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Translation - English Translator: Travis Fan
Wu Liping: Statement on my situation
I am the wife of the applicant, Zheng Shuang. My name is Wu Liping.
1. My working background
I worked in Heilongjiang Radio and Television Station, which is a provincial-level media unit directly under the Chinese central government. It is an essential local official agency of news media in Heilongjiang Province. Our unit is called “the Party’s mouthpiece” in China, which means to speak for the Party and propagate for it. I have worked there for ten years, and I have been exposed to all kinds of social news and national news every day. The CCP set a bottom line for us in broadcasts that without the instructions of our superiors, we were firmly not allowed to report any significant and sensitive events privately. For example, in my city, Harbin, on August 24, 2012, the Yangmingtan Bridge, which was opened to traffic for only one year, collapsed, causing three deaths and five injuries (official data). My supervisor released the news in his personal social media “Wechat” account after he got the news in the morning. Just less than 10 minutes later, his superior leader gave him a call and mandatorily requested him to delete that item. This incident showed how tightly the Chinese government controls public opinion.
During the period I worked in the unit, the social news that we were exposed to every day were more numerous. I often saw people hold banners and kneel at the front gate of our unit. Some of them were elderly people, and some were mothers carrying babies in their swaddles. They cried to us about the unfair treatment they had suffered. They helplessly cried that they had gone to certain departments of government to appeal, but they were beaten and expelled. They regarded our media units as the final straw to save their lives, hoping that we, as the media, can cover them and attract social attention.
Nevertheless, what I usually saw was that people just ignored them. The security guards at the entrance gate brutally pulled them aside. Then the public security police dragged them into the police vehicles and took them away (what would happen after they were taken away was unimaginable). No passing-by staffs in and out the gate, dared to concern with those poor people, asking what had happened to them. Because there were unwritten dictates in the station, that whoever talks or interviews those people privately, would definitely lose his or her job.
I was in charge of marketing and promotion work in my unit. My primary duty was to publicize the important propaganda content issued by our broadcast and TV station and the important promotional activities of the station. So I knew very well, that being under control of the government, media units like us can only publicize the content which the Party wants us to publicize. Our propaganda must in line with the interests of the Party. Some incidents that spoiled the image of the government exposed corruption and inaction of the government were firmly forbidden to be touched. 100% of them were blocked, who touched them would be severely punished.
In such a working and social environment, I was exposed to so many unfair cases every day. Little by little, I lost trust and became numb in the Chinese government. Out of my conscience, I really wanted to help them and report for them. But I dared not. I was afraid that my private reporting would damage the government’s image, leading to my dismissal. My job had provided a superior social status and stable income for my family and myself. (my monthly after-tax income was about 6,000 RMB, and the unit offered me insurances and preferential policy on housing purchase). We had spent a lot of money after having a child. Without this stable income, my family expenditure would be unaffordable. So although I gradually lost confidence in the government, I still cherished my work very much. In order to keep my job and not cause trouble, I had been careful and strictly followed the publicity instructions of the unit. I dared not have any words and actions that were unamiable to the government.
Once upon a time, I had a very stable job, a monthly salary that ranked in the upper-middle levels of my peers. And I was still very young, and my career seemed continued to rise, there would be broader job prospects and higher positions for me in the future. My parents and relatives lived very well in that country. My bosom friends, my social relations, and contacts were all there. In order to provide my child with a good educational environment, we also bought the school district house in advance. So I never thought I would leave the city where I lived, let alone come to the United States to seek protection.
2. I was forced to abandon the superior domestic life and seek political asylum in the United States
Until April 23, 2018, when my husband was taken away, confined, beaten, forced to confess and menaced by the government police station for no reason, I began to realized that the Chinese government had controlled the public opinion to a heinous degree. This country had no democracy or freedom of speech at all.
Around 8 p.m. on April 23, 2019, my husband was uncannily missing. There were no messages, no omens, and there were even no contradictions between us, a beloved couple. We loved each other so much. He just disappeared suddenly for no reason.
From 8 p.m. on April 23 to 11:17 a.m. on April 24, after 15 hours of terrible disconnection, I finally got in touch with my husband. During this period, I had a lot of apprehensions. Did my husband suffer a car accident? Was my husband kidnapped? Did the gas leak happen in my apartment? Did my husband abandoned us and eloped with others? And so forth. I had envisioned so many terrible consequences, except the real one that my husband was brutally and forcibly confined by the police station, beaten and extorted for a confession. They even menaced all of us in order to confine our behavior for a long time in the future.
