5.1. Temporal Evolutionary Features of Mosques in the Kashgar Region
5.1.1. Changes in the Number of Mosques
The year-by-year number and growth of mosques in the Kashgar region are plotted as shown in
Figure 3. From 1955 to 2004, the number of mosques in the area grew from 5803 to 9876, an increase of 70.19%. Judging purely from the number of mosques, the development of Islam in the study area has not been significantly resisted since the establishment of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The growth of the number of mosques in the Kashgar region can be clearly divided into three stages. From 1955 to 1976, the number of mosques grew more steadily and at a slower rate. Although there was a relatively large increase in the quantity of mosques in a few years, overall the number grew by no more than 100 per year. From 1976 to 1992, the curve became steeper during this period, and the quantity grew more rapidly. In particular, in 1980, the number of mosques increased by more than 600. This time period is the most significant year for the increase of mosques in the area during the study period. From 1992 to 2004 the growth rate slowed down, but still maintained a steady growth of 60 to 70 mosques per year; the growth rate was slower compared to 1978 to 1990, but faster compared to 1955 to 1978.
The number of mosques within the 13 districts and counties in the study area was compared, and the data for four years, 1955, 1976, 1992, and 2004, were selected as shown in
Table 1. In general, mosques are distributed within the districts and counties in the study area, and the number of mosques in each district and county has increased to varying degrees during the study period. Yarkant, Konaxahar, and Payzawat consistently rank in the top three of all districts in terms of the quantity of mosques, and these districts are more prosperous in terms of Islamic development. From 1976 to 1992, all districts and counties had higher growth rates compared to the rest of the years. Some districts such as Kashgar, Maralbexi, etc., with a relatively large number of mosques, still achieved a high growth in 1992 compared to 1976.
It can be noted that the number of mosques in Tumxuk, Tashikurgan was not only low but also had no significant increase during the study period. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Tumxuk has been transformed from the initial management system of a people’s commune to an administrative system under the direct management of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. Due to the limitations of the management and administrative system, the development of Islam in Tumxuk was more strictly regulated, so the number of mosques in the city was far less than in other districts and counties. Tashikurgan is located on the southwest border of Xinjiang, the territory is mountainous, and belongs to the plateau alpine arid climate. Although its area is large and borders several countries and regions, as shown in
Figure 2, the deficiencies of its natural environment make the region sparsely populated (the 2019 Chinese census shows a population of just over 40,000 people in Tashikurgan); the quantity of mosques was low. The number of mosques owned by the remaining districts and counties during the study period is considerable, and the overall situation of Islamic development in the Kashgar region was good.
5.1.2. Statistical Characteristics of the Number of Mosques
The standard deviation index, coefficient of variation, and global
Moran’s I were used to measure the quantitative characteristics of mosques in the Kashgar region spatially, as shown in
Table 2.
The increasing of the number of mosques during the study period reflects the increasingly significant absolute differences in the distribution of mosques in the Kashgar region across districts and counties. Districts with a dominant number of mosques are more likely to gain further numerical growth than those with a smaller number. The has a slight tendency to decrease, reflecting a decrease in the dispersion of the number of mosques in each district and county. This indicates that the districts and counties with a relatively small number of mosques during the study period gained more significant growth compared to the statistical base period, and the increase was greater than that of the regions with dominant numbers.
The study area consisted of 13 county-level units, but the global Moran’s I suggested a sample size of at least 26. Therefore, a square was constructed based on the approximate area of the study region, and the Kashgar region was divided into 103 grid cells with a standard length and width of 50 km to meet the requirements of global Moran’s I for the examination of sample size.
The was greater than 0 from 1955 to 2004, and all passed the 99% confidence test. This indicates that there is a positive autocorrelation in the spatial distribution of the number of mosques in the Kashgar region, i.e., the number of mosques within a certain area is influenced by the neighboring areas.
During the global Moran’s I test, if the -score is greater than 2.58 the sample can be considered to be spatially clustered. The results show that the -scores of the number of mosques in the study area were all greater than 2.58, and it can be concluded that mosques showed a concentrated distribution.
It is noted that the increased more rapidly from 1976 to 1992, and the plummeted during that period, but the changes in the and -score were less pronounced than the changes in the and . This suggests that the development of Islam and the rapid increase in the number of mosques in each region from 1976 to 1992 did not break the spatial autocorrelation of religious development in the region, nor did it significantly affect the spatial clustering characteristics of mosques. It is just that the absolute disparity in development between regions was significantly magnified, and the growth rate of the quantity of mosques in regions was more significant in that period compared to other periods.
