The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History

by Rian Thum

For 250 years, the Turkic Muslims of Altishahr the vast desert region to the northwest of Tibet have led an uneasy existence under Chinese rule. Today they call themselves Uyghurs, and they have cultivated a sense of history and identity that challenges Beijing s official national narrative. Rian Thum argues that the roots of this history run deeper than recent conflicts, to a time when manuscripts and pilgrimage dominated understandings of the past. Beyond broadening our knowledge of tensions between the Uyghurs and the Chinese government, this meditation on the very concept of history probes the limits of human interaction with the past.

Uyghur historical practice emerged from the circulation of books and people during the Qing Dynasty, when crowds of pilgrims listened to history readings at the tombs of Islamic saints. Over time, amid long journeys and moving rituals, at oasis markets and desert shrines, ordinary readers adapted community-authored manuscripts to their own needs. In the process they created a window into a forgotten Islam, shaped by the veneration of local saints.

Partly insulated from the rest of the Islamic world, the Uyghurs constructed a local history that is at once unique and assimilates elements of Semitic, Iranic, Turkic, and Indic traditions the cultural imports of Silk Road travelers. Through both ethnographic and historical analysis, "The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History" offers a new understanding of Uyghur historical practices, detailing the remarkable means by which this people reckons with its past and confronts its nationalist aspirations in the present day."

Genres: China, History, Nonfiction, Islam, Asia, Religion

336 pages, Hardcover

First published October 13, 2014

Reviews

[Yvie Yao · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Xinjiang,” the area of Central Asia in China where many Uyghurs (Turkic Muslims) reside, always causes tensions between the Chinese government and its native dwellers. In the eyes of the Chinese government, Xinjiang is essentially one of the five autonomous regions, embodying China’s territorial completeness and nationalist solidarity. This geographic name, however, represents a watershed point in Uyghur’s psyche en route to Chinese conquest and colonization. Not only do they contest the official Chinese rhetoric of its legitimate rule over Xinjiang because of a shared history, Uyghurs also find this geographic name alienating, merely a symbol of illegitimate, cruel outsider domination.

The Sacred Route of Uyghur History anchors its entrance to this polemics over this geographic name, taking a ground-breaking, but overlooked reading of Uyghur history, in the course of the 20th century. It explores the region as the pre-modern, indeterminate oasis of Altishahr, the Uyghur for “six cities,” and searches for a Uyghur identity within the popular Uyghur historical practice of internal pilgrimage and the textual culture of Uyghur manuscripts without trapping into the post-colonial notion of an imagined community enclosed in the nation-state system. The interplay of the texts and the places allows Uyghurs not only to study their past, but also to express their past. Sacred Route challenges placing a nation’s identity in a binary power struggle. This regional Uyghur identity is neither a reaction to the Chinese government’s subjugation nor a simple artefact of resistance, but a reflection of a unique culture system, in which the popular masses, actively and consciously, engage with their common past.

Therefore, Sacred Route is also a cornerstone in the history of the study of history. Uyghurs, in Thum’s narratives, are the creators of their history and not merely the recipients of the delineated history based on scholarly written texts. This is a history shaped by mass participation, rather than elitist didactics; a history transmitted in sacred place rather than social institutions; and a history transcended the gap between written and oral modes of historical practice. Thum thus draws the reader’s attention not only to the content of his narratives of Uyghur history, but also how this history is transmitted, registered and assimilated into the Uyghur identity.

[Lee]

A fascinating look at the history of Uyghur identity, particularly through the examination of a genre that they create, the Tazkirah.

[Kavya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seems like there should be a part II...

[Bruce Humes · Rating 3 out of 5]

A much-needed, in-depth look at Uyghur religious practice in Xinjiang.

It was very educational and I'm glad I read most of it. I deeply respect the author's research and interpretation re: Uyghur Islam.

But I would prefer if the author and/or editor had reworked it to make it more accessible to the layman, i.e., non-academics. It reads too much like a Ph D. thesis slightly -- and insufficiently -- tweaked for a wider readership.

[Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting PhD Thesis, but as a work popular history difficult.

An interesting book, rich with anecdote and historical layers that unfortunately get lost in the discussion on Uyghur historiography.

For information on modern Uyghur writing the chapter on printing and publishing is especially good.

[Samin Rb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Note to myself: rate based on the first three chapters.

[PhoenixHou · Rating 4 out of 5]

對了解1759年以後的維吾爾文獻頗有幫助，是تەزكىرە和مازار傳統的不錯入門介紹。書中提及的維語文獻國內都找不到了，很可惜。

[Rex · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History is not a direct narrative, but a detailed historical analysis of the making of the Uyghur people across time. Thum approaches Xinjiang or "Altishahr" through the sources and products of Uyghur historical practice: shrines, tazkirah (saint story) manuscripts, pilgrimages, festivals, newspapers, and so on. The changing interaction between shrine, manuscript, and extratextual activity is the center of his project. This focus privileges communal self-understanding and local tradition rather than elite scholarship. Thum acknowledges, for instance, that a good many contemporary Uyghur stories are demonstrable misreadings of history, if we are speaking of the facts of typical interest to historians. But it is precisely these interpretive transformations that Thum pursues with relentless attention, and the results are insightful. His Uyghurs are not to be seen primarily as gullible and ignorant, but effective makers and negotiators of meaning out of the materials made available to them.

One of the most interesting parts of the book is the final chapter, which describes how 17th-century Sufi leader Afaq Khoja went from a controversial theocrat to a revered saint to (in living memory) an Uyghur national villain. The twists and turns of Afaq's legacy reveals the complex forces at work in the shaping of modern Uyghur identity and illustrates the interaction between state power and popular determination in Altishahr.

Thum advocates neither Uyghur nationalism nor Chinese imperialism; he believes Uyghurness goes beyond either, and though there is an implicit critique of China present, it never dominates his narrative. His personal anecdotes were generally helpful and engaging. Methodological theory is an important part of his thesis, and occasionally I found his use of jargon unnecessary or awkward, but it never overwhelmed his argument. His conclusions about the overreliance of historians on the written text are hardly new, but none the less potent, and he also gives us a possible way forward. If you are interested not simply in the history of Central Asia but also the fluid nature of that history, this book is for you.