Worlds of the Silk Roads: Ancient and Modern (V. 1-2: Collection Cerf-Histoire) 2503506518, 9782503506517

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SI LK ROAD STUDIES II WORLD OF THE SILK ROADS: ANCIENT AND MODERN

SILK ROAD STUDIES II

Edited hy an international committee R.E. EMMERICK (Hamburg fD]) G. GNOLI (Roma II]) S. KLJASHTORNYJ (Sankt Petersburg [CIS]) S.N.C. LIEU (Sydney [AUS]) B.A. L!TVINSKY (Moskva fCIS]) R. MESERVE (Bloomington (IN) [USA]) G. PINAULT (Paris [FI) A. SARKOZI (Budapest [H]) A. VAN TONGERLOO (Leuven [B]), Editor-in-chic{ S. WHITFIELD (London fGB]), Dircctor of' thc Dunhuang Monograph Scrics P. ZIEME (Berlin [0])

CORRIGENDA

p. 1.17118 for S'a-buhraga-n read Säbuhragan p. 2, n. 2 for al-BE-ru-nEread al-fürürü p. 7, n. 10 for Andreas-Henning read Andreas-Henning p. 11.8 for Mo-zak read Mözak p. 11.12 for mkl'syck read mkl'syck p. 11.14 for Sgdian read Sogdian p. 11.16 for cxs'poo read cxs'poo p. 12.20 for Mo-zak read Mözak p. 11.23 for km' read km' p. 12, n. 14 for Sunermann read Sundermann

p. 12.21 for Ne-wa-nza-dag read Newänzadag p. 12.22 for Saxtoe- read Saxtoe p. 12.22 for Ktwn' read Ktwn' p. 13.14 for Te-s read Tes p. 13.14 for Mo-zak read Mözak p. 13.17 for Mo-zak read Mözak p. 13, n. 17 for -e-nde-h read

-enaeh p. 14, n. 23 for (a)fta-da-n read (a)ttaaan

p. 15.16 for afta-da-n read attaaan

p. 15.18 for Moza-k read Mözak

SILK ROAD STUDIES II Worlds of the Silk Roads: Anc ient and Modern Proceedings from the Second Conference of the Australasian Society for Inner Asian Studies (A.S.l.A.S .) Macquarie University September 21-22, 1996

Edited by

David Christian & Craig Benjamin BREPOLS ANCIENT HISTORY DOCUMENTARY RESEARCH CENTRE MACQUA RIE UNNERSI TY NSW AUSTRALIA

© 1998, Brepols, Turnhout. ISBN 2-503-50651-8 D/1998/0095/72 All rights reserved. No part ofthis publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Introduction

PART 1: ALONG THE SILK ROADS SamLieu From Iran to South China: The Eastward Passage of Manichaeism Lena Cansdale Jews on the Silk Roads

1

23

PART 2: GOVERNMEN T, POLITICS AND EMPIRE Craig Benjamin An Introduction to Kushan Research

31

David Christian State Formation in the Inner Eurasian Steppes

51

Svend Helms Ancient Chorasmia: The Northem Edge of Central Asia from the 6th Century B. C. to the mid-4th Century A.D.

77

Hans Hendrischke Chinese Concems with Central Asia

97

Colin Mackerras Same Observations on Xinjiang in the 1990s

105

William Maley The Dynamics of Regime Transition in Afghanistan

121

Kirill Nourzhanov 147 Traditional Kinship Structures in Contemporary Tajik Politics

PART 3: IMAGES , IDENTITIES AND FANTAS IES Shahram Akbarzadeh Reformism in the Bukharan Khanate

165

Gabriel Lafitte Re-orienting Mongolia

181

Felix Patrikeef Baron Ungern and the Eurasian Empire

193

Roderic Pitty Russia and Eurasia in International Relations

211

Alo'is van Tongerloo Turkestan: A Treasury of Civilisations

241

Geoff Watson Central Asia as Hunting Ground: Sporting Images of Central Asia

265

PART 4: RESOUR CES T. Matthew Ciolek 'Digital Caravanserais': Essential Online Resources for Inner Asian Studies

288

APPEND ICES Second A.S.l.A.S. Conference Program (1996)

303

Notes on Contributors

304

WORLDS OF THE SILK ROADS: ANCIENT AND MODERN Introduction Definitions of Inner Asia vary greatly. The organisers of the conference at which the following papers were first presented agreed to disagree on the matter, feeling that excessive precision would be anachronistic. In some sense, the label 'Inner Asia' clearly leads us to the heart of the Eurasian land mass. But where, exactly, is Eurasia's heart? The title of our conference hinted at one possible answer: 'Inner Asia' includes those lands that have linked the major agrarian civilisations of Eurasia, from China to India to the Mediterranean and Europe, since the late Neolithic period. In the 19th century, it became customary to refer to the trade routes between these regions as the 'Silk Roads'. But silk was just one of the goods exchanged through Inner Asia. Religions, diseases, coins, cuisines, artistic fashions, political titles, all travelled the Silk Roads. Buddhism, Christianity, Manichaeism and Islam travelled this way. So did the plague, so did Roman glassware and Chinese paper, and so, today, do the brand names of modern capitalism. Seen in this way, Inner Asia appears as the central knot in the vast tapestry of Eurasian history. To take Inner Asian history seriously is to see the underlying unity of Eurasian history. The centrality of Inner Asia also accounts for the region's most distinctive feature: its syncretism. The region brought together lifeways, religions and trade goods from all parts of Eurasia and here, somehow or other, these different traditions had to co-exist. After a long period of neglect, the study of Inner Asia is booming. In part, this change reflects the work of several generations of scholars who studied Inner Asia despite the formidable linguistic, technical, bureaucratic and geographical challenges they faced. These scholars were as varied as the region they studied. Aurel Stein, for example, was a Hungarian national and a British citizen who lived for many years in British India and pioneered the archaeology of Chinese Inner Asia. The boom in Inner Asian studies also reflects recent political changes. Though research has become more difficult in Iran and Afghanistan, the fall of the Soviet empire has made it easier for international scholars to study in the former Soviet republics of Inner Asia. lt has also

11

Worlds of the Silk Roads: Ancient and Modem

created new nation states keen to explore what is increasingly seen as a 'national' past. The cornmercial opening of post-Mao China has made it easier for international scholars to study Chinese Inner Asia, but here imperial rule still shapes the agenda of research and the nature of the research that is possible. Finally, recent interest may be merely an overdue corrective to the neglect of Inner Asia that has typified mainstream historical and political scholarship. Those interested in World History, in particular, are beginning to realise the pivotal role played by this region in World History since at least the time of the Achaemenid and Han dynasties, and probably much earlier. In Australia there is a well-established tradition of scholarship in the field, dominated by scholars such as Igor de Rachewiltz, based in Canberra. However, there existed no single organisation that could help co-ordinate the work of scattered specialists. Instead, research on Inner Asia was presented in marginal sessions at conferences on the Middle East or Asia or in professional conferences of ancient historians or political scientists. In an attempt to create an institutional focus for Inner Asian studies, a conference held at Macquarie University, in Sydney, in November 1992 brought together about 30 scholars interested in the ancient and modern history of the region, and formed a new organisation, the 'Australasian Society for Inner Asian Studies [ASIAS]'. In September 1996, a second conference was organised at Macquarie University. The papers collected in this volume were first presented at that conference. These two conferences have demonstrated the surprising range and depth of Australian scholarship on Inner Asia. The organisers of the Macquarie conferences were keen to exploit this variety by bringing together specialists of different kinds with a common interest in the region. All too often, the linguistic and technical difficulties of studying Inner Asia have created separate sub-specialist ghettoes, and this has made it difficult to see Inner Asian studies as a coherent field of study or to integrate Inner Asian research into mainstream historical, cultural and political study. One of the pleasures of both these small conferences was the realisation that specialists in the ancient Kushan empire could find much of interest in a study of modern Afghan politics, while students of commercial policy in the newly-independent states of Inner Asia

Introduction

111

could find points of contact with specialists in the economics and politics of the ancient Silk Roads. Despite the region's variety, its deeper unity emerges clearly when it is surveyed over long periods of time. This is perhaps the most distinctive feature of this collection of essays. Paradoxically, it is the diversity of approach, chronology and theme characteristic of these papers which best reveal the enduring continuities of Inner Asian history. We hope that the many parallels and contrasts that emerge between papers with divergent questions will help reveal the significance for mainstream historical, political and cultural studies, of the cultures and states of Inner Asia. Because our aim was to identify themes with deep historical roots, we have arranged the papers thematically rather than chronologically. The headings of the four parts are somewhat arbitrary and some essays could have been placed in other parts of the book. However, the headings do serve to stress some long-term continuities of Inner Asian history. Within the second and third parts, papers are arranged alphabetically by author's name. The first part begins with Sam Lieu's keynote address. This follows the route of the Manichaean religion from Mesopotarnia to China. lt also follows the more modern routes of some of the specialists who revealed the religious significance of the silk roads in the first millennium of the contemporary era. Manichaeism itself reflects the syncretism of Inner Asia's great trade routes in its theological eclecticism, as do the travels, contacts and backgrounds of modern scholars of Manichaeism. Lena Cansdale's paper is about a different Silk Road community, but here, too, we can see the intertwining of religion and cornmerce that was typical of Silk Road history. The essays in the second part of the book touch on aspects of Inner Asian political life. The complex interweaving of pastoralism, irrigation agriculture and international cornmerce gave to the political life of Inner Asia a quite distinctive flavour. Tribalism and the under-development of bureaucracy; the remarkable diversity of cultural, religious, commercial and political influences; the unstable relationship between pastoralists and irrigation farmers; and the ever-present threat of external conquest, made for a politics of apparent instability. Yet beneath the surface instability there are some enduring patterns that reflect the stability of sub-elite social structures, and the persistence of ancient but distinctive lifeways,

IV

Worlds of the Silk Roads: Ancient and Modem

and ancient patterns of commerce and trade. The essays by William Maley and Kirill Nourzhanov explore some of the social and political structures that have preserved a degree of stability beneath the turbulent surface of Inner Asian politics. Over and above these fluid political and social structures there sometimes emerged great empires. Some were created within Inner Eurasia, while others were created by agrarian empires outside the reg1on. Those created within Inner Asia developed and functioned in ways that conventional political theory cannot adequately capture because of its neglect of the peculiarities of pastoralist societies. Christian's paper attempts to describe in general terms the workings of pastoralist empires in Inner Asia, while Benjamin's essay surveys the history of one of the earliest empires of Central Asia founded by pastoralists, that of the Kushan. Helms' essay on the archaeology of ancient Chorasmia describes a similar world, in which power structures emerged through a complex symbiosis between irrigation farmers and relatively sedentary pastoralists. Another familiar political structure in Inner Asia was the empire created by outside powers such as China or Iran. Outside conquerors usually found that, though they could exploit the political disunity of Inner Asia to create an empire, its diversity destabilised colonial structures of rule. In the modern world, China and the Soviet Union have faced challenges as tricky as those faced two millennia before by Alexander the Great or the Achaemenid ruler, Cyrus. The essays by Hendrischke and Mackerras explore some of the complexities of Chinese relations with Inner Asia in the twentieth century. The ecological and political complexity of Inner Asia is matched by its ethnic and cultural complexity. Local identities and local gods competed and merged with the gods, the identities and the fantasies of neighbouring empires. The papers in the third part of the book discuss ethnic identities and self-images, as well as imperial images of Inner Asia along the silk roads. But problems of identity were intimately related to problems of power and state formation. The variety of images, self-identities and projected images that have appeared in Inner Asia is itself a reflection of the region's astonishing diversity, but it also explains the difficulty faced by those who have attempted to create modern national states in the region. Much of the region's conteinporary politics reflects the

Introduction

V

difficulty of creating stable and non-divisive identities that can underpin stable new state structures. Van Tongerloo's essay offers an initial outline of the pre-Islamic political and cultural history of Turkestan, before going on to explore the complex way in which religion and politics were expressed in Iranian- and Turkic-speaking Inner Asia, from the commencement of the Islamic era until the 20th century. Lafitte's essay describes some of the contradictory images of modern Mongolia held by Mongolians and their powerful neighbours, while Patrikeef describes some of the more bizarre images projected on Mongolia earlier in the century by the Russian war-lord, Baron Ungern. Akbarzadeh explains the difficulties Islamic intellectuals of the early twentieth century faced in defining their own identity as the Russian imperial grip on the region tightened, while Pitty's essay describes how Russian intellectuals have responded to the loss of empire in the l 990s. Finally, Watson's essay explores some of the fantasies projected on Inner Asia by a would-be imperialist power in the region, the British Empire. Part 4 contains a list of electronic sources compiled by Ciolek useful to those studying aspects of Inner Asian history. The Appendices include the full Program from the Second A.S.I.A.S. Conference, and Notes on Contributors to this volume. The editors would like to acknowledge the support of Di Yerbury, Vice-Chancellor of Macquarie University, and of Aloi's van Tongerloo, who first suggested we publish these essays as part of Brepols' series of 'Silk Road Studies'. We would also like to record our special thanks to Beth Lewis, who did the complex job of turning our manuscripts into a publishable book; to Gordon Benjamin, who proof-read the manuscript at least twice and to Stephen Llewelyn for technical support and assistance. Much of the preparation of the manuscript was completed within the Macquarie University Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, while the original conference was organised under the auspices of the Australasian Society for Inner Asian Studies. David Christian, July 1997

~' "·J ·>

FROM IRAN TO SOUTH CHINA: THE EASTWARD PASSAGE OF MANICHAEISM* SAMUELLIEU

The third century of our era witnessed the revival of Iran as a major political and cultural force in the Near East under the Sassanid Dynasty. The defeat of Roman armies by the Shahanshah Shapur 1 at Meshike (mod. al-Anbar on the Euphrates) in 244 and again at Barbalissos in 256, with the consequent fall of many cities (including the metropolis of Antioch on the Orontes) in Syria and Cappadocia to the victorious Persian army, was a spectacular reminder to the Romans of the tenuous nature of their control in the region. The possibilities of trade and religious missions resulting from the new political situation were not lost on a member of the Shahanshah Shapur's entourage (comitatus) - a young prophet by the name of Mani from Syriac-speaking Babylonia who had long harboured the desire to launch a world religion. In a summary of his religion which he wrote for Shapur in Middle Persian (the S'abuhraga-n) he says: The religion that 1 (i.e„ Mani) have chosen is in ten things above and better than the other, previous religions. Firstly: the primeval religions were in one country and one language. But my religion is of that kind that it will be manifest in every country and in all languages, and it will be taught in faraway countries. Secondly: the former religions (existed) as long as they had the pure leaders, but when the leaders had been led upwards (i.e„ had died), then their religions feil into disorder and became negligent in commandments and works. And in ... [But my religion, because of] the living [books (?)], of the Teachers, the Bishops, the Elect and the Hearers, and of wisdom and works will stay on until the End. Thirdly: those previous souls in their own religion have not accomplished the works, will come to my religion (i.e„ through metempsychosis), which certainly will be the door of redemption for them. Fourthly: this revelation of mine of the Two Principles and my living books, my wisdom and knowledge are above and better than those of the previous religions.

* The author would wish to thank his former Warwick research assistants, Doris Dance, James Jordan and Sheila Vince, for much valuable advice, especially on points of translation.

2

From Iran to South China Fifthly: all wntmgs , all wisdom and all parables of the previous religions when they to this [religion of mine came ... ] l

Sadly, the only manuscript containing this text is highly fragmentary and we are furnished with only the first five of the ten reasons Mani gave for the superiority of his religion over the more established ones. However, in a quotation from the iiame work preserved in Arabic , Mani shows again his awareness of the geo-po litical limitations of earlier religions and his readiness to transcend them with his new universal revelation: Wisdom and deeds have always from time to time been brought to mankind by the messengers of God. So in one age they have been brought by the messenger called Buddha to India, in another by Zaradust to Persia, in another by Jesus to the West. Thereupon this revelation has come down and this prophecy has appeared in the form of myself, Mani, the envoy of the true God in the Land of Babylon. 2

The same sentiment is also expressed in a sermon of Mani to his close circle of disciples which has survived in Coptic: He who has his Church in the West, he and his Church have not reached the East: the choice of him who has chosen his Church in the East has not come to the West ... But my hope, mine will go towards the West, and she will go also towards the East. And they shall hear the voice of her message in all languages, and shall proclaim her in all cities. My Church is superior in this first point to previous churches, for these previous churches were chosen in particular countries and in particular cities. My Church, mine shall spread in all cities and my Gospel shall touch every country. 3 1 M5794 (T II D 126), F. C. Andreas and W. B. Henning, Mittelir anische Manichaica aus Chinesisch-Turkestan II, SPAW 1933, VII, pp. 295-96; trans. J. P. Asmussen, Manichaean Literature: Representative Texts Chiefly from Middle Persian and Parthian Writings, Persian Heritage Series, 22 (Delmar N.Y.: Scholar's Facsimiles & Reprints 1975) p. 12. 2 ap. al-BE-r u-nE-, Chrono logy, trans. E. Sachau, Al-Birun i's lndia. An Accoun t of the Religion, Philosophy, Literature, Geography, Chronology, Astronomy, Customs, Laws and Astrology of !ndia about A.D. 1030 (London : Trübner 1887) p. 190. 3 Kephalaia CLIV, cited in C. Schmidt and H. J. Polotsky, 'Ein Mani-Fund in Ägypten ', SPA W, 1933, 1, p. 45. The original Coptic text has yet to be published. Eng. trans. Stevenson, A New Eusebius (London: SPCK 1957) p. 282. Cf. A. Böhlig, 'Zur religion sgeschi chtliche n Einordn ung des Manichäismus', in P. Bryder (ed.), Manichaean Studies; Proceedings of the First International Conference on Manichaeism, August 5-9, 1987, Lund Studies in African and Asian Religions 1 (Lund: Plus Ultra 1988) 30-1.

Samuel Lieu

3

Mani (c. 216-c. 276), who grew up in a Judaeo-Christian baptising sect in S. Babylonia, targeted secular leaders as patrons from an early stage of his world-wide mission. Among the first to show interest in his religion was the Shah of Mesene on the Persian Gulf who controlled a region important for trade, and Mani visited lndia (probably the region around Deb) early in his missionary career and was later granted an audience by Shapur 1 through the good offices of Peroz, the then governor of Chorasan. Though he was not converted to the new religion, the Shahanshah gave permission for Mani to disseminate his religion in the now enlarged Eranshahr, and Mani also became a regular visitor to Shapur's court at Ctesiphon.4

The Early Eastward Diffusion of Manichaeism Unlike the Nestorian Christians from Mesopotamia and Iran who, like the Manichaeans, would also later establish themselves in Central Asia and China after the rise of Islam, the Manichaeans saw the spread of their religion to both the Roman Empire and the Central Asian provinces of the Iranian Empire (Eranshahr) in the preIslamic period not as the necessary result of geo-political changes but as definitive proof of the truth of their founder's universal message. To this end they have preserved a strong historiographical tradition of their missionary activities - examples of which are particularly well represented in Manichaean texts from Central Asia.5 According to this tradition Mani sent his first mission to Abrashahr (the Upper Country, i.e. Parthia and the lands round the southern shores of the Caspian Sea) during his life-time and probably during the reign of Shapur 1. Several versions of this pioneering mission have come down to us. The best known is in Middle Persian: 4 an-Nadim, Fihrist, trans. B. Dodge, The Fihrist of an-Nadim, ii (New York: Columbia University Press 1970) p. 776. See also Schmidt, C. G., H. J. Polotsky & A. Böhlig (eds.), Kephalaia; 1. Hälfte (Lieferung 1-10) Manichäische Handschriften der staatlichen Museen Berlin, Band 1 (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer Verlag 1940) LXI, pp. 152, 24-153,31 and LXXVI, p. 183,27-9. English translation: The Kephalaia of the Teacher. The edited Coptic Manichaean texts in translation with commentary, Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, 37 (Leiden: E. J. Brill 1995) p. 193. 5 See especially the superb series of studies by W. Sundermann, 'Studien zur kirchengeschichtlichen Literatur der iranischen Manichäer I', AoF XIII, 1 (1986) pp. 40-92, 'II', ibid. XIII, 2, (1986) pp. 239-317 and 'III', ibid. XIV, 1 (1987) pp. 41-107. An English translation of this pioneering study is currently being undertaken by Dr. Michael Browder.

