu, long-distance migrations proved to be inevitable. Migrations across counties took place soon after the poverty alleviation programme had started (Li Ning 2003: 73–4). Places which are located either along the Yellow River or around big cities (like Yinchuan and Shizuishan) were chosen as receiving areas. In this way, the more developed infrastructure of big cities and of the Yellow River banks could be utilised to help establish new immigration areas quickly. Peasants from southern Ningxia were allocated to large areas of free land in the middle and northern parts of the province for living and farming. This kind of migration happened primarily in the 1980s and early 1990s. Villagers were supported by the local governments (both in their hometown and the receiving counties) to build new houses and open up fertile farmland. This kind of migration usually functioned on a voluntary basis: Peasants were given 68 Different patterns and the sample counties are illustrated in Li Peilin and Wang Xiaoyi’s book “Shengtai Yimin yu Fazhan Zhuanxing”, pp. 18–9.

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the choice whether to move or stay. They were informed of both the bene69 fits and the costs of the move and could then decide for themselves. In the receiving areas, new villages were established consisting of migrants from different townships (xiang) of a county or even from different counties. Yongxin, the village where my host family lives, provides a good sample for studying Ningxia’s ecological migration and its impacts on the Hui migrants’ ethnoreligious identity. The village was built up at the beginning of the 1980s. All the residents were Hui migrants from southern Ningxia. For the resettlement, each household received a two-room 70 71 house for free and about three mu farmland per capita to cultivate. The households were allowed to transfer their fields to trusted relatives and neighbours if they decided to leave the village for a long time, as had been the case in their homeland. This means that the allocated land did not hinder the farmers to go on moving to another place in the short or long run. Yongxin Village was later enlarged by subsequent individual settlers from the south who were encouraged and supported to move in by their kinship and social networks. In 2012, it had 326 households and 1865 residents (Fan Jianrong/Jiang Yu 2012: 98). The first impression one gets by entering the village is the homogeneity of its houses: They were all built in straight rows and have the same size, height and decoration. Newly planted trees are lined up along both sides of the cement roads which divide the houses. Although the majority of the villagers come from Xiji County and speak Xiji dialect, their original townships differ. As of 2012, many of them still had their hukou in Xiji and maintained frequent communications with their left-behind relatives in the south (Figures 3 and 4). There are three menhuan in the village: The vast majority of the villagers belong to the Jahriyya menhuan, while the rest are affiliated to either 69 Certainly, in this context the word “costs” only means the monetary costs. Other costs, for example the loss of cultural traditions and social connections, were and are not easy to predict. 70 Initially, the houses were made of mud. In 2008, the majority of them were replaced by brick houses. The project was again initiated and financially facilitated by the state. 71 The peasants do not own the field but they have the right to grow and sell crops. In the first one or two decades they had to give up a small portion of their harvest to the state as rent. It was said that since Hu Jintao took over the presidency in 2003, they do not have to pay the rent any more.

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Figure 3: MYQ is cleaning her compound

Figure 4: Corn and goji fields in Yongxin Village 76

3.2 Ecological migration in Ningxia

the Gādiriyyah or the Ikhwān. Accordingly, there are three mosques in the village offering distinct services for the three groups. The oldest mosque was built in the 1980s, soon after many Jahriyya residents had settled down in their new village (Figure 5). The newest one, the Ikhwān mosque, was still being constructed when I visited Yongxin in 2011. Except for the Ikhwān mosque, the other two both have an ahong living in the mosque together with some of their students, the manla. They are in charge of important prayers including zhuma (Friday prayers) and Eid prayers (Figure 6). Beyond offering services in the mosque, ahong and manla also visit villagers’ houses at the latter’s invitation to lead commemoration rituals or hold more important ceremonies, such as weddings and funerals. Additionally, an ahong is also requested for family conflicts to intermediate between family members and reconcile different interests.

Figure 5: The Jahriyya mosque in Yongxin Besides the migration of single households which occurred in Yongxin, a new pattern of ecological migration has been implemented since the turn of the century: the migration of a whole village. For this purpose, large plots of land in central and northern Ningxia have been reclaimed to receive the large number of migrants. After moving into a new area, the migrants’ hukou is changed immediately and their former house in the 77

Chapter 3

hometown is knocked down. Furthermore, the migrants’ rental contract of the farmland in their hometown is instantly terminated (Luo Qiangqiang/Yang Guolin 2009: 576). Local Hui revealed to me that these measures are applied to prevent return migration, but no official sources available to me openly mention this point.

Figure 6: Returning to the village after zhuma, the Friday prayer One of the most well-known examples of large-scale ecological migration is Hongsipu. In 1998, immigrants from southern mountainous counties began to resettle to Hongsipu. By 2012, the new developed ecological zone had received nearly 200,000 migrants, distributed in 55 administrative villages. More than 60 percent of the new residents are Hui (Huang/ Sun 2009: 293; Li Peilin/Wang Xiaoyi 2013: 148). The migration of whole villages or parts thereof is still ongoing. According to an interview between the author and the local migration office in Xiji in August 2012, around 1400 households would have been relocated to Pingluo and Helan County in northern Ningxia by the end of the year. Hui and Han migrants are usually resettled to different areas respectively, so that ethnic networks of the places of origin can be maintained. Interestingly, the distribution of the existing Hui and Han populations in the receiving counties is not taken into account in the migration planning. Ecological migration has improved the living standards of the peasants significantly. However, different kinds of conflicts have also emerged during the migration processes. First of all, peasants’ will was not always 78

3.2 Ecological migration in Ningxia

taken into consideration in all resettlement programmes. There were clearly reluctant attitudes towards relocation on the part of the southern villagers, who were nevertheless forced to move despite their protests: Their houses were destroyed and access to their former farmland was withdrawn. In the immigration areas, some newcomers had difficulties adapting to the new environment. Some of them attempted to return to their hometown in the south, which has forced southern governments to enact measures to prevent return migration. Secondly, ethnic disputes between the Hui and the Han have often occurred in some places. This has partially to do with the fact that many Hui had to leave their traditional village and accustom themselves to frequent interactions with the Han. The lack of knowledge of a different culture leads to stereotyping and provocations all the time. Hence, old patterns of ethnic conflict based on Islamic pork prohibition continue to exist in immigration areas. Lastly, frictions between different menhuan also occasionally occur. Migration sometimes results in the mixing of various menhuan who had lived in separate villages before. Due to their distinct interpretations of religious practices, conflicts can be triggered in any given situation, for instance, when a menhuan does not want to tolerate the alternative religious behaviours of another menhuan (Li Peilin/Wang Xiaoyi 2013: 150–1).

3.3

Labour migration: an example from Qingtongxia

Beyond government-enticed ecological migration, job-related population flows are also very prevalent in Ningxia. In a survey conducted across two townships in southern Ningxia in 2010, the proportion of households with at least one migrant worker ranged from 40 to 90 percent (Jacka 2012: 3). Similar to other migrant labourers, peasants in Ningxia, especially young generations, prefer going to another place in order to improve their living conditions and, for some of them, to escape from strict family control. In a recent study based on a sample of 120 administrative villages in Ningxia, Liu sums up several characteristics of rural labour migration in the province. One of her findings shows that compared to rural migrant workers from other provinces, Ningxia’s peasants show a tendency to remain within the autonomous region. By comparing Hui migrant workers with their Han counterparts, she finds that the percentage of Hui migrant labourers is higher than that among the Han, and that Hui labourers generally have fewer vocational qualifications. Among female migrant labour79

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ers, the job duration of the Hui is shorter than that of the Han (5.82 months to 7.43 on average in 2006) (Liu 2013: 304). I will now introduce a case example to illustrate the characteristics of Ningxia’s rural labour migration with a special focus on Hui migrant workers. The data was collected during my stay in a vineyard in Qingtongxia, a county-level city in northern Ningxia, in the summer of 2012. As is the case with all labour migrants throughout China, Ningxia’s peasants often have to leave their home temporarily, or sometimes for long periods, to find additional work to support their families. The fast developing region for wine production along the eastern base of the Helan Mountains provides many migrant peasants with job opportunities. The Helan Mountains run north-south along the border between Ningxia and Inner Mongolia. The unique climate and geographical characteristics of the region offer optimum conditions for wine-growing (Li Qiuyan/He Xuexuan 2009: 80). Besides goji berries and other agricultural products, wine has become another important Ningxia specialty. The wine industry was established at the beginning of the 1980s. During the last few decades, wine plantations increased and their areas enlarged quickly. Today, wine production is one of the key industries in Ningxia and is garnering a growing international reputation (Li Yuding et al. 2009: 83; Li et al. 2011: 2475). In Qingtongxia, large vineyards have become an integral part of the region’s landscape. Many peasants from southern Ningxia work in the vineyards as contract workers. The place to which my host family moved in 2012 is in Ganchengzi Township, around ten kilometres from Xiaoba, the economically most developed county in Qingtongxia. For the purpose of migrant peasants’ housing, several settlements were established by wine companies at the beginning of this century. The settlements are of different sizes, although migrants’ apartments all have the same structure: Each apartment is generally made up of a living room, a bedroom and a small kitchen. Depending on the size of the settlement, one or two public toilets were built in the front and/or at the back of each estate. A contract with the wine companies lasts from the end of March to the end of November. During the four “free” months of winter, some peasants go to urban places to seek other employment in gastronomy or construction industry. Others stay in the settlement and enjoy the psychically less strenuous wintertime. Although contracts are assigned to individuals but 80

3.3 Labour migration: an example from Qingtongxia

not to families, an overwhelming part of the migrant workers live to72 gether with their nuclear families. Peasants who have already stayed for several years have found schools for their children who moved together with them or followed them soon after they had successfully settled 73 down. The settlement where I lived had around 45 households in 2012, most of them coming from Xiji County. Among all the migrant families, only 74 three or four were Han Chinese. The majority of the Hui migrant workers were from Jahriyya menhuan. For their religious activities, the Jahriyya established a small prayer room in 2010, which was mainly financed through donations from the Jahriyya migrants. A minority of Han migrants also donated to the facility of the prayer room. The small room was only about 15 square metres. Hui migrants managed to purchase enough religious carpets to lay down on the floor for the purpose of praying. Beyond that, there were no further decorations in the room. It has not become a mosque because there was no ahong in charge of the room and it had no other function than providing male Jahriyya space for public chanting. Daily prayers were guided by a young manla who lived in the same settlement and worked as a contract labourer for a living, too. On important days, such as Fridays, the tight room was packed with participants. MYQ, the wife of my host family, moved to Qingtongxia in March 2012. Prior to her migration from Zhongwei to Qingtongxia, she had already lived in the same area and worked in the vineyards for several years (2006–2010). Before she moved to Yongxin Village in Zhongwei in 2001, she and her husband had lived in Xinjiang for extended periods of time working on cotton plantations (1998–2001). Hence, neither growing wine nor leading a migrant life were new experiences for her and her 72 Depending on how many family members have signed a contract, a family unit has different hectares to cultivate. 73 In this paragraph, I have mainly used the present tense while describing the general living and working conditions of the Hui migrant workers in Qingtongxia, as I assume that no radical changes have occurred since 2012 till now. 74 No official figure could be found regarding the total number of the migrant families, as the settlements were originally considered as temporary dwelling places for the contract workers. Although some peasants have lived at the same place for seven or eight years, the settlements have still not become “villages” in an administrative aspect.

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family. In 2012, she signed a one-year contract to cultivate 18 mu of vine75 yard while receiving occasional support from her husband. As a basis payment, migrant peasants obtained 1900 yuan per month at that time. After the harvest, they would additionally earn 200 yuan for each ton of gathered grapes. The collected grapes would be processed and bottled in a nearby winery and delivered later to the market. Since migrant workers did not have to pay the rent or energy costs of their houses, they could still save some money for themselves and their elder and younger rela76 tives at the time when their contracts ran out in winter. Since only MYQ herself signed the contract, the apartment allocated to her was a little smaller than the “home” of most other migrant labourers. Her apartment was approximately 35 square metres, made up of a living room, a bedroom, and a kitchen. Her husband followed her one month later after she had moved to Qingtongxia. The majority of the time he worked as a construction worker or subcontracted labourer in the vineyards. In the summer of 2012, when I stayed in the vineyard, the three of us shared an area of 35 square metres. MYQ’s 15-year-old only child lived with his nainai (paternal grandmother) in Zhongwei where he was completing the last semester of his primary education. MYQ’s older and younger brother and their families had lived in the same settlement working for the same wine company for over six years. Aside from her two brothers, MYQ also had a few distant relatives living in nearby apart77 ments. Before harvest time in September, main tasks in the vineyards over the summer were pruning, weeding and watering. To avoid the heat, peasants usually worked in the early morning and from the late afternoon until evening. At midday, they had an interval of nearly four hours (from 11am to 3pm) to have a break and do some work in the house, for example, to sharpen their tools. In most cases, their fields were kilometres away from the settlement. Most peasants went to their fields by motorbike and a trip between their fields and the settlement took approximately 75 According to the individual ability of each contractor, one can rent between 10 and 20 mu. 76 In an informal interview, I was told that the cost of living per capita amounted to approximately 300 to 400 yuan per month. 77 In 2014, MYQ’s parents and her younger sister, who has a mental health problem and is dependent on the care of her parents, moved to Qingtongxia, after having sold their house in Xiji to MYQ’s uncle.

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10 to 15 minutes. However, a minority of peasants who could not afford a motorbike had to go to the fields on foot. As a result, they rarely commuted twice on the same day. Beyond the work in their contracted fields, most peasants also found piecework in other vineyards which had not been rented out to contract workers. They were paid by the metres of rows of grapevine they pruned or the length of the earth they weeded. By doing additional piecework, some peasants could increase their monthly income by up to 30 percent. Another additional activity to raise income was catching scorpions for medical use. It was a job for young men, since this could only be done during the night and one usually walked many kilometres up and down hills searching for scorpions. In most cases, young men left their house at 10pm and would not return until the early morning of the following day. Scorpions were collected for medical use in grocery stores in the township centre for 450 yuan per kilo in 2012. The majority of migrant peasants working in the vineyards were couples in their 20s or 30s. Many of them had toddlers whom they had to take to the fields every day. Migrant families who had stayed for many years sent their elder children to nearby schools to complete the compulsory nine-year education. However, temporary migrants, similar to my host family, had to leave their school children behind in their home village, as a change of school would have been very complicated. Only in the summer vacation did MYQ’s son join his parents. When asked whether living conditions had improved or if they liked living in the new place away from their hometown, peasants provided different answers: Generally speaking, long-time migrant families preferred their new residence to their home village before the labour migration. Their apartments were better furnished and had more electrical equipment, compared to migrants who stayed for only one or two years. For long-term migrants, living standards had been greatly enhanced, be78 cause “above all, the lack of drinkable water is no more a problem and the harvest does not solely depend on the weather any more”. However, temporary migrants seemed to prefer returning to their original villages 78 I ended up buying mineral water during my stay in the migrants’ settlement in Qingtongxia, as the tap water had a persistently bitter taste and the bitterness did not disappear even after repeated boiling. However, the dwellers still found the tap water better than what they had had to drink in southern Ningxia.

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as soon as possible. Many of them missed their home greatly and revealed that they only stay in Qingtongxia because of the relatively higher earnings. Based on the fact that they intended to stay only short-term, most of them had not invested much in furnishing their apartments. As a result, their living conditions varied from poor to miserable: In MYQ’s case, there was no fan, fridge or TV in her apartment. The single electrical device the family used was an induction cooker. During the hot summer days when the temperature rose to about 35 degrees, it was extremely inconvenient to spend time in the tiny rooms eating warm food and drinking warm wa79 ter. The permanent problem due to the lack of a fridge was that food perished very quickly and the family members were frequently sick. Unfortunately, migrant families living in conditions similar to MYQ’s were not rare. Intestinal inflammation was very common in the settlements and many households stored pills to counter the disease. Apart from the harsh living conditions, for many Hui migrants it was also difficult to fulfil their religious duties. Despite the existence of the small prayer room and the presence of a manla in the settlement who guided the chanting of the Koran, there was no religious leader responsible for the believers’ conducts and to solve ethical problems in everyday life. Specific religious services for important ceremonies such as funerals and weddings were also difficult to find. Hence, migrants usually went to their hometown to hold large Islamic ceremonies. I was informed that corpses were even transported through the whole province to the south where the deceased came from, so that a proper funeral could be organised. Beyond that, most migrants prefer being buried in their family graveyard close to their dead or living relatives, if some of the relatives have remained in their laojia (homeland). For less significant rituals, for instance the celebration of the Bailati ye (Laylat al Baraʿat), migrant Hui went to nearby villages or towns to join the menhuan-specific Islamic services. If possible, the Hui of different menhuan affiliations avoid attending 80 the same mosque, since their practices deviate from each other. How79 Similar to northern Han Chinese, the Hui in Ningxia also prefer cooked foods even in summer. 80 The major difference in the performance of a prayer can be observed between the Jahriyya, the so-called “gaonianpai” (loud chanting school) and the Khufiyyah, the “dinianpai” (quiet chanting school): While the former chant Koranic verses loudly, the latter appropriate chanting in one’s heart without uttering the words aloud. This difference led to large-scale violence between the two

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ever, it did, and does occur, that Hui migrants from various menhuan have to carry out religious performances together at one mosque, in the event 81 that no other mosque is available in a close distance.

3.4

Hui vis-à-vis Han at their new homes

Migration brings the Hui into closer contact with the non-Muslim Han majority. The Hui’s ethnic consciousness is awakened and intensified by their direct confrontation with another culture, which unfortunately does not always have an understanding of religion. In this respect, I would like to discuss Hui-Han relations in depth in this subchapter by examining the substantial and long-standing prejudices and stereotypes which counteract ethnic integration and the role of Islam (under the influence of migration) in strengthening boundaries. The Hui have had to confront the dominant Han culture since their arrival in China and throughout history they have constantly rejected a complete assimilation by the Han. Rural Hui in Ningxia have successfully preserved many of their unique Islamic traditions and maintained clear-cut boundaries vis-à-vis the Han majority. Against the background of the current migration flows, it is interesting to raise the question of what Hui-Han relations look like and what dynamics exist in their relationship. As an ethnic minority, the Hui cannot be understood without looking upon their relationships with the Han majority, since they have incorporated a large part of Han cultural elements and they are constantly interacting with the Han. The Hui’s ethnoreligious identity is influenced largely by the surrounding dominant cultural environment and undergoes constant changes. Prejudices against the Hui can be traced back as early as to the Yuan time (1271–1368). Leslie cites a lampoon from that time which says: “Their (Muslim) clothes and headgear are covered with dust, their elephant noses are now flat, their cat’s eyes no longer shining. Alas, in one day, all their hopes for a long life are gone...The kitchen is moved to the Chü-ching gardens, their cemetery. The cry “Allah” is not to be heard any more. Alas! The tree has fallen, and the monkey grandchildren of the monkey Hu have menhuan in the 18th century. 81 In a semi-interview with the ahong in the only mosque in Zhongwei City, I was told that there were Jahriyya, Gādiriyyah and Ikhwān people attending the mosque’s services, too, despite the fact that it belongs to the Khufiyyah menhuan. Muslim believers from other menhuan had to practice their prayers in the same room individually without any instructions.

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dispersed.” (Leslie 1986: 93) In another chapter, Leslie quotes the memorial of a provincial commander-in-chief under the Qianlong regime (1735–1795) with reference to the Hui: “These sort of people put violence before everything and have no loyalty to the state. The rich among them make trouble and the poor go in for thieving. They are basically different 83 from ordinary folk.” (Leslie 1986: 125) Lipman writes in an essay that “in both elite and popular Han imagination, all non-Hans partake of an unsavory and barbaric character, demonstrated by their lack of a Confucian social life; their often ‘immoral’ marriage customs; their association with horses, flocks, and nomadism; and their predilection for raiding Han agricultural settlements” (Lipman 1990: 78). The descriptions above reveal that there have been antagonistic attitudes towards the Hui among the majority Chinese for several centuries. After the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, the central government issued detailed regulations to prevent discriminations against ethnic minorities in politics, employment, education, cultural identity, and in other areas. However, it should be noted that there are two different, but interdependent domains at stake: the political domain and the everyday domain. On the one hand, the beneficial special rules relating to minorities entice many Han citizens who have the choice over their ethnicity to opt for becoming a minority. On the other, many Han still hold a condescending attitude toward other ethnic groups, especially if the latter have their unique religion, customs and language. For instance, many Han 84 find the Islamic way of slaughtering animals very cruel, therefore, some of them draw the conclusion that the Hui are truculent and ruffianly by nature. On the part of the Hui, similar prejudices against the Han are present, too. Migrant peasants in Qingtongxia often mentioned to me that the Han are dirty because they do not wash themselves frequently or thoroughly and they follow no rules of washing their bodies. Beyond that, the Han 82 Unfortunately, Leslie can only prove the time of the source, but he provides no further information about the scholar Wang Mei-ku, who allegedly wrote the slanders. 83 Original text in Chinese see “Qing Shilu” (Factual Record of the Qing Dynasty), volume 377. 84 The Islamic method of slaughtering animals is allowed in China. In many rural places in Ningxia, an ahong still practices the traditional ritual slaughter according to the Islamic purity law.

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are contaminating because they eat “dirty” foods like pig intestine, insects, dogs, frogs, and so forth. MYQ told a story that she and her saozi (elder brother’s wife) sat at the back of a car, together with a middle-aged Han man. Due to the man having such an unpleasant body odour, as soon as he got out of the car, her sister-in-law had to vomit at the roadside. In some situations, devout Hui refer to the Han people to criticise or humiliate some other Hui whom they regard as religious deviants. Phrases like “as dirty as the Han” or “as unfaithful as the Han” can be heard in Hui peasants’ daily life now and then. It must be noted that such kind of stereotypes are usually based on the lack of knowledge of, or interest in, the “other” culture and on a tendency to generalise single cases. Violence between Han peasants might happen as often as it does between the Hui and the Han. Similar unpleasant smells might also be found in some Hui families. The Hui’s full and partial ablutions have very little to do with hygienic cleaning of the body. In my interactions with the Han and the Hui, I am often shocked to realise how little one group know about the other in many respects. This happens particularly when I talk with urban Han or with rural Hui populations. One of the typical stereotyped stories is that it is mandatory for a non-Muslim to visit a hospital for a gastric lavage if he or she wants to be converted into Islam. As only in this way can the “dirty” content of his or her stomach be finally eliminated. In rural Ningxia, however, local Hui consider 85 that the learning of uttering the qingzhenyan (Arabic: shahadah) and practising full and partial ablutions are the most important prerequisite for the conversion of a non-Muslim to Islam. In fact, many Hui are very passionate about converting non-Muslims if the latter show some interest in Islam. They are neither very demanding nor overcritical towards new religious members. But many Han do not ask any questions about Islam, even people living in the same neighbourhood with the Hui. By contrast, an overwhelming majority of the Han think that religion is something conservative and backward, similar to superstition. To their mind, religion is one of the major factors which leads to the Hui’s poverty in rural areas, because Muslims spend too much time fulfilling their religious duties instead of undertaking their wage-earning jobs. Religious 85 The qingzhenyan reads as follows: “Wanwu fei zhu, weiyou zhenzhu, Muhanmude, zhu de shizhe”, literally “There is no god but God, Muhammad is the messenger of God”.

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rituals are considered by many Han as a waste of time, since they do not bring any monetary benefits. In a survey conducted in 2010 in Haiyuan County, 48% of the Han respondents believed that religions will perish in the future and 40% of the Han held the opinion that religions will be replaced by sciences (Zhou Chuanbin 2011: 96). Retaining this conviction, conversion of the Han into Islam does not occur often and the majority of 86 conversions serve the purpose of inter-ethnic marriage. Another stereotype of the Hui is that they fast by eating nothing but drinking water, and during the festival of breaking the fast, they eat so excessively that some become sick. Therefore, the Han usually think that fasting is an unhealthy and irrational act. Indeed, very few Han know about the iftar and the suhoor – the two meals consumed by Muslims during the nights of Ramadan, not to mention the deep-rooted moral values of fasting. Most rural Hui, in turn, are not aware of the fact that the majority of the Han are atheists. Instead, they often talk about “our religion” and “your religion” or “our God” and “your God(s)”. In Ningxia’s villages, I was often asked if I were a Buddhist and many Hui were surprised after knowing that I am an atheist. To them, it seems unimaginable if one does not have a god to worship or a faith to rely on, especially in difficult situations. Stereotypes play an important role in the perpetuation of ethnic boundaries. They “help the ingroup maintain positive distinctiveness from other groups”, as Cinnirella puts it (Cinnirella 1997: 46). Stereotyping the “other” goes hand in hand with self-stereotyping. By creating and adopting positive characteristics of the “self”, negative elements are ascribed to the “other” so that the boundary between the “self” and the “other” is not easily crossed. When individuals identify themselves with a particular group, social stereotypes serve to strengthen their alliance with the “ingroup” and disassociate them from other ones. In such instances, diversity within a group is simplified or ignored while distinctness to other groups is highlighted time and again. The notion of ethnic culture can thus be homogenised so that group members within a certain ethnicity are convinced that there is one “pure” set of traditions of their group, without

86 This conclusion is based on my conversations with local Hui in rural Ningxia. Since very few pieces of research on conversion of the Han into Hui have been conducted, it is impossible to provide the percentage of conversions based on inter-ethnic marriage.

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much internal variation between regions or social classes (Breger/Hill 1998: 9). Ethnic segregation between the Hui and the Han can be traced back to the late Qing period (late 19th century), when the ongoing Hui rebellions in Shaanxi and Gansu Province resulted in resettlement policies issued by the Qing government to make the Hui move from the two troublesome provinces to remote mountainous areas in southern Ningxia. These migrants make up a major part of the residents in today’s Xihaigu region in Ningxia (Zhou Chuanbin 2011: 93). Villages consisting solely of Hui inhabitants or even purely Hui from the same menhuan have been everpresent in Xihaigu since the Qing period. State-induced ecological migration has not intended to mix Hui and Han migrants in the “receiving” places. As a result, new developed areas have emerged with a large share of Hui residents: Dazhanchang Township, Hongsipu District, Minning County, and so on. In comparison with ecological migration, labour migration usually leads to the blurring of ethnic boundaries between the Hui and the Han, since they work most often for the same employers at the same workplaces. The popular notion “tianxia Huihui shi yijia” (literally “all Hui under heaven are one family”) tells the importance of ethnic solidarity to the Hui. The Han sometimes claim that the Hui tend to stick together and act en masse when they are in conflict with other ethnic groups. This might be explainable if one compares the Hui, loaded with their relatively coherent and homogeneous traditions, with the highly stratified Han due to their very different customs, lingua francas, education, incomes, and so on. The Hui’s prevalent pattern of living close together in rural Ningxia shows their stronger interdependence and trust towards each other. Both before and after migration, interactions between the Hui have been more frequent than between the Hui and the Han. In Ningxia, ethnic consciousness is stronger than in many other places in China. Both in urban and in rural areas, I was often asked if I were a Hui or a Han. By giving the answer that I am a Han, I had the feeling that I was immediately classified into another category by the Hui. Rural Hui in Ningxia have their own vocabulary which they will not use when talking to a Han. The Hui peasants with whom I had contact believed that it would be easier to find a solution if I talked to Han officers, traders, and school teachers about their problems. In such situations, my efforts to explain that not all Han have 89

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the same faith and they do not always help each other proved fruitless. Many rural Hui were or are certain that the Han share the same language and religion (whatever it might be), and they are thus more willing to help each other than to help Muslims. Although the word “faith” was often mistaken by the Hui for ethnicity, the example shows how religious belief is conceptualised and internalised by the Hui to differentiate themselves from the Han majority. During my stay in the Hui villages and the migrant settlement, I could understand my informants well as long as they used standard Chinese vocabulary. However, the Hui also use many words stemming from Arabic or Persian in their daily life when they speak with each other. In my view, it is a sufficient way of preserving their Islamic heritage and of resisting further assimilation by the majority culture. Blum is correct by asserting that the Hui “are Chinese speakers but not only Chinese speakers” (Blum 2001: 139). Yang Zhanwu published a detailed analysis of the Hui culture and language. To provide a few examples from Yang’s book: “kouhuan” (derived from Arabic “idhn” or “izn”, literally permission); “taobai” (derived from Arabic “tawbah”, literally repentance); “yimani” (derived from Arabic “imān”, literally faith); “ahong” (derived from Persian “ākhond”, literally imam); “ermaili” (derived from Arabic “ʿamal”, literally religious worship). Beyond these words, there are Islamised Chinese words in Hui language which are no longer applied, or are only applied in other contexts, by the Han. Some of these include “tangping” (vessel used for partial and full ablutions); “qingzhen” (Islamic or Hui purity concept); “zoufen” (visiting graveyards) (Yang Zhanwu 2010). In Ningxia’s villages, every Hui I grew to know had both a Chinese name and a jingming, a Koranic name. A baby will usually be given a Koranic name within the first ten days after birth (Yang Zhanwu 2010: 136). MYQ explained this to me that a jingming is indispensable for a Muslim, since otherwise God will not be able to identify him or her. The Koranic name will allegedly not change after one’s death and continue to be used in the afterlife, while the official Chinese name will disperse. Common jingming in the villages I stayed were Maliya (Maryam), Salimai (Salīmah), Nuha (Nūh), Lugeman (Luqmām), Ye’ergubai (Ya’qūb). Jingming is usually given by the incumbent village ahong and for usage in mosques and other religious sites. In their daily life, the Hui also use their jingming, or sometimes their kinship relations, to refer to each other, instead of mentioning 90

3.4 Hui vis-à-vis Han at their new homes 87

their Chinese names. However, they tend to abbreviate longer jingming 88 into two-syllabled ones, which then sound like Han Chinese names. For example, “Salimai” is called “Samai” and “Ye’ergubai” becomes “Gubai” in practice. The Hui’s Chinese names are used on official occasions, such as school registrations, bank account openings, medical treatments, and so on. Another aspect in which the Hui distinguish themselves strongly from the Han is that they do not celebrate traditional Han festivals, such as chunjie (Chinese New Year), yuanxiaojie (Lantern Festival), duanwujie (Dragon Boat Festival), zhongqiujie (Mid-Autumn Festival). Hui, who are not conservative, buy traditional Han foods consumed particularly on these festivals, such as yuanxiao (small balls made from glutinous rice flour with sweet fillings), zongzi (glutinous rice stuffed with filling and wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves) and yuebing (moon cakes). Some migrant Hui told me that they buy these Han foods secretly without letting their elder generations know, since the latter might blame them for eating Han foods. There are even halal yuanxiao or yuebing available on the market to attract Muslim consumers. Young Hui revealed to me that they enjoy the tastes of traditional Han foods but to consume them publicly will still be condemned in their communities. Concerning the Han, only a few of them join the Hui on large religious celebrations, such as ermaili ceremonies, Eid al-Fitr (feast of breaking the fast) or Eid al-adha (Sacrifice Feast). Some Han are invited to such festivals by their Hui friends, but in rural areas, the number of Han participants in a Hui celebration is always minor. Because of the cultural differences and distance mentioned above, marriage rate between Hui and Han in Ningxia is conspicuously low. According to the fifth national census in 2000, the rate of Hui-Han marriage 89 was only 0.56% in Ningxia. In rural areas of the province, the rate is gen87 When talking to me, my informants usually used the common Chinese kinship terminology to refer to their relatives, for example, my “didi” (younger brother), my “laogong” (husband), my “saozi” (elder brother’s wife). 88 The first name of a Han Chinese is only allowed to have a maximum of two syllables. Ethnic minorities in China are exempt from this rule. 89 It must be noted that the intermarriage rate between Hui and Han varies greatly in different locations and communities in China. In 2000, the nationwide percentage of Hui-Han marriage was 11.85 (Jiang Zhenhui 2006: 101). In Kunming in southern China, the share of Hui-Han marriages was as high as 25.5% among all

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erally much lower than in urban cities. According to Breger and Hill, mixed marriages are often treated with suspicion because they challenge important boundaries between the “self” and the “other” (Breger/Hill 1998: 9). In order to protect those boundaries, the “ingroup” may initiate a process of social stigmatisation by reinforcing negative stereotypes of the “outgroup” (Smith Finley 2013: 306). In this way, an exogamous marriage may hardly find its social acceptability within the local community. In most cases, an inter-ethnic marriage takes place between a Han woman and a Hui man, and only on the condition that the Han woman is converted into Islam prior to the wedding ceremony. The Koran prohibits Muslim men and women to marry polytheists and idolaters/idolatresses on the 91 one hand, but on the other, it permits Muslim men to marry non-Muslim 92 women if the latter can be converted to his religion. Thus, marriage between a Hui man and a Han woman usually does not arouse such strong resistance on the part of the Hui parents as is the case of marrying off a 93 Hui woman to a Han man (Zhou Chuanbin 2011: 96). Actually, since Muslim’s indigenisation in China during the Ming (1368–1644), marrying Han women who were willing to convert into Islam has been a common way for the Hui to enlarge their membership, although the rates of intermarriage varied from time to time. Even today, the cases of a Hui man marrying a Han woman is much more acceptable and commonplace throughout the country than in the reverse case (Feng Yuandong 2012: 75). Unfortunately, there is little material available which explains why the other option—the marriage of a Hui woman to a Han man who is ready to be converted—was and is considered impossible or infeasible. Taking into consideration the fact that the majority of Han Chinese today are neither polytheists nor idolaters/idolatresses, it is interesting to raise the question of why the conversion of a Han man cannot succeed through intermarregistered marriages at the beginning of this century (Lian Juxia 2012: 147). 90 Compare the empirical study by He Fenxia on intermarriage in six villages in Pingluo (He Fenxia 2011: 37) and the study by Yang Zhijuan conducted in three cities in Yinchuan, Wuzhong and Lingwu (Yang Zhijuan 2002). 91 See Koran sura II, verse 220, ff. 92 See Koran sura LX, verse 10. 93 In terms of inter-ethnic marriage, the Han, independent of age, are on average more open than the Hui. This may be connected with the Han’s comparatively indifferent attitudes towards religious orientation.

