Writing the Sino-Muslims into a local history of Xinjiang

Abstract

The objective of this article is to look beneath the regional history of Xinjiang itself and examine the way in which, from the late Qing to the contemporary era, the state has recorded (and arguably failed to record) the local history of Sino-Muslim communities in Xinjiang. It will focus on the shifting relationship that the state has had with both the Sino-Muslims and the region itself, but also the political trends that have so constrained the telling of a local history that encompasses their experiences. At issue here is not whether the Sino-Muslims should be regarded as a distinct nationality or ethnic group, nor their claim to be ‘local’ (bendi ren), but rather the way in which this particular community, or indeed communities, have been reflected and recorded in the state's evolving narrative of the history of modern Xinjiang.

Keywords:

• Sino-Muslims
• Hui
• Xinjiang
• local history
• gazetteers

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to the journal's anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

Notes

In the 1950s, the PRC identified 55 minority nationalities (shaoshu minzu) of whom 10 were Muslim. Those labelled Hui, or Huizu, were predominantly Muslim by religion and culturally ‘Chinese’ opposed to Turkic or Mongol. I follow Lipman (1997) in using the term Sino-Muslims for several reasons. Firstly, much of the following article is concerned with the Qing and Republican eras when the term Hui denoting Muslim frequently referred to Turkic-Muslims, while Hanhui or Huimin was used for the Sino-Muslims. It would therefore be anachronous and possibly confusing to refer throughout to Hui. Secondly, while today these people generally self-identify as Hui, this is an official label and as such it carries political baggage suggesting that all Hui throughout China share a common history and ethnicity. Although not the concern of this article, this is still a subject of considerable debate. Finally, the term Sino-Muslim serves the purposes of this article in suggesting a people whose first language is Chinese and who distinguish themselves culturally from the predominantly Muslim and Turkic-speaking peoples among whom they live, as well as from the non-Muslim Han Chinese with whom they share many cultural attributes.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the Sino-Muslims of northwest China were frequently referred to as Dungan (Tungan). The descendants of those who fled to Kazakhstan and Turkestan in the late nineteenth century are scattered across Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan where they are still known as Dungan; see Ding Hong (1999) and Allès (2005).

See, for example, Chu (1966), Forbes (1986) and Benson (1990).

The eponymous autonomous areas were intended to allow the nationalities ‘to establish autonomous administrative organs, to realize the self-governing rights of the minority nationalities, to be master in their own homes, and to have the minority nationalities control the affairs of their own people,’ YHZG (1986, p. 35). Today Changji prefecture includes the counties of Changji, Manas (Suilai), Hutubi, Fukang, Jimsar, Qitai, Miquan and the Mulei Kazak Autonomous County. Yanqi district is made up of four towns: Yanqi, Qigexin, Yongning and Sishilichengzi, and four townships: Beidaqu, Wuhaoqu, Chahan Caikai (Qagan Qehe) and Baoerhai (Borhoi).

Yang Chengze (1907). Taianxian xiangtuzhi, cited by Ma Dazheng in his postscript (XXG 1990, p. 770).

The main gazetteers of the eighteenth century which covered either the entire region of Xinjiang or a large part of it were: Xiyu tuzhi (1762), Huijiang zhi (1772), and Xiyu wenjian lu (1777). The last was an unofficial publication but was so widely cited in subsequent works that it may be deemed to have acquired almost official status. In the early nineteenth century, Huijiang tongzhi (1804), Sanzhou jilüe (1805) and Xichui zongtong shilüe (1808), plus one or two gazetteers of cities, for example, Hami and Ili, appeared, with much of the Xichui zongtong shilüe reproduced in Xinjiang zhilüe (1828). Between this date and the early twentieth century, when Xinjiang jian zhi (1908) and Xinjiang tuzhi (1911) were published, no further gazetteers of the wider region appeared until the late twentieth century. To this list may be added Xiyu'dili tushuo of c.1762 and Xinjiang Huibu jilüe of c.1885, both of which remained in manuscript form until the late twentieth century.

