ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the importance of sound in Chinese Hui Muslim women's history. The oral tradition of Chinese Hui Muslim women's mosques in central China's Sunni Muslim communities – by which mainly illiterate women were taught religious, ritual, and practical knowledge – was based on the transmission of jingge (Islamic chants). Yet the study of jingge within the expressive (oral) tradition of women's mosque worship and learning only recently commenced. This raises philosophical and moral issues about epistemic injustice, gendered testimony, and the complex task of ‘listening into’ sounds of subjectivities, piety, and emotion. The emergence of women's own expressive culture of religious soundscapes into public space is framed by issues of collective and gender identity, ethno-religious marginality, Islamic traditions of religious authority, and contemporary contestations over patriarchal injunctions linked with gender policies played out in wider Chinese society.
