Tommaso Previato : Mongol schism and conversion
"After a short period ... in which Islam was temporarily displaced from its position as state religion and the Mongols still remained torn between Buddhist-Nestorian beliefs of the Turkic-Uyghur tradition and the Arabo-Persian ones, the attendants of the house of Chaghatay (1183–1242), forced to find new ways of ruling over the heterogeneous Muslim population, began to support local Sufism seeing in it an effective tool to legitimate their governance and gain authority from the traditional institutions of local Muslim elites. It was at the dawn of the fourteenth century, that they came into contact with local Sufis and decided to convert to Islam, seemingly because driven by the will to follow the example of Chagathay’s younger brother Ögedey (1186–1241) grand Khan, who was more sympathetically inclined towards the Muslims"
...
This prolonged chain of conversions concomitantly triggered an anti-Muslim reaction among some conservative members of the royal family, which manifested continuing adherence to the great yasa (lit. ordinance), the costomary law of the steppe as codified by Genghis. It was clear that unity could no longer be ensured. The ideological schism that followed, in the middle fourteenth century, broke the khanate in two: the eastern half known as Moghulistan, based in Almalik (in the Yili 伊 犁 river valley, northern Xinjiang), largely retaining the normative practices and beliefs of their ancestors into the framework of a nomad state; and the western one in Transoxania, which endeavoured to combine the zeal of Persian-Islamic culture with the traditional Mongol heritage but in the long run could not keep from implementing the shari’a. It was exactly under these circumstances that the newly-formed Naqshbandiyya 納格什班底耶 Sufi order, by placing utmost emphasis on social and political aspects of religious life, stepped into the breach and turned itself into an effective tool against the Moghul’s 'infide' governance. Since Baha-ud-Din Naqshband Bukhari 伊本·白哈 丁 (1318–1389) established the order around Bukhara, the Naqshbandiyya shortly became the dominant Sufi organization in Central Asia and the Chinese Turkestan (nowadays Xinjiang). Its teachings proved suitable enough for the Mongol ruling class of the western khanate, who only one century after Chaghatay’s death definitely lose power to the Timurids (1370–1507). Initiator of a brand-new, fully Perso-Islamic dynasty yet stemming from the noblest Turko-Mongol lineage, the great Timur/Tamerlane 帖木兒 (r. 1370–1405) was himself a Naqshbandiyya follower that paid Sufi sheikhs particular honor. Such a profound change could not have been achieved solely during his rule, it must undoubtedly be the completion of a long acculturation process that had started at least three generations before, with Tarmashirin seizing the throne.
What remains indisputable is that the first contact the Chaghatayid had with the Sufis and Islamic culture at large was by no means congenial. Differently from the other ulus which essentially were peopled by agriculturalists, the Chagatay Kingdom was highly diversified as pertains to lifestyles and ethnic-religious composition, hence the Sufis at first might have exerted some sort of influence merely to certain segments of society, and the pastoral-nomads were surely not parting with them.
A letter written by the Sufi Sayf al-Din al-Bakharzi (1190–1261) to the Kutb al-Din Habash ‘Amid, the regent-vizier of Chaghatay, the Muslim elites were initially deeply disappointed about the Mongol rulership and tried in several occasions to push the Khan’s royal family in favour of Sufism.
...
The first to establish one of the most influential sects based on the Naqshbandi’s knowledge set was Ma Laichi 馬来遲 (1681?–1766). After coming back from Haji Islamic Networks under the Mongol Rule 249 and having spent almost five years abroad (in Middle East and Central Asia, namely Mecca, Yemen and Bukhara) to study the Qur’an, Ma Laichi made himself the founder of the “Flower Mosque” brotherhood (花寺門宦) of the Khufiyyah order (虎夫耶, later named “Old Teachings” 老教). While, his fellow student Ma Mingxin 馬明心 (1719–1781) held different opinions that led him to initiate a revised version of Sufism, known under the name of Jahriyyah (哲赫林耶, also called “New Teachings” 新教). ...
This split triggered a series of internal struggles, that attracted the attention of the highest Court in Gansu. The Qing authorities decided in favor of the Kufiyyah, presumably because it was the oldest between the two congregations. Ma Mingxin was then arrested and put to death, together with his disciple the Salar commander Susishisan (1729–1781) who died soon afterwards in the effort to seek revenge.
Conclusion: normalization of state - Muslims relations "had sectarian differences institutionalized, along with a highly ideological and polarized dichotomy 'bad Muslim 回匪-good Muslim良回' which ultimately come on the scene with inevitable consequences for all Sufi tariqahs."
Edmund Waite on Contemporary views of the Sufi Khojas
Apaq (d. 1694) was successful in extending the growth of a version of Naqshbandi Sufism associated with reverence for khojas or 'masters', throughout the Tarim basin and northwest China. In keeping with the political activism associated with the Naqshbandi order, Apaq Khoja also managed to gain, with the assistance of the Zhungar Mongols, political control over much of Eastern Turkestan towards the end of the seventeenth century. Apaq's descendants continued to rule over Eastern Turkestan, albeit under the shadow of the Zhungar Mongols who exercised suzerainty and periodically invaded the region, until the area was finally incorporated into the Manchu empire."
