With Dr. Jonathan Lipman (Professor Emeritus of History, Mount Holyoke College)
Over the past millennium, Sufism—usually glossed as “Islamic mysticism”—has evolved to pervade the Islamic world. Even scholars who became anti-Sufis, such as 18th century Arab religious reformer Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, studied Sufism deeply. Some manifestations of Sufism have been primarily theological and intellectual, while others have led to construction of new social networks. Though far from the Muslim heartlands, Muslim communities in the Chinese culture area, roughly the extent of the 14th-17th century Ming state, were profoundly influenced by Sufi thought (eastern China) and Sufi institutions (Gansu province). This lecture explores those influences—where, when, how, and by whom they were experienced—in order to understand the simultaneous, sometimes conflicting processes of distinction (of Muslims in China) and acculturation (by Muslims to China)
About the speaker: Trained as a historian of early modern and modern China at Stanford, Jonathan Lipman served on the faculty of Mount Holyoke College from 1977 to 2015, holding the Felicia Gressitt Bock Chair in Asian Studies. In addition, he taught as a visiting professor at Doshisha University, Yale, Harvard, and the University of Washington.
Prof. Lipman’s research deals primarily with the long-term residence and acculturation of Muslims in China. His 1997 book, Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China, remains a standard history of the subject. He edited Islamic Thought in China (2016) and co-wrote a textbook, Modern East Asia: An Integrated History (2011). His current research focuses on the life and thought of Ma Zhu (馬注), a Yunnanese Muslim scholar of the early Qing period, author of a Chinese-language introduction to Islam (清真指南) still in print 300 years after its composition. He is also editing a collection on Chinese Muslim genealogical traditions and studying the Minshar, a controversial 17th-century Sufi litany used by Sufis in Gansu. Prof. Lipman lives in Corvallis, Oregon, with his wife, Ann Pemberton, a social justice activist and wine educator.
