Chinese Islam: exile, history, nation | Prof. Zvi Ben Dor

[00:00:05]good morning I'm Michael biran from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and it's a great pleasure to open this session on a Muslim minorities in China a Muslim consists about two percent of Chinese populations which means we have more than 20 million Muslims in China more than several small Middle Eastern countries and those Muslims are divided into more than 10 minority groups but we're here today about the two major ones the Hui the Chinese Muslims who speak Chinese who write in Chinese who have been living in China for many years for many centuries in our only the only difference between them and their hand majority is mainly the fact that they practice Islam so this is one group one major group the other group is the oigos who are concentrated in xinjiang in also is China they are part of the so-called Chinese Empire only from the mid-18th century they speak tokik they write in Turkey the tradition and custom are very different from those of the Han Chinese and we have here two leading experts on these two groups so I hope to be a very interesting session our first speaker is the professor with bendo from NYU its way began his bi and M8 at the Hebrew University of the Jerusalem Department of Education studies which there are quite a few people in the audience he did his PhD at UCLA and there is now the professor for history and Middle Eastern studies in the in New York University he has published widely and on many things but they're focusing on the question of interaction between religion and world history his main books include the death of Muhammad a cultural history of Muslims in late Imperial China published by Harvard in 2005 and then the Intriguing the 10 lost tribes of old history published by Oxford in 2009 he also credited a volume about modern Middle Eastern Jewish thought it was published by Brandeis in 2013 and is now working on a monograph about quest in China Islam in the nation after Empire so and we're all looking forward to see it right so please is this a generous introduction and also the very important distinction between the Hawaii and the oygors um oh thank you so my talk today I will focus on the uh the xynophone Muslims of China and by way of defining them I would just talk basically say that you know this is a very very um diverse group of people that perhaps what is United the only thing that unites them is that they speak Chinese actually um but you know you can move from one Village to the other or one territory or the other these are these are different Islams and different Muslims um so let me actually begin with the conclusions of my talk and then walk you through some visuals and then analyze them um this is you know this conference is about contemporary Muslims my talk will actually focus on 17th and 18th century uh Chinese uh Chinese Muslims but um I should therefore then begin with some comments about why this period that I will discuss here matters to the Contemporary uh period so this is why I'm going to begin with the conclusions and then I'll deliver the lecture okay so several things in a telegraphic and simple way chinese-speaking Muslims of China that are known at the time as the Hue or the Hue are today considered a nationality okay in other words to be a way yes is first of all is a question of nationality not a religion okay this is the official formulation that was handed down by the CCP already in 1948.

[00:03:58]and in the book that I'm working now I'm actually arguing that this is a response to the partition of the subcontinent it's a very complicated story but basically already then you know the CCP issues this right this huge pamphlet you know called the questions of Muslims in China or the questions of Islam in China and the first very first uh sentence there is the question of Islam in China is a question of nation of nationality okay it's not about religion now this is um the only religion in China that is designed that is understood is a nation you know or the national minority Christians in China are not a nationality they're just Christians okay so our Buddhists the Tibetan case is a little different I'm going to talk about it a little bit more uh as we go in the past two decades we actually have proof that this is the situation you know because we can see a bifurcation of terms because you know Hue is a nationality or being hoi means a nationality but of course there is Islam in the Islam and the Islam is a religion so we have a new word in Chinese that actually appears in the Republican period but then is erased and then resurfaced only after the cultural revolution increasingly now which is actually East London yes the religion of Islam or the teaching of Islam okay and I would argue that today these two terms you know Chinese Muslim nationality and Islam are considered beginning to be considered two separate two separate entities in fact 10 years ago there were two books that came out uh one is called like each of them is a thousand pages one is called you know the history of Islam in China yes and another one called the history of the Hue in China and there's two different uh two different uh volumes um so we therefore speak about two histories the history of Islam in China and the history of Muslims in China or the people or the history of people who identify as Muslims in China or as the or is the hue okay um my uh I think we have to make this distinction also because when we talk about Muslim minorities elsewhere as well okay um and um I would venture even to say that this is an important methodological issue you know for everyone is working on that you know French Islam is one thing French Muslims are completely uh different even though you know the histories are of course Very Much intertwined okay now my talk