The Han gentry's discourse on "Hui hui" is rooted in the memory, imagination and inheritance of ancient northwestern ethnic groups in ancient Northwest China in Chinese historical documents, from the Hu people of the Jin Dynasty to the Hui/Hui of the Tang Dynasty; with the expansion of the Qing Dynasty to the west, the cultural imagination of the Gentry of the Central Plains about "Hui Hui" was linked to historical memory and given new meanings. The changes in the territory of the Qing Dynasty and the cultural shock it caused in the interior profoundly affected the intellectual activities of the Qing Dynasty Hui people, and the "HankTab" or "Book of Han" (or the so-called "Confucianism") is an interactive product of this historical process. In particular, the Hui intellectuals' interpretation and correct name of "Islam" prominently reflect the different influences of the Han and Hui groups in the interior after the territorial expansion of the Qing Dynasty.
This article focuses on the three-fold cultural representation of "Muslims," i.e., "Hui" or "Islam", and their backgrounds in the 18th-century Qing Dynasty, as well as the specific political, historical, cultural, and social contexts of each cultural representation.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > First, the Hui people are "hui": the "phobia of hui" of the Han gentry</h1>
The expressions and discourses of the Gentry of the Han Dynasty to Muslims and Islam are closely related to their historical and cultural memory and imagination. Despite the diversity of Chinese Muslim origins, the chinese historical accounts of the "Hui" are on a par with the historical ethnic groups of the northwest frontier that have withdrawn from "Islam", the "Hui" or "Uighurs". This trend took shape at the end of the Ming Dynasty. The "Huihui" theory of the Ming Dynasty Han gentry did not even mention or know "Islam" at all, but only continued the interpretation of the history, culture and ethnic groups of the frontier by the agrarian gentry. With the circulation and collection of his writings (especially the Siku Quanshu), Gu's remarks about "Hui hui" became the basis for the Qing Dynasty Han gentry to recognize and attack the "Hui Hui", such as the "Qing Barnyard Copy" and the "Sacred Martial Record" showing different degrees of correlation.
Although cultural prejudices were common among the gentry of the Central Plains in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the mass and politicized attacks on the Hui reached a climax in the 18th century. Perhaps in the face of the Manchu foreign rule and the Qing Dynasty's continuous expansion of the inland territory and the addition of new "inland" subjects through reforms in the confined areas, the Han gentry soon launched a "forbidden return" or "anti-Hui" movement. Especially when Yongzheng was "reforming the land and returning to the stream", Chen Shikui, the governor of Shandong, went to the imperial court in 1724 to accuse the "gentry" in the interior of believing in Islam. This shows that the inland bureaucracy of the Qing Dynasty at that time was not limited to the Han gentry. Like Gu Yanwu, in addition to attacking Muslim customs such as beef consumption, Chen even complained about the national unity among the Hui people, that is, their "concerted efforts." Chen called on the imperial court to order Hui officials to "leave the religion", which shows that in the 18th century, the anti-Hui movement set off by the mainland gentry under the pretext of the religion and culture of the Hui people was more out of the need for official struggle to achieve the purpose of excluding dissidents.
Almost at the same time, Yue Zhongqi, the governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi, who suppressed the Lobzang Tenjin Incident, also presented a similar recital. He compared the Muslims in Weinan, Shaanxi Province, with salt trafficking, fighting, theft, gambling, and alcoholism. In the recital, Yue initially suggested adding a section "specifically for the Hui people". However, they were afraid that such a dissent would cause the Muslims to "change their minds" and had to give up. In other words, Yue Zhongqi's ethnic discrimination policy could not be implemented, so she pinned her hopes on the Sinicization cultural policy. After Chen Shiyi and Yue Zhongqi, Anhui Province, according to Tsa Shilu Guohua, also accused the Hui people of building "halal" and "worship" monasteries. He followed Chen Shikuo's logic of equating the "subjects" of the interior with the "Han people", claiming that the Hui people, as the "people of the prosperous world", should not believe in Islam, and he even suggested that the Hui people should be punished with "the left way to confuse the people". For the Muslims wearing white hats, Lu demanded that they be punished with "violating the law".
If these early 18th-century plays and remarks reflect the cultural expansion of the Han gentry at the time of the frontier reform, then the cultural commentary from the small intellectuals in Shandong at the end of the 18th century nakedly attacked and threatened the territorial integrity of the Qing Dynasty.
