Mosque Management Committees in China
3.3 Mosque Management Committees (寺管会)
Oversight of mosque management committees has increased dramatically, with new regulations intended to increase financial transparency and to ensure that mosques appoint state-approved imams. As noted above, mosque management committees in theory have decisive authority over the affairs of a single mosque. Formed by representatives of the local congregation, mosque management committees manage mosque buildings, the financial affairs of the congregation, and any property owned by the mosque, which in some instances includes rental properties. Mosque management committees also convene selection processes for imams. As imams often serve three-year terms before rotating to a different mosque, mosque management committees are often the greatest continuity in the life of a mosque community.
Since 2017 the party-state and the CIA have moved to assert much tighter control over mosque management committees, especially in areas of dense Muslim settlement. The new “Administrative Measures for Religious Activity Venues,” issued by SARA in 2023, require the establishment of “democratic management organizations” within each individual religious venue. The rules for composition of the committees permit “other relevant figures” to sit, opening the door for cadres to direct the affairs of religious institutions as serving committee members. The first listed duty of members of the management committee (Article 30) is to teach their fellow citizens to be patriotic and to adhere to Sinicization. Registration requirements ensure that local Party offices and the relevant district associations of national religious groups (i.e., local branches of the CIA) have broad oversight of committee composition and membership. Furthermore, religious venues are required to have a supervisory mechanism to oversee committee member behavior. If a misbehaving committee member is not removed in a timely fashion, local authorities have the power to intervene. The text also states that religious venues should not have relationships to each other.
The “Measures for the Democratic Management of Mosques,” republished by the CIA in August 2023, can be read as the official interpretation of the SARA regulations for Islamic communities. The full regulations provide extensive regulation on the duties of the committees, and the permitted scope of mosque activities. These measures explicitly place mosque management committees under CIA guidance. The Measures also include a wide range of causes for which members of the mosque management committee must be dismissed – including refusal to abide by CIA regulations, attendance at unapproved religious events, and actions that would ‘damage internal Islamic harmony’, echoing the SARA regulations.
In numerous cases, on-the-ground stipulations for mosque management committees exceed the requirements of the new regulations. These regulations have been enforced to remove mosque management committee members who might have spearheaded opposition to changes. As with many aspects of Sinicization policy, the formal changes to regulations for mosque management committees have been preceded by years of tightening regulation.
Beginning in 2018, Qinghai has trialed a requirement that leadership of the mosque management committee has been required to be held concurrently by the village Party Secretary and the head of the Village Committee. Mosque management committee members were also required to attend political training on laws, religious policy and key Party Congresses. A document issued in 2019 by the Party committee of Tianya District, in Sanya, Hainan, contains a similar stipulation that mosque committees must contain a Party member. These changes suggest that requirements for mosque management committees to contain at least some Party members may be widespread. Under the tightened rules for Party members outlined above, they cannot display religious faith nor attend religious events, meaning that a mosque management head who is also the village Party Secretary would be formally barred from routine Islamic observance.
Overall, the picture points towards much greater oversight and attention to mosque management committees. Elections to mosque committees take place under careful management of the local United Front and local Party cadres: in a 2023 example from Tianjin, twenty chosen neighbourhood representatives participated in the voting process under the watchful eye of district cadres. Mosque management committees are increasingly given extensive training: in 2024, Sichuan required mosque management committees from 14 prefectures to attend a seven-day training, with an emphasis on Sinicization and the importance of strict governance of religion.
Changes to mosque management committees have been utilized as a precursor to pushing through further measures likely to be unpalatable to the community. In Hualong, Qinghai, the head of a mosque management committee was detained for seven days for “inappropriate language” concerning the appointment of a new imam to the Xining Dongguan Great Mosque. In the wake of his detention, “revisions” were made to the composition of the mosque management committee. In Huangniwan, a village near Linxia in Gansu, an investigation into mosque finances was used as justification for removal of mosque management committee members who might have resisted proposals to merge mosques in the village (see 7.0 Mosque Mergers). In Yunnan, following high-profile protests against architectural renovations at Najiaying Mosque in summer 2023, a notice on the renovations was issued in the name of the Najiaying Mosque Management Committee and the Najiaying Mosque Supervisory Committee – however, observers noted that in fact both committees had been dismissed and replaced by Party supporters and United Front figures.
The changes to regulation of management committees allow much greater oversight of the management of individual venues. The combined impact of the duties placed on mosque management committee members requires them also to act as agents of Party religious policy, with consequences for any who resist. The on-the-ground requirement for mosque management committees to contain a Party member found in Qinghai and elsewhere in effect transform these bodies into Party committees within mosques, whilst the reinforced directives against any relationship between mosques work to atomize mosque communities, ensuring they are connected only via the Islamic Association bodies.
There are hints of resistance to this from within communities who had been used to significant self-governance. As an example, inset text messages within an essay by an Islamophobic activist describe a particularly fraught conference held to discuss proposed renovations to mosques in Weishan, Yunnan. The writer reports that at the conference, one mosque representative made the case that, as mosques are governed by their communities, “the signatures and seals of any Islamic Association or management committee are all powerless.” However, as non-compliant committee members are removed for any resistance, the ability of communities to influence the direction of their mosques decreases. In the place of genuinely democratic mosque management committees is merely a veneer of community inclusion pasted across religious policy determined from within the Islamic Associations and the United Front.