4

From Iran to South China Then, when the Apostle of Light was in the city of Holwan, he called Mar Ammo, the Teacher, who knew the Parthian script and language (and) also was familiar with .„. He sent him to Abarshahr together with Prince Ardavan and brethren who were scribes, (and) a miniature painter. He said: 'Blessed be this Religion, may it be advanced in greatness there through Teachers, Hearers, and Soul Service. And may for you ... name be ... of heart; may the great Vahman (ie. N ous) keep (you in) fortune and prosperity more than the previous religions'. And they had arrived at the watch-post of Kushan, then the spirit of the border of the Eastern Province appeared in the shape of a girl, and he (i.e. the spirit) asked me: 'Ammo what do you intend? From where have you come'? 1 said: 'I am a believer, a disciple of Mani, the Apostle'. That spirit said: 'I do not receive you. Return (to the place) from where you have come'. And he disappeared from me. Then 1, Ammo, stood, fasting for two days, in praise in front of the Sun. Then the Apostle appeared (and) said: 'Do not be disheartened! Read aloud in front (of the spirit) the (Chapter) "The Assembling of the Gates" from (the book) The Treasure of the Living! Then, the next day that spirit appeared (again), said to me: 'Why have you not returned to your own country'? 1 said: 'From a place far away 1 have come for the sake of the Religion'. That spirit said: 'What is the Religion that you bring'? 1 said: 'We do not eat flesh nor drink wine, from [women] we keep far away'. He said: 'Where 1 rule ... there are many like you'! Then 1 read aloud in front of (him) 'The Assembling of the Gates' of the Treasure of the Living. Then he did reverence (to me and) said: 'You are the pure righteous man. From now on do not call yourself 'man of religion', but 'true bringer of religion', you who have no equal'. Then 1 asked: 'What is your name'? He said: 'I am called Bag Ard, (and 1 am) the frontier guard of Chorasan. When I receive you, then the fate of the whole Chorasan will be opened in front of you'. Then the spirit Bag Ard taught me 'The Assembling of the Five Gates' by means of parables. 'The gate of the eyes that is deceived when seeing what is vain, (is) like unto the man who sees a mirage in the desert: a town, a tree, water (and) many othcr things that demon makes him imagine and kills him. Further (it is) likc unto a castle on a rock (?) to which the enemies found no acccss. Thcn thc encmies arranged a feast, much singing and music. Those in the castlc bccame greedy of seeing (and) the enemies assaulted thcm from bchind and took the castle. The gate of the ears (is) like unto that man who went along a secure ('?) road with many treasures. Then two robbers stood ncar his car, deceived him through beautiful words, took him to a place far away and killed him (and) stole his treasures. Further (it is) likc unto a bcautiful girl who was kept locked up in a castle, and a dcccitful man who sang a sweet melody at the vase of the castle wall, until that girl died of gricf. The gate of the smelling nose (is) like unto thc clcphant whcn it from a mountain above the garden of the king

Samuel Lieu

5

became greedy of the smell of the flowers, feil down from the mountains in the night and died. The gate of the (mouth is) like „.'6

By the time of the death of Mani c. 276, the religion was particularly well established in Chorasan (a region referred to interestingly as Kushan in Coptic Manichaean sources) and Mani had even thought of fleeing there when there was genuine fear for his personal security.7 An example of the missionary success of the religion can be judged from a letter of a dignitary of the sect (probably Mar Sisin who succeeded Mani as the archegos of the sect) to someone active in Merv in the Upper Country, which refers to the need for certain copies of Manichaean canonical texts: ... you shall make no respite. On the contrary, you shall not delay what good you are able to do now, for time is running quickly. And you shall know thus: even if you had been herein Marw yourself - (yes), I cannot believe that your love and nobleness could have been so manifest in Marw as (is) now (the case) (i.e„ in spite of you being absent). And you shall know thus: when I came up to Marw, then I found all brothers and sisters pious. And to the dear brother Zurvandad I am very, very grateful; because he with such piety has taken care of all brothers. And I have now Jet him go to Zamb and sent him to dear Mar Ammo and Khorasan, and (the Book oj) the Giants and the Ardahang (- a picture book) he has taken with him. And 1 have made another (copy of the Book oj) the Giants and the Ardahang in Marw. Further you shall know thus: when 1 came, 1 found Rashtin the brother so as I wanted. And as for piety and zeal he was (exactly) so as Mar Mani wants . . „And „. 1 have written to you, because I know that you are glad of my kindness, and in order that they glorify God and Mar Mani: as long as I and you live, I will appoint Bishops and Teachers as watchmen in every city and province of the Upper Countries that also your name will be (honoured) and this religion of Mar Mani everywhere may find leaders and advocates. [And], behold, the [dear] brother Khusro I have sent to you.

6 M2 R I 34 - V II 37, Andreas-Henni ng, op. cit„ pp. 301-306; trans. Asmussen, op. cit„ pp. 135-37. See also M216a (Parthian) and Ml8220 (Sogdian) for other accounts of the same journey. Both edited and translated by W. Sundermann in his essential collection of Manichaean historical texts: Mitte/iranische manichäische Texte kirchengeschichtlichen Inhalts, Berliner Turfantexte XI (Berlin: Akademie Verlag 1981) §2.6, pp. 26-27 and §3.2, pp. 36-41. 7 H. J. Polotsky (ed.), Manichäische Homilien, Manichäische Handschriften der Sammlung A. Chester Beatty, Band I (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer 1934) p. 44, 11.

6

From Iran to South China ... that you may be very glad. And you shall act so that you, as much as you can, labour for the Hearers, in order that, when 1 send brothers (to you), they will find (proper) reception. And as for Friyadar you shall know thus: he has been with me from the time he arrived, and he had [lo]ve and faith. And now he comes over to you. You, too, shall do thus: Receive him in joy and take care of him as if he were your own son, so that 1 also can be grateful to you. And, behold, 1 have let the beloved son of Mar Mani go to you. He comes to you in love so you too should receive him as you would your own son and teach him weil in the art of the scribe and in wisdom. And you shall not withhold anything from these brothers that come to you. And if they desire (?) anything in wisdom, teach them so as if they were your own children. And do not mind, (even) if they ask inconsiderate questions, but you shall know thus: There has never been any disciple that (at once) leaves school as a leamed man. On the contrary, he leams day after day. There is (a disciple) who has a feeling and loves his teacher; and he follows him and loves his name and always acts nobly towards (his) teacher; and there is another disciple who (does) not (act) like that, but is hostile and becomes.„ (But) all one must tolerate in the same way. You, however, shall not turn away from anybody, but to all who offer you their hands, (you shall) in faith „.8

The argument of the spirit Bag Ard that there were already many men like Mar Ammo within Chorasan practising asceticism is undoubtedly a reference to the success of Buddhism in the region. Mani's decision to equip a team to translate Manichaean texts from Syriac into Parthian was a sound one. Parthian soon became a major language of the Manichaean church and Manichaean literature in Parthian is noted for its close affinity with its (now mainly lost) Syriac originals. lt also enabled Manichaeism to employ Buddhist terminology and concepts as the language was also used for the diffusion of Buddhist literature. A good example of assimilation is preserved in another Parthian text (but from the same codex as the. text cited above) in which the style is clearly influenced by Buddhist homiletic writings: And whoever strikes you, do not strike him again. And whoever hates you, do not hate him back. And whoever envies you, do not envy him again. And whoever brings forth anger towards you, always speak with kindness to him. And what you detest in another person, do not do that yourself. No, one has to endure insults and other abuses from people 8 M 5815 II, F. C. Andreas and W. B. Henning, Mitteliranische Manichaica aus Chinesisch-Turkestan ll I, SPA W 1934, XXVII, pp.857-60; trans. Asmussen, op. cit., pp. 23-24.

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above oneself, from people equal to oneself and from people under oneself; because nobody shall in any way make waver the devout one (denavar) of good endurance. And it is as if one threw flowers against an elephant, and these flowers cannot smash the elephant; and as if raindrops fell upon a stone, and these raindrops cannot melt the stone. Just so, insults and other abuses shall not in any way be able to make waver the devout one of good endurance. Now the devout one must consider himself as high as the Sumeru mountain, and now the devout one must humiliate himself as ... Now the devout one must show himself like a disciple and now like a teacher, now like a servant and now like a lord. Likewise, in this time of sin, the pure devout one must sit down in pious meditation, and he should turn away from sin and increase what is pious, so that ... And therefore 1 have spoken these words, in order that everyone may himself pay attention to them and carefully listen to them. [For everyone] who hears and believes them and keeps them in his head and is active in pious deeds shall find salvation from this birth-death9 and be saved from all sins. Because 1, Mar Mani, and you, Mar Ammo, and all those people of old and also those fortunate ones that are (re)born in future, shall be saved from this birth-death through this pure commandment and through this perfect wisdom, through this activity and (this) humility. Because in this birth-death there is nothing good except only the merit and the pious deeds that men having knowledge do. Those who follow me, Mar Mani, and hope in God Ohrmizd and want the pure and just Elect (denavars) as leaders, they are the ones that are saved and find salvation from this birthdeath and reach eternal redemption.10

The history of the Manichaean sect in Eastern Iran from after the death of Mani to the Islamic conquest of Western Central Asia contains many gaps as it was clearly a period of quiet growth and consolidation rather than of spectacular expansion. The Fihrist of alN adim in Arabic provides us with one of the few glimpses of the effect of division and persecution in Mesopotamia on the eastward migration of the sect: The Manichaeans have said: As Mani was ascending to the Gardens of Light, but before [he completed] his ascension, he established as the imam after him Sis, who upheld the faith of God and its purity until he died. Then the imams 9 I.e. Samsara, the circling on, the cycle of transmigration of souls in Manichaean teaching expressed in Buddhist terminology. 10 M 5815 1, Andreas-Henning, op. cit. (above n. 8) pp. 854-57, trans. Asmussen, op. cit., pp. 57-58.

8

From Iran to South China rcccivcd thc faith one from another. There was no disagreement among thcm until thcrc appcarcd a schismatic sect among them known as the Dinawwariy ah, who challcngcd their imam, refusing to obey him. Although thc authority of the imamate was not fulfilled unless it was in Babil, it not bcing pcrmissiblc for the imam to bc elsewhere, this sect spokc in opposition to that tcnet and continued to contradict it as weil as othcr things not worthy of mention, until the leadership as a whole feil to Mihr. This was during thc rcign of al-Walid ibn 'Abd al-Malik and continucd until thc governorship of Khalid ibn 'Abd Allah al-Qasri in al'Iraq. Thcn a man known as Zad hurmuz joined them, but he left them aftcr staying with them for a while. He was a man of great possession. He gavc thcm up and joincd the Elect. Then, asserting that he found things with which hc disagrced, he feit a dcsire to join the Dinawwariyah, who wcre on the othcr sidc of the River of Balkh. He came, however, to al-Mada'in whcrc there was a sccretary of al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf who possesscd grcat wcalth. As Lhcre was a fricndship between the two of thcm, he told him about his state of mind and the reason inducing him to go to Khurasan to become attached to the Dinawwariya h. Then the secretary said to him, 'I am your Khurasan! I will build places of worship for you and provide you with what you need'. So he bccamc established with him and he [the secretary] built places of worship for him. Zad Hurmuz then wrote to the Dinawwariya h, calling upon them [to appoint] a chief whom he might place in authority. They wrote to him that it was not permitted to have the headship anywhere othcr than thc ccnter of the dominion in Babil. When, therefore, he asked who would bc suitablc in this [circumstance] and there was no other than himsclf, hc gave considcration to the matter. But when he wasted away, the mcaning of which is that dcath attended him, they asked him to appoint a chief for them. Then he said, 'Behold, it is Miqlas whose situation thou hast known. I am weil pleased with him and have confidcnce in his administratio n over thee'. Thus, when Zad Hurmuz passed away, they unitcd in accepting Miqlas.11

However, the election of Miqlas, undoubtedly well deserved, did not go down well with the more rigorist members of the sect and a disastrous schism soon followed: Miqlas differed with the community about matters of religion, among which were the social relationships, until Abu Hila! al-Dayhuri came from Africa and the leadership of the Manichaeans feil to him. That was during the days of Abu Ja'far al-Mansur. He [Abu Hilal] called upon the followers of Miqlas to give up what Miqlas had ordered for them in connection with social relationships and they agreed to this.

11 an-Nadim, Fihrist, trans. cit., pp. 791-93.

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At that time there appeared among the followers of Miqlas a man known as Buzurmihr, who gathered together a group from among them and started some cither innovations. Thus their situation continued until the leadership feil to Abu Sa'id Raha, who turned them back to the opinion of the followers of Mihr regarding social relationships. Their status then continued like this until, during the caliphate of al-Ma 'mun, there appeared a man among them who 1 believe was Yazdanbakht. He was opposed to certain things, and as he cajoled them, a company among them turned to him. They asserted that Khalid al-Qasri brought Mihr on a she-mule and provided him with a silver seal, bestowing embroidered garments upon him. During the days of al-Ma'mun and al-Mu 'tasim, the chief of the followers of Miqlas was Abu 'Ali Sa 'id. Then afterwards there succeeded him his secretary, Nasr ibn Hurmuzd al-Samarqandi. They authorized for the members of the sect and those who entered it things forbidden by the religion. They mingled with the rulers (salatin), entrusting things to them. Abu al-Hasan al-Dimashqi was one of their chiefs.12

By the time the refugees from Iraq reached Central Asia, the sect was already well established in the Tarim Basin. The Manichaean Diocese of the East, based probably at Chotcho (later the capital of the Second Uighur Empire, for which see below) already had a strong hierarchical structure as evidenced by a laudation in a multilingual (Middle Persian, Parthian and Sogdian) prayer and confessional work: (1) (Middle Persian) ... ·the 7[2] bishops, the 360 presbyters ('houseleaders'), all the pure and holy elect, who are perfect in the five commandments and the three seals: may the thought of them bring welldoing. The great glory and the spirit of the whole church [province] of the east, which was created by the (divine creative) ward and is the guardian and carer of this flock and righteous congregation: may the thought of it bring well-doing. At the top Mar Nazayyad, the teacher of the Ecclesiastical Province of the East: may the thought of him bring well-doing. And all the bishops, presbyters, choir-leaders, skilful preachers, industrious scribes, melodious hymn singers and (indeed) all pure and holy brothers: may the thought of them bring well-doing.

12 lbid. 793-94.

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From Iran to South China The chaste and holy sisters together with their assemblies and convents: may the thought of them bring well-doing. And all hearers, the brothers and sisters in the east and west, in the north and south, who make confession of God, Light, Power and Wisdom: may the thought of them bring well-doing. From all of us may glory, praise, prayers and entreaty rise up in purity and forgiveness and be accepted by our spiritual fathers and honourable ancestors: may they send us power and help, re[demption] and v[ictory], [he]alth and free[dom from injury], joy and piety, peace and trust, goodness(?) and protection, pious zeal and (striving for) perfection and forgiveness of sin, the true light of salvation: may (all this) remain with the whole holy church, particularly in this place and (this) blessed congregation, with me and you dearest brothers, chaste and holy sisters and pious hearers. So that we may be protected and guarded by the hand of the light an[gels] and mighty twins. In a living [and holy] name may it be so for ever and for eternal time.

(II) (Parthian) We will praise and laud the light ambassadors ... (one sheet is missing) ... the presbyters, the leaders of choirs, the preachers, the scribes, the pure righteous ones, brothers and sisters, in all places, wherever they may be dispersed with their flocks, assemblies and convents: may they be guarded and gathered together by the right hand of the holy spirit (lit.: chosen spirit), of the friend. And also the believing hearers, brothers and sisters, friends and sons of salvation, in all lands, marches and regions, wherever they are scattered, who believe in God, Light, Power and Wisdom: may the thought of them bring well-doing. From us all may glory and praise, prayer and request, entreaty and invocation rise up and be accepted by the gods and divinities, so that they themselves may send us power and zeal, so that we may become complete and perfect in love in spirit and body. May the Living Seif attain redemption; may the givers of gifts be sinless and we all will find redemption.

The recent arrivals from Mesopotamia were frowned upon by their more rigorist co-religionists in Central Asia. An important document in Sogdian, first brought to the notice of scholars by Professo r Henning before the Second World War and which was not fully edited and translated until 1982 by Professor Sundermann, is a set of two letters in Sogdian in which the author was greatly annoyed by certain damnabl e innovatio ns to, and deviation s from, the establish ed rules of the sect practised by certain neighbou ring communities or members of their own communities (castigated as

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the Mihrijja - followers of Mihr, who as indicated in the above quotation, were seen as over-liberal in their observance of rituals). Divisions clearly died hard even within a persecuted sect, but the archegos at Chotcho could afford to look down from an Olympian height on the plight of the less fortunate immigrants from Iraq and castigate them as 'dirty, common Syrians':l3 (First Letter) (2) [ ] to the hand [ ] {Middle Persian} which the whole church we are (?) [ ] our teacher (Mo-zak) who is strong in faith (5) [ ] were these followers of Mihr incorrup[tible (?) ] all our chosen ones and beyond this [ ] the priesthood, commandment, seal [ ] we began to investigate and [ ] and weil, moon-rise (?) (10) [ ] those of the followers of Miqlas (Sogdian: mkl'syck) [ ] for of one law and founder (?) [ ] are they. For in law (Sogdian: nmw) and commandment (Sgdian: cxs 'p88) [ ] To begin with: [They sin] against the commandment of truth (i.e. the true commandment) [ ] (15) Together with an Electa 1 saw that their [Electa ] took off [a garment (?)] and [ ] sewed. Then our Elec[ta] also [saw] [that their] Electa ? [p ]ressed (the garment?). Moreover the virginal (?) [daughters] of Azad-duxt saw their Electa take a pick and dig the earth. [ ] they shamelessly crush [healing plants] and chopped wood into pieces (lit. carved wood and pieces) without fear. (20) Moreover our Electae saw too how their Electa Jet blood (and) washed the ? (Sogdian: km'= instrument for blood-letting?) in water. And when our Electae reproached them, they gave as answer: 'Well-water is dead, and so it is allowed'. They crush medicinal herbs themselves too, and they put out their fire themselves(?). And in this matter they see neither sin nor shortcoming. - Furthermore: this is a matter for the commandment of behaviour according to the religion, (25) open and shameless. For their master, who is Mihr-padar, was ill, he had a pain on the underside (?) of his foot, and a hired girl went into him, and later she came out. We were all suspicious when that hired servant girl came out, and the (i.e. our) Electi started an investigation. And the hired servant girl said this to Yazd-Aryaman, Drist-Ros'an, Mihr-Vahman and Vahman-Shah: 'Behind that door 1 have bled twice, and 1 shall bleed once more'. (30) And one of her servant girls started an argument with an Electa. And Mihr-padar, (their) master, seized the arm of that servant girl and stopped the argument. Also in the Autumn and [ ]

13 Text and German translation in W. Sundermann, 'Probleme der Interpretation manichäisch-sogdhischer Briefe', in J. Harmatta (ed.), From Hecateaus to Al-Huwarizmi, Budapest 1984 (Ist edn in Anta antiqua Scientiarum Hungaricae XXVIII 1980) pp. 289-316.

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From Iran to South China

(Second Letter) ( 1) [ ] and, o Lord, these [ ] Gabryab [ ] (5) Spoke thus: 'The law is irrelevant to me (?)'. And, o Lord, master, (5) [ ] the day may have turned, her own soul (and) the seif [ ] condescend to observe, how many ugly words [ ] are ugly, all desire is in them. So the table (? or: appeal) will be [ ] they come up (here) and mix in with us, and will remain for several years [ ] (10) according (?) to the desire of the present superior it will be, and these [ ] unlawful and untimely order will rise up to the present superior [ those] who were their spies, will certainly take the place of our superiors and our [ ] and they will injure those who are hard-pressed in their souls and make great distress for the superiors andin the bl[ood] they will wash [their hands (?)],just as [ ... ] se]f.14 At this time, o Lord, (15) you were [bishop], for the custom and the art of these dirty, common Syrians (Sogdian: swryktyy) is thus: they are experienced [and] practised in schisms and qu;mels; therefore Iearned division predominates here. And when they say: 'The masters rise (ascend ?) a little (?), and then they descend again', this saying is a complete corruption (of the truth). So pay serious attention to those who rose before and how much success and advancement they have achieved.15 For the teacher (Mo-zak) Mahdad has risen above Mih( ... ), the teacher strong in faith, as (?) over [ ] the Electi and over the teacher Ne-wa-nza-d ag, Gabryab [ ] (20) over [ ] the teacher Saxtoe- and the bishop Ktwn', over [ ] the dirty, destruction-loving [ ]

From Central Asia to T' ang China The destruction of the Hephthalite Empire by the combined forces of the Sassanian Persians and the Turks in the seventh century was soon followed by the steady expansion of Chinese power into the Tarim Basin under the Sui and Early Tang Dynasties. The Sogdians who traded from oasis to oasis in the region benefited most from the new political situation and it was among them that Manichaei sm found its most ardent followers. The Sogdians - many of whom had by now been converted to Manichaei sm - served with alacrity the business interests of the Turks in their capacity as traders and advisers. As a Chinese general of the Sui Dynasty remarked: 'The 14 Thc scntcncc indicated by question marks is untranslatabl e. See füll discussion in Suncrmann, art. cit., p. 311, n. 47. 15 Professor Nicholas Sims-William s suggests as alternative translation: 'Plcasc notc carcfully [whcthcr] (those) who camc up previously brought about profit and improvcmcn t'. This is acccptcd and further developed by H.-J. Klimkcit, Gnosis on the Silk Raad, Gnostic Parables, Hymns and Prayers from Central Asia (San Francisco 1994) p. 262. Professor Klimkeit's translation of thc sccond lcttcr omits a numbcr of lcgible lines without clear indication.

