Music of the Ordam Shrine Festival Professor Rahile Dawut (Xinjiang University) Aynur Kadir (Simon Fraser University, Canada) Rahile Dawut has been conducting ethnographic fieldwork around the Xinjiang for over 20 years, and is the world’s leading expert on Uyghur shrine… Read More ›
Paper summaries 
Archaeology of Sound
Ha Guangtian (SOAS, University of London) According to one theory, the sharp division between Classical Arabic and varieties of colloquial Arabic, rather than being exemplary of what has been called “diglossia” in socio-linguistics, was in fact the consequence of Islam’s… Read More ›
Islamic Soundscapes of Khotan
Mu Qian (Research Student, Department of Music, SOAS, University of London) Khotan is situated on the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert. It is an area still dominated by Uyghurs. According to the national census in 2010, Uyghurs account for… Read More ›
Reciting Hikmat in Uyghur Villages: the circulation of texts and performance
Rachel Harris Audio 1. Khetme ritual, southern Xinjiang, 2012 A khetme ritual conducted by a group of pious village women led by a qushnach: a village ritual specialist who deal with funerals and sickness. The bulk of this khetme ritual is… Read More ›
The Silent Loud: Voice, Faith, and the Practice of Listening in China’s Jahriyya Sufism
Guangtian Ha (SOAS, University of London) (Please do not cite or circulate without the author’s permission) Though many Jahriyya Sufis in China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region would hesitate to designate their daily recitation as a form of musical performance, they… Read More ›
Islam by Smartphone: the changing sounds of Uyghur religiosity
Rachel Harris (SOAS, University of London) Aziz Isa (Independent scholar) Over the past few years, localised violent incidents have become commonplace right across Xinjiang. State media blames the ongoing violence on the spread of Islamic jihadi ideals via the Internet… Read More ›
The Public Soundscape of China’s “Little Mecca”
Wei Yukun and Xiao Mei Linxia, which lies in the central part of Gansu Province in China, is a city filled with all kinds of sounds. While some are typical of Chinese towns, others are unique to this place. As… Read More ›
The Soundscapes of Tajik shrines in Xinjiang, China
The Soundscapes of Tajik shrines in Xinjiang, China Aynur Kadir There are more than 50,000 Tajiks living in China, the majority in the Tashkurgan area of Xinjiang which borders on Tajikistan. They follow the Ismaili branch of Shi’aIslam, and they… Read More ›
From Spiritual Soundscape to Musical Soundscape: Nurjan Hapiz
From Spiritual Soundscape to Musical Soundscape: Nurjan Hapiz, a brother who sings his beliefs Mukaddas Mijit (University of Paris, Nanterre, France) Islamic Soundscape of China conference at SOAS, on January 10, 2014, University of London Abstract In the… Read More ›
Creating a sufi soundscape
Creating a sufi soundscape: recitation (dhikr) and spiritual audition (samā‘) according to ahmad kāsānī dahbidī (d. 1542) Alexandre Papas Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris Introduction In both Central Asia and China, as in other Muslim societies, discussions and… Read More ›