Historical Analysis On The Music Of Hui People In China

The history of Hui People’s music is an important part of the cultural history of Hui People in China. The formation and development of Hui music is most associated with the history, Islamic beliefs and social fabric of Hui. The music of Hui in the history was a mixture of various music culture traces. It not only inherited the West Asia and Central Asia music, but also combined the music of other ethnic groups in China, especially Han music, formed its own music culture with distinctive features. This doctoral dissertation avoids the narrow understanding of the music of Hui which holds that the Hui music did not make the appearance until Hui as an ethnic group was formed. The dissertation does not take the contemporary Hui music as the only clue to discuss the Hui music in the history, and does not take a simplified approach to look at the development of Hui music. Rather, the author teases out a framework by building a historical timeline to link up music cultures that were related with Hui in an attempt to research the historical process and development trend of the music of Hui, and to analyze the cultural phenomena of the music of Hui, and thereby to find the historical origins for the contemporary Hui music.This dissertation includes three chapters. These chapters discussed the music of Hui Ancestors in Tang and Song Dynasties, and the music of Huihui People in Yuan Dynasty, and the music of Ethnic Hui in Ming and Qing Dynasties respectively. Several factors closely associated with the Hui are regarded as the main clues through each historical stage, including musical instruments, the musical culture of Islamic countries, and the musical culture of China. The discussion intends to explore issues such as the cultural exchange on music among China and West Asia and Central Asia, the preservation of the Islamic countries custom for Hui, the gradual localization of the secular music life of Hui, and the Islamic faith adhered by Hui in their religious music life.Under the guidance of historical materialism, the author explored the historical data, and based on the theory of historical anthropology, combined with theories in the field of ethnology, musicology, religious studies, communication studies, and archaeology and so on. On the one hand, the author discusses the historical process and development trend about the music of Hui based on the conception that the historical development of the music of Hui was in close contact with the history of Hui and the history of Chinese music. On the other hand, the author also takes on the issue of he cultural pattern of Hui people’s music based on the understanding that the musical culture of Hui was closely related to the Chinese traditional culture and the Islamic traditional culture.The findings suggest that the development of Hui music in the history is intimately intertwined with the history of Hui and the history of Chinese music. Tang and Song Dynasties could be considered to be the pregnant stage for the development of Hui music, Yuan Dynasty is the foundation stage in the development of Hui music, and Ming and Qing Dynasties are the formation stage in the development of Hui music. With consideration to the wider background of the development of the Chinese ancient music, the scope for conceptualizing Hui music was reducing. From the music of Hu in Tang and Song Dynasties to the music of Huihui People in Yuan Dynasty, then to the music of Ethnic Hui in Ming and Qing Dynasties, the concept was gradually reduced. But the cultural integration within the development of Hui music in history was nurtured. In the history of Hui, adherence to the Islamic faith in Hui religious musical life neither increased nor diminished. The music of Hui and other ethnic was in constant contact, exchange, absorption and fusion in history, and eventually the music of Hui has both the common characteristics of Chinese music, and that of the local and ethnic music. Meanwhile, Islamic ethics have always been governing the music life of Hui. So the distinctive cultural form of Hui music is the creation of the close knit of the cultural integration and Islamic faith.