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Turks themselves are simple-minded and short-sighted and dissension can easily be roused among them. Unfortunately, many Sogdians live among them who are cunning and insidious; they teach and instruct the Turks'.16 The Sogdian language came tobe used by the Manichaeans in Central Asia alongside Parthian and Middle Persian for their religious literature in the course of the sixth and seventh centuries.17 The presence of Manichaeism in the Tarim Basin in this period can be deduced from a Saka document of the seventh century in which we find many calendar details which are clearly Manichaean liturgical terms. This suggests that in the small Saka kingdom at Maralbashi there existed a community of Manichaeans in that period with close contacts with the aristocracy through their skills as astrologers and diviners.18 In 719 we find Te-s, the King of Cazanistan and Tocharistan, sending a Mo-zak (Chinese translit. Mu-che), i.e. a Manichaean priest of the highest rank(= magister in Latin sources), as envoy to the Tang court, and the King specially requested that the Mo-zak should be allowed to have his own chapel and that the emperor of China should see to his special needs: 19 In the seventh year of K'ai Yüan, the King Shah Ti-ha-na of Tukhara

(Tocharistan), in presenting an astrologer, a great Mu-che, to the Chinese court said his memorial: 'He is a man of great wisdom, and possesses inexhaustible knowledge concerning all subjects. 1 humbly beesech your Celestial Majesty to summon this Mu-che and to inquire from him concerning my affairs and my desires, as well as the tenets of his religion. As 1 know that he is endowed with so much talent and ability, 1 therefore request Your Majesty

l 6 Sui-shu 67 .1582. Cf. Liu Mau-t'sai, Die chinesischen Nachrichten zur Geschichte der Ost-Türken, 2 vols. (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz 1958) 1, p. 87. 17 Cf. W. B. Henning, 'Two Manichaean magical texts with an excursus on the Parthian ending -e-nde-h', BSOAS XII/! (1947) pp. 49 and idem, Sogdica, James Forlong Fund Prize Publications XXI, (London: James Forlong Fund 1940)pp.12-14. l 8 Cf. W. B. Henning, 'Neue Materialien zur Geschichte des Manichäismus', Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft XC ( 1936) pp. 11-12. 19 Ts'e-fu yüan-kuei 971.4b-5a. Cf. E. Chavannes and P. Pelliot, 'Un traite manicheen retrouve en Chine', Journal Asiatique, 11e ser., 1 (1913) pp. 152-53 [126-77] and W. B. Henning, 'Argi and the "Tocharians'", BSOS IX/3 (1938) p. 570.

14

From Iran to South China to accept his services and to allow him to build a shrine and to practise his religion. ·20

According to a Chinese Manichaean source preserved in a local gazeteer on a Manichaean rustic shrine in the Province of Min (i.e. Fukien, Fu-ch'ien) in South China, the religion made its official entry into China through a Mu-che in the previous century, and a bishop (ju-to-tan) - an eminent pupil of the Mu-che - was sent to China in the time of the Empress Wu Tse-t'ien who was noted for her tolerance of extreme and exotic religious (especially Buddhist) sects: He (sc. Mani) propagated [his religion] in the countries of the Arabs, the Roman Empire,21 Tokharestan, and Persia. In the year Ping-ssu of the T'ai-shih period of emperor Wu of the Chin (A.D. 266) he died in Persia. He entrusted his doctrine to a chief mu-che.2 2 The mu-che in the reign of Kao-tsung of Tang (650-683) propagated his religion in the Middle Kingdom. Then, in the time of Wu Tse-t'ien (684-704) an eminent disciple of the mu-che, the fu-to-tan 23 Mi-wu-mo-ssu (Mihr Ormezd), came in turn to the court. The Buddhist monks were jealous of him and calumniated him, and there were mutual struggles and difficulties; but Tse-t'ien (i.e. Empress Wu) was pleased with his words, and kept the envoy to explain his Scriptures to her. In the period K'ai-yüan (713-741), a Ta-yün-kuang-ming-ssu (Temple of the Light of the Great Clouds) was established for the worship (of Mani). He himself (thefu-to-tan) said that in his country there had been in the beginning two sages, called Hsien-yi (Primordial Thought)24 and I-ssu (Jesus);25 as we in the Middle

20 Tse-fu yüan-kuei 971. Cf. Chavannes-Pelliot, op. cit., pp. 176-77 [reprint edn: pp. 152-53] 21 The Chinese term here is Fu-lin = Middle Persian hrwm - a term derived from Syriac which is commonly used to indicate the Eastern Roman Empire. Cf. H. H. Schaeder, 'Iranica, Pt.2, Fu-lin,' Abhandlungen der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, phil.-hist. KI., Dritte Folge, X (Berlin, 1934) pp. 24-68. 22 Mu-che = Middle Persian mozag (i.e. magister), cf., G. Haloun and W. B. Henning, 'The Compendium of the Doctrines and Styles of the Teaching of Mani, the Buddha of Light', Asia Major, N. S. 3 (1952) p. 195, n. 65. 23 Fu-to-tan = Middle Persian ( a)fta-da-n (i.e. episcopus), cf. HalounHenning, art. cit., p. 188, n. 1. 24 The term Sien-yi (First or Prima) Thought) is used to indicate the Prima) Man in Manichaean texts. 25 On Jesus in Chinese Manichaeism see esp. E. Waldschmidt and W. Lentz, Die Stellung Jesu im Manichäismus, ABAW 1926, IV, (Berlin 1926) pp. 97111.

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Kingdom speak of P'an Ku.26 The word mo means large.27 Of their sacred books there are seven works. They have [also] the Hua-hu-ching, where is told the story of Lao-tzu entering the shifting sands of the West tobe born in Syria (Su-lin: more accurately Assuristan).28

The negative reaction of the Buddhist rnonks to Manichaeisrn rnight have been the reason behind the request for a surnrnary of the religion tobe 'translated' (or interpreted) for the Board of Rites - the govemrnental departrnent which dealt with religious affairs in China. A copy of the text presented has fortunately been preserved in a rnanuscript frorn the Cave of One Thousand Buddhas in Dunhuang. The prearnble reads: The Most Virtuous Fu-to-tan having, on the 8th day of the 6th month of the 19th year of the period K'ai-yuan (July 16, 731), received the instruction of the Emperor, (it was) translated (or interpreted) at the College of (the Hall) of Gathered Worthies.29

The fact that this irnportant docurnent was prepared by an afta-da-n (ju-to-tan) rnight have given rise to the belief arnong the Manichaeans that he had a special relationship with the Moza-k (muche) who first brought the religion to China. The text was prepared by sorneone who knew Parthian, as a considerable nurnber of technici termini like the titles of Mani's works and the titles of the various grades of the sect were given in Parthian phonetically transcribed into Chinese. However, the inclusion of a long passage rnaking Mani a Buddha and an avatar of Lao-tzu - the founder of Taoisrn in China - was clearly the work of sorneone who knew well the religious scene in China and the polernical literature generated by argurnents arnong Confucianists, Taoists and Buddhists: The Mahamayasutra says: '1300 years after the Buddha's nirvana, the kasaya will be changed into a white one and will be no (longer) dyed'. The Kuan-fo san-mei-hai ching (Buddhavalokanasamadhisagarasutra?) says: 'When the Mani (properly: "pearl") lustre Buddhas have manifested themselves in the world, they will make emission of light the Buddhawork'. The Lao-tzu hua-hu ching says: 'Having mounted a vapour of the 26 P'an Ku is a demiurge-figure in Chinese mythology 27 Mo = Syriac Mar (Lord), Mani's title. 28 Min-shu 7.32al-8. On the importance of the passage in the Min-shu on the history of Manichaeism in South China see the important article by P. Pelliot, 'Les traditions manicheennes au Fou-kien', T'oung Pao 22 (1934) 206. 29 Mo-ni kuang-fu chiao-fa i-lueh ms. (= Stein 3969, British Library Catalogue) lines 2-3, trans. Haloun-Henning, art. cit., p. 188.

16

Franz Iran to South China

Tao of spontaneous light, 1 shall fly into the country of Su-lin in the rcalm of thc king of Hsi-na. 1 shall manifest myself as the crown prince, lcave family-life and enter thc Way, and be called Mani. 1 shall turn the whccl of lhc grcat Law and shall explain the canonical commandments and regulations and the practicc of meditation and knowledge, etc., as weil as thc doctrincs of the three epochs and the two principles. All the bcings, from the rcalm of light down to the dark paths, will thereby be savcd. Of ycars fivc (timcs) nine having passed after Mani, my Law shall llourish'. (Now) fivc (timcs) nine is forty-five, (which really means) four hundrcd and fifty ycars, (when His) religious instruction was to be transmittcd lo the Middle Kingdom. On the 4th day of the 1st month of thc 2nd ycar of thc period T'ai-shih of the Chin dynasty (February 25, 266), (Mani) ccased thc transforming work andin His person returned into true Calmness, the tcaching (thereupon) spreading to all countries and approaching and converting (?) the people. From (the date in) the period T'ai-shih of the Chin until to the present l 9th year of the period K'ai[yuan], onc counts four hundred and sixty years. Evidence and prophecy being in concord, thc traces of the Saint have become manifest.30

The reaction of the government soon followed the presentation of this document commonly known as the Compendium. This came in the form of an edict issued in 731 restricting the diffusion of the religion to foreigners in China: Thc doctrinc of Mo-1110-ni (= Mar Mani, i.e. Manichaeism) is basically a perverse belief (hsieh-chien) and fraudulently assumes tobe [a school of] Buddhism and will therefore mislead the masses. lt deserves tobe strictly prohibited. However since it is the indigenous religion of the Western Barbarians (hsi-hu) and other [foreigners], its followers will not be punished if they practise it among themselves. 31

The Manichaean monasteries in the capital cities of Ch'ang-an and Lo-yang were not closed as a result of the edict because of the large numbers of foreigners in those two cities. This vestigial presence of the sect would prove decisive when in 755 Mo-yu (= Turkish: Bügü), the Khaghan of the Uighur Turks, liberated Lo-yang from the rebel forces of An Lu-shan on behalf of the Tang governrnent. At some point before 761, Mo-yu was converted by Manichaean priests at Lo-yang and he took the religion back with hirn to Karbalgasun (in modern Inner Mongolia), south of Lake Baikal. An 30 Mo-ni kuang-fu chiao-fa i-lueh ms. lines 33-44, trans. cit., pp. 192-93. I am grateful to Professor D. C. Twitchett, formerly editor of Asia Major, for kind permission to reproduce the translations from the article by Haloun and Henning. 31 T'ung-tien 40.229c, text and trans. in Chavannes-Pell iot, op. cit., p. 154 [reprint edn p. 178].

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account of his conversion is given in the famous trilingual (Chinese, Sogdian and Turkish) inscription found in his capital in 1890. Unfortunately all three versions are very fragmentary and the Chinese version, which is the best preserved, gives only a broken account of the famous conversion. Line 7 gives in a summary form the events leading to the intervention of the Uigur Khaghan in the internal politics of China, how he went to the aid of the Tang Emperor Hsüan-tsung with his entire army and recaptured the capital of Lo-yang, and how the two states made an alliance with each other. lt was at Lo-yang that he came to realize (with the help of Manichaean priests) that the practices of his people were depraved and needed to be corrected by the adoption of a new and more rigorous religion. Line 8 says that he took four priests with him back to his kingdom, including one by the name of Jui-shi. They: propagated the Two Sacrifices (i.e. Principles) and thoroughly penetrated the Three Moments. Moreover, the Fa-shi (Masters of the Law, i.e. the Electi) had marvellously reached the Gate of Enlightenment and had carefully studied the Seven Volumes (i.e. the Manichaean Canon). Their skills deeper than the seas and higher than the mountains. Their eloquence is like a cascade (lit. a suspended river). Therefore they were able to bring the Uighur (Kingdom) to the true faith [... ]{fragment joined to end of Line 8?} the [Ma]histag (= magister in Latin - the third highest priestly rank in Manichaeism), then all the military governors and civilian officials [... (The Khaghan publicly dec!ared that) he] {Line 9} now confessed his wrongful past and his wish to return to the true religion. An imperial edict publicly proclaims: 'This religion is indeed marvellous but is hard to receive and support (i.e. it makes considerable demands on the believer). On numerable occasions 1 have confessed that in the past 1 was ignorant and (mistakenly) called the demons Buddhas. Now that 1 am cognizant of the truth, 1 can no longer continually repeat (the misdeeds of) the past. lt is my particular wish that [... ] {fragmentjoined to end ofLine 9?} all the engravings and pictures of the demons are now ordered to be burnt. A [... ] for praying to spirits and paying respects to demons [... ] {Line 10} accept the Religion of Light (i.e. Manichaeism). (Aland which practises) the abnormal custom of blood sacrifices will be turned into a region of vegetarians, a state which indulged in excessive killing (will be converted) to a nation which exhorts righteousness'. 32 32 /nscription of Karabalgasun lines 8-10. Cf. Chavannes-Pelliot, op. cit., p. 194 [reprint edn p. 218]. The accompanying translation by Chavannes and

Pelliot contains a number of errors. See the corrections by P. Pelliot in his article 'Neuf notes sur des questions d'Asie Centrale. (7) Un exemple meconnu du titre manicheen de 'mayistag", T'oung Pao XXVI (1929) pp. 201-265. My English translation is independent of the previous translations. However, 1 am

18

From Iran to South China

In a Middle Persian text (MIK III 6371) suffused with Turkish names and titles (some transliterated from Chinese) is a colophon which shows that the Manichaeans were certainly ready to repay royal patronage with praise and invocations for divine protection for Mo-yu (Bögü) Khan and his court. The fact that such a contemporary document was composed at such a late date in Middle Persian shows that it was still one of the main liturgical languages of the sect in Central Asia and one in which the Sogdian priests were still well versed:33 [The angels] with your own ones, the helpers, may they themselves protect and guard the whole community of the Hearers; first and foremost the great ruler, the great majesty, the good, the blessed, worthy of the two blisses, of the two Jives, of the two dominions: of the body and of the soul, the Ruler of the East, the preserver of the religion, helper of the righteous, the Hearer, the radiant one, the wearer of the diadem, the ruler of praised and blessed name, the Great King who has received majesty from God (or Heaven), heroic, majestic, famed, wise Uighur Khaghan, the offspring of Mani. And in addition to that the ... great protectors (?) and generals of the happy ruler. Firstly the II Ugasi Nigoschakapat (= leader of the Hearers, Sgd. nyws'kpt), the II Ugasi Jagan-Savag Tutuch (=Chinese tu-tu), the II Ugasi Otur Buila Tarchan. And also the Tutuch (titled ones): Tapmisch Qutlug Tutuch, Tschiig Tutuch; and the Tschigschi (titled ones): Waga Tschigischi, Jagan Oz Tschigischi, Tudun Tschigischi, ... Tschangschi, Ku! Sangun Tirak, Inamtschu Bilga Tirak. In addition, the Builas: Tapmisch Buila Tarchan, Aschpada (Aschpara?) Buila. May they all live unharmed, at the end may they attain the reward of the devout in eternity. (Thus) may it come to pass! - Further, the eminent palace officials who,

grateful to Professor L. Clark for sharing his draft partial translation (based on that of Chavannes and Pelliot) at the Fourth International Conference of Manichaean Studies at Berlin (17 July 1997). A major problem lies in the fact that the distance between the main fragment containing these lines and the fragment containing what appears to be the ends of the same lines. is unknown and the Turkish and Sogdian versions are too fragmentary to be of real help in reconstructing this section of the text. 33 Cf. F. W. K. Müller, 'Der Hofstaat eines Uiguren-Königs', Festschrift Vilhelm Thomsen (Leipzig: Harrasowitz 1912) pp. 207-13. See also H.-J. Klimkeit, Hymnen und Gebete der Religion des Lichts. Iranische und türkische liturgische Texte der Manichäer Zentralasiens, Abhandlungen der RheinischWestfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 79 (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag 1989) pp. 196.

Samuel Lieu

19

before the pious ruler, carry out their service. Firstly Otur Buila Tarchan, Qutlug ltschraki ... Tapmisch, Ina(ntschu) ... Qutlug T ...

Not all Uighur nobles viewed the conversion of the Khaghan Mo-yu with the sarne enthusiasm shown by other Uighur nobles. In 799 a Uighur noble, Tun mo-ho, instigated an unsuccessful coup against the Khaghan and it appears from a Turkish text that the Elect as well as the 'Hearers and Merchants' were being persecuted and killed by this nobleman (with the title of Tarqan) wherever they were found. The fragmentary text is worth citing in füll because of its importance as a unique contemporary document of a specific event in political history of the First Uighur Empire and in Church and State relations, and also for the fact that the demands were made by four members of the Elect from China (Turkish tawyac):34 [The Qayan said: ' [ ... ] 1 am Tängri, 1 will go to the Realm of the Gods together with you'. The Elect gave this answer: 'We are holy, we are elect. We execute God's commands perfectly. When we die, we will go to the Realm of the Gods, because we fulfil God's commandment to the word ... and because we have borne great oppression and grave [dangers?]. Therefore we shall reach the Realm of the Gods. Your Majesty, if you yourself trespass against the Law of the Eternal One, your whole kingdom will fall into confusion; all these Turkish people will sin against God (t( ä)ngri), and wherever they [find] elect, they will suppress them and kill them. And [if] these [four] ... [holy] elect who are from the land ofChina [will have to go?] back [with?] their four wishes (demands?), ... [then] great Kui-sui < Old Persian *WahuAvestan *Wanhu- feminine *Wahwi, Avestan * Wanuhi 'the good' = Vanvi Däityä or Pahlavi Veh Daitil/Veh Rod =east border [hindu, Sanskrit sindhu] of Khvaniratha and also running through Airyandm VaejahfEränvej or the Aryan Expanse = Uvarazmis [Chorasmia]). South of there lies Ta-hia (Tokhäristän or Bactria), west lies An-sih (An-sik = Arsacid or Parthia empire [c. 247 B.C. - A.D. 226]), to the north K'ang-ki ... '. According to Tolstov, I 6 this K'ang-ki or K'ang-kiui is our 'lost kingdom' of Chorasmia, when the western texts are silent, and Pharasmenes with his Amazon and Cholchian neighbo urs should, therefore, be K'ang-kiui, and the kingdom should be a state which existed at the same time as Alexander's settleme nt of Macedo nians and Greeks in Bactria and his city foundations there. lt should also be contemporary with the floruit of Greek civilisation in Bactria as it was first physically manifested through the discovery of a brilliant coinage on an Attic standard only about the turn of the century I 7 and, most recentl y, confirmed by the discovery of a complete and utterly Greek city at Ai-Kha noum ('Moon Woman') on the Kokcha river (= upper Oxus) in northern Afghanistan. And, finally, the almost mythological K'ang-kiui state in Chorasmia (if that is where it was) must have feit the pressure of the nomadic Yueh-chih by the 2nd century B.C. Having pushed the 16 Tolstov l 948b. 17 See generally Tarn 1951.