today Focus mostly on the history of Muslims in China as opposed to the history of Islam okay in China in the period I discussed is therefore the most important chapter in the rise of hoi hoi subjectivity in other words you know the way in which people begin to identify themselves within a certain body of China which I will describe in a minute as well you know how they describe themselves as a certain collectivity with one story let's say one identity you know and even one Mission or One Vision within this great body or that we can understand uh is is China okay um and this is per this is why it matters to the Contemporary period because you know what happens in the second in the 17th and 18th century really very much reflects what is going on uh today even though I think today things begin to change again okay um now we can and perhaps we should you know focus on internal aspects of Islam when we uh when we studied history and in parenthesis here I would like to draw your attention for example to sholem's uh insights about you know the internal dimensions of Jewish history as opposed to the history of the Jews you know when he talks about uh different things that comes from within as opposed to distancing that comes from without I think that when we write about history of Islam you know we can afford to like focus on internal aspects but when we write about Muslim minorities we really have to study them within the cultural and political context where they are embedded you know we cannot just isolate them and treat talk about their histories as isolated trajectories this is very very important and I'm saying this because what you're going to hear a lot today is not actually about Islam but a lot about manchus okay so I need to justify me speaking about manchos in this in this context or in fact about manchuching ideology okay which is actually not only shapes the empire where the Hawaii identity begins to emerge but also the Empire um but also the political dimensions of uh of this identity finally or penultimately when we speak about Islam in China there is of course an elephant in the room and the elephant in the room is the eagle question okay the uyghurs are the people who live in the territory known to the xinjiang the new Dominion yes um I speak about Wiggles as well but my oygous are really an avatar they're not real egos I mean I think we're going to hear about real uagus in the second session okay but they matter a lot they matter a lot in the 17th and 18th century I'm in the 19th century in fact they are one of the they are one of the significant others of the hoi hoi in other words shaped their identity vis-a-vis but also vis-a-vis whom they imagine to be the uyghurs and they don't really like them by the way okay um and if I'm asked I mean I sent a a paper and I have everything since then I began to begin reworking and thinking about it in more uh um uh broader terms and if I'm supposed if I want to make some sort of a theoretical uh um uh intervention here I would say that you know one of the issues that we should think about is the question of Islam the problem of Islam and universalisms yes um we have different universalisms today yes the liberal universalism uh socialist universalism Western universalism recently we have something called in America judeo-christian universalism um and of course we have Zionist universalism all of these things are Universal but they're very very local as we know um so what I'm going to do now is actually talk to you about you know the question of Islam in Manchester universalism um now let's see if it's gonna work okay so our story begin with a uh with a with a with a concubine okay which is I think every good Chinese history should begin with the concubine so this is this Cafe you know the fragrant coffee wine she's a very very famous um um she is brought to the court in the 17 in the early 1760s after you know the conquest of uh of xinjiang by the manchus the manchos are a people who conquered China in 1634 they created a huge Empire and they keep expanding expanding it well into the uh early 19th century um and one of the most precious jewels is actually xinjiang now she's brought to the court with an Entourage of other Muslim uyghurs who speak turkic and Chen lung who is the Emperor that brings her to the court is really really eager to see her you know he leaped from his throne he ran into her he was really into he really really loved her okay she was his most uh precious concubine okay he builds a mosque here's another picture of her and by the way these paintings if you if you see a hint of a European style painting this is because the painter is a Jesuit named Giuseppe castillione who lives in the court and he is the court uh painter he does a lot of portraits of the people in the court particularly of the Empire and the people who whom he likes so this is this is a quick map that just shows you know the excursions the um leading into the area the the military Expeditions in the 1750s leading the Qing armies into the territory that becomes later on as the province of um of xinjiang okay this is mid 18th century it's a peak moment in the creation of this Empire okay this is another painting attributed to uh castillione I think maybe my colleague would know more about this than I do okay I mean here he is a kind of a jean dark-esque approach to her and here they are this is ostensibly the uh uh the the the Qing Emperor Chen long you know dressed as a she is a Manchu Hunter okay not as a confusion scholar but someone actually is a very very military yes and here is his favorite concubine and pay attention to the Sheepish uh very very feminine confusion Mandarin which is working uh slowly behind them no beard no mustache um certainly no armor no nothing okay um or two of them are really uh now really liked