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riage, particularly in the view of the Hui. Both Lipman and Mees mention that there was a Muslim law in history that forbade the marriage of Hui daughters to a Han (Lipman 1997: 45; Mees 1984: 28). In my mind, the predominant patrilineal and virilocal rules in both Hui and Han communities in modern-day China enhance the suspicion or fear of the Hui that they might lose their daughters if the latter have a Han husband. Accordingly, the possibility of religious conversion of a man is restrained to a large extent. For the same reason, the resistance of Hui parents to giving their daughter to a Han man is much stronger than their unwillingness to take a Han wife as a daughter-in-law. In immigration areas, the closer distance between the two ethnic 94 groups and the comparatively loose kinship structure do not seem to have had a large impact on changing the Hui’s reluctance to intermarriage with a Han. Empirical surveys which were carried out by Chinese scholars in different migration areas in Ningxia back up this hypothesis with or without concrete data (Feng Xuehong/Nie Jun 2013: 27; Zhou Chuanbin 2001: 57; Feng Yuandong 2012: 75). In Qingtongxia, I came to know a single Han gardener in-charge of a vineyard. I was surprised by his comprehensive knowledge about Hui customs, rituals and significant events throughout the year. Hui migrants in the settlements told me later that the young man had had a Hui girlfriend for almost four years. Through her, he became acquainted with Hui traditions and religious practices. Together with his girlfriend, they worshipped different gongbei and mosques throughout Ningxia on important Islamic holidays. However, despite his persistent approaches to Islam, his good education and prosperous occupation, the parents of his beloved refused him again and again. In the end, the couple split up. “Everyone in the vineyards knows his story,” the Hui in his neighbourhood said. But the young man, as bright and optimistic as he always appeared to be, did not like mentioning the past himself. Besides the Hui’s strong tendency to marry off their children within the same ethnic group, many Hui are also very reluctant to send their young children to a Han-dominant school. In the immigration areas, their choice is very limited. Many parents complained about the unsatisfactory conditions at most of the public schools where no thought is given to Is94 Many migrant families live in the form of a nuclear family, without the elder generations being in close proximity.

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lamic purity concept. My hostess and friend, MYQ, spent several days visiting different schools when her son was going to enter a middle school. Considering the future school for her son where he is to spend most of his time as a teenager, MYQ revealed her concerns about both the school’s quality of teaching and the conditions of its canteen (if the canteen is halal or sells halal dishes). Since all the middle schools were too far away for her son to commute, he must reside in the school during the week. When we went to the middle school in Yongkang Town, MYQ became very disappointed when she realised that there was no kitchen exclusively for Muslim students. It turned out that Hui students in that school were an absolute minority. Seeing the mother’s concern on her face, the man who had given us a short guide through the school tried to placate her anxiety by saying that there are two Hui teachers who eat lunch in the school and the school’s kitchen never serves pork dishes. After leaving the school, MYQ said sadly that this is how a majority of the Han understand qingzhen: They always think qingzhen means pork-free and cannot figure out why a Han cannot cook “clean” dishes for the Hui. She gave up her initial idea to send her son to this school. In the end, MYQ chose a school which is further away but has a much larger proportion of Hui students and a separate kitchen for Muslims. Most of the employees in the school are Hui, as well. MYQ and her son were fortunate to find a school with which they were content. However, the majority of public schools in Ningxia are run by the Han and have a relatively small proportion of Muslim students. For this reason, schools which have a separate canteen for Muslim minorities are not to be found everywhere. Because most of the schools which provide secondary education (i.e. middle schools, high schools and vocational colleges) are in the towns or cities, a large number of rural students have to leave their villages by the age of 14 to study in boarding schools in urban or semi-urban areas. Some of them come back home every weekend, some do not return until winter or summer vacation if the distance between home and school is particularly far. The diet of those students who live in boarding schools is largely dependent on the schools’ canteens. Some migrant Hui send their children to a relative who lives in a region where secondary schools have more satisfying conditions for Hui students—usually regions with a larger share of Hui population. Others have to turn a blind eye to the Han-dominant schools nearby and try to 94

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ignore the fact that their children eat dishes made by Han cooks on a daily basis. Rural Hui students who eat with their Han classmates in the same canteen are aware of the lack of qingzhen understandings in their schools. The few students I met in the two immigration places in Zhongwei and Qingtongxia were not happy about their schools’ kitchen and responded that they do not want to know what is in their dishes and how they are made, even if there is no pork involved. In the following chapters, I will demonstrate how ecological and labour migration have been changing rural Hui’s religious practices and beliefs by examining the most important Islamic concepts and ceremonies. By analysing the different ways of fulfilling religious duties by Hui migrants and their left-behind relatives in southern Ningxia, my aim is to clarify what impacts migration has on the Hui’s current religious life and to anticipate how their situation might develop over the next few decades. While focusing on migration, I also incorporate other factors such as age, class and gender as determinants that influence the Hui’s religious practices and social behaviours. An inevitable difficulty which emerges when evaluating the empirical data I collected between 2011 and 2013 is to estimate the role of age in the Hui’s shifting religious practices, independently from migration. This is primarily due to the majority of migrants I encountered being young and middle-aged people between 18 and 40. By contrast, many elder people had been reluctant to move and thus stayed in their southern hometowns. It is therefore extremely intricate and partially infeasible to distinguish the influences of age on a Hui’s shifting ethnoreligious identity from those related to migration.

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4.1

Religious purity and pollution in general

The concepts of purity and pollution are a classic subject in cultural and social anthropology. Since the middle of the last century, a number of groundbreaking works have been published which either focus directly on concepts of purity and pollution or make reference to this theme. While Mary Douglas gives a general insight into the field of the pure and impure across different cultures, Louis Dumont specifies the nature of the dichotomy in relation to the hierarchy of the Indian case system (Douglas 1993; Dumont 1980). A relatively recent collected volume edited by Rösch and Simon includes papers dealing with both secular and religious notions of purity covering regions in Europe, Asian and North America from prehistory to the present (Rösch/Simon 2012). Religious concepts of purity and pollution strongly distinguish themselves from secular understandings of hygiene. They imply the cleanliness of one’s body, soul, clothing and surroundings and are often embedded in sophisticated ritual systems and associated with conceptions of the hu95 man body. Physical and spiritual purity is the prerequisite for participation in religious ceremonies and, for this reason, various purification rites are set up in order to remove impurity, bring excesses under control, and ultimately reconstitute an authorised cosmological and ethical order. In this respect, religious purity could be defined as what is generated through a purification rite (Simon 2012: 20). Islamic ritual purity, which is called tahāra in Arabic, consists of prescribed rules regarding the classification of purity and pollution, as well as purification practices which enable a Muslim to perform valid acts of worship. In the Koran, sura II, verse 222, it is stated that “God loves those who repent, and He loves those who cleanse themselves”. Hence, the state of purity is necessary and essential for the validity of a Muslim’s religious performance. There are two basic kinds of cleansing in Islam, the partial and the full ablution. Before prayers or other rituals, one of the two ablu95 For a theory on the interrelation between Islamic purity and pollution and the human body, see Marcus, 1992, pp. 73–86.

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tions must be practised, depending on what kind of filth has to be removed. Generally speaking, partial ablution (to wash one’s extremities) is required after defecation, urination or other bodily functions that cancel one’s state of ritual purity. Full ablution (to wash the entire body) is necessary only after sexual intercourse, the cessation of menstruation or post-partum bleeding (Katz 2012: 265). The understanding of religious pollution differs from the secular con96 ception of dirt: Earth is considered clean, whereas alcoholic drinks are regarded as heavy filth and anything contaminated by them will invalidate a prayer. Furthermore, the classification of religious filth or cleanliness is not based on the amount of “dirt”, but on the degree to which the validity of daily prayers are harmed. To name a few from each category: Heavy filth includes human secretions such as urine, feces, semen, blood. Light filth can be the urine and feces of animals whose meat is lawfully edible. Last but not least, things like the earth, grass, trees, fruits, as well as the outer part of animals, unless polluted by something impure, are 97 considered clean. Beyond impure objects, there are also immoral conducts which impede performing religious duties and are thus regarded as filthy. These include, among others, cursing, cheating, backbiting, stealing 98 and adultery. Islamic purity concept in China is expressed best in the term “qingzhen” (literally pure and true), which can be considered as the most applied Chinese equivalent of the Arabic term, halal (“permissible” or “lawful”). Qingzhen relates predominantly to Islamic food and drink regulations. The two characters “qing” and “zhen” can often be found on mosques, Muslim shops, restaurants and street food stands, and on the packages of foods and drinks, as well as on some daily items such as incense burners (Figure 7). Living in a non-Muslim majority culture, Chinese Muslims have become very cautious about the religious purity of foods and drinks they consume. In the case of the Hui, qingzhen has become the most distinguishing marker of their ethnoreligious identity, because of the greater impact of their sinicisation. Compared to other Muslim minority groups 96 Earth is the substitute for religious ablutions in case flowing water is not available. 97 For listed items of heavy filth and light filth, as well as things accepted as clean in Islam, see Kuşçular, 2007, pp. 28–9 and 31–3. 98 See the chapter “Purity of heart” in Kuşçular’s book “Cleanliness in Islam”, pp. 131–8.

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Figure 7: Qingzhen restaurants in Wuzhong (2012) in China who have maintained their own language and/or their own territory with high population density of the same ethnicity, the Hui cannot manifest their identity through a shared language or territory. In order to draw a dividing line, above all to differentiate themselves from the atheist Han majority, pious Hui hold a very serious attitude towards Islamic purity regulations. Based on their permanent consciousness of purity law, the Hui consider non-Muslims impure and contaminating by virtue of the latter’s ignorance of religious cleanliness. It is not an overstatement to say that it is qingzhen which primarily prevents close Hui-Han friendship being built and intermarriage between Muslims and non-Muslims becoming acceptable in a Hui community. Although the term qingzhen is exclusively reserved for reference to Islam and Muslims in modern Chinese language, the word does not derive from Arabic. In contrast to many other Islamic terms used by Muslims in 99 China, it has its origin in ancient Chinese. Initially it means “pure and 99 The majority of words borrowed from Arabic and Persian by Chinese Muslims for use in their religious and secular life was compiled by Wang Jianping in his “Glossary of Chinese Islamic Terms”, which also provides both the original Arabic script and explicit interpretations in English.

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simple” or “real and natural”, as it can be interpreted in many literary 100 texts. It was not until the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) that qingzhen was applied by Chinese Muslim scholars to introduce their religious doc101 trines. Mosques in China then gradually gained the uniform name “qingzhensi” (the pure and true temple), and Islam was referred to as 102 “qingzhenjiao” (the pure and true religion). Today, qingzhen is widely used by the Hui as a label for their ethnic identity, with its inclusive and exclusive functions. In his study about Hui identity in China, Dru C. Gladney focuses closely on the concept of qingzhen. He describes two aspects embedded in this concept: “purity (qing), in the sense of ritual cleanliness and moral conduct; and truth (zhen), in the sense of authenticity and legitimacy” (Gladney 1996: 13). The term qingzhen has various meanings incorporated into Hui culture, not only including Muslims’ avoidance of pork and pig by-products, but also their confession of faith and their observance of a Muslim lifestyle in a broader sense. A pure and true lifestyle indicates both the implementation of religious practices and the fulfilment of Islamic morality, for instance, modesty, honesty and generosity. In fact, the term has embedded itself into nearly every aspect of Hui life, so that it has become the most distinguishing marker of Hui identity. As Gillette concludes: “Qingzhen encapsulated the essence of being Muslim in the Chinese context” (Gillette 2007: 110).

4.2

Qingzhen on the local level

After explaining the salient role of qingzhen in Hui religious and secular life, I will further contextualise the concept by using data collected during my fieldwork in rural Ningxia. The Hui in Ningxia rarely use the exact word “qingzhen” when speaking of Islamic purity. During my stay in the Hui communities, villagers usually made a distinction between “ganjing” (clean) and “bu ganjing” (unclean) in their statements alluding to ritual purity and pollution. For in100 Li Bai (701–762), the well-known Confucian scholar and Han poet, wrote in one of his poems “sheng dai fu yuan gu, chui yi gui qing zhen (圣代复元古, 垂衣贵 清真)”, showing his appreciation of the Taoist way of political governing which strives for the harmony of human beings with the cosmology of nature. 101 See . 102 While “qingzhensi” is still widely used throughout China, the word “qingzhenjiao” for Islam was replaced by “Yisilanjiao” and has lost its usage in modern Chinese.

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stance, Muslim foods and beverages are regarded as “ganjing”, whereas those of the Han are seen as “bu ganjing”. Drawing a clear-cut dividing line between “clean” and “unclean” is the most frequently employed method by the Hui to distinguish themselves from the non-Muslim majority. In this instance, Mary Douglas’ assertion may find its best empirical proof: Moral distinctions between what is regarded as pure and impure are usually drawn in the context of social exclusivity and inclusivity (Douglas 1994). 4.2.1 Pork issue As a minority group whose ethnic identity is strongly based on their religious belief, the Hui are highly vigilant concerning pork and other pig products compared to Muslims in the Arabic world. Pillsbury states that “[...] Chinese Islam deviates most radically from Islam in the Middle East in that it is upon the avoidance of pork that maintenance of Hui identity has come to be based” (Pillsbury 1976: 158). As often addressed by Pillsbury, and as I experienced during my field stay, faithful Hui will never allow anyone to take pork into their house or places of their ownership, for instance restaurants or inns. They will also not touch or use kitchen utensils which they suspect of having come into contact with pork or lard. For this reason, devout Hui usually do not accept any cooked food offered by the Han or use the latter’s cups to drink. In addition, the Hui also avoid soaps containing lard, pig hair brushes or bristles, and leather shoes or jackets made of pig skin. Furthermore, to avoid using the word “zhu” (pig) and words with the same pronunciation, the Hui have invented different substitutes in their everyday language: “Zhu” for pig is replaced by “hei shengkou” (black draft animal), “zhurou” for pork by “darou” (big meat), “zhuyou” for lard by “dayou” (big fat), and finally, the family name “zhu” is substituted by “hei” (black) (Ha Zhengli 2002: 47). Unfortunately, pig and pork play a central role in the culinary traditions of the Chinese majority. The pig is one of the earliest domesticated animals in China. Among households, raising pigs became so popular in ancient China that the character for family “ 家” ” consists of the ancient character “ 豕” ” for pig and the radical “ 宀” for roof (Lin Chengtao 2004: 50). Even present times, pig production has still maintained its first place compared to other livestock supplies in China (FAO 2009: 16). As the chief 100

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source of animal protein and a key ingredient in Chinese cuisine, the pig was once crowned as a national treasure (Pillsbury 1976:157). The essential distinction based on opposite attitudes toward pigs has become a major cause for ethnic conflicts between the Hui and the Han. Many Hui in Ningxia revealed that for them refusing pig is the last remaining criterion to distinguish a Hui from a Han, regardless of the former’s other disrespectful behaviours, such as smoking and drinking. The Hui’s clear stand and strictness with the issue of pig consumption are, however, not always paid sufficient attention. As a result, the Han’s provocative or unconscious transgressions have often triggered immediate ethnic disputes, sometimes with serious consequences. One of the violent disputes took place in September 2000 in Yangxin County, Shandong Province. The conflict was initiated by a Han butcher who hung a qingzhen plaque in his store while continuing to sell pork. Some Hui protested at the butcher’s property and became embroiled in a physical fight with the store owner. As the dispute seemed to be settling, in December, a pig head was hung up at a local mosque as an anonymous act of provocation. This caused an immediate demonstration by approximately 300 Hui in front of the county’s government building. In their attempt to disperse the demonstrators, the police shot at the incensed Hui. During the shooting 103 five people died and approximately 40 other Hui were injured. Hui-Han conflicts often erupt in public eating establishments (e.g. canteens, restaurants, and food stands) where qingzhen is applied to very concrete situations. Because of the Han’s general high production and consumption of pork, they are considered as impure by the Hui. As a consequence, food or beverages prepared by the Han, as well as kitchen utensils used by them, are also regarded as impure. For a devout Hui, a qingzhen restaurant does not simply mean a restaurant that does not use pork and lard as ingredients. Of equal importance is the fact that the cooks themselves must be Muslims and the restaurant must have an authorised 104 qingzhen plaque (Ma Jianfu/Du Jun 2013). 103 See . 104 At this point, the Hui’s claims for religious purity exceed by far the common requirements for purity of Muslims in the Arab world, since the Koran does not prohibit its believers from accepting food and drinks offered by non-Muslims, as long as they are lawful. In the Koran, in sura V, verse 1–4, the criteria of lawful and unlawful food are clearly listed. Among the unlawful foods men-

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However, most of the Han equate a qingzhen restaurant with a porkfree restaurant and thus believe that as long as pork is not involved, they are also eligible to run the business in a qingzhen way or cook qingzhen dishes for Muslim guests. This kind of “qingzhen” restaurants and canteens are still present throughout China, despite the insistent condemnations and accusations by the Hui. By now, there has been no nationwide uniform control system as far as qingzhen authentication is concerned (Tang Maozhi/Wang Maohua 2013: 73). Different provinces in China often have their own certification authorities, for instance local Islamic associations, which issue “qingzhen” labels but work according to different rules (Dai Qian 2015: 22). Moreover, some Han restaurant owners swindle the authorities by “borrowing” Muslim cooks for the control inspections in order to obtain a certification. The Hui villagers I made contact with were generally aware of the potential deceit and thus preferred visiting the same qingzhen restaurants which they had already known and trusted for a long time. The understanding of qingzhen by Ningxia’s rural Hui population and their high vigilance toward the purity law differ from that of the urban Uyghurs in Xinjiang described by Smith Finley. In Ürümcchi, there were three types of restaurant: Han-managed hancan (Han cuisine) restaurants, Han-managed qingzhen restaurants, and Uyghur or Hui-managed qingzhen restaurants. Uyghur respondents avoided the hancan restaurants without exception, but ate in Han-managed qingzhen establishments under certain circumstances, for instance, when holding birthday parties or on other special events (Smith Finley 2013: 152–3). Interestingly, both Smith Finley and Cesaro, another anthropologist focusing on Uyghur identities in Xinjiang, note that the Uyghurs are reluctant to dine in Hui qingzhen restaurants and this can be attributed to their general lack of trust towards the Hui (Smith Finley 2013: 154–5; Cesaro 2000: 229–30). By contrast, the rural Hui I met in Ningxia who had worked temporally in the agricultural sector in Xinjiang did not seem to have any doubts about the religious purity of the Uyghurs they had occasionally come into contact with. The Uyghurs’ lack of trust towards the Hui can be traced back to the high degree of the latter’s assimilation into the Han culture. Rudelson and tioned in the Holy Book, there is no reference to non-Muslim foods.

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Jankowiak describe the relationship between Turkic Muslims and the Hui as follows: “Although almost all Turkic Muslims of Xinjiang view the Huis as their adversaries and as allies of the Han Chinese administration, the long history of animosity between the Huis and Uyghurs has been heightened by the fact that the Qing and Republican Chinese authorities utilised Hui troops and officials to dominate the Uyghurs and impose their rule in Xinjiang. Regardless, the Huis are ideal cultural intermediaries since they share Islam with the Uyghurs and the Mandarin language with the Hans.” (Rudelson/Jankowiak 2004: 311) On this account, the Hui serve as a good model for ethnic harmony between the Han majority and China’s Muslim minorities, as propagandised by the state. However, from the Hui perspective, the Han are “contaminating” and they are content with keeping a unidirectional relationship to the Han as far as social courtesies are concerned. The Hui always feel free to offer the Han all kinds of food or drinks, but they refuse to accept any culinary reciprocation. For many Han who are accustomed to behaving according to the Confucian cultural norm “li shang wanglai” (courtesy calls for reciprocity), it is very difficult to manage the Hui’s fundamental refusal of their offerings of food or drinks. Hence, there has rarely been any longterm or close relationship between the two ethnic groups. Gladney explains this unilateral hospitality of the Hui as follows: “[...] Hui refusal to receive Han gifts places them in a position of moral superiority, though they may occupy a socially inferior and marginal position in the socioeconomic and ethnic context of Northwest China” (Gladney 1996: 122). It is important to highlight the complementary character of the dichotomy between the “pure” Hui and the “impure” Han. In the Indian context, Louis Dumont notes the relationship between the Untouchable and the Brahman as follows: “It is clear that the impurity of the Untouchable is conceptually inseparable from the purity of the Brahman. They must have been established together, or in any case have mutually reinforced each other [...]” (Dumont 1980: 54). It might seem dubious to compare the Han Chinese with the Untouchable in India, however, the existence of the “impure”, be it the Han or the Untouchable, is the precondition for the availability of the purity concept. The interdependence between purity and impurity is also stated by Udo Simon in his cross-cultural depiction of how purity is conceived: “While the properties of purity rarely are explicitly defined, the consequences of pollution are much more con103

Chapter 4

crete, and elaborated in detail. Impurity thus appears as a defined condition, while purity can only be discussed in contrast to impurity.” (Simon 2012: 3). Despite the fragmented opinions on religious purity among different Muslim menhuan, the Hui prefer mentioning the Han as a counterexample to manifest the importance of being “clean” to them. Because the Hui purity concept and Hui-Han relationship are inextricably interwoven with each other, qingzhen can only be analysed with continuous reference to its opposition. During my fieldwork in the villages in Ningxia, it intrigued me constantly to find out which position the Han majority hold in the world of the Hui. Economically and socially, the Han clearly occupy a superior position: They hold the most important and prestigious occupations and have thus immense power on the social and political stage in China. The Hui are aware that it is always an advantage to have guanxi or good networking with the Han. However, in religious respect, the Han are evidently the inferior ones: They consume pork, do not pray and have no idea about ritual purification. Hence, they are perceived as contaminating and social interactions with them are considered contemptuous by the Hui. Swinging between material benefits and a spiritually superior selfperception, it is a constant dilemma for the Hui to decide how far to interact with the non-Muslim majority. Although all of my Hui informants claimed to have Han friends, it seems to me that their “friendship” with a non-Muslim, which is necessarily based on secular issues, is not as intimate as a relationship with their Muslim brothers and sisters. During the months in which I lived with the Hui family, my hostess often asked me if I had had lunch in a Hui or a Han restaurant whenever I returned from the town to her home. In the beginning, I thought it was just her curiosity to know how interested I was in Muslim life. So my answer was always: “It was a qingzhen restaurant.” But weeks later, when I gave the answer “I am not sure,” she revealed her wish that I should not consume any Han food or beverage in the town. In addition, she was not happy about my visits to my Han relatives in the city. She explained: “If you are always among us in the village, you are purifying yourself. But once you come into contact with other Han, you become impure again. It is not good for my house.” Under impoverished living conditions, mutual assistance in the form of the circulation of foodstuff and kitchen utensils appears to be very 104

4.2 Qingzhen on the local level

common and efficient among villagers. However, though living in Muslim oases among the Han majority, the Hui rarely resort to the Han, but rather seek aid within their own religious community. If they have a nonMuslim guest in the house, traditional Hui will be very careful to keep certain objects untouched by their guest for fear of pollution. For example, natural water in a household is regarded as the origin of purity. Consequently, “raw” water as well as all utensils that come into contact with it, like a container or a ladle, should not be touched by a non105 Muslim. If the guest is invited to a meal, he or she will usually be provided with a separate set of utensils while eating with the Hui at one corner of the same table, assuming that the host family is not so strict that they require the guest to sit at a separate table. After the meal, utensils used by the non-Muslim will be washed in a separate basin. Although commensality with non-Muslims is not explicitly prohibited according to the Koran, many Hui villagers apparently try to evade occasions of eating together with non-Muslims at the same table. If we look upon eating as a cultural phenomenon (not only as a biological need) which incorporates different codes, it is interesting to ask what eating means for the Hui. It appears that eating is not as embarrassing for them as for the Muslims in West Java (Hellman 2008: 213), nor is an eating person considered vulnerable to impurity as is the case in India (Dumont 1980: 52). The Hui, by contrast, are long-known for their hospitality and generosity, and they set no less a value on commensality than the Han. The reciprocity of invitations for meals is fundamental in establishing and maintaining friendly relationships. Sharing the same food with others is thus indispensable if one wants to play a role in social life in China. The attempts of devout Hui to avoid eating together at the same table with non-Muslims (mostly in a discreet way) again underline their concerns of being ritually invalidated by any contacts with the “contaminating” others. By utilising their understanding of purity and pollution, the Hui draw a clear-cut boundary with the Han, and they make sure to maintain this boundary constantly, being perceptible by both sides. In this way, the Hui always succeed in stressing their distinctness to the Han while striving to 105 I realised later that the entire kitchen area is considered more vulnerable to pollution than other areas of a house, such as the living room or the bedroom. Therefore, my informants often tried to avoid situations in which I had to go to their kitchen or be left there alone, especially at the beginning of my fieldwork.

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maintain their own ethnoreligious identity. In my opinion, the Hui are clearly aware of the large degree to which they have been assimilated into the Han culture and of the great threat of losing their ethnic identity, which is mainly based on religion. Thus, compared to other Muslim minorities in China, whose ethnic identity rests upon a shared language or territory, the Hui have to struggle more strongly and persistently to perpetuate the Islam. Due to the Hui’s highest vigilance concerning pork, when purchasing groceries for their family, Hui villagers refuse food or beverages without a “qingzhen” label on the package. They also avoid all street vendors who sell very inexpensive fast food without a qingzhen plaque. In Ningxia, the local religious bureau has released detailed guidelines describing what kinds of foods and drinks are permitted to be marked as “qingzhen”. According to the regulations, a qingzhen food-processing plant should have Muslim staff in charge of purchase, storage, and main executive work. In a meatpacking plant, the butchers must be ahong, manla or Muslims trained in Islamic slaughtering. Qingzhen foods should be transported separately or with distance from non-qingzhen products (Ningxia Huizu zizhiqu minzu shiwu weiyuanhui et al. 2009). Compared to many other regions in China, stores and supermarkets in Ningxia’s cities and rural areas have conspicuously large assortments of qingzhen products, a fact which indi106 cates the existence of large qingzhen consumer markets in the province. 4.2.2 Gender differences There is, however, a noticeable distinction in the perception of, and attitude toward, religious purity between male and female Hui. Due to the fact that women cannot purify themselves while menstruating and in the first month after childbirth, their status remains “polluted” during these phases. They are precluded from entering the mosque, from performing the daily prayers, and fasting during Ramadan (Marcus 1992: 67–9). The lack of women’s possibility to fulfil their religious obligations and to approach to God at any time facilitates the legitimacy of male superiority. As Strasser mentions in the introduction of her book, the biological differences between men and women are abused in Islamic cultures for the purpose of producing asymmetrical images of gender and sexuality (Strasser 106 Although the Han also buy qingzhen products occasionally, most consumers are still Muslims.

