Old Stories, New Needs: The Multiple Appropriations of the Chinese-speaking Muslims’ Origin Narratives

The arrival of Islam in China is recounted in numerous narratives, both oral and written. “The Story of Wan Gars” (宛尕斯的故事). Three of these narratives trace it back to Muslim worthies that reached China during the early Tang dynasty. These narrative are recounted in He Qiaoyuan’s Book of Min (閩書), in The Origin of the Huihui (回回原來), and in latter two as a timeless “collective memory of Chinese Muslims” or as the “Chinese Muslims’ self-consciousness”. Such interpretations register the wide circulation of these origin narratives in China, yet omit where and when these narratives have circulated, thus obscuring the social dimensions of memory. Taking into account the agents involved in the transmission, selection, and crystallization of particular versions of the Chinese Muslims’ imagined past, I select three sites of memory—physical or textual—where individuals, groups, and institutions engage in the acts of remembering the arrival of Islam in China. These sites are the tombs of legendary Muslim ancestors, a pre-modern origin myth transmitted through manuscripts and wood block prints ranging from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century, and a myth in post-Mao collectanea Some scholars have referred to the of folk literature. Situating these case studies in their respective historical context, I argue that the same origin narratives have been transmitted by distinct yet overlapping communities for remarkably different reasons.