[What happened]
In March 2019, my mother’s leg ailments recured. Because my father was working in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, nobody was looking after my mother. So I asked for leave from work to take care of her, and my husband followed me home together. During that period, my husband regularly returned to the Ninth Hospital of Harbin and asked if they could sell my daughter an imported vaccine. (because of the domestic fake vaccine incident in 2018, we dared not give our children a domestic vaccine. While the imported vaccine had been out of stock, so my daughter had not been vaccinated since December 29, 2018).
On April 17, 2019, my husband left our home in Harbin without having breakfast. He went to the Ninth Hospital of Harbin to ask if the imported vaccines had arrived. Then he went to Harbin Central Blood Station to donate blood voluntarily. He had been donating blood for 15 years. People in China seldom maintained such a high blood donation frequency.
Around noon, my husband called me and said frustratedly that the imported vaccines were still out of stock and that only domestic ones could be used. Our daughter hadn’t been vaccinated for four months, and some vaccines had missed the best vaccination time. I was also depressed to hear that. I felt sad and heartbroken for my daughter. Domestic vaccines might be fake, so we dared not use them. Imported vaccines were "out of stock," so they cannot be bought. Was it necessary for parents to take the risk of using fake vaccines on their children? At the same time, my husband also told me angrily that he had been expelled from the blood station without donating blood. I was shocked. How could a voluntary blood donor be expelled from blood station? After inquiry, I learned that it was because my husband’s blood type O+ was not lacking, so they brutally expelled him. That was chilling.
Then my husband came back to Daqing. We were all in a heavy mood and felt helpless. All we could do was wait. A week later, on April 22, 2019, my husband returned to Harbin by K7108 train. He planned to go to the Ninth Hospital of Harbin the next day to ask if the vaccine had arrived.
[Since over 8 p.m. on April 23, 2019, I can’t contact my husband.]
In China, Wechat App had a very high usage rate, so my husband and I usually communicate through Wechat.
At about 2 p.m. on April 23, 2019, my husband sent me a wechat voice message that the imported vaccines were still out of stock. He planned to go to the bookstore first in the afternoon, and if there were time left after that, he would visit his cousin’s company to have a chat. I said, OK.
At about 7 p.m. on April 23, 2019, my husband Wechated me about a trifle that we were going to sell our daughter’s spare bathtub. We had a brief chat on this affair. At 7:07 p.m., after I replied the message to my husband, he did not respond to me anymore.
At 8:12 p.m. on April 23, 2019, I sent a wechat to my husband, asking if he had returned home from his cousin’s company. (Actually, my husband didn’t go to his cousin’s company because he called his cousin and knew that he was not in the company. So my husband went to an Internet café to surf the internet.) But my husband didn’t reply to this message. I thought he was still with his cousin, maybe having dinner together, so he didn’t respond to me, and I didn’t care about that.
At 9 p.m., my daughter was going to bed. Usually, when my husband was not at home, he would have a video chat with my daughter before she goes to bed. So at 9 p.m., I sent a video call to my husband on wechat, but he didn’t answer it.
Because my husband and I loved each other so much when we were not together, we had to contact many times through wechat or telephone, at least ten times a day. So it was very unusual for my husband not replying my messages for such a long time. I began to feel a little anxious.
At 9:11 p.m., I dialed my husband’s cellphone, and it was turned off. I still thought that maybe my husband’s cellphone was out of power. Otherwise, he would have answered the phone or replied to my information. I was still a little worried. So I sent a wechat message to my husband, asking him if his cellphone was dead and call me back when he saw my information. After sending this message, I comforted my daughter and put her to bed in an uneasy mood.
I began to try contacting him in various ways. I sent him messages and voice calls through Wechat. I dialed his mobile phone number again and again. I sent him text messages and used all the other methods I could think of to contact him. I’ve also thought about trying to use the cellphone’s location function to see where my husband was. However, I was using an iPhone, and my husband was using a then-newly bought Huawei mobile phone. He was not very familiar with its every function, so he did not turn on the location service. And in China, we seldom used the location function of cellphone to locate other people. Except sometimes when we were switching on the cellphone or using Wechat, we voluntarily sent our location information to the other side. So I didn’t use the location function to find my husband.