In 1780, Inspector Fucha Guotai of Shandong reported a literal prison incident. While dealing with a case of searching for his home, Shouguang County's Ling Lao Dunzhang accidentally found a commentary signed "Wei Shu" on the Western Jin Dynasty's "Theory of Migration". Cathay Pacific believes that the matter is significant because he found in Wei Shu's comments that the latter equated the "present Huibu" with the "Five Ministries of Jin". When Qing officials rebuked Wei Shu for associating the "Hubu" of Jin with the "Huibu" of the Qing Dynasty, Wei Confessed that he believed that Islam today was "from a foreign country." That is to say, Wei Shu regarded Xinjiang, which had just been conquered by the Qing Dynasty, as a foreign country, equated the Hui department of the Qing Dynasty with the Hubu of the Jin Dynasty, and regarded the westward expansion of the Qing Dynasty as an act of chaos.
The above-mentioned twists, suggestions or comments outline the wave of "forbidden returns" or "fear of return" of the Han gentry in the 18th century. Interestingly, these "forbidden return" remarks invariably compare Islam with frontier aliens in earlier Chinese historical sources. In fact, as the Qing emperor revealed (see below), the Qing Dynasty did not equate "Han customs" with "folk customs" or "Han people" in the interior.
Distribution map of the "Migration Theory"
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Second, the Hui people are "people": the Manchu subject policy</h1>
As an ever-expanding Qing Empire, the Qing Dynasty maintained a high degree of sensitivity and vigilance against exchanges and conflicts between different religions and cultures within its borders, especially against false accusations and attacks between different cultural groups. The Qing Dynasty's policy toward the "Hui" and "Han Chinese" was consistently viewed on a political and legal footing, rather than a different view based on cultural and religious differences. As the Kangxi Prophetic Decree of the Niujie Chapel in Beijing indicates, when Han officials falsely accused the Hui people of "gathering at night and scattering" in the mosque and plotting against them, the Kangxi Sacred Oracle clearly demonstrated the Qing Emperor's familiarity with Muslim culture and the equal treatment of subjects of different cultures in the interior.
At this time, Yongzheng sensed the deliberate attacks and frames of Islam by the Han gentry. In reply to Chen Shiyi's holy edict, Yongzheng pointed out that the Hui people, as the registered "people", have long been spread throughout the provincial capitals. Islam, as a religion that has been believed for generations, is like the "family customs" of the Han people. Yongzheng also pointed out that the Hui people also have different customs and habits due to different "places of origin". Even in response to the attempt to criminalize the Hui people, Yongzheng stressed that the Hui people are not the same as the rioters. In other words, Yongzheng saw Chen Shiyi's attack on Islam as a disruption of the soft power of the Great Qing.
Yongzheng also refuted Lu Guohua's fallacy and pointed out that the policy of "dissenting" the Muslims and Islam did not exist in all dynasties. In response to his heretical accusations against "halal" and "worship" monasteries, Yongzheng pointed out that just like the worship of the gods of the Han people everywhere, the Muslims only worship the Lord, but these religious activities are not recorded in the "rituals" of the Han people. Yong Zhengyu suspected that Lu Guohua had an ulterior motive for attacking Islam, and questioned why the framing of the Muslims after admonishing Chen Shiyi was still common. Yongzheng therefore pointed out that Lu Guohua's malicious attacks on the Hui people were either a personal vendetta or a deliberate attempt to disrupt the state, and accordingly Dismissed Lu Guohua from his post and investigated.
Sui-sying image
Finally, Yongzheng demanded that officials treat Islam and Hui people equally, and that they should not be "dissenting" and that they should "rule the Hui people by those who govern the people." This is in line with the Yongzheng reform and return to the stream, and even the overall ethnic policy of the Qing Dynasty, that is, "qi qi government and not easy customs".
These rebuttals and punishments of the Qing Dynasty could not be seen as the court's protection of "Islam" and "Muslims", but rather as fair treatment of "Huimin" as inland subjects. The policy from Kangxi to Qianlong shows that the Qing dynasty's definition of subjects was based on politics and law, not culture and religion. That is to say, no matter what religion they believed, the inland subjects were first and foremost the "people" of the Qing Dynasty, and so were the Hui people, and so were the Han people. In other words, the Qing dynasty did not assimilate all its subjects with Han culture in the interior; the Qing court did not consider there to be a conflict between the "Hui" and "people" of the "Hui people". In fact, the qing dynasty's inland subject policy followed such a model, that is, the "ethnic-people" model. Whether it is the "Huimin" or the "Hanmin", or the "Yanmin" or "Fanmin" who have returned to the land, they are all subjects of the Qing Dynasty. This "ethnic-people" model organically unifies the religious and cultural attributes of subjects, such as "Hui" or "Han", with their political and legal identities, which not only respects the different cultural practices of the subjects, but also ensures the unity and fairness of the political and legal identities of subjects from different cultural backgrounds.
