Paper short abstract:

This presentation examines how Japanese authorities thought about Islam in the interwar and wartime periods, by examining the intelligence categorization of the Muslim Tatar refugees that arrived in Japan in the early 1920s, after fleeing the conflicts in the wake of the Russian Revolution.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation focuses on how Japanese authorities thought about Islam and Muslims in the 1920s through the early 1940s. Specifically, it examines how Japanese authorities thought about Muslim Tatar refugees and their religion as they fled the conflicts in the wake of the Russian Revolution and arrived in Japan in the early 1920s. While Islam and Muslims played significant roles in the interwar and wartime Japan, as well as elsewhere in the world, Japanese historians have neglected to pay attention to them. Most studies on Islam in Japan are conducted by historians interested in Middle Eastern and Central Asian history and they focus on the history of the Tatar Muslims themselves, not so much on the Japanese political and religious context in which they were received. This presentation investigates the political process in which Japanese authorities created official categories to identify these refugees and their religious identity, Islam. What forms of activities, particularly those deemed religious, did the authorities consider dangerous or acceptable to Japanese society and why? In asking this question, the presentation also addresses how the refugees' arrival and the global affairs surrounding them affected Japanese policies and laws towards religion, refugees, and ideology. In doing so, it will also show how politicians and intellectuals understood and created Japanese national characteristics, that centered around the state -endorsed form of Shinto. Through the analysis of journals and relevant documents written by intelligence offices and officials who created surveillance policies for religious and ideological activities, the presentation will shed light on the role of religion and ideology both in Japanese politics and in global affairs in the interwar and wartime periods.