At 9:42 p.m., after my daughter fell asleep, I redialed my husband’s cellphone number, and it was still off.
After that, I began to call my husband regularly. I made 27 calls to my husband at 9:11/9:42/10:21/10:38/11:01/11:03/11:04/11:25/11:43/11:53/11:59 on April 23, and 0:19/1:01/1:04/1:29/1:38/1:56/2:19/3:17/3:31/4:11/4:58/7:01/8:54/9:09/10:34 on April 24.
At the same time, on April 23, at 9:00/9:10/10:21/11:02/11:45, and on April 24, and 0:09/0:20/0:38/1:10/1:29/1:38/1:56/2:19/3:18/4:58/7:07/8:54 on April 24, I kept on dialing my husband’s “Video Call” on Wechat for 17 times. At 10:22 p.m. on April 23, I sent a text message to my husband, but still, no reply was received. (I have retained screenshots of all phone calls and Wechat calls in the appendix.)
Since I couldn’t get in touch with my husband at 8 p.m. on April 23, I’ve been drowning in endless uneasiness. This anxiety grew from worries at the beginning to fears at last. At first, I just thought my husband’s cellphone was out of power. I waited for him, speculating that he might go home around 10:00 p.m. and he would call me back when his cellphone was charged. But at 11:00 p.m., I still didn’t get through to him. I began to get very worried and imagine every possible consequence. Was my husband involved in a car accident? Or was there a gas leak at home? Or had him been kidnapped? These frightening thoughts kept me awake. I was frantically making phone calls and Wechat video calls to him, but none of them were responded.
By the early morning of April 24, looking at my sleeping daughter next to me, I dared not to speculate anymore. I started crying in a low voice. I was afraid to wake up my daughter beside me and my mother, who was sleeping in the next room. I kept making phone calls, and my hands were shaking all the time. I had never been so afraid. My husband and I loved each other so much, and our daughter was so cute. I couldn’t imagine what I would do in the future if something happened to my husband. Was my lovely daughter going to lose her father’s love from an early age?
The more I thought about it, the more fear I felt. I even wanted to take the earliest train back to Harbin and go home to see what happened on earth and where was my husband. But I dared not, because if I suddenly returned to Harbin in the midnight, my mother must know that something serious had happened. She was ill then and in a bad mood, so I didn’t want to let her worry anymore. At the same time, my mother’s leg ailments lamed her temporarily so that she couldn’t take care of my daughter by herself. Therefore, I couldn’t go back to Harbin at all. I cried even harder when I thought of these. I will never forget how I felt during my husband’s 15-hours-long disconnection. It had been engraved on my heart!
On the morning of April 24, after a night of sleeplessness and fear, my daughter woke up. I didn’t want my mother to worry. So I pretended nothing had happened. I got up to wash my daughter, cook breakfast for my daughter and mother, and do housework. During that period, I still kept calling my husband and planning that if my husband still had no news by 7:00 p.m. on 24th, I would tell my mother about the situation and go back to Harbin to call the police immediately! How ridiculous to recall it now, that I was still pinning my hopes on the police! Little did I know that at that time, my husband had been confined, beaten, and threatened by the police! He was suffering from unfair treatment and physical threats like hell never before!! I even naively wanted to seek help from the government police!! What a big joke!
[On April 24, 2019, my husband contacted me finally and came home with wounds]
At 11:17 a.m. on April 24, after 15 hours of dread, my husband finally called me!! When I answered the phone and heard my husband’s voice, I immediately hid in the bathroom and cried. I was afraid that my mother would be scared after hearing it, which would not be beneficial to her recovery. So I could only hide in the bathroom and cry secretly! I asked him what had happened. He told me that he was taken away and locked up by the police. The police also beat him, hit him on the head, on the body, and took away the cellphone and everything on him! I was very, very, very shocked!! I have guessed a lot of possibilities, but I never thought it would be the result! My husband had never violated any law and discipline. He was such a good person that not only obeying the law but also being obliging to others. He had been voluntarily donating blood for the country for 15 years. How could it possible that the police took him away? Even beat him severely?
