Wen \ Gu Jun'an
I will take up righteousness, make a pen of Jehovah Ninya, and write a book that they will protect regardless of life and death! (Foreword to the History of the Mind)
Zhang Chengzhi is a Beijing writer and Hui ethnic group. During the Cultural Revolution, he went to Inner Mongolia to work as a zhiqing; from 1972 to 1975, he studied in the Department of Archaeology of Peking University, and after graduation, he was sent to Xinjiang archaeology; in 1984, the arrangement of "because of the Creator in the Underworld" entered the Great Northwest ("History of the Mind, Foreword to the Generation") - Xihaigu. In 1991, he published the novel "History of the Mind" and claimed to use it as the beginning of his novel career.
Xihaigu is a collective name for six state-level poverty-stricken counties in southern Ningxia, including Xiji, Haiyuan, Guyuan, Longde, Jingyuan and Pengyang, which belong to the arid area of the Loess Plateau and was identified by the United Nations Food and Development Programme as one of the most unsuitable areas for human survival in 1972. However, this barren land is in line with the spiritual temperament pursued by Sufism, and because of its desolation and closure, it has protected a pure faith under the crushing and pushing of the wheel of history.
Zhang Chengzhi's "History of the Mind" is the history of this land, or more precisely, the history of the poor people living in this land.
The curtain of history began in the second year of Yongzheng (1728), when a Muslim named Ma Mingxin traveled west. He and his uncle were going on a pilgrimage to Mecca, but when they encountered a sandstorm on the road, the uncle and nephew were separated, and after several turns, he himself went to Yemen to study the teachings of Hufuye. After many years of study, he again packed his bags and went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and the following year[1] he returned to Yemen to visit scholars. In the eighth year of Qianlong (1743), he was instructed by his mentor to return to China to preach. Qianlong returned to Hezhou, Gansu province in the ninth year and began to found the Zhehe Ninya school.
Jeho Ninya is transliterated from the Arabic word (جهرية) meaning "public". The most distinctive feature of this sect is the loud chanting of praise, and Zhang Chengzhi describes their rituals in the book, "In the morning ceremony, one of the kerr of Zhehe Ninya is fiercely denied and affirmed. When reading, the whole person follows the rhythm, shakes his head to the right when he denies, and points his head to the left to the heart when affirmative. When denying, chant 'Two Yi Yi Two Han' - all things are not the Lord. Say 'In'Andrahu' when affirmatively – only Allah. When the chanting is intense, the worshippers are mesmerized by the loud chanting. (The History of the Mind: The First Ritual) This scene is solemn and mysterious, and the praise of the Lord that resounds through the clouds is soul-stirring, and if it is placed in it, it may not help but shed tears. However, shortly after the first Mulshd (derived from Arabic, meaning "guide", equivalent to the imam, teacher, communicating with the common people and the Lord Allah), the voice began to be silenced by external or self-coercion.
At first, it originated from sectarian disputes, and in the official documents of the Qing Dynasty, it was written about the disputes between new and old schools. The new school is the Zhehe Ninja, and the old school refers to the Hanaji school. Ma Laichi, the founder of the Flower Temple School, was Ma Mingxin's classmate when he was studying in Yemen. Ma Lai Chi family road is rich, his father is Ma Shiwan, he founded the Flower Temple Sect advocates whispering praise, like to decorate mosques, Gongbei, etc. with painted paintings; Ma Mingxin was born in poverty and simple. The conflict between the two sides was mainly in two aspects, one was the competition for the missionary area, the Malays founded the Huasi sect in Ma Mingxin sooner or later, and Ma Mingxin founded the Zhehe Ninya school after returning to China, and this faction's ideas were particularly in line with the needs of the lower peasants, so many peasants converted to Zhehe Ninya; second, Malaychi passed the position of sheikh to his son, which was contrary to the Sufi tradition.[2] The contradictions between the two factions grew, and finally in the twenty-seventh year of Qianlong, Ma Guobao, the son of Ma Laichi, the second patriarch of the Huasi sect, sued Ma Mingxin to the Xunhua Hall, and the local governor favored Ma Guobao and expelled Ma Mingxin from Xunhua: later a series of lawsuits and an unfair official trial of the two factions. It was not until the forty-sixth year of Qianlong that an uprising broke out.
