Anak Alam

A traveler was asked if he wrote diary while travelling because travelling is interesting. He replied, ‘Not because the travel is interesting but because travel writing is a minor form of autobiography.’

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Wen Min : A Muslim Village in Southern Cina

Typical view of paddy field in Wen Min and environ.

Muslim farmers drying their paddy in open spaces in their village; a basketball court in this case.

A feature in the Muslim villages of Yunnan like Tian Bai Mu and Wen Min is the widespread use of Arabic scripts in notices on the wall and street signs. This notice is outspokenly religious in tone. The Arabic means ‘The sign of loving God is loving the dhikr.’

Like other major Muslims settlements, Wen Min has a big mosque that shows Central Asian – Persian influence. [1]

Many Yunnanese mosques are part of an administrative an madrasah complex. The major archway normally houses the Imam and teachers offices, the side wings are the madrasah and student hostels, while the mosque is immediately opposite the entrance across a big square [2]. Children play freely inside the complex compound and in the mosque which is very good as this draws them close to the mosque.

This basketball court is located just outside the complex. This is also typical of Chinese Muslim villages where the mosque complex is usually right at their heart and everything else – shops, houses, sports facilities – surround it.) Notice in the pictures several local Muslim women in the background. Like in Kelantan, local Muslim women involve actively in trade tending the groceries and eateries. Most Chinese Muslim women wear proper hijab, although a few also cover their head with a kufi cap like their mensfolk.   

Wen Min old Imam is seen sitting on my left with a cap on. He oversaw the survival of Islam and the mosque during the Cultural Revolution. [3] Himself could not converse in Arabic which reminds me of what Sidi Afifi once said of the Malay scholars, that the most brilliant Shafi’i ulama he had ever met were from Indonesia, lived in remote villages and were not fluent Arabic speakers – if we met them, we wouldn’t consider them to be anything special at all. The new Imam sits at the far left of the picture.

As in the case of Albania, Macedonia, and some obscure places that I have chosen to visit, people were also curious as to why I went to Yunnan rather than the more touristy areas of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. The reason for me is clear – because I am a traveller and rather not receptive to the idea of sight seeing. Sight seeing is one of the more doubtful aspects of travel and in China, like lesewhere, it is one of the least rewarding things a traveller could do – primarily a distraction and seldom even an amusement. It has all the boredom and ritual of a pilgrimage but none of the spiritual benefits.

As to why there is ever a need to travel, the reasons are plenty, and for this particular journey I have the inspiration of a scholar from Tangier [4] to share:

"... wa al-’amal bi as-sunnati // wa al-iqtida-i bi al-a-immati //

wa al-muwafaqati al-mutabattali al-To-i’i // wa al-mujalasati al-munibi al-khashi’i //

wa mu’asharati al-wafiyyi al-khaDi’i // wa ziyarati as-sajidi wa ar-raki’i."

"[that his wasiyya (or testament) for the seekers includes]

to practice the Sunnah and take the Imams as examples.

To imitate the obedient, and keep the company of the penitent.

To be affectionate to the faithful and submissive, and to visit those who bow and prostate."

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Notes:

[1]: The fusion of Chinese and Central Asian betrays the historical link between the regions. Although the first Muslim community was probably set up by Sayyidina Sa’ad ibn Abi Waqqas in Guangzhou, whose mosque’s minaret still stands today, this earliest Arab community was later massacred. They continued to provide trading bases for later generations but the real impact of Islam came during the Mongol Yuan dynasty. A chronicle dating from that period mentioned that the Mongols in their successful attempt to subdue the remaining Song empire to the south, had employed a Muslim military engineer, Rashid and his three sons from Baghdad. These Muslims provided the skills to manufacture manjani’ (catpult). Interestingly an Arab historian mentioned that the type of manjani’ they produced were of the manjani’ Afranji – the European catapult – type. The success of the earliest Muslim troops caused the Mongols to employ more of them. In fact many cities and towns in China today that are predominantly Muslims were once great camps of the Muslim army of the Empire.

[2]:The signs of Chinese architecture is seen in the presence of the Chinese style compounds, which they call ‘sine yuan’ with the wall, the circular moon gate and scree behind it.

[3]: Please refer Discovering China: The Cultural Revolution for a long short summary.

[4]: He is al-Siddiq al-Ghumari. Details laters.