Old photos of Muslims
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Third, The Muslims are Muslims: "Hank Tabu"</h1>
The attacks on Islam by the Gentry of the Han Chinese in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties were a continuation of the historical prejudices of the northwest frontier peoples such as the "Uighurs" and "Hui Hui". Hui intellectuals since the 17th century have long been familiar with the origins of the Han gentry's attacks on Islam. In stark contrast to the Han gentry's practice of rigidly copying Islam and non-Muslim "Hui", the Chinese writings of Muslim intellectuals, "Hanktab", began to systematically interpret Islam and attempt to de-ethnicize it.
In order to eliminate the ethnic connection between the Han gentry and "Islam", The Hui intellectuals even replaced Islam with "halal", a term that the Han gentry knew and respected more. It is worth pointing out that the Ming and Qing Hui intellectuals used the word "halal" to refer to "Islam" not only because these two words clarified Islam to the greatest extent in the context of Han culture; more importantly, the Ming Dynasty's sacred sayings, imperial poems, and imperial temples on Islam and Muslims all contained the words "qing", "true" or "halal". According to Wang, Zhu Yuanzhang had a very high evaluation of Islam and Muslim saints and even named it "Halal" ("Bringing down evil and unifying the name of Halal"). Sachiko Murata saw a high degree of integration of Islam and Confucianism in Wang Daiyu's The University of Halalism: it juxtaposed Islam as "halal" and the Confucian classic University, designed to show the universal and communion between the two.
Hui intellectuals of the Qing Dynasty continued to pan-"halalize Islam. In fact, the writings of many Muslim scholars since the beginning of the Qing Dynasty have contained the title "Halal". Ma Zhu directly mentions that his writing "Guide to Halal" was influenced by Wang Daiyu's "Halal University". Ma Zhu's study of Islam is also related to the geopolitical changes of the Qing Dynasty at the end of the 17th century. According to Ma Zhu's account, when the Kangxi Emperor was hunting in Licheng in 1679, he accidentally saw the "Tianjing" in a "Halal Pavilion" and "couldn't bear to go" for a long time. Three years later, when the envoys from the Western Regions had entered the Celestial Scriptures, Kangxi asked the Ministry of Rites to summon officials inside and outside the capital to give explanations, but in the end they could not get the main ones.
Portrait of Kangxi
Ma Zhu saw that the Westward Movement of the Qing Dynasty made "Western Learning" gradually move east and even "gradually open up through teaching". Especially at the time of the integration of "Hua" and "West", the emperor was so "inquiring about the poor reason", Ma Zhu felt that the great unification of the Great Qing Dynasty "may not be a halal luck". In his Jinjing Shu, Ma Zhu expressed his gratitude to the Qing Dynasty for protecting the Hui people, and stated the importance of understanding halality: "West China is one, and pain and itch pity." That is to say, Ma Zhu had long been aware that the westward expansion of the Qing Dynasty required the imperial court to better understand The knowledge of Islam.
If the 17th-century Hui intellectuals indirectly and euphemistically responded to the slander of Islam by some mainland gentry through philosophy, lexicalism, etymology, etc., then the 18th-century Huimin intellectuals bluntly attributed the halalization of "Islam" to the prejudices and attacks of the Han gentry. Sun Ke'an wrote the book "Halal Teaching Examination" in 1720. According to existing Chinese historical sources, Sun presents a Muslim world from Central Asia to Southeast Asia to the Middle East. In his discussion of Islam in China, he brings together various political connections such as the Ming Dynasty's holy sayings, the Hui sages of the Yuan Ming Dynasty, and the Imperial Mosque. He even described Muhammad as a "saint" like Confucius.
Jin Tianzhu, who was in the Fourth Translation Hall of the Hanlin Academy at that time, was familiar with the reverse echoes of Chen Shiqian, Lu Guohua, Yue Zhongqi and others. His "Halal Interpretation" is a response to these anti-Hui gentry.
Jin Tianzhu openly pointed out the reason for writing the Halal Interpretation of Doubts. In his preface, he enumerates various slanders such as Chen Shiqian, Lu Guohua and other Han gentry. Jin Tianzhu even used the term "suspicious case" to show that these slanderous incidents have been filed and examined. According to Jin Tianzhu, in the past, there was no interpretation of Islam, "no one in my religion", but "the predecessors of the Gaiyuan Wu sect only made their own big talk and disdained this current doubtful case". And his explanation of doubts "is also forced by the cross-cutting of the various religions." For this reason, he "made a slightly lyrical remark, and the people of each religion thought of the unity of their reasons, and the unity of the facts, and the doubts were immediately explained, and the way of our religion was not without small supplements."