Xiang FEI so he brought with her the so she won't be homesick he brings a whole Entourage of uyghurs from xinjiang to live in Beijing they form a camp um in the city and he built a mosque for them yes and this mosque is an interesting mosque it's a mosque that faces North because when you sit in the Forbidden City on the throne the emperor faces South so everything you know when you bow in China you bow North you know this is the Chinese pibla you know you have to sow you have to face North okay and he creates a um he writes a Steely for in this mosque in five languages because you know this is a multi-ethnic Empire and you know this is an emperor who BR who breaks that he speaks all the languages of all the people okay this is the way that he's Universal okay I learned Mongol I learned Tibetan I learned turkic I learned all the languages of all the people whom I conquered etc etc etc okay this is a very important element of the ideology of the Empire at the time so you can see here this is the first part of the Steely and this is the second part and you can identify a little bit the different languages that are written in it Manchu Mongol Chinese turkey Etc okay now few words about Manchu ideology of the time already hinted that this is an ideology that speaks about um a multi-ethnic or I wouldn't call it multi-ethnic but let's say multi everything Empire okay and one of the things that the Empire what the emperor wants to do at the time is actually to say look all the religions all the ethnicities all the collectivities however you want to Define them are embodied in me okay in the body of the emperor okay if you remember you know the one of the more of unfortunate Prime Ministers of Israel said I'm going to be a prime minister of everybody when he was elected okay this is it was an imperial move that didn't really work um in the United States if you look at the recent uh presidents they do something like this as well whereas all the all the American Presidents until until George Bush George Bush the first um basically we're just white Americans in Clinton we see something very very interesting Clinton is white but he's also black because he goes to black churches and his library and his office are in Harlem you know that's a hint that you know the black community is embodied in the presidency George Bush II you know tried uh toyed with the idea that he was Hispanic yes on the grounds that his sister-in-law is uh is is Mexican I think this is going to come back in the next election and of course the current president is Jewish yes he is of course not Jewish but he's Jewish because he holds the say there the Passover seder and so on so forth okay now so these are forms of universalisms that are embodied in the body of the ruler okay and in the in China they do it too okay the mantras are in fact they perfected it and it works for almost all instances with the exception I think of the wigos so the opening of the Steely is as follows it is Sublime to be the master of the world so that even the remotest regions uh uh people in the remote regions people submit to our control and wherever our laws and methods have access our customs and practices are adopted in other words we come in we are the Empire we we make everybody submit to us you know and conform to us but yes you know here's the universal moment the universal moment comes in again and I want you to think about the opening lecture about you know multiculturalism okay um it is only by accommodating the different ideas and different peoples that a really uniformity can be attained in order that our civilization may be so comprehensive as to live nothing outside okay in other words I'm the emperor I'm gonna go and Conquer your country yes I'm gonna make you adopt my customs and my practices yes but in order to achieve uniformity I'm gonna listen to your uh practices as well to your account pay here to some to your culture as well okay the end of the Steely and I make a big edifice out of this in the in the next version of the paper that I'm writing he has a poem and the poem actually is about Islam in the last section there says Western Direction Northern Direction yes heading towards the same goal showing one respect in other words here you see the emperor fully acknowledging that a northern direction of the Qibla is wrong is something that is not you know practiced in Islam you know a Chinese must must faced West towards Mecca or towards the Kaaba yes not the throne but here we are you know the remotest people from the remotest regions are being accommodated so I'm gonna put it he could have ignored that but he's actually not ignoring it he says yeah I know that it's a you have to face West but I'm making you first nose and I'm going to tell you enough that it's the same in a traveler in 1910 who commented on this still he says well bowing West towards make our buying north towards the throne Muslim respect the prophet and the emperor alike you know he basically makes himself equal to the prophet yes and here here's the comment the emperor always sits facing south consequently all Chinese officials bar North the Muslims in China bow to the West towards Mecca the emperor classes both acts together and thus makes himself equal to Muhammad that's the comment that's the interpretation and here's the problem okay these are in fact the northern the northern direction of the most yes renders it you know not Hala you know you cannot practice in this mosque and no muslim ever worshiped in this mosque maybe some did yes but they actually most of them didn't and here we expose actually the moment the problem of Islam with universalism why because you know we we Muslims we don't buy this we have something called Sharia yes and with you great Ching you know you have great things you can you both built this mosque for us but