Jakarta –
China will change the contents of the Koran according to its version. So, Xi Jinping’s government plans to combine Islam and Confucianism.
Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported that this modification of the Chinese version of the Koran was part of an effort to “sinify” Islam. Sinification (sinicize) is the process of changing or modifying something according to Chinese culture. The aim of “Chineseizing” Islam has been planned since 2018.
At the end of July, a group of government officials and academics gathered in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, to discuss implementing this plan. Xinjiang is a region in southwest China where the population is predominantly Muslim, especially the Uighur ethnic group.
So far, the Chinese government has reportedly often strictly controlled the religious activities of Xinjiang residents, including detaining millions of ethnic Uighurdis in concentration camps to doctrinaire communist values.
Meanwhile, according to the Xinhua news agency, Chinese officials and academics who gathered in Urumqi felt that the execution of the sinification of Islam had not progressed significantly since this plan was drawn up in 2018.
In 2018, the China Central Institute of Socialism, part of the Communist Party’s United Front Working Group, drafted a 32-point national plan for the sinification of each of China’s three major monotheistic religions: Protestantism, Catholicism, and Islam. This plan is said to be implemented within the next five years.
The plan itself highlights “problems in some areas that cannot be ignored”. According to the plan, several places in the Bamboo Curtain country have been “infested with extremist ideology.”
Mosques imitate foreign architecture, Muslims wear foreign clothing, and halal labels are applied excessively to food.
“Some negate China’s traditional Islamic ideology,” the plan said, as quoted by RFA.
Therefore, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wants to strengthen China’s influence by producing new translated versions of the Koran and hadith. This translation would later “use Confucianism to interpret the scriptures.”
This interpretation itself refers to a collection of Qing Dynasty Islamic translations and writings in Mandarin known as the Book of Han. The Book of Han is a collection of Islamic texts that use Confucian concepts to explain Islamic theology.
In line with this, academics and officials believe that Beijing needs to do more to combine Islam with Confucianism, aka Confucian values. One way, they want to release a new Koran that is translated into Chinese and has references that are in line with “the spirit of the times.”
“Sinifying Islam in Xinjiang should reflect the historical rules of how society develops, through consolidating political power, pacifying society and building culture,” said Wang Zhen, a professor at the China Central Institute of Socialism.
The leader of the Communist Party and President of China, Xi Jinping, first mentioned the sinification of religion during a speech in 2015. He then mentioned efforts to sinify Islam specifically in 2017.
Islam in China’s eyes is seen as a threat to their superiority. Along with this, Beijing often persecutes Muslims in the country, such as the Uighur and Hui ethnic groups.
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(msl/msl)
2023-09-22 23:30:35
#China #version #Koran #combination #Islam #Confucianism
