rjrasva on dungan

Circumstance

  • Religious motivations - sUfi rAshidIn khwAja
  • Qing were exhausted from massive Taiping rebellion by the Chinese brother of Jesus & Panthay jihad (1856–1873). Western observers feared a Mohammedan China.
  • The 1 long term effect of Mongol rule was expansion of Hui Mohammedan numbers, the Yuan Khanate itself was “secular” but Anandai the grandson of Qubilai became a Mohammedan & in areas under his control spread it by force before he was executed. The slowly expanding Hui numbers would continue & explode in the largest jihad of history in total numbers that I know of, the Dungan jihad (1862-1877) which depopulated large swathes of Qing empire & resulted in extermination of most Mohammedans in China.

Impact

  • Panthay 17 yr rebellion with heavy Mohammedan element, overlapped with Dungan jihad. Jahangir Khoja→Panthay Rebellion (1 mill dead)→1st Dungan (8-12 mill dead) 1862–77 →2nd Dungan (1895 during 1st S-J war)
  • “(80% of sullas in empire died when curbing Dungan, Panthay etc).” [TW]
  • This Dungan jihad tmk is the largest jihad in hist in total #’s & yet is mostly unknown to non historians, even most Mohammedans including Pakistanis have no idea.
  • Beg even established a caliphate of sorts with all that usually entails. He was even conducting diplomacy with Ottomans, Russians, & Western powers before the Qing steamroller turned the tide around.

Costly suppression

  • During the initial phase the Manchu & Han were caught off guard & for a time western observers of the time thought a caliphate would be born in western China before they turned the tide
  • “Dungan revolt: 8-12 mill dead, lasted 15 yrs,sullas prob around 10% of Qing : 32-48 mill or more dead(Indian pop 4X Qing & sulla % higher)” [TW]
  • Famous General Tso’s chicken btw is named after Zuo Zongtang who carried on a part war of extermination of Mohammedans to put down the jihad.
  • Zuo reported 60K of 700K Shaanxi Mohammedans left. “Among those fortunate to survive this catastrophe, some had relocated … while others were forced to abandon their religion and become part of today’s Han people”. Islam in Shaanxi was completely destroyed as a result of the policy of “demolishing Hui” in the late Qing Dynasty. (TW)

Economic and social restrictions

  • [TW]
  • “All our villages, farms, houses and graveyards were now owned by those from other religions. More than eight hundred mosques were destroyed by fire.” - TW
  • “Their mosques were either damaged or destroyed by fire, or converted to family shrines and temples of the Han people.” TW

Punishing Leaders

The sons & grandsons of Yaqub Beg the Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of the Dungan jihad (the largest mass jihad in recorded history afaik) were castrated & sold as slaves despite Western protests while the earlier jihadist Jahangir Khoja was paraded in Beijing & dispatched to his 72 hoors.

Further jihAd-s

  • “They didn’t stop @ Dungan either, there was Dungan 2 in 1894-96 (during Japan-Qing war), TIRET in 1930’s (syrian ghazi Tawfiq Bay), Ili in 40’s.”
  • After Panthay & Dungan were crushed, there was a third more localized jihad in 1895-96. They were emboldened to jihad when they realized that the Qing troops were away fighting Japan in the Japan-Qing war of 1894-95. They had initial success before Qing won
  • Muslim Conflict in Gansu was when a coalition of Muslim Generals broke out in revolt against the Guominjun in 1927.

Indian parallels

Some figures mentioned like Waliullah had their fellow travelers in China (e. g. Ma Mingxin) with much more devastating results there. All of them traveled in same circles & were connected to common teachers. Ma returned to Qing empire in 1761 after studying for 16 years in Arabia, same year as Abdali’s crowning jihad which was instigated by Shah Waliullah. He was also a Naqshbandi sufi just like Waliullah.

Likewise Syed Barelvi paralleled by Ma Hualong though latter much more successful in his jihadist endeavors in Northwest Qing empire.