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1995: 24). Because of the assumptive lack of women’s control over the flow of body fluids, they are considered more vulnerable to pollution than men. In the Hui rural communities, this view is not only generally held by men, but also by women. Moreover, since Hui women spend significantly more time on domestic chores, including food preparation, dish washing and laundry than men, religious purity plays a more central role to them than to male Muslims. This is due to the fact that women’s salient role in the domestic sphere makes them responsible for the purity of their house and family. If a house is filthy or messy in a secular sense, or “unclean” in religious terms, the blame will be directly laid on the wife, not the husband. Any pollution caused by women means impurity affecting their house and family members. For these reasons, Hui women have to pay more attention to Islamic purity prescriptions. Since women are seen as representing the religiosity of their family, their religious purity is more crucial to Hui society than that of men. This bias in people’s views allows men to be less concerned about religious injunctions and also makes them more susceptible to becoming lax in their observation of religious duties, including the partial and full ablutions. Living in a Hui household as a Han, the ultimate taboo of touching any kitchen utensils and religious objects caused me a lot of inconveniences. However, it shows how rigorously rural Hui women are when dealing with their qingzhen concept. In comparison to men, whose outward focus of activities and relative “deliverance” from domestic affairs have given them more room to extend social interactions with the Han majority, Hui women’s stricter observance of Islamic purity rules and stronger interdependence within the same Muslim group keep their social circles limited. In many cases, women’s restrained social mobility and flexibility also affect their capacity to work outside of the community and to improve their own, and the family’s, property. Beyond purity restrictions, a higher rate of illiteracy among rural Hui women, their overwhelming domestic chores, and recurring childbirths also have adverse effects on their mobility and their ability to enlarge their social circles. However, aside from the negative socioeconomic effects, Hui women’s stronger need for interdependence within the same ethnic group makes an overarching contribution to the solidarity and stability of their community. In a wider sense, their social cohesion 107

Chapter 4

functions as a way to resist further acculturation by the Han and to prevent the blurring of Hui identity. 4.2.3 Qingzhen and its dilemmas Despite the fact that the Hui understanding of qingzhen plays a chief part in the creation and perpetuation of ethnic boundaries, the concept is in no way a monolithic or fixed ideology. By contrast, in the course of China’s rapid and continuous modernisation, the Hui’s Islamic purity concept has been challenged by the radical shifts in socioeconomic circumstances and has had to reassess itself proactively. Being separated from their more tra107 ditional hometown with a much higher Muslim population density and surrounded by the atheist Han majority, migrant Hui have to readjust their ethnic and religious life in their new dwelling places in accordance with the new social and cultural circumstances. This means that they also have to develop strategies and means to deal with pork consumers, who have become ever-present in their daily life. Both in Zhongwei and in Qingtongxia, Han stores and restaurants are dominant not only in number but also in size. Hui migrants are accustomed to buying ingredients including oil, salt and soy sauce which are packaged and have a qingzhen-label from a Han grocery store. They also do not seem to have any reservations purchasing agricultural products from the numerous Han vendors, including chilli powder and Sichuan pepper powder—two of the most common ingredients used in Hui cuisine in Ningxia. However, when it comes to processed food such as meat, noodles or buns, the Hui will always buy them from a qingzhen place. In Ningxia, no Han butcher would ever attempt to attract any Hui customer, since they are all aware of the latter’s high vigilance against contamination by the Han. In practice, however, it is not always easy for Muslims themselves to distinguish between qingzhen and non-qingzhen foods and drinks. Conservative Hui will say any foods without a qingzhen-label are not lawful and should thus be rejected. This kind of understanding reduces the selection of lawful foods tremendously and is therefore not

107 For a comparison: the share of Hui population in the two southern counties Xiji and Haiyuan amounted to 56.77 and 73.58 percent respectively in 2012. See Ningxia Huizu zizhiqu tongjiju et al., 2013, pp. 107.

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widely accepted outside some hilly areas in traditional southern Ning108 xia. In the course of China’s fast industrialisation and commercialisation, various types of processed foods and drinks have flooded into rural markets. Snacks such as chips, chocolate, and cookies or beverages like cola, lemonade, ice tea and even coffee, which had never been known to rural Chinese population until the last few decades, are now advertised permanently through TV and other mass media. With the popularisation of TV sets, smart phones and other electric devices in rural areas, brands of processed foods and drinks have become more well-known in the daily life of villagers, including the migrant Hui. The colourful packages and various flavours of industrial products lead to an immediate increase in the number of their consumers. Beyond that, being supported by the improvement of public transport and a market-opening policy, more and more foods and drinks are becoming available to rural populations. In the face of the greatly enlarged variety of appetising groceries, young generations of Hui only pay attention to the listed ingredients on the package. As long as there is no pork involved, young Hui will not reject the packaged foods and drinks, regardless of whether they are produced in a qing109 zhen factory or not. Gillette summarised some main factors contributing to Hui’s acceptance of mass-produced convenience foods: the lack of the extensive use of the hands during modern industrial food production, the invisibility of the production process, and the long distance between where foods were made and where they were consumed (Gillette 2007: 116). A severe problem that emerged during the long-term process of migration is Hui children’s meals at school. In many areas in Ningxia where Hui and Han migrants live together, children’s meals at school have become a great concern for many Hui parents. Pure Hui schools are relatively rare in Ningxia. In most of the public schools, Han children are the dominant groups. Only few public schools provide a separate qingzhen 108 One can assume that in southern Ningxia, elder Hui might observe this rule. But peasants in the south seem to lead a comparably autarkic life and have few demands for processed foods anyway. 109 In fact, most foods and drinks without a qingzhen label are made by nonMuslims. Qingzhen products tend to have a higher price compared to non-qingzhen ones of the same quality. This might be related to the strict purity regulations during food processing in the qingzhen factories.

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kitchen for their Hui teachers and students. A majority of the schools only offer qingzhen dishes, prepared in the same kitchen which also sells Han dishes. Many Hui parents I spoke to found it reprehensible that Han and Hui dishes could be prepared in the same kitchen. Therefore, many of them did not send their children to those schools. However, a qingzhen kitchen was not the only criterion for Hui parents when selecting a school for their children: the quality of teaching, the standards of equipment, and the tuition fee had to be taken into consideration as well. There were also parents who wanted to guarantee their next generation the best education, therefore having to tolerate the absence of qingzhen regulations in many public schools. One of the Hui students I spoke to complained about the lack of understanding and the misconceptions surrounding qingzhen in his high school. Despite that, he would not consider changing school, since his high school was one of the best in the county and he was striving after an excellent final grade in order to enter a first-class university and study one of the most sought-after disci110 plines. Against the backdrop of the continuously rising costs of living and a demand for a more qualitative life, more and more Hui feel it necessary to have a temporary job outside of their fields to improve their income. The Hui generally prefer workplaces with a comparatively higher quota of 111 Muslim co-workers and separate dining halls. However, when facing very attractive payments, some Hui will also accept places in which they work and live with the Han majority on a daily basis. The move to a new place usually provides young Muslims greater freedom from familial control and more room for developing a different identity. Although Hui migrant workers still maintain their strong Muslim belief of a qingzhen life, after returning to their village they have usually become less strict in dealing with Islamic purity restrictions. In fact, many young Hui only demonstrate their very strict observation of Islamic purity rules in the presence of elder generations or religious leaders. In Yongxin Village, if young Hui are only among themselves, some of them share the same 110 In China, the most sought-after disciplines are the ones which are considered “useful” or promising in terms of making a career, such as medicine, engineering, computer sciences, and economic sciences. 111 This explains why a high percentage of Ningxia’s Hui leave for regions like Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and even Gansu to search for a seasonal job.

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dishes with a non-Muslim guest—a behaviour which would be inconceivable for elder Hui. At the end of the chapter, it must be stressed that the Hui understanding of qingzhen should not be viewed as a static concept, but rather as a heterogeneous issue that changes in accordance with variables such as age, location, education level, socioeconomic situation and so forth. It can be generally stated that, firstly, purity restrictions are more strongly observed by rural Hui living in homogeneous Muslim communities than by the urban Hui population. This is partially attributed to the instructional role rural ahong play to maintain their fangmin’s religiosity. Beyond the ahong’s influence, a neighbourhood with an overwhelming share of Hui residents usually evokes an observing function in itself. The residents feel “watched” in public and thus have to pay attention to the purity law. Secondly, among different age groups, elder Hui are, on average, more diligent regarding religious conducts than younger Hui. They have more time for partial and full ablutions and are generally more concerned about 112 their ritual purity than young generations. Thirdly, in terms of gender, women are more careful in dealing with Islamic injunctions than men. Considering all these parameters together, elderly Hui women in Muslim villages who have never migrated could be seen as the “purest” group among other believers, and the most reluctant to changes in their religious beliefs and practices. As a result, ethnic boundaries between them and the Han majority tend to be the most constant and solid. On the contrary, the increase in both ecological and labour migration of young villagers will probably bring about more modifications in the observance of purity law and therefore blur the existing ethnic boundaries vis-à-vis the Han. The qingzhen beliefs of the young, rural population is challenged through their frequent contact with non-Muslims and with the urban, secular life. Since Hui identity is primarily based on the people’s purity concept, its future development is closely related to how young generations conceive and deal with the “halal” and the “haram”.

112 I think it is also because of elder Hui’s closeness to death and the Day of Judgement that they are more devoted to purification and other religious duties.

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Chapter 5 Fasting and Ramadan in an immigration area

5.1

Introduction

Except for the Hui’s qingzhen concept, fasting also plays an important role in their religious life and distinguishes them clearly from the Han majority. When asked why people should fast, the Hui generally reply, “because you can atone for your sins and misdeeds. When the Day of Judgement comes, you will suffer less in your afterlife.” Fasting is an integral part of the Hui’s religious life and has been closely associated to their perspective on death and the afterlife. In this context, one needs to clarify the distinctions between Islamic fasting and secular fasting, such as diets or hunger strikes: Islamic fasting, the sawm, is abstinence from food, drink, medicine, tobacco and sexual intercourse from dawn till dusk. It is regarded as a type of spiritual religious practices. The daily fast lasts only from sunrise to sunset. After sunset and before sunrise on the next day, practitioners enjoy two meals which are more nutritious than what they would usually have on other days. Hence, Islamic austerity is not aimed at losing weight. Compared to political hunger strikes, fasting in Islam is not excessive or self-destructive. To abstain from food and drink is chiefly considered by Muslims as religious submission to God, and, in 113 most cases, it is not embedded in a political context. Many Muslims know the way of moderate fasting without causing harm to themselves. Fasting is mentioned very little in the Koran. However, in the Hadith, there are explicit paragraphs describing the significance of fasting. It is stated that whoever fasts in the month of Ramadan out of faith, and hopeful of reward (from Allah), will have all his past sins forgiven. In another part, it is said that there is a gate in Paradise called Rayyan. Only those who observe fasts will enter through it (on the Day of Judgement) (H̱ aṭīb at-Tibrīzī 1940, Book III: 513-4). In addition to abstaining from eating, drinking and sexual activities, Muslims should also temper their negative emotions such as greed, anger, and hostility and restrain themselves from lustful thoughts. This is because fasting is considered to be a way of ap113 There have been, however, non-fasting protests during Ramadan in some Middle Eastern countries which had clear political aims. See Lindholm, 2012.

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proaching God, by giving up one’s earthly passions, as well as malicious ideas and behaviours for Him (Lindholm 2012). Only those who give up forged speech and evil actions can acquire God’s compensations (forgiveness, merits and blessings) by denial of secular relish. The majority of Muslim believers are convinced of the beneficial effects of withholding themselves from earthly desires. I will now list some of the benefits. Firstly, “fasting is purifying the body.” This aspect can be attributed to the Muslim purity concept I clarified in the previous chapter. The basic idea of Islamic purification is to keep the inside and outside of the body as two entirely separate domains (Marcus 1992: 73; Lindholm 2012). By putting a limitation on the borders of the body, Muslims can maintain a state of inviolate purity for the austere hours. The body is considered to come to rest, during which waste products accumulated in the preceding year can be discharged. Secondly, it is intended to allow the digestive organs to pause so that they will work with redoubled energy and vigour moving forward, “just as a land which was left without cultivation for one year brings abundant crops in the year following [...]” (H̱ aṭīb atTibrīzī 1940, Book III: 511). Thirdly, fasting is regarded as a means to bring ravenous natural passions under control. It teaches pious Muslims how to deal with physical and mental desires which cannot always be fulfilled in life. “In other words, the chief object of fasting is to generate power in man which can control unruly passions just as a beast is brought under control by keeping it occasionally hungry and then by giving it food” (H̱ aṭīb at-Tibrīzī 1940, Book III: 509). To subdue one’s secular passions and to learn detachment and self-regulation are thus appreciated by some Muslims above all other virtues. Lastly, practitioners are supposed to gain more compassion, mercy and generosity for their needy and hungry brothers and sisters because they are experiencing the same suffering which some of their co-religionists are subjected to almost every day. It is indeed through fasting, especially the compulsory fasting during Ramadan, that the strong sense of Muslim solidarity and coherence has been perceived and enlivened. This last aspect will become more manifest when I provide a detailed description of the local religious practices of the Hui in rural Ningxia in the month of Ramadan in 2012. There are, however, certain categories of people who are exempted from fasting. These are children below maturity (boys under 12 and girls 113

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under 9), travellers, the sick, people with mental disorders, women who 115 are menstruating, pregnant or suckling babies, and finally, those who are not able to fast, e.g. elderly Muslims. Other than people with a mental illness and seniors, other categories of Muslims need to make up for the missed days of Ramadan fasting once they are out of their state of impurity or disability (Hellman 2008: 208). Fasting is, however, not approved throughout the year. There are prescribed times when abstinence is not allowed. To numerate some of the prohibited days: Eid al-Fitr (festival of breaking the fast), Eid al-Adha (Sacrifice Feast), and the three tashrīk days 116 (11th, 12th and 13th of Zul-Hijja) (Berg 1997: 95). The fast will become void if one of the following rules has been broken: Firstly, niyyah, literally intention, purpose or inclination, must be made in mind or uttered by the tongue after the meal consumed in the morning and before the fast of the following day begins. Secondly, anything consciously introduced into the body from outside makes the fast invalid. However, cleansing the mouth by gurgling or snipping water into the nostrils does not injure the fast. Thirdly, sexual intercourse in the daytime makes the fast void, the same as masturbation or ejaculation. Kissing and embracing are, on the contrary, permitted. Fourthly, false talk and immoral actions such as lying, slander, cursing, stealing, adultery or physical violence also break the fast. If a fast is broken, one is required to compensate by fasting sixty consecutive days or in case of inability, to feed sixty poor men (H̱ aṭīb at-Tibrīzī 1940, Book III: 527–8). Islamic fasting can be divided into two categories: obligatory and nonobligatory fasting. While fasting during the month of Ramadan is one of the five Pillars of Islam and hence considered as mandatory, abstaining from food, drink and sexual activities in the daytime outside of Ramadan are optional, but not compulsory. Accordingly, this chapter consists of two parts dealing with Ramadan fasting and voluntary fasting respectively. As the fasting of Ramadan outweighs voluntary fasting, both in its religious significance and practical dimensions, the emphasis of this 114 There are, however, sufficient cases in which children begin fasting before their maturity, either encouraged by their parents or their own desire. 115 Women during menstruation, and in confinement, are forbidden to fast since they are considered to be in an impure stage and their attempts to approach God would be therefore violating. 116 It must be noted that these days are not necessarily prohibited within every Islamic group.

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chapter will be on the religious importance of Ramadan and the festive activities related to this month. Non-obligatory fasting does not play a major role in Muslim religious life and is often neglected by scholars fo117 cusing on Islamic fasting. Therefore, it is meaningful to dedicate a small subchapter to optional fasting after introducing the fasting of Ramadan.

5.2

Ramadan fasting

In the following, I will illustrate the fasting of Ramadan from two perspectives: authorised Islamic traditions based on the Koran or the Hadith, and local practices observed during my fieldwork in Ningxia in 2012. Whereas the early Islamic written prescriptions serve as sources to which local religious observance can be traced back, my focus lies on how the Hui in rural Ningxia understand fasting and why, when and how they de facto fast. Beyond that, I will also include cases of some Hui who disentangled themselves from the abstinence. 5.2.1 Authorised Islamic traditions Fasting during Ramadan is mentioned in the Koran in sura II, verse 182:

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[P]rescribed for you is [...] the month of Ramadan, wherein the Koran was sent down to be a guidance to the people, and as clear signs of the Guidance and the Salvation. So let those of you, who are present at the month, fast it; and if any of you be sick, or if he be on a journey, then a number of other days; God desires ease for you, and desires not hardship for you; and that you fulfil the number, and magnify God that He has guided you, and haply you will be thankful. The month preceding Ramadan, Shaban, is a time when Muslims prepare themselves for the advent of the following fasting month. Preparatory work includes cleaning the house, purifying the body, grocery shopping, and visiting the mosque. It is a busy period during which the sacred atmosphere of Ramadan becomes stronger and stronger. In many societies, the month of Shaban is devoted to the dead and it culminates on Laylat al 117 In fact, Islamic fasting is often automatically associated with Ramadan fasting. 118 All Koranic quotations are from Arberry’s translation, “The Koran interpreted”. Since there are many different versions of the Koran, I will only refer to the number of the sura and the verse, instead of the page number.

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Baraʿat, the 14th night of the month. Laylat al Baraʿat, also called Night of Quittancy, is usually celebrated in the mosque with both reverence and rejoicing. During the night, a special prayer is made in the mosque, alms are given, and religious food is distributed. However, the way of celebrating varies and largely depends on the Islamic groups and the location (Berg 1997: 94; Von Grunebaum 1992: 53–4). Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. It is a time when “the doors of heaven are opened up therein; and the doors of Hell are shut up therein; and the mischievous devils are put in chains for Allah. There is a night therein which is better than one thousand months. Whoso is deprived of its good, is deprived of all good” (H̱ aṭīb at-Tibrīzī 1940, Book III: 515–6). Therefore, Ramadan is often called the “holy month”. During the holy month, intensified religiosity can be sensed in many aspects of Muslims’ daily life: More people visit the mosque or prayer house regularly; Prayers, especially those in a mosque, are longer than usual; Religious rituals become more complex; Sexual segregation is stronger, and Muslims pay more attention to both general cleanliness and the Islamic purity of themselves and their house. In some areas, for instance in Mecca and West Java, incense is burnt at home (Zaki Yamani 1987: 84; Hellman 119 2008: 209–10). During the month of Ramadan, it is assumed that God is next to his fasting believers to listen and respond to their calls and will intercede for them. According to tradition, the first ten days of fasting gain God’s mercy, the second merit forgiveness, and the last and most important ten days bring salvation from damnation (Lindholm 2012). The Islamic calendar has twelve months with either 29 or 30 days totalling 354 or 355 days in a year. Since it is based on the lunar phases, the beginning of each month is movable. Each year, Ramadan begins ten or eleven days earlier than the previous year. It takes approximately 33 years and 5 days for Ramadan to complete a twelve month move across the solar calendar and finish where it began. That is to say, the fasting month could be in any season of a year and the length of Ramadan could be either 29 or 30 days. While fasting in winter is comparatively easy due to the lower temperatures and shorter day lengths in most parts of the world, restraining oneself absolutely from food and drink during the hot and long summer days can be very arduous. 119 The act of incense burning is a contentious issue which has been condemned by some other Muslim groups, see Hellman, 2008, pp. 205.

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According to sura II, verse 183 in the Koran, the fast should begin from the appearance of a white colour in the eastern horizon and last till the setting of the sun. Immediately after the sunset, the fast should be broken. The first day of Ramadan is announced through sighting of the new moon by a person worthy of credence. Different types of announcements have been adopted according to local traditions. While cannons are fired to celebrate the beginning of Ramadan in Saudi Arabia and SwahiliLand (Zaki Yamani 1987: 81; Frankl 2012: 162), in Java drums are beaten to spread the news (Muhaimin 1995: 104). Generally the advent of Ramadan will always be advertised on the radio and television. Two meals are consumed at night time: iftar, the meal in the evening after the fast has been broken, and suhoor, the meal before dawn. These two meals have a strong socialising character, as it is rare for people to eat alone during the month of Ramadan. By contrast, communal invitations and the exchange of dishes between relatives, neighbours and close 120 friends take place on a daily basis. In many Islamic societies, special foods, such as specific types of pastries and porridges, are prepared solely 121 for Ramadan. In the evening, Muslim men prefer going to the local mosque or prayer house and sharing the iftar with other co-religionists after tarāwīh, a special congregational prayer performed by Muslims be122 fore fast-breaking during Ramadan. Meanwhile, women in an extended family, including both cognates and affines, gather together and eat in the domestic sphere, together with their young children. Regardless where the fasting believers have their iftar, it is mandatory to begin eating as soon as the sun has set, since “[t]he sooner the iftar is taken, the better for rewards” (H̱ aṭīb at-Tibrīzī 1940, Book III: 523). According to the Hadith, a fast should be broken by consuming a date because this is considered a blessing. If dates are not available, then with water, for water is purifying (H̱ aṭīb at-Tibrīzī 1940, Book III: 525). For suhoor, there will be at least one person—usually female—from an extended family arranged to prepare food in the early morning. Commonly, suhoor begins approximately two hours before sunrise. Compared to iftar, the meal in the morning is smaller in size and less elaborate. After the 120 For the intensification of social relations during Ramadan see Antoun, 1968. 121 For the names of the dishes see, for example, Zaki Yamani, 1987, pp. 82; Diouri, 1994; and Frankl, 2012, pp. 163. 122 For more information about tarāwīh see Wensinck, 2000, pp. 222.

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suhoor, many male Muslims will go to the mosque or prayer house again to attend the dawn prayer. Most importantly, between the suhoor and the dawn prayer, there should be time remaining for reading verses of the Koran and performing the ritual of niyyah, one’s good intention to fast. Although the two meals during the period of fasting are more delicate and nutritious than an ordinary meal out of Ramadan month, few people will gain weight, because the Koran does not approve of excessive or self123 indulgent behaviour. In fact, food consumption does not increase during Ramadan, the difference is rather in the quality and variety of the meals, as well as the quantity of foods presented before a guest. It should be noted that not every day in Ramadan has the same religious significance. The last ten days of the month are considered to be the most blessed time and during these ten days one should perfect one’s fast and give more charity. Devout believers should recite more verses from the Koran and remember Allah more often. Some male Muslims will perform i’tikāf, i.e. remaining in the mosque the whole night in order to pray and read Koranic verses (Zaki Yamani 1987: 85; Antoun 1968: 101). Espe124 cially on Laylat al-Qadr, the Grand Night, when the Koran is believed to have been revealed, people are expected to stay awake and spend the whole night praying, reading the Koran, invoking God’s forgiveness, repenting for previous misconduct, and promising righteous behaviour in the future (H̱ aṭīb at-Tibrīzī 1940, Book III: 553). In sura XCVII, the Koran says: “Behold, We sent it down on the Night of Power; And what shall teach thee what is the Night of Power? The Night of Power is better than a thousand months; in it the angels and the Spirit descend, by the leave of their Lord, upon every command. Peace it is, till the rising of dawn.” This should be a moment when all sins are forgiven if the worshipper receives God’s mercy through piety and submission, as expressed in fasting and prayers (Lindholm 2012). However, which night is the Grand Night is open to interpretation. Most traditions agree that the Koran was sent down in one of the last ten nights and probably in one of the last three odd nights of Ramadan, i.e. the 25th, 27th or 29th night. The majority of Muslim societies such as Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan seem to 123 “[...] eat and drink, but be you not prodigal.” (sura VII, verse 29) 124 There are various English translations of the name: the Blessed Night, the Night of Power, the Night of Destiny.

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have accepted the 27th as their Grand Night (Buitelaar 1993: 64; Zaki Yamani 1987: 85; Delaney 1991: 296; Antoun 1968: 101). The ending of Ramadan is celebrated by a feast called “Eid al-Fitr”, the feast of breaking the fast. This festival does not only carry great weight among Muslims worldwide, but also has become well-known among non125 Muslims. Indeed, Eid al-Fitr is one of the two main Islamic festivals and is thus an official holiday in many Muslim countries and regions. On this day, believers celebrate the ending of the straining fasting period with their relatives and friends. By having completed the fast and having fulfilled other religious duties, such as giving alms and practising daily prayers, the faithful are glad and content now that they have gained God’s forgiveness and mercy. In most Muslim cultures, the whole festive period lasts three days. Preparatory work usually begins a few days before the celebrations: the house is cleaned, new clothes are bought, and large amounts of food are made. Household expenses increase at this time for groceries, clothes, alms and gifts for relatives and friends, which are most often in the form of foods. In the morning of the Eid al-Fitr, after the dawn prayer and the full ablution, male Muslims usually assemble in a local mosque, a prayer house, or on a public square awaiting the Eid prayer. There are two Eid prayers in the Islamic calendar, one is held on the first day after Ramadan, whereas the other takes place on the Eid al-Adha, Sacrifice Feast on the 10th of Zul-Hijja. Muslims will dress in their best clothes on these occasions and follow an Imam’s instruction to recite the special prayer. A sermon follows the Eid prayer, usually stressing the merits of Ramadan and exhorting the believers to alms-giving (Von Grunebaum 1992: 63–4). Zakat, the portion of property paid by Muslims on behalf of all Islamic believers, is due by the end of Ramadan. Zakat is one of the five pillars in Islam and therefore considered obligatory for all Muslims who have the financial means. The payment varies depending on the sum of their lawful property. Zakat is payable not only in monetary form, but can also be paid in commodities, livestock, or agricultural produce. The alms should be used for the benefit of the destitute and other eligible categories of people, 125 The other is Eid al-Adha, Sacrifice Feast. Although it is called the “major festival”, its significance and festiveness do not surpass Eid al-Fitr, the “minor festival”, see Mittwoch, 1971, pp. 1008.

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such as slaves, debtors, travellers and the zakat collectors themselves. The payment connected with the termination of Ramadan fasting is called zakat al-fitr. Zakat al-fitr is supposed to be utilised to help purify the givers from their unseemly conduct and other shortcomings during Ramadan while at the same time relieve the poor from having to beg for food on the Eid al-Fitr (Zysow 2002: 418). After the sermon, people return home where an abundant meal is ready to be served. Before family members sit together and enjoy their meal, they congratulate each other and exchange kind greetings. In many parts of the Islamic world, family visits already begin on the first day after 127 Ramadan. In some Muslim cultures, it is also customary to visit the 128 graves of the deceased relatives on the Eid al-Fitr. Graves are cleaned and Koranic verses recited by a religious professional in front of the tombs. This subject will be thematised in the following chapter which focuses on the Jahriyya’s perspective on death and their visits to gongbei and private tombs. 5.2.2 Local practices of the Jahriyya peasants in Ningxia The Islamic calendar is rarely applied among rural Hui in Ningxia. Although the dates of their religious activities and festivals closely match those in Saudi Arabia, the Hui use the Chinese lunar calendar when referring to their Islamic events. For instance, a Hui will tell you that the pre129 paration phase for Ramadan is between the 3rd and the 16th of a given Chinese lunar month, instead of mentioning the Islamic month, Shaban. During this time, Hui families invite an Imam and his students to their 130 house to hold commemoration rituals (ermaili) as soon as the house has been cleaned and enough groceries and incense sticks have been purchased. In the month before Ramadan, incense sticks are burnt frequently 126 For the groups of people eligible to receive zakat, see sura IX, verse 60. 127 This was observed and noted by Antoun in his article “The social significance of Ramadān in an Arab village”, pp. 97 and in Muhaimin’s monograph “The Islamic Traditions of Cirebon”, pp. 111. 128 See Von Grunebaum, 1992, pp. 65 and Muhaimin, 1995, pp. 108–13. 129 The common Chinese term for Ramadan is zhaiyue, literally the month of fasting. The word laimaidan, a translation based on the pronunciation of Ramadan, is rarely used, especially in spoken language. 130 Commemoration rituals are described and analysed in a separate chapter in this thesis. For this reason, I will not go into any details about the rituals here.

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both in Hui homes and in their mosques by the believers. The Hui believe that the odour of humans prevent the spirits of their deceased relatives from entering the house but the smell of burning incense can disperse the body odour of humans. Commemoration rituals at this time do not vary largely from the ones held at other times, except for the fact that the food offered by the family may be more abundant and the alms they give to the Imam and his students may be greater than usual, since this period is considered more blessed. 131 Laylat al Baraʿat, which is called “liaoye” by the Hui in Ningxia, seems to have a special significance to their religious life in the countryside. It is the night of the 16 th day of a Chinese lunar month and marks the ending of the preparation phase for Ramadan. Large mosques hold prayers and provide their visitors with youxiang (a kind of deep-fried flatbread) (Figure 8) and some meat (mostly chicken or beef). The celebration is financed by donations from a mosque’s fangmin, in most cases they are inhabitants from the same village where the mosque is located. The food distributed at a mosque needs to be prepared many hours beforehand and it is indeed a type of mass production. It is therefore not as tasty and elaborate as the food cooked in a family home. Despite that, Muslim believers never lose their enthusiasm to receive the free food from their mosques, since it is considered more blessed. It often happens that a Hui does not only take a portion for him- or herself, but also a further one or two portions for the relatives who are missing due to travel or sickness.

Figure 8: Handmade youxiang 131 An alternative name for Laylat al Baraʿat, which is often used in written Chinese, is “Bailati ye”.

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On the liaoye, my host family took me to Minning, a town which was about 25 kilometres away from the settlement in the vineyard where we lived, as there was a large Jahriyya mosque where important religious ceremonies are extensively celebrated. Beyond that, they have a nephew near the town at whose place we could spend the night. The name Minning is composed of the character “Min”, an abbreviation for Fujian Province, and the character “Ning”, the short name for Ningxia. The town was built approximately 10 years ago. Before its foundation, there was only a large area of desert in the region. The Fujian government supported Ningxia in improving the arability of the land and entice inhabitants from southern Ningxia to migrate to the newly established town. Today, Minning has be132 come a well-known Hui community with a high share of Hui residents. Many buildings have been constructed in Islamic style and Muslim grocery stores and restaurants have been built in almost every street. We went to a market near Minning Qingzhen Dasi (Great Mosque of Minning) in the evening, where MYQ and her husband bought a new jacket and a pair of new shoes. Just before 7 pm the streets became more and more crowded. People, or to be exact, all the Jahriyya, streamed gradually from all directions towards the mosque. Men, women, the old and the young, had all put on their best clothes and shoes. Male Jahriyya wore the liujiaomao, the hexagonal skull cap in white, black or dark brown, whereas young married women were dressed in their most beautiful clothes and headscarves. The prayer hall had already been open for some time, but people preferred standing in the courtyard at first, chatting with their relatives and friends. Children of different ages ran around in the open square, playing with each other. It lasted at least one hour before the congregational prayer was proclaimed. However, nobody seemed to grow impatient while waiting. Instead, adults were all in a solemn mood, while children were happy and excited (Figure 9). There was no clear announcement of the beginning of the prayer. Yet, most worshippers seemed to be able to notice the right moment: Men began to enter the carpeted and brightly lit prayer hall, found an appropriate place and knelt. Meanwhile, a lot of elderly women and young children gathered together on the platform in front of the entrance and they also knelt down. Due to them not being able to recite 132 About 90% of its residents are Hui.

