Islam in Japan

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Tokyo Camii Mosque
Kobe mosque

The Islam was up to the Meiji Restoration in Japan virtually unknown. To this day, it has mostly been limited to a few local converts and resident foreigners.

Development from 1904 to 1953

As a result of the Russo-Japanese War (1904/05), a significant number of Muslims, mostly Turk-Tatar traders and their families, came under Japanese rule for the first time in the areas on the mainland that came under Japanese administration . This group was enlarged by “white” refugees as a result of the October Revolution .

Even at this time, Japanese intelligence circles tried to use the nationalist potential of these groups against Russia and other colonial powers (under the term kaikyo seisaku - Islamist politics). Agitators like Abdurresid Ibrahim , the Egyptian Ahmad Fadzli Beg (1874–?), Later the Indian Mouvli Barakatullah (1856–1927), Ayaz İshaki , Kurban Ali († 1972 in Soviet captivity in which he was since 1945) and the Saudi Tewfik Pasha were supported - often indirectly through secret societies like the Kokuryūkai . The first Japanese Hadji (1910) Yamaoka Kōtarō was a secret agent, as were his successors: Nur Tanaka Ippei (1924) and 1934-36: Hadji Yamauchi, Muhammad Abdul Muniam Hosokawa Susumu, Muhammad Abduralis Kori Shozo, Muhammad Nimet Enomoto Momotaro, Saleh Suzuki (as Partisan leaders in Aceh until 1949) were not secret agents.

In the period up to the Pacific War , Islamic communities formed in Kobe and Tokyo , most of which came from the Turk-Tatar merchants who had immigrated from the Japanese-administered mainland. As a result of the Japanese vision of Greater Asia , the Muslim leaders of the independence movement in the Dutch East Indies were specifically promoted by the Japanese. They hoped for strong resistance against the European colonial powers by strengthening the religion factor within the independence movement. Japan promised more independence from the West through an independent Asian trading zone. US documents from World War II show how Japan for decades radicalized the group of Islam as a political factor for its own purposes.

The initiative to build a mosque in Tokyo arose as early as 1909, but it was not completed until May 12, 1938 ( Muhammad's birthday ) after various Zaibatsu had financed the construction. On the mainland in Harbin , a mosque begun in 1922 was completed in 1937. In 1934 there was a convention of Turks and Tatars living in Japan in Kobe. It was decided to build a mosque (see Kobe Mosque ), which was consecrated in 1935. At that time there were around 600 Tatar Turks in Japan, most of them fled from Soviet power.

All of these projects - as well as Islamist magazines (including Yani Yapon Muhbiri; in Mukden Milli Bayrak (1935–45)) - were supported by the state because Islamic nationalism was to be used against the Soviet Union. The 81-year-old Abdurresid Ibrahim became imam of the Tokyo mosque in 1938 and chairman of the Dai Nippon Kaikyō Kyōkai, the official state organization for Islam in Japan. He was succeeded as Imam by Abdülhay Kurban Ali (1889–1972).

Ōkawa Shūmei, who was accused of a Category A war criminal (classified as insane due to his “visions” and released from prison) completed the first translation of the Koran into Japanese in prison.

The Tatar Muslims who remained in Japan after the war received Turkish citizenship in 1953, whereupon many - like their fellow believers who remained in northern China - emigrated to Australia, the USA and Turkey with the help of the Red Cross, which greatly reduced the size of the Islamic community.

Islamic Studies in Japan

In the 1930s, institutes of Islamic studies were also founded. First in February 1932 Islam Bunka Kenkyūjo (German "Institute for Islamic Culture"). This purely academic organization split into two groups: Islam Gakkai ("Islamic Academy"), founded in 1935, and Islam Bunka Kyōkai (founded in 1937), in which government representatives dominated. This organization then went on in 1938 in the Dai-Nippon Kaikyō Kyōkai . In the same year Ōkubo Koji ( 大 久 保 幸 ; 1887-1947) with the support of Prince Tokugawa Iemasa founded the Kaikyōken Kenkyūjo ( 回教 圏 研究所 , German "Institute of the Islamic World"). On the government side, the Tōa Kenkyūjo ( 東 亜 研究所 , dt. "East Asia Institute"; complete: 東 亜 経 済 調査 局 ・ 西北 研究所 , Tōa keizai chōsa kyoku - seihoku kenkyūjo , dt. "East Asian Economic Archives , Northwest Institute") followed. .

All of these organizations published journals, including a. Islam Bunka , Islam Kaiyō Bunka (Oct. 1937 - Jan. 1939), Kaikyōken (July 1938 - Dec. 1944), Kaikyō Jijo (until Dec. 1941), Shin-Ajia (Aug. 1941-). Many Islamic studies publications from this period are only preserved in a special collection in the Waseda University library . All of these organizations were dissolved by the occupying forces in 1945. Japanese studies of Islam came to a standstill for about ten years. The first major Islamic scholar was Izutsu Toshihiko .

Development after 1953

Foreign students in the 1960s founded the Muslim Student Association in Japan. The Indonesian Dr. Zuhal, the Turk Muzaffar Uzay, the Pakistani Abdur Rahman Siddiqi, the Arab Salih Mahdi Al Samarrai and the Japanese convert Ahmad Suzuki.

