Chaire sécable de l’IISMM-EHESS | Professeur invité : Chang Chung-Fu (Université nationale Chengchi)

Chang Chung-fu participe au Programme Professeurs invités de l’EHESS sur proposition de Marie-Paule Hille (EHESS, CCJ).

Chang Chung-fu got the Ph.D degree in 1997, the theme of his dissertation concentrates in re-approaching the historical consciousness of Muslim rebellion of northwestern China in late Qing Dynasty and the issues about the Muslim’s ethnic identity of their own. He went to China’s ethnic minority areas for ethnographic observation began in the summer of 1990. Then he first time contacted with the massive communities of Hui Muslims（Sinophone Muslims or Sino-Muslimsin the northwestern provinces like Gansu, Qinghai and Ningxia). At the same time, the ethnic Hui issues there were so impressive to him and he decided to focus this field as the major theme of my academic concerns. From 1992, he has engaged in his ethnographic field works on northwestern China for local Hui, Salar and Dongxian Muslims communities to research the special local socio-cultural aspects like government’s policy, religious restoration, ethnic relationship, historical consciousness consolidation and the complicated transformation of local sectarianism. The center of his field works is Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture of Gansu Province. The capital of prefecture, that is the so-called ‘Little Mecca in China”, Linxia City definitely is the most important place for observing the diversity and its profound influence about the phenomena of Islamic sectarianism that all of the most scholars of China studies are not so familiar with. As an ethnographic researcher, he went to northwestern China for such kind of studies every year during the past three decades, except in the pandemic period. From 2004 to 2013, he also brought the graduate students of NCCU for ethnological exercise in Gansu and Qinghai at least seven times to expanding their practical knowledge about Islam in China.

Chang Chung-fu will take part of the Visiting Professors Program designed by EHESS, on proposal of Marie-Paule Hille (EHESS, CCJ).

Conférences | LECTURES

Islamophobia in Modern China: Origins, Blasphemous Incidents and the Contemporary Surveys

Although contemporary Islamophobia sprouts first in Western countries, globalization has fostered the spread of anti-Muslim sentiments and intolerance to Islam. Even the centuries-old symbiosis established between the Han majority and the Muslim minority in China could not escape from such impact, as evidenced by the outbreak of blasphemous incidents in China under the Nationalists and the Communists. These unpredictable incidents were indicative of intolerance to Islam and anti-Muslimism promoted by the cultural barrier and Han-ethnocentrism. This topic would like to use the case of stampeding tragedy that occurred at the Grand North Mosque of Xiji, Ningxia in 2014 and its aftermath also revealed the diverse ways of fomenting hostility and hatred on the Internet. Besides long-standing anti-Muslimism among Han Chinese, there also exists complicated sectarian antagonism among Muslim communities in northwest China. New media, especially the Internet has become another battlefield for spreading age-old inter-sectarian hostility and antagonism among Muslims themselves.

In the broad sense, the phenomena mentioned above should be deemed analogous to Islamophobic sentiment observed in Western countries but never really prevalent in past and modern China. However, the deteriorating Xinjiang issues in recent years has inevitably escalated anti-Muslim prejudice to a more dangerous and precarious situation in China. The current disproportionate policy for restraining regular Islam in contemporary Xinjiang should not become the basis for further subjugation and suppression of Islam in China. The concerted effort of the entire Chinese population toward greater conciliation and tolerance toward people of different cultures and religions provide the only chance to avoid clashes and conflicts. This topic also would like to trace back the so-called blasphemous incidents which being occurred in 20^th century, and apparently presented the mutual socio-cultural prejudice among Han majority and Hui Muslim minority that could be considered as one of the essential roots of Islamophobic sentiment in the contemporary China.

Dans le cadre de la journée d’accueil du CECMC

• Mardi 22 octobre 2024, de 15h00 à 16h30 – EHESS, Salle A327, 2 Cours des humanités, 93300 Aubervilliers et en visioconférence : https://bbb.ehess.fr/b/mar-0ev-tdf-cdp

The Extraordinary Meaning of the Representation about a New Chinese Translation Text of Jahriyya’s Rashhah in Taiwan, 2021

Whether viewed from the historical or contemporary perspective, the representation of the genealogy of Sufi orders and its socio-educational functions in modern northwest China show two tendencies. First, the formerly ambiguous, obscure lineages and domestic succession of the shaykhs have now been revealed much more clearly and have become widely known, as have some previously unknown records of shaykhs’ miracles and other Sufi practices. Second, through publication, these historical records have circulated among the followers of Sufi orders, which contributes to consolidation of their sectarian identity and collective memory. More importantly, these collective memories have become a means to obtain social resources in the process of fierce sectarian competition and succession struggles. Such rivalries have existed in northwest China for a long time. To strengthen the legitimacy of their religious power among their followers, the shaykhs widely disseminate and strongly emphasize these genealogical records, which confirm their “charisma,” even to the point of exaggeration. Under these conditions, the well-known Muslim writer Zhang Chengzhi has become the mouthpiece of the Jahrıyya, and his Xinlingshi not only publicized the authenticity of the genealogical records but also revealed a general sense of “the proctological history of Muslims” that had been neglected for a long time. Nevertheless, despite triggering controversy about the succession of shaykhs and creating conflicts within the Jahrıyya, Xinlingshi still constructed a prominent collective memory and became an historical witness for the followers of this tragic Sufi order.

Due to these endeavors to re-establish the real history of Jahriyya, Zhang also collected and translated the local but secret documents in Jahriyya community, including the famous Rashha. This hagiographic record absolutely is the most important historical memory in Jahriyya. Occasionally, just in the outbreak of pandemic, Zhang found another local manuscript of Rashha in eastern Gansu, and translated it at once from its original Arabic-Persian version to a new Chinese one. Fortunately, this latest Rashha version has published in total completed form in Taiwan since 2021.

Dans le cadre du séminaire de Stéphane Dudoignon (CNRS/GSRL), Agathe Guy (EPHE & U. Munich), Léo Maillet (EHESS & U. Genève) et Lina Tsrimova (EHESS & INALCO), « Atelier Eurasie centrale »

• Mardi 5 novembre 2024, de 11h à 13h – Salle 5.067, Bâtiment Recherche Nord, Campus Condorcet, Aubervilliers

Disruption of Iman: Anti-Christian Evangelism Sentiment among Hui Muslims and an Unusual Cases in Modern Northwestern China

As a tendency from 19^th century, China has seen a gradual spread of Christianity and conversion of part Chinese population from folk believers, Buddhists or Taoists into Christians. Alongside with such trend, there is another ambiguous endeavor for the same purpose; that is, Christian evangelization among Sinophone Muslims (Hui Muslims) with a large and widely distributed population amidst the Han majority. Although Christianity and Islam share quasi-monotheistic origin, “evangelizing Christianity to Muslims” (回宣) has not been fruitful or successful, even stirring up anti-Christian evangelism sentiment in provinces of Northwest China like Qinghai, Gansu and Ningxia. For centuries, Hui Muslims in these areas have been practicing the so-called “conservative Islam” and “Islamic plural sectarianism”; and conversion to Christianity is difficult if not impossible. This topic traces the emergence of such anti-Christian evangelism sentiment among the Muslims in Gansu and the sectarian societies within. That especially to be concentrated on the case of Long Akhund in Linxia with focus not only on the religious and socio-cultural aspects, but also the existence of a consolidated sectarian identity of Muslim ethnic minority of their own.

Dans le cadre du séminaire « La Chine au prisme des sciences humaines et sociales » animé par L. Gabbiani et M.-P. Hille, suivi d’une visite de l’exposition « Une légende rouge dorée ? Le retour des saints dans les mondes (post-)communistes » à l’Humathèque

• Mercredi 6 novembre 2024 de 14h30 à 16h – Salle A.302, EHESS, Campus Condorcet, Aubervilliers

Characteristic Features in the Genealogic Demonstration of Hui Muslims in China: “Sinicization” and its Controversial Practices

Under the tremendous cultural impact and social influence of Han majority, the Muslim minorities in southern China inevitably have to face many challenges from “Sinicization” matters which normally are being considered as the violation to Islamic practice. The eminent matters such as ancestral worship which includes the accomplishment of family pedigree and the construction of ancestral shrine that are all belonged to the characteristic features in traditional Chinese society. However, the Muslims imitate these “Sinicizing” practices not only for keeping the continuity of their paternal clan just as their Han neighbors did, but also representing the function of social adaptation which combined Han-style genealogic solidarity and Muslims consanguinity that is a key factor to maintain a stable relationship in Han-Muslim symbiosis society. Although these “Sinicization” matters are more ambiguous or intolerable to Muslims which reside in northwest or other typical areas, theses “heresy” practices actually indicate the more plural developing adaptation and socio-cultural diversity among China’s Hui-Muslims that might be beyond our imagination. Besides, according to PRC’s ethnic policy, the new-given and legal status of Hui-minzu also had being provided an inducement to solidify the consciousness of ethnic minority to these “Sinicizing” Hui people whose Islamic practices are almost faded away for a long time, especially in the areas of southeastern coast. This topic also want to discuss the CCP’s controversial policy to enforce Sinicization (or Chinaization) of religion as an ideological consolidation among Muslim communities in China since 2018. Actually, the concept of this new waves of “Sinicized Islam” seemingly ignores the pattern of socio-cultural symbiosis among Hui Muslims and Han Majority that already being existed from the past centuries in China’s history and to its modern situation.

Dans le cadre de la journée d’études des jeunes chercheurs et chercheuses au CECMC, « La marge existe-t-elle ? Repenser les catégories de marges et marginalités dans les espaces sinophones »

•  Mercredi 13 novembre 2024 de 16h30 à 18h – Salle A527 – Ehess, Campus Condorcet, Aubervilliers