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Figure 9: Liaoye at the Great Mosque of Minning 133

Koran chapters in toto, Jahriyya women and young children are often excluded from chanting halls. Beyond that, since the prayer hall of the Great Mosque of Minning did not have a place for female worshippers, the only place reserved for them to follow the Imam was apparently the narrow concrete platform. By the time the prayer began, there was nowhere to put a foot down at the entrance of the hall. The rest of the believers, mainly young wives and girls who arrived a little later, remained standing in the courtyard and listened to the prayer from the auditorium. As with most Islamic prayers, the one offered on liaoye in Minning consisted of a number of sections. As a woman, I was only able to observe female worshippers’ performance outside the prayer hall. Because rural Hui women know only a few Koranic verses by heart, most of the time they stood still and tried to listen to the unclear utterances of the men. But the women seemed to know exactly when a section approached its end. Once they understood the message based on the chanting they heard, 133 In my opinion, this is not because the Jahriyya women are unable to learn but because they do not have access to either formal religious education or public chanting.

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all women followed the men’s performance of the duwa in the auditorium: Simultaneously, they all closed their eyes, raised their arms to the height of their breast, held their hands in the air with palms facing upwards and recited the few verses they knew by heart. The duwa was then completed by wiping their face from the forehead to the chin. Once the prayer was finished, an exhilarating atmosphere prevailed through the mosque. Crowds of people flocked to a narrow exit where everyone could receive a portion of youxiang and meat as they passed through the exit. It was extremely hard to go through the little door in a 134 crowd of excited people all fighting for God’s blessed food. The nephew of MYQ and I had to keep grasping each other’s hand tightly in order not to be separated. When we were close to the door, a man from an open window thrust two little bags into our hands quickly and we were soon pushed onwards by the hurrying mass. After the liaoye, daily life during the second half of Shaban returned to its normal rhythm: The peasants went to their fields early in the morning and came back between 10 and 11 am to avoid the heat. In the late afternoon, they set out again and would usually not return until 8 or 9 pm. Working days were sometimes broken by heavy rains. When the fields were too wet to enter, they would use the spare time to relax by sleeping, eating out, playing cards or mahjong, or going shopping. For Chinese Muslims, the day on which Ramadan precisely begins depends on their menhuan affiliations. The initial day could be the first, the 135 second or the third of a Chinese lunar month. However, the entire length of fasting, either 29 or 30 days, remains the same. That means that the menhuan who begins earlier will also celebrate their Eid al-Fitr earlier, and vice versa. But since the Eid al-Fitr lasts three days in China, the Hui of different menhuan can still celebrate this festival together. Regardless of the different starting dates, in the build-up to Ramadan, the Hui all busy themselves with cleaning the house and buying incense sticks and nutritious groceries like meat, eggs, nuts and dried fruits, which they do not always have at other times of the year. It is also an old 134 On 5th January 2014, a stampede occurred during an ermaili ceremony in Beidasi in Xiji. 14 people died and 10 were injured. See . 135 Among the four main menhuan in China, the Ikhwān, the “New Sect”, begin to fast on the 1st, the Jahriyya and Khufiyyah begin on the 2nd, whereas the Gādiriyyah will not fast until the 3rd.

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custom to visit graveyards before Ramadan, preferably on the last day of Shaban. For this tradition, Ningxia’s Hui use the term “qing wangren”, literally to invite the deceased (back home). It is said that during the whole month of Ramadan, spirits of the deceased are released by Allah so that they can be near their beloved relatives. This belief is strengthened by a ritual in the graveyard. On this occasion, an ahong or a manla will be invited to lead the ritual, since he knows which chapters of the Koran should be recited in front of the tomb and he can quote the proper verses by heart. The family members will kneel down next to him and follow his 136 chanting. For his service the ahong or manla receives a small payment. There is no fixed fee for the service, instead, the amount of money de pends on the financial situation of the family. The evening prayer exactly one day before Ramadan is of the same importance as visiting tombs. When I returned from visiting the grave137 yard of my host family in Minning with their male relatives just after 8 pm, there were already many men assembled in the small prayer room established for the Jahriyya migrant workers of the vineyards. The men 138 were all dwellers from the settlements built by the same wine company. Some of them came by motorcycle, since their apartments were several kilometres away. On major religious occasions like this, the Hui of different menhuan usually do not attend the same mosque services. By the time the prayer began, the small room was completely full. Some women stopped in front of the open door. They did not greet each other but remained standing outside in the dark while concentrating on the chanting 139 inside. After a while, they went back home quietly. I assumed that the prayer was approaching its end and the women needed to set the table for the family dinner. Hellman mentions the significance of mongah, an abun136 For a detailed description of the ritual see chapter 6.3. 137 Both my male and female informants explained the exclusion of women from paying formal visits to family graves by saying that it is because women know very few Koranic verses, thus it is not adequate for them to join in formal grave visits where the Koran will be recited. Nevertheless, I did not have the impression that women are absolutely prohibited from approaching a grave as they are from taking part in public chanting among male Hui. 138 For details see chapter 3.3. 139 Many women spoke of the melodic beauty of the Islamic chanting they perceive, although they cannot follow or even understand the verses. Many of them also revealed their previous desire to marry an ahong or a manla because of the latter’s religious education.

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dant commensal meal shared by all family members together the night before Ramadan in West Java (Hellman 2008: 209). In my host family in Ningxia, however, the last dinner before Ramadan was almost as ordinary as each meal they had eaten before, except for an additional chicken dish. There was neither a formal family gathering at dinner nor any special ritual held to address the intention of fasting, as Hellman illustrates in the West Javanese case (Hellman 2008: 209). By contrast, MYQ, who wanted to fast the next day, ate much less than usual and finished her meal earlier than the others who were not going to fast. She intended to keep some appetite for the fengzhaifan (suhoor) which would begin at around half past three the next morning. The Jahriyya begin to fast on the second day of a Chinese lunar month. In 2012, when I was conducting fieldwork in Ningxia, it fell on a Friday in July. Since Friday is considered more religious by the Hui and it was the first day of Ramadan, many Jahriyya fasted on that day. Due to their heavy physical work in the vineyard and the hot and dry weather conditions, most of them did not keep up with fasting on the other days. Among the migrant peasants, few men participated in fasting. Delaney explained a similar phenomenon in rural Turkey in her book on gender and procreation in Islam as follows: It is almost as if the women do the spiritual work for the men and the men do the physical work for the women. At the same time, women have internalized a view that they are more sinful and therefore need to do whatever they can to help themselves attain heaven. In the hierarchy of being, men are closer to God; representing Him in the family as they do, they may think they do not need to continually prove their worth by such practices (Delaney 1991: 296). This explanation could also be applied to rural Hui in Ningxia. In terms of fasting, there was an evident distinction between the two sexes. However, even among peasant women, the number of them who did fast everyday 140 was quite small. To my knowledge, there were only two women out of 140 To avoid misinterpretations, it is necessary to mention that in the cooler, hilly areas of southern Ningxia where more elder Hui live, many more people, both men and women, fast for a whole month. Indeed, weather conditions and physical work seem to be the main factors in deciding if or how long one wants to fast, since the missing days can theoretically be made up at any time throughout the year until the next Ramadan is due.

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40 households in the settlement who followed through with fasting for the whole month. However, a number of people, mainly women, chose to fast on certain days only. These days, such as Fridays and the first and the last day of Ramadan, were considered more significant in a religious respect. In the settlements in Qingtongxia, fasting Muslims automatically formed a solid unit and differentiated themselves from the non-fasting majority on the basis of their rescheduled and reduced daily activities: They rose before sunrise and shared the fengzhaifan among relatives or neighbours who were also on a fast. Before and after fasting, duwa must be performed to make the tianxian (angel) witness the good deed and let 141 him write it down. After niyyah—one’s good intention to fast—had been made, women usually went back to sleep, while men joined the dawn prayer. During the day, fasting Hui tried to avoid heavy physical work. Instead, they spent more time sleeping or chatting than usual. If there had been a mosque within a short distance, everyone would have paid close attention to its call for evening prayer as sunset approached, since this marks the breaking of the fast. By this time, dinner or kaizhaifan (iftar) should already have been prepared. In a homogeneous Ikhwān village in Xiji, I saw many men going to their local mosque with one or two dishes in their hands. They broke the fast in their mosque and shared the dishes together with other male believers. Among the migrant peasants in Qingtongxia, the practice of fasting was much more difficult, due to the fact that there was no mosque nearby and no ahong was responsible for them. The single 15 m 2 prayer room in the middle of the vineyards provided the Jahriyya peasants (and a few Hui from other menhuan) with a place for public gatherings and chanting, but no ahong lived in the room or was designated for taking charge of it. Therefore, nobody called the room a “mosque”. The classical si-fang relation as discussed in a previous chapter was entirely absent here. Hence, it can be assumed that besides the summer heat and the heavy agricultural work, the absence of a religious structure was another reason why some migrant Hui decided not to fast. They felt the lack of a spiritual guide in the settlements. 141 The Hui believe that there are two angels sitting on their shoulders: the one on the left side records one’s misconduct while the other on the right side writes down one’s benevolence.

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MYQ decided to fast on the first day of Ramadan as it was a Friday and she had less work to complete on that day (it had rained heavily two days previously and the fields were still too wet to be entered). On the night before Ramadan, she agreed to have the fengzhaifan with her saozi together at the latter’s place, which was just about 20 metres behind her house. MYQ was woken up by her saozi who knocked at the window at 142 around half past three. Their breakfast consisted of hot black tea with brown sugar and noodle soup with eggs. Since it was already becoming hot early in the morning, they stayed sitting on the steps in front of the house, where it was cooler. They did not go back to their apartments until the dawn broke and the men returned home from their first prayer of the 143 day in the prayer room. On the first day of Ramadan, MYQ made several phone calls to find out if her relatives were also fasting. She also inquired about their current well-being. She explained that traditionally, adult sons and daughters should give their parents money or buy them nutritious foods for Ramadan. However, because of the limited traffic conditions in rural areas of southern Ningxia and the large amount of work in the vineyard, she could only ask a friend who was going to her home county to take 50 yuan and a packaged chicken to her parents. Over the telephone, MYQ found out that almost every woman in her extended family in the south intended to fast for the whole month and that even her father, who had rarely followed the Islamic duty, held himself from eating and drinking during the day in this year’s Ramadan. MYQ felt bad about herself, since she did not plan to observe the one-month abstinence. “I do not feel like home here,” 144 she said unhappily. There was not a single mosque nearby, hence no call for prayer could be heard at sunset. The Hui in Ningxia break the fast according to its capital’s time, although there are some minor differences between Yinchuan and the other regions of the province. Once it began to get dark, the fast142 I was told by elder Muslim women that they would wake up before dawn by themselves without an alarm clock, as they always kept fasting in their head and could thus hear Allah’s calling before sunrise. 143 Although few men fasted during Ramadan, there was an evident increase in the number of participants at the daily prayers. 144 One year later, in 2013, I was told by MYQ on the phone that she had completed the one-month’s fasting that year. In that summer, she was living in her own village in Zhongwei again.

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ing peasants in the same settlement, regardless of gender and age, began to visit each other for no one wanted to break the fast too early so that their abstinence became invalid. My impression was that fast-breaking was more of a collective act than an individual behaviour in rural Ningxia. The get-together to break the fast strengthened the solemn atmosphere which Ramadan had already brought about. On this occasion, the virtues as well as the merits of fasting were again testified to by the collective. Instead of a date, the Hui broke the fast with some water and a pinch 145 of salt, because “salt is the purest element on earth”. I was told that for travellers, if there is no salt available, soil should be used as a substitute. After having simultaneously broken the fast, the Hui in the settlements did not share the kaizhaifan together. Instead, they ate dinner within their nuclear family, regardless of the fact that many of their family members were not fasting at all. However, during the whole month of Ramadan, fasting Hui try to avoid any form of commensalism with non-Muslims, since Islamic purity concept becomes of greater importance during the holy month. The Hui hold the belief that God will protect them from becoming faint or sick during the fast, since they are the faithful of Him. On a hot summer afternoon, I saw an elderly woman still working in the field, while other fasting Muslims were protecting themselves under the roof and doing physically less demanding work. When asked how she could stand the thirst and hunger, she replied with a happy and self-confident smile, “I am being fed by God.” By contrast, in the evening before Ramadan began when I asked MYQ if I could try fasting with them together for a single day, her answer was: “You will not hold on, since Allah is not with you.” Beyond this, she did not see any sense in the act of a nonMuslim fasting. To her mind, because Islamic abstinence is closely associated with the aim of improving the conditions of a believer’s afterlife, fasting bears no meaning to someone who does not acknowledge the existence of an afterlife. A few days before the end of Ramadan, women began to prepare foods in large quantities (Figure 10). Those who were on a fast would send for someone who was not fasting, for instance a menstruating woman, to 145 There is a note in the Hadith on salt: “Eating shall begin with salt, as it is the chief of condiments, and it shall be ended with salt. Salt also saves a man from some calamities, [...]” see H̱ aṭīb at-Tibrīzī, 1940, Book II, pp. 118.

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Figure 10: Women preparing food for kaizhaijie (Eid al-Fitr) taste the foods they were preparing, since they would have broken the fast even by tasting food. If there was no appropriate person available, the foods would be made without being tasted beforehand. Compared to Muslims in many Middle Eastern countries, the Hui do not have any special foods or dishes for the Eid al-Fitr, the feast of breaking the fast. However, a necessity is to deep-fry a great amount of pastries like youxiang, sanzi and mahua. Both in the kitchen of large mosques and in private households, Hui women will busy themselves for hours with preparing different doughs and frying the pastries mentioned above. In a Hui village in Xiji, I witnessed women preparing six to seven kilo doughs for a three-person family. The fried pastries would supposedly be consumed for the following three or four months. Although sanzi and mahua traditionally enjoyed the same popularity among the Han as among the Hui in North China, the latter have nevertheless developed more elaborate recipes, which make the taste of their deep-fried pastries surpass the one made by the Han. The Grand Night on 27th of Ramadan is called “zuoye” in Chinese, which literally means the night of sitting. According to local Hui traditions, the Grand Night is the time when the spirits of deceased women 130

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will be called back by Allah. Male spirits do not have to leave their living relatives until the last night of Ramadan. This is another belief that sustains the view of the inferior role of women in the Muslim religious world. In order to console the sad spirits who have to bid farewell to their beloved family members, the prayer on the Grand Night at large mosques is longer than usual. More people join the prayer at a mosque and stay there late to ask for Allah’s forgiveness for the misdeeds of their deceased relatives, so that the latter could be treated better after their return to the afterlife. This is called “jiu wangren” or “song wangren”, to salvage or to see off the dead. A few days before the end of Ramadan, the festive atmosphere of kaizhaijie (Eid al-Fitr or literally the festival of breaking the fast) could be sensed almost everywhere in Ningxia. Unlike in many cities and towns in other provinces of China where most of the Han majority do not see any sign of the largest Muslim feast, in Ningxia one cannot let the festival pass by without being aware of its significance. Many Han people in Ningxia take advantage of this occasion to do good business with Muslims, as it is a time when the latter do not think as much about saving money as they usually do. In the supermarkets in the city, the variety of qingzhen groceries increases and discounts are given on neatly packaged foods and drinks designed as gifts. In the countryside, vendors on bikes or motorcycles drop by more often than usual bringing fresh items, such as bread, fruits, and meat. Some Han in Ningxia call kaizhaijie the Hui’s New Year’s Day, although every Hui would deny it, due to the fact that they do not celebrate New Year. However, apart from the religious aspects that are unknown to most of the Han majority, the pattern of the celebration is very akin to the Chinese New Year: New clothes are bought and worn, better foods are prepared in large amounts, and relatives and friends pay a visit to each other. Nevertheless, the Hui do not light firecrackers on this occasion. In Ningxia, kaizhaijie is an official holiday on which all government employees, regardless of their ethnicity, have a day off. In the country, Hui villagers give themselves the day off. When I was conducting fieldwork in 2012, many migrant peasants in Qingtongxia took the opportunity and returned to their hometown in Xiji or to their village where they have their own house and fields to look after. Due to the absence of a local mosque and a responsible ahong in the settlements 131

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where the migrant peasants temporarily dwell, they believed that the Eid prayer should be better attended in their village’s mosque. In addition, many preferred celebrating kaizhaijie in their hometown because of the larger family and social network they have there. The feast also provided them with an opportunity to cultivate their own fields again in the hope of some additional income. Before kaizhaijie, all members of my host family left the vineyards and went back to their village in Zhongwei. On the day before the feast, many villagers could be seen walking in the street with a chicken in their hand. They were either on the way to, or coming back from, an ahong’s or a manla’s house to have the chicken slaughtered appropriately. Interestingly, the Hui avoid using the Chinese word “sha” for slaughtering animals. In their opinion, “sha” is the equivalent of killing, which indicates to end a life brutally. As they do not believe that the halal way of slaughtering animals is brutal, for this act, they always use the word “zai”, which is 146 the best term for “slaughter”. Kaizhaijie was a busy day for every Muslim in the village in Zhongwei. In the morning, everyone woke early, performed the full ablution, and put on their best or newest clothes and shoes. Large amounts of incense sticks were burnt, both at home and at mosques. Male Hui dropped by at their neighbours’ houses and inquired if the neighbours were also ready to go together to the mosque. For large religious celebrations like this, it is very important for a man to wear a hat to demonstrate his Hui identity. Many Jahriyya were furthermore very proud to carry their liu147 jiaomao to display their loyalty to their own menhuan. 148 The special Eid prayer started at around 8 am. Prior to the long prayer, the Jahriyya ahong delivered a sermon on the morality of fasting and the sins arising from the refusal to fast. Both the sermon and the prayer were delivered through the mosque’s two loudspeakers so that women and young girls could also hear them while they were busy preparing an abundant meal at home. After the Eid prayer, the ahong left the mosque 146 My unintentional mixing up of the terms at the beginning caused immediate upset on the part of the Hui, apparently the word “sha” was not welcome in a religious context. 147 Usually, a Hui man has more than one skull cap at home. He will choose a proper one for different occasions. 148 I was told that the latest starting time was half past eight, as determined by the position of the sun.

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and went on a tour to see his fangmin, whose wants and difficulties he needed to address. After having engaged in numerous religious duties, many ahong in Ningxia take a few days off immediately after Ramadan to return to their hometowns and fulfil their rather secular commitments as husbands, sons, and fathers. Because the majority of ahong live in a mosque in one place while their families live in another place, for most of the year they are not able to spend time with their close relatives on a 149 daily basis. As soon as the men of the village came back from the mosque and entered the house, younger generations, for example sons and grandsons, must greet their mother or grandmother at home by taking a slight bow with hands folded in front of the chest and saying “sailiangmu”, i.e. 150 “salām” in Chinese. Apart from saying “sailiangmu”, the same greeting gesture was very popular among the Han in ancient China. It seems that Ningxia’s Hui have adopted this gesture from their Han neighbours during the long-term assimilation process and maintained it until today, whereas the Han majority have gradually abandoned its use over the same period. The first day of kaizhaijie was a busy day for everyone: Young boys 151 were expected to visit their elder relatives and bring them good wishes; Girls and young wives needed to make sure that there were always enough supplies for the guests of the house; Husbands and adult males were supposed to visit their family graves again. Elder relatives and friends who lived too far away to be paid a visit would be given a call and greeted on the phone. On the highly festive day, it was almost impossible to keep the usual three-meal structure: As soon as one entered a house, the host(s) would 149 It seems to be a general rule in Ningxia that an ahong is always appointed at a mosque away from his hometown. Besides their relatively low incomes, this is another factor that hinders some of the graduates of an Islamic school from becoming a functional ahong. Instead, they prefer other occupations that do not necessarily require any religious education but keep them together with their family members. 150 In various regions Chinese Muslims have different ways of saluting each other: Some of them bow down slightly, putting their right hand on their chest, whereas some shake hands with the right hand and put their left one on the other person’s right shoulder. For more details see Wang Zhengwei, 2009, pp. 14. 151 Similar visiting patterns can be observed in West Java, Turkey, and many other parts of the Muslim world.

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bring deep-fried mahua and sanzi onto the table immediately, while the housewife had already been engaged in cooking. The time of day did not seem to play any role in determining whether a warm meal would be served or not. In order to avoid too many meals on a single day, a guest had to find many arguments and use a very strong tone to persuade the hosts not to cook. In terms of hosting guests, the Hui in the village did not distinguish between Muslims and non-Muslims. On the contrary, they looked even happier when a Han was interested and wanted to get involved in an Islamic celebration. The pattern of the family visits implicates a hierarchical order which is noteworthy here: Patrilineal kinship usually has priority over matrilineal relatives. That is to say that relatives of the husband should be visited before the kin of the wife, given they all live in the same area. In addition, gifts brought to the patrilineal families are supposed to be more abundant. However, other factors such as geographic distance, personal affection 152 and the economic situation of the gift receivers also play a role in influencing the visiting patterns. Generally speaking, Ramadan festival offers a good opportunity to reaffirm existing amicable kin relations, to strengthen fraternal solidarity, and to reconcile old feuds between family mem153 bers, neighbours, and friends. The few days after Ramadan is a time when gongbei and other sacred places are visited. The residence of the Jahriyya’s current leader, Ma Kai, received thousands of worshippers in 2012. Many visitors, both men and women, came from rural Ningxia and other provinces in China like Gansu or Inner Mongolia. They were organised and guided by their local ahong and came to the capital city Yinchuan in rental buses. The Jahriyya place a lot of value on visits of sacred places and consider the journeys as salient as the Five Pillars of Islam. Most of the adherents had to travel for more than ten hours without stopping, hence they could only sleep overnight on the bus. However, upon arrival, there was no sign of tiredness on their face. By contrast, everyone was excited and effervescent to see their sanba, the third “uncle”, as the spiritual leader is called by every Jahriyya. 152 The needier persons and families are supposed to be paid more attention to during kaizhaijie. 153 In this paragraph I use the present tense for the reason that these facts are so deeply rooted in the Hui culture that their existence might probably not be imperilled by the new environment the Hui have been exposed to due to migration and industrialisation in the countryside.

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Due to the large amount of visitors, especially on the first few days after fast-breaking when 5,000 to 6,000 people came over per day, worshippers could only enter and leave the leader’s room in groups. Except for shaking hands and saying “sailiangmu”, there was no time left for the sanba to engage in individual conversations with his ordinary supporters. Besides the brief reception in sanba’s living room, there were other highlights at his residence including copies of the Holy Book being sold and skull caps for men and women being made available for free. Every item purchased or obtained for free at sacred places is considered to be of special religious value. Hence, no single visitor hesitated in buying a copy 154 of the Koran or asking for some blessed groceries like brown sugar, tea or raisins to take along. The Hui believe that groceries from a sacred place have special positive effects and can thus help their sick relatives to recover quickly. Local Hui use the term “zhanji”, literally to get covered in luck, to describe their desire to receive spiritual support by taking in groceries or wearing religious symbols bestowed by an eminent leader.

5.3

Voluntary fasting

While fasting during Ramadan is obligatory, voluntary fasting is recommended but not mandatory. Despite its great religious value stated in the Hadith and its widespread practices worldwide, optional fasting has rarely been thematised in anthropological studies. Beyond the academia focused on Islam, fasting tends to be immediately equated with Ramadan. Nevertheless, beyond Ramadan fasting, the Hadith also stresses the virtue of voluntary fasting in many verses, since it is said that the Prophet 155 kept optional fasts in every lunar month. According to the Islamic doctrine, each Muslim is free to fast on any day except for the prohibited days mentioned previously (the Eid days and the three tashrīk days). Voluntary fasting can be broken without any penalty. The days on which fasting is recommended include six consecutive days in Shawwal, at best immediately after the Eid al-Fitr; the day before and after Ashura, which is the tenth day of Muharram; and ten days in Zul-Hijja for anyone who is unable to perform the Hajj (Berg 1997: 95). Of particular note is the fact that 154 Although one copy of the Koran cost 30 yuan, which was relatively expensive by a peasant’s standard, piles of copies were sold out quickly everyday. The demand obviously exceeded the daily supply. 155 See H̱ aṭīb at-Tibrīzī, 1940, Book III, pp. 538–52.

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the exact days on which non-obligatory fasting should be observed often vary among different Islamic groups throughout the world. Although the Hadith is barely mentioned by rural Hui in Ningxia, voluntary fasting is well-known among the people. Non-obligatory fasting is mostly practised by elder believers on six consecutive days in Shawwal, ten days in the first and ten days in the second month of the Chinese lunar calendar. The six-day fasting in Shawwal is called locally “baofeng zhai”, which means literally to complete the fast. The Hui believe that the “baofeng zhai” brings the yearly cycle of fasting to an end. Among the various menhuan in China, there seems to be less disagreement on the beginning of voluntary fasting than that of Ramadan fasting. Optional fasting is practised by the Hui with the intent of compensating for the missed days during Ramadan, to beg for more mercy and forgiveness for oneself and one’s family, and to compensate for the compulsory fasting that a rel156 ative has failed to observe. However, although the majority of young generations are aware of the virtues of fasting beyond the month of Ramadan, few of them actually put it into practice. By contrast, elder Hui, especially women, devote themselves fully to voluntary fasting. This is probably due to the fact that an elder woman’s strain from physical work is reduced to a large extent and they fear a painful afterlife in the near future.

5.4

Brief summary

Keeping the authorised traditions of Islamic fasting in mind, one might find out as many deviations as accordances in the local practices among Hui migrant peasants. Julie Marcus notes in her book on Islam and gender hierarchy in Turkey that “[t]he Kuran, while central to Islam, is neither the only nor the most important part of the beliefs and practices that make up Islam in daily life” (Marcus 1992: 64). I mentioned in the historical part of the thesis that Islam in China has undergone many unique modifications during the century-long process of trying to adapt itself to the non-Islamic sociopolitical environment while also struggling to maintain its religious doctrines and practices. This dualism is vividly reflected in the beliefs in, and the practices of, fasting among the Hui in the countryside. Taking migration into account, it can be concluded that the great 156 Such intentions make it clear that voluntary fasting, just as Ramadan fasting, is less an individual act than a family or even community affair.

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population flows in Ningxia hinder the completion of Islamic fasting. This has a lot to do with the destroyed religious structure (si-fang structure) as a consequence of both ecological and labour migration. In the new immigration areas, Hui migrants are, in most cases, immediately dedicated to founding a mosque (not just as a building) or a prayer room, to ensure that they have a place for public chanting and ceremonies. However, to form a solid religious structure with a well-functioning organisational system takes much longer than building a mosque or prayer room. In addition, the process does not depend on the strong willingness of a few pious Hui dwellers. By contrast, the migration flows in Ningxia have given many less devout Hui an opportunity to free themselves from the restraints which had been imposed on them through the former si-fang structure in their homeland. It can be anticipated that these people hold either an indifferent or even reluctant attitude towards forming a new religious structure soon after their relocation. Lastly, the arrival of consumptionism in China’s rural regions expands the horizons of village dwellers while also tremendously increasing their demand for all kinds of commodities and services. Since fasting in the long term affects the agricultural productivity and thus the income of peasants, more and more young Hui, especially men who have more ac157 cess to cities and urban-oriented lifestyles than women, tend to decide against fasting. The abandonment of fasting enables them to uninterruptedly pursue their dream of becoming “modern” and “well-off”, in spite of the sacrifice of their religion.

157 Generally speaking, town people and urban lifestyles are widely propagated as wealthy, modern, progressive and desirable throughout China. By contrast, rural populations are usually considered “poor”, “backward” and “primitive”.

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“This life is as temporary as an overnight stop in a guesthouse. Our existence after this life is eternal. Only the most sinful and evil people will be sent back to this life, since this life is agonising, but 158 the life after death is ever peaceful and blissful.” In this chapter, I will discuss the death-related concepts and rituals which distinguish the Hui clearly from the Han majority. The belief in an afterlife exerts large influence on the thinking and behaviours of the Hui in their religious and secular life. Based on this belief, they have distinct attitudes towards misfortunes and afflictions in life. It is also because of the belief in a blissful afterlife that death bears a very different meaning to the Hui. In their conviction, death is neither the final end nor a tragedy. Instead, it means the beginning of a relaxing new life, assuming that one has led a pious life before his or her passing.

6.1

Ermaili and its socioreligious meanings to migrants

6.1.1. Introduction When I just arrived in Beijing from Germany preparing for my second field stay, MYQ called me from Zhongwei inviting me to an ermaili celebration for her father-in-law who had died 16 years ago. What caught my attention was the fact that it was an anniversary for someone who had passed away so long ago and the father-in-law died even before MYQ’s marital relationship to the family was established. On the phone, I was informed that the family was going to slaughter a sheep and invite dozens of relatives. “We bought a large couch for the guests to sleep over,” said MYQ enthusiastically, although she admitted at the same time that this year’s celebration would not be as large as the one held last year. The Hui’s memorial ceremonies have incorporated part of Han Chinese cultural elements. For instance, many of the Hui hold the ceremonies on 7, 14, 21 and 100 days after death and on the first and third anniversaries of the death (Ma Tong 1983: 124–5), which deviates from the dates 158 From MYQ’s narrative on 17th August 2012.