I couldn’t wait to know everything from my husband, “Why on earth could these terrible things happen? What have you done?”
My husband didn’t go on talking. He just kept saying that he wanted to go home and see our daughter and me right away! I said, “OK, go home right now!”
So my husband ordered the earliest train D6917 to return to Daqing. When he arrived at the railway station, he found that an earlier train D6915 was about to leave. My husband did not hesitate to board the train directly. He just ignored all the other factors, wanting to get home as soon as possible. Then he told me the train number, and the time it would arrive at Daqing by Wechat. I immediately set off from my mother’s house to pick him up at the railway station after I got the message.
[My husband had a headache, nausea, and back pain. I took him to the hospital for examination]
At 12:50 on April 24, my husband’s train arrived at the station, and I finally met him! We hugged each other tightly and wept bitterly, ignoring the strange eyes of the people around us. We went straight home, and my husband took off his clothes. I saw the scars on his back one after another, with my flames of fury reaching its peak. I cried like crazy. I don’t understand why. Why should the government treat such a law-abiding family like this?? Out of professional instinct, I immediately decided to take photos and record them! Although I didn’t know what I could do after taking these pictures.
After that, my husband always said that he continued to feel headache, nausea, and a pain in his back. I was afraid that my husband was injured severely. So we went to Daqing Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Hospital (the No. 3 Oil Production Plant Hospital) at once near our home. I took my husband to the emergency department and registered for him. Emergency doctor Wang Yubiao carefully inspected at my husband’s back wounds in detail. He was sure that his back was red, swollen, and bruised. His headache and nausea were suspected as a sequela of concussion. The doctor also asked me if your husband fought with others. We were afraid to tell the doctor the truth that assaults from police caused my husband's injuries. This answer might incur another attacked and imprisonment for us—because this hospital we went to was also a government agency. My husband’s experience really frightened us. So we didn’t dare to have any behavior that is not beneficial to the government again. So we did not tell the doctor that the police attacked my husband, just explained it away that my husband had a conflict between friends. Dr. Wang Yubiao immediately wrote a checklist to my husband for a detailed examination. After that, I took my husband to pay the examination fee and went to the examination room immediately. The first item he did was brain CT. When my husband was waiting in line, he covered his head with hands and said that he was dizzy and wanted to vomit. After waiting for about a few minutes, it was his turn. He was brought into the room by the examining doctor and lay on the CT machine. Because of dizziness, my husband was helped by the doctor during the whole process of examination. The doctor helped him to lie down, check, and sit up. I looked from outside all the way and took photographs. I was very, very distressed, and tears could not stop flowing.
After that, we went to the back CT room for examination. When my husband took off his clothes for examination, the doctor said, “Ouch, how could an adult hit other people using such a full strength?” Neither my husband nor I spoke. We really wanted to tell everyone that the police beat my husband!! The wounds were caused without any reason by menace and beating of the police in extremely unfair circumstances!!
After the examination results came out, we came to Dr. Wang Yubiao’s office. He said that the brain was slightly concussed and the back was bruised and swollen due to trauma. We should go home for rest and wait for further observation. (All the inspection records and photographs were kept.)
I was really fortunate to see that my husband had not been fatally injured. My hanging heart was finally put down. When we came out of the hospital, we went back to my mother’s apartment. It happened that my mother took our child out to have a sunbathe. We embraced each other and wept silently in our room. My husband told me the story in detail. The more I listened, the more I fear. Every hair on my body stood up. I really couldn’t believe that this kind of incident would happen to my husband!!
What frightened me most was that the government police intended to threaten all the three of our family for a long time in the future. They were going to take away our household registration book and our child’s vaccination book. In China, if we didn’t have a household registration book, our family would become “black households." (which means a family of unregistered citizens), and we could do nothing as unregistered citizens. While the vaccination book was the necessary document for our child to go to school. If these two documents were taken away by the police, my child would never be able to go to school for life!! This kind of behavior was forcibly persecuting our whole family to be unable to survive in China!!!
