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Winner, 2023 Clifford Geertz Prize in Anthropology of Religion, Society for the Anthropology of Religion
The Jahriyya Sufis—a primarily Sinophone order of Naqshbandiyya Sufism in northwestern China—inhabit a unique religious soundscape. The hallmark of their spiritual practice is the “loud” (jahr) remembrance of God in liturgical rituals featuring distinctive melodic vocal chants.
The first ethnography of this order in any language, The Sound of Salvation draws on nearly a decade of fieldwork to reveal the intricacies and importance of Jahriyya vocal recitation. Guangtian Ha examines how the use of voice in liturgy helps the Jahriyya to sustain their faith and the ways it has enabled them to endure political persecution over the past two and a half centuries. He situates the Jahriyya in a global multilingual network of Sufis and shows how their characteristic soundscapes result from transcultural interactions among Middle Eastern, Central Asian, and Chinese Muslim communities. Ha argues that the resilience of Jahriyya Sufism stems from the diversity and multiplicity of liturgical practice, which he shows to be rooted in notions of Sufi sainthood. He considers the movement of Jahriyya vocal recitation to new media forms and foregrounds the gendered opposition of male voices and female silence that structures the group’s rituals.
Spanning diverse disciplines—including anthropology, ethnomusicology, Islamic studies, sound studies, and media studies—and using Arabic, Persian, and Chinese sources, The Sound of Salvation offers new perspectives on the importance of sound to religious practice, the role of gender in Chinese Islam, and the links connecting Chinese Muslims to the broader Islamic world.
— David Brophy, author of Uyghur Nation: Reform and Revolution on the Russia-China Frontier
This beautifully written book takes us into the unknown sonic world of China’s contemporary Sufi Muslims. Guangtian Ha's deep understanding of these people and their very possibly doomed tradition comes over on every page. This is a marvelous ethnography, rendered with subtlety, sophistication, and panache.
— Caroline Humphrey, coauthor of A Monastery in Time: The Making of Mongolian Buddhism
This is a substantial, unpretentious, and compelling ethnographic study focused on Jahriyya liturgical recitation in northwest China. Marked by expository clarity and absence of jargon, it is a wide-ranging and thoughtful, even wise, book that evidences the author’s impressive linguistic, historical, ethnographic, and theoretical sophistication. Whether exploring technical issues of multilanguage terminology, gender discrimination, or musicality and textual content of recitation, Ha always keeps larger questions about methodology and historical context, as well as the Jahriyya tradition (and its severely threatened survival), admirably in focus.
— William A. Graham, author of Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion
Sensitive and illuminating work.
Offers new perspectives on the importance of sound to religious practice, the role of gender in Chinese Islam, and the links connecting Chinese Muslims to the broader Islamic world.
This volume undeniably offers a rare and fascinating insight into Sufism in China.
A nuanced, sophisticated and provocative work that is a welcome contribution to the field of Chinese Islamic Studies.
Thanks to Ha’s elaborate and precise prose, which is peppered with sardonic humor, the book sustains readers’ attention throughout the pages.
This is a fascinating book that would deserve to be widely read no matter when it had been published. In the present moment, it is an essential tribute to the multiplicity of Sufism in China.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Archaeology of Sound
2. The Sacred Circle
3. Tempo of Time
4. His Master’s Voice
5. Labor of Faith
Epilogue: Ethnography and the Future of the Jahriyya Sound
Notes
Bibliography
Index