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of commemoration rituals in many other Islamic cultures (PflugerSchindlbeck 2005: 81; Geertz 1960: 72; Schrode 2007: 33) but accords with 159 the Han customs. Despite the similar days on which a ritual is ought to be held to remember deceased relatives, the Hui’s commemoration rituals differ a lot from the ceremonies of the Han in how they are conducted. Ermaili celebrations seem to be a distinct ritual enrooted in Hui traditions in Northwest China for hundreds of years. During the few months of my stay in rural Ningxia, I can barely say how many times I was invited to an ermaili ceremony. It seemed that every three or five days there would be an ermaili in a village. Ermaili is the transliteration of the Arabic word “ʿamal”, which means among other things, “performance” or “action” (De Boer 1960: 427). In an Arabic context, the word is primarily applied complementarily as an opposite to speculative knowledge (Gardet 1960: 427). Very little historical material is available to answer the question of when the Hui added other meanings to the term and started to use it for religious rituals. However, He Kejian and Yang Wanbao note that after the menhuan system had been established, ermaili gained another meaning for the Hui in Northwest China. It has become a set of religious practices whereby Muslims gather together in a mosque or a private house and kneel down in a circle to read Koranic verses simultaneously under the instruction of a professional leader. It has been carried out on religious holidays, the birthday of the Prophet, the death-days or birthdays of Sufi saints and anniversaries of one’s own deceased relatives (He Kejian/Yang Wanbao 2003: 34–5). Furthermore, ermaili also include celebrations on the occasion of opening a shop, building a new house, having a baby, and begging for good luck (Yang Wenbi/Ma Zemei 2010: 156–7). The occasions on which an ermaili is held remind one of the Javanese slametan communal feast described by Geertz: “A slametan can be given in response to almost any occurrence one wishes to celebrate, ameliorate, or sanctify. Birth, marriage, sorcery, death, house moving, bad dreams, harvest, name-changing, opening a factory, illness, supplication of the village guardian spirit, circumcision, and starting off a political meeting may all occasion a slametan” (Geertz 1960: 11). Ermaili ceremonies, however, do not include weddings and funerals (at least not in the Hui’s everyday 159 For details on memorial ceremonies of the Han, see Leutner, 1989, pp. 287–8.

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speech), despite the many similarities they have to slametan in terms of their content. From this vantage point, slametan seems to have a larger range regarding its occasions. Another ceremony to which ermaili contains some parallels is the mevlud in Turkey, as outlined by Tapper and Tapper: Mevlud is performed on occasions related to death, to the lifecycle ceremonies of circumcision and marriage, and for the major Islamic festivals (Kandils) (Tapper/Tapper 1987: 76–7). In contrast to the mevluds represented by the two authors (Tapper/Tapper 1987: 75–84) and by Marcus (Marcus 1992: 125–9), ermaili among the Hui does not show a clear gender-related division, either in its forms or in its meanings. In all the ermaili I attended, both men and women were involved. Based on the locations where ermaili celebrations take place, the rituals could be divided 160 into two categories: the ones held in a mosque or at a gongbei and the ones performed in Muslim homes (Ma Zongbao 2008: 119–20). For the purpose of remembrance, ermaili usually contains three parts: visiting the graveyard, reading the Koran, and hosting guests (Sha Yanfen 2010: 58). Only a few pieces of research on ermaili ceremonies have been published in English or other European languages until now. In his monograph, “Muslim Chinese”, Gladney describes a commemoration ritual on the 21st day after a 92-year-old man died in Na Homestead near Yinchuan, to which he was invited as a guest (Gladney 1996: 142–3). However, Gladney does not amplify the various cultural codes and the distinctness embedded in ermaili. Regarding Islamic studies in China, there is only a small number of Chinese or Hui scholars who have conducted empirical studies on ermaili ceremonies in Northwest China. However, according to the dates of Chinese publications, it can be assumed that the subject is only now gaining more and more attention (Yang Mei 2010; Ma Guifen/ Zhao Guojun 2012). Other Chinese academics who also made a contribution to the study on ermaili have confined themselves to rather generalised theories on its social functions and cultural meanings, without taking any concrete case studies into consideration (Sha Yanfen 2010; Yang Wenbi/Ma Zemei 2010; Ma Ping/Kotaro Takahashi 2002). Based on available Chinese publications and my own participation in ermaili celebrations of different sizes and on various occasions, my aim here is to illustrate the ritual and to explain its social functions and in160 When I visited the Xijitan gongbei in 2013 in southern Ningxia, I was told that small-sized ermaili were held there almost once a month.

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ternal dynamics caused by the Hui’s current population movements. For this aim, I focus my attention on ermaili celebrations which function as memorial rituals for deceased Sufi saints or family members. It is through this kind of ermaili that the Hui’s strong allegiance to their menhuan and awareness of their ethnic identity are expressed most explicitly. By holding and participating in large public ermaili celebrations, the religious leaderships and their adherents strive to demonstrate their distinct ethnic traditions and to protect themselves from the Han’s further acculturation or assimilation (Ma Ping/Kotaro Takahashi 2002: 60). 6.1.2 The performance of ermaili The scenes of ermaili ceremonies can vary greatly depending on their occasion, venue, organiser, and number of participants. On death-days (or sometimes birthdays) of important Sufi saints, the attendance at an ermaili at a gongbei can be over 10,000. By contrast, the circle of a private ermaili in memory of a deceased relative may only include a dozen family members. Private commemoration rituals are performed at home and usually do not attract as much attention as the public ceremonies at a mosque or a Sufi shrine. It should be noted that different menhuan have a divergent understanding and performance of the ritual. Therefore, members of a given menhuan usually do not participate in another menhuan’s ermaili celebrations. The Jahriyya, for instance, often speak badly of the Ikhwān due to the latter’s casual way of performing the ritual and the relatively small number of public ermaili ceremonies arranged by the Ikhwān. A few Chinese scholars point out the Ikhwān’s dogmatic insistence on viewing chanting and eating as two incompatible parts, which explains why the two elements do not coexist in their performance of ermaili. Accordingly, the Ikhwān either chant the Koran and leave without sharing a meal with each other during an ermaili ceremony, or they only eat but ignore the chanting session (Yang Wenbi/Ma Zemei 2010: 159; Sha Yanfen 2010: 58; Yang Mei 2010: 24). Yang Mei explains this phenomenon by stating that the Ikhwān religious professionals can thus avoid giving the impression that the meal is a type of reward for their leading of the chant (Yang Mei 2010: 24). Despite the explanation, the missing part (be it chanting or eating) has become a main point of criticism by members of other menhuan. Compared to the Ikhwān and other menhuan, the Jahriyya place great value on ermaili ceremonies. The number of public ermaili in remem141

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brance of the deceased Jahriyya leaders amounts to over 20 in a year (Yang Mei 2010: 20). Important ceremonies in memory of the Jahriyya saints or leaders include, 27th March, 8th April, 10th April, and 9th June, all following the Chinese lunar calendar. Depending on who is to be commemorated, the largest ceremony will be held either at his (in rare cases her) graveyard or another significant place, for instance, where a Jahriyya leader died. Local Jahriyya mosques in different regions hold smaller ceremonies for the people who cannot afford a long journey to the main venue. As on each 27th March, the death-day of Ma Mingxin, thousands of Jahriyya Hui from Ningxia travel over one or two hundred kilometres to Lanzhou, Gansu Province, to worship their Daozu taiye, as the founder of 161 the Jahriyya is named by his adherers. On such occasions, the trip to a gongbei is considered as crucial as a trip to Mecca by the Jahriyya. For ordinary believers, the participation in public ermaili has been considered as a commendable and rewarding deed. Compared to other menhuan, the Jahriyya have very elaborate rules in terms of how to organise and carry out an ermaili. First of all, jikeer (Arabic: dhikr, literally remembrance or invocation) must be performed. It 162 comprises reciting Allah’s beautiful names, Allah’s name, the shahadah and the invocation of doctrinal formulas (Wang 2001: 56; He Kejian/Yang Wanbao 2003: 64). The role an ahong plays in an ermaili ceremony is thus indispensable: As a religious professional he knows which chapter(s) of the Koran should be chanted for which purpose and only under his guidance can a jikeer be conducted correctly. If an ermaili takes place in a family, the house must be cleaned one or two days beforehand. The most important place is the room where the ahong guides the jikeer, since this room is the centre of an ermaili ceremony. It is usually the bedroom, or in case of a large congregation, the living room which is chosen to be the place of chanting. Within the house, 161 The Hui use titles instead of the official Chinese names when addressing their religious leaders. To call them by their Chinese names, especially in spoken language, is considered disrespectful and irreverent. 162 The shahadah (niangong in Chinese) is the first of the Five Pillars of Islam. It is the recitation of the creed “there is no god but God and Muhammad is the Messenger of God”, which declares one’s belief in the oneness of God and the acceptance of Muhammad as God’s prophet. See Glassé, 2001, pp. 416–7 and He Kejian and Yang Wanbao, 2003, pp. 98.

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its floor must be swept, clean sheets should be put on the bed(s), and articles of daily use are organised. On the day of ermaili, every attendant must practise the full ablution before entering the jingfang (chanting room). In the morning, a low rectangular wooden table will be placed in the middle of a bed or on the floor. Three incense burners are placed on the table: a large one in the middle with one incense stick symbolising Allah, the only God; and two small ones on its left and right side with two incense sticks respectively. Different menhuan apply distinct numbers of incense sticks for the two smaller censers. Although a few publications in Chinese mention that three incense sticks are used by the Jahriyya for each of the two small censers symbolising Muhammad, the first four Caliphs (Si da Halifa) and the Imam Abū Ḥanīfah (Yang Wenbi/Ma Zemei 2010: 159; Yang Mei 2010: 21), in most of the ermaili ceremonies I witnessed in Ningxia, only two incense sticks were employed. Unfortunately, my informants could not provide me with any explanation with regard to the meanings of the two incense sticks. Besides the numbers of applied incense sticks, it is interesting to note that distinct ones are used at different positions: The single incense stick in the middle is apparently thicker and longer than the ones on its sides and it is often of another colour. Even the two ones in one single incense burner differentiate from each other in their size and colour. Besides the three censers, there are usually a few copies of the Koran available on the table. Despite the fact that an ahong rarely need to look at the text while chanting, he always sits in front of an opened Koran. Before a chant starts, the whole atmosphere becomes solemn and silent. Children and women are not allowed to enter the chanting room and everyone stops talking with each other. The ahong takes his place first. He kneels down in the middle of the table, facing the large incense burner and the opened Koran. His students then kneel down on his sides. Other Hui men will fill in the remaining free places around the table until it is fully circled. The rest of male believers have to stay away from the table. They kneel down on the floor behind the circle. Women and children stay outside of the chanting room, but they listen and follow the jikeer for the majority of the time. The longest incense stick is first lit by the ahong and then put into the appropriate censer. His students normally help light other incense sticks and insert them in the small censers. A 143

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chant takes approximately 20 minutes in cases of commemorations of a deceased family member. In a mosque or at a gongbei, incense burners are usually over one metre in height and are therefore located at the entrance. The majority of visitors light thick incense rods they have bought and insert them into the censers. As a result, the smoke is very intense at the moment when a large ermaili takes place. The public chanting in memory of religious saints can last one hour at times.

Figure 11: Women and a young girl performing duwa Both in a mosque and in a private household, a chant is usually made up of several sessions and each session is completed by performing the duwa: reciting Koranic verses while holding the palms at the height of the chest and then wiping the face with both hands from the forehead to the chin (Figure 11). The accomplishment of duwa is considered to be of the utmost significance. Even women and young children who are not allowed to enter the chanting room and cannot follow the chanting properly perform the duwa as soon as they receive the signal. My informants 144

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told me that after the chanting, an ahong is sometimes asked to blow on a heap of white (sometimes brown) sugar or tea, or to write Koranic verses 163 on a piece of red paper or cloth. The sugar or tea is supposed to be taken by a sick family member and help him or her to recover quickly. The red strip will either be hung in the house or pinned to one’s clothes to avoid misfortune. Items like sugar, tea, red paper or cloth which are prepared for the ahong’s blessings are reckoned to be highly sacred and can therefore only be handed over to the ahong by the head of a family. If the ahong and his students are invited by a family to chant in their house, the head of the family will place banknotes of different denominations on the table in front of the invited religious professionals after the service has been rendered. There is no predetermined sum the specialists 164 should receive. In 2012, an ahong generally obtained a 50 or 100 yuan note while his students a 10 or 20 yuan note in rural Ningxia. In this aspect, a Jahriyya ermaili could be very costly for peasant families with lower incomes and some peasants expressed their feelings of envy towards functional ahong.

Figure 12: Guodie. Photo: Zhang Ju 163 The piece of paper or cloth with the handwriting of an ahong is also called duwa. 164 One can imagine that the face values of the banknotes may have increased as a result of the recent inflation in China.

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Another indispensable component of ermaili is the guodie, the fruit plate (Figure 12). Commonly used fruits include dried dates, raisins, fresh apples, pears, bananas, mandarins. Large fruits such as apples and pears are sliced into thin pieces before being put onto the plate. Both the total number of fruit plates and the pieces of sliced fruits must be an odd number, typically the numbers are three, five, seven or nine. Among others, dates are the most significant fruit and are always placed in the middle of a plate. Since guodie is an inevitable part of any ermaili ceremony, questions of how many plates should be supplied and what kinds of fruits should be purchased are discussed among family members several days prior to the event. Due to the essential part the guodie plays in an ermaili ceremony, the person who ornaments the plates must perform the full ablution beforehand (Yang Mei 2010: 22–3). According to the local custom, it is usually an honoured elder person with experience who will be chosen to decorate the plates with fruits. Theoretically and practically, the person could be either male or female. After the guodie have been served, an abundant meal will be brought onto the table. Nobody is supposed to start eating before the ahong. It can be said that ahong opens the less solemn but rather relaxing second part of the ceremony. The most common dish at an ermaili table is the huicai: a stew made of white radish, meat (usually chicken) and thick noodles made 165 of potato flour. Youxiang, bing or huajuan are usually served along with the stew. Youxiang is one of the Hui specialties and an integral part of the Hui’s culinary tradition. As it is mostly prepared on festive occasions, the food often evokes cheerful feelings and memories among rural Hui populations. A few decades ago when many peasants in Ningxia did not have sufficient food for daily consumption, ermaili ceremonies offered the single occasion to enjoy an abundant meal and savour the taste of youxiang and meat. Preparing youxiang is a collective activity. Women who are neighbours, friends or relatives, come over to help the wife of the family who holding an ermaili ceremony. The event of preparing youxiang for ermaili ceremonies contains some religious elements which make the cooking itself appear a small ritual: First of all, everyone involved in making and 165 In Ningxia, peasants do not differentiate the distinct kinds of pastries or buns made from wheat flour. Instead, they use “momo” in reference to almost all the pastries, buns, and breads they consume in their daily life.

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frying the dough must perform the full or partial ablution beforehand. In a strict household, contaminated persons, for instance, people who have not completed any ablution or menstruating women, are prohibited to enter the kitchen. The act of pouring oil into the wok must be conducted by the most honoured woman of the house and accompanied by the burning of an incense stick. While putting the dough into the hot oil, “taisimi” 166 (the utterance of “in the name of God”) must be practised (Ma Xiaoyan 2014: 78). The Hui use special local ingredients such as ground seeds of kudouzi (Latin: sophora alopecuroides) and humayou (linseed oil) which make their youxiang and steamed buns have a unique taste that differentiates the Hui pastries from those made by the Han. Qingzhen bakeries and street vendors in Ningxia offer various kinds of youxiang, baked pastries and steamed buns which are sometimes pur167 chased in large amounts for ermaili and other celebrations. However, the Han majority seem to be less attracted by the special tastes of Hui pastries and the regular customers of the numerous qingzhen bakeries are mostly the Hui themselves. The Jahriyya normally cut two lines into the dough before the youxiang is deep-fried. Customarily, the Hui will break the bread into three pieces with the help of the two cuts and eat the pieces alone or share them with others. It is considered rude if one bites directly into the whole bread, because it contradicts the idea of sharing, which is a key element of Muslim moral thought. The idea of sharing foods and drinks (with co-religionists of course) was often mentioned by the Hui I encountered in my fieldwork when they were stressing the differences between being Hui and Han. It can be stated that by frequently holding ermaili ceremonies and enjoying youxiang and other foods together, the consciousness of a collective identity is evoked and reified time and again. If an ermaili celebration takes place at a gongbei, ordinary believers usually buy one or a few blankets called shandan and put it or them on the tombs of the religious saints (Figure 13). Shandan are usually cotton and multicoloured. The colours are red, white, or green. They are of different lengths. To cover a saint’s tomb with shandan is for the purpose of showing one’s respect and reverence. However, it is also a way of making a voluntary donation, since the blankets will later be collected by the staff 166 See Wang, 2001, pp. 110. 167 In most cases, the Hui still prefer offering the guests their hand-made buns, especially youxiang, which is almost always hand-made.

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working at the gongbei for other uses. At a visit of a gongbei, some believers will pick up an edge of a blanket and rub it against different parts of their body. By doing so, the ordinary adherents are convinced that they can receive protection from their divine saints against diseases and misfortune (Yang Mei 2010: 21–2).

Figure 13: Saints’ tombs with shandan Compared to the Han’s ancestral veneration based on Confucian values and social hierarchy, private ermaili conducted at home seem to have a rather aloof structure with reference to age. It appears that there are no rules regulating who should be venerated by whom. For example, a mother can hold an ermaili ceremony to commemorate her child who died young, an act which is rather uncommon among the Han due to the topdown relationship between parents and their descendants. Although the Hui hold commemoration ceremonies on similar days after a relative’s death as the Han, their ceremonies do not necessarily cease after the third year as is often the case with the Han. On the contrary, an ermaili can be held each year for the same person regardless of the length of time since his or her death. It usually depends on the affinity between the deceased person and his or her living family members. 148

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6.1.3 Social functions of commemoration rituals Durkheim enhances the social functions of commemorative rituals by pointing out that a rite serves to sustain the vitality of religious beliefs to keep them from being effaced from memory and, in sum, to revivify the most essential elements of the collective consciousness. Through it, a religious group periodically renews the sentiment which it has of itself and of its unity (Durkheim 1965: 420). Congregational rituals offer individuals a feeling of strength and confidence by identifying themselves with the spiritual symbols and affiliating themselves with the glorious character and achievements of their religious saints. As Clifford Geertz has stated, “[...] engagement in some form of ritualized traffic with sacred symbols is the major mechanism by means of which they (believers) come not only to encounter a world view but actually to adopt it, to internalize it as part of their personality” (Geertz 1971: 100). The integrating function of religious congregational rituals comes to light in examining ermaili ceremonies in Ningxia, especially the large ceremonies which commemorate religious saints and leaders. As a congregational worship, regardless of whether it takes place at a mosque, a Sufi tomb or in a private house, the commemoration of a dis eased saint or family member is an act by which the Hui collective identity is re-certified and enhanced. Their social solidarity is strengthened by the fact that the same religious duties and activities are practised and appreciated by every participant in the process. It is a time when the ethnic and Islamic consciousness of the Hui is evoked and stressed. Meanwhile, the loyalty and zeal towards one’s own menhuan are demonstrated through frequent participation of the Hui in the celebrations organised by their attributed menhuan. In this context, the Jahriyya leadership places great value on organising public ermaili gatherings as a means of consolidating its religious power and maintaining the coherent social fabric of the group. At a Jahriyya public ermaili congregation, male participants prefer wearing their liujiaomao, instead of the common half-round white skull caps which every Hui of any given menhuan may carry. In such a situation, the liujiaomao functions as an identity marker of the Jahriyya who 168 declare their confession of faith in this particular menhuan. Hui of a 168 Unfortunately, I could not collect any information about the question of whether

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certain menhuan rarely join the ermaili services of another menhuan. Without a clear justification, they do not even enter the mosques or gongbei of other menhuan. On the morning when my Jahriyya host family took me to the Honglefu gongbei in Wuzhong City, I was very surprised by their friend’s casual way of showing me around the site without expressing any emotional admiration. On the contrary, MYQ and her husband burnt incense rods and spent half an hour kneeling silently in front of their erye’s (Ma Liesun’s) tomb. Their friend informed me that he is from another menhuan, so he does not worship a Jahriyya gongbei. In spite of sharing the same Islamic practices, such as fasting and praying, a Hui individual’s loyalty to and affinity for his or her own menhuan result directly in the segmentation of the Hui as a unitary ethnic group. From the story narrated above another function of ermaili ceremonies can be concluded: its exclusivity. Since the ceremonies bear a heavy load of group members’ allegiance, sentiment and symbolism, it enhances social cohesion by bringing people of the same menhuan together but also excludes non-Muslims and members of other menhuan. Hui parents take their children to large and small ermaili ceremonies from a young age. Hui children, especially boys, learn how to behave and what to chant day by day by observing and imitating what the adults do. Thus, at an ermaili ceremony, the Hui know every detail to which they must pay attention. Once the ceremony begins, it appears that everything runs automatically as if there was an inaudible voice leading the people in what to do. At this moment, a non-believer has no other role to play than that of a bystander. It seems not to be the interest of the Hui to induct a nonbeliever into every detail of their worshipping. Besides, many Hui feel obliged to follow the prayer and would be ashamed of missing it. The nonMuslim’s role as a bystander will not change into that of a participant until the commensal meal begins. At this moment, ordinary believers share food and drink with a non-Muslim, despite the fact that very few nonMuslims attend an ermaili celebration. By holding on to their traditions, such as public ermaili celebrations, the Hui demonstrate their steady consciousness of menhuan affiliations as well as ethnoreligious distinctness. The effort one spends and the large material and emotional investment other menhuan have their own unique clothing or costumes. Sometimes, menhuan affiliation can be identified by how elder men shave their beards; however, this is not always practised among Hui seniors.

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one makes in an ermaili ceremony reveal what an important part it plays in the Hui’s religious life. 6.1.4 Migration and its impact on ermaili rituals Migration flows result in direct encounters between the Hui and the Han. Hence, it is important to examine ermaili rituals in the light of the changing social realities. As Cohen states: “[...] culture is not an independent system, but is a collection of diverse types of norms, values, beliefs, practices and symbols which, though affecting one another, are largely systematised, or structured, in social situations. Ethnicity therefore can be understood only when it is analysed within the contexts of new social situations.” (Cohen 1992: 96) However, only few scholars refer to the impact of migration on the Hui’s performance of ermaili and the dynamics of their ethnic identity. Based on his empirical studies on Hui migrants in Lucaowa near the capital city of Yinchuan, Ma Weihua notes that migration leads to an increased density of mosques, since the Hui of different menhuan are now more intermingled within one village than in their homeland. Since each menhuan is eager to have their own mosque, many new mosques are built at a close distance to each other within one immigration village. At the same time, the boundaries between menhuan are gradually becoming blurred due to the close cohabitation of adherents of different menhuan (Ma Weihua 2011: 171–2 and 174; Ma Weihua/Hu Hongbao 2007: 73 and 76). Escaping from the adverse agricultural conditions in southern Ningxia has helped many rural families overcome poverty and thus enabled them to celebrate more often or to hold larger ermaili ceremonies than in the past. Peasants’ enhanced financial capacity allows them to give more alms to the invited ahong and his students. In present times, migrant Hui can afford more abundant foods and drinks to host their guests. Beyond the youxiang, guodie and huicai, various kinds of fresh fruits, nuts and soft drinks are added to the traditional culinary offers. Since many Hui have a comparably large house in their new village, they can even provide the guests with accommodation if the latter come from afar, as was the case with my host family described at the beginning of the chapter. However, the culinary attraction of ermaili ceremonies has decreased due to the abundant foods now accessible to rural Hui in their everyday life. A few decades ago, especially in the southern mountainous areas, meat and 151

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youxiang were almost only available at ermaili ceremonies. Hence, a strong emotion of anxiety, delight, and anticipation based on the congregational meal existed parallel to the reverence for the saints or deceased relatives. Although many Hui today still believe that the food offered at a mosque or gongbei is blessed compared to what is made in a household or purchasable at the market, the content of the commensal meal is not necessarily the highlight of an ermaili any longer. Beyond this, migration results in fragmented kinship structures which make it difficult for members of an extended family to join together for congregational ceremonies. The current intense labour migration, especially inter-provincial migration, often leads to the long-term absence of certain family members. In order to save money, many labour migrants would rather give up a trip of thousand kilometres to return to their home village for ermaili ceremonies, even if they are important ones. Thus, it can be assumed that the leftbehind, in most cases women, children and seniors, often feel incapable of holding large ermaili ceremonies at home and thus neglect the anniversaries of dead family members. Large public ermaili ceremonies, by contrast, do not seem to have lost their magnitude. Eminent gongbei and large mosques of the major menhuan are scattered throughout Ningxia and its adjacent province, Gansu. On the death, or rarely birthdays of some prominent saints, both large mosques and gongbei hold public ermaili hosting a great number of worshippers. Venerations of these holy places are well organised by local religious heads. For the “pilgrimage”, shuttle buses of different sizes are arranged by local mosques, which are far away from a venue. Peasants from the same village or from neighbouring villages can take a round trip by bus to venerate their saints. For this reason, migration does not seem to affect the Jahriyya’s frequency of participation in public ermaili. Kotaro even mentions that attendance has increased between 2002 and 2005 in the Honggangzi gongbei in southern Ningxia (Kotaro Takahashi 2006: 308). This shows that even the emigration in the south does not necessarily result in a reduction of the Hui’s attendance at public ermaili. How should we understand the different impact of migration on ermaili ceremonies in private households and in public mosques and Sufi shrines? In my view, this can be credited to the dissimilar sociocultural meanings and expenditure patterns of the ceremonies in the two spheres: Holding ermaili at home is regarded as a meritorious deed. Both the initi152

6.1 Ermaili and its socioreligious meanings to migrants

ators and the person for whom an ermaili is celebrated are supposed to gain God’s mercy and blessings. However, it also means great expense and effort for the organisers. They need to send invitations, purchase groceries, provide guests who come from afar with accommodation options, and last but not least, give the ahong and his students banknotes. Because of the dissolved structure of extended families through migration, it becomes difficult for a nuclear family to hold large ermaili ceremonies, since their relatives are scattered all over Ningxia or even other provinces. Consequently, the size of family ermaili tends to shrink. At the same time, it seems to me that ermaili in private households do not take place as frequently as in the past before villagers were relocated. This may be due to the fact that the Hui of different menhuan are now living as direct neighbours in the same village and distinct menhuan do not like to attend the same ermaili, even if they are close neighbours. Compared to ermaili in the private sphere, public ermaili on anniver169 saries of the saints are more substantial to the Jahriyya. It is considered as a substitute for the pilgrimage to Mecca if a Jahriyya cannot fulfil the fifth pillar of Islam due to bad physical shape or financial situation. On these festive days, round trips are organised, food and drink are offered by the mosques and shrines, and worshippers do not need to pay for the services they receive there. I was told that shuttle buses are even exempt from the highway toll in Ningxia on some important commemoration days. Despite the fact that migrant Jahriyya villagers might be far away from the large shrines and mosques they had frequently visited for ermaili before their resettlement, many of them can still find other ones near their new residence to venerate their saints. As ermaili is sometimes held on the same day at various mosques and shrines to commemorate one single saint. One similar effect migration has on ermaili ceremonies both in the private and public sphere is a slight tendency towards merging of attendants from different menhuan in the “receiving” places. During the early years of ecological migration, some migrant Hui of a small menhuan in a given location had to attend religious services of another menhuan since there was no gongbei or mosques of their own at a short distance (Yuchi Tianqi/Zhang Qiangwei 2013: 127). In the course of subsequent migration 169 However, one should not assume that other menhuan hold the same opinion.

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waves, more and more mosques were built, providing Hui migrants from diverse menhuan the opportunity to hold their own ceremonies separately from each other. However, gongbei is more attached to the localities where the Sufi saints died or were buried, therefore, the number of gongbei does not increase in tandem with the growing number of migrants. The coming together of Hui migrants from different menhuan for public prayers and only rarely for ermaili ceremonies is cursorily described by Chinese scholars as a sign of religious harmony (Zhou Chuanbin 2001: 58; Li Ning 2003: 393; Ma Weihua 2011: 174–5). However, the diminished consciousness or sensitiveness of one’s menhuan characteristics was not perceived as a positive development by the local Hui I spoke to during the fieldwork. By contrast, my informants revealed their worries about the probable future in which their young children or grandchildren might forget their menhuan affiliations. They did not hold an optimistic view toward the tendency of ignoring menhuan distinctions and becoming one uniform ethnicity without internal boundaries. Kreinath summarises the relation between ritual changes and the various contexts of social reality as follows: “Ritual changes are unavoidable because every form of social action intervenes with its various contexts and leads to unintended consequences.” Furthermore, he notes that “because rituals can aid in constructing a community, the connection between ritual and community can become so close that an intended change of ritual form would place the identity not only of the ritual but also of the community in question” (Kreinath 2004: 275–6). It is inevitable that the massive migration flows in Ningxia induce diverse changes in the performance, function, and meanings of ermaili ceremonies. Some of the changes can already be seen a few years after relocation, while others might only become evident after a longer period. Worries that the Hui expressed about the fusion of menhuan indicate their discontent with the dilution of menhuan identity. The Chinese government’s attempts to homogenise its populations 170 have been often thematised by Western social scientists. However, it remains a difficult question whether a homogeneous pan-Hui society is beneficial or strategically prudent for the maintenance and further development of the Hui identity. Several Chinese scholars argue that Hui mi170 See for example Rudelson and Jankowiak, 2004, pp. 299–319, or Safran, 1998, p. 1–7.

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grants’ ethnic and religious self-awareness has increased (zongjiao rentong gengjia qianglie), although the boundaries between the different menhuan have weakened (Ma Weihua/Hu Hongbao 2007: 76; Yuchi Tianqi/ Zhang Qiangwei 2013: 127). Future studies on the interplay between migration and ethnic change will prove auspicious, especially if they are based on long-term empirical observations of a single ritual.

