The demolition of Uyghur architecture: An irreversible tragedy

This article was written by guest author Charles Hill

Sometime around the year 1000, the Uyghur king Ali Arslan invaded the kingdom of Khotan, on the southern edge of what is now China’s Xinjiang province. With him came both a Turkic language and the Muslim faith, which remain the twin pillars of Uyghur identity today. On the site of his death, deep into the Taklamakan Desert, a small mazar (shrine) was constructed, named the Ordam Padishah. For centuries, tens of thousands of pilgrims congregated there annually. In a distinctly Uyghur form of Islam, the mazar was celebrated as a physical manifestation of the sacred, and as a way to pay respects to the ancestors. 

Today, nothing remains of the mazar but sand. In the winter of 2017, a Chinese demolition team razed into the ground. Even the shrine’s foundations are no longer visible. Across Xinjiang, countless other examples of Uyghur heritage have been dismantled or defaced since a campaign of ‘sinicisation’ was begun in 2008. Ruser (2020) estimate that 65% of all mosques in Xinjiang have been destroyed or damaged, while 30% of other religious sights have suffered the same fate. 

Xinjiang’s architectural heritage is unique. Thanks to its location at the heart of the Silk Road, it has absorbed elements from places as diverse as Central Asia, China, Arabia and India. Unlike neighbouring Turkic groups such as the Kazakhs or Kyrgyz, the Uyghurs have historically been an urban people, encouraging a rich tradition of both religious and secular building. Its most famous example is undoubtedly Kashgar’s Old Town, until recently the most well-preserved Islamic city in Central Asia. A vast tangle of narrow lanes, bazaars, courtyards and mosques, it was a centre of traditional Uyghur culture. It was also home to spectacular individual buildings such as the Kargilik Grand Mosque, built in 1540. This was a beautiful example of Xinjiang’s cultural melting pot, with its Central Asian-style garden, and ornate Arabic calligraphy and mosaics. 

Since 2009 however, the city authorities have systematically razed the Old Town as part of a ‘renewal’ project, ostensibly aimed at improving earthquake resistance, alleviating poverty and promoting Uyghur culture. In reality, the sites of many demolished buildings have been untouched, and are now empty plots or car parks. A small area which has been reconstructed has been labelled a ‘Potemkin village’, with the urban fabric ‘Disneyfied’ for the benefit of Han Chinese tourists. The new ‘old’ buildings are often inauthentic, for example with traditionally featureless walls instead decorated with folk elements such as ornate columns and windows. Winding lanes have been replaced with broad avenues. Tourists whizz around on golf carts. 

The fate of the Kargilik mosque is even more grotesque. An initial crackdown targeted the building’s overly ‘foreign’ or Islamic elements, covering up the mosque’s calligraphy and mosaics, and draping a pro-CCP banner over the front. In 2018 though, the mosque’s gateway was completely demolished. In its place, a poorly constructed, miniaturised version was built at a fraction of the original size, greatly diminishing the mosque’s prominence in the urban landscape. 

The destruction of Uyghur architecture is disastrous on multiple levels. Firstly, it eliminates the unique historic evidence of cultural synthesis between the east and west. On an aesthetic level too, it should be seen as appalling to anyone who appreciates the austere beauty of the Uyghur architectural vernacular. Most importantly however, the destruction of Xinjiang’s old buildings is no less than the destruction of a culture in which traditional forms of living are integral to identity.

Uyghur urban culture has historically centred on the mahalla, a small neighbourhood normally containing a mosque and bazaar. The mahalla provided the focus of identity and integrated its inhabitants into a local community, fostering strong ties with neighbours who could be called on for aid and cooperation. Another locus of identity was the courtyard house, which often contained multiple generations of the same family. This enabled people to easily care for elderly relatives, and reduced the burden of raising their own children. Inside the home, traditional furniture and the heated communal bed (kang) were beautiful, practical, and tied Uyghurs to their culture. 

Uyghurs whose homes have been levelled are often moved to generic high-rise apartments. Here, without the support of the traditional urban environment, they lose the connection with their neighbours, family, and culture, in ways that are presumably very traumatic. The same goes for the destruction of mosques, which provide another centre of identity. The activist Bahram Sintash claims that, on learning that his village’s mosques had been demolished, “it hit me as if someone was telling me my parents had been killed”. 

Judged from the perspective of the CCP, policy towards Xinjiang’s buildings has been a huge success. Its overall effect is the alienation of Uyghurs from their cultural environment, so that they lose contact with their history, and eventually their distinct identity. Without unique forms of living or worshipping, and estranged from their neighbours and wider community, they will become assimilated into a homogenous Chinese culture, and can no longer threaten the state’s integrity. To anyone else, this cannot be seen as anything other than a tragedy. 

We should consider the words of the campaigner Rahile Dawut, who spoke about the mazars shortly before being abducted by the authorities: 

‘If one were to remove these material artifacts and shrines, the Uyghur people would lose contact with the earth. They would no longer have a personal, cultural, and spiritual history. After a few years we would not have a memory of why we live here, or where we belong.’ 

Bibliography 

“List of Demolished Uighur Mosques in XUAR,” Uyghurism, https://www.uyghurism.com/culturalgenocide, Accessed 18/11/20 

“China is Building Vast New Detention Centers for Muslims in Xinjiang,” The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-muslims-detention-centers-xinjiang-crackdown/2020/09/23/44d2ce50-f32b-11ea-8025-5d3489768ac8_story.html, Accessed 18/11/20 

“Chinese Authorities Continue to Destroy Mosques in Xinjiang,” Radio Free Asia, https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/chinese-authorities-continue-to-destroy-mosques-in-xinjiang-09072018171910.html, Accessed 18/11/20 

Ruser, Nathan, “Cultural Erasure: Tracing the Destruction of Uyghur and Islamic spaces in Xinjiang,” Australian Strategic Policy Institute (2020) 

Finley, Joanne S., “Securitisation, Insecurity and Conflict in Contemporary Xinjiang: Has PRC Counter-Terrorism Evolved into State Terror?,” Central Asian Survey 38, No. 1 (2019): 1-26 

Abu Sekin, Hanan Kamal, “Arab States and the Unrest in China’s Xinjiang Province,” World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues 19, No. 3 (2015): 118-133 

Pawan, Sawut and Abiguli Niyazi, “From Mahalla to Xiaoqu: Transformations of the Urban Living Space in Kashgar,” Inner Asia 18, No. 1 (2016): 121-134 

“Uyghurs Ordered to Destroy Muslim Architecture Deemed ‘Extremist’ by Authorities,” Radio Free Asia, https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/architecture-07102019140830.html, Accessed 18/11/20 

Rian Thum, “The Spatial Cleansing of Xinjiang: Mazar Desecration in Context,” Made in China 5, No. 2 (2020)