Mission and Revolution in Central Asia - Svenska Missionskyrkan

“The mosque itself is made up of an open court or rather a park. In front, there is the big water reservoir
and the prayer-wheel with its pillars in an open row. Now the whole park is full of praying people in
perfectly arranged rows. The ground is covered with prayer-mats also arranged in rows as far as can be
seen. People are lying on these mats, side by side as close together as possible. From the platform up in
front there are silent instructions, and now the ‘foaming sea’ is heaving up and down, like wave after
wave, very regular and very dignified in a quiet way. There are no shouts of command, no conductor’s
baton ... Immense is this crowd of tens of thousands of the Kashgar Mohammedans.” 151
Minarets were parts of the mosques in Eastern Turkestan. This was not very common in
China. Marshall Broomhall, a missionary form the China Inland Mission, points out that the
Mosques in China did not differ appreciably from other temples, seen from the outside.
Eastern Turkestan minarets were an influence from Russian architecture according to
Broomhall. 152 He also mentions another particularity which distinguished Chinese Muslims
from the rest of the Muslim world. In Central China there were special women’s mosques
which were not to be found in Eastern Turkestan, where women had to pray in their homes.
The Koran covered all aspects of faith and life and was regarded as divine. Kraemer points
out that the fundamental position of Islam is not “the Word was made flesh” but rather “The
Word was made book”. 153 In the Koran there are many concepts borrowed both from Judaism
and from Christianity. The Old Testament prophets for example are contained in the Koran
and Jesus is regarded as the last one of them. Jesus and the New Testament are however been
passed by and the will of God is so much better and more completely expressed through
Mohammed and the Koran. In Eastern Turkestan there was at the time of the Mission a bulky
volume, the history of the Prophets, an addition to the Koran. It contained handwritten texts,
translated from Persian, previously translated from Arabic. 154 It was however not allowed to
translate the Koran itself. Its magnificence was partly due to the fact that it was written “in
the noblest of languages, classic Arabic.” 155
The five Pillars of Islam and the religious obligations were observed more or less
seriously. The profession of faith made a person a Muslim. “Muslim is any person who
expresses the profession”. 156 The Muslims in Eastern Turkestan were fully convinced that the
profession of faith gave them salvation and eternal life. One day a woman, who had recently
become a widow, came to Raquette. She said that her husband had been more ungodly than
most people. But when he was about to die, he assured himself of eternal bliss by professing,
“Allah is one, and apart from him there is no other god”. 157 Thus the profession of faith
opened the door to the Muslim community during ones lifetime and also gave the assurance
of eternal life. Few sins could change that state of facts. There were however things that
closed all possibilities of community and life, both in this life and in the life to come.
Högberg relates such a case. During his time at the Mission station of Jengi-Hessar, he got to
know a man who had taken a prostitute as his wife. Their two daughters followed their
mother’s way of life. The man himself was a drunkard and he also led others into his own
drinking habits. He was expelled from the Muslim community. And when he died, nobody
cared for him. Long before his death he had arranged for a burial-site within his own
compound because he knew he could not expect to be buried in a Muslim burial-ground.
151 Törnquist, 1926, p. 126 f.
152 Broomhall, 1910, p. 237.
153 Kraemr, 140, p. 233.
154 Högberg-Ahlbert, 1925, p. 69 ff.
155 Arbman, 1957, p. 82.
156 Ericsson, 1967.
157 The Missionsförbundet, 1905, p. 230.
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