5.2. Spatial Evolution Characteristics of Mosques in the Kashgar Region
5.2.1. Spatial Distribution of Mosques
The formation and development of religion and its spread depend on a specific geographical environment. Additionally, once a religion is formed, it can react to the geographic environment and its landscape will become an important part of the space. Geography has had a profound influence on the formation and survival of religious sites. Considering that the geographical conditions of the Kashgar region were basically unchanged during the study period and the population movement was less frequent, in order to explore the interaction between mosques and geographical space in Kashgar region three aspects of topography, rivers and population schematic in the study area can be referred to from
Figure 2 in the previous text. Four years, 1955, 1976, 1992 and 2004, were selected to observe the spatial distributions of mosques in Kashgar region using DDE, as shown in
Figure 4. For comparison purposes, the DDE values for 2004 were categorized by natural breaks and, subsequently, the values for the remaining three years were displayed using this categorization as a criterion.
The high value area of DDE reflects the concentrated distribution of mosques in the Kashgar region. It can be seen that the mosques were mainly distributed in the northwestern and central parts of the region, with a concentration in the northeastern part of the region at a later stage. These areas are relatively low in elevation and have rivers, and the population is more densely distributed. Islam in the Kashgar region focuses on the integration of religious and social life (
Pa 2006), while human social activities give preference to areas with a better natural environment. The advantageous location has allowed Muslims to concentrate their social and religious activities, resulting in a more prosperous Islam and a relatively larger quantity of mosques. Secondly, the mosque, which has both religious and social functions, will become an important place in the daily life of Muslims once it is built (
Jani et al. 2015). Muslims in the Kashgar region use the mosques for their daily worship, scripture study, weddings, funerals and other activities. In addition, the important religious and social functions of the mosque can attract the population to gather around it, thus accelerating the prosperity of Islam in its locality. Therefore, the organic interaction between the beliefs carried by the mosques and the geographical environment has resulted in a spatially clustered distribution of mosques in the Kashgar region.
5.2.2. Clustering of Mosques
From the color differences of DDE values in
Figure 4 in different years, it can be seen that the distribution of mosques in the northwestern, central, and northeastern regions of the Kashgar region from 1955 to 2004 showed a more obvious clustering feature and a growing trend of concentration. From 1955 to 1976, there was no significant increase in the agglomeration of mosques in the Kashgar region and the DDE values were elevated only in Konaxahar and Yarkant. Between 1976 and 1992, the DDE values were significantly elevated in Konaxahar and in the population agglomerations of Yarkant and Poskam. This period also saw the emergence of new agglomerations in the areas along the river, in Makit in the central part of Kashgar and in Maralbexi in the northeast where there is a relatively large population distribution. From 1992 to 2004, the DDE values in the Kashgar region showed a small increase in a small part, although the overall change was not significant. On the whole, the agglomeration of mosques in the study region has strengthened, and the scope of clustering has increased, especially from 1976 to 1992.
DDE is able to mark the macroscopic distribution and concentration of samples in a region at a large scale. In order to observe the agglomeration distribution of mosques on a small scale, the Kashgar region was divided into 7667 units with a grid of 5 km × 5 km. If the number of mosques in a unit is greater than 50, it is judged that the unit has a strong agglomeration effect, and is said to be an aggregation unit. The units were divided into four classes based on the number of mosques. The distribution of the aggregation units for the four selected years of 1955, 1976, 1992, and 2004 is shown in
Figure 5. The number of aggregation units in each district and county of the Kashgar region at four time points is counted as shown in
Table 3, and the numbers in parentheses after the place names represent the number of aggregation units of a certain class owned by the place.
In terms of the spatial location of the aggregation units, the spatial clustering of mosques reflected by
Figure 5 is not significantly different from the clustering reflected by DDE. During the study period, the aggregation units in the Kashgar region were mostly clusters of 50 to 100 mosques, and it was less common that more than 100 mosques occurred simultaneously in a unit. A small number of units received a rank upgrade during the study period. It is worth noting that, as of 1976, there were only two clustering cells at the junction of Makit and Maralbexi (which are bounded by the river, and the cities along the river have always been relatively well developed and densely populated), but by 1992 many new clusters had appeared there. Otherwise, the spatial distribution of aggregation units in 2004 did not differ much from that in 1955.
By district, the distribution of aggregation units was found in all districts except Tumxuk and Tashikurgan. The quantity of aggregation units in Maralbexi, Makit, and Kargilik increased during the study period. All three areas were located in the eastern part of the study area, and the increased units were located in districts with rivers passing through and high population, which reflects the trend of clustering of mosques to the eastern districts and counties.
