Chinese Salafism and the Saudi Connection
By Mohammed
Al-Sudairi
October 23, 2014
Salafism, or
Salafiyya, is a doctrinal-intellectual current within Islam that espouses a
return to the ways of the Salaf As-Salih (the Pious Ancestors), the first three
generations of Muslims who lived during and after the death of the Prophet
Mohammed. Often described as being rooted in the works of the medieval scholars
Ibn Hanbal and Ibn Taymiyyah, Salafism seeks to establish a more “authentic”
religious experience predicated on a presumably correct reading of the Quran
and the Sunnah (the sayings and practices of the Prophet) and away from the
supposed Bida’h (innovations) and heretical practices that have “polluted” it.
Image Credit: REUTERS/Stringer
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This current moreover
embraces to a certain extent a rejection of the Madhab (legal school) Sunni
traditions that had emerged in Islam’s early centuries. As a relatively modern
phenomenon building on the Sunni orthodox revivals of the 18th century, the
failures of traditional Muslim authorities to contend with mounting internal
and external challenges, as well as the spread of new modernistic discourses,
Salafism found a popular following across many Muslim societies in the late
19th and early 20th centuries. Its growth was facilitated by Saudi Arabia –
which embraced its own idiosyncratic brand of Salafism rooted in the mid-18th
century religious revivalism that swept central Arabia (usually denoted by its
detractors as Wahhabism after its “founder” Mohammed bin Abdul Wahhab) –
especially after its annexation of Mecca and Medina in 1924-25, and the
subsequent influx of oil wealth, which endowed the country with the religious
authority and means (universities, charities, organizations, preachers, and communicative
mediums) to promote this current globally.
Among China’s Hui
ethnic group, Saudi-influenced Salafism has been present for nearly a century.
Aside from the intellectual residue influencing other sects and currents, its
most obvious manifestation is to be found in the Salafi sect, which constitutes
a small minority within the community of the faithful in China. Concentrated in
small clusters across the Northwest and Yunnan, and identified by their “Saudi”
clothes, Salafis have elicited fear and opposition from their ideological
opponents within the wider Chinese Muslim community, leading at times to
outright sectarian conflict.
Since the 1990s, and
particularly following 9/11, the Chinese state has placed the Salafi community
under close surveillance, fearing that its close connections with Saudi Arabia
as well as presumed Uighur Salafi networks, not to mention the sect’s
considerable growth over the past few years (attracting not only other Hui, but
increasingly Han as well), might herald political and religious violence in the
future. These security concerns have only abounded with the rising specter of
the Islamic State and the appearance of a few Chinese fighters in the ranks of
the contending Islamist groups in Syria and Iraq.
Historical Roots of
Chinese Salafism
Although relatively
isolated since the 14th century with the disintegration of the Yuan dynasty,
the Hui Muslim communities, and especially those in the Northwest of China,
remained open to the religious and intellectual influences emanating from other
parts of the Muslim world. The spread of the various Sufi Tariqas (orders),
such as the Naqshbandis, Kubrawis, and Qadiris, during the late Ming and early
Qing in China in the 17th century, as well as the consolidation of Sufi Tariqas
with their own distinct lineages, tombs and practices (such as the Khuffiyya
and Jahriyya), is indicative of this permeability, which endured primarily
through the Hajj and overland trade networks via Central Asia and Yunnan.
Unsurprisingly, the transmission of Salafism – or initially Wahhabi ideas –
amongst the Hui follows this template in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries.
Wahhabism gained
converts in China throughout the Republican era, primarily as a byproduct of
the growing traffic of Muslim pilgrims going to the Hejaz, facilitated by the
proliferation of new means of transportation such as the steamship. Between
1923 and 1934, hundreds of Hui Muslims made the Hajj. In 1937 – prior to the
full-fledged Japanese invasion of the country – well over 170 Hui reportedly
boarded a steamer in Shanghai bound for Mecca. The effects of this were
palpable, ranging from a noticeable increase in the availability of Wahhabi
literature across China in the 1930s, as observed by the scholar Ma Tong, to
high-profile conversions of detractors of the movement, including Sufi Sheiks.
It is from within this
context that the first pronounced Salafiyya sect emerged within China and
mostly, interestingly enough, in reaction to the perceived “departure” of the
Yihewani movement from its puritan and proto-Wahhabi ethos. The founding
propagator of an explicit Salafism is usually identified as Ma Debao
(1867-1977), originally a Yihewani adherent who officiated in various mosques
across the Northwest. His earliest encounters with Salafism came through a
visiting – presumably Arab – scholar who settled in Xining, Qinghai in 1934 to
teach the Wahhabi doctrine. This exposure led him to reassess some of his
views, although his major intellectual transformation would only come when he
departed for the Hajj in 1936, a period during which he spent considerable time
at the Salafi Dar Al-Hadith school.
On returning to China
in 1937, Ma Debao became an enthusiastic promoter of the teachings, quickly
gathering a following of his own centered in the Xinwang mosque in Linxia,
Gansu and breaking away in turn from the Yihewani movement, whom he perceived
to have compromised their beliefs. His Salafi group encountered strong
opposition from the established Yihewani clergy and their warlord backers, forcing
the movement to assume a more cautious and quietest attitude towards politics
for the sake of its survival.
