In Remembrance of the Saints - (Translations from the Asian Classics) Annotated by Muḥ & ammad Ṣ & adiq Kashghari (Paperback)

About the Book

In the late eighteenth century, Muḥammad Ṣadiq Kashghari wrote an account of religious and political conflicts in the Tarim Basin, part of present-day Xinjiang, on the eve of the Qing conquest. This volume presents the complete, long recension of In Remembrance of the Saints, translated for the first time into any language.

Book Synopsis

In the first half of the eighteenth century, rival dynasties of Naqshbandi Sufi shaykhs vied for influence in the Tarim Basin, part of present-day Xinjiang. In the 1750s, the collapse of the Junghar Mongol state gave one branch of this family an opportunity to assert their independence in the oasis cities of Kashgar and Yarkand. Others sided with the armies of the Qing dynasty, which were massing on the frontiers to invade. The ensuing conflict saw the region incorporated into the expanding Qing imperium.

Three decades afterward, Muḥammad Ṣadiq Kashghari was commissioned to write an account of these Naqshbandi Sufis and their downfall. Blending the genres of collective biography and historical epic, mixing prose and verse, Kashghari's text vividly depicts religious and political conflicts on the eve of the Qing conquest. It became the most popular and influential Chaghatay-language work to grapple with this divisive period. This volume presents the complete, long recension of In Remembrance of the Saints, translated for the first time into any Western language and extensively annotated with reference to both Islamic and Qing sources. The introduction situates the work in the Inner Asian tradition of Sufi biography and discusses the political factors shaping historical memory in Qianlong-era Xinjiang. Providing a rare local perspective on China's expansion into Muslim borderlands, this translation sheds light on Xinjiang's political and religious traditions and makes a foundational work of Inner Asian literature available to students and scholars.

Review Quotes

A timely and lasting contribution to Qing studies. Brophy has made this essential counternarrative of the Qing conquest of Xinjiang accessible to readers of English. He offers an affecting translation, and his introduction crisply integrates and augments the venerable but fragmentary scholarship on Islamic sects of Inner Asia.--Pamela Crossley, author of A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology

Brophy has given us a superb translation of Muḥammad Ṣadiq Kashghari's text. With its judicious annotations and excellent introduction, this book is a major contribution to the study of an important Sufi tradition of Islamic Inner Asia and its confrontation with Qing expansion.--Devin DeWeese, coeditor of Sufism in Central Asia: New Perspectives on Sufi Traditions, 15th-21st Centuries

Written in classical Uyghur, In Remembrance of the Saints records the fateful entanglement of Muslim sainthood, tribal politics, and Qing imperial expansion. This evocative translation brings to life the Inner Asian world of the Uyghurs in the lead-up to the conquest of Xinjiang.--Nile Green, author of Sufism: A Global History

David Brophy's translation of In Remembrance of the Saints is a monumental contribution to the field, and it deserves to be read by historians of China and Central Asia alike, especially now as Xinjiang has become a major topic in scholarship and media.--Eric Schluessel, author of Land of Strangers: The Civilizing Project in Qing Central Asia

About the Author

David Brophy is a senior lecturer in modern Chinese history at the University of Sydney. He is the author of Uyghur Nation: Reform and Revolution on the Russia-China Frontier (2016).