Yengixahar, Kashgar, Yengisar, and Konaxahar have increased their clustering cell class. These four districts, which border each other and are located in the most densely populated areas in the northwestern part of the study area, also ranked higher in terms of the number of mosques among all districts (
Table 1 shows this), and the agglomeration effect of mosques was more significant.
Payzawat consistently had more aggregation units than the other districts during the study period, but the area of high DDE values in the county was concentrated mainly in its southwestern orientation and did not cover all the clustering cells. It can be concluded that the development of mosques in Payzawat was influenced by the agglomeration effect of the neighboring districts of Kashgar and Yengisar, and the agglomeration effect of mosques in neighboring areas of Payzawat was more advantageous. In general, the spatial agglomeration of mosques in the Kashgar region was still influenced by geographical environment and demographic factors, and the agglomeration effect was especially obvious in districts and counties where mosque development had advantages.
5.2.3. Spatial Expansion of the Mosque
The standard deviation ellipse, SDE, can abstractly reflect the geometric characteristics of the distribution of sample points in space. SDE is used to observe the spatial expansion of mosques in the Kashgar region from 1955 to 2004, as shown in
Figure 6 and
Table 4.
The area of the SDE continued to increase during the study period, especially during the period from 1976 to 1992. The mosques in the Kashgar region are not only continuously clustered within the SDE, but also grow significantly outside. However, the center coordinates of the SDE did not move significantly during the study period, indicating that the mosques’ growth outside the SDE was not sufficient to weaken the intensification of the agglomeration effect in the area near the center point of the SDE.
During the study period, the distribution of SDE from the northwest-southeast direction underwent a counterclockwise rotation, and the rotation angle tended to decrease. The x (long axis of the ellipse) lengths did not change significantly. However, the y (short axis of the ellipse) lengths, especially from 1976 to 1992, have increased significantly and the shape of SDE gradually became rounded. Combined with the analysis in the previous subsections, the increase in the number of mosques in the eastern and northeastern districts of the SDE, such as Maralbexi and Payzawat, has led to an outward expansion of the mosque agglomeration effect, resulting in a change in the geometry of the SDE, i.e., the spatial expansion of mosques has had a diffusion effect, but the diffusion effect has not had a significant impact on the agglomeration of mosques in several districts and counties in the northwestern part of the Kashgar region. Accordingly, it can be inferred that the center point of SDE will still not change much after 2004, but the area will continue to change, and the rotation angle will continue to decrease. Mosques will continue to expand in the eastern and northeastern parts of the study region, and the agglomeration effect will continue to increase in the northwestern part. The absolute difference of mosque development in the region will further expand and the relative difference will continue to decrease.
5.3. Causes of the Evolution of the Spatial Distribution of Mosques in the Kashgar Region
The natural conditions of regions can be an important factor influencing the early process of origin and spread of religion. The population of the Kashgar region has mostly been distributed since ancient times in geographic areas with gentle terrain, freshwater resources, and in non-desert areas, which tend to form relatively developed urban settlements as the population gathers. The emergence of settlements provided the missionary infrastructure for the early development of Islam in this region.
Around the tenth century A.D., the rulers of the Kara-Khan Dynasty were influenced by their western neighbor, the Samanid Dynasty, and embraced Islam. The rulers represented the upper echelons of the religious hierarchy, and Islam became the official faith of the Kara-Khan Dynasty. During this period, Islam spread spatially with geographic carriers such as commercial roads and cities. After the division of the Kara-Khan Dynasty, the Eastern Kara-Khan Dynasty took ancient Kashgar, the northwestern part of the Kashgar region studied in this paper, as its economic, political, and cultural center. Although deeply inland, ancient Kashgar was relatively rich in river resources and gently sloping, and its location at the natural boundary between East Asia and Central Asia, as well as its relatively dense population, gave rise to many settlements and cities (
Zilolakhon and Akhmadjonov 2022). The establishment of mosques completed the social and religious functions of these settlements and cities. Similarly, in the Yarkand Khanate area (near the river on the west side of present-day Makit), the gentle terrain and the presence of the river made it easier for the population to gather and Islam to flourish there. In the analysis of the previous study, the spatial layout of the mosque also favors areas with gentle terrain, freshwater resources, and in non-desert areas. Therefore, it can be argued that natural features and population are the two basic causes of the spatial distribution of mosques in the Kashgar region.
