ABSTRACT
The history of chants in the culture of Chinese Hui Muslim women's mosques is also a sonic history of women's prayerful lives. It is inseparable from the evolution of women's mosques in China's central plain. This powerful soundscape only recently emerged into the light through the privately printed SongBook, a compilation of over 300 chants preserved and kept alive for future generations of believing women. The chants throughout this volume originate in the SongBook, the making and legacy of which are of central significance. The chapter presents a popular Islamic chant, ‘Lamenting Life’, that encapsulates this volume's core themes and illustrates the use of oral history for exploring women's religious imagination and subjectivities. It discusses the chants’ origins, their functions, diverse languages and genres, and pedagogies of transmission. A precious record of an expressive women's mosque tradition, the invaluable SongBook is used for religious, ritual, pedagogical, and celebratory purposes, and enables local women's claim to a place of pride in the story of Islam in China.