"Halal Interpretation"
These "cross-talkers" are the above-mentioned anti-Hui Chen Shiqian, Lu Guohua and others. In other words, Jin Tianzhu's writings are more of a Confucian response to Islam and a justification of the name. As Ma Tingfu points out in the preface, the reference materials for his writings are basically inland Confucianism, and their style and tone are similar to those of Han (Yue), Liu (Zongyuan), Ou (Yang Xiu), and Su (Shi).
It was in this political, social and cultural context that the Hui intellectuals of the Qing Dynasty not only fought back against the false accusations and attacks of some gentry in the form of literature, but also constructed a patriotic history of Hui Hui. For example, "Back to the Original", written in the early 18th century, links the entry of Islam into China with the invitation of the Tang king. At the time of the rapid expansion of the Qing Dynasty into Central Asia, Ma Zhu wasted no time in using his genealogy to sketch a historical picture of the fate of the Hui and the mainland. According to Ma Zhu, his ancestor Sophier from Bukhara (Bukhara) entered China as early as the Song Dynasty during the reign of Emperor Shenzong; his descendant Suzusha sent an envoy to the Jin Dynasty around 1191 and "died as a martyr"; their descendants in Bukhara, Zhan Si Ding, also participated in the "Huiyuan Annihilation of Jin". Since then, it has returned to the vast interior. Ma Zhu even hoped that the Qing Dynasty would continue the Ming Dynasty's practice of praising and returning to the saints, "recruiting the halal cultivation of the world and praising the title." To this end, he "would like to preview the evidence of the successive dynasties of praise and sealing of Qin Jiashi" and hoped that the imperial court would "examine the past cases in detail."
Qing Dynasty Hui intellectuals clearly realized that the fact that the Qing Dynasty once again conquered the northwest and even the Muslim areas of Central Asia aroused the memories and imaginations of some gentry for historical frontier ethnic groups such as Hui. By clarifying and correcting the name of "Hui", they tried to replace Islam with "HalalIsm" to cut off the Hui-Hui relationship in the eyes of the gentry. The Chinese writing "Hank Tabu" of the Huimin sages during this period was mainly to explain and argue the compatibility and commonality between "HalalIsm" as a Muslim religion and "Confucianism" as a Han people's creed, so in this sense, "Hank Tabu" should be "Mink Tabu", that is, the religion and culture of the Hui people (not just the Han people) are also part of the larger inland subject group- people-culture. The purpose of correcting one's name is to act, which is vividly reflected in the continuous "correct name" of "Islam" in the Qing Dynasty and even in contemporary times.
From the 17th and 18th centuries when "Islam" was renamed "Halal" to the mid-20th century when it was changed to "Islam", it reveals the changing patterns of relations between the Hui, Han chinese, and the state in a changing political environment. When the basic political, social and ethnic landscape of Chinese society underwent great changes, basic concepts such as "ethnicity", "religion", and "people" were also re-questioned and defined.
"Back to the Past"
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > epilogue</h1>
Looking at the history of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, one might ask that before the end of the 19th century, the Muslims not only lived with the ruling class, but even made great contributions to the founding and grand cause of the dynasties. For example, Muslim merchants, officials, craftsmen, and non-commissioned officers of the Yuan Dynasty, as well as the Ming Dynasty's envoys to the West and the Western Regions, are indispensable to the figure of Hui people. Even the Manchus' inland Asian allies included Huibu, Mongols, and feudal provinces. Both the palindromes in Chengde and the upper Hui settlements in Beijing reflect the friendly relations between manchus and Muslims. In the unified multi-ethnic Qing Empire, the written confrontation between the Han gentry and the Hui scholars went beyond the normal philosophical discussion of religion and culture and alarmed the imperial court.
From the 17th century to the middle of the 18th century, the territory of the Qing Dynasty expanded unprecedentedly, the population of subjects increased sharply, and the political, social, and cultural ecology changed unprecedentedly. First of all, the political situation of the great unification of the Qing Dynasty and the ethnic policy of the "Huairou Yuanren" led to a sharp increase in the population of the "surrendered" and "attached" clans. This not only attracted the attention of Muslim scholars such as Ma Zhu, but also caused cultural attacks and even xenophobia from Confucians such as Wei Shu. Especially in the context of the "literal prison" of the Qing Dynasty, gentry officials did not dare to directly attack the court of the foreign Manchus, but had to point out that Sang cursed and attacked the hui people and Muslims in the interior in disguise. Like other Eurasian empires such as the Ottomans, who protected Christians and Jews for the sake of imperial interests, and Mughals, who protected Hinduism, the Qing remained highly vigilant against cultural attacks and ethnic discrimination against different subjects within the country. Especially in the interior, as Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong pointed out, the imperial court did not "dissimilarize" its subjects, whether "Hanmin" or "Huimin." What we see here is a truly "pluralistic" "ethnic-people" policy, that is, no matter what "ethnic" is part of the "people".