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Sacae, another nomadic tribe, southwards, displacing the Greeks of Bactria, a branch of the Yueh-chih crossed the Hindu Kush and formed what became known as the Kushan empire. By the lst/2nd centuries A.D. they ruled almost the whole of western Central Asia, perhaps also in Chorasmia, up to the arrival of the Hephthalites or White Huns in the mid-4th century A.D. and the next major cycle in the nomadic demography and state formation in Central Asia. Archaeology

There are many unanswered questions regarding the ancient history of Chorasmia. Do the Chinese reports, stories, and even myths have any basis in reality? Was Chorasmia, before that, completely controlled by the Persians? Was Persian imperialism responsible for the introduction of large-scale irrigation programmes, or did nomadic peoples do it by themselves? Why is there no reference to 'K'ang-kiui' in Greek and Persian records? Were there any contacts between a K'ang-kiui kingdom and Sogdia, Bactria and Parthia in the south, and why is the material culture of the Jaxartes delta so different from that of virtually adjacent Chorasmia? What, in the end, is there to be found on the ground in Chorasmia? In the mid-1930s Russian archaeologists began to explore Chorasmia. The land was harsh, as in the A vesta, with ice-cold winters and winds unhindered from Siberia and unbearably hot summers. There were often blinding sandstorms, incessant flies, and troublesome nomadic tribes. The Russians pushed on with their camels, Red Army trucks, World War I biplanes, and on foot. Within a decade their discoveries had changed the face of Central Asian archaeology. One explorer, S.P. Tolstov, published many vol umes 18 which included fantastic reconstructions of cities, citadels, fortresses, temples and palaces, dating from the 6th century B.C. onward. In 1953, only just over a decade after the German invasion of Russia, Tolstov published a translation of one of his books on ancient Chorasmia in Germany. Unfortunately, the impact of his work and that of his colleagues was limited. Only now, after 18 E.g., Tolstov l 948a, l 948b, 1962. The Chorasmian ArchaeologicalEthnographic Expedition was formed in the l 930s by Tolstov and continued explorations until the collapse of the Soviet Union. The current joint project has access to archives of the Expedition which are held in Moscow.

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the collapse of the Soviet Union, has international collaborative work been possible. The University of Sydney and the Institute of Archaeology, History, and Ethnography (Karakalpak branch of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences) have conducted surveys and two seasons of excavations in Chorasmia with the aim of reviving the great works of the Russian archaeologists and refining this data using modern analytical procedures. Briefly then, here is a summary of not only the current work but also the archaeological basis constructed by Tolstov, Andrianov and many others, without which we would be back in the 1930s. The 6th and 5th centuries B.C. are represented by only a few monuments, and the nature of Persian political and economic control over Chorasmia is, therefore, still in question. Similarly unresolved is the question of the introduction of large-scale irrigation to the area - whether this was an indigenous development, gradually evolving as the cattle-breeding nomadic tribes became sedentised, or whether it was a new technology introduced by an hydraulic imperial state, the Achaemenid empire under Darius I, in about 525 B.C.

Figure 3: Reconstruction of Kiuzeli-g'ir (Tolstov 1958: fig. 58)

Up until last year only three large-scale settlements of this period were properly documented - i.e., Kiuzeli-g'ir,19 Kalal'i-g'ir,20 and

19 Tolstov 1948b: fig. 21, 1962:96ff. 20 Tolstov 1962: 108ff.

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Chirik-rabat.21 The first, in northern Turkmenistan, consists of long walls with rounded towers, the walls containing corridors which have been called 'living walls' by Tolstov (Fig. 3). This complex is dated in about the 6th century B.c.22 and substantiates cultural, and thus probably also economic, contacts far to the south, as far as north-west India.23 But, the nature of contact with the emerging Persian empire is unknown. Tolstov24 once suggested that the military architecture of Kiuzeli-g'ir reflects an eastern IndoIranian tradition, not Persian, which is preserved in the A vesta (Vendidad 2.25-30). There Yima, a legendary king, is ordered by Ahura Mazda to build a fortress (var) with walls which would house people as well as animals.25 The fortress 'city' of Kiuzeli-g'ir was never completed.

r

~~

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···1

14 ,.....,...,.„ .._.,...._

f

Figure 4: Kalal'i-g'ir 1 (Tolstov 1962: fig. 51)

Kalal'i-g'ir, near Kiuzeli-g'ir, is a much more formal construction with a rectangular plan, galleried walls with numerous towers, at least three formal, heavily-fortified gateways and a so-called palace (Fig. 4). The date of the site is about the 5th or early 4th century B.C.; the 'palace' contained a stone capital fragment whose style can be matched to the Achaemenid imperial cities of Susa and Persepolis. Does this mean we have proof of Achaemenid suzerainty over Chorasmia? Scholars traditionally have accepted this. However the 'palace', like the complex at Kiuzeli-g'ir, was 21 Tolstov 1961, 1962:77ff. 22 Currently there is no reliable absolute chronology for the early historical periods in Chorasmia. 23 For an example of this late Iron Age/Achaemenid interface in the south, see now Helms 1997. 24 First in Tolstov 1948b. 25 See Helms and Yagodin 1997: n. 13.

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never completed, suggesting that whatever imperial control there might have been atrophied sometime round about 400 B.C. or even earlier. On the other hand, the 'palace' need not have been the seat of a satrap: it could simply be the property of a king of the Chorasmians, perhaps even an ancestor of Pharsamenes.

Figure 5: Chirik-rabat (Tolstov 1962: fig. 75)

The third site, Chirik-rabad, lies in south-westem Kazakhstan, just across the border of ancient Chorasmia, north-west towards the Jaxartes river (Fig. 5). This site is dated in the 5th century B.C. lt is heavily and repeatedly fortified and has many 'royal' burial mounds. The builders of the city, or cities, are unknown. But clearly, the location coincides with some of the Chinese sources (albeit of the lst century B.C.) which extend the borders of the K'ang-kiui kingdom as far as Issyk-kul, the source of the Chu river, in Kirgizia. Does this place perhaps represent the Scythians beyond Sogdia, or the Sacae as they are known in Achaemen id imperial inscription s? And might they later have become part of the K'ang-kiui kingdom? Now we can perhaps add a fourth city founded in the 5th century B.C. at the site of Kazakl'i-yatkan,26 just east of the Oxus river, about 200 kilometres south of the Aral Sea (Fig. 6) . The Karakalpak -Australian Expedition to Chorasmia has uncovered traces of a large fortified city buried beneath several.other cities. The fortifications consist of a galleried wall with arrow slits, the whole settlement having an area of over 40 hectares. Kazakl'i-yatkan can 26 Helms and Y agodin 1997.

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Ancient Chorasmia

thus be ranked among the largest settlements of the time and may have been a capital.

Figure 6: Reconstruction of Kazakl'i-yatkan

With the fall of the Achaemenid empire to Alexander in the late 4th century B.C., we come to the mysterious K'ang-kiui kingdom or state.27 In contrast to the 'Archaic' period, the next stage of developments in ancient Chorasmia (Tostov's 'Antique' period) is extraordinarily rich in settlements of all kinds, including frontier towns, border fortresses and farmsteads as well as rural cult centres;28 and therein lies one of the most vexing conundrums facing us. Why do only the Chinese (presumably) know about it, when the more or less contemporary Greek and Parthian states are only a few hundred kilometres away to the south, and when great armies marched along the southem frontiers of Chorasmia - the armies of Seleucus 1, Antiochus III and Mithradates 1, among others? The plethora of sites may be summarised with a few examples, e.g., Koi-kr'ilgan-kala;29 Ayaz-kala 1;30 and the new discoveries at

27 However in the absence of an absolute chronology, this kingdom or state may have already existed before Alexander, as an entity independent of the Achaemenid state. 28 The excavations of 1996 revealed a !arge sacred complex at Tash-k'irman tepe, about 10 kilometres south-east of Kazakl'i-yatkan: a fire temple set on an artificial pakhsa (pise) platform. 29 Tolstov and Vainberg (eds) 1967. 30 Khozhaniyazov 1997.

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Kazakl'i-yatkan - an enigmatic complex, a typical frontier fortress, and a potential capital. Koi-kri'lgan-kala (Fig. 7) is perfectly circular in plan, consisting of an outer fortified perimeter, a complex gateway, eight regularlyspaced towers, and a central 'citadel' with embrasures and crenellated battlements. There is a subterranean chamber at the core of the site. This unique architecture, somewhat reminiscent of burial chambers (e.g., at Chirik-rabat), has defied interpretation: it could be a 'royal' tomb (but there was no burial); it could be an observatory (because of the geometry of the place; there are light shafts which might be used for sighting); or it could simply be an extraordinary citadel, a residence of a K'ang-kiui ruler. Similar (rare) architecture is described by Herodotus.31 Deioces, a Median (pre-Achaemenid) king of the 7th century B.C., has a city built as 'a place of great size and strength fortified by concentric walls, these so planned that each successive circle was higher than the one below it by the height of the battlements ... The circles are seven in number, and the innermost contains the royal palace and treasury. The circuit of the outer wall is much the same in extent as at Athens. The battlements of the five outer rings are painted in different colours, the first white, the second black, the third crimson, the fourth blue, the fifth orange; the battlements of the two inner rings are plated with silver and gold respectively'.

Figure 7: Reconstruction of Koi-kr'ilgan-kala (Tolstov and Vainberg [eds] 1967: fig. 129)

31 Hist. i.97.

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Ancient Chorasmia

Ayaz-kala 1, on the other hand, is a totally functional frontier fortress set on a high cliff at the east end of a low mountain chain (Fig. 8). The walls are galleried and still standing two storeys high, with arrow slits allowing fire in various directions and with various elevations from the same embrasure. Regularly-spaced semicircular towers with embrasures were added at some time. The gateway is typical of the period and consists of a fortified forecourt whose origin can be sought in Kalal'i-g'ir of the 5th/4th century B.C. The interior of the fortress, like many others, was apparently empty of structures. The K'ang-kiui period is well represented at Kazakl'i-yatkan. Several superimposed cities of this period have been found to date. At least one of them had both an outer and an inner system of fortifications with galleries, embrasures, and regularly-spaced square chambered towers measuring about 8 by 8 metres. The outer fortifications enclosed an area of over 40 hectares, the inner about 9 hectares. lt is possible that a further suburb existed to the north of the site which would make K'ang-kiui Kazakl'i-yatkan the largest fortress city of the period in Chorasmia. The upper enclosure also has a walled temenos, a temple, and a monumental complex at the centre which may be a temple/mausoleum.

100m

Figure 8: Ayaz-kala I (Khozhaniyazov 1996: fig. 9a)

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Finally we come to the end of the K'ang-kiui era in about the lst century A.D. Here, as we have noted above, we ought somehow to sense the impact of the nomadic Yueh-chih and the subsequent rise of the Kushan empire and, at last, there is clearer evidence in the form of coins. Coinage of Kushan rulers such as Vasudeva, Huvishka, and the great Kanishka have been found in Chorasmia. Traces of the early Yueh-chih influx remain to be uncovered. Perhaps the best example of the developed 'dynastic style' of the Kushan empire is the imposing city and palace of Toprak-kala32 which is visible from the ruins of Kazakl'i-yatkan (Fig. 9).

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Figure 9: Toprak-kala (Nerasik, E.E. and Rapoport, Iu. A. [eds] 1981: fig. 2; Rapoport, Iu. A. and Nerazik, E.E. [eds] 1984: fig. 6)

The city of Toprak-kala, dominated by its monumental palace, has a remarkably regular plan with galleried walls and regularly-spaced towers whose elevations can be confidently reconstructed. Streets form a planned grid with public as well as private buildings. The sophistication of the 'urban' architecture is remarkable for a people 32 Nerazik and Rapoport (eds) 1981; Rapoport and Nerazik (eds) 1984.

94

Ancient Chorasmia

who only recently had been driven west as nomads. But the most illustrious monument at Toprak-kala is the palace/temple in which were found audience chambers with painted clay life-size sculptures, wall painting, written records and luxury objects. Toprak-kala also preserves an extramural palace to the north of the fortified enclosure which is typical of the new monumental, axial planning that appeared tl:iroughout much of Central Asia in the Kushan era. 33 There is also a large, now empty, enclosure beside this external palace which may be regarded as a paradeisos, or pleasure garden.34 Kazakl'i-yatkan itself was re-occupied and reconstructed during this period. The galleried curtain walls and the chambered towers were filled with mud brick packing, producing a solid core, perhaps in response to siege craft. 35 The northward extension or suburb appears also to have been blocked in this way. If so, then Kazakl'i-yatkan of the Kushan period is also the largest establishment to be discovered to date. However, it is not established whether the Kushans actually ruled over Chorasmia. One characteristic of ancient Chorasmia is its independence from adjacent political regimes: this was the case during the later Achaemenid empire, during the Seleucid, Greco-bactrian and Parthian periods, probably the Kushan era, and thereafter succumbing only to the Arabs in about 712 A.D.

Conclusion Despite the impressive amount of information that was gathered by the Chorasmian Archaeological-Ethnographic Expedition, many questions remain to be answered. Chief among these is the matter of an absolute chronology. lt is the aim of the Karakalpak-Australian Archaeological Expedition and USCAP to reconstruct the long history of Chorasmia, a task that is made possible by the remarkable

33 Rapoport and Nerazik (eds) 1984: fig. 2; Rapoport 1994: fig. 25. 34 The construction of extramural formal buildings and particularly the addition of a paradeisos is characteristic of states established by rulers who have close ties with nomadic traditions. See Helms 1990: chapter 1 passim, fig. 11. 3 5 The usual contention regarding Central Asian fortifications is that galleried traces were filled in as a response to new siege technology that was introduced as a result of Alexander the Great's invasion in the late 4th century B.C.: this appears not to be the case at the majority of currently-excavated fortified sites (cf. Francfort 1979).

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state of preservation of architecture and other remains and by the former Soviet archaeological database.

Bibliography TKhAEE: Trud'i Khorezmskoi Arkheologo-Etnograficheskoi Ekspeditsii. Boyce, M. (1975) A history of Zoroastrianism. Vol. 1. Leiden/Koln: Brill. Christensen, A.(1943) Le premiere chapitre du Vendidad et l'histoire primitive des tribus iraniennes. K!c1benhavn: I Kommission Hos Ejnar Munksgaard. Dani, A.H. and Masson, V.M. (eds) (1992) History of civilizations of Central Asia. V. I. The dawn of civilization: earliest times to 700 B.C. Paris: UNESCO Publications. Francfort, H-P. (1988) 'Central Asia and eastern Iran' pp. 165-193 in The Cambridge Ancient History (2nd edn), v. IV. Persia, Greece and the Western Mediterranean c. 525 - 479 B.C. Cambridge: CUP. Francfort, H-P. (1979) Les fortifications en Asie Centrale de l'iige du Bronze !'epoque Kouchane. Paris: CNRS.

a

Gershevitch, 1. (1959) The Avestan Hymn to Mithra. Cambridge: CUP. Gershevitch, 1. (1964) 'Zoroaster's own contribution'. NES 23: 1238. Helms, S.W. (1990) Early Islamic Architecture of the Desert: a bedouin station in Eastern Jordan. Edinburgh: EUP. Helms, S.W. (1997) Excavations at Old Kandahar in Afghanistan. Stratigraphy, Pottery, and Other Finds. Oxford: BAR. Helms, S. and Yagodin, V.N. (1997) 'Excavations at Kazakl'i-yatkan in the Tashk'irman oasis of ancient Chorasmia: a preliminary report' Iran 35. Holt, F.L. (1989) Alexander the Great and Bactria: the formation of a Creek frontier in Central Asia. Leiden/New York/Köln: Brill. Khozhaniyazov, G. (1996) Fortifikatsiya drevnego Khorezma (s Vl v. do n.e. po IV v. n.e.) (Thesis: Karakalpak Archaeology and Ethnography Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Institute of History, Nukus). Litvinskii, B.A. and Bromberg, C.A. (eds) (1994) The Archaeology and Art of Central Asia. Studies from the Former Soviet Union. (Bulletin and the Asia Institute, New SeriesNolume 8) Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Markwart, J. (1938) Wehrot und Arang. Untersuchungen zur mythischen und geschichtlichen Landeskunde von Ostiran. Leiden: Brill. Miller, K. (1916) Itineraria Romana ... an der Hand der Tabula Peutingeriana. Stuttgart:

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Miroshnikov, L.I. (1992) 'A note of the meaning of the term "Central Asia" as used in this book' pp. 477-480 in Dani and Masson (eds) 1992. Nerasik, E.E. and Rapoport, Iu. A. (eds) (1981) Gorodis hche Toprakkala (raskopki 1965-1975 gg. (TKhAEEl2) Moscow. Nobbe, C.F. A. (ed.) (1966) Claudii Ptolemaei Geographia. Hildesheim: Georg Olms. Nyberg, H.S. (1938) Die Religionen des alten Iran. Osnabrück: 1. Zellen (repr. 1966). Rapoport, Iu. A. (1994) 'The Palaces of Topraq-Qal'a' pp.161-186 in Litvinsk ii, B.A. and Bromberg, C.A. (eds) (1994). Rapopo rt, Iu. A. and Nerazik , E.E. (eds) (1984) Toprak- kala. (TKhAE ExIV) Moscow.

Dvorets .

Tarn, W.W. (1951) The Creeks in Bactria and lndia. Cambrid ge: Cambrid ge University Press. Tolstov, S.P. (1948a) Drevnii Khorezm. Op'it istoriko -arkheo logiches kogo issledovaniya. Moscow: Izd-vo MGU. (French abstract) [AF]. Tolstov, S.P. (1948b) Po sh:dam drevne-khorezmiiskoi tsivilizatsii, Moscow / Leningrad: Nauk (=Auf den Spuren der altchoresmishen Kultur. Berlin: Kultur und Fortschritt, 1953). Tolstov , S.P. (1958) 'Rabotti Khorezm skoi arkheol ogo-etn ografich eskoi ekspeditsii AN SSSR v 1949-1953 gg.' TKhAEE. 2:7-258. Tolstov, S.P. (1961) 'Les Scythes de l'Aral et le Khorezm'. lranicaA ntiqua 1 :4292. Tolstov, S.P. (1962). Po drevnim deltam Oksa i Yaksarta. Moscow: Nauka. Tolstov, S.P. and Kes', A. S. (eds) (1960) Nizov'ya Amu-Dar'ya, Sar'ikam 'ish, Uzboi. /storiya formiro vaniya i zaseleniya. (Materi al'i Khorezm skoi Ekspeditsii 3). Tolstov, S.P. and Vainberg, B. 1. (1967) Koi-Kr'ilgan-Kala. Pamyatnik kul'turii drevnego Khorezma. Moscow: lzdatelistvo Nauka (TKhAEEv).

CHINESE CONCERNS WITH CENTRAL ASIA HANS HENDRISCHKE

Traditionally, the 'Great Game' for regional influenee and hegemony in Central Asia was played by eountries to the west and south and their various allies. When the deeades of Soviet rule over Central Asia ended in 1991, a 'new great game' started to take shape.1 From exclusive dependenee on the Soviet Union, Central Asian states had to redefine their neighbourly relations and re-establish traditional links with Turkey, Iran and other Islamie eountries as well as with China. The newly-established republies have a substantially Muslim population, predominantly of the Sunni faith, who speak Turkie languages. Tajikistan as an exeeption is closer to Iran as its language is a Farsi dialeet. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan share a eommon border and eross-border ethnie links with China. While Russia, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia are the most aetive players in the 'new great game', China's position is mueh less evident. Some analysts would not regard it as a potential player in Central Asia at all.2 Other observers argue that Russia and China are emerging as strategie partners there,3 or even claim that China has already outmanoeuvred Russia in the fight for long-term influenee in the region.4 China eertainly sees itself as a potential major eeonomie power in the region, but this is eontingent on the diseovery and exploitation of energy resourees in Xinjiang and might be a long-term perspeetive. In the shorter run, China is mueh more eoneerned about ethnie unrest and separatist influenees from aeross its 3000 km Central Asian borders. This paper will take abrief look at China's strategie view of Central Asia and espeeially at the role of Islam in China's assessment of the region. This is an important question, beeause it might help to illustrate the degree to whieh China's new strategie partnership with Russia is based on the 1 M.E. Ahari, 'The dynamics of the new great game in Muslim Central Asia', Central Asian Survey, vol. 13, no. 4 (1994) pp. 525-539. 2 Ibid. 3 Rajan Menon, 'The Strategie Convergence between Russia and China', Survival vol. 39, no. 2 (1997) pp. 101-125; Harry Gelman, 'Japan and China as Seen from Moscow Today', Journal of Northeast Asian Studies, vol. 13, no. 4 pp. 49-60. 4 Stephen Blank, Stephen and Alvin Z. Rubinstein, 'Is Russia Still a Power in Asia?', Problems of Post-Communism, vol. 44, no. 2 (1997) pp. 37-46.