After the founding of
the People’s Republic in 1949, the Salafis – now unfettered by the Muslim
warlords – experienced a brief period of religious growth, with its leadership
actively participating in a number of state organs as well as the newly created
Islamic Association of China (IAC). This soon came to an end as the 1958
“Religious Reform Campaign,” followed by the Great Leap Forward (1958-1961) and
the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), forced the movement underground as many of
its leaders and adherents were killed off or sent to concentration camps. It
survived as remnants from the leadership settled in Xinjiang and Tibet during
these difficult years.
Channels of Saudi
Influence
The start of the
“Reform and Opening Up” in 1978 signaled the end of a dark period of sustained
persecution against China’s Muslim communities, including the Salafis. The
dismantlement of restrictions on religious worship, the restoration of mosques,
and the reformation of the IAC served to reconsolidate state control over these
communities but more significantly, served to showcase (in a resurrection of
Chinese foreign policy patterns in the 1950s) Beijing’s tolerance of Islam, a
policy principally aimed at courting the support of various Muslim states. The
direct outcome of this new “opening” allowed the re-introduction, and even
amplification of, Saudi Salafi influences across the country, with implications
for both the Salafi and wider Muslim community as a whole. This occurred
through various channels, the most important of which was the restoration of
the Hajj missions in 1979 (after nearly a decade-long suspension dating from
1964) followed by new regulations allowing private individuals to make the
pilgrimage in 1984, that allowed considerable numbers of Hui Muslims – jumping
from nearly 2000 in 1985 to nearly 10,000 annually in 1990 – to travel to the
Kingdom. There, some of these pilgrims opted to stay for further study or came
in touch with relatives from the well-established Chinese Saudi diaspora (which
had settled in the Hedjaz following the end of the Chinese civil war and
received citizenship there). These interactions exposed Chinese Muslims to new
discourses and religious experiences that challenged their own traditional
understandings of Islam. They returned to China carrying Wahhabi books,
leaflets, fatwas (religious rulings), and sermon tapes that broadly
disseminated Salafi ideas.
Other significant
channels included the arrival of Saudi organizations and preachers in China
during the 1980s. Initially, religious activities were limited to influential
groups like the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, the Muslim World League,
and the Islamic Development Bank, which operated under the auspices of the IAC
and in turn re-directed their efforts in a non-sectarian fashion. Their
activities, beyond providing alternative channels of communication between
Saudi and Chinese officials, encompassed the construction of various Islamic
Institutes, the renovation of major mosques, the initiation of a Quranic
printing and distribution project (in 1987, more than a million copies were
disbursed across China as a “royal gift” from the Saudi King), and the
provision of training workshops for clerics and scholarships for students
(initially in China and Pakistan,) amongst others. By the mid-1980s, religious
policies were relaxed considerably, allowing for a growing number of Saudi
private organizations and individuals (mainly preachers and missionaries
bringing in religious literature) to increasingly work outside established IAC
channels. In this new environment, these entities began to selectively target
their funding towards specific groups – particularly those visibly identified
as Salafi in places like Gansu, Qinhai, Ningxia, Shanxi, and Yunnan – and
popularize certain discourses that might have been rejected by the IAC for fear
of inviting state reprimand.
The activities of
these groups were greatly facilitated by a network of Chinese Salafi activists
who had graduated from Saudi or Saudi-affiliated institutions like Imam Saudi
University, Umm Al-Qura, and Medina University. While numbers are hard to come
by, one study from Medina University shows that between 1961 and 2000/2001,
over 652 scholarships were granted to mainland Chinese. Nearly 76 percent of
these were offered in the 1980s and 90s alone. While significant numbers of the
graduates (who ofter never actually completed their studies) gravitated towards
middlemen jobs in Guangzhou or Yiwu where they could utilize their Arabic
proficiency, a few joined privately run religious academies in Yunnan or Gansu,
and some began officiating in mosques after the longstanding official barriers
on the hiring of foreign-trained Imams eased in the 2000s. A smaller but far
more influential group fostered close ties with Saudi organizations and
preachers – a relationship that was beneficial to both sides.
The Al-Haramain
Islamic Foundation, which came under a U.S.-backed UN ban in 2004 due to its
presumed affiliations with Al-Qaeda, is illustrative. Throughout the 1990s, the
organization expended considerable funds on the construction of Salafi mosques
across China, the maintenance of Salafi-aligned schools (typically “Arabic
language” schools that double as Islamic institutions), and the provision of
scholarships for interested students – an array of activities that were largely
overseen by various (at times competing) circles of Medina University graduates
who leveraged their influence within the wider community.
In conjunction with
these developments, Beijing had assumed a more cautious attitude by the 1990s,
typified by the barring of entry of suspected preachers, continued refusal to
offer scholarships for students heading to Saudi Arabia, and the introduction
of new laws that restricted foreign religious activities, including one in 1994
that banned donations made outside the auspices of the IAC. Unsurprisingly,
these restrictions have grown more stringent over the last decade, but they
have not severed the Saudi ties altogether.