it's not working okay in Pamela Crosley was one of the most uh prolific Scholars who work on Manchester Ching ideology he basically says she basically says look you know Islam presented an absolute obstacle to the necessity of Qing Empress to occupy occupy the single point of transcendence at which all moral systems converge yes a portion of Mongols might exceed to the Qing representation of themselves as chingis yes I mean this is what the mantras do with the mongos a portion of Chinese might exceed to the uh uh Chinese chain representations of the sense the avatars of confusion benevolence and civilization no portion of Muslims exceed as they might to the reality of Ching power yes etc etc etc in other words the Chinese emperor in this case the Manchester Emperor could not situate himself at the center of the Islam of the moral universe of the of the Muslims of China he could do it with the Tibetans he could do it with the Mongols he could do it with the Han Chinese but not with the Muslims and you know I focus I took the northern direction of the mosque to be the symbol of that okay now the emperor could be Buddhist deity he could be a daoist monk he could be a writer father son recluse Hunter a banquet host beardless youth future ancestor etc etc etc all the everything you can imagine you know far more imaginative than the black Clinton or the Hispanic Bush yeah but he could not be the prophet and here is a uh again castillione this is chenung's Father the emperor Jung Jing early 18th century dressed basically as Louis kators why not hear him again yes hunting a tiger and this is the young Chien loong in court dress very very Chinese actually here but here him again here is a Manchu Hunter okay here is a confusion scholar and pay attention how different it is from this one here and this one here okay here's the emperor with a battle dress going to war and here he is writing a poem and here he is and not writing another poem here he's watching some Mongols fighting and here you have some uh kazakhs who came with horses from Kazakhstan and he's just sitting and observing them they're bowing to him Etc they're probably back North he's getting more tributes and the most important I think element is the success of the mantos with the Tibetans the Tibetans here you can see the emperor really situating himself at the center of the Tibetan uh universe okay this is the Manchester you know this is a very important the most Central most important Tibetan deity in Tibetan Buddhism and this this was commissioned by the emperor to represent himself at the center all of this was done by Tibetan painters the detail in the middle was done by castillion okay and here he is is the Buddha hunting again more and here is the Taoist now so we can see that Islam in China actually stands out the emperor cannot be that you know when he finally builds the mosque and says okay Buy North no one bows North here's I here's what I want to I make want to make two uh moves and two deviations the first one we cannot reduce Islam only to Sharia the second one yes is actually we have to not focus on what not not only focus on what the the government does what the state does we also have to make sure that you know the Muslims themselves reserve the right to imagine themselves written into the body of the emperorship in other words yes they can situate the emperor in the center of their moral Universe on their own terms okay um which conform to Islam in a different way without too much deviation in other words it's not only that he needs to mean something to them from his terms on his own terms I.E building and most that faces North you know we need to focus also on Muslims uh uh what what the Muslims are are doing at the same time okay and I have identified and I work on mostly on textual or Muslims who are Elites these are actually tiny Elites very very confucianized a very very sophisticated writers you know I mean in China most writers tend to be very very sophisticated at least those who survived yes very sophisticated politics in there you need to read them very very carefully understand what they do okay so if I identified three strategies the first one actually hates from the early mink okay when the Ming Dynasty succeeds the Mongol Dynasty yes and the Ming at least project themselves to be a only Chinese government you know and only Chinese let's say Nation you know this is what they project this is not usually what they do but this is what they try to project yes the Muslims develop a certain strategy in China which is usually folklore in basically making the argument that the emperor is in fact a crypto Muslim I wrote a whole big paper what is the cultural meaning of that yes so in a way you know the the tale that they tell themselves in the mosques in in different areas in China is actually look you know we are living in a Chinese territory that is decidedly Chinese but no one really knows the truth the truth is that the emperor is a crypto Muslim and he hides his Islam and no one knows that and if you want a proof for that is you see there's no trace of Islam in his behavior and that's the proof that he's a crypto muslim okay and then there is a very very careful reading of Chinese text to prove to prove uh to prove that and I want to draw your attention to many many tales that sometimes minority communities different places in the world are telling so and so is so and so is a kidnap kidnap Jew so-and-so is a crypto Jew Etc I said right there I mean this something that is going on I argue in the paper that I wrote it is actually modeled on Mongol um uh tells about you know one of the of the Ming family that argued that they had some Mongol element in them the trick is that here's how you rationalize you know your existence in a non-islamic territory here so the ruler is in fact a crypto