In the period studied in this paper, between 1955 and 2004, social factors were an important reason for the evolution of the spatial pattern of mosques in the Kashgar region. The Uyghur autonomy system was introduced in Xinjiang in 1955, with the Chinese government declaring that it would fully guarantee the customs and religious beliefs of minority groups. In 1958, Xinjiang completed its democratic reform and socialist transformation and carried out a reform of its religious system focusing on the elimination of religious feudal privileges and exploitation and the prohibition of illegal activities by religious people. During this period, some mosques in the Kashgar region were spontaneously demolished by the masses, some collapsed naturally, and some were collectively occupied or demolished during the communalization period (
Cao and Hu 2006). However, at this time the government did not restrict the legal religious activities in the mosque, and some less developed areas still build a number of new mosques to meet the normal religious needs of the masses.
During the “Cultural Revolution”, from 1966 to 1976, the Chinese government’s religious policy guidelines were undermined and a large number of mosques were occupied as revolutionary places for ideological propaganda (
Li 2014). People in some districts and counties of the Kashgar region were banned from conducting religious activities in religious places. At this stage, although there was a demand for mosques among the faithful, fewer new mosques were built due to the political environment. Around 1976, with the end of the “Cultural Revolution,” the Chinese government’s religious policy was restored and implemented. A large number of mosques in the Kashgar region were approved to be restored and newly built. During this period, the management of the mosques that were occupied and demolished during the “Cultural Revolution” was returned to the faithful. After this, religious activities and the management of mosques in the Kashgar region developed normally.
Since 1978, mainland China has been implementing a policy of reform and opening up. Due to the relaxation of the national economy’s restrictions on the means of production as well as material and equipment, and the proximity to the border, the social production in the Kashgar region was further liberated and a large number of businessmen emerged. After 1980, the number of mosques in the Kashgar region expanded dramatically, financed by a few businessmen and mostly by compulsory distribution to the faithful. Most of the businessmen financed the construction of mosques in their hometowns, and most of the “first rich people” came from several districts and counties in the northwest of the Kashgar region. This period is also the most significant change in the spatial pattern of mosques from 1995 to 2004. Although the number of mosques has grown and Islamic activities have developed well, it is clear that it has increased the financial burden on the faithful (
Xie and Du 2013).
In the late 1980s, the government concluded that illegal religious activities existed in Xinjiang and that it was more vulnerable to the influence of separatist forces outside China. Therefore, in 1990, the Xinjiang government issued a new management policy for mosques in various areas. At this stage, the relevant authorities believed that the religious sites owned by southern Xinjiang at that time could fully meet the needs of the religious masses in terms of policy religious life, and that the new construction of mosques would be managed restrictively. After the 1990s, the Xinjiang government stipulated that, in principle, no new mosques would be built. However, new settlements and herdsmen settlements without mosques can build new mosques after strict approval procedures. The excessive number of mosques was considered a sign of religious fanaticism. The increase in illegal religious activities resulting from religious fanaticism was one of the dangerous factors affecting social stability in Xinjiang. Therefore, the relevant authorities required the mosques in the Kashgar region to be equipped with legal persons. The database used for this study shows that all of the people serving as legal persons in the mosques were Uyghurs and there were no Han Chinese. From this perspective, religious affairs in the Kashgar do implement the policy of minority autonomy.
In 1992, Deng Xiaoping’s Southern Talk reaffirmed the importance of the market economy in China’s reform and opening-up process. Due to its special geographical location, the Kashgar region had relatively frequent economic exchanges with the outside of China and the living standard of the people had been rising in the process of reform and opening up. The urban areas of the districts and counties in the Kashgar region were constantly expanding, with more and more new settlements, and the existing mosques did not meet the needs of the faithful. With the financial support of the faithful, new mosques were built, and while not as many as in the 1980s, the number was still relatively significant. It is worth noting that, in conjunction with the previous analysis, even though new mosques were being built, the number of new mosques was still relatively small compared to the number of mosques already built. Therefore, the spatial distribution pattern of mosques in the Kashgar region from 1992 to 2004 was not much changed. In addition, Tumxuk has been sparsely distributed due to the implementation of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps management system, and the incompatibility of Islamic beliefs with the ideology of the local administration.
In general, the spatially changing characteristics of mosques in the Kashgar region from 1955 to 2004 are basically closely related to the historical evolution of the region from the time periods selected for this study (1955, 1978, 1992, and 2004). Geographical conditions and population laid down the basic characteristics of the distribution of mosques in the region. After the founding of People’s Republic of China, changes in social factors such as productivity, religious management system, and administrative system are the reasons for the changes in the spatial distribution characteristics of mosques in the Kashgar region.