Die Geschichte der Egiz Eriq Ḫoğilar („Hoch-Graben Ḫoǧās‟) in Qarqaš – eine orale Tradition aus Ḫotän, Süd-Xinjiang

Abstract

Little research has been done so far on the subject of a group of Ḫoǧās of southern Xinjiang who claimed descent from the Prophet Muhammad and who were based in a village called Egiz Eriq in the Ḫotän region, whence they became known as the Egiz Eriq Ḫoğilar. Usually, when Ḫoǧās in Xinjiang are touched upon, two rivalling groups are referred to, namely the Aqtaġliq (“White mountain folk”; Chinese: Bai shan pai 白山派) and the Qarataġliq (“Black mountain folk”; Chinese: Hei shan pai 黑山派), all of which are factions belonging to the Naqšbandiyya Sufi network and which – in the wake of the controversial figure of Āfāq Ḫoǧā (d. 1694) – have had a decisive impact on the religious, social and political life of the population of Xinjiang from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. The article of Ǧappar Rähimi, by contrast, focuses on the small aristocratic group of Ḫoǧās who had exerted a feudalistic rule over Qarqaš in the wilayät Ḫotän and who by the evidence of their silsila (in which occurs the name of the Sufi Nağm al-Dīn al-Kubrā of Ḫwārazm [d. 1221]) have oriented themselves to authorities other than the Naqšbandiyya. The article translated into German by Bahargül Hamut in close cooperation with Florian Sobieroj may be considered the first serious study of this group of Ḫoğas in China by any Uyghur language author. It offers some valuable insights from an ethnological as well as historiographical point of view (matters discussed include the question of an involvement of the Egiz Eriq Ḫoğilar in the uprisings against the Chinese rule of the Qing dynasty and during the Republic) into a little-known area of Uyghur Islamic culture in the Chinese periphery.