Tian follows grandmother as female imam
Print Edition
TIAN Xinghong teaches the Quran every morning at the Yinta Mosque in China’s Muslim heartland,
The 28-year-old, donning a black robe and pink scarf, has 60 students at the mosque in Wuzhong City in northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, where many of the country’s Muslim Hui ethnic minority live.
Although Muslim women pray at home, Tian also leads them in prayer and chanting on special occasions such as festivals, either at a women’s mosque or another mosque’s restricted areas for women.
Tian is following in the footsteps of her grandmother, one of the first female imams, or ahong, in Ningxia.
In China, female imams, rare in Arab countries, are an innovation.
Tian was sent to a local mosque at the age of 12 to study Islamic scripture and further her studies at a Chinese-Arabic school for girls in neighboring Gansu Province in 2001, where she studied Islam and Arabic.
In 2003, Tian passed a test organized by the regional Islamic association to become an ahong. More than 300 Muslims applied for the test. Of five female applicants, Tian was the only one to pass.
“Many female Muslims did not have much formal education, especially the elderly. Although they are Muslim, they know nothing about the Quran. I want to teach them the holy scriptures and hope they can be inspired, think independently and have their own careers,” she said.
Tian’s husband is an imam at the Wunan Mosque, the biggest mosque in the city. The couple have two children.
As early as the late Ming dynasty (around the 17th century), followers of the faith set up schools for Muslim women and girls around the country. These later became mosques for women operated by female imams in the late Qing dynasty (around the 19th century).
Female imams then spread throughout Chinese Muslim societies, said Shui Jingjun, a Henan Provincial Academy of Social Sciences researcher.
During the “cultural revolution” (1966-1976), religion was banned. It was revived in the 1980s, leading to growing numbers of Buddhists, Taoists, Muslims and Christians, among other faiths. The government’s push for gender equality helped broaden Muslim women’s roles.
However, China’s female imams do not have equal status to male prayer leaders. They do not lead salat, the five daily prayers considered among the most important Muslim obligations. The prayers are instead piped via loudspeakers into women’s mosques from the nearby mosques for men.
Still, the female imams guide others in worship and are the primary spiritual leaders for the women in their communities. In the women’s mosque, women can study the Quran and Islamic doctrine, as well as the Arabic language.
In the Litong District of Wuzhong City, where Tian lives, there were 12 female ahongs out of 600 registered ahongs as of the end of 2013, said a district religious affairs official.
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