[We were forced to give up everything in that country to save our lives]
After knowing all the details of my husband’s experience, I was profoundly shocked and impressed. My husband published the article around 5:00 p.m. on April 23, 2019, and he was taken away by the police around 8:00 p.m. I was stunned by this terrible speed! I thought if Chinese police could all working with this speed and efficiency in criminal cases, the rate of solved cases in China would have been greatly improved!! My husband’s articles did not contain any reactionary remarks, nor abused the government, but expressed his feelings about his personal experience. He was unexpectedly put on the reactionary hat for no reason. Without an arrest warrant, they arbitrarily detained my husband and maltreated him with intimidation, beating, and menace. This kind of brutal treatment was just inhuman treatment. Its existence rendered China as a great joke, which is now claiming itself as a free and democratic country!
Late in the night after my husband returned home on April 24, 2019, we couldn’t fall asleep. My husband was still in great fear. His hands were always cold. When he remembered that the United States could protect persecuted people like us, he told me that he wanted to escape from this terrible country and go to the United States for protection. Before we made the final decision, we considered a lot. We have thought of our parents, who would live alone in this country after we left. We have considered the regrettable consequences of quitting my stable job. We knew that if we leave, we will lose everything we had before in this country.
Nevertheless, what was more important than my husband’s life safety and dignity? It was hopeless to apprehend that my husband might be kidnapped into the Public Security Bureau and beaten again at any time. And I might lose my job at any time, and my daughter might not be able to attend school for a lifetime. These thoughts petrified us! These persecutions would be equivalent to the death penalty for our family! They even didn’t leave us a life way!
Therefore, my husband and I had no choice. We finally thought of fleeing from the country that was forcibly persecuting us. Even if we were so reluctant and regretted to leave our parents at home, we still had no idea what might happen if we were still there. Would my husband lose his life for no reason next time?
So we booked a flight from Beijing to San Francisco, which would take off on May 30, 2019, and decided to flee from the country where there were no democracy, freedom, and justice. During that period, my husband had been suffering from severe insomnia, often waking up from his sleep. On May 11, 2019, my husband went to the psychiatric department of Daqing Petroleum General Hospital to see a doctor. The doctor diagnosed that he had insomnia and prescribed some sedative pills. (we retained the checklist) After taking medicine for some time, his condition improved, but he often waked up in his dreams.
As ordinary people, we didn’t have too many unreasonable expectations. We only hoped that our personal safety could be guaranteed and our children can go to school safely and smoothly. However, these primary survival goals seemed to be unreasonable expectations now.
Chinese to English: Sharia in the Evolution of Order General field: Social Sciences Detailed field: History
Translation - English Let us first review the background where Sharia was formed. Since the 19th century, a popular view deemed that Islam was a religion of desert nomads, a religion of looters who broke into the civilized countries from the desert. The first person who created such a statement was Thomas Carlyle, but it has now become a kind of conventional idea. However, this statement has serious problems in two aspects: The first is that there were many nomadic peoples on the Arabian Peninsula, but Mecca itself, which directly gave birth to Islam, was hardly a nomadic nation; second, the nomadic people did not go to the civilized regions out of poverty as many literature writers imagined.
In fact, nomadic peoples in at least two core areas were quite rich. They were either themselves major traders or major partners. Although the herdsmen in the Sahara Desert were slandered by Egypt’s Fellahs and literati as barbarians attacking civilization, they were actually the main undertakers of the gold and salt trade in West Africa, then known as Sudan. Long before Christianity and Islam were created, most of the gold of the entire ancient world was shipped from West Africa. They were the people who run the gold business. It is entirely conceivable that they would not be short of money. The nomadic peoples of Inner Asia, at least since the Middle Ages, were the main partners of merchants in Transoxiana. Although inhabitants of the East Asian civilized region described them as destitute robbers acting out of poverty as well, the archaeological data showed exactly the opposite, that their princes and ordinary nobles possessed much more gold, jewelry, and treasures than their East Asian counterparts who shared a similar class. Obviously, traders would not be quite impoverished. This was also the case for traders in the Arabian Peninsula.
