Main Road, Human Relations And Community

Localization is a process in which Islam acculturate by absorbing local cultural element and seek crunodes with local ethos when maintaining fundamental faith and rituals, which is the premise how out-coming religions exist and spread, and result of that out-coming religions accommodate local power structure. Studying process of localization of Islam will offer a Chinese experience for harmonious relation between different religions and culture.Islam is a important factor in the history that Huizu formed and developed. The external form of Islam of Huizu was also slowly changed when Huizu absorbed Han dialect and the Confucian culture. Hui intellectual reproduce Islamic knowledge by explaining the Koran by Confucian language, translating Islamic scriptures and Chinese Mosque education, which are inheritance for today’s Islamic development. This dissertation will take three Hui cases:Harbin, Zhangjiachuan and Chendai, and discuss the characteristics of localization of Islam in China by studying Five Pillars, life rituals and collective rituals.This dissertation include six parts. Introduction will review theories on cultural contact and change, and review studies on localization of Islam in China, and then define the localization. Chapter 1 will introduce the historical and cultural background of three field sites, and discuss the level of Islamic practice of Hui. Chapter 2 will introduce how Huizu practice the Five Pillars in three field sites, and discuss how the Islamic practice accommodate local cultural environment by maintaining the principle of Tawhid. Chapter 3 will introduce how Huizu practice life rituals in three field sites, and discuss how the Islam found the crunodes (which are human relation and virtue) with Chinese traditional culture. Chapter 4 will introduce collective rituals in public space and how "community" expressed in the rituals, and we will further discuss the fashion how Islam re-interpret tradition and orthodoxy in Chinese environment.In conclusion, we will induce characteristic localization of Islam in historical and cultural background. This dissertation will mention three conception:First, Tawhid, by which Muslim expect eternal end in paradise by practice of the Five Pillars; Second, Renlun, human relation and virtue, which is the crunodes of Islam and Chinese traditional culture, and expressing holy and secular wishes; Third, community which emphasizing collective integration, and in which individual could taste society in the ritual. Islamic culture accommodates and acculturate with Chinese culture in language, calendar and moral principles, and the sense of community is expressed in rituals, which sharpen the identify of Hui...