In December 1974 the Nihon Isuramu Kyōdan ( 日本 イ ス ラ ム 教 団 ) was founded by the doctor Futaki Hideo ( 二 木 秀雄 , 1908-1992). The director was Abe Haruo ( 安 倍 治 夫 , 1920–1998), who also began translating the Koran. The only book of the association was called Enchūtei nikki ( 円 柱 亭 日記 ). It was less a religious community than a group that wanted to make Islam acceptable in Japanese society through lobbying. One was quite successful in the 1980s also in that the food and belief rules were "defused" and, for example, the ban on alcohol was dispensed with. According to their own statements - there have been no official statistics on religions in Japan since 1947 - they claim to have had up to 55,000 "members" in the first half of the 1980s. In fact, Futaki just listed as such all new patients who paid an admission fee to his pain clinic and were treated for free. The two prayer rooms set up in Shinjuku and Shibuya enjoyed a certain popularity among Muslims at a time when a large number of illegal workers from Bangladesh and Iran were living in Japan at the end of the 1980s. With the founder's health declining, the group disintegrated around 1990.
They actively participated in the short-lived “party” Daisansedaitō ( 第三 世代 党 ), whose founding at the end of Ramadan 1979 was noticed in the Muslim world. The political program aimed to support the Palestinians.

The Isuramikku Senta Japan ( イスラミックセンタージャパン), headquartered in Tokyo Setagaya-ku , is funded by Saudi Arabia organization since the 1980s.

The number of Muslims in Japan only increased significantly again with the influx of guest workers, mostly from Bangladesh and Iran, which began around 1985. The number of converts remains low. To date there is only one Japanese imam of a mosque.

The Tokyo mosque building was demolished in 1985 to make way for a new building financed by Turkey. Today there are said to be around 30-40 smaller mosques and around 100 Islamic prayer rooms in Japan. The prayer rooms used by immigrants in different parts of the country are mostly organized according to their countries of origin. So z. B. the Shin Misato Mosque ( 新 三 郷 モ ス ク ) mostly visited by Egyptians.

literature

  • National Archives, Washington, DC; Office of Strategic Services, R&A reports no.890, Japanese Infiltration among Muslims Throughout the World (May 1943); no. 890.1, Japanese Infiltration among Muslims in China (May 1944); no.890.2, Japanese Attempts at Infiltration among Muslims in Russia and Her Borderlands (August 1944).
  • Borse, Romina Alexandra; Islam in Japan: a research stay in Tokyo; Marburg 2016; ISBN ~ 9783828837065
  • Selcuk, Esenbel; Japan's Global Claim to Asia and the World of Islam: Transnational Nationalism and World Power, 1900–1945 ; in: Am. Hist. Rev. Vol. 109, No. 4 online ( Memento from December 5, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
  • Obuse Kieko ( 小 布施 祈 恵 子 ); The Japan Islamic Congress: A Possible Case of an Islamic New Religion in Japan; Journal of Religion in Japan, Vol. 6 (2017), pp. 241-263; [DOI: 10.1163 / 22118349-00603006]
  • Selcuk, Esenbel; Inaba Chiharū (Ed.); The Rising Sun and the Turkish Crescent; İstanbul 2003, ISBN 975-518-196-2
  • Kawamura Mitsuo ( 川村 光 郎 ); 戦 前 日本 イ ス ラ ム 中東 研究 小 史 A short history of Islamic studies in Japan - a case of the 1930's ; in: 日本 中東 学会 ( ISSN  0913-7858 ), 1987, pp. 409–39 Abstract (en.)
  • Schindehütte, Matti; The discovery of religion as a political factor in (South) East Asia ; in the S.; Civil religion as a responsibility of society. Religion as a political factor within the development of the Pancasila of Indonesia , Hamburg: Abera 2006, 65-113 ( ISBN 3-934376-80-0 ), or online via SUB Hamburg . Here you can also find documents and reports from the US secret service Office of Strategic Services (OSS)
  • Derk Bodde; Japan and the Muslims of China ; Far Eastern Survey, Vol. 15, No. 20 (Oct. 9, 1946), pp. 311-313.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Statistical yearbooks, as well as standard works such as the Japan-Handbuch usually do not mention it. The: Paul L. Swanson; Clark Chilson; Nanzan's guide to Japanese religions; Honolulu 2006 (Univ. Of Hawai'i Press), ISBN 0-8248-3002-4, contains only one line in the appendix.
  2. ↑ Especially after the suppression of the Basmachi uprising of the Central Asian Turkic peoples in 1922. Selcuk, Esenbel; Japan's Global Claim ...
  3. ↑ Esenbel, Selcuk; Inaba Chiharū (Ed.); The Rising Sun… especially pp. 107–21.
  4. ↑ Selcuk, Esenbel; Japan's Global Claim ...
  5. ↑ Religion was discovered as a political weapon, Lit .: MJ Schindehütte, 2006, 77-113
  6. ↑ Esenbel, Selcuk; Rising Sun ...
  7. ↑ in detail in: 大 沢; 昭和 前 記 に あ け る 大 日本 回教 協会 の 活動 に つ い て; Jnl. Yep Ass. Religious Studies, 2004, No. 5, pp. 288-9.
  8. ↑ the entire paragraph after: Kawamura Mitsuo (川村 光 郎); 戦 前 日本 イ ス ラ ム 中東 研究 小 史; 1987
  9. ↑ Islamic Studies in Japan during the Wor1d War II period ( Memento from March 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ↑ "Japan Islamic Congress." In the Nanzan guide to Japanese religions; Appendix, only the "Japan Muslim Federation" is listed for this year.
  11. ↑ 聖 ク ル ア ー ン. ア ン マ 篇 Tōkyō 1982 (Tanizawa Shobō)
  12. ↑ FOCUS: Japanese imam understands true meaning of Islam ( Memento from July 8, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  13. ↑ Kawakami Yasunori: Local Mosques and the Lives of Muslims in Japan
Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus, Yamaoka is the family name, Kōtarō the first name.