6.2

Gongbei: the centres of spiritual power

The most illustrious venues where ermaili ceremonies take place are Sufi shrines. In Sufism the pilgrimage to, and the act of devotion at, a saint’s tomb or shrine is an integral part of a Muslim’s religious life. Especially in Central Asia, given the far distance to Mecca, it is popularly believed that several pilgrimages to certain saint places can replace the Hajj (Zarcone 2002: 534). After the introduction of Sufism into China and the development of a menhuan system, graveyard-worshipping cults have also been implemented among the Hui. For the Hui, saints’ shrines play an essential role, both in their everyday religious practices and their conception of the afterlife. Sufi tombs have not only become “charters for Hui identity”, using Gladney’s words, but also places charged with religious debates and tensions. Sufi tombs in China “provide a sense of continuity with the past and assist adaptation to the changing social present” (Gladney 1987: 497). In this chapter, I will focus on gongbei, saints’ shrines of the Hui, while placing special emphasis on the influence of migration on the development of these sacred sites. After examining the religious meanings and social functions of Sufi graveyards and shrines, I will further amplify Hui migrants’ access to these places. By doing so, I aim to understand how migration changes the patterns of Hui peasants’ visits to gongbei, since these changes reflect the current dynamics in religious beliefs and practices within Hui communities. The word “gongbei” derives from the Arabic word “qubba” which means literally round roof (He Kejian/Yang Wanbao 2003: 47–8). Although the veneration of saints in the form of building shrines and graveyards began at the end of the 7th century among the Shias in Western Asia (Su Baogui/Sun Junping 1993: 112), in Northwest China, gongbei built by and for the Hui did not emerge until the 19 th century (Sun Junping/Yang Xuelin 2006: 173). It came with the entry of Sufism into China and the foundation of diverse menhuan. Studies of gongbei in China have been 155

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conducted in various academic disciplines such as architecture, history, and cultural anthropology. Most of the Chinese anthropologists’ fieldwork was completed in the 1990s and in this century. However, few of them have included the impacts of China’s internal migration on the changes of gongbei preservation and the Hui’s access to public shrines and cemeteries. In the course of China’s softening religious policies in the 1980s, many gongbei which had been demolished during the Cultural Revolution, were renovated or rebuilt. However, most of the existing gongbei today have lost their previous appearance and size (Sun Junping/Yang Xuelin 2006: 173). In this respect, the American photographer Claude L. Pickens made a major contribution towards documenting Muslim mosques and gongbei 171 during the 1930s and 1940s in China. There are two different types of gongbei: the ones for mythical protagonists and the ones which are the spots where historical saints died or were buried. Gongbei for mythical figures whose existence is based solely on folklores but not on verifiable facts are given the name “gutubu gongbei”. “Gutubu” derives from the Arabic term “qutb”, referring to the spiritual personalities and saints who are connected to God and serve as the guides of humankind. This kind of gongbei is usually not attached to a certain menhuan, hence, they are attended by the Hui of different factions, sometimes even by Han Chinese. From an ethnic perspective, gutubu gongbei are more compatible than the special gongbei of a given menhuan (Zhou Chuanbin 2012: 47–8 and 53). However, the majority of the gongbei in Northwest China are attributed to a menhuan. Many of them are exactly where Sufi saints died or 172 were buried, while others are the sites where Sufi leaders or saints had lived, taught, and practised their faith. Hence, there are sometimes more than one gongbei built at different places in remembrance of the model deeds or martyrdom of the same hero. For instance, both the Xuanhuagang gongbei in Gansu Province and the Siqiliangzi gongbei in Ningxia were built to commemorate the fifth Jahriyya leader Ma Hualong, who was executed by the Qing government in 1871 (Yang Xuelin 2010: 284). It also happens that one single gongbei was established to bury or honour 171 His photo album “Islam in China” can be viewed in the visual access catalogue of Harvard University: . 172 In some cases, the corpse of the saint was relocated, but the gongbei remained as a monument.

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several saints or religious leaders, as is the case with Honglefu gongbei in Wuzhong. A large number of the gongbei in Ningxia are attributed to the Jahriyya. This is closely related to the rapid growth of the Jahriyya and to their long history of persecution. Their founder Ma Mingxin was executed by the Qing military in 1781, and his two wives and several children were either killed or martyred after his death. From Ma’s founding of the Jahriyya in the 1760s till the beginning of the 20 th century, five leaders died for their menhuan. Many courageous followers who fought for the survival of the Jahriyya menhuan were either executed or martyred in the battles. Many of them were recognised as saints posthumously. Therefore, there are comparatively more Jahriyya graveyards and shrines than that of other menhuan (Su Baogui/Sun Junping 1993: 112). The Jahriyya gongbei are concentrated in Northwest China, especially in Ningxia and Gansu. Generally speaking, these gongbei were all built in a modest architectural style, reflecting the Jahriyya’s proclamation as the menhuan for the poor. For instance, most of the saint graves were established in the open air. Only in rare cases a memorial hall was built next to the tomb. Some gongbei have a simple small pavilion on the spot where a protagonist died or was interred and a few large gongbei provide their visitors with a middle-sized prayer hall, which consists only of a flat roof, low outer walls and large windows (Yang Xuelin 2010: 278–9; Su Baogui/Sun Junping 1993: 120). Important gongbei were built next to or behind a daotang or a mosque, as is the case with Shagou gongbei, Honglefu gongbei and Xijitan gongbei. Large gongbei have a head called “gongbei ahong”, who lives at the gongbei together with other ahong from the daotang or mosque. Gongbei ahong is mainly responsible for affairs such as the preservation of the graves, organisation of ermaili, and fund-raising and expenditure. Gongbei play a chief role in Hui religious life. They are believed to be the sacred places where a Muslim can be blessed or consoled, and where his or her complaints and wishes can be expressed and heard. Above all, with the help of a saint’s supernatural power, a devout believer’s dream can be fulfilled. Beyond their regular participations in public ermaili ceremonies, the Hui also take time to visit gongbei individually. In this case, they pray at a saint shrine and beg for the quick recovery of a sick rela tive, a wife’s pregnancy, or a deceased kin member’s peace in the afterlife. 157

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In social and cultural anthropology, field studies have been conducted in various regions of the world focusing on the social functions of Muslims’ veneration of holy shrines. Many studies reveal that the pilgrimage and the veneration of saints are considered of great benefit and believed to be helpful in realising worshippers’ hopes (De Jong 1976; Basu 1994; Seesemann 2006). In many Islamic contexts, the Arabic word “ziyāra” is used for the pilgrimage to, and the whole set of prescribed ritual behaviour at a 173 saint’s tomb. Among the Hui in Ningxia, people use “youfen”, “zoufen” 174 or “shangfen”, literally going to the grave, to describe the visit to a tomb. In their oral language, they do not distinguish the visit of a public saint’s tomb and a private family grave. Important Jahriyya gongbei in Ningxia are Honglefu gongbei, Banqiao gongbei, Siqilangzi gongbei (all located in Wuzhong, central Ningxia), and Shagou gongbei and Xijitan gongbei (both in Xiji County in the south). Important gongbei outside of the Hui Autonomous Region are Xuanhuagang gongbei, Dongchuan gongbei and Pingliang gongbei in Gansu Province as well as Chuanchang gongbei in Jilin Province, where the third Jahriyya leader Ma Datian rests (Su Baogui/Sun Junping 1993: 113–7). At these places, large ermaili take place every year on the birthday and/or anniversary of the eminent religious leaders and welcome thousands of visitors per day. For these events, large tour buses are organised by local mosques to enable the villagers to join the ermaili ceremonies which may be hundreds of kilometres away. On the death-day of the ninth Jahriyya sheikh Ma Liesun, better known as Yinchuan erye within the menhuan, over 300,000 mourners attended his funeral on 30 th May 2012 at Honglefu gongbei in Wuzhong. Due to Muslim traditions, his corpse was buried only six hours after his passing. On hearing about his death, many Jahriyya adherents stopped their work and immediately left for Wuzhong. Road tolls were omitted on the highways in Ningxia to make the influxes 175 smooth. 173 For more meanings of the term in the Turkish world and in Central Asia, see Zarcone, 2002, pp. 534–5. 174 While “shangfen” is commonly used among the Han, too, “zoufen” (similar to “youfen”) is one of the words the Hui have invented in their unique Islamic cultural context, see Yang Zhanwu, 2010, pp. 202. 175 The information is based on local narratives. Surprisingly, very few pieces of news about the event can be found on the Internet, despite the wide spiritual influence of Ma Liesun and the size of his funeral.

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Principally, ordinary Muslims also have the opportunity to be interred at a saint’s gongbei after death. It is considered an honour to rest beside one’s spiritual leader, despite the fact that it has become extremely difficult for normal believers to find a place at a gongbei. Besides the higher price one has to pay for a tomb at a gongbei rather than in a common 176 graveyard, most large and well-known gongbei are fully occupied and thus do not accept any new tombs. To give an example: The Shagou gongbei in the north of Xiji County was initially established to bury Ma Yuanzhang (1853–1920), the seventh generation of Jahriyya leadership. Ma Yuanzhang was the founder and leader of the Shagou menhuan, a subbranch of the Jahriyya. He died in a large earthquake in the winter of 177 1920. Although Ma’s corpse was later moved to Gansu Province, numerous private graves emerged either on the side or behind his previous tomb, now a small memorial pavilion. These private graves have been built one after another, mostly in the last century and lie very close to each other within a limited territory. Since its establishment as a gongbei, 178 more and more Jahriyya believers were buried there and some graves were even moved to Shagou from other places. Meanwhile, many living seniors have already reserved a spot for their future tomb at the gongbei. Therefore, it is almost impossible for any more ordinary Hui to be entombed at the estate (Su Baogui/Sun Junping 1993: 116). The emergence and maintenance of gongbei are closely related to the menhuan system in China. Based on an unbroken genealogy of religious leadership, a gongbei is a tangible place to present the organisational and executive power of a menhuan. It is through the physical complex of a gongbei and its surrounding daotang or mosque that a menhuan manifests itself in the best way. Hui religious leaders of each menhuan are therefore very aware of the function of gongbei as a means to recall their adherents’ 176 In rural areas, the Hui normally bury their relatives directly in their fields, as is the case with rural Han. This kind of “graveyard” has no charge. 177 It is believed among the Hui that Ma Yuanzhang had been aware of the earthquake for a long time. Despite his presentiment as expressed in his poetry, he sacrificed himself, together with 234 thousand victims. According to local narratives and his own writings, he chose to become a shexide (Arabic: shahīd), someone who died for his religion. Ma’s biography and poetry are analysed in detail in Yang Xuelin’s book “Zheherenye”, see Yang Xuelin, 2010, pp. 183–219. 178 A Hui with a clear menhuan affiliation will be buried exclusively in the graveyard of his own menhuan.

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loyalty and to give a meaning to their worships. For ordinary believers, gongbei is a place where the Hui of the same menhuan join together at large or small ermaili ceremonies. It provides followers from places far away with the opportunity to meet and communicate with each other. Sometimes, visitors from very remote places can even spend a night or two at a gongbei. Based on the same religious lineage, the supplicants’ feelings of the same ethnoreligious belonging are confirmed and enhanced again and again at these annual meetings. Since the majority of the gongbei in Ningxia belong to a distinct menhuan, their existence helps to decelerate the fusion of various menhuan (Ma Yan 2008: 111), one of the consequences brought about by the current migration flows and the subsequent merging of the living areas of migrants from different menhuan. Generally speaking, almost every adult Hui of Ningxia travels around the province today to join ermaili celebrations at different gongbei. Some of them leave for the neighbouring Gansu Province once or twice a year to visit more gongbei on various occasions. For the Jahriyya, it is inevitable that they visit the Dongchuan gongbei in Lanzhou on 27th March in the lunar calendar, the anniversary of Ma Mingxin’s martyrdom. Each year, local Jahriyya mosques arrange tour buses for their fangmin to travel to Lanzhou, which is over 300 kilometres away from central Ningxia. Although such a non-stop trip is physically exhausting, and for poor peasant families costly, many Jahriyya, especially elder believers, save money from their daily expenses in order to afford a visit to Ma’s gongbei. In some families, adult children who are aware of their filial duty assist their elder parents financially to undertake the pilgrimage to Lanzhou. Major gongbei of the Jahriyya menhuan are spread relatively evenly in 179 central and southern Ningxia: While Honglefu and Banqiao gongbei are both in Wuzhong City in the heart of the province, Xijitan and Shagou gongbei are both located in the south. It seems that the massive migration waves are not greatly influencing the Jahriyya’s saint veneration. From their new houses or dwelling places, migrants are still able to maintain the old custom of visiting an illustrious gongbei and fulfilling their duties. Due to intra-provincial migration, they may be geographically closer to 179 Some of the important Jahriyya gongbei are in northern Gansu near the border to Ningxia, they are the Dongchuan gongbei in Lanzhou, the Nantaizi gongbei in Pingliang and the Xuanhuagang gongbei in Zhangjiachuan. For more Jahriyya gongbei and their locations, see Yang Xuelin, 2010, pp. 276.

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one or two gongbei and farther from others. But, in the end, their access to gongbei was not aggravated by changed distance to them. Besides, since significant ermaili ceremonies occur only once or twice a year at an eminent gongbei, the distance does not play a major role in the decisionmaking of most adherents. Therefore, eminent gongbei in Ningxia have not lost their visitors on the commemoration days of the saints. On the contrary, the number of gongbei worshippers has even increased in some 180 areas of Ningxia. It can be assumed that the increased average income and the improved traffic conditions in Ningxia have both contributed to the growth of gongbei worshippers. The single problematic area may be the newly built migration zones in northern Ningxia. For instance, over 20,000 villagers from Xiji County were planned to be resettled in Pingluo between 2011 and 2015 (Xiji xian 181 renmin zhengfu 2012: 1). The majority of the resettlers are Hui. Since Ningxia’s northern part was not the centre of any Islamic movements throughout history, few gongbei were built in this region. Visiting the south of the province or Gansu could be very tiring and expensive for Hui immigrants. Migrants can quickly build new mosques or prayer rooms in receiving places, however, gongbei will not be additionally established due to their strong ties to the location of historical events. This means that immigrants in the northern areas may not visit their gongbei as frequently as they did before the resettlement.

6.3

The tending of family tombs

Beyond saint venerations at gongbei, the Hui also visit their family graves regularly. In Hadith, it is said “[g]raves and cremation grounds are true admonishers of mankind. They remind us of the inevitable hour of death, and of the transitory nature of this world and its vanities. They thereby make our hearts soft and fit for culture of all virtues” ( H̱ aṭīb at-Tibrīzī 1940, Book III: 73). The Hui I met in rural Ningxia expressed the same idea of visiting graves as a beneficial act. In Hui culture, visiting family tombs is one of the traditional rites which are considered central to one’s religious merits and virtues. A grave is most frequently visited during the 180 See, for example, Kotaro’s description of the ermaili ceremonies at Honggangzi gongbei in southern Ningxia, in Kotaro Takahashi, 2006, pp. 308. 181 The information is based on a personal interview at the migration office in Xiji, on 10th August 2012.

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first 40 days after the funeral. Generally speaking, family tombs are visited each year on the anniversaries of the deceased relatives and on large religious holidays, such as kaizhaijie, guerbangjie (Eid al-Adha or Feast of the Sacrifice) and shengjijie (birthday of the Prophet). The exact dates and patterns of their visits vary greatly according to the Hui’s menhuan affiliations (Ma Guodong 2008: 124). In his “Tianfang Dianli” (Ritual Law of Islam), the Muslim scholar Liu Zhi (ca. 1660–ca. 1730) elaborately describes how Muslim funeral rituals should be performed, and he further explains the virtues of visiting the graves of one’s kin. Liu notes that visiting tombs not only consoles the deceased but also helps to discipline the living supplicants and bring them closer to God (Liu Zhi 1988: 218–9). Youfen or zoufen, literally visiting a grave, is practised very differently among the Hui than the Han, although both of them consider it very central in their tradition of ancestor worship. The Hui neither bring any flowers or food and drink as sacrifices to the graveyard, nor do they burn paper money as the Han frequently do. Lamenting is also forbidden 183 among the Hui, which is given as one of the reasons why women are not supposed to visit graveyards, especially their family tombs. Even lamenting at home after a relative’s passing away should be controlled and not exaggerated, which might be seen by the Han as odd or inexplicable. Knappert explains this phenomenon in an article on the Islamic concept of death and the hereafter as follows: “Every tear that falls on the grave will become a flame that will torture his (the deceased’s) soul” (Knappert 1989: 61). Another key difference to the Han is that the Hui always need to perform the complete or partial ablution before entering a graveyard. In Ningxia, visiting family tombs often follows the first prayer at a mosque, for which the men must be religiously clean anyway. Incense sticks are lit before the prayer at a graveyard starts. Usually, one or several ahong or manla will be invited to lead the chant. When the Hui are uttering Koranic verses, they usually kneel on the side of their family 182 Ma Guodong mentions that the next of kin should visit the tomb five times a day during the first 40 days after the funeral, see Ma Guodong, 2008, pp. 124. However, I have doubts that this custom is really practised in the countryside considering the heavy workload of Chinese peasants. 183 For the prohibition of lamenting the dead in Islamic traditions, see Juynboll, 2008, pp. 96–133. There might be some exceptions across the provinces in China, however, among Ningxia’s Hui peasants, lamenting both at a funeral and at a tomb is considered an affront to God.

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grave, but not in front of the gravestone, as the Han always do (Figure 14). A visit to the tomb is normally followed by an ermaili celebration held in the family of the commemorated person. The ahong or manla who has/ have led the chant at the graveyard and other guests of the family are feasted with youxiang, huicai, as well as fruits and drinks.

Figure 14: Men praying at the back of their family tomb In contrast to Han graves, Hui tombs explicitly reflect the religious aspects of their world view and conception of the afterlife. Firstly, Hui tombs do not differentiate from each other in the appearance: They are all of the same size and shape, regardless of the gender, age, wealth and social status of the dead person. Hui graves are all built along a north-south axis with the face of the dead towards the west, the direction of Mecca (Li Xuezhong 1998: 83 and 86). Islam teaches that in front of Allah, all people 163

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are equal, although they are not identical. In the Koran, in sura XLIX, verse 13, it is said that “O mankind, We have created you male and female, and appointed you races and tribes, that you may know one another. Surely the noblest among you in the sight of God is the most godfearing of you”. When asked since what time a life is regarded as life, my hostess answered, “as long as the baby comes into the world and cries. We do not build graves only for babies who were born and died quickly without ever crying, because Allah does not accept those babies.” By comparison, the Han traditionally hold very simplified funerals, or none at all, for infants and adolescents and do not build official graves for them. The complexity of funerals and the elaborate nature of graves increase along with the age and family position of the deceased. Secondly, a funeral or a visit to a grave is not considered as something tragic, “as this world is nothing in comparison with the next world.” (H̱ aṭīb at-Tibrīzī 1940, Book II: 732) Based on the predestinarian ideology of Islam, a person’s lifespan and way of dying are already predetermined by God. The Koran says in sura III, verse 139: “It is not given to any soul to die, save by the leave of God, at any appointed time.” In sura LVII, verse 22, it is said that “[n]o affliction befalls in the earth or in yourselves, but it is in a Book, before We create it”. At another place, sura VI, verse 17, the Koran declares “[a]nd if God visits thee with affliction none can remove it but He; and if He visits thee with good, He is powerful over everything”. These statements make it clear that one’s destiny lies in the hands of God. Since death is considered predestined and the beginning of one’s eternal afterlife, it is not a tragedy in a religious respect. Many of my elder informants showed a considerably calm attitude towards death. All of them confirmed that they have no fears or worries when they face the end of life. By contrast, Hui elders revealed to me their strong conviction that the afterlife will be much better than this life. One middle-aged man explained it to me, “this life is like a theatre in which you play the role you are given. It is temporary and deceptive. After the show, we go back to the place to which we truly belong and our role at this place is eternal.” Thirdly, compared to Han graves, Hui tombs are very modest: They do 184 not use a coffin to contain the corpse and many of the graves do not have a gravestone. At the interment, no goods or paper money are buried 184 Out of religious tolerance, the Hui are exempt from the state’s prescription to cremate any corpse.

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along with the body as the Han usually do. As the Hui believe that God will judge them according to their good or bad deeds in the mortal world, wealth does not help them to get a better position in the afterlife. Moreover, to worship their ancestors, they do not bring any offerings to the graves, while in Han traditions, it is obligatory to display various cakes, fruits and even alcohol in front of one’s ancestors. According to Islamic traditions, a corpse should be interred as soon as possible and at the latest, three days after death. In contrast to the Han tradition which prescribes that interments must take place on odd days of a lunar month and exclusively in the morning, the Hui do not have strict prohibitions in terms of the date or time of a funeral. However, Fridays are considered as good days for funerals because of the zhuma, Friday prayer, whereas Tuesdays are regarded as bad because it is believed that most of the ghosts are roaming on this day and they may mislead the deceased spirit to a wrong path. If a traveller dies on the way, or a guest perishes outside of his or her hometown, the corpse should be buried on site. The Islamic law does not encourage the transportation of a corpse. However, some elder migrant peasants still choose to be buried in their hometown, next to the graves of other family members. The immigration village Yongxin in Zhongwei has a small Muslim graveyard. However, it does not appear to play a chief role in the villagers’ life. As the average 185 age of the migrants is young, the cemetery has evidently not been enlarged through the decades since the village was built at the beginning of the 1980s. There are some graves of infants, but elder villagers still prefer being interred in their southern hometown. The Hadith says that “[g]rave means the period from the time of death up to the Resurrection Day when judgment will take place. [...] Punishment in the grave is a truth [...] Consequently, pleasure in the grave is also a fact” (H̱ aṭīb at-Tibrīzī 1940, Book III: 78–9). The Hui I spoke to expressed the same understanding when asked what graves mean to Muslim believers. Graves are viewed as a transitional place between death and the Resurrection Day. Hui peasants revealed both their awareness and fear of the punishment in the grave: “A sinner will live in the eternal darkness and in the midst of thousands of ants and worms, tormented by their per185 This conclusion is drawn from my own observation. Unfortunately, no official numbers could be found regarding the different age groups of the dwellers in Yongxin.

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manent bites.” “There will be strong pressure in the grave from all sides so that the bones and veins of the sinful body crash.” It is believed that even small misdeeds in everyday life, such as wasting foods or being religiously contaminating, can result in punishments in the grave if one does not repent early enough. By leaving her house after my fieldwork, MYQ clapped three times slightly on my back and explained, “this is the evidence that I do not want to know you after death. As long as we are alive, we can stay as friends. But after we die, God can see my handprints and thus will not accuse me of failing to convert you to Islam. Otherwise, I would be punished and suffer from endless agonies in the afterlife.” Despite the Hui’s fear of the torments in the grave, cemeteries are not places which scare them. Interestingly, I was told by my informants that if one is alone on the way, it is even safer to choose the narrow earth roads cutting through cemeteries than the broad paved streets as there will be no criminals in a graveyard. This is because the Hui believe that the Han are always in great fear of graves so that none of them will plan to commit a crime in a graveyard. In addition, rural Hui generally share significant trust amongst themselves so that they do not think they will fall victim to their co-religionists. In case of a crime, their first suspicion mostly falls on non-Muslims, because they “have no fear of punishments in the hereafter”. The Hui show fewer tendencies to change the places of their family members’ graves than the Han, although the Koran does not seem to contain a clear statement prohibiting this practice. During the migration waves, family graves were not relocated but remained in the south of the province. One can imagine that a large number of old family tombs are left behind by the migrants. As I mentioned in the preceding chapter, although migrants’ visits to gongbei are not affected by migration on the whole, their access to family graves is largely constricted. This is caused primarily by the fact that the majority of migrants are now far away from their family tombs. Before migration, a lot of private graveyards were surrounded adjacently by natural villages. After the resettlements, many houses in southern Ningxia have become vacant. When no member of the kinship group lives close to these tombs any more, to tender them regularly becomes infeasible. In immigration villages, the Hui still hold ermaili ceremonies consistently for their deceased kin members; nevertheless, the act of visiting graves has to be left out as long as the graveyards are too 166

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far away for a day trip. On anniversaries, some pious Hui migrants take a trip to visit the graves of their ancestors, especially that of the near relations. However, it appears to me that to tend one’s family tombs has been rarely the main reason for Hui migrants to return to their home county in the south. In most cases, this goes hand in hand with visiting their leftbehind living parents or grandparents. Beyond the anniversaries of their dead relatives, young generations also go to see their elders on large festivals such as the Eid al-Fitr or the Eid al-Adha. On these occasions, graves of their deceased relatives will also be visited and tended. However, one can imagine that when no living kin lives close to the migrants’ family tombs any more, private graves may not be tended for a lengthy period of time. In the course of the long-term implementation of Ningxia’s migration projects, it is anticipated that more and more private graves will be 186 neglected.

186 I can imagine that the same tendency towards neglecting one’s family tombs also exists among Han migrants. Unfortunately, very few empirical studies have been conducted on the relationship between migration and the care of private tombs in Ningxia, both in relation to Hui and to Han graves.

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While observing the visiting patterns of gongbei and family graves, it is noticeable that sexual segregation is strict among the Hui. Different social assignments and expectations are ascribed to men and women: While interment of a corpse and visiting a family grave are male preserves, women are expected to restrain themselves from cemeteries, with the exception of gongbei. In general, women are less active in public spheres such as mosques, congregational squares, governmental offices, hospitals, banks and schools. Even chatting in the street is considered immodest for women. Unlike in many non-Islamic cultures, adult Hui women appear to have no male friends and their male reference persons are usually exclusively their kin. This has a lot to do with the so called “modesty code”, as described by Antoun: “[I]t refers narrowly to patterns of coverage for various parts of the body; more broadly to various character traits—bashfulness, humility, diffidence, and shyness; and most widely to institutions often associated with the above—the customs and beliefs relating to the chastity, fidelity, purity, seclusion, adultery, animality, and inferiority of women, to the superiority of men, to the legitimacy of children, and to the honor of the group” (Antoun 1968: 672). Modesty code requires women to remain out of public places. Their duties and honour are primarily associated with the domestic sphere. As opposed to this, the world of the men is out of the house, as Bourdieu notes in describing the Kabyle peoples that “whoever stays at home too 187 often or too long during the day, makes himself suspicious” (Bourdieu 1979: 37). Gender segregation is a noticeable phenomenon, both in many Muslim cultures and in rural Chinese contexts. Among the Hui, it appears that men and women learn as early as their childhood to act and react in the “correct” sphere. While I was conversing with the husband of my host family, I slowly noticed that all the women—his mother, his wife and sister-in-law, who had been in the same living room listening to our conversation, retired quietly to a small back room after some young men from the neighbourhood arrived. Beyond modesty code, women’s lower liter187 Author’s own translation.

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acy level also makes them feel uncertain or unsafe to act alone in public spheres. During my stay in Ningxia, I accompanied women villagers to pharmacies, public schools, and government offices. These are places which Hui women were very reluctant to visit alone. They were afraid of either being cheated because they cannot read or being unable to understand important documents which might be handed over to them to sign. Illiteracy rates of Hui women in rural areas of Ningxia are exceedingly high: According to a 1982 survey, Hui women’s illiteracy rate was 77.66%, while the rate of Hui men was 42.76% and Han women, 49.09% (Gao Guiying 1995: 58). A comparatively recent field study reveals a proportion of around 65% illiteracy among rural Hui women in Ningxia (Luo Yanlian 2008: 159). The inability to read and write limits women’s scope of activities to a large extent. Many of the illiterate women do not venture to a far or strange place unaccompanied. For instance, whenever I was travelling on the regional (slow) train in Ningxia, there were always noticeably fewer women passengers than men, and I rarely saw a young woman sitting alone on the train. Both in the immigration areas in Qingtongxia and in Zhongwei, many women villagers could not describe their locations clearly. They often gave me the impression that they only knew the name of their village and those of some neighbouring villages and towns, but they had little knowledge about the directional relations between the few places they knew. The women’s poor sense of direction and their weakness in reading street signs make them very dependent on their male relatives. Some conservative husbands or fathers use this as a means to keep their young wives or daughters in the domestic sphere. From this perspective, it can be assumed that some fathers do not support girls’ education because they fear losing this control. Domestic education for girls and boys looks very different. Young girls learn to do domestic chores at a very early age: An eight-year-old can already wash clothes of her family by hand, cook simple food, sweep the floor in the house, clean the courtyard, and make the bed for her parents. A mother will be very proud if her young daughter(s) can take over domestic chores from an early age. However, if a boy shows any interest in these matters, he will be immediately discouraged and steered away from them. As a result, the majority of Hui men cannot cook or wash clothes by hand. The few exceptional cases I was made aware of were due to the early death or absence of the mother and the lack of sisters in one’s child169

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hood. In contrast to girls, a boy is taught to assist in agriculture. They learn how to use different tools to weed, to fertilise the crops, to harvest, and so on. A boy will be laughed at if he develops any interest in the tasks in the kitchen. However, it is common to see young girls working in the field to help their parents. School education, as well as religious education, is considered more important to boys than to girls. This traditional attitude leads to a higher illiteracy rate among Hui women than men. According to a 1999 survey, the proportion of school enrolment in Ningxia was 94.1%, while Hui girls’ enrolment amounted to only 83.4% (Feng Xuehong 2005a: 99). After enrolment, the rate of early school leavers rises in accordance with the ascending grades: A 2000 case study revealed that while Hui girls in the first grade made up 42.73% of all students in the same grade in 19 villages in Tongxin County, in the fifth grade, the share of Hui girls accounted for only 22.22% of all students in the same grade (Feng Xuehong 2005b: 129). In many rural areas, it is very difficult to persuade school children, especially girls, to continue their school education. Many girls have to take over domestic chores from an early age and some of them even undertake waged work to support their family financially. Although the majority of the children in rural Ningxia are shorter and look younger than children of the same age group in urban areas, they play an important role in supporting their families in the domestic sphere, in agriculture, and even in some waged work out of their villages. Even today I can still remember the scene of a toddler running errands between families in Yongxin Village, even though her steps were still unsteady. Despite the youngest working age being 16 by law (Lu Deping/Liu Yuan 2010: 48), many children in rural Ningxia start work earlier. In this context, I do not agree with Bourdillon’s opinion where he states that “[w]orking children often speak of the enjoyment they derive from work” and children “acquire status in their families and their communities through their contributions of work” (Bourdillon 2012: 341). Through my contact with school children in Ningxia, I could neither sense their “enjoyment” nor their “status” in the family or society because they had completed some waged work. By contrast, waged labour was forced on children and, in many cases, they had to hand over their earnings to their father. It remained unclear how much from the children’s earnings was 170

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spent on their education, since this was usually decided by the fathers and the latter were often unwilling to discuss this openly. In Qingtongxia, a father with the surname Ma sent his 16-year-old daughter and 14-year-old son to harvest goji berries in a private plantation. As goji berries are very small and the plants grow only waist-high and have many thorns, picking off the pea-sized fruits is considered ap propriate for children. The two children worked in the plantation from 4am till 8pm with only two short breaks at 10am and 6pm every day. For each kilo of goji berries, only 2.2 yuan were paid to them. Ma’s children could harvest 35 to 40 kilos of goji berries per day and make around 70 or 80 yuan. At night, they slept in a garage on beer cases which were turned over and put together to function as a bed. There was no canteen in the plantation, every four or five workers shared a stove to make a simple meal for oneself. As the breaks were short, there was never sufficient time to cook in the true sense of the word. After about 10 days, Ma’s children called their father to pick them up. Ma was very unhappy about his children’s return, since their total earnings (800 yuan) disappointed him. Under such working conditions as described above, I cannot imagine that any child would enjoy or be proud of the work they undertake. Children’s school education does not always have enough attention paid to it. This was even more severe in the past when the proportion of children to adults in a family was much higher than now. In poor families, children’s labour was needed early, and as a consequence, education was neglected. Having left school early and become an unskilled and badlypaid workforce, young daughters were often married off under 20 in the past so that parents could benefit from a higher bride price. The Hui in Ningxia use the same word, “caili”, when referring to bride price as the Han. The cultural and economical meanings of caili are not evidently different for rural Hui and rural Han population. In many parts of China’s countryside, and even in the cities, it is common that the parents of a bride ask for bride price from their future inlaws. The large amount of money that a bride’s parents sometimes demand can become a heavy burden for the groom’s family, so that some planned marriages are dissolved or young men in poor families either do not ever have a chance to marry (as is often the case among the Han) or have to wait a long time until they have saved enough for the bride price. Despite the high costs of marriage due to bride price and wedding ex171

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penses, I have the impression that Hui parents place more importance on finding a wife for their sons than the Han. As a result, fewer Hui men remain single than their Han counterparts in the countryside. Comaroff discussed various forms and meanings of marriage prestations in different sociocultural systems. In his view, marriage payments function to finally define the status of a conjugal union and locate its offspring in a genealogically ordered social field (Comaroff 1980: 38). Bride price is neither spent on wedding expenses nor is it tendered to the bride. In most cases, it goes to the father of the bride who then has the right to dispose the sum. Caili plays an essential role in many marriage negotiations and an accepted amount of money as bride price is usually the prerequisite for any further marriage arrangements. As a result, a large number of families, particularly the poor ones in rural areas, tend to marry off their daughters early, so that they can use the bride price(s) to find a wife for their sons, to pay the school fees of their younger children, or to purchase equipment to improve their living conditions. For parents, the marriage of a son is more important than the marriage of a daughter, since the daughter-in-law will usually move into their house, become a new family member, and take over the majority of domestic chores. Most importantly, she is expected to give birth to boys who can carry the family name further. In this regard, bride price can be partially understood as a kind of compensation for the bride’s family, because in a patrilineal society with a dominant virilocal residence rule, as is the case with rural Hui, they lose both the productivity and the reproductivity of a woman as a result of her marriage and her moving out of the natal household. Absence or deferral of bride price happens only rarely. In 2011, the average bride price was between 30,000 and 40,000 yuan 188 in rural Ningxia. Compared to the local average annual income per capita in 2011, which amounted to 5409.95 yuan (Zhonghua renmin gongheguo guojia tongjiju 2012b), a groom’s family usually needed to save for several years to be able to afford the price. In the southern mountainous areas, daughters of two poor families are sometimes exchanged to become daughter-in-laws, so that one son from each family (who is at a similar age to the daughter) can marry without paying any bride price. This is called “huantouqin” by the locals (Ma Zongbao 2008: 48–9). Another case 188 The figures come from Hui locals’ own reports.

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in which bride price can be neglected or reduced to a large extent is marriage to a divorced woman. A woman’s bride price will be diminished to a greater degree if it is not her first marriage. Bride price plays an eminent role in marriage transactions among the 189 Hui, but it does not repel the existence of dowry. “Jiazhuang”, as it is called by the Hui, usually consists of jewellery, bedding, furniture, and fine clothes which are provided by the bride’s family. Compared to bride price, dowry is commonly or mainly transferred in non-monetary form in rural China. The Hui’s marriage pattern does not sustain Goody’s claim that dowry is a form of female inheritance of male property (Goody/Tambiah 1973: 17). First, dowry or “jiazhuang” is only an extremely minor part of the properties belonging to the new conjugal union after marriage. Second, female inheritance is seen locally as a separate type of devolution which is independent of dowry and occurs post-mortem, rather than premortem. Third, the amount of dowry varies in proportion to the bride 190 price which a bride’s family obtains from their future in-laws. A wedding banquet in a bride’s family should never outweigh the celebration in a groom’s family, either in size or in festivity. According to the “Marriage Law of the Republic of China”, the legal age for marriage is 22 for men and 20 for women. As an autonomous region, Ningxia’s supplementary regulations allow Hui men above 20, and Hui women above 18, to marry. The majority of the Hui in the countryside marry as soon as they have reached the legal ages and a few of them do not wait until they are 20 or 18. For the Hui, a marriage is legally validated through the nikaha (Arabic: nikāh), the mutual consent of the couple, witnessed and authorised by an ahong’s physical presence. The ahong must read certain verses of the Koran aloud and ask the bride and the groom respectively if they both agree to the marriage (He Kejian/Yang Wanbao 2003: 99–100). For this reason, many young couples have already celebrated their Islamic wedding, moved in together, and had children before they reach the legal ages laid down by the Chinese state. Although it could be difficult to apply for a marriage certificate issued by the state or to get a hukou for the babies who were born when the parents were still under the legal marriage ages, there is still a tendency of early marriage and early childbirth 189 Again, the Hui use the same term for dowry as the Han, as is the case with bride price. 190 On the third point, see Ma Zongbao, 2008, pp. 47.

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among rural Hui populations. One can thus conclude that the superiority of the Islamic marriage law supports the phenomenon of early marriage in practice and works against China’s various regulations to limit its population growth. Many Hui peasants believe that if a girl is over 20 and has not found a husband, it is a disgrace for her parents. When MYQ first met her husband through a matchmaker, she was 20, whereas her husband was only 16. Since a 20-year-old woman was considered very old to be married off and her father-in-law was dying of cancer at that time, they married only a few months after they had first met. Her marriage was entirely negotiated and arranged by her father and an elder brother. MYQ revealed that she agreed to marry the “boy” solely due to her pity on the in-law family, since “they had almost nothing at the moment, even no money to buy some medicine to release the increasing pain of the father”. MYQ’s son was born at home in 1997, with the help of her mother- and sister-in191 law. The baby was underweight and malnourished. In that year, she was 22 and her husband 18. With a very young child, the couple went to Xinjiang to work on cotton plantations in order to escape the impoverished living conditions in their hometown Xiji. MYQ’s story is not a unique example for rural Hui women’s early marriage and childbirth. According to a population survey conducted at the beginning of the 1990s, among women aged between 15 and 19, married Han were 5.17%, whereas the percentage of the Hui amounted to 15.3% (Gao Guiying 1995: 59). In a more recent survey from 2013 which was conducted in the immigration county of Minning, evidence still shows a high rate of early marriage among Hui women: 71.6% of all migrant women under 20 were married at the time of the survey (Gao Mei/ Zhang Yu 2014: 54). It seems that migration has not changed this traditional marriage pattern significantly. Many young migrant Hui women think it is easier for women to marry first and then join the labour migration flows together with their husband. Marriage provides a kind of social security for young women, as long as they live together with their husband. By contrast, it is considered unsafe if a young, single woman works outside her hometown, based on the fear that her sexual behaviour cannot be supervised by any family members. This explains why a larger percent191 It is considered abnormal to have one’s own mother by the side during delivery.

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age of unmarried Hui women return to their hometown soon after a short-term labour migration than their Han women co-workers. Petersen asserts that a Muslim wife signifies the greatest danger for the honour of her husband, because she is the one who can ruin his honour for the longest time. The wife comes into the house of her husband as a stranger whose solidarity with her in-laws is never assured, she can therefore bring contamination and shame into his lineage. She is thus considered the most inviolable, but also the most vulnerable “property” that a man can “own” (Petersen 1988: 27). In short, the honour of a Muslim man is closely related to the sexual behaviour of his wife and other female kin. This convention, among other things in Islam, gives rise to the general surveillance of women and the delimitation of their space. Early marriage often leads to early childbirth and having more children than allowed. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, it was very common for a 192 young couple to have five or six children. Although China introduced its birth control policy by the end of the 1970s, Hui women in rural Ningxia seemed to be able to escape the state’s compulsory sterilisation sanctions. Three decades later, the majority of Hui women today are still convinced that it is a violation of the Islamic law if a woman is sterilised artificially. Birth control pills and other contraceptives are therefore not welcome among the Hui, although local family planning offices vigorously propagate contraception and offer these materials for free. Ningxia’s local family planning policies were launched at the end of the 1970s. The regulations allow the Hui living in southern mountainous areas to have up to three children and those living in flatland areas to have a maximum of two. However, the restrictions were followed only by a minority of the inhabitants (Pan Hua/Ma Weihua 2008: 52). In 1986, there were still on average 3.9 children born into a Hui family in southern mountainous areas (Gao Guiying 1995: 60). In a questionnaire conducted in 2011 in Xiji County, 57.64% of the respondents said they would like to have more than three children (Wang Xuemei 2012: 145). High fertility is considered a positive and important character of womanhood. For instance, some elder women in Yongxin Village repetitively mentioned a young mother who had become pregnant three times within two years. They narrated jokingly, “she is always carrying a baby in her stomach” or 192 Based on informal conversations with the local residents.

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“she gets immediately pregnant once her husband touches her”. In rural China, because a majority part of agricultural work has been completed by manpower, to have a large number of children, particularly boys, was considered as strengthening the livelihood of a family. This traditional belief was shared both by men and women and was given by both sexes as a reason for their unanimous decision to have many children. This propensity is gradually changing in the countryside, based on the fact that more and more rural population are no longer engaged in agriculture, but migrate to the cities. It is obviously more difficult for a Hui woman to accept the nationwide birth control policies than for a Han. However, many Hui couples have noticed that today, living expenses rise strongly corresponding to the increase in the size of a family. Statistically speaking, there is a gradual deceleration of population growth from 2000 to 2010 in Ningxia (Ningxia Huizu zizhiqu tongjiju et al. 2013: 100), which reflects the current change of both Hui and Han peasants’ attitudes towards childbirth. One can infer from the above that peasants’ current concerns with regard to having too many children are mainly related to the general increase in costs of living and the surplus of agricultural labour, rather than to the state’s sanctions. For a migrant family, the number of young children influences their quality of living stronger than a family who remains within their established social and kin networks. Many migrant Hui in Ningxia live in the form of a nuclear family. Only a few of them have their elder generations around to help them take care of the young kids. Due to the heavy physical workload and lack of support beyond the nuclear family, many young migrant couples tend to have fewer children than their elder generations. Among the migrant peasants who work in the vineyards in Qingtongxia, the average number of children per family was between two and three. In rare cases, such as in my host family, there is only one child. MYQ told me that it has been difficult managing the fact that she has only one child, since most of her relatives, friends, and neighbours consider it bad because of the limited aid she and her husband will receive from the next generations in the far future. Although a single child family is not common among the Hui, MYQ revealed that she has given up on the idea of having a second child because she would like to guarantee her son the best education she can afford in order to enable him to live a better life than hers. “With one child more, I will not be able to do this,” she said, 176

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“and above all, I will not be able to go anywhere I would like and find a job easily.” Labour migration provides many peasant families the chance to increase their incomes. However, the number of underage children in a family affects parents’ mobility to a large extent. In this context, it can be ascertained that migration plays an effective role in reducing population growth and allows women to be more engaged in income earning activities than in domestic chores. Not only labour migration, but also state-organised ecological migration seems to have influenced rural Hui’s conception of childbirth. Pan Hua and Ma Weihua note that the proximity to towns and cities often makes migrant peasants compare their lives with that of the city dwellers. They then assimilate urban conceptions and values in the hope that by changing old attitudes and norms they can help themselves approach better living standards. Hence, an acculturation process takes place among ecological migrants, which includes migrants’ abandonment of their former desire to have many offspring (Pan Hua/Ma Weihua 2008: 53). During my first stay in Yongxin Village, a woman terminated her early pregnancy by herself at home. She already had three young children and feared that another child would have increased the financial burden which the family was already effected by. Based on the examples mentioned above, I suggest that the main cause for the decline in birth rate is Hui migrants’ changing expectations from life and their new attitudes towards childbirth. Nevertheless, other factors such as miscarriage, abortion, and infant death play a minor role in slowing down the population growth. In Qingtongxia, I was shocked to find out how frequent women lose their babies, even in the late stage of pregnancy (in the seventh or ninth month). The abuse of strong pesticides in agriculture and migrant workers’ lack of vocational training were usually the main causes for miscarriage and infant death. However, some Hui believe that the reason for a miscarriage is that a pregnant woman has met some impure person, someone who does not conduct full or partial ablutions regularly according to the Islamic law or who has committed immoral deeds and not begged Allah for his forgiveness. After a miscarriage, an ermaili ceremony will be held by the affected family to ask God for one’s future safety and well-being. A couple is expected to help each other to fulfil their religious duties and ensure that the partner does not violate Islamic precepts. For in177

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stance, I was told that it is a woman’s duty to prepare the water for her husband’s full or partial ablutions at home and to wash his clothes frequently. So, if a man does not perform Islamic ablutions or change his dirty clothes frequently, his wife will be blamed. A man is in turn responsible for the appropriate dressing and social behaviours of his wife. If a woman does not dress herself modestly, for example, if she is seen wearing sleeveless blouses, short skirts or high-heeled shoes, it is her husband’s duty to stop her. Beyond this, a couple should permanently remind each other of their religious obligations. In practice, however, I heard more women’s exhortations and recommendations towards their men than in reverse. Tensions, conflicts, and sometimes even domestic violence can arise from some socially condemnable behaviours of one partner. MYQ had several conflicts with her husband because of his occasional smoking. MYQ said that she has a sharp sense of smell when it comes to tobacco, so that she can always sense if her husband smokes. She also dissuaded him from playing mahjong on many occasions, because the Koran 193 does not allow gambling. Her advice did not always find acceptance easily. Many times, a discussion ended up in a physical fight. Sometimes MYQ was beaten by her husband so violently that she had to see their ahong for his intervention. According to MYQ, the Jahriyya ahong in her village was not always willing to settle domestic conflicts. But several times, he did have had a long talk to her husband at her strong requests and the latter changed his behaviour subsequently, even if only for a limited time. Domestic violence against women and children still exists in some Hui families today. A few Han peasants hold the opinion that Hui men generally have a tendency towards violence, although no statistical data confirms the hypothesis that more violence occurs in Hui than in Han families. Violence is usually kept secret within the family, including by the women and children themselves. Many women hold a passive or resigned attitude and do not believe the situation can be improved. When I first came to know MYQ, she refused to meet me twice by saying that she did not have time. Later, it turned out that she had been, on both occasions, physically attacked by her husband but did not want me to notice. I have 193 It is said in sura V, verse 90 of the Koran that “[o] believers, wine and arrowshuffling, idols and divining-arrows are an abomination, some of Satan’s work; so avoid it; haply so you will prosper”.

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never witnessed any violence in the immigration areas I lived, but sometimes injured women showed their bruises in my presence while weeping and complaining about the brutality of their husband to their female friends or relatives. Husband and wife are supposed to live together. The pressure of this public opinion prevents many women from moving out of a violent household, and because divorce has in most cases fatal consequences for women, no one will easily decide to legally dissolve their marriage. Once I asked a left-behind elder mother who was badly injured by her husband, “why don’t you move out to live with your daughter?” She replied briefly, “the key to paradise is in the hand of our husband, so what can we do except obeying him? I only wait for the day when Allah calls me back.” I was often told by Hui women that they are more sinful than men, therefore they must be more devout and fulfil more religious duties. For instance, the lawful age for a girl to start fasting is nine, but a boy does not need to fast until the age of twelve. Another example is that, according to the local folklore, the spirits of deceased women will be called back to the afterlife on the Grand Night (the 27th night of Ramadan), whereas male spirits can stay in this world until the last night of Ramadan. Mernissi traces the submission of women in Islam to their purportedly destructive sexuality. Women are seen as the embodiment of social disorder, as subverters of a civilisation. As their sexual attraction is considered intoxicating and irresistible, they must be controlled, according to Islam, so that mankind will not be misled on their way to approaching God (Mernissi 1991: 26–31). When asked why women have more sins than men, Hui women gave different answers: Some said it is because of their menstruation and childbirth, happenings which are contaminating and uncontrollable. Others said that it is because women cook almost their whole life and it is impossible to make sure that no grains fall on the floor and are wasted. Lastly, there is also an opinion which states that women have already committed more sins than men before they come into the world. “Among ten good deeds, nine are conducted by men; But among ten evil deeds, nine are committed by women,” MYQ explained. My informants were all uninterested in talking about sexuality. Thus, it is difficult to know if they also believe the allegedly rampant female sexual attraction. Being aware that talking about sexuality openly is often suppressed in the countryside 179

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of China, I did not integrate this theme into my empirical research. Despite that, I suggest that Hui women’s consciousness of their greater sinfulness and their stricter observance of Islamic rules makes an overarching contribution to the maintenance of a collective Muslim identity. The Jahriyya menhuan does not have any mosques specifically for women. Some large mosques have a long and broad curtain hanging in their prayer hall that provides room for women to attend a prayer service in a corner (Figure 15). Even it is possible, however, women’s share in a public prayer at a mosque is very small. Many do not feel comfortable in a crowd of men and would rather stay at home and ask their husband about what

Figure 15: The corner for women attendants in a Jahriyya mosque has been told by the ahong later. The majority of Jahriyya mosques in rural Ningxia provide Islamic education in the form of a semi-formal school. Young students spend their evenings or summer and winter vaca194 tions there, whereas graduates from a middle school can directly live in a mosque and spend several years working with and learning from the 194 The state’s compulsory education is completed after one’s middle school graduation. Most of the students are around 15 at this time.

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local ahong. Large gongbei, such as the Xijitan gongbei and Honglefu gongbei, have an attached daotang where students receive professional lessons in Arabic, Islamic classics, and Chinese in order to become a functional ahong if they desire. Nevertheless, both the professional daotang and the semi-formal Islamic schools are only accessible to boys. For Jahriyya girls and women, to obtain formal religious education is rarely possible in Ningxia’s coun195 tryside. Due to their lack of contact with ahong and Koranic texts, rural Hui women generally react shyly and often feel ashamed when they are asked about religious issues. In contrast to men, Jahriyya women’s prayers almost always appear informal, casual and marginal: Kneeling in a separate room, they observe the men’s activities through the curtain or window, trying to imitate the latter’s movements and tone of chanting, although most of them do not dare to chant aloud. When a funeral takes place, male relatives of the deceased assemble in front of the corpse in the living room and pray under the direct guidance of an ahong. During this time, women gather in a back room, listen to the men’s prayer, and follow suit when the men stop to perform the duwa. Men offer formal prayers 196 both to their deceased male and female relatives. Jahriyya women are religiously subordinate to men. This is not only because they have very restricted access to religious guides and education, but also because their biology often puts them into the category of the “impure”. For instance, women in menstruation and in the first month after delivery are considered contaminated. They should not cook, say “salām”, utter any holy names, or touch any religious objects. Worse than menstruating women, women in the first month after childbirth are not welcome in other households. Except for close relations, they are not supposed to talk to other people or be spoken to. Therefore, a red strip of cloth is usually hung at the entrance of a house where a new baby has been born, so that the neighbours are informed that there is a woman in postpartum confinement. By doing so, the family can avoid unexpected visitors during the entire month. The practice of limiting postnatal wo195 In other provinces in China, especially in the cities and among other menhuan, religious education might be less difficult to receive for girls and women. Maria Jaschok has published many articles and books on women’s Islamic education in China based on her collected materials, mainly from Henan Province. 196 This information derives from my informants’ narratives. No funeral was held during my stay in the immigration villages.

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men’s scope is not related to whether they give birth at home or in a hos pital. Pfluger-Schindlbeck examines the qirx rites in an Azerbaijan village and proposes an analysis of the impurity of women in the context of cosmological continuity. The impurity of women, which is based on their fertility or reproductivity, should be understood in correlation to the rites of passage (Pfluger-Schindlbeck 2005: 162–8). It is by means of the regularly recurrence of female contamination that the different stages of a life-cycle (birth/childhood, adolescence, marriage, parenthood and post-menopause) are reached and social relations are reformed (Strasser 1996: 24). The exclusion of contaminated and contaminating women from everyday social life can also be viewed as protective measures. Since contamination is regarded as a danger, both pre-existing social order and genealogical continuity are secured and preserved if the “impure” women are confined to a limited space. In contrast to many Turkic-speaking Muslims who celebrate the 40th day after a child’s birth as the end of the mother-child seclusion, the Hui have adopted the Han tradition of holding a large feast after the first lunar calendar month, which is locally called “guo manyue”. Similar to the Han, manyue (the completion of a full lunar month) marks the beginning of the child’s life in the community and the readmission of the mother into everyday social life. In the immigration areas, as many peasant women are not solely housewives and many of them are engaged in waged work outside the house, these traditional prohibitions are not followed as strictly as in the remote mountainous areas. Among the migrant workers in Qingtongxia, for example, some women were still required to make dishes, even though they were in menstruation, since the nuclear family structure was unable to lend the working wives a helping hand. Strict seclusion of postpartum women from the public sphere during the first month was also rarely observed. Nonetheless, at religious festivals such as ermaili ceremonies, menstruating women always restrained themselves from the kitchen and found a female friend or a neighbour to replace their role. Postpartum women were also aware of their impure state and deliberately withdrew themselves from many collective activities they would have participated in at other times. Women’s attributed peripheral role makes them vulnerable to physical and mental harm, such as spirit possession, an illness which many Hui reported having witnessed or having been the victims themselves. Almost 182

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all affected persons in these narratives are women. The beliefs of spirit possession have no specific relation to Islam, but exist worldwide in many other religions and traditions, too. Similar to the zar cult in Egypt (Nelson 2007) and the spirit possession among the Uyghurs in Kazakhstan (BellérHann 2015), many Hui believe in the existence of gui (wicked ghost) who can take control of a human body. The gui, mostly the spirit of a dead relative or acquaintance of the host, will cause agony to the possessed body and will not abandon the host until its demands are met. The possessed person might lose the sense of hearing, become permanently exhausted or sleepy, and in some rare cases, the patient begins to cry suddenly and speak in the voice of a stranger. Some might even lose their consciousness after a period of hysteria. When one or more of these symptoms occurs, a relative will either send for an ahong or go to visit him in the local mosque with or without the patient. One of the common treatments is to ask the ahong to write down 197 some blessed Koranic verses on a strip of paper, which is called duwa, and make the patient drink the water with the ashes of the burnt strip. To carry duwa on the right side of one’s clothes is also considered helpful, especially against chronic or recurrent symptoms. In any case, local Hui prefer visiting an ahong to seeing a doctor when someone is believed to be possessed by a gui. In their opinion, an ahong is skilful in curing odd and unexplainable diseases, while a doctor of medicine is only good at curing patients with definable illnesses, such as the common cold or stomach flu. In the immigration areas I stayed, beliefs in gui and spirit possession were still present, probably less widespread than amongst the leftbehind populations in the south. Because of women’s allegedly higher vulnerability to malevolent spirits than men, it was considered inappropriate or unsafe for a young woman to live alone in a room, even just for a limited period. Her relatives would try to arrange a female companion to spend the nights with her together. During my entire stay in rural Ningxia, my host family always made sure that there was at least one wo198 man who shared the room with me at night. 197 The same word is also used for a ritual performance during a prayer. See my description in the subchapter 5.2.2. 198 I am not certain about the real concerns of my host family. The reason for sharing a room could be their belief in some wandering ghosts at night, but it could also be a simple means to prevent criminalities, although almost every Hui I met claimed that there are no criminals in their neighbourhood.

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Kehl-Bodrogi mentions the jinn, a kind of supernatural spirit which is described in the Koran as being created by God from fire. As is the case with human beings, there are jinn who have adopted Islam and are obedient to God and some others who are not godfearing and do harm to humans. If touched by a jinn, a person can experience cramps, epileptic fits, paralysis, or other health problems. Moreover, a jinn can also possess a person for a long period which results in mental disturbances and temper tantrums (Kehl-Bodrogi 2011: 89–90). Yang Wenbi asserts that the word “gui”, as commonly used by rural Hui in Ningxia, is a very ambiguous term. In his view, “gui” is originally a Han word but was adopted by the Hui during their acculturation in the history. It is often applied by rural populations by vague reference to malicious luha (Arabic: rūh). In Islamic beliefs, rūh is the soul which inhabits one’s body during the lifetime and leaves it after one dies. Luha is generally used by the Hui to indicate benevolent souls, while “gui” is used to refer to nasty and malevolent souls whose hosts have committed serious sins during their lifetime. To bump into a gui or to be captured by it, causes bizarre physical symptoms and/ or impaired social behaviours (Yang Wenbi 2013: 30–1). In the immigration areas, my informants were all serious while talking about their encounters with spirit possessed people and the various methods of treatment considered helpful. Few of them were convinced that the kind of physical or mental diseases ascribed to spirit possession can be cured by modern medicine or psychotherapists. Although migration does not seem to have changed peasants’ traditional belief in the existence of gui, it does have large effects on the Hui’s daily life in many other respects. Regarding women, changes can easily be seen in their appearance. Migrant women’s clothing choices are not as limited as the left-behind Hui populations in the south. Many young women wear short-sleeved long dresses and a pair of over-sleeves which they can easily take off anytime in summer. Three-quarter sleeves are also popular among young women. When they travel to a nearby town or city, some of them will choose to wear high-heeled shoes to look more like a city dweller. Elder migrant women sometimes also dare to wear red or colourful clothes like younger generations, although the modest colours for elder women are considered to be dark blue or grey. What migrant women seem reluctant to give up is their headscarf. According to Hui traditions, married women should always wear a headscarf 184

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when they leave the house. This custom has been maintained by rural migrants, except for the fact that their headscarves are generally more colourful than those worn in their southern hometowns. Due to their proximity to towns and cities and steadily growing Hui populations, many newly built immigration areas have larger Muslim markets than Ningxia’s emigration regions. A teenaged wife from Xiji told me that she was always attracted by the bright and colourful headscarves in the market place in Dazhanchang, an immigration county in Zhongwei. Each time when she came to Zhongwei to visit her parents, she would take the chance and buy several scarves for future use. “In Xiji, you cannot find such a large selection of headscarves. Traditional Hui would say some (scarves) are too bright and colourful and are therefore not modest,” the young woman who married just a year ago narrated. In terms of qingzhen, migrant Hui have a rather uncomplicated way of dealing with non-Muslims. Except for religious events, many Hui migrant families do not mind sharing the same dishes with their non-Muslim guests. In the traditional Hui villages in southern Ningxia, however, the separation of dishes and utensils is much stricter and some conservative families are unwilling to invite non-Muslim guests into their house because of the latter’s supposed contaminating effects. In relation to gender, migrant women are comparatively more concerned about purity injunctions than men. This is because women play a key role in the household and their “purity” represents the “purity” of their whole family. Beyond this, Hui women’s interactions with the Han majority are fewer than that of the men and their social circle is accordingly very restricted. In contrast to their counterparts, Hui women generally do not have many occasions to share dishes with the Han and are therefore very careful about purity rules when serving Han guests. In this regard, it can be said that rural Hui women function as guardians in the preservation of Islamic injunctions and ethnic identity. Migration provides women with many job opportunities outside of the house to become less dependent on the wages of their husband. This also enables women to have more power and courage to express their wants 199 In contrast to a large number of Islamic societies in the Middle East, unmarried Hui girls do not have to wear a headscarf if their parents or they themselves do not insist on it. However, widows must keep veiling even if they do not intend to remarry.

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and needs in the family and society. Despite the fact that a lot of Hui hus bands are keen to maintain their patriarchal image, in the household they are as dependent on their wife as the latter are on them in public. This is not only because of women’s major contribution to housekeeping and childcare, but also because many of the men have realised women’s potential in offering financial aid to their family once they have found paid employment. Although a woman’s wage usually does not outweigh that of a man, few Hui women in the immigration locations are housewives. Most of them are busy with one or even several temporary jobs throughout the year. Women’s additional earnings are spent on children’s education, family’s health insurance, pension insurance, and on the elder generations’ well-being. Some elder migrant women use their saved payments 200 to afford themselves a pilgrimage to a distant gongbei or to Mecca. Since Muslim men are considered more educated in religion and general knowledge than their counterparts, few of them want to admit that their religiosity can be influenced by women. One of my male informants had to spend several months alone with his underage son, while his wife and adult daughters all went to other provinces to work. He did not know how to cook so he had to buy convenience foods for meals during that period. These processed foods were surely not all produced according to strict qingzhen prescriptions and could not replace the tasty and nutri201 tious meals a Muslim wife cooks at home. On a hungry day, the man shared an abundant lunch at his Han friend’s home. For a time, he was condemned by his fellow villagers. In order to defend himself, he had to resort to the Koran which says it is not sinful to eat forbidden foods if one 202 is constrained by dire circumstances. Another Hui husband who was a taxi driver told me that he could not fast during Ramadan even though he would have liked to do it. This was because his wife worked at a construction site at that time and she did not want to fast due to the heavy physical work she had. In a nuclear migrant family, there was no other woman 200 In 2011, 2506 Hui from Ningxia went on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The yearly collective trips from Ningxia to Mecca are well organised by local religious institutions. Among the pilgrims, there has been a relatively high share of women. See Yang Wenbi, 2014b. 201 In Ningxia, I was invited by various Hui families to have a meal in their house. I often marvelled at the expert cooking skills of Hui women and the great flavours of their dishes. 202 See Koran sura II, verse 173.