From the birth of the Zhehe Ninya faction in the ninth year of Qianlong, the two factions in the Hezhou area stood side by side, and then gradually confronted each other, to the 27th year of Qianlong's confrontation with the court, and then to the 46th year of Qianlong's official government sending troops to suppress Zhehe Ninye. In the development of this process, we can perceive the change of power: originally it was only the opposition of the two forces of the sect, and then the official government forces began to intervene, and the official government was partial to the Hanaji school at the beginning. "The official government intervened", Zhang Chengzhi used a simple five words, a judgment sentence, to explain the turning point of the story, but also to express the complex emotions in his heart, which may include compassion for Zhehe Ninya, contempt for the Huasi sect's use of official power, and resentment at the government's suppression of people's right to free faith. Some people study Zhang Chengzhi's thoughts, think of his experience and his special identity, he says that Zhang Chengzhi is an anarchist, and the source of this idea is related to his experience as a Red Guard; he is also a Muslim who has always hovered on the edge of traditional Chinese culture. [3] Following this line, we find the following sentence in the first section of the History of the Mind, "The Origin of Shuheidai," "The state, when this monster is forced to raise its butcher's knife at its people, its power to inflict terror is immeasurable." On the other hand, we read later that "human beings have many positions, the people have the feelings of the people, and the officials have official authority" ("History of the Mind": the second door of the book shame), Zhehe Ninya is one party, the government is also a party, and "I" is on the side of Zhehe Ninya. Just as Zhehe Ninya is a sect representing the lower poor peasants, Zhang Chengzhi's book is the story of these poor peasants - the concern for the ordinary and neglected lives of the lower classes is the spiritual fit between Zhehe Ninya and Zhang Chengzhi.
Although there is a special status of the Hui, Zhang Chengzhi, as a scholar, still upholds an objective attitude. For example, in the dispute between the two denominations, he said, "The sect is not just a thought. It is a more comprehensive society, full of interests. Religious disputes are inevitable, as long as there are contradictions between people" (History of the Mind: The First Gate , Chuhe Prefecture ) , " Before the 'public family' intervenes, since it is a religious dispute, right and wrong are still two sides" (First Gate : Grasp Your History). For Jehovyah Ninya to raise his sword, he also advised his Dosdani ("Dosdani" is derived from the Persian language, the name for the religious people), "The mistake of killing people and sacrificing lives is seen in the long history of the Chinese Muslims, and all factions should take it as a warning" (The first door: Catch Your History). For the words in the book, "For all those who pursue spiritual fulfillment, absolute justice and spiritual freedom, for all religions and ideals, for all purity, the core of Chinese civilization, that is, the way of Confucius and Mencius, is the most powerful enemy" (the fourth gate, the new century: the beginning of the revival), you can say that he is biased, and he has long anticipated the reaction of the reader, so he has already said that he knows his extremes, he wrote at the beginning of the writing, I just want to expose that hidden history, just to be silent in two hundred years of history." Zhehe Ninya", for readers of other nationalities, I hope you will understand. In his writing, he is also trying to be objective and fair, to avoid being too partial to the Hui and Zhehe Ninya, and to prevent the "anarchism" and other thoughts in his heart from controlling the pen in his hands.
Of course, he also said that he would abandon the method of studying and writing history that he had accepted in school, but instead rely on a personal religious experience and a spirituality of man with a sense of proximity to the Lord.
Do you blame him for being irrational and unjust? But that was his methodology, an attitude in which feelings took precedence over reason. Just as rationalism is the methodology of the instrumental age, the overthrow of reason and the death of God are the methodology of the post-instrument age.
He was writing a book that they wanted to protect regardless of life or death.
Here I would like to add here the change in the management strategy of the northwest after the Zhehe Ninya Uprising and the evaluation of scholars about it.
The following are quotations from the Lanzhou Chronicle and the Xunhua Zhi:
"The Reform of the Muslims is in charge of the name of the religion." ...... The head of the head of the church quietly ordered it to be cut. (Lanzhou Jiluo, vol. 6, Yang Huaizhong Punctuation, Ningxia People's Publishing House, 1988)
"If you want to put an end to the dispute, if you want to return to each temple, if you return to the great temple, so as to unite their feelings, if you return to your own temple, scatter it to divide its situation."
"Order the township covenant of the big and small temples to return the smokers under their jurisdiction to baojia and handle all the agreed charters."
"Compile and check the armor, no matter the Han hui, always take ten households as one card, ten cards as one card, and ten cards as one guarantee."