We all know that in the Old Testament it was mentioned that Queen Sheba had brought many precious gifts to King Solomon. From the perspective of trading routes, the place where Queen Sheba was located is today's Yemen, which has been the main point of Indian Ocean trade since ancient times. Goods from India were transported to the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, then transported along the route of the springs to Syria, Petra, Israel, then to the north to Lebanon, and later transported to the Mediterranean coast by the merchants of Tyre and Sidon by sea. King Solomon’s wealth, in addition to mining, was also likely to be attributed to his cooperation with Tyre and Sidon in the north and the businessmen in the Arabian Peninsula in the south. If Queen Sheba really existed, then she would most likely be a commercial representative of Yemen’s commercial city-state sent to the Mediterranean to open up a trade route, sending gifts to the countries along the way. Or perhaps there was no Queen Sheba, but the authors of the legends had integrated all of Yemen rulers' management efforts of the north trade routes into a single Queen Sheba. This is the one hand.
On the other hand, the Arabian Peninsula was not all deserts. There were many nomads on it, but along the spring route from Yemen to Syria and the spring route from Yemen to the Persian Gulf, there were also a series of motel-like commercial city-states. Nomadic people tended to rob the caravans of these commercial city-states, but these city-states themselves mainly relied on trade to make a living. Some also ran some agriculture, but they would not be purely nomadic people. Both Mecca and Medina were not places of nomads. Mecca, according to Arab historians, was a place that lacked agriculture. It was a place composed of a spring and a valley, which meant that it depended on tourism and business in more fashionable words. As you can see from the map, the location of Mecca is exactly a bit north to Yemen. Its population exceeded what the local products could support, so local people could not survive without trade and tourism. Medina was slightly better. It was at least an oasis. It also had some crop farming that could feed a part of the population. But it was also located along a trade route, and more importantly a key point of the trade route from Mecca to Syria. This geopolitical circumstance had contributed much to the rise of Muhammad and Islam.
Before the birth of Muhammad, the spice trade in Yemen was already well-known. It caused the jealousy from the Abyssinians and Byzantines and was regarded as a crucial point by the Persian Sassanid Empire. Prior to Muhammad, the Persian Sassanid Empire had twice sent armies to intervene the local princes of Yemen to support the pro-Persian party. The Abyssinians also had once received assistance from Byzantine and sent troops to overthrow the regime controlled by the Persians. The Persians prevailed during the period before Muhammad’s birth. The Christian army from Abyssinia was defeated and Yemen, the critical stronghold of Indian Ocean trade, was in the hands of the pro-Persian regime.
At that time, there were various religions in the Arabian Peninsula, and religion was also related to politics. Generally speaking, the Arab tribes that believed in Christianity, such as the Arab tribes of Najran, were more pro-Byzantine; the Arabs who believed in polytheism were more pro-Persian. Mecca, in current expressions, was a multicultural trade republic, so it stressed that no matter which religion, it could set up an altar in Mecca. Everyone could go there to worship their altar. People should respect each other and do not interfere with one another. The order was to respect the business people that would pass through Mecca because Mecca actually relied on them to thrive. The strength of Mecca was the Zamzam Well that Arabs later relished. With this spring, the caravans could drink the water here and take a rest. Without this spring, there would be no need to set up a trade stop here. Moreover, the temple was built around the spring in the valley.
The Mecca City back then, citizens were gradually divided into two groups with the difference between their commercial interests: the pro-Persian and the pro-Byzantine factions. The Quraysh family where Muhammad was from was one of the most famous clans since the establishment of Mecca. However, this clan was also like the clans of the ancient Athens Republic and the Roman Republic. It itself was a great family but was divided into many smaller families. The relationship among the small clans was often like the one among the independent clans. They often boasted that "We are from the Quraysh family," meaning that they were noble, but in reality, they only trust their own small family. All the small clans from the same Quraysh family could feud with each other as Romeo and Juliet's families do. Only the relatively smaller clans that were later differentiated were the real brands that could possess people's loyalty.
Strictly speaking, the Umayyad family, the Abbas family, and the Hashim family are all different branches of the Quraysh family, but during the period before the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, the Umayyad family was the most powerful one. The Abbas family was smaller than the Umayyad family. The Hashim family, where Muhammad was born, was no match to the previous two though it was considered a noble family. As far as the family is concerned, the influence of the Umayyad family was greater than that of the Abbas family, but the political flexibility of the Abbas family was greater than that of the Umayyad family. The Umayyad family mainly managed the Syrian trade while the Abbas family mainly dealt with the Persian trade, which was the later Iraqi trade, but we must note that the term "Iraq" had not yet been born. Most of the land in Mesopotamia was in the hands of the Persian Sassanid Empire. If we simply look at the power of each family, then the Umayyad family had an absolute advantage, but in the political ecology of the whole city of Mecca, the pro-Persian faction had the upper hand. Although Abbas family was slightly less powerful, they were with the dominant faction among the overall political forces.