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eommon geopolitieal interest in regional stability, i.e. in eontaining the influenee of Islamie forees, or on the global perspeetive of eounteraeting the super-power role of the US. In the early nineties there was eonsiderable doubt about China's strategie intention in Central Asia, with open views among seholars as to whieh eountries China regarded as rivals or potential allies and what the role of Islamie eountries would be.5 More reeently, Western observers have analysed China's strategie interest in the area and its poliey implieations from an overall foreign poliey perspeetive, mainly based on Russian and Central Asian sourees.6 In brief, they generally assume that China aeeepts the dominant role of Russia in Central Asia and subsume China's regional policy under its foreign poliey towards Russia. They also generally agree that the Sino-Russian partnership is not an allianee based on mutual trust and eommon goals, but rather based on praetieal eonsiderations. China's evaluation of the strategie situation in Central Asia largely eonfirms these views. But at the same time, China's new strategie partnersh ip with Russia does not preclude a eertain seeptieism regarding the aims of Russia's policies in the region: 7 In assessing the geopolitical and economic environment of Central Asia

and in considering how to strengthen relations with the Central Asian states, China primarily has to pay attention to the influence of the 'Russian factor' on Central Asia. Undoubtedly, Central Asia will have to preserve close ties with Russia. This is determined by many historical and practical factors. In some sense, the presence of the 'Russian factor' in Central Asia does fulfil its purpose in that it can stabilise Central Asia. Of course, will Russia use this influence to 'control' Central Asia? This is very difficult to exclude.

China's partnersh ip with Russia does not imply Chinese aequieseenee. The eondition China attaehes to its aeeeptanee of 5 E.g. Lillian Craig Harris, 'Xinjiang, Central Asia and the Implications for China's Policy in the Islamic World', China Quarterly, no. 133 (1993) pp. 111 -129; J. Richard Walsh, 'China and the new geopolitics of Central Asia', Asian Survey, no. XXXIII (March 1993) pp. 272-283. 6 Blank, (1997), Menon, (1997). 7 Xing Guangcheng, 'Zhongguo he Zhongya geguo: xin de guanxi' [China and the countries of Central Asia: A new relationship], Dongou Zhongya yanjiu, no. l (1996) pp. 58-64, p. 62.

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Russian dorninance in Central Asia is that Russia does not increase its rnilitary threat to China:8 Irrespective of whatever form the 'Russian factor' takes in the Central Asian region, China will not put it into question. From China's perspective, this is a matter between the Central Asian states and Russia. As long as the Russian military forces in Central Asia do not pose a military threat to China, China will respect the practical choices of all Central Asian countries.

Again, this view is based on the pragrnatic acceptance of the status qua in the region. Chinese authors agree that the Central Asian states are rnilitarily dependent on Russia9 and that their troops, in effect, are rnainly Russian anyway .1 o For the present, after years of Sino-Soviet and Sino-Russian negotiations about troop reductions along the border, a rnilitary threat frorn the Russian troops is seen as negligible, but Chinese readers are rerninded that the great power arnbitions of Russia rnight awaken again and that China has to rernain vigilant.1 I This raises the question of what role China accords to other countries with interests in the region. Arnong Western observers, there is agreernent that Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are the rnajor foreign powers striving for influence. Chinese sources identify Turkey and Iran as the rnajor countries engaged there.1 2 Turkey is seen as exploiting pro-Turkish sentirnents and rnaking use of its econornic influence and support frorn the US to create a Turkic sphere of influence. Iran, in Chinese eyes, is using its proxirnity and religious influence in a diplornatic offensive airned at linking Central Asia with the Middle East to form an Islarnic sphere of influence. 13

8 Xing Guangcheng ( 1996) p. 62. 9 Qi Chengzhang et al (eds) 'Zhongguo zhoubian guoji huanjing' [China's

surrounding international environment], Shandong renmin chubanshe (1996) p. 67. 10 Xing Guangcheng (1996) p. 62. 11 E.g. Gao Ge, 'Shitan Eluosi dangqian de daguo waijiao' [Preliminary talk on Russia's present big power diplomacy], Dongou Zhongya yanjiu, no. 3 (1996) pp. 56-59, 86. 12 Dong Fangxiao, 'Zhongdong daguo zai Zhongya de jingzheng' [The competition of major Middle East powers in Central Asia], Dongou Zhongya yanjiu, no. 4 (1992) pp. 83-87. 13 Xing Guangcheng, (1996) p. 61.

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The Chinese attitude towards the role of these countries in Central Asia is highly critical:l4 ... China opposes any method or action aimed at destroying the stability and prosperity of the region. China will condemn any (country) which regards Central Asia as its sphere of influence to be used for its own profit and to create disturbance in Central Asia.

Turkey and Iran are seen as the powers behind the two political forces of pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism which China sees as a threat to its own safety. Both are spreading from Central Asia into rninority areas in China where that country feels most vulnerable. The Chinese diplomatic strategy in coping with these forces is to seek help through different alliances. While Russia and Iran are seen as potential allies to contain the influence of the Turkic vision of Greater Turkestan, Russia and the West are seen as allies against Islamic fundamentalism. This makes Russia the only ally China has against separatist tendencies among its minorities,15 although the United States is also recognised as a stabilising factor, in spite of the usual reservations about US geostrategic concerns. The United States is seen to support Turkey for its econornic and strategic purposes, as it does not want to lose Central Asia as a potential market and as a strategic position from which to influence neighbouring regions. Of special interest to China is the American geopolitical consideration of not wanting to lose the region to Islamic forces which might create a link between North Africa and Central Asia, and the US military concern about Iran gaining control of military nuclear installations in the region.16 In general terms, China is willing to accommodate the Russian overall strategic superiority and the US and Western European economic superiority,17 but draws a line when it comes to accepting the influence of other countries such as Turkey and Iran which might influence its national rninority population in the north-west.

14 Xing Guangcheng, (1996) p. 61. 15 Xing Guangcheng, (1996) p. 64. 16 Xing Guangcheng, (1996) p. 61. 17 Liu Qingjian, 'Zhongya guojia de duiwai jingji zhanglue he weirao Zhongya shichang de guoji jingzheng' [The foreign economic strategy of the Central Asian states and the competition for the Central Asian market], Dongou Zhongya yanjiu, no. 3 (1996) pp. 73-77, p. 73.

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Chinese observers present a pragmatic view of how China can cope with foreign influences in the region. They recognise that China is economically too weak to counterbalanc e other foreign powers which it sees as the main cause of instability among its Muslim and Turkic minorities.18 In order to prevent any other power from increasing or gaining dominance, China strives to maintain a balance between Russia and the US as well as between Turkey and Iran, and between those two and other countries with potential interests. Interestingly, China's evaluation of the role of the United States in the region is quite positive in accepting it as a stabilising influence on Russia's great power ambitions.19 While Chinese writers accept the dominant role of Russia in the interest of their country, they see it at the same time as a restriction on Chinese policies towards the region and make no secret of their expectation that long-term economic growth will eventually give China a more advantageous position. 20 In the long run, economic growth is seen as the way for China to project its power into the region. A case in point for China's pragmatic attitude is the Chinese response to the debate about Samuel Huntington's thesis on the clash of civilisations.2 1 An article in the Beijing Review summarises it as follows:22 In a sense, Huntington's thesis is more a political essay than an academic report, given that he has written it to advise the US government. The paper offers nothing new. What he advises the government to do has already been undertaken by the United States: Strengthening Euro-US relations; integrating Eastern Europe and Latin America into the West;

l 8 Wang Jiayin, 'Sulian jieti hou de Zhongya he Zhongguo' [Central Asia and China after the dissolution of the Soviel Union], Guoji zhengzhi yanjiu, no.4 (1995) pp.23-28, p. 27. These minorities in China's West include 1.12 million Kazakhs, 150,000 Kyrgyzs, 40,000 Tajiks and 20,000 Uzbeks, see Ji Zhiye (1995). Sixty percent of Xinjiang's population are Turkic Muslims, see Wang Jiayin (1995) p. 24; see also Peter Ferdinand, 'Xinjiang - Relations with China and Abroad', in David S.G. Goodman and Gerald Segal, China Deconstructs - Politics, Trade and Regionalism (Routledge, London & New York 1994) pp. 271-285. 19 Wang Jiayin, (1995) p. 26. 20 Wang Jiayin, (1995) p. 27. 21 Samuel Huntington, 'The Clash of Civilisations?', Foreign Ajfairs, Issue 72, no. 5 ( 1993) pp. 22-49, started this debate. 22 Wang Jisi and Zou Sicheng, 'Civilisations: Clash or Fusion?', Beijing Review, (January 15-21 1996) pp. 8-12, p.11.

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maintaining relations with Russia and Japan; containing militarily China and the Islamic world; and supporting pro-Western forces in other civilisation rims, etc.

This distanced attitude is reflected in the public debate which provided a welcome opportunity for analysts and scholars to discuss the nature and political role of Islam in front of a larger public. As in the West, numerous scholars in China reacted to the challenge posed by the publication of Huntington's article in 1993 and journals devoted much space and special issues to the topic. Unlike their Western colleagues, however, Chinese authors took a much more positive attitude towards the superiority of the West and a more sceptical attitude towards the potential of an Islamic civilisation, and argued strongly against any political or other affinity between Chinese culture and Islam. In a way, the debate about the role of Islam was only a sideline to the Chinese reaction to Huntington's thesis. The main thrust of the debate in China was informed by a firm commitment to the paradigm of Western modernisation. Chinese scholars were much more interested in the concept of 'fusion' rather than 'clashes' between civilisation:23 ... at a time when increasing economic contacts between countries are breaking down national boundaries, different civilisations clash and merge with each other at the same time but, overall, fusion looks more prevailing. In the world history, there have been many such cases as the Chinese culture absorbing Buddhism. Some suggest that it is possible to build a universal civilisation if the West learns from others.

The Chinese preference for fusion of civilisations, specifically of fusion with the West, includes even a refusal to accept the logic of Huntington's argument:24 ... clash and fusion are usually intermingled with each other. Fusion is a long-term result, but clash is usually visible.

In regard to Huntington's views on Islam, the simplest argument is that the fabrication of an Islamic threat serves as an excuse to justify continued Western control over mainly Arabic strategic and economic resources. A more ideological critique argues that the West has lost its internal coherence after the collapse of the Soviet 23 Wang Jisi and Zou Sicheng, (1996) p. 8. 24 lbid.

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Union and needs to create a new common purpose by projecting the Islamic world as a common enemy, replacing communism. 25 Another line of argument is to look for the cultural-psychological roots of Huntington's thesis and to dismiss it as a gloomy fin de siede obsession shared by Western countries. 26 On a more substantial level, the Chinese case against Huntington's argument rests on the view that the Islamic world is by no means unified, nor has it the potential to merge into one political force or one civilisation. In favour of a strong Islamic world and a global role as one of the poles in a multi-polar world are the overall fascination with Islam, the size of its population, its resources and strategic position. But religious division, internal strife and a long history of international conflicts make the Islamic world in Chinese eyes an unlikely contender for a global role. 27 Chinese scholars make a specific point of disaggregating the unified image of an Islamic civilisation by concentrating on the various divisions that run through the Islamic world, for example, by separating the Islamic movement into its three streams of religious revivalism, pan-Islamism and Islamic fundamentalism which, in spite of close linkages, do not add up to a unified international movement.28 Based on sociological and political arguments, fundamentalism is evaluated as a relatively weak force confined to internal opposition within Islamic countries. The conclusion is that major weaknesses of the Islamic world are its under-development compared to that of the West as well as East Asian countries, the inability to produce an attractive model for development, the lack of a strong country able to play a leading and unifying role, and its constant internal divisions and conflicts.29 In the context of the debate about the clash of civilisations, this means 25 Ma Xiaojun, 'Yisilan shili de kuozhang: yige zhengzhi shenhua' [The growing force of Islam: a political myth], Zhanlue yu guanli, no. 4 (1994) pp. 1-4. 26 Liu Jinghua et al, 'Shijimo de kundun yu tuwei' [Fin de siecle stress and a way out], Xiya Feizhou, no. 4 (1994) pp. 30-37, p 30. 27 Jin Yijiu, 'Yisilan shijie yu dangdai zhengzhi' [The Islamic world and contemporary politics], Zhaniue yu guanli, no. 4 pp. 5-9. 28 Jin Yijiu, (1994). 29 Li Rong and Li Shaoxian, 'Lengzhanhou Yisilan shili dui xifang shijie de tiaozhan' [Post-Cold War Islamic forces and their challenge to the West], Zhaniue yu guanli, no. 4 (1994) pp. 10-12.

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that Huntington 's arguments cannot stand up to the practical concerns of China which sees the Islamic world still caught in the backwardness which China itself is only beginning to escape. Chinese views on the role of Islam are much more explicit once its role in Central Asia becomes an issue, where the rise of Islamic fundament alism is of deep concern for the Chinese. The intermingling influencers of ethnicity and religion in Central Asia and North-west China are seen as a major challenge. While ethnicity and ethnic separatism are factors that do not necessarily preclude economic development under state control, the mixture of ethnic factors with Islamic fundamentalism creates the spectre of a region controlled by outside forces opposed to rational economic discourse and secular policies.30 Faced with the alternative between a fundamentalist Islamic regime following an 'Iranian model' of a religious state and the secular 'Turkic model', Chinese preference is clearly with the present Central Asian govemments and their secular ambitions. 31 In conclusion, China seems to be driven by practical concerns and pragmatic considerations. lt has braced itself for an increasing role in Central Asia, clearly aware that its own position is threatened by ethnic tensions and that its present strength in the region requires compromises with established players. What has emerged since the early nineties is an order of priorities in strategic alliances. At the apex are links with Russia, followed by links with individual Central Asian states. The United States and Western European countries are accepted as a stabilising factor, while a clear demarcation is drawn with countries such as Turkey and Iran whose influence could heighten ethnic tensions in China's North,wes t. While Turkey could arouse pan-Turkic separatist sentiments, lran's role and that of other unspecified Islamic countries is even more threatening as they support fundamentalist Islamic movement s which put China's overall strategy in doubt: to gain influence through economic growth and a gradually increasing economic integration between Central Asia, Xinjiang and China proper.

30 Wu Yungui, 'Yisilanjiao yu minzu zhuyi' [Islam and nationalism], World Economic and Political Studies, no. 4 (1995) pp. 3-8. 31 Gao Huiqun, 'Yisilanhua yundong zhong de Zhongya wuguo' [The five Central Asian States in the Islamisation movement], Dongou Zhongya yanjiu, no. 6 (1993) pp. 56-59.

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON XINJIANG IN THE 1990s COLIN MACKERRAS

One of the most significant trends concerning China's minority nationalities since the early 1980s has been the growth of a feeling of ethno-nationalist consciousness or identity. This has expressed itself in a re-growth of interest in the culture and language of the rninority as well as in the traditional faiths, especially among those nationalities whose religions have powerful clergies, such as Tibetan Buddhism or Islam.! This re-growth of identity has gone hand in hand with a modernising trend which has affected almost all of China, although extremely unevenly. However, it is notable that nationalism and a regrowth of identity have also created an impact on China's majority Han people, with a revived interest in certain forms of traditional culture and religion being one of the signposts. In other words, both modernity and tradition have strengthened at the sarne time. In some ways they are in mutual conflict, since the driving forces of modernisation are determinedly secular and commercial, with the communications means dominated by a secular, socialist state. However, in other ways modernity and tradition actually assist each other. Modem socialist commercialism has produced an ideological vacuum which religions have contributed towards filling, especially among the minorities in China. Moreover, clergies are quite adept at using modern technologies to spread their message. There are considerable variations in these feelings of identity, which are very much stronger in some places than in others. In ethnic terms they are strongest among the Tibetans, especially those of the Tibet Autonomous Region, and among the Uygurs of Xinjiang. They are strong among the Koreans of Y anbian in Jilin Province, as well as the Dai and quite a few others in Yunnan Province. The Zhuang of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, who are the most populous of China's minorities, have experienced identity feelings in some ways but to a very much lesser degree than most, with the Zhuang being very well integrated into Chinese society.

1 See Colin Mackerras, China's Minority Cultures, ldentities and Integration Since 1912 (Longman Australia, Melbourne, St Martin's Press, New York 1995) esp. pp. 208-210.

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A further variation occurs between the cities and the countryside.

In general, the urban people are much better integrated into Han

society than their rural counterparts. Most cities in China, even in minority areas, tend to be very much like each other with similar architecture, economies and lifestyle. Moreover, there is a strong tendency for the Han majority to take over the cities, including those in the minority areas. One question of enormous moment for the Chinese authorities is the extent to which this growth of identity feeling is linked to secessionism. lt has long been official policy that the minorities have the right to use their own language, to believe in and practise their own religions, and to preserve their own customs and ways. But China regards itself as a multinational, unitary state which values its national unity above all. Therefore, if identity leads to attempts to split off from China, the authorities react very sharply indeed to preserve Chinese unity, and that means suppressing secessionist movements very quickly and brutally. In practice, secessionism has been a serious problem only in two province-level units in China: the Tibet Autonomous Region and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. lt is the aim of this paper to consider the situation in the second of these units. The focus in terms of time is the 1990s, and in terms of topic it is the interrelationship among politics, Islam and (though to a lesser extent) ethnicity. The obvious question which arises is how strong is the thrust towards secessionism in Xinjiang and is it likely to lead to an independent state in the foreseeable future. The main source of the paper is printed material, both Chinese and Western. The paper also takes account of two visits by the author to Xinjiang, in 1982 and especially in September and October 1994 during which time it was possible to gather some interview material and to visit mosques and other places relevant to Islam.

The Peoples of Xinjiang According to the 1990 census, the total population of Xinjiang was 15,155,778. Table 1 gives the same census's figures for all those nationalities with Xinjiang populations of over 2,000 people. 2 2 The figures come from the State Statistical Bureau Population Statistics Office, comp., Zhongguo renkou tongji nianjian 1990 [China Population Statistics Yearbook 1990] (Science and Technology Documents Press, Beijing 1991) pp. 78-86.

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Among these peoples, the Uygurs, Kazakhs, Hui, Kirghiz, Dongxiang, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Tatars and Salars believe in Islam.3 Because of tradition and the growth of identity feelings, there is a strong tendency for virtually all members of Islamic nationalities to call themselves Muslims and to accept Islam, even if not totally. According to the 1990 census, the population of all China's Islamic nationalities was 17 .597 million. This means that Xinjiang, with 9,235,885 people belonging to Islamic nationalities, accounts for about 52 per cent, or just over half, of China's Muslims.

Table 1 Xinjiang's Population by Nationality (1990) Nationality

Population

Uygurs 7 194 675 Han 5 695 626 Kazakhs 1 106 989 Hui 681 527 Kirghiz 139 781 Mongols 137 740 Dongxiang 56 464 Taiiks 33 512 Xi bes 33 082 Manchus 18 403

% of total Nationality 47.47 37.58 7.30 4.50 0.92 0.91 0.37 0.22 0.22 0.12

Uzbeks Russians Zhuang Daurs Tuiia Tatars Salars Miao Tibetans

Population 14 456 8 082 5 883 5 398 5 125 4 821 3 660 2 577 2 158

%of total 0.10 0.05 0.04 0.04 0.03 0.03 0.02 0.02 0.01

Among the Islamic nationalities, all but two are Turkic by culture, speaking a Turkic language. The two exceptions are the Hui and the Tajiks. The Hui, whom the 1990 census numbered nationally at 8,602,978, 4 speak Chinese and, other than in relation to those factors influenced by Islam, are Sinic culturally.5 The Tajiks are

3 For detailed discussion of the cultures of the minorities of China's northwest, including their religion, see Li Dezhu, Zhang Ru and Xu Yiting, eds, Zhongguo shaoshu minzu wenhua shi [Cultural History of China's Minority Nationalities] (Liaoning Renmin chubanshe, Shenyang 1994) pp. 331-741. 4 Zhongguo renkou tongji nianjian 1990, p. 78. 5 An excellent recent account of the Hui is Dru Gladney's Muslim Chinese, Ethnic Nationalism in the People's Republic, published by Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University and distributed by Harvard University Press (Cambridge Mass., and London 1991).