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around to cook the two meals before sunrise and after sunset. Therefore, he had to miss the obligatory fast that year. Hui migrants’ marital relationship appears to be solid, since divorce rate continues to remain low. In a survey conducted in 2013 in Minning County, only 6.2% of the more than 200 interviewed women were divorced, 3.1% had been divorced and were remarried (Gao Mei/Zhang Yu 2014: 54). In his cross-cultural analysis on nuclear family structure, Murdock argues that the advantages of economic cooperation between sexual partners which are based on an effective division of labour by gender provide a stable protection to the marriage (Murdock 1949: 7–8). Beyond the common economic interest as elucidated by Murdock, traditional norms that strongly discourage divorce and the evident advantages of cohabitation (particularly when resources are limited) make a marital relationship indissoluble. Additionally, the shared responsibilities for young children, which are not easy to shoulder under impoverished conditions, further contribute to keeping a man and a woman together. In the two immigration areas where I mainly stayed, widowhood was more often the cause for a woman to become single again than divorce. Furthermore, a childless young widow can usually remarry soon, since the groom’s family do not need to pay any bride price in such cases. For poor families or families with many sons, this is surely a large financial relief. Although Islamic traditions allow polygamy, and it did exist in more financially fortunate Hui families in the past, this practice was abandoned by the Chinese government during the early 1900s (Pillsbury 1978: 661). Polygamy is rare among Hui peasants in Ningxia. A distant relative of MYQ has had three marriages and allegedly lives with two wives currently in another town far away from his agnate kin, for his behaviour had always been condemned by his relatives. In fact, the Hui, particularly women, do not support polygamy and consider it disgraceful. In contrast to polygamy, the Hui’s traditional preference for endogamy has not changed, despite Hui migrants’ increasing contact with other ethnic groups, particularly with the Han. Hui women barely marry outside of their own ethnic group, much less into a Han family. It seems to be self-evident that a Hui will marry another Hui, at best from the same menhuan. A cross-menhuan marriage is not as rare as a Hui-Han marriage, but still very uncommon in rural areas. Arranged marriage is the dominant form, and the most important task for parents is to find a 187

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partner for their sons and daughters within the same menhuan, no matter where the potential partner comes from: another village, another township or even another province. I was informed that this is primarily because of the different interpretations of carrying out important religious rituals, such as ermaili ceremonies and the distinct understandings of purity injunctions between the menhuan. “If a newly married wife has no idea about what is clean exactly and what not, she is going to pollute the whole family every day when she cooks for her husband and in-laws as she is supposed to.” It is therefore considered “safe” for the man’s family and for the couple’s future relationship if a marriage takes place within the same menhuan. The Hui’s rigid marriage rules often render a Hui-Han marriage or relationship impossible.

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Chapter 8 Conclusions

In this thesis, I have depicted the Hui’s arrival, cultural adjustment, and demographic growth in China from the 7th century till the early years of the PRC. After providing the historical background, I introduced migration in Ningxia, including both state-organised ecological migration patterns and individual labour migration. In this context, I subsequently analysed the Hui’s purity concept qingzhen, their fasting practices, and their death related beliefs and rituals. At the end of the thesis, I devoted a chapter to Hui women and gender relations in rural Ningxia. The main question I have pursued is what impact migration has on the Hui’s ethnoreligious self-attribution. The answers to this question are as manifold as the Hui identity itself: First, migration does not expose the Hui to the danger of losing their religion entirely. Islam plays a crucial role in drawing boundaries and maintaining identity for the Hui, both before and after migration. It is their belief in God, in the hereafter, and in spiritual purity which keeps them unique and distinguishable from the Han majority. For now and in the coming decades, there is no reason to fear an absolute assimilation by the Han. On the contrary, in Ningxia, the Hui are increasing both in number and in their proportion to the Han majority (Ningxia Huizu zizhiqu tongjiju et al. 2013: 101). Through their contacts with the Han, today’s Hui in Ningxia are as aware as their ancestors in the past that Islam will be the last means by which they can perpetuate their ethnic identity. When faced with non-Muslims, Hui peasants tend to explain Islam in 203 relation to moral superiority. In this way, religion affords an opportunity for them to place themselves in a superordinate position, despite the fact that they are politically and socioeconomically marginalised and occupy an inferior position, similar to many other minorities in China. However, this is not to say that the Hui’s interpretations and implementations of religion are immutable. The diverse and divisive understandings 203 In contrast to peasants, Hui college students generally hold a reserved attitude towards their religion. Many of them I met in Ningxia were neither proud of nor strongly interested in Islam.

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of being a mumin (Arabic: muʾmin), the faithful believer of Allah, and belonging to the global ummah, will continue to exist. Like Stewart concludes, religious attribution in Northwest Chinese context is increasingly becoming an individual choice of what one hopes to become (Stewart 2017: 206). This is much the same as the fact that a large variety of Islamic practices will further coexist. Based on the people’s different menhuan affiliations, locations, age, gender and socioeconomic class, their religious practices will remain distinct and sometimes contesting. What migration might have contributed to is the trend towards a reduction or simplification of religious performances. This can be explained by considering the decrease of free time in favour of working time and the merging of attendants from different menhuan at religious services at one mosque after migration. The shift from smallholding agriculture to largescale industrialised modes of production results in a loss of freedom on the part of the peasants who can no longer decide on their time schedule. As is the case with the wine companies in Qingtongxia narrated in Chapter 3.3, contract peasants had fixed working hours in the vineyards and were paid by their daily presence. Friday prayers attracted much less audience during the harvest time, in which intensive labour was needed. This is not to say that peasants had been lax in dealing with harvests as smallholders, but they had had the choice to decide when to start and when to take a break. Being employed by a company, a majority of agricultural work is organised by the employer and has to be completed exactly on schedule. Under time pressure, religious activities are sometimes reduced, simplified (e.g. the duwa between different sessions of a chanting) or even neglected (e.g. fasting practices). Second, there is an inclination that the Hui’s menhuan-awareness is becoming less significant. As MYQ conveyed her concerns to me, “I can tell you a lot about the Jahriyya, my son can say a bit about the menhuan when he grows up, but I am afraid my grandchild(ren) might not know what it is to be a Jahriyya.” During the migration process, boundaries between distinct menhuan have been repeatedly transgressed, broken, and re-built. The previous residential pattern, the menhuan-based fang, has been destroyed by population movements. In the immigration areas, efforts are made to build new fang but the process is long and the new ones are no longer comparable to the old fang in terms of size, function, and solidarity. It is difficult to anticipate what the gradual dissolution of men190

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huan boundaries might mean to the general development of Hui identity. Considering the fragmenting potential of the menhuan system, its destabilisation might contribute to a slight homogenisation within the ethnic group. If this is true, the assertion that “all Hui under Heaven are one family”, may prove more convincing than now. In this regard, one can also imagine that the rate of inter-menhuan marriage may increase as a result of less control from the families or communities. Third, rural Hui’s purity concept, “qingzhen”, is facing many queries, doubts, ambiguities, and tensions now due to their contact with a new industrialised world. Living in a subsistence economy which has continued to exist in the second half of the 20 th century in southern Ningxia, it was simple to explain what is pure and impure according to the Koran. The types of groceries available for daily consumption were limited and peasants spent a vast amount of time producing foods by hand. The arrival of industrial food in the countryside has confused Muslim peasants for the reason that they are unable to judge if the machines and production processes are halal. Clearly, industrialisation also takes place in rural regions without population movements, but migration often facilitates and accelerates the progress. As happens elsewhere in the world, Hui peasants in Ningxia spend much less time now preparing foods than they did one or two decades before migration when their subsistence largely depended on the harvest instead of on their wage. Is it really halal to consume frozen or canned foods which have a qingzhen label? Migrant Hui may say yes without any concerns while the left-behind elder generations in the south may disagree. What about porkfree food or beverages without a label? During my fieldwork, the majority of my informants did not agree that they are permitted. But whenever I saw empty Coca-Cola bottles in the Hui migrant villages or in their fields, I reconsidered their answer and came to the conclusion that in reality, many dilemmas are anchored in the Hui’s dealing with qingzhen. Are children, seniors, sick people, pregnant women, or some other categories of people exempted from purity prescriptions? Or does it only give evidence for the inconsistency between belief and behaviour which is generally prevalent in human societies? The introduction of abundant new industrial food and beverages raised awkward questions about qingzhen and its interpretations. In this respect, I think the dynamics of Islamic purity in 191

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the context of an ever more globalised world is a very promising field for future studies in humanities and social sciences. Fourth, rural Hui’s belief in the final judgement and the afterlife has not changed significantly since migration. It is their firm conviction that an eternal world exists after death which distinguishes the Hui strongly from the Han majority. In order to access paradise and avoid being consigned to hell, the Hui, particularly the elder generations, are very conscious about merits, good deeds, and repentance. Although some Han also hold a vague notion of paradise and hell which is often situational and independent from religion, it does not have a noticeable impact on their daily life and behaviour as is the case with the Hui. From this perspective, one can understand why ermaili ceremonies are repeatedly held on various occasions and why the veneration of gongbei carries great weight for the Hui. It is through worshipping significant gongbei and tendering one’s family tombs that the Hui’s genealogical continuity is sustained. Despite the fact that migration hinders the Hui from frequently visiting their family tombs, which are now far away from their new homes, it apparently does not reduce the Hui’s gongbei attendance. Illustrious Sufi shrines in Ningxia and beyond will remain important in their role as spiritual centres conveying consolation and hope. In “Writing against culture”, Abu-Lughod elucidates the male and Western bias of cultural anthropology. She notes that “[w]omen, blacks, and people of most of the non-West have been historically constituted as others in the major political systems of difference on which the unequal world of modern capitalism has depended” (Abu-Lughod 1991: 142). Being mindful of the critique Abu-Lughod inaugurates, I have been concerned 204 about showing another perspective in the thesis which is not male and Western, or at least not only Western. As many of the female and non205 white academics worldwide who struggle to find ways to make the subaltern heard, I have sought to represent not only male but also female Hui’s perceptions and understandings of religion and identity. By portraying women’s sphere, which differs greatly from the male world, I have 204 Ardener points out the problem of the inarticulateness of women in anthropological representations and considers that those trained in ethnography, including both male and female scientists, have a bias towards the kinds of social model that men provide, see Ardener, 1975, pp. 47–8. 205 Katharina Schramm gives a good outline of white supremacy in anthropology, both historically and contemporarily. For details see Schramm, 2005.

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aimed to explore aspects of gender relations, exploitation, dominance, and resistance. The part of women’s resistance might not seem to be explicitly highlighted in the thesis, but I think generally, rural Hui women are gaining influence through their increased possibilities to migrate and the concomitant rise of family income over which they partially have control. Rachel Murphy draws similar conclusions from the data collected among women in four villages in Jiangxi Province. She suggests that migration may increase both married women’s access to money, knowledge, and other resources, and the visibility of their labour, thereby enhancing their status and improving their bargaining position (Murphy 2004: 267). This, however, does not change the fact that rural women’s subordination to male supremacy will continue to persist in the long run. While Pillsbury asserts that Muslim women in China have occupied a “doubly subordinate status” (Pillsbury 1978: 652), one can imagine that rural Muslim women have to cope with a triple subordinate status: Their social position is not only marginal in relation to Muslim men and to the Han majority, but also in relation to the entire urban populations of China. The gap between rural and urban incomes in China is large, particularly in West China (Sicular et al. 2007: 122). Furthermore, rural populations are deprived of sufficient and effective public services including schooling, health care, and pensions (Müller 2016). Together with other peasants throughout the country, rural Hui must strive against negative stereotyping and condescension on a daily basis. The consciousness of this triple subordination contributes to a strong sense of solidarity and mutual aid, which seems to be more ubiquitous among rural Hui women than among Hui men, Han women, and urban populations. In this respect, I would argue that rural Hui women’s stronger interdependence plays a positive part in preserving their ethnoreligious identity, even though they often do not acknowledge their indispensable role as members of a global ummah. In the thesis, I have opted to focus on the Jahriyya and described their ethnoreligious identification as representative of the Hui in Ningxia. Back at the very beginning of my fieldwork, I was once asked by a Jahriyya young man, “why do you want to focus on the Jahriyya? We do not have a good reputation.” I responded by asking him, “what does ‘bad reputa193

Chapter 8

tion’ mean?” “The Jahriyya have always been seen as anti-government rebels, because we have a history of martyrdom.” His words came into my mind when I was reading the brutal hagiography of the Jahriyya a few years later in Berlin. History plays an important part in identity formation, not only in the case of the Jahriyya, but also for many other menhuan in China. In people’s utterances today we sometimes sense what they or their ancestors have experienced in the past. The Jahriyya have had to deal with, and struggle against, numerous harsh realities such as famine, religious persecution, and ethnic discrimination. By focusing on them, I have attempted to outline a society in which problems such as inequality, exploitation, and domination are not only Jahriyya, but also typical of other marginalised groups worldwide. The thesis may thus provide implications for researchers who concern themselves not only with issues of identity, migration, and Islam, but also with power structure and social marginalisation as well. As a social scientist, we are unable to thoroughly change the established structure of power relations, but I think the contribution we can make is to examine how and why hierarchy persists in multi-faceted ways in a society and remains embedded in people’s mind. Until now, only little long-time ethnographic fieldwork has been conducted in rural China. Considering the large discrepancies between urban and rural regions in terms of economy, education, and cultural norms, it is crucial to fill the gap by more strongly representing China’s countryside, as neither the cities nor the villages alone can speak for the whole nation. In this context, the thesis has given an insight into the everyday life of Chinese peasants which may contrast with the urban life being richly portrayed by academics and popular media. Over the last few decades, modernisation has exposed China’s villagers to a number of new elements in life: an uncertain but attractive market-orientated economy; the temptation of abundant industrial commodities; the pleasure in the consumption of spiritual products and services; and the benefits of acquiring social and health insurance coverage. This new dynamic world with all its appealing offers to improve the quality of life goes a long way towards increasing people’s desire for higher income and greater consumption. One can assert that migration takes place in China as an attendant phenomenon of the country’s modernisation and globalisation in the 20th and 21st century. As Tamara Jacka 194

Conclusions

notes that “one of the most significant corollaries of the state’s efforts to develop a market economy and ‘join tracks with the world’ (yu shijie jiegui) has been a huge increase in labour mobility, as economic restructuring has enabled both domestic and international capitalists to exploit cheap rural labour [...]” (Jacka 2005: 277). Amidst tremendous social changes, Hui peasants need to find a new orientation, be it religious, ethnic, cultural or political. Some of them are playing a proactive part in their search of a new identity; Others are less perceptive or apprehensive and are swimming with the stream. While pursuing the question of migration’s impact on group identity, my focus has been on the Jahriyya menhuan in Ningxia’s rural regions. The Hui Autonomous Region has gone through tremendous changes since its migration programme was launched at the beginning of the 1980s. In 2016, the province’s 13th Five-Year Plan (2016–2020) (“shisanwu” guihua) was issued, which still places a special emphasis on poverty reduction 206 through population relocation (yidi fupin banqian). Against this background, further empirical studies on ethnic change over an extended period of time may be very promising in terms of discovering the long-term effects of population relocation on the self-description of migrants. Most of all, menhuan-specific studies can provide comparative analyses of boundary drawing and intra-religious dynamics. In this regard, examining the ethnoreligious identification of other menhuan may yield new insights into the study of migration and religion. Being just as interesting as Hui migrants’ identity change, the impact of migration on the left-behind population in southern Ningxia also needs further in-depth investigations. Relevant questions to clarify include, for instance, who has remained in the south and why; how has the socioeconomic situation of the left-behind changed during and after migration; what has happened to the numerous religious sites (mosques, gongbei and Islamic schools) in the emigration areas? Due to the exceedingly hybrid and volatile character of Hui identity as mentioned in the introduction, studies focusing on one particular group and/or one specific region can be more pertinent and instructive than nationwide investigations pursuing the single question of who the Hui are. Moreover, to propose the question in the other direction, that is to find out how religion influences migration 206 See .

195

Chapter 8

trends and prospects, could further elicit implications for analysing the interplay of migration and religion, as the relationship between the both is interactive and ever-changing. By focusing on issues such as how religion affects the decision-making of migrants and their well-being in new places, anthropological studies could contribute to a better understanding of Islam as a way of life which does not necessarily hinder Muslim minorities from peacefully integrating into a larger non-Muslim social environment.

196

Glossary

A brief note: The majority of person and place names as well as book titles are only transcribed into Chinese characters without English explanations. Ahema ahong

An Lushan Bailati ye Bai Shouyi Banqiao gongbei Banqiao menhuan Baoan (Bonan) baofeng zhai Beidasi Beishan Beishan menhuan bing Bosi bu ganjing caili Chang’an Chen Yuan Chuanchang gongbei chuan xian bu chuan zi chunjie cunweihui Dadu “Da Ming Lü Jijie Fuli” daotang Daozu taiye darou Dashi dayou Da Yuezhi

阿合马 阿訇

Ahmad Fanakati derived from the Persian word “ākhond”, Muslim teacher, tutor or imam of the mosque; in Ningxia, it is often used for Muslim clerics who have completed a religious college education and received an official certificate

安禄山 白拉提夜

Arab.: Laylat al Baraʿat, the night of the 16th day of a Chinese lunar month before Ramadan

白寿彝 板桥拱北 板桥门宦 保安 包封斋 北大寺 北山 北山门宦

a sub-menhuan of the Jahriyya a Muslim minority in China the six-day fasting in Shawwal

a sub-menhuan of the Jahriyya, established by Ma Yuanchao

饼 波斯 不干净 彩礼 长安 陈垣 船厂拱北 传贤不传子

flatbread, usually made from wheat flour

春节 村委会 大都 «大明律集解附例» 道堂 道祖太爷 大肉 大食 大油 大月氏

Chinese New Year

Persians impure, dirty bride price ancient name for today’s Xi’an

passing on the leadership to the virtuous, but not to the son

197

village committee capital of the Yuan dynasty, today’s Beijing “The Ming Code: Statutes and Commentaries” teaching centre of a Sufi menhuan Ma Mingxin’s honorific title the Hui’s euphemism for pork Arabs the Hui’s euphemism for lard an ancient nomadic folk in West China

Glossary a township in Zhongwei Prefecture

duwa

大战场 低念派 东川拱北 东乡 端午节 杜哇

ermaili

耳麦里

derived from the Arabic word “ʿamal”, Hui commemoration ceremony

erye

二爷

second grandfather, the honorific name for the Jahriyya leader Ma Liesun

fanfang

蕃坊

Muslim neighbourhoods in the Tang and Song dynasty

fang

坊

Arab.: jamīya, gathering or congregation; in Ningxia’s rural context: Muslim neighbourhood

fangmin

坊民

members or households of a Muslim community centred on a mosque

fengjian

封建 封斋饭

feudal, backward, conservative

Dazhanchang dinianpai Dongchuan gongbei Dongxiang duanwujie

fengzhaifan Fu Tongxian Gaderenye Ganchengzi ganjing gaonianpai Gedimu

the quiet chanting school a Muslim minority in China Dragon Boat Festival Arab.: duʿā, literally “invocation”, an act of worship. In rural Ningxia, a strip of red paper or cloth with an ahong’s blessings is also called duwa

Arab.: suhoor, the meal consumed early in the morning before fasting

傅统先 噶德忍耶 甘城子 干净 高念派 格底目

Gādiriyyah a township in Xiaoba clean, pure the loud chanting school Arab.: Qadīm, the eldest Muslim jiaopai in China which derives its origin from the Hanafi school

拱北 拱北阿訇 关里爷 关系

shrine or tomb of a Sufi saint or religious leader

Arab.: Eid al-Adha, Festival of the Sacrifice

Hanren

古尔邦节 鬼 «归真要道» «归真总义» 果碟 古土布拱北 海原 汉餐 汉人

Hanwudi

汉武帝

Emperor Wu

gongbei gongbei ahong Guanliye guanxi

guerbangjie gui “Guizhen Yaodao” “Guizhen Zongyi” guodie gutubu gongbei Haiyuan hancan

the ahong who is in charge of a gongbei connection, the system of social networks and influential relationships which facilitate business and other dealings ghost

fruit plate tombs or shrines built for mythical protagonists Han dishes, Han cuisine a name for northern Chinese people in the Yuan dynasty

198

Glossary Hedayetonglaxi Hei hei shengkou Helan Helan Shan Hezhou Honggangzi gongbei Honglefu daotang Honglefu gongbei Hongsipu Hongwu “Hou Hanshu” houkai Huaisheng si huajuan

Huang Chao huantouqin

Huasi Hufuye huicai “Huihui Yaofang” Huining Xian Huinong Xian hukou humayou jia Jiajing jiaopai jiaozhu jiazhuang jikeer

jingfang jingming jingtang jiaoyu jingtangyu

赫达叶通拉希 黑 黑牲口

Hidāyat Allāh

贺兰 贺兰山 河州

a county near Yinchuan City

a family name literally “black draft animal”, the Hui’s euphemism for pig Helan Mountains an ancient city in Gansu Province, also called China’s “Little Mecca”

洪岗子拱北 鸿乐府道堂 鸿乐府拱北 红寺堡 洪武 «后汉书» 后开

the first emperor of the Ming dynasty praying first and then eating (during an ermaili ceremony)

怀圣寺 花卷

literally “flower twist”, steamed buns which are flavoured with a kind of spice or scallion and twisted to look like flowers

黄巢 换头亲

marriages which succeed by exchanging the daughters of two families in order to find their sons a wife

花寺(华寺) 虎夫耶 烩菜

the Khufiyyah a stew made of white radish, meat, and thick noodles made from potato flour

«回回药方» 会宁县 惠农县 户口 胡麻油 家 嘉靖 教派 教主 嫁妆 即克尔

“Prescriptions of the Hui People”

经房 经名 经堂教育 经堂语

chanting room

a household registration system linseed oil family an emperor of the Ming dynasty order sheikh dowry Arab.: dhikr, literally “remembrance” or “invocation”, a devotional act in Islam in which short Koranic phrases are recited Koranic name Islamic education in the mosque Hui speech, based on Chinese, which is used for Islamic education in the mosque

199

Glossary Jinjipu Jin Jitang “Jiu Tangshu” jiu wangren Kaiyuan kaizhaifan kaizhaijie Kangxi kouhuan

Kubulinye kudouzi Laimaidan yue Lan Yu laojia laojiao liaoye lingchi

Lingwu Lintao Linxia li-pai-ssu (libaisi) li shang wanglai Li Taibaba (Ma Taibaba) liudong renkou liujiaomao Liu Zhi Lucaowa luha Ma Anliang Ma Datian Ma Fuxiang Ma Guobao Ma Haiyan Ma Hongkui mahua Ma Hualong “Maidayiha”

金积堡 金吉堂 «旧唐书» 救亡人 开元 开斋饭

to salvage the dead an era during Emperor Xuanzong’s reign Arab.: iftar, the meal consumed after sunset when the fast is broken

开斋节 康熙 口唤

Arab.: Eid al-Fitr, the festival of breaking the fast

库布林耶 苦豆子 莱麦丹月 蓝玉 老家 老教 了夜 凌迟

the Kubriyya

an emperor of the Qing dynasty Arab.: idhn or izn, permission or oral transmission of succession and other important decisions Latin: sophora alopecuroides Ramadan homeland the Old Teaching, i.e. the Khufiyya see Bailati ye a form of torture and execution by using a knife to remove portions of the body over an extended period of time

灵武 临洮 临夏 礼拜寺 礼尚往来 李太巴巴 (马太巴 巴) 流动人口 六角帽 刘智 芦草洼 鲁哈

today’s Linxia in Gansu mosque courtesy calls for reciprocity

floating population, migrants a hexagonal cap which characterises the Jahriyya Hui

Arab.: rūh, soul, spirit. The Hui believe that the soul leaves the body after a person dies

马安良 马达天 马福祥 马国宝 马海晏 马鸿逵 麻花 马化龙 «麦达伊哈»

deep-fried dough twists Arab.: “Madayih”

200

Glossary Ma Jian Ma Jiapu Ma Jinxi Ma Kai Ma Laichi Ma Liesun (Yinchuan erye) Ma Mingxin manla manyue Mapo Ma Wuzhen Ma Xuezhi Ma Yiyu Ma Yongrui Ma Yuanzhang Ma Zhan’ao Ma Zhancang Ma Zhongying Ma Zhu menhuan Milagou Ming “Mingshale” Ming Taizu Minning Zhen momo mumin Mu Xianzhang (Pingliang taiye) Mu Ying nainai Nanren

马坚 马家堡 马进西 马凯 马来迟 马烈孙 (银川二爷) 马明心 满拉 满月

a student in preparation to become an ahong the completion of the first lunar calendar month after a child’s birth

马坡 马悟真 马学智 马以愚 马永瑞 马元章 马占鳌 马占仓 马仲英 马注 门宦 米拉沟 名 «冥沙勒» 明太祖 闽宁镇 馍馍 穆民 穆宪章 (平凉太爷) 沐英 奶奶 南人

Sufi paths in China given name founder of the Ming dynasty pastries, buns, and breads Arab.: muʿmin, a pious believer of Allah

paternal grandmother a name for southern Chinese people in the Yuan dynasty

niangong

南台子拱北 念功

nietie

乜贴

alms or donations paid voluntarily as an act of benevolence

nikaha

尼卡哈

Arab.: nikāh, mutual consent of a couple in terms of their marriage, witnessed and authorised by an ahong

Pingliang

平凉

Nantaizi gongbei

Arab.: shahadah, recitation of the creed “there is no god but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God”

201

Glossary Pingliang gongbei Pingluo Xian Pu Luoxin Pu Shougeng Qianlong Qingtang Qingtongxia qing wangren qingzhen “Qingzhen Daxue” qingzhenyan

“Qingzhen Zhinan” “Reshihaer” reyisi

平凉拱北 平罗县 蒲罗辛 蒲寿庚 乾隆 青唐 青铜峡 请亡人 清真

today’s Xining in Qinghai to invite the deceased literally “pure and true”, Chinese equivalent of halal

«清真大学» 清真言

Arab.: shahadah, the confession in Chinese that “there is no god but God. Muhammad is the messenger of God”

«清真指南» «热什哈尔» 热伊斯

Arab.: “Rashah” Arab.: raʿs, a local representative of the Jahriyya sheikh, usually selected among the sheikh’s relatives and appointed by him

赛典赤 赛俩目 赛利麦 三爸

Sayyid Ajall

馓子 嫂子

a kind of deep-fried long noodles

saozi Semu

色目

“coloured eyes”, a name for non-Asiatic races during the Yuan dynasty

sha

杀 沙沟 沙沟道堂 沙沟拱北 沙沟门宦 苫单

to kill

上坟 圣纪节 生态移民 圣友寺 舍希德 豕 «史记» “十三五”规划 寺

to visit the grave

Saidianchi sailiangmu Sailimai sanba sanzi

Shagou Shagou daotang Shagou gongbei Shagou menhuan shandan shangfen shengjijie shengtai yimin Shengyousi shexide shi “Shiji” “shisanwu” guihua si

Arab.: salām, word of greeting, salutation Ma Mingxin’s goddaughter “the third uncle”, name for the current Jahriyya leader Ma Kai commonly used to refer to an elder brother’s wife

a sub-menhuan of the Jahriyya blankets used to cover the tombs of religious saints or leaders birthday of the Prophet ecological migration Arab.: shahīd, someone who died for his religion pig “Records of the Grand Historian” the 13th Five-Year Plan mosque

202

Glossary Si da Halifa siguanhui (qingzhensi guanli weiyuanhui) Siqiliangzi gongbei “Songshi” song wangren Su Sishisan Suzhou Suzong taisimi tangping taobai “Tianfang Dianli” tianxia Huihui shi yi jia tianxian tusheng fanke Wang Daiyu Wang Jingzhai wushi fanke Wuzhong Wu Zunqi xian xiang xianglao Xiaoba xibu dakaifa

xi dajing Xidaotang

四大哈里发 寺管会（清真寺管 理委员会） 四旗梁子拱北 «宋史» 送亡人 苏四十三 肃州 肃宗 太思米

the First Four Caliphs

汤瓶 讨白 «天方典礼» 天下回回是一家 天仙 土生蕃客 王岱與 王静斋 五世蕃客 吴忠 伍遵契 县 乡 乡老 小坝 西部大开发

vessel used for partial and full ablutions

洗大净 西道堂

to perform the full ablution

Xiongnu

西海固 西吉 西吉滩道堂 西吉滩拱北 姓 新教 «心灵史» 匈奴

xi xiaojing

洗小净

Xihaigu Xiji Xijitan daotang Xijitan gongbei xing xinjiao “Xinling Shi”

mosque administration committee

to see off the dead Su Forty-three

Arab.: tasmīyah, the utterance of “in the name of God” Arab.: tawbah, repentance “Ritual Law of Islam” all Hui under Heaven are one family angel native born foreigners

fifth-generation foreigners

county township honoured male Muslim seniors literally “Western Part Great Development”, a policy launched around the beginning of this century to narrow the economic gap between China’s western and eastern regions also called the “Han Studies Sect”, a unique Chinese jiaopai which integrates many Confucian values into its Islamic teaching

family name the new teaching group “History of the Soul” nomadic-based people who formed a state north of the agriculture-based empire of the Han dynasty to perform the partial ablution

203

Glossary Xuanhuagang gongbei Xuanzong xuebozi jiao Xunhua Yangxin Yang Xuelin yidi fupin banqian Yihewani

yimani Yongzheng youfen youxiang “Yuandianzhang” yuanxiao yuanxiaojie yuebing zai zhaiyue Zhang Chengzhi Zhangjiachuan Zhang Qian Zhang Zhong zhanji Zhao Rukuo “Zhehanye Daotong Shizhuan” Zheherenye Zheng He “Zhengjiao Zhenquan” Zhenjiao si “Zhongguo Huijiaoshi” “Zhongguo Huijiao Shijian” “Zhongguo Huijiaoshi Yanjiu” “Zhongguo Huijiao Xiaoshi” zhonghua minzu zhongqiujie zhu zhu “Zhufanzhi”

宣化冈拱北 玄宗 血脖子教 循化 阳信 杨学林 易地扶贫搬迁 伊赫瓦尼

the order of bloody necks a county in Shandong Province poverty reduction through population relocation Arab.: Ikhwān, a comparatively young jiaopai, emerged in China between the end of the Qing dynasty and the Republic time

伊玛尼 雍正 游坟 油香 «元典章» 元宵

Arab.: imān, faith

元宵节 月饼 宰 斋月 张承志 张家川 张骞 张中 沾吉 赵汝适 «哲罕耶道统史传»

Lantern Festival

哲赫忍耶 郑和 «正教真诠» 真教寺 «中国回教史» «中国回教史 鉴» «中国回教史研究»

Jahriyya

to visit a tomb deep-fried flatbread, one of Hui specialties small balls made from glutinous rice flour with sweet fillings

«中国回教小 史» 中华民族 中秋节 朱 猪 «诸蕃志»

moon cake to slaughter literally “the month of fasting”, i.e. Ramadan

to get covered in luck

Chinese nation or Chinese race Mid-Autumn Festival a family name pig

204

Glossary zhugong zhai zhuma zhurou zhuyou Zhu Yuanzhang zi zongzi zoufen zuoye

主功斋 主麻

obligatory fasting, i.e. fasting in Ramadan

猪肉 猪油 朱元璋 字 粽子

pork

走坟 坐夜

see youfen

Arab.: jumʿa, Friday prayers lard see Ming Taizu alternative given name glutinous rice stuffed with filling and wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves Arab.: Laylat al-Qadr, the Grand Night

205

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