Modernism coupled with the decreased prominence of Sufism brought a decline of respect for the Khoja lineage.
David Brophy on Uyghur Sufi orders' interactions with Qing court
by the 1750s prominent members of this family had ended up hostage to the Junghars. Instead of joining in the initial assault on Kashgar and Yarkand, though, they sought refuge in the Ferghana Valley, then sided with the Qing when the emperor decided to remove the two Afaqi khojas. Karamatullah’s grandson, Husayn Erke Khoja (Ch. E-se-yin), recruited a following of . Kirghiz and contributed militarily to the campaign, for which he and his nephew Turdu (Ch. Tu-er-du) were made hereditary Qing aristocrats. Wary of the role that these descendants of the Prophet might play in the Tarim Basin, the emperor had the family brought to Beijing, where they resided in the so-called “Muslim camp” (Huiziying) in the Inner City, surrounding a newly built mosque. .. They were joined with more members of the Karamatullah line, the most famous among them the woman that the emperor took as his concubine—Rong Fei, better known as Xiang Fei, or the “Fragrant Concubine.”
...
On Kafshin Khoja (Ch. Ka-shen, Ka-she, Ka-sha, etc.), son of Husayn Erke Khoja and a great-grandson of Karamatullah.
Kafshin tells us in his work that at the time of the Qing conquest he was studying in Bukhara. Only in 1764, having presumably had the opportunity to observe the situation in Xinjiang and weigh his options, did he make his way back to Qing territory. There he was met by Qing officials and sent to Beijing, where he eventually inherited Husayn’s . aristocratic title of “duke” (Ch. gong).
The Compendium of Secrets was clearly written after Kafshin’s arrival in the imperial capital. In it he describes his encounters with Sinophone Muslim (i.e., Hui) scholars on his way through China, and mentions similar meetings in Beijing itself. Originating in the capital, therefore, the Compendium of Secrets eventually found its way back to Kashgar, where Russian consul Nikolai Petrovskii acquired it in the late nineteenth century.
S. Frederick Starr on Baghdad's treatment of Turk notables
Baghdad repelled certain intellectuals. "Mahmud Kashgari also tired of the capital, where he observed Turks being everywhere demeaned, and returned to his homeland in present-day China to write his magnum opus on the Turkic peoples. Before his involuntary removal to Afghanistan, the great Biruni worked abroad for a few years but never in Baghdad, and as soon as he could he returned to his home in Khwarazm. All the major urban centers of Central Asia were full of locals who, like Bukhari, had returned from abroad."
Lâle Can on "A Central Asian Sufi network in turn-of-the-century Istanbul"
Sufi lodges in Istanbul, also known as tekkes, "were important centres of informal diplomacy.This was indeed true in the 1860s and 1870s, when such sites hosted numerous diplomatic missions and envoys from Bukhara, Khoqand, and Kashgar. In particular, Buharalı Şeyh Süleyman Efendi (1821/22–1890), the postnişin (head of a religious order) of the Buhara Dergâhı, is known for his role as both a Bukharan and an Ottoman diplomat. He came to the Ottoman empire as the official representative of the emir of Bukhara in 1847 and during his long career in Istanbul hosted various Central Asian dignitaries, including Sayyid Yaqub Khan (1823–1899), first in his capacity as an ambassador from the Khanate of Khoqand and later from the Islamic Emirate of Kashgar.
By the late nineteenth century, however, shaykhs were no longer hosting many high-level dignitaries, and figures such as Yaqub Khan were replaced by ordinary Central Asians intent on making the pilgrimage and visiting the capital of the Islamic world in the process."
Travellers "mainly from the Ferghana Valley and Chinese Turkestan, coincided with the tightening hold of imperial Russia over Central Asia, Qing China over Kashgar and its environs, and the virtual cessation of any noteworthy Ottoman missions and contacts with the protectorates of Khiva and Bukhara."
"In what was a rather modest Sufi lodge and urban caravanserai, group after group of Central Asian travellers interacted not only with subjects of Russia, China, Afghanistan, and the Ottoman empire, but also with Ottoman shaykhs of Central Asian extraction who facilitated their travel, health care, and employment."
"In the early twentieth century, however, there was a noticeable decrease in the number of pilgrims from Chinese Turkestan as compared to pilgrims from the Ferghana Valley: travellers from Chinese Turkestan (Kashgar and other cities such as Hotan, Yarkend, and Kulcha) had declined from 42.8 per cent of all pilgrims in the period 1899–1906 to 29.6 per cent in the period 1907–1923.36This decline was not due to an increase in travel from other regions, but to an overall decline in pilgrims from China."
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق