Encounters with Uyghur Sufis in Exile

A talk given by Rachel Harris at the Research Seminar of the School of Modern Languages (students’ choice), Newcastle University, March 6, 2024.

Abstract:

This talk reflects on China’s ongoing campaigns in the Uyghur region and related debates on cultural erasure through the lens of recent ethnographic encounters with Uyghur Sufis in exile in Istanbul and Dubai. They are inheritors of an Islamic cultural and spiritual tradition which is oriented through an aesthetic radically opposed to the ‘spiritual civilisation’ (jingshen wenming) promoted under current government projects of ‘re-engineering’ Uyghur culture and history. 

Their vivid memories of the ‘spiritual joy’ (rohi ghuzzur) produced in samā’ gatherings, their fascination with videos of past gatherings circulating online, and their endless reciting of spiritual poetry provide a rich repository of a set of cultural orientations fast being erased from the homeland, and a reminder of what is not being preserved under China’s heritage initiatives.

Image courtesy of Lev Rosewater.

   

 

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