New Releases: In Remembrance of the Saints by Muhammad Sadiq Kashghari, translated by David Brophy
In Remembrance of the Saints
By Muhammad Sadiq Kashghari, translated by David Brophy
304 Pages. Columbia University Press . $35.
Readers of this column will know that I am apt to come up with broad literary categorizations. Here is one I’ve thought of lately: whereas in English novels character is portrayed through appearance, action, and speech, in French character comes through the depiction of inner thought. Think of the distinction between the novels of Stendhal and Flaubert and the novels of Dickens and more Dickens.1
This thought might seem like an odd way to begin a review of an 18th-century Uyghur-language chronicle of a Sufi Dynasty, but I am in need of some sort of handle to grab onto this book, and I am wondering if parallel categories might run through the writing of history - between ones that assemble all the material records into a narrative, leaving the motivations of historical actors and the causes unexplained, and those that constantly analyze, interpret the past through a certain theory or attitude in order to make sense of what happened.2
From the perspective of a contemporary reader, In Remembrance of the Saints may seem to fit into the first category. The author, Muhammad Sadiq Kashghari, tells us that he based his history off stories he heard from the amir Mirza Usman Beg and the amir’s mother, and so his book has all the awkwardness of structure and tone of an assemblage of stories passed through a few generations. It is a strange, meandering narrative, moving quickly through decades at some points and languishing on small incidents at others. Large political and cultural changes are frequently shirked for tales of individual lives, and effects have at times nebulous causes.
Perhaps the clearest example of the book’s strangeness to a modern reader are the fanatical Sufis who show up here and there, martyr a few prominent characters, but have little other impact on events. Who are these fanatical Sufis? Despite the pre-eminent importance that Sufism occupies throughout In Remembrance of the Saints, Kashghari gives us essentially no details on these dissident believers. He treats them as a given, almost as a natural phenomenon.
But despite this inattention to a religious phenomenon that a modern reader would assume was of great importance, a Sufi-inflected analysis of the events is contained within almost every sentence of Kashghari’s book. The historical personages, along with Kashghari himself, make constant quotations not just of the Quran but of an extensive canon of Islamic poetry. Kashghari even pauses the narrative to explain the nature of Islamic spiritual lineages. 3
For those who, like myself, had assumed that Sufism was an individualistic and non-worldly practice of worship, you will be surprised at how political, how territorial the Sufi tribes of In Remembrance of the Saints are. The subject of the book, the Makhdumzada Khojas, are praised for their holiness, but it is their skills at politics The narrative of the history can be roughly divided into three sections, each taking up about a third of the book. The first is a summation of the leading members of the Khoja family line, with a special emphasis on the relationship of each member to Sufi practices. The second part relates how Khoja Jahan took over an area of inner Asia and entered into war with the Qing dynasty. The final part relates how Khoja Jahan’s city of Yarkand was taken by the Qing and their allies.
The Islamic society of In Remembrance of the Saints is not overly concerned about individual sin or virtue - political actors who have distorted, rejected, or ignored Islam are to be feared, but there’s little suggestion that the state needs to regulate the faith of its populace. But when it comes to outsiders, enemies of Islam - here the drive to holy war trumps mercy or diplomacy.
The saintly Khojas lead both the spiritual and political activities of Sufism. If that theoretically means they have total power over believers, the complex organizational structure of inner Asia - which contains khans, begs, regional governors, Kirghiz tribes, and several foreign parties - puts significant constraints on the Khoja saints.
Indeed, the political organization presented by In Remembrance of the Saints is complex to the point where I suspect Khashgari did not understand all of what he refers to - indeed, considering the amount of shifting alliances and the abrupt changes in power, most of the historical figures do not work under a complete understanding of who is in control of what at any given moment.
At the same time, Khoja Jahan, who predominates over any other figure in the book, maintains a fundamental and divinely-given understanding of his situation throughout the course of events: that his dynasty is destined to fall. Indeed, before the Sufis even begin to retake their land from the infidels, Khoja Jahan falls despondent and declares “that a group will arise from the east, and with battle and strife they will seize the throne and subdue the cities.”
And throughout his rule and the battles he undertakes, Khoja Jahan remains consistent in his vision of calamity. His prophecy (if prophecy is the right word for this kind of divine knowledge in the Sufi context) gives a fatalistic tint to the events of his life. Kashghari points out at several places how the Sufi dynasty could have changed the course of events, could even have defeated their adversaries, but Khoja Jahan’s beliefs lead his people to destruction.
Is this simple martyrdom, an outgrowth of the belief that the highest place for a mortal can be secured on the battlefield of a holy war? Certainly that’s a part of the prophecy. But the martyrdom Khoja Jahan envisions is not at all glorious: “Famine and plague will despoil these lands, such that men will vie to eat human flesh. Without anyone left to bury them, skeletons will pave the streets in place of cobblestones. Corpses will pile up in every lane, and from their foul stench vapors and miasmas will infect people’s minds and drive them to delirium.”
And the final end of his people is somehow grimmer. After being chased into the wilderness, and having many of their leading members slain in retreat, the Sufis finally surrender to the Mongke tribe of Kirghiz. The Kirghiz, who are allegedly Islamic in belief but are believed by settled Sufis to be ignorant of the religion’s true principles, kill many of the remaining Sufis and loot them of what possessions they still have. The Sufis end up in a ghetto-like makeshift camp. The last prose sentences of the book describe their dire fate: “Their circumstances here were even more dire than before, with nothing to eat or drink, and nothing to light a fire with. They couldn’t put up with the wails and cries of their women and children. It was enough to break hearts and melt rocks, but it didn’t make the slightest impression on their enemies.”
To me, Kashghari’s depiction of martyrdom is not a triumph of holy war, or a blessing for the dead, not even a moment in time but a continuous process that gives the meaning of both life and death for a pious Muslim. The key line from the prophet, recited by Khoja Jahan as his follower face defeat, is “This mortal world is a prison for the believers, and a paradise for the infidels.”
I cannot help thinking how apt this saying is not just for the Uyghurs of the 18th century but also the Uyghurs of today, many of whom are trapped in a giant prison of the Chinese communist state. David Brophy, in his acknowledgements, writes, “Many Uyghur philologists, translators, and scholars of religion have vanished into internment camps [...] It’s been a long time since I’ve felt it was safe to communicate with colleagues and friends in Xinjiang.” When a literary work from a foreign culture, especially a non-European one, is published, I like to think of it as the beginning of a great co-mingling of the world’s culture. When it comes to the Uyghurs, Brophy’s translation of In Remembrance of the Saints could be an end.
Note that this doesn’t mean that English novelists aren’s psychological, or even that their psychology is limited to mere behavioralism. There are, of course, major exceptions as well: Balzac, Woolf.
Now I am thinking of Sontag's distinction between analyzing and proving in her essay on Vivre sa vie.
The historian and novelist Ada Palmer has remarked about how historical documents frequently give information on what is obvious or well-known to modern readers but obscure what we desperately want to know. While Khasghari’s discourse on genealogical and spiritual lineages was helpful to me, I’d bet it has frustrated some scholars of Sufi history.