The Saudi Impact
Saudi influences have
had a somewhat contradictory impact on Hui Salafis and the wider Muslim
community in China. On one level, these influences have contributed – to a
degree – to the Salafisation (namely, a cultural and religious approximation of
an “idealized” Saudi orthodoxy) of Hui Muslim society. This Salafisation
subsumes the adoption of presumably Salafi doctrines, prayers rituals,
attitudes, and even culturally authentic attire (the Saudi headgear worn in a
manner usually associated with the religiously conservative in the Kingdom) and
mosque architecture under what can be described as an Arabisation process,
although the appearance of these trends is not always indicative of a Salafi
influence. The Salafisation of Hui Muslims has affected nearly all sects,
albeit in different ways. Amongst Salafis, the re-introduction of orthodox
sources after a significant period of isolation, and amplified now by
globalizing forces, led to the breakdown of the old Salafi community as a new
generation of Salafis (the early graduates and pilgrims) in the 1980s sought to
“correct” the errors of their elders. This was reflected in the schism that
emerged over the interpretation of certain Quranic verses, the appearance of a
more activist opposition to Sufism leading to the demolishment of some Sufi
tombs in the Northwest, and the enunciation of a Takfeeri (excommunicatory)
stance towards “deviant” Salafis and non-Salafi Muslims that led to bouts of
sectarian infighting. Beyond the Salafis, Salafisation is also observable
amongst Yihewani and Gedimu (“old” traditional) Muslims who, in many cases,
while not describing themselves necessarily as Salafis (due to fears of
ostracisation or out of a fidelity towards the Hanafi Madhab), embraced aspects
of this intellectual tradition. In the Yihewani case, it is marked by a revived
interest in the Wahhabi origins of the movement.
On another level,
Saudi influences have, counter intuitively, encouraged a fragmentation of the
Salafi community within China. This has been driven of two factors: First, the
introduction of new sources of funding and ideas brought by Saudi organizations,
preachers, and affiliated graduates led to the proliferation of new “mosque
communities” or Jama’at amongst Salafis, a development that was principally
shaped by the leadership struggles that assumed an intergenerational character.
Second, Salafis – like other sects – were not exposed to homogenous discourses
on Islam or Salafism, mainly because of existing cultural and linguistic
barriers, and the multiplicity of doctrines and agendas pursued by various
organizations and preachers, which have induced a splintering effect along
doctrinal and ritualistic lines within the Salafi community, even if less
pronounced than elsewhere in the Islamic World.
Indeed, the most
significant outcome of these two simultaneous developments is that it has
helped give way to the formation of what can be called a “Salafism with Chinese
characteristics.” Its proponents – mainly from the 1990s generation, are
charting new discourses about Salafism that deviate from that which exists in
the Saudi mainstream. Most notably, there is a strong rejection of sectarianism
(although there is a troubling growth in anti-Shia sentiment) and an emphasis
on ecumenical approaches – a shift that stems principally from what many view
as the Takfeeri legacy of the 1980s that led to unnecessary confrontations with
the wider Muslim community. Indeed, the Salafis today encounter severe
challenges in proselytize and even practicing in places like Xining, Qinghai.
The post-90s
generation is also far more internationalist and, to a large extent, far more
cognizant of the realities facing Hui Muslims within the Chinese state (as a
minority of a minority contending with the attention of the state security
apparatus). While courting Saudi funding and literature, it is selective in
what discourses it seeks to reproduce. This explains why some Saudi-oriented
Salafis are increasingly discouraging visits by Saudi preachers, who are unable
to appreciate the specificities of Chinese Islam there. More importantly, this
new generation is more willing to cooperate with the authorities, and is
displaying signs of seeking to participate more actively within the political
channels that have been traditionally dominated by Sufi and Yihewani groups.
In all, the Hui Salafi
scene and its connections to Saudi Arabia are complex. The community is
fragmenting intellectually and generating new discourses that reflect the
tensions that confront new religious authorities and groups seeking to navigate
the difficult waters between perceived orthodoxy and the realities of their situation.
Hui Salafis want to carve out a space of their own within China. Their concerns
are not political per se: Across the spectrum, they appear to have embraced the
apolitical quietism one expects to see within the Saudi clerical establishment.
Even with regards to the Uighur Salafis – if we speak in terms of an Islamic
political project – there is little evidence to suggest a burgeoning solidarity
between the two groups. Historical hatreds notwithstanding, the evolution of
Uighur Salafism has taken a completely different trajectory than that of the
Hui and its political/religious dynamics are therefore different. Rather, for
the majority of Hui Salafis, their concerns remain solely those of identity and
religious legitimization.
Mohammed Al-Sudairi is a graduate of Georgetown
University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar (International Politics). He
spent two years in Beijing studying Chinese and undertaking freelance research.
Source:
http://thediplomat.com/2014/10/chinese-salafism-and-the-saudi-connection/
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