Muslim crypto like someone who's hiding his identity okay it's making it a secret okay presenting himself to be something else like a Muslim in the closet yeah now but in fact when the chin comes all come in and they come in with Aid and they make the argument that we are actually accommodating all religions accommodating all Traditions etc etc we are multi a multi-ethnic Empire um then we see a change then we see a rise of textual Traditions that actually make a completely different case okay and I want to dwell on on two uh on on on two cases one yes is Joseph the case of Joseph is interesting we're talking about one of the most important Muslim Scholars of the time a 17th century Muslim scholar from Yunnan very very confucianized but also with aspirations to be a leader he claims he's a Syed and he writes a letter to the emperor very very long letter to the emperor you know in which he basically exposed the Ming Emperor as someone who protected Islam someone who protected you know Muslim books etc etc etc and he says this is what he did in the insinuation and of course everything is carefully crafted there I mean you're writing to the emperor you might lose your head so you have to be very very careful what you suggest and he basically suggests this is what you need to do too okay the second letter that he writes and he actually moved from Yunnan to Beijing trying to get get audience with the emperor he says look um you need to um I would like to be appointed as the head of the Muslims in China you should appoint me as the head of all the Muslims in in in China okay and he makes the case for it he says and says the Muslims now are not are completely Wayward infected David both from Islam and from Confucianism okay if you if you appoint me I'm going to bring them back to the two Traditions make them loyal to you etc etc that's the story okay why is it why is it interesting it's interesting because he wrote an autobiography which he attached to the letter in India autobiography he identified himself in his Islamic or Arab name Yusuf now unlike what some of my colleagues would think and maybe you know Rafi can say something about it too I think that until the 20th century No Muslims in China at least you know within China was born with an Islamic name they were given Chinese names maybe you know and then and then and then they arbitrarily adopted a Muslim name okay so in other words when this man adopts the name Yusuf okay as opposed to Mahmoud or Muhammad or NASA etc etc yes he tries to make here a statement okay it's an it's a deliberate move and what's the statement that he's making let's think about Joseph we all know the biblical story about Joseph yes but we have to think about the Islamic Joseph here and you know there are several Islamic Joseph you know there's the mystical one you know there are also mystical Dimensions To His Image I'm not going to go talk to him about it but if we zoom on the basics of the story of Joseph this is someone who is in Exile okay he lives in Egypt okay in the form of imprisonment where he resists the cultural temptations there you know even the sexual temptation is the same time and then he rises to power and he's appointed by pharaoh as you know someone who is in charge you know he's in the biblical Joseph is of course in charge of all of Egypt yes and all of Egypt's property either all you know we're Jews yes the Muslim Joseph at least is in charge you know on the on the group to which he belongs okay um in other words so what we have here is a sort of a a mini sovereignty within the sovereignty of the ruler of China okay and this is this what is my argument is this is what this man is suggesting he says look you have a community here that is defined by a certain story yes it is different than the others you know there are loyal subjects of the throne but they deserve to be to be identified as distinguished as a distinct collectivity if you appoint me Joseph is their ruler under you okay Justice Pharaoh yes says you know you Joseph you are my second in command vis-a-vis the rest of all of Egypt with the Empire of Egypt but when it comes to the Israelites or the Hebrews you know you are their ruler okay this is what he's suggesting okay I take this to be one of the most important signs of a rise of you know this is a scholar who basically rise expresses the idea of a collectivity there okay and by the way this man you know is really full of himself he never got a a um was never and granted any uh audience with the emperor the emperor really dismissed that but he makes a tour in in in China where he spreads that message in different Muslim communities actually making them a one he was also very writes a very important book um in Islam uh on Islam as well where he makes his story the second most important element and in fact a far more intriguing is the third strategy which appears about 50 years later than this than the idea of Joseph and this is what I call the first first Hijra okay so it's not a typo there the two First Years what is the first first Hijra okay we find it in a Chinese version of the Sierra of the prophet okay in which we have a very very interesting situation there okay it's a translation of uh uh it's a translation of a 14th century Sarah that is very much like the the Syria that we know in the Western World of Islam okay but there are some problems there first of all you know the translator inserted certain sections that do not exist in the original the first one he says look in the second year for of the call the Chinese the prophet communicated with the Tang Emperor and sends and send Muslims to China okay in the second year of the call you know there were maybe five Muslims all over the world yes Muhammad according to this year I sent three thousand Muslims to China okay then comes the second Seer