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distinguished by being the only people in China to speak: an Iranian language and for being Iranian by culture. The Han are China's majority population, mak:ing up over 91 per cent of the country's totaI.6 When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came to power in 1949, the Uygurs, with 3,291,145 people, made up 75.95 per cent of Xinjiang's total of 4,333,400.7 However from that time until the end of the Cultural Revolution, programs of Han migration to Xinjiang, beginning with the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps in the early 1950s, greatly increased the Han population both in absolute and proportional terms. The following table shows Xinjiang population, as well as the proportion in the total, both of the minorities and the Han. The figures come from the four censuses tak:en under the PRC:8

Table 2 Minority Populations in Xinjiang (Four Censuses) Census 1953 1964 1982 1990

Minority population 4 449 4 948 7 797 9 461

017 619 344 202

Minority % of population 93.01 68.07 59.61 62.42

Han% of population 6.99 31.93 40.39 37.58

Figures for the end of 1994 claim the total population of Xinjiang to be 16.053 million of whom 10.162 million, or 63.30 per cent, belonged to the minority nationalities, meaning that the Han made up 36.70 per cent.9 The growth rates over the preceding year were 6 The sample census taken on 1 October 1995 gave the Han population of China as 1,099.32 million, or 91.02 per cent of the total of 1,207.78 million. See the results of the sample census in '95 Sample Population Survey', Beijing Review vol. 39, no. 22 (27 May - 2 June 1996) p. 21. 7 See the table in Zhou Chongjing, a.o. (eds), Zhongguo renkou, Xinjiang fence [China's Population, Xinjiang Volume] (Zhongguo caizheng jingji chubanshe Beijing 1990) p. 283. 8 Economic Department of the State Nationalities Affairs Commission and Department of Integrated Statistics of the PRC State Statistical Bureau, comp., Zhongguo minzu tongji nianjian ( 1949-1994) [China's Nationalities Statistical Yearbooks ( 1949-1994)] (Minzu chubanshe, Beijing 1994) pp. 157-8. 9 See Economic Department of the State Nationalities Affairs Commission and Department of Integrated Statistics of the PRC State Statistical Bureau,

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given as 17 per thousand for the total population, but 23 per thousand for the minorities.10 What is clear is that after a very sharp rise in the Han proportion between the 1953 and 1982 censuses, there was a fall between 1982 and the early 1990s. There were several reasons for this later development. They included cessation of migration, exemption of the minorities from the one-child-per-couple program, and some re-registration of Han as minorities. The exemption of China's minontles from the one-child-per-couple policy does not mean they are not subject to any restrictions.11 In Xinjiang a new law came into effect in May 1989 according to which minority families living in the cities are limited to two children each, but those in the countryside may have three. There is also a complex formula which allows some families to have an additional child, depending on local conditions.12

The Political Situation in Xinjiang and Seeession The history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Xinjiang has featured repeated Muslim rebellions against Chinese domination. Although secessionist movements since 1949 have been much smaller in number and scale than before, there are several organisations based in Kazakhstan and Turkey which aim to secure independence for Xinjiang. Moreover, relations between Han and Uygurs have remained generally tense. The flow of Han immigrants to Xinjiang has caused serious tensions and even clashes.13 One report has it that in 1987, accusations by Uygur students that some comp., Zhongguo minzu tongji nianjian 1995 [China's Ethnic Statistical Yearbook 1995] (Minzu chubanshe Beijing, 1995) pp. 211, 213. 10 Jbid., p. 140. 11 For detailed discussion of population issues among China's minorities see Colin Mackerras, China's Minorities, Integration and Modernization in the Twentieth Century (Oxford University Press, Hong Kong 1994) pp. 233-59. 12 See Hongkong Standard (4 October 1988) p.7, reporting on the recent announcement of the policy by Ma Jicheng of the Xinjiang Family Planning Commission. 13 In April 1980 there was a clash between Han youths and soldiers in Aksu, southern Xinjiang, in which several hundred civilians and soldiers were killed or wounded. However, the primary concerns were resentments over conditions for the Han immigrants. See Mackerras, China's Minority Cultures p.173.

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Han counterparts were sexually harassing female Uygur students led to scattered fighting which took two weeks to suppress.14 In the 1990s, signs have re-emerged of secessionist problems in Xinjiang, beginning with an uprising at the beginning of the decade. On 21 April 1990, Xinjiang television reported that earlier that month a 'counter-revolutionary rebellion plotted by a small number of ruffians' had occurred in Baren township, Akto County, in Kizilsu Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture of southern Xinjiang. Over two days, secessionist forces fought with Chinese Government troops. The result was a devastating defeat for the former, with their leader being among the people killed. At the same time, Xinjiang television stations showed footage from the uprising, including the defeated but defiant secessionists. Sources in nearby Kaxgar told me, during my visit there in 1994, that ordinary people had been cowed by seeing the footage but nevertheless reacted to the secessionists with both sympathy and admiration for their courage in taking on the overwhelmingly powerful Chinese forces. lt is likely that the spark for the rebellion came from Islamic revivalists. But, at least according to the plausible account of the authorities, it developed into an attempt to set up an independent Islamic Xinjiang. The leadership consisted of 'extremely reactionary political forces whose aim was to undermine the motherland's unification and unity among nationalities and practise splittism of nationalities'. The lesson was that 'splittist forces within and outside the country' posed the most important threat to Xinjiang's political stability .15

Although this was by far the most serious incident in the first half of the decade, others have followed. On 5 February 1992 a bomb exploded on a parked bus in the Xinjiang capital Ürümqui, killing six people and wounding a further twenty .16 Again, on 17 June 1993 two bombs exploded in the Oasis Hotel in Kaxgar which

14 Carl Goldstein, 'Letter from Xinjiang', Far Eastern Economic Review vol. 145, no. 31 (3 August 1989) p. 37. 15 See the report in 'Quarterly Chronicle and Documentation', The China Quarterly no. 123 (September 1990) p. 583. 16 'A Time Bomb in the West', Asiaweek vol. 18, no. 15 (10 April 1992) p. 28.

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seriously damaged the building and killed three people. On both occasions blame fell on Muslim separatists.17 A particularly serious separatist incident took place on 5 and 6 February 1997 in Yining, capital of the Yili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture in north Xinjiang. Uygur leaders planned independence demonstrations for the end of Ramadan, but the police were tipped off and began arresting activists. Rioting erupted when the police entered a mosque and tried to arrest religious students. More than 1,000 people, mostly Uygurs, began rampaging through the streets, assaulting Han people on sight, setting shops on fire and vandalising vehicles. Meanwhile, some separatists staged a demonstration against a Government building, shouting anti-Chinese slogans. The local government reacted by sending some 1,000 police. By the end of the unrest at least ten people were killed, mostly Han and including a police official stabbed to death, with over 100 wounded.18 Long before this incident, the Government had clearly become very worried about growing secessionist feeling and activity. In a speech in honour of the fortieth anniversary of the founding (1 October 1955) of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Wang Zhaoguo, Head of the United Front Work Department of the Central Party Committee, blamed forces outside the country, and apparently mainly the Americans, for the revival of secessionism in the 1990s. He said: 'We have noticed that some hostile forces in the world have supported activities aimed at splitting the country and have carried out religious infiltrations, hoping that it will lead to China "breaking up" and becoming Westernised'.19 From 3 to 6 May 1996, the Xinjiang CCP held a work conference to discuss issues related to the Autonomous Region's stability. According to the Region's main newspaper, the meeting expressed alarm at the growth of secessionism in Xinjiang in the previous few years and blamed 'intensified infiltrative, splittist and subversive l 7 Dru C. Gladney, 'Ethnic ldentity in China: The New Politics of Difference', in William A. Joseph (ed.), China Briefing 1994 (Westview Press, Boulder, San Francisco, Oxford 1994) p. 183. 18 See China News Digest, Global News no. GL 97-019 (12 February 1997) item 32, itself dated 11 February 1997. China News Digest appears daily on the Internet. 19 See Gao Anming, in China Daily (25 September 1995) p. 1.

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Same Observations on Xinjiang in the 1990s

activities in Xinjiang by some hostile forces in the West'. lt claimed that separatists were organising terrorist activities, riots and bombings. 20 The meeting adopted several measures to try to stop such violent anti-Chinese activities, although the outbreak of disturbances in 1997 showed that they were at best only partially successful. In the first place it called for the reorganisation of 'weak and lax' CCP branches, especially those dominated by Muslims. lt claimed that some CCP cadres had not been trained properly and implied that some of them had even supported secessionism. lt mentioned that some people had persecuted and sought revenge against CCP members, cadres and activities, and called on relevant personnel to investigate such cases as soon as they occurred in order to prevent any repetition. The work conference insisted that one of the best ways to halt secessionism in its tracks was to promote economic development. A key passage of the final communique read as follows: Seizing opportunities to speed up economic development and improve the people's livelihood is the most important, basic work to do to ensure Xinjiang's stability. Only by continuing to speed up Xinjiang's economic and social development and narrowing the differences between coastal areas and interior provinces and regions, as well as by accelerating the region's economic development and improving the people's livelihood every year, can we strengthen the conviction of people of all ethnic groups in supporting the CCP leadership, follow the path of building socialism with Chinese characteristi cs and take the initiative in resisting and combating national separatism and all sorts of sabotage activities.21

Although they will never hesitate to suppress secessionism with what brutality appears necessary to them, the Chinese authorities are convinced that the real eure lies in promoting economic development. People with füll stomachs and a rising standard of living are more likely to be satisfied with the political order - and less likely to rise in rebellion - than those who are hungry, poor and miserable. So the. official response is a kind of stick and carrot approach. 20 Xinjiang Daily 7 May 1996, as quoted by Jane Macartney, 'China Moselm Region Lashes Out Against Separatism', Reuter News Service (12 May 1996). 21 BBC Monitoring Service: Asia-Pacific (9 May 1996) from Xinjiang Television, Ürümqi, in Modem Standard Chinese, evening report of 6 May 1996.

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The Chinese Govemment is clearly very concemed about the possibility of Xinjiang's secession. lt fears that if this were to happen, it would be the signal for China as a whole to fall apart just as the Soviet Union did when the Baltic States were allowed to withdraw from the Soviet Union in 1991. For the present Chinese Govemment, as for others before it, national unity occupies the highest of all priorities. As China modemises, the authorities have become more and more concemed that the United States would like to see it follow the Soviet Union into disintegration, fearing the challenge it might pose to American hegemony. This fear is at the root of the blame China consistently lays at the door of the Americans for stirring up trouble in Xinjiang. And the references to outside forces, especially those from the West, shows how large such alleged American trouble-making looms in the minds of Chinese authorities. However this is not the only source of China's fear. Another one is Islamic extremism, and 'illegal religious activities' will be discussed in more detail in the next section. For China the worst nightmare would be for that kind of extremist Islam, which has already caused serious problems both in neighbouring Tajikistan and Afghanistan, to spill over into China. During my visit to the Tajik area of southern Xinjiang in 1994 it was obvious that, while peace prevailed, people were casting a wary eye over the nearby border with Tajikistan, which was tightly sealed in order to prevent the emergence of problems due to secessionist Muslims. The irony is that, with the fall of the Soviet Union, China appeared to have won relief from the threat to its north and west. But in place of the Soviet threat has come another in the form of pan-Islamism. While the present govemments remain in power in the Central Asian successor states of the Soviet Union, which are in fact not very different in texture from their predecessors, the threat to China is not substantial. But this could change if Islamic extremists were to come to power, such as those represented by the Taliban of Afghanistan. To counter the threat, China has gone out of its way to befriend the govemments of the states of Central Asia, especially those which border it to the west. On 26 April 1996 the Presidents of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia and Tajikistan signed a security

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agreement in Shanghai. The aim was to build mutual trust in military affairs along their borders. Almost exactly a year later (24 April 1997), the Presidents of the same five countries met again and signed a second agreement. This time the venue was Moscow and the terms included troop and armament reductions and limitations along mutual borders. The agreements clearly signalled a commonality of interests among these five in maintaining the status qua and preventing the emergence of any border problems in the region. The Impact of Religion During the Cultural Revolution decade (1966-76), virtually all religious activities were suppressed and believers persecuted. Apart from that, the policy of the CCP on religion has been to tolerate it and allow people the right to believe or not believe in it. However, within this tolerance there are certain very specific restrictions. Religion may not interfere in politics and, most important of all, must not be used for secessionist purposes. After religion revived in China in the early 1980s, the CCP Central Committee issued an official communique on the subject in March 1982 spelling out the areas of freedom and restrictions. Because of the importance of religion in the lives of certain of the minorities, the communique declared that the rules should be applied flexibly among them.22 The main minorities for whom religion remains very important are the Tibetans and the Islamic nationalities, including those of Xinjiang.23 The CCP has been very keen to control the clergy of the major religions as far as it can. Realising how influential they can be in their own communities, it has taken steps to win their support for Government measures and, above all, to prevent them from organising secessionist activities. One illustrative document comes from the Xinjiang Yearbook for 1993 which states that during the preceding year, the focus of work of the Autonomous Region's 22 For a detailed summary of the document in English, see Julian F. Pas, 'Introduction: Chinese Religion in Transition', in Julian F. Pas (ed.), The Turning of the Tide, Religion in China Today (Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society and Oxford University Press, Hong Kong 1989) pp. 7-12. 23 On policy towards religion among the minorities, see Mackerras, China's Minority Cultures pp. 109-14.

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religious departments had been on preserving social stability and promoting economic construction. The first item on the agenda was 'strengthening education in patriotism, socialism and ethnic unity among the clergy'. 24

Islamic Revival in Xinjiang While in Xinjiang in 1994, I heard from two independent sources that the number of functioning mosques in the Autonomous Region was about 20,000. Many men go to the mosque for prayer, especially on Friday, a fact which I was able to verify. Women, although not allowed into the mosques, pray at home. Virtually all Uygurs whom I had the chance to ask about it claimed that they believed in Islam, some associating their faith directly with Uygur identity and hostility to the Han. The ban on pork is universally implemented. Several imams interviewed complained that young men did not follow Islamic proscriptions on smoking and drinking alcoholic beverages as much as they should or as used to be the case. Nevertheless, surveys carried out in Xinjiang in 1983 and 1984 suggest that the Region's Muslim men do not drink or smoke as much as their non-Islamic counterparts either in Xinjiang or elsewhere in China. 25 All informants consulted in 1994 claimed that male circumcision had been practised universally for baby boys for at least twenty years. An area of special importance for the future of Islam is the training of clergy, andin this field also the Islamic revival is doing well. One of the largest buildings in Ürümqi is the Theological College. Built in 1987 with a grant of over US$ l million from the World Islamic Development Bank, this College takes in a cohort of about 100 male high-school graduates every fifth year with each group undertaking a course lasting five years, so that one group graduates before the next is enrolled. After graduation from the College the students mostly become imams or religious teachers in their own home towns. Mature Islamic clergy also come to attend classes from all over Xinjiang, but stay only for a year at a time. The courses are 70 per cent religious, concerning such matters as the 24 Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Local Gazetteer Editorial Committee, comp., Xinjiang nianjian 1993 [Xinjiang Yearbook 1993) (Xinjiang Renmin chubanshe, Ürümqi 1993) p. 337. 25 See Mackerras, China's Minority Cultures p.116.

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Koran, Islamic history, and the customs and ways of the Islamic world. The remaining 30 percent is secular and covers such matters as literature and international and domestic politics. There are strict criteria and examinations for entry into this College, especially in knowledge of religion and the Koran. Students all live on the spot and tuition, accommodation and food are free, the costs being covered by the Xinjiang Regional and Ürümqi Municipal Governments. Already in 1994 fees had been introduced into the normal school system; and to me it was very striking that these Governments, led by a Marxist-Leninist party, were prepared to pay fully for the training of Islamic clergy but not for their own regular secular education. In addition to this College, there are training schools for imams at some of the larger mosques. At the Kazihana Mosque in Turpan, which I visited early in October 1994, a new cohort of fifteen had just been enrolled. Courses last for two years, consisting of Arabic language, the lives of Muhammad and of other holy people, the Koran, the history, law, mies and customs of Islam, and Chinese Government policy and law. Students live on the spot but pay tuition fees of ~50 per year (equivalent at that time to just over US$6) which is a little more than the annual ~48 parents paid at that time for their children to attend junior secondary school.

Islam and Politics in Xinjiang One issue of considerable moment for Xinjiang in the 1990s is the inter-relationship between Islam and politics. lt should be mentioned as background that in 1989 there was a China-wide Islamic movement against a book on sexual customs, which Muslims considered insulting to their religion. This movement resulted in the burning of many copies of the book, the closure of the press which had published it and the imprisonment of the three editors. lt was thus definitely successful from Islam's point of view, seeing a Govemment led by a communist party agree to demands put forward by Muslims and their clergy. Xinjiang was involved in the protest movement.26 lt appears from this example that where it does not see its own power as under threat, the CCP has been prepared to 26 On this and other matters involving the relationship between Islam and politics in China, see Mackerras, China's Minority Cultures pp. 124-7.

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take a surprisingly tolerant attitude towards religious involvement in what could be interpreted as a political matter. However, it appears that the policy of the CCP hardened noticeably during the mid-1990s. In Xinjiang, the CCP work conference of May 1996 had quite a bit to say about Islam and was quite caustic about its political involvement. Although it did not name the religion, the context makes the following references very clear: We must courageously and lawfully strengthen supervision over religious activities. This year, religion has time and again interfered directly with administrative affairs, judicial operations, education, planned parenthood and other social affairs in flagrant violation of state laws and policies governing religious affairs; and religion has fooled and coerced certain people - who are ignorant and uninitiated and have simple feelings towards religion - to carry out separatist and sabotage activities.27

The main reason for the change in policy comes in the last sentence. The CCP has become convinced that some Muslims are using the tolerance which policy extends to them to push for an independent Xinjiang and to gain outside support for this endeavour, especially from the United States. After the May 1996 work conference, Xinjiang's main newspaper cited a surge in subversion, bombings and terrorist activities, adding that 'almost all of these had a background of ethnic splittist activism, and not one was not linked to illegal religious activities'.28 A personal experience in Xinjiang in October 1994 leads me to believe that the CCP has reason to suspect that certain committed Muslims form the strongest support for Xinjiang's independence. 1 went to a mosque where some men were just coming out of evening prayer. 1 asked for an interview which was readily granted. We went into the mosque's interior, where three of about a dozen men regaled me with passionate attacks on the Chinese for such crimes as their suppression of Uygur independence and Koranic education. They denounced the name Xinjiang for its Chinese origin, demanding that an independent country be called the East Turkestan Republic. They regarded the Chinese notion of autonomy as totally fraudulent, and 27 BBC Monitoring Service: Asia-Pacific (9 May 1996); from Xinjiang Television (6 May 1996). 28 Xinjiang Daily, 7 May 1996, as quoted by Reuter News Service (12 May 1996).

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the exemption for minorities from the one-child-per-couple policy as simply a trick. The realities were that Xinjiang was totally subject to the Chinese, who were trying to wipe out Islam and the Uygurs through their birth control and other policies. They attacked their own imam as being in the pocket of the Government which suggests to me that it is not necessarily the clergy which takes the lead in secessionist movements. A matter related to the issue of the inter-relationship between politics and religion is whether CCP members may also be Muslims. Since the CCP is avowedly Marxist and hence atheist, while the most important single tenet of Islam is belief in a single God, one might assume the answer should be no. However, in the March 1982 CCP Central Committee decision on religion, a particular point emerged that among some nationalities 'nationality and religion are one and the same thing'. Thus minority CCP members should be, at least in part, exempt from the rule forbidding CCP members to believe in religion or participate in religious activities.29 The CCP's fear is that if members are not allowed to believe in religion, they will become 'divorced from the masses'. During my visit to Xinjiang in 1994 I was told that, while CCP members may believe in Islam and attend such ceremonies as funerals, they may not pray at the mosque five times a day or on Fridays. Even this rule was not being applied fully. One Tajik government worker told me that, despite being a member of the CCP, he did in fact sometimes pray several times a day and quite frequently at the mosque on Friday. In the late 1980s and 1990s, following the secessionist problems in Tibet from 1987 and in Xinjiang, the pressures have been building on CCP members among religiously-dedicated minorities to follow Party rules more closely, and the exemptions have begun to disappear. In a speech Premier Li Peng made on 18 January 1992 at the closing session of a central nationalities work conference, he alluded to this issue directly: 'As for members of CCP, they should all support materialism and atheism, no matter what their nationality' .30 And, as far as Xinjiang is concerned, the 29 Pas, 'lntroduction' in Pas (ed.), The Turning ofthe Tide pp. 10-11. 30 'Guowuyuan zongli Li Peng zai Zhongyang minzu gongzuo huiyi bimu huishang de jianghua' ['Speech by State Council Premier Li Peng at the Central

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communique from the May 1996 work conference stated specifically: 'Communist party members and party cadres are Marxist materialists and atheists. They shall not believe in any religion or take part in religious activities'.31

Conclusion: The Prospects for the Future The tendency in many parts of the world appears to be in the direction of the disintegration of large states. If the trend set by the Soviet Union were applied to China, then it could fall apart upon the overthrow of the CCP. If the central government of a successor state to the PRC were to prove weak and ineffectual, then Xinjiang might well gain independence as the East Turkestan Republic, with American and other foreign support. However, there is an alternative scenario. In an article published in March 1993, Lillian Craig Harris wrote: 'Indications are that Islam in Xinjiang remains factionalised and politically disorganised'. She believed that some, or even many, 'may want political independence in Xinjiang', but that 'it is doubtful that there is at present a way'.3 2 The strength of the Government's concern over 'splittist' activities and the national unity of China, especially as reflected in the communique from the work conference of May 1996, would appear to suggest that it sees secessionist feelings as increasing rather than declining, and the outbreak of disturbances in Yining in 1997 confirms the validity of that belief. However, I believe that Lillian Craig Harris' observations are still valid in 1997. The strongest wish for an East Turkestan Republic independent of China comes from the Uygurs. Other Turkic nationalities have far less interest, far less to gain, and far more to lose from such a development because they would merely be swapping one master for another. As for the Han and the Hui, they will oppose it strongly, just as they have done in the past. In Xinjiang, the Hui frequently identify more with the Han Chinese than with their fellow Muslims among the Uygurs and other nationalities, and in the twentieth Nationalities Work Conference Closing Session'] in Zhongguo minzu tongji nia?Jian ( 1949-1994) p. 13. 1 BBC Monitoring Service: Asia-Pacific (9 May 1996); from Xinjiang Television (6 May 1996). 32 L.C. Harris, 'Xinjiang, Central Asia and the Implications for China's Policy in the Islamic World', The China Quarterly no. 133 (March 1993) p. 122.

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century they have generally been far more loyal to the Chinese state than have the Uygurs. The Chinese Govemment currently shows a much more united will to hold on to Xinjiang than the Uygurs or Muslims do in the opposite direction. lt is surely sensible for China, Russia and the countries of Central Asia to strengthen their alliances against any pan-Islamist threats while they have the chance. For all its weaknesses, Russia still wields considerable military and political clout in the Central Asian republics, and Russia and China have a common interest in maintaining the status qub. As for the United States, despite China's consistent complaints, it has no interest in investing enough military assistance to secessionist forces in Xinjiang to split the region off from China. Minor, and even increasing, troubles are likely. Full-scale victorious war against China's military might is not. The economy may be the key. The lesson from the Soviet Union was that economic decline over several years was a major, and perhaps the main, spark to political disintegrat ion and Party overthrow. The Chinese are probably right in thinking that the best way to prevent such occurrences in their own country is to continue expanding the economy and providing a higher standard of living for the people. In the 1990s, Xinjiang's economy is progressin g rapidly with gross domestic product growth of 13.1 per cent in 1992 over 1991, 8.5 per cent in 1993 and 12.9 per cent in 1994.33 This growth may be too fast to sustain over the long haul, and how long such rates continue may depend on what happens in China as a whole. But for China the biggest worry must be not so much a slow-down but negative growth rates, such as afflicted the Soviet Union in its last years. If the past is any guide to the future, then China will do everything it can to hold itself together, andin particular to continue its rule in Xinjiang. lt is notable that, even in the period from the 1920s to the 1940s, the central Chinese and Xinjiang Govemments always regarded the region as part of China. That was a period of considerable disunity in China with the Japanese invasion and pressure on Xinjiang from the Soviet Union. The lesson appears to be that the power of the central Chinese Govemment would need to disintegrate very drastically before it could be forced to allow Xinjiang to secede from China. While anything is possible, such an eventuality appears extremely unlikely over the next decade or two.

33 See Xinjiang nianjian 1993 p. 115, Zhongguo minzu tongji nianjian 1949-1994 p. 122 and Zhongguo minzu tongji nianjian 1995 p. 172.

THE DYNAMICS OF REGIME TRANSITION IN AFGHANISTA N WILLIAM MALEY

Afghanistan is in the midst of a remarkable process of political transition. This transition is one of unusual complexity when compared to most of the cases which make up what Samuel Huntington has called the 'Third W ave' of democratisation. 1 As a result of the traumas of the last two decades, Afghanistan faces simultaneous crises of institutional decomposition and elite fragmentation - crises of state collapse2 - each of which inhibits the easy resolution of the other. Crises can supply opportunities as well as anguish. 'What infant democracy requires', wrote Dankwart A. Rustow in 1970, 'is not lukewarm struggle but a hot family feud'.3 With large sections of the Afghan capital reduced to mounds of rubble, it would take a brave commentator to paint Afghanistan either as an infant democracy or as on a path of democratisation. However, by examining the specific character of Afghanistan's crises, it is possible to develop a better sense of the trajectory of Afghan political development. In this article, 1 argue that one of Afghanistan's greatest difficulties is to execute the complementary tasks of institutionalising politics and uniting the national elite. lt is the latter challenge which hitherto has dominated the stormy politics of post-communist Afghanistan, but the former poses just as great a long-term problem. Without progress towards the development of legitimate national institutions, changes in the composition of the Afghan Government - whether as a result of bargaining between Afghan parties or orchestration by the United Nations - will leave Afghanistan in at best a fragile political equilibrium and exposed to the ruthless ambitions of ruthless neighbours. The article is divided into five sections. The first outlines the specific form of Afghanistan's 1 Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press 1991). 2 See 1. William Zartman, 'Introduction: Posing the Problem of State Collapse', in 1. William Zartman (ed.), Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority (Boulder: Lynne Rienner 1995) pp. 1-11. 3 Dankwart A. Rustow, 'Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model', Comparative Politics vol. 2, no. 3 (1970) pp. 337-363 at p. 355.

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institutional and elite crises, and how they arose. The second offers some theoretical perspectives on how such crises can be addressed. The third discusses some of the problems of addressing elite fragmentation in the Afghan context, and the fourth examines issues of institutional design. The conclusion briefly suggests why there are grounds for pessimism about Afghanistan's prospects.

The Roots of Crisis lt is many years since Afghanistan has had a fully legitimate national government. In putting forward this claim 1 am not making a moral judgment, but rather an assessment of the bases upon which Afghan governments have depended for their survival. A legitimate government is one which enjoys a high level of generalised normative support. 4 This entails more than mere compliance, which can be procured by coercive threats or delivered in exchange for some good; but which because of its conditional character does not provide the robust foundation for regime survival which legitimacy supplies, and can be quite expensive to extract.5 A legitimate government need not enjoy the active endorsement of all groups in society, but it must enjoy at least some active backing, and provoke no more than passive dissatisfaction on the part of the remainder of the mass population. lt is worth noting that, even before the advent of communist rule, the reservoirs of governmental legitimacy in Afghanistan were not deep.6 While the Mohammadzai king Zahir Shah - who ruled from November 1933 until his ill-fated cousin Mohammad Daoud overthrew him in July 1973 - could claim a certain degree of traditional legitimacy, he was careful not to put it to the test through challenges to the core interests of Afghanistan's micro-societies. The widespread opposition, following the April 1978 coup, to the Marxist regimes of Nur Mohammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin ( 1978-1979) which contributed in large part to the 4 Amin Saikal and William Maley, Regime Change in Afghanistan: Foreign Intervention and the Politics of Legitimacy (Boulder: Westview Press 1991) pp. 11-12. 5 For a categorisation of different regime types according to their characteristic mixtures of compliance and support, see Richard Rose, 'Dynamic Tendencies in the Authority of Regimes', World Politics vol. 21, no. 4 (1969) pp. 602-628. 6 See William Maley, 'Political Legitimation in Contemporary Afghanistan', Asian Survey vol. 27, no. 6 (1987) pp. 705-725.

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Soviet decision to invade Afghanistan in December 1979; 7 the dependence of the Karmal regime ( 1979-1986) on Soviet military backing for its survival in the face of Mujahideen resistance; and the predictable collapse of Najibullah's regime (1986-1992) within weeks of its loss of Soviet financial backing, 8 all highlight the dependence of Afghanistan's communist regimes on non-legitimate forms of domination. Since the collapse of communist rule, there has been no single authority whose writ holds sway throughout the country.

lt is also many years since Afghanistan has had a unified national elite. National elites consist of competitors for control of the central govemment? and should be distinguished from local elites which have no aspiration to exercise nationwide power. The perils of disunified elites have recently been graphically painted by Burton, Gunther and Higley, and their analysis is worth quoting at some length, since Afghanistan appears to supply a paradigmatic case of the phenomenon to which they seek to draw attention:9 Communication and influence networks do not cross factional lines in any !arge way, and factions disagree on the rules of political conduct and the worth of existing political institutions. Accordingly, they distrust one another deeply; they perceive political outcomes in 'politics as war' or zero-sum terms; and they engage in unrestricted, often violent struggles for dominance. These features make regimes in countries with disunified elites fundamentally unstable, no matter whether they are authoritarian or formally democratic. Lacking the communication and influence networks that might give them a satisfactory amount of access to government 7 A number of key Soviet documents dealing with the invasion decision have now been published in Moscow: see 'Sekretnye dokumenty iz osobykh papok: Afganistan', Voprosy istorii (1993) 3 pp. 3-32; 'Dokumenty sovetskogo rukovodstva o polozhenii v Afganistane. 1979-1980', Novaia i noveishaia istoriia (1996) 3 pp. 91-99. For discussion of some of these and other files, see Odd Arne Westad, 'Prelude to Invasion: The Soviet Union and the Afghan Communists, 1978-1979', International History Review vol. 16, no. 1 (1994) pp. 49-69; Raymond Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation: American-Sovie t Relations from Nixon to Reagan (Washington DC: The Brookings Institution 1994) pp. 977-1075. 8 See William Maley, 'Soviet-Afghan Relations after the Coup', Report on the USSR vol. 3, no. 38 (20 September 1991) pp. 11-15 at p. 15. 9 Michael Burton, Richard Gunther, and John Higley, 'Introduction: elite transformations and democratic regimes', in John Higley and Richard Gunther (eds), Elites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1992) pp. 1-37 at p. 10.

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decision-making and disagreeing on the rules of the game and the worth of existing institutions, most factions in a disunified elite see the existing regime as the vehicle by which a dominant faction promotes its interests. To protect and promote their own interests, therefore, they must destroy or cripple the regime and elites who operate it. Irregular and forcible power seizures, attempted seizures, or a widespread expectation that such seizures may occur are thus a by-product of elite disunity.

Given the high level of socio-cultural differentiation in Afghanistan, lO elite disunity was a likely consequence of even the mild modernisation experienced in the 1950s and 1960s, and the opening of the political system from 1964 under the rubric of 'New Democracy' exacerbated rather than mitigated the problem. The roots of elite disunity were multifarious - reflecting social structure, the appearance of opportunities to mobilise the population of Kabul for different political purposes, and the crystallisation of different ideological positions in a time of intellectual ferment - but the consequences were straightforward and catastrophic. The coup of April 1978 was fundamentally the product of the emergence of severe division within the national elite, 11 and elite disunity has poisoned Afghan politics to this very day.12 lf Afghanistan were enmeshed only in a governmental crisis of legitimacy and elite fragmentation, it would not differ markedly from 10 See Louis Dupree, 'Ethnography', in Ehsan Yarshater (ed.), Encyclopaedia !ranica (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1985) vol. 1, pp. 495-501; Erwin Orywal (ed.), Die ethnischen Gruppen Afghanistans (Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag 1986); Rolf Bindemann, Religion und Politik bei den schi'itischen Hazara in Afghanistan, Iran und Pakistan (Berlin: Verlag Das Arabische Buch 1987); Pierre Centlivres and Micheline Centlivres-Demont, Et si on parlait de !'Afghanistan? (Paris: Editions de la Maison des science de l'homme 1988); Jean-Pierre Digard (ed.), Lefait ethnique en Iran et en Afghanistan (Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique 1988); Pierre Centlivres, 'La nouvelle carte ethnique de !'Afghanistan', Les Nouvelles d'Afghanistan no. 47 (1990) pp.4-11; Nassim Jawad, Afghanistan: A Nation of Minorities (London: Minority Rights Group 1992). 11 On the pre-Communist elite, see Abdullah Aziz, Essai sur les cate'gories dirigeantes de !'Afghanistan 1945-1963: Mode de vie et comportement politique (Berne: Peter Lang 1987); Barnett R. Rubin, 'The Old Regime in Afghanistan: Recruitment and Training of a State Elite', Central Asian Survey vol. 10, no. 3 (1991) pp. 73-100. 12 See Oli vier Roy, 'The New Political Elite of Afghanistan', in Myron Weiner and Ali Banuazizi (eds), The Politics of Social Transformation in Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press 1994) pp. 72-100.

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a number of other Third World countries which have accomplished the transition to a more democratic order. However, Afghanistan additionally faces a complex institutional crisis resulting from both the disguised but profound decay of the state in the aftermath of the 1978 coup, and from the effects of war on Afghan society. The power of some traditionally legitimate institutions has been undermined; new institutions vary greatly in the degrees to which they can command normative support. The consequence has been a destructuring of the political process at numerous levels. Institutions provide the context of political struggle, and institutional stability is almost always a prerequisite for stable politics. The state - viewed as 'a complex set of institutional arrangements for rule' which 'reserves to itself the business of rule over a territorially-bounded society•I3 - is perhaps the most important political institution in all modern polities, and one whose disintegration in Afghanistan has important implications for the prospects for political order. As an autonomousl y-effective institution, the Afghan state largely collapsed in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion. lt lacked both secure revenue sources and cohesive bureaucratic agencies.14 The extent of this collapse was disguised by Soviet subventions, but once these ceased to arrive the crisis of the state came to a head: the state simply did not have the key capacities of a state noted by Joel S. Migdal, namely 'to penetrate society, regulate social relationships, extract resources, and appropriate or use resources in determined ways' _15 Unlike many revolutionarie s, the Afghan Mujahideen acquired a wretched heritage, and any Afghan government will be forced to live with this legacy for years to come. However, Afghanistan's institutional crisis runs somewhat deeper than a mere crisis of state cohesion. The wages of war created new social roles which intruded on the authority of existing traditional power holders: the role of Mujahideen commander (qamandan) was the most important example. More importantly, war created new 13 Gianfranco Poggi, The Development of the Modem State: A Sociological lntroduction (London: Hutchinson 1978) p. 1. 14 See Barnett R. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System (New Haven: Yale University Press 1995) pp. 153-164. 15 Joel S. Migdal, Strang Societies and Weak States: State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1988) p. 4.

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institutional forms, augmenting and in some spheres replacing traditional leaderships. First, political parties (tanzimat) played a prominent role within the Afghan resistance. While bearing little resemblance organisationally to parties of the kind found in Western countries, 16 they differed widely from each other in both ideology and operation. A number, including the Hezb-i Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Ittehad-i Islami of Abdul Rabb al-Rasul Sayyaf, and (initially) the Iranian-backed Hezb-i Wahdat, to a considerable degree mirrored the agendas of foreign patrons whose support ensured that they would not simply fade away.17 Second, as Gilles Dorronsoro has noted, the political landscape was changed by the appearance of 'embryonic regional states in Herat andin the zone controlled by [Ahmad Shah] Massoud in the north-east', 18 with the latter pre-dating even the collapse of the communist regime. Massoud, perhaps the best-known Mujahideen commander, built an organisation which left traditional structures in place at the primary, village level, but injected a new form of military organisation at a higher level which constituted a power base from which to engage in national political activity.19

16 Fora good survey of usages of the term 'party', see Gerald M. Pomper, 'Concepts of Political Parties', Journal of Theoretical Politics vol. 4, no. 2 (1992) pp. 143-159. 17 For appraisals of the resistance parties, see Olivier Roy, L 'Afghanistan: Islam et modernite politique (Paris: Editions du Seuil 1985); Eden Naby, 'The Afghan Resistance Movement', in Ralph H. Magnus (ed.), Afghan Alternatives: Issues, Options, and Policies (New Brunswick: Transaction Books 1985) pp. 59-81; Eden Naby, 'The Changing Role of Islam as a Unifying Force in Afghanistan', in Ali Banuazizi and Myron Weiner (eds), The State, Religion, and Ethnic Politics: Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press 1986) pp. 124-154; Eden Naby, 'Islam within the Afghan Resistance', Third World Quarterly vol. 10, no. 2 (1988) pp. 787-805; Graham Fuller, Islamic Fundamentalism in Afghanistan: Its Character and Prospects (Santa Monica: RAND R3970-USDP 1991); Asta Olesen, Islam and Politics in Afghanistan (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1995); Olivier Roy, Afghanistan: From Holy War to Civil War (Princeton: The Darwin Press 1995). 18 Gilles Dorronsoro, 'Afghanistan's Civil War', Current History vol. 94, no. 588 (1995) pp. 37-40 at p. 37. 19 Olivier Roy, L'echec de !'Islam politique (Paris: Editions du Seuil 1992) pp. 200-203.

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Third, insofar as the uncompromising, anti-modernist, fundamentalist Taliban - an overwhelmingly Sunni, Pushtun force which seized the cities of Kandahar in 1994, Herat in 1995, and finally Jalalabad and Kabul in 1996, comprising not only Islamic students, but also 'communists ... who have abandoned their old ideas', as well as 'supporters from the era of Zahir Shah'20 - are 'partially institutionalised, value-oriented and anti-systemic in their form and symbolism',21 they ostensibly resemble a social movement in the sociological sense of the term, which again is a novel development in Afghan politics. This could lead one to doubt their durability as a political force, and Sidney Tarrow's recent comments on the dynamics of social movements are pertinent: Internally, a good part of the power of movements comes from the fact that they activate people over whom they have no control. This power is a virtue because it allows movements to mount collective actions without possessing the resources that would be necessary to internalize a support base. But the autonomy of their supporters also disperses the movement's power, encourages factionalism and leaves it open to defection, competition and repression.22

If the Taliban remain a united force, it will not be simply because

they reflect the aspiration for order on the part of non-elite Pushtuns who were long the victims of repression by Pushtun qamandanan, but because they are organisationally a creation of the Pakistani military, whose involvement in the Taliban push to seize the Afghan capital was clearly established by the capture by the Taliban 's opponents of numerous Pakistani prisoners;23 and because they

20 See the remarks of Mawlawi Moharnmad Masum Afghani, quoted in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts FE/2234/A/l, 22 February 1995. For informative accounts of the antecedents of the Taliban, see Olivier Roy, 'Le mouvement des taleban en Afghanistan', Afghanistan Info no. 36 (1995) pp. 5-7; Bernard Dupaigne, 'L'emergence du mouvement des Taleban', Les Nouvelles d'Afghanistan no. 68 (1995) pp. 13-17; Anthony Davis, 'Afghanistan's Taliban', Jane's Intelligence Review vol. 7, no. 7 (1995) pp. 315-321. 21 Jan Pakulski, Social Movements: The Politics of Moral Protest (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire 1991) p. xiv. 22 Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action, and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1994) p. 23. 23 See Edward Barnes, 'Friends of the Taliban', Time Magazine, (4 November 1996) p.54; Anthony Davis, 'The Not So Hidden Hand: How Pakistanis help the Taliban crusade', Asiaweek (29 November 1996) p.28.

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enjoy a degree of support from some US circles by virtue of their perceived hostility to Washington's regional opponent, Iran.24 For three reasons, the emergence of these new institutional forms has not in itself solved Afghanistan's institutional crisis. First, they have not succeeded in stabilising relations between each other: they do not constitute a system of institutions which could provide a stable framework for the practice of politics. Second, they have not yet established that they are functional. lt is not sufficient for stable politics that a country be endowed with institutions. What is essential "is that its institutions be able to assist the resolution of a society's problems by either facilitating or constraining the actions of other political actors, including external forces with a disposition to meddle in the country's affairs. Especially when a country's geopolitical position is as unfavourable as that of contemporary Afghanistan - sandwiched between regional powers with very different interests - its problems of institutional functionality are likely tobe acute and intractable. Third, normative support for some of the new institutions has eroded considerably in recent times: the tanzimat come immediately to mind, but the Taliban may also be vulnerable in this respect, as their heavy reliance on coercion to maintain control in the persophone cities of Herat and Kabul makes clear.25 That said, it is still possible that Afghanista n's governmen tal and institutional crises will be resolved. In the following remarks 1 examine some theoretical perspectives on how this might happen.

Theoretic al Perspectiv es on Political Reconstru ction Political theory offers no easy solutions to the problem of governmen tal illegitimacy. While 'state' and 'government' are conceptually distinct, the issue of governmental legitimacy is tied to the legitimacy of the state, since a government comprises those who exercise custody over the state's nominal instrumentalities. Where the state is illegitimate, the govemment is likely tobe so as well. 24 See John Jennings, 'The Taliban and Foggy Bottom', The Washington Times (25 October 1996). 25 See Afghanistan: Taleban Take Hundreds of Civilians Prisoner (London: Amnesty International, ASA/11/07/96, 2 October 1996); Afghanistan: Grave abuses in the name of religion (London: Amnesty International, ASA 11/12/96, 18 November 1996).

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Thus, the emergence of a legitimate government is intimately linked to the resolution of crises of institutional identity and authority, a matter to which I will return shortly. However, even where the state is legitimate, the government need not be, and it may be necessary for the government to employ diverse strategies of legitimation if it is not to be overthrown. Weber highlighted traditional, charismatic and legal-rational bases for legitimate domination, and other scholars have pointed to the potential importance of teleological, paternalistic and nationalistic factors. 26 What strategies will work depends very much on the distinct attributes of the society in which they are deployed. The problem of elite fragmentation can be resolved in a number of different ways. Higley and Burton have outlined two possible forms of elite transformation. The first is elite convergence, which comes about in two steps. 'In step one', they argue, 'some of the warring factions enter into sustained, peaceful collaboration in electoral politics in order to mobilize a reliable electoral majority, win elections repeatedly, and thereby protect their interests by dominating government executive power. In step two, the major hostile factions opposing this coalition eventually tire of losing elections and, seeing no other way to gain government power (for example, through a coup), gradually abandon their distinct ideological and policy stances and adopt essentially those of the winning coalition'.27 The second is elite settlement. Elite settlements are 'relatively rare events in which warring national elite factions suddenly and deliberately reorganize their relations by 26 For Weber's classic formulation, see Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press 1978) vol. 1, pp. 215. For further discussion of the concept of legitimacy, see Lucian W. Pye, 'The Legitimacy Crisis', in Leonard Binder et al, Crises and Sequences in Political Development (Princeton; Princeton University Press 1971) pp. 135-158; T.H. Rigby and Ferenc Feher (eds), Political Legitimation in Communist States (London: Macmillan 1982); Rodney Barker, Political Legitimacy and the State (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1990); David Beetham, The Legitimation of Power (London: Macmillan 1991); Leslie Holmes, The End of Communist Power: Anti-Corruption Campaigns and Legitimation Crisis (New York: Oxford University Press 1993). 27 John Higley and Michael G. Burton, 'The Elite Variable in Democratic Transitions and Breakdowns', American Sociological Review vol. 54, no. 1 (1989) pp. 17-32 at p.21.

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negotiating compromises on their most basic disagreements'.28 They tend to occur in response to two developments - 'recent elite experience of costly, but also essentially inconclusive conflict' and 'the occurrence of a major crisis which provokes elite action'.29 They differ from the inter-group pacts which have been widely discussed in democratic transition literature in that they are more inclusive. 30 To these two forms of elite transformation 1 would add a third, namely elite restructuring, in which the employment of force produces a beneficial change in the composition of the national elite, either through the elimination of parties or a fundamental change in the nature of their power. On occasion, elites may contain forces which, through a craving for power, simply refuse to co-operate with others. The elimination or reconstitution of such recalcitrant forces from a national elite can either leave a single unified elite in place, or pave the way for an elite settlement between the forces which remain on the scene once the initial task of elite restructuring is accomplished. While the short-term costs of elite restructuring can be very high, sometimes a national elite is simply too deeply divided for any other path to a unified elite to be taken. At this point, it is worth noting also that elite transformations can be facilitated by external developments and agents. Diplomacy may help overcome the cognitive barriers to an elite settlement by providing a neutral venue in which parties can meet or a neutral channel through which they can communicate. Such diplomatic interventions must, however, be executed with the greatest of care, for the mere appearance on the scene of a 'peacemaker' can affect the bargaining tactics of the parties, and on occasion induce them to adopt more intransigent positions. Even the peacemaker's selection of parties with whom to deal may be an explosive issue.31 Military 28 Michael G. Burton and John Higley, 'Elite Settlements', American Sociological Review vol. 52, no. 3 (1987) pp. 295-307 at p. 295. 29 lbid., p. 298. 30 See Guillermo O'Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore: Th.e Johns Hopkins University Press 1986) pp. 37-39; Giuseppe DiPalma, To Craft Democracies: An Essay on Democratic Transitions (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press 1990) pp. 86-90. 31 For more detailed discussion of this question, see William Maley, 'Peacekeeping and Peacemaking', in Ramesh Thakur and Carlyle A. Thayer (eds), A Crisis of Expectations: UN Peacekeeping. in the J 990s (Boulder: Westview Press 1995) pp. 237-250.

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intervention or assistance may aid the process of elite restructuring, but unless it is massive it will do so only if, to quote Richard Betts, 'the intervenor takes sides, tips the local balance of power, and helps one of the rivals to win - that is, if it is not impartial'. 32 lt is also possible to resolve crises of institutional disintegration. One way of doing this is through the design and installation of new institutions, usually as a result of bargaining between important power holders. Most exercises in constitution-making fall into this category. Nevertheless, institutions designed in this way need not necessarily take root. They may lack the features of revisability, robustness, sensitivity to motivational complexity, and variability which Goodin has persuasively argued are desirable if institutions are to prove effective.33 Furthermore, Harry Eckstein has argued that 'a government will tend to be stable if its authority pattern is congruent with the other authority patterns of the society of which it is a part',34 and this proposition can easily be extended to cover political institutions. However, the character of institutions is not exclusively determined by culture; institutions are shaped by attitudes, but attitudes can change in the light of an institution's performance. Potentially as important a determinant of whether institutions will flourish or wither is the availability of resources to fuel their operation. lnstitutions which are under-resourced may well take on a predatory character, as those managing them seek to maximise their personal gains in anticipation of the institutions' demise.35 A high level of institutionalisation, defined by one scholar as 'the process by which organizations and procedures acquire value and stability' and by another in terms of 'the extent to which institutions are truly "alive"',36 is above all achieved as 32 Richard K. Betts, 'The Delusion of Impartial Intervention', Foreign Affairs vol. 73, no. 6 (1994) pp. 20-33 at p.21. 33 Robert E. Goodin, 'Institutions and Their Design', in Robert E. Goodin (ed.), The Theory of Institutional Design (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1996) pp. 1-53 at pp. 39-43. 34 Harry Eckstein, Regarding Politics: Essays on Political Theory, Stability, and Change (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press 1992) p. 188. 35 On the theory of the predatory state, see Deepak Lai, The Hindu Equilibrium (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1988) vol. 1, pp. 294-306. 36 Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press 1968) p. 12; Jean Blonde!, Political Leadership: Towards a General Analysis (London: SAGE Publications 1987) p. 25.

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different parties accept that it is in their interests to respect an institution, given that others are doing so. Because of the time that this takes, institutional crises are not solved ovemight. The new institutions whose emergence and consolidation solve an institutional crisis need not be exclusively those of the state. As James Rosenau has recently argued, 'it is possible to conceive of governance without government - of regulatory mechanisms in a sphere of activity which function effectively even though they are not endowed with formal authority'. 37 This may seem improbable in the modern world, but as a detailed study has recently highlighted, the world contains many 'quasi-states' which combine a high degree of juridical sovereignty with a low degree of positive sovereignty. 38 In such states, institutions of governance are an indispensable source of order. Governance of its very nature is legitimate, and this is why it may provide a firmer basis for the restoration of social harmony than specifically-crafted bodies. On the other hand, stable, legitimate institutions are not necessarily democratic ones. lt is easy to forget how historically atypical democratic regimes have been.39 Thomas Hobbes's famous defence of the state as a source of security reminds one that in some circumstances the bulk of a population may regard freedom and the right to political participation as secondary rather than primary values.40 People choose from what seem to them tobe realistic options, and there is no certainty that liberal democracy will be part of the available menu.

Stabilising the Afghan Political Elite Afghanistan's dilemmas of elite fragmentation will not be easy to resolve. Elite convergences occur once the polity is sufficiently stable to allow electoral politics, and are premised on a degree of 37 James N. Rosenau, 'Governance, Order, and Change in World Politics', in James N. Rosenau and Ernst-Otto Czempiel, Governance without government: order and change in world politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1992J pp. 1-29 atp. 5. 3 Robert H. Jackson, Quasi-states: sovereignty, international relations and the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1990) pp. 21-31. . 39 See Georg Sorensen, Democracy and Democratization (Boulder: Westview Press 1993) p. 20. 40 See Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1991).

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political development which is simply not present in Afghanistan. Elite settlements, on the other hand, have been the principal objective not only of international mediators but also of the Afghan parties themselves. Afghanistan's experience with attempted elite settlements in recent years has not been promising. Despite the serious divisions between the parties of the Afghan resistance, numerous attempts were made at different times to stitch them together, most notoriously in the so-called 'Afghan Interim Government' established at the instigation of the Pakistan InterServices lntelligence Directorate (ISI) in Rawalpindi in 1989 .4 I This amounted to little more than a name on a piece of paper, and proved a positive embarrassment to its Pakistani backers once Hekmatyar withdrew in late 1989 following the murder by a Hezb-i Islami commander of a number of commanders linked to Massoud.42 With the collapse of the communist regime, a further attempt at an elite settlement became a matter of urgency. The result was the Peshawar Accord of 24 April 1992, which established two executive organs with ill-defined spheres of responsibility - an Interim Islamic Council and a Leadership Council, headed respectively by Professor Sebghatullah Mojadiddi, leader of the Jabha-i Milli Nijat, and Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani, leader of the Jamiat-i Islami, who served in turn as the first two presidents of post-commun ist Afghanistan.43 These again existed mainly on paper, andin no sense mapped the power realities in the country, in which survivors from the wreckage of the communist regime had sought to ally themselves with various Mujahideen groups and other forces had emerged, notably the former militia leader Abdul Rashid Dostam in north-eastern Afghanistan whose defection to Massoud had been a trigger of Najibullah's fall.44 The more serious flaw of the Peshawar Accord, however, was that it was premised on a degree of goodwill which simply was not present, something which became clear when Hekmatyar's forces, protesting the presence of 41 See Barnett R. Rubin, 'Afghanistan: Political Exiles in Search of a State', in Yossi Shain (ed.), Governments-in-Exile in Contemporary World Politics (London: Routledge 1991) pp. 69-91. 42 On this episode, see Saikal and Maley, op. cit., Ref 4, pp. 128-129. 43 The text of the Peshawar Accord appears as Appendix 1 in Situation of human rights in Afghanistan (United Nations: A/47/656, 17 November 1992). 44 See Gilles Dorronsoro, 'Le parti de Dostom: Je Jumbesh', Afghanistan Info, no. 34 (December 1993-January 1994) pp. 11-14.

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Dostam's forces in Kabul, began to rocket the capital. In April 1992, Hekmatyar's spokesman candidly remarked that 'Hekmatyar can't agree to anything that includes Ahmad Shah Masoud' .45 This simple reality lay at the heart of Kabul's suffering in the years which followed. As an elite settlement, the Peshawar Accord had clearly failed, and on 7 March 1993 a new agreement was signed in the Pakistan capital between the warring Afghan groups, variously designated the 'Islamabad' or 'Mecca' Accord.46 This agreement was every bit as defective as its predecessor.47 lt ambiguously provided that the Prime Minister should form the Cabinet in consultation with the President, and guaranteed that this would be a point of contention by designating Rabbani as President and Hekmatyar or his representative as Prime Minister. Hekmatyar resolutely refused to move to Kabul, and Hezb-i Islami rocket attacks continued, even after an agreement in J alalabad removed Massoud as 'Defence Minister' and nominally put the ministry under collegial control, which of course had no effect whatsoever on its operations. The Islamabad Accord was dead even before Hekmatyar publicly tore it up by mounting a coup attempt, in the name of a Co-ordination Council (Shura-i Hamahangi) uniting him with Dostam and Mojadiddi, on 1 January 1994. A distinct air of surrealism thereafter surrounded both the occasional calls of Saudi and Pakistani politicians for the Afghan parties to adhere to the Accord, and UN suggestions that Rabbani should resign because his term of office, as defined by the Islamabad Accord, had expired. On 13-14 February 1995, as Taliban forces drew near to Kabul, Hekmatyar and his staff fled from Charasiab to Sorabi. This was depicted by a Hezb-i Islami spokesman as a tactical manoeuvre to expose Kabul to attack by Taliban forces, but the disordered state of his abandoned headquarters suggested otherwise, as did the disappearance from the airwaves for some weeks of the party's

45 International Herald Tribune (22 April 1992) p. 2. 46 Afghan Peace Accord (United Nations: S/25435, 19 March 1993). 47 For a more detailed discussion of the Islamabad Accord, see William Maley, 'The Future of Islamic Afghanistan', Security Dialogue vol. 24, no. 4, (1993) pp. 383-396 at pp. 388-390.

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radio station.48 Given that the Hezb-i /slami's strength came from its ability to threaten Kabul rather than from a strong mass support base, its expulsion from the vicinity of the capital involved a major erosion of its power and amounted to a significant elite restructuring. A further shift in the correlation of forces came on 13 March 1995 with the suspicious deaths in Taliban custody of Abdul Ali Mazari, leader of a pro-Iranian faction of the Hezb-i Wahdat, along with nine members of his party's central committee. The Taliban were also driven south, creating both a respite from military struggle in the capital and a window of opportunity for meaningful negotiations; but the Taliban, under no significant pressure from the international community, retumed within a matter of months, took up Hekmatyar's policy of rocketing Kabul, and succeeded in capturing the eastem city of Herat, thitherto an oasis of stability. lt was in these circumstances of stalemate that, in May 1996, an agreement was reached between Rabbani and Hekmatyar at Mahipar, providing once again for Hekmatyar to become Prime Minister, 49 an office he duly assumed on 26 June. The attractiveness of the agreement for Hekmatyar was that it rescued him from the political oblivion to which he had been consigned by his loss of heavy weapons. The attractiveness of the agreement for Rabbani was that it brought a prominent Pushtun into a govemment in which Pushtuns were not otherwise strongly represented, embarrassed the Taliban's Pakistani backers in the short-run, and somewhat improved road access to Kabul for vehicles bringing food supplies. The attractiveness of the agreement for ordinary Afghans could best be described as somewhat elusive, given that Rabbani had once described Hekmatyar as 'a dangerous terrorist who should be expelled from Afghanistan•,50 and that much of Kabul had been reduced to rubble in order to prevent him from gaining power. The dangers which the agreement held for Rabbani became clear within four months. Not only did the retum of Hekmatyar tamish the legitimacy of the Rabbani govemment within Kabul but, more importantly, it broke the impasse in Pakistani policy which had to a 48 See BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, FE/2229/A/3 (16 February 1995J. 4 For a text of the agreement, see BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, FE/2685/A/1-2 (8 August 1996); BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, FE/2686/ All (9 August 1996). 50 BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, FE/1461/B/l (17 August 1992).

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degree been paralysed by conflict over whether it was better to support Hekmatyar or the Taliban. The all-out support which the Taliban thereafter received proved the crucial factor in explaining their ability to overwhelm Kabul in September 1996, an endeavour which had previously proved unsuccessfuI.51 This did not, however, mark the comprehensive elite restructuring for which the Taliban's backers doubtless hoped. First, the success of Rabbani's commander Massoud in extracting the bulk of his forces from Kabul before the Taliban entered the city meant that the Rabbani government, although deprived of the symbolic advantage of occupying the capital, was not obliterated, which allowed it in turn to retain other symbolic indicia of statehood, such as Afghanistan's seat at the United Nations. Second, the Taliban's brutal treatment of Kabul residents, and warnen in particular, was carried out under the eyes of many foreign witnesses whose testimony created such a backlash that no foreign government was prepared to accord the Taliban diplomatic recognition. Third, the execution of former President Najibullah, whose battered corpse was put on display in central Kabul within hours of the Taliban's arrival, killed off the prospect of any immediate elite settlement between the Taliban and former communist militia leader Abdul Rashid Dostam, who remained in secure control of the city of Mazar-i Sharif, and who within a short time struck an agreement with Rabbani to oppose the Taliban 's claims. The United Nations, it should be noted, has for years been involved in attempts to facilitate elite settlements in Afghanistan, but with no success. The UN Secretary-Ge neral's 1991 plan for a political settlement, incorporating a proposal for the transfer of power to a 'credible and impartial transition mechanism', faÜed in part because the cessation of Soviet aid to Kabul produced a sudden shift in the correlation of forces and reduced the incentive for the more powerful Mujahideen groups to compromise with Najibullah's regime. 52 Had the UN responded somewhat more ruthlessly to 51 William Maley, 'Taliban Triumphant?', The World Today (November 1996] pp. 275-276.

5 On the failure of the 1991 plan, see William Maley and Fazel Haq Saikal, Political Order in Post-Communist Afghanistan (Boulder: Lynne Rienner 1992) pp. 23-32; Imtiaz H. Bokhari, 'Interna] Negotiations Among Many Actors: Afghanistan', in 1. William Zartman (ed.), Elusive Peace: Negotiating an End to Civil Wars (Washington DC: The Brookings Institution 1995) pp. 231-264 at

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Najibullah's loss of elite status, it would not, to quote Barnett Rubin, have found itself 'in the awkward situation of granting asylum in his own country to a deposed head of state accused of serious human rights violations'.53 Managing relations with morally unattractive parties is an enduring problem of peacemaking diplomacy. While the negotiator seeking to facilitate an elite settlement may need to win a degree of confidence from such parties if progress is to be made, the negotiator who becomes committed to the survival of a party has gone too far: for good reasons, Count Polke Bernadotte dealt with Himmler in the last days of W orld War Two, but he rightly did not accord the SS Chief asylum in the Swedish consulate from which he operated. 54 At the same time, it is vital that a peacemaker not adopt too grand a view of what he can reasonably achieve. In December 1993, the UN General Assembly requested the Secretary-General to despatch a special mission to Afghanistan. That mission, led by Ambassador Mahmoud Mestiri, issued a thoughtful progress report on 1 July 199455 and subsequently continued its mediation efforts. Unfortunately, the UN then moved too far, too fast. In November 1994 the President of the UN Security Council issued a statement welcoming 'the acceptance by the warring parties and other Afghan representatives of a step-by-step process of national reconciliation through the establishment of a fully representative and broad-based Authoritative Council which would: (i) negotiate and oversee a cease-fire, (ii) establish a national security force to collect and safeguard heavy weapons and provide for security throughout the country, and (iii) form a transitional government to lay the groundwork for a democratically-chosen government, possibly utilizing traditional decision-making structures such as a "Grand

pp. 241-248; Barnett R. Rubin, The Search for Peace in Afghanistan: From Buffer State to Failed State (New Haven: Yale University Press 1995) pp. 125-135. 53 Barnett R. Rubin, 'Post-Cold War State Disintegration: The Failure of International Conflict Resolution in Afghanistan', Journal of International Affairs vol. 46, no. 2 ( 1993) pp. 469-492 at p. 488. 54 See Alan Bullock, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives (London: Harper Collins, 1991) pp. 980-981. 55 Progress Report of the Special Mission to Afghanistan (United Nations: A/49/208, SI 19941766, 1 July 1994).

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Assembly'".56 This plan gave rise to many unanswered questions, and was rapidly overtaken by the ejection of the Hezb-i Islami and Taliban forces from the Kabul area in March 1995.57 This created a small window of opportunity for a settlement formalising the control by different forces of the territories which they then occupied but, rather than exploiting it, Mestiri responded to the failure of the new UN plan with a number of ill-considered attacks on the Rabbani Govemment,58 and finally resigned his position in May 1996, tobe succeeded by Dr Norbert Holl of the German Foreign Ministry. By the time Holl took up his position, the window of opportunity for a settlement had closed. These development s illustrate a very important point: that political developments may create a need for more forceful steps than mediation if escalated conflict is to be avoided, or may change the kind of mediation that is required. The UN Special Mission, and the UN more generally, proved capable neither of engaging the Taliban in a meaningful negotiating process, nor of recognising that Pakistan's heavy involvement in supporting the Taliban was likely to prove gravely destabilising of regional power balances, and therefore required a display of determination to bring it under control.

Restructuring the Afghan State The plotting of a route by which to escape from Afghanistan's institutional crisis is a somewhat neglected area of discussion. There is a real