"If the migration is increased, the temple and township will be expelled from the bail at any time, and the offender will be punished according to the law of leaking the hukou." Large and small temples have their own township covenants, now return to the main temple, no matter how big or small, the date of worship should lead the smokers under their management, not allowed to go to other temples to pray, marriage and funeral to stop asking the temple township covenant to chant, do not allow other temples to be mixed, criminals according to the bare sticks to disturb the people and harm the good people, the extreme side of the army. (Gong Jinghan: Xunhua Zhi, Qinghai People's Publishing House, 1980, pp. 321-322[4]
Reform the teachings, set up township covenants, compile armor, control the flow of people, and prevent the gathering of people. The "Survey of Eunuchs in Linxia, Gansu", compiled by the Institute of World Religions of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, wrote that this policy of the Qing government only saw the difference between high and low thoughts between Zhehe Ninya and Huasi, and did not see the real cause of sectarian disputes, simply regarded the disputes as caused by the system of holding the religion, and established a township covenant after the abolition of the teachings, but still appointed the followers of the "old-school" Flower Temple who they considered orthodox to manage religious affairs.[5] I do not fully agree with this view, the Qing government actually saw the real cause of the dispute, that is, the very attractive religious people influenced the believers, and gradually formed a spherical structure with several religious figures as the core, and these balls competed with each other for spheres of influence, resulting in friction and even conflict. Therefore, the Qing government wanted to put an end to the fact that the ball was getting bigger and bigger, geographically restricting its scope of action, and strictly restricting the flow of people. What the Qing government did not realize was the difference between religion and the secular world, and as Zhang Chengzhi said, for non-believers, they could not imagine how important it was to choose a religious leader and exchange it for religious homework according to the mouth of the sheikh. They do not understand religion, but arrogantly copy secular ways of dealing with religious disputes.
The government's policy can't help but cause me to think, in the northwest of this barren but vast desert land, there lives such a group of people, their religious concept is stronger than the family concept, so there is no "born in Sri Lanka, grow up in Si" mode of thinking, their lives are fluid, if forced to settle down, with the Han people's armor protection system to restrain them, is this humane? But let it flow, let the ball roll bigger and bigger, how can Confucian culture without the concept of "imam" accommodate the development of this alien culture, and will the government worry about the emergence of a situation in China? Perhaps my questions have been meaningless from the beginning, at least not for this book, because the author is an anarchist who fully affirmed the rebellion of the Red Guards and the hostility to the privileged classes in the book "The Age of the Red Guards", and he also praised in the "History of the Mind" the temperament of Zhehe Ninye who was not close to the official and did not believe in the official, and he admired only the beauty of sacrificing for the Lord.
At this point, I can't help but wonder why Zhang Chengzhi's book is called "History of the Mind" instead of "Xihai Gudizhi", or "History of the Development of Zhehe Ninya"? What kind of connotation does "mind" contain?
To understand this question, I once again opened the last door of the novel: knocking on the door of modernity.
This door is written more specially, not as directly described as before, but first there is a self-reflection and questioning, and the self-reflection and the narrative of the story are two separate parts. For example, in "Eighteen Birds Out of Yunnan", it is written, "I should not be a scholar and a writer", "In China, only here is there a doctrine of the mind and humanity"; "Life should follow like that" in "Followers"... If one can meet such a teacher, one's life will not be wasted. Life should be followed by someone, choose the people who cannot ascend to the elegant hall, give them an enlightenment and a kind of evidence, and ask them to gather warmth and burst courage"; "Life is really difficult, if no one pulls a hand, it is impossible to live as a Huimin." Faith is the only thing that can be grasped, and faith may at least help to survive death"; "The general trend of the world, the unity of the long time will be divided, the long time will be united" in "Is there the essence of following, reverence, and fear in human nature?" Does a man have a destiny of tolerance, taboo, and concealment? Does the hero have a mind to restrain himself and obey the limits? And "then stick to their form: sincere, subtle, brave, obedient" in "into Lanzhou". Through this questioning and reflection, through the tireless narrative of history in the previous article, the connotation of "heart" gradually appears, which contains the following of faith, the follow-up of teachers, the courage of perseverance, the reverence for Allah, the restraint of self, and the obedience to predestination. Because this soul is the reliance of the Dzogchen sect followers to fight and survive in the long history, he is not empty, but has a heavy historical support. After generations of Martyrdom, their bodies were buried in Gongbei, leaving only this ever-enriching mind.