the second Hijra which is for us the first Hijra this is the Israel habasha yes the Hijra to Ethiopia yes sorry and then comes the third Hijra and the most important one you know which is the Hijra to the uh to the prophet to Medina that actually constitute Medina and constitute the ummah okay interestingly enough if you look at what Chinese Muslims are doing at this period they are obsessed with the Hijra to abyssinia why because that Hijra creates a new model of Muslim existence that applies to them where is when you move in 622 to Medina you turn yasrib into Medina you turn you you create the ummah and the prophet is the ruler is the judge is the military commander this is the quintessential Islamic polity okay but this is where every Muslim should live in fact this is the ideal Community but if you are in in Exile if you're outside Daryl Islam you know you have to look for a different model of existence in early Islamic history maybe not in the Sharia but maybe elsewhere maybe in an authoritative text such as the Sira which is good enough okay and then you find Ethiopia Ethiopia is interesting because in Ethiopia the Muslims live there legitimately because they are there on orders of the Prophet it is the prophet who sends them there who sends them to Ethiopia okay they are not supposed to spread Islam in Ethiopia in the Ethiopian ruler is not supposed to strengthen the faith or anything that any Muslim ruler within Islam should do he's not even supposed to be a good Muslim but he's supposed to protect the Muslims which he does protect the Muslims of course against the meccans and even when there is a case in the Syria you know when one of the Muslims Muslim women you know she deviates from Islam he restores her and he brings her back making sure that the community is intact and of course the uh the the the Abyssinian yes those who went to Ethiopia they say we live there until the Apostle until the messenger called us back okay so in other words they live in Ethiopia in some sort of a term permanence to join a permanent sojourners in other words they could be there forever or they could be there for five minutes it is the prophet himself will send them there to to send them there you know to protect themselves from the meccans and you know it is the prophet who's going to call them back the Chinese version and I analyze it and I say this isn't a kind of an interesting analogy you know which is analogy in Reverse to the Ethiopian story okay there the the the two parts of the story is that the emperor the the whereas in in whereas in um the Ethiopian case the prophet is sends them to Ethiopia in order to be protected yes and he's friendly with the negus in China the prophet sends the Muslims to China upon the request of the Tang Chinese emperor so that the Muslims will protect China okay but again he's friendly with the ruler there he's friendly with the ruler there okay when the Muslims of China this legendary three thousand Muslims who arrived on the in the second year of the call to the Tanga Capital when they want to come back uh to China to to to return to to Mecca because they're homesick the Chinese emperor begs the prophet to leave them in China and the prophet says stay in China protect the Empire by your presence yes as long as you are allowed to build mosques yes and as young as long as you are allowed to practice your your faith and then the story ends with saying and we lived in China until then you know in other words there is like a very very clear it's like exactly how the Abyssinian story ends but here the the prophet never called us back here he actually asked us to stay which is why we're staying okay so in other words they stay in China as permanent sujonas you know we are um in a sort of an exile but we're completely we are completely localized now why why all of this matters to in the Qing in the Qing context because first of all it's this is completely committed to writing and formulated under the Qing in other words we should see it as a derivative of Ching ideology here we are with an emperor who messes with the Tibetans messes with the Mongols changes everybody's story so it conformed to him he presents himself in different ways we can do the same thing okay to him so he can mean something to us okay they say and and the second thing is is that when you write this story here's what you want to do you actually want to educate the emperor about his own duties not vis-a-vis the larger ummah the um Islam all over the world but vis-a-vis the Joseph Uma that lives in Exile in China he is not supposed to be a good Muslim he is not supposed to strengthen the faith etc etc etc but he is supposed to protect Islam and protect uh the Muslims in other words so when they write this story and they try to submit it to the emperor they write it as a way of quoted communication it's like if you want to be a good ruler of an Empire where you have Muslims this is what you need to do you need to be like the nagas okay and if you really want to know what the what the prophet expects of a negus-like uh ruler this is what you need to be do you need to be uh doing okay um so in here I already told that you know and the idea here is actually China becomes some sort of an Ethiopia China is idealized as a friendly country yes with a friendly ruler yes that is decidedly not Islamic but at the same time it protects the Muslims okay finally and I will stop here in the in the version of this story that I um recently studied again and I also discovered a Manchu version of this story it was actually translated It Was Written first in Chinese I mean it existed in Arabic and in person and then it is written in Chinese reworked so they conformed to some Chinese Norms but then you know it also translated into mancho okay but one of the things that happens is that the second