Current Trends in Uyghur in China and Its Relationship to Mission in Islamic World: Special Reference to Cultural Theme Study for Contextualization

Enoch Kim

The purpose of this article is to overcome the limitations of Uyghur Muslim missions, in which observational and deductive methods are limited to phenomenological analysis in their mission strategy, by investigating through contextual attempts by understanding ethnic-cultural themes. For the contextual attempt, this article chooses to locate the target ethnic-cultural theme to implement Paul Hibert’s critical contextualization theory along with Steve Beavan’s six Contextual Models. In addition, as for a theoretical understanding of ethnic identity, this article introduces the conceptual characteristics of ethnic group and ethnicity, as well as the differences between ethnology and ethnic studies. These concepts and definitions illuminate that it is more appropriate to perceive the Uyghur people through ethnicity rather than ethnic groups. To discover the cultural themes of the Uyghur tribe, this article focuses on the research of their historical trends, anthropological data, and the changes in modern urban Uyghur’s social networks. In terms of historical context, though the Chinese history records the Uyghur from the time of since B.C., the study did not cover pure history but mainly explored it to find cultural themes. Therefore, the paper mostly focuses on historical events of the mid-18th century that significantly changed and formed modern Uyghur cultural themes and spiritual beliefs. In 1757, Uyghur country, or Jungaria, which ruled the northern part of the present-day Xinjiang province, was conquered by the expedition of the Qing dynasty. Two years later in 1759, the other Uyghur cites, which were scattered throughout the southern parts of present-day Xinjiang, which governed Islamic Naqshbandi, their spiritual stronghold and governing system, were both submitted to the Qing army. This research also thoroughly described the mid-19th-century Hui-Turkish allied rebellion against Qing, which tremendously impacts Uyghur ethnic sentiments even today. This article especially summarizes the significance of Yaqub Bek’s rallying of Xinjiang’s entire Uyghur Turk population, his formation of a unified nation, and the contribution to the emotional and spiritual sentiments of the modern Uyghur. Because this paper focuses on modern Uyghur Muslim missions, I mainly examined how the social networks of modern Chinese urban Muslims are changing. I also introduced and characterized dual cultural sets and the composition of their cultural dynamics. Furthermore, using the communication theory, I analyzed how informational channels influence the worldviews and behavior patterns of modern young Chinese urban Muslims. In the conclusion, this article stresses the need for Korean missionaries to go beyond the list of phenomenological data and make a contextual approach by understanding cultural themes when interacting with Uyghurs who are Chinese ethnic minorities and Muslims. For such a contextual approach, with the recognition of the importance of local leaders’ contextual efforts, considering the current mission situation, this article highlights the importance of missionaries’ efforts to understand cultural themes. As a conclusion as well as a ministry application, this article underscores the need for research that explores the social stratum that can create strategically entrances and bases that diffuse the Good News, which would provide missionaries access to the entire Uyghur. This paper mainly focuses on revealing the cultural themes of the modern Uyghur. I mainly utilized historical, cultural anthropological, social anthropological, and social network theories for this research. Scholars who provided the research’s fundamental theories include Steve Beavans, Paul Hiebert, Ronald Reminick, Nathan Glazer, Daniel P. Moynihan, Claude S. Fischer, Edwin Eames, and Judith, Granich Goode, and various other Uyghur and Central Asian modernist historians.

KJC Korea
Journal Central

Statistics

Tools