In Remembrance of the Saints: The Rise and Fall of an Inner Asian Sufi Dynasty

In the 18th century, rival dynasties of Naqshbandi Sufi shaykhs competed for influence in the Tarim Basin, leading to the collapse of the Junghar Mongol state. Muḥammad Ṣadiq Kashghari's account of these Sufis and their downfall, "In Remembrance of the Saints," was commissioned by the Qing dynasty and became the most popular and influential Chaghatay-language work on the period. This volume presents the complete, long recension of the work, translated into any Western language and annotated with reference to Islamic and Qing sources. It offers a rare local perspective on China's expansion into Muslim borderlands and sheds light on Xinjiang's political and religious traditions.

\n Format: Paperback / softback
\n Length: 304 pages
\n Publication date: 05 January 2021
\n Publisher: Columbia University Press
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In the early 18th century, competing dynasties of Naqshbandi Sufi shaykhs battled for dominance in the Tarim Basin, a region in present-day Xinjiang. In the 1750s, the collapse of the Junghar Mongol state provided one branch of this family with the chance to assert their independence in the oasis cities of Kashgar and Yarkand. Meanwhile, others aligned themselves with the Qing dynasty's armies, which were massing on the frontiers in preparation for an invasion. The ensuing conflict led to the region's incorporation into the expanding Qing empire.

Thirty years later, Muḥammad Ṣadiq Kashghari was tasked with composing an account of these Naqshbandi Sufis and their downfall. Kashghari's text, a blend of collective biography and historical epic, combines prose and verse to vividly depict religious and political conflicts on the eve of the Qing conquest. It became the most popular and influential Chaghatay-language work to address this divisive period.

This volume presents the complete, long recension of In Remembrance of the Saints, translated into any Western language for the first time and extensively annotated with reference to both Islamic and Qing sources. The introduction situates the work within the Inner Asian tradition of Sufi biography and discusses the political factors shaping historical memory in Qianlong-era Xinjiang. By offering a rare local perspective on China's expansion into Muslim borderlands, this translation sheds light on Xinjiang's political and religious traditions and establishes a foundational work of Inner Asian literature accessible to students and scholars.

\n Weight: 432g\n
Dimension: 156 x 235 x 18 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9780231198196\n \n