These county- and sub-prefectural-level gazetteers were not in fact published until much later. In dating most of them to 1908 (Guangxu 34), I follow Ma Dazheng in his post-face to the 1990 compilation. Those for which he gives no date are marked c.1900 (XXG 1990, pp. 771, 773–775).

Given the relative dearth of local gazetteers on Xinjiang even for the contemporary period, I have extended the strict definition of gazetteer to include a series of local surveys published in the 1980s. The series was published ‘to introduce the basic circumstances of the autonomous nationality areas, to promote the party and nationalities policies and to promote the four modernizations in all the minority nationality regions’ (YHZG 1986, preface).

For the use of ‘Hui Hui’ in the Yuan and Ming dynasties to refer to people of Turkic and other extraction, see Yang Zhijiu (2003, pp. 7–8) and Li Shuhui (2010, p. 42).

Millward (2007, p. 117).

See note 1 and 9 above.

See, for example, CHZG (1985, p. 27).

In the Qing era, Shaanxi, Gansu and the surrounding area were under the control of a single Governor-General and were referred to as Shaan-Gan. Today this area falls primarily into Gansu, Ningxia and Shaanxi provinces.

It is unlikely that young children were included in the population figures for individuals and even if households had numbered an average of six people, this would have suggested a significant decline.

Cf. YX (1908, p. 49).

This is also reflected in the names of many mosques, which today still bear the name of a community's place of origin in Shaan-Gan or elsewhere.

See, for example, Xinjiang jianshi (1985, p. 314). For discussion of the erroneous dating of the rising in this work and others which follow Wei Yuan's Shengwu ji (c.1842), see Wang Xilong (1995, pp. 49–50).

Li Shuhui (2010, p. 44) suggests that ‘several hundred’ of those involved were Sino-Muslims, but his source for this is unclear. As Waley-Cohen (1991, p. 184) has pointed out, the request by the guards that the women, presumably wives or family of the convicts, ‘sing songs’ was quite possibly a euphemism.

Wei Yuan draws on Ji Yun's account of the events in his Yuewei caotang biji (1800). See Wang Xilong (1995, pp. 49–50) and Waley-Cohen (1991, p. 127).

Mention of the rising is even omitted from the chronology of major events; see CHZT (2004, p. 8).

The Record of the Xiang army [Xiang jun ji] by Wang Ding'an includes a detailed account of the activities of ‘the old’ Hunan army, as the Xiang army was known, in the re-conquest of Xinjiang.

See note 8 above.

In China the Khufiyya was often referred to as the old teaching and the Jahriyya, a later arrival, as the ‘new teaching’ (Gladney 1991, p. 43).

Yanqi was the capital of the ancient Buddhist state of the same name and is first mentioned in Chinese sources in the Hanshu in association with Zhang Qian's journey to the West.

In the late Qing local gazetteers of Xinjiang, the descriptions of cultural practices traditionally recorded under the heading fengsu tend to fall into the section entitled ‘people’ (renlei). See, for example, QX (1908, pp. 65–66) or CXT (1908, pp. 100–104).

Yanqi county is located in the vast Bayin'gholin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture where the Mongols numbered 38,000, 4% of the total population in 2000. Descriptions of the Mongols and their history can be found in BMZZ (1994) and BMZG (1985).

On ‘Hui language’ or dialect, see YHZZ (2002, pp. 828–862) and on the hua'er, see YHZ (2002, pp. 810–829). For a discussion of how this form of song-recitation traditionally found in regions of Qinghai, Gansu and Ningxia has become identified as a literary tradition of the Hui minority, see Halfon-Michel (2004).

The sub-text here presumably speaks to contemporary concerns, as there is no historical tradition of the Sino-Muslims propagating their faith among the Han, or forcing them to convert.

See, for example, FX (1908, p. 32).