version of it they attach a new preface to the story okay whereas the original basically talks about the distant past of the Tang Dynasty and the prophet the new story actually cast the Chinese the mancho emperor himself is the one who brings the story to China from Mecca okay in other words the mancho emperor is is portrayed in a Muslim story as the one who actually delivers the story to the Chinese and the story is is amazing you know this is actually it's situated not in the conquest of xinjiang but in the conquest of what becomes today inner Mongolia or Mongolia in one of the in the 1690s yes in one of the Expeditions you know the emperor goes very very much to the very to the east he comes back very very mysteriously and he turns to one of his the Muslim Generals in his Entourage and he says do you know who you are and the Muslim general you know being a good General says no I actually don't know my roots I don't know anything do you know why we call Islam in Chinese pure and true which is actually basically a translation of Halal yes and the general says I don't know and the emperor asked again do you know how why you came from the west of China and then what time and what reason and the general says I don't know okay and then the emperor himself says look you know I have a book you know which he ostensibly obtained when he made one of his expeditions to the uh to the east maybe some uyghur gave it to him who knows you know but maybe not and he says here read this book and it will form you on the on on these matters yes and then he said and then the emperor himself gives an order that all the Muslims in China would study that uh we studied that uh book now this is not Islam yes this is not the history of Islam in China this is actually the history of Muslims in China that's the thing that they are supposed to study okay and he and the emperor himself in this in the in this preface disgusting someone who says like okay you go to your uh to the leaders of the community and give them this book print it and educate educate educate them about their origin and about their stories I will conclude with what happened next okay now all of these are all of this stuff is communicated to the Emperors and they usually don't really uh pay attention to this you know they have other bigger fishes than the Muslim bigger fish than the Muslims of China the San Francisco trying to fry for instance The Wiggles yes but in 1782 because of all sorts of issues uh um that has to do with a censorship in China a copy of that book reaches the chenlong emperor and the argument of the Confucian mandarins is actually this is a seditious book that uh speaks about a certain King in the west named Muhammad that is inciting rebellion and so on this is actually in the context of the urgus rebelling yes and basically they say look this is the book that steals all the problems the channel Emperor read the book and even though he says and they're full of lies that they are actually even decrees that they added into this book also decreased from the prophet decrease from the empresses like worship this worship that all sorts of things which are all forgeries yes he actually says you know he issue it decreases release everybody whom you are arrested because you are there are still many people connected with the book the book actually talks about good Muslims yes there are loyal uh subjects of the throne and they are my children in other words he bought the entire forgery because it did conform very very creatively to Mantra trigger and theology as it's been projected for about a hundred years up to that moment okay even though it was very very clear you know that the story is told there you know we're completely completely wrong and why is it important to today this basically is a moment in which you know the Muslims the at least Muslims Elite carved themselves a cultural space that make it possible for them to live in China because they have this relationship with the with the emperor That's the basis for their existence until the moment that the Empire Falls and now there is a there is a republic okay and when the mantras fail I mean when you look at what Muslim Elites at that time do in the beginning of the 20th century you see them in a state of panic yes one of the leaders of the Muslims in Tianjin asked he says if the if this if the mantras are gone what will happen to the faith okay he's worried about the faith in that context okay um and here I don't know I'm being recorded so I'm going to be very very careful one of the arguments that I'm making in the book that I'm working on right now is in fact that the people who really internalize the manchuching argument about we are the Protectors of Islam where the Japanese because the Japanese said you know we are creating this multi-ethnic Asian Empire we are creating all of these great things and they actually actively encourage encourage Muslims in China to join them yes many many Muslims did join the Japanese when they conquered China based on this argument on the Japanese argument and they are considered today traitors in China okay people who betrayed the Chinese Nation I would suggest I actually argue that but I suggest that because I know I'm good this is going to be viewed in China I actually suggest that what they do is a very very logical move they say okay well one Empire was there we had lived with them very very nicely now the Republic is actually very very narrow it speaks about a Chinese nation that threatened to exclude us yes and here's a new Empire and they are the new Protectors of Islam and this is by the way Japanese propaganda is all about we are Protectors of Islam and you know we all they do these are the successes of the Qing you know we should continue uh we should continue uh with them and so on and I will conclude here