The later so-called authentic Hadith often mentions such a story (The Complete Collection of Sahih al-Bukhari, 2941, 2978): Abu Sufyan, who was later invented into a set enemy in the Islamic history, had once visited the Byzantine Empire and met with the famous Emperor Heraclius. He then mentioned to the emperor Muhammad. The emperor asked him what Muhammad was like. Although Abu Sufyan opposed Muhammad, he still told the emperor that he was a very honest man. Before he was a prophet, people never heard of him lying. According to these Hadith statements, the emperor said thoughtfully that it seemed that their future must be in the hands of this prophet. This Hadith is probably not entirely true, because if Emperor Heraclius had long known Muhammad, and thought that he had a great threat to his empire, he would not be so careless in his military deployment in the following period. But it's also wrong to say that it is completely false. At least Abu Sufyan often operated the Syrian trade and was an old expert in this area. His description of Muhammad should be right.
By the general rules behind the formation of the Sunnah, you can make a reasonable assumption: the Sufyan family indeed often travelled to Syria, and most likely they had met with many of the Byzantine dignitaries in Syria. They had a lot of trade with Rome and Syria. It was very likely that they were also one of the channels through which the Christian theory was introduced into Arabia. There were often information exchanges between the two parties, so the birth of Islam was not an unfamiliar or very unexpected event. However, it is difficult to tell whether their status could reach the emperor in Constantinople. It is very likely that the later people wanted to exaggerate the integrity of Muhammad to further win all the Muslims and the potential believers over. It was just like, "Look, why didn't you believe in Muhammad? Even great men such as the Byzantine emperor believed in Muhammad. He was even a Christian, not the same religion as us. But even so, he still could not deny Muhammad’s integrity and honesty. You should not doubt Muhammad’s morality." To form such a legend is very much in line with the normal human psychology.
Nevertheless, judging from the logic that generated the legend, the majority of people in the Middle East and South Asia and East Asia could not tell the difference between Syria and Rome. For example, when the Chinese records in East Asia generally refer to "Da Qin," you do not know whether they are talking about Constantinople or Syria. And it seems that they are more likely talking about Syria. This is normal because most of the caravans heading east were from Syria, and Syria was originally an important Byzantine province. It was normal for a businessman in Mecca to go to Syria, but it would not be normal for him to go to Constantinople, which was also not economical. Taking camels in the desert was the most economical option, but when it comes to Roman territory, it would be more economical to switch to a cart on the Roman road—at that time, the roads in Rome weren't ruined yet.
In general, it would be like the current business case. If a businessman transports his goods to Shanghai by railroads, then he will have to switch to ships for further transportation. Most businessmen had their own customary business scope. They wouldn't operate both the sea routes and the land routes. Arab merchants relied on camels. Their general practice was to carry the cargos to Petra or any other Syrian port city. After leaving the goods there, they would return to Arabia. Then, the Syrian merchants would load the goods onto the carriage and transport them to Antioch or Constantinople, or to Alexandretta, where the cargos would be loaded unto the ships and be shipped to other port cities in the Mediterranean. Different routes were run by different businessmen. If there was nothing special and the goods had already been sold in Petra, there would be no need to go to Constantinople at a great cost, unless the person was particularly rich and wanted to see more.
When Muhammad stepped into the society, his relationship with his own family and the other two families was quite alienated. There was a formal relationship but little commercial cooperation. If their relationship was very close, we could reasonably ask when Muhammad was doing business when he was young, why didn't he just go to work for the Abbas family? The Abbas family was also related to his uncle. Or why not go to work in the Umayyad family? The Umayyad family was senior in Mecca, but instead, he ran to work with Khadijah. This showed that even though his own family was related to both of the Abbas and Umayyad families, the relationship was not very close and he couldn't count on their direct support.
Arabia was in a state of city-states and tribes intertwining with each other back then. They could actually be divided into three cases: one was the city-states like Mecca. They were usually located in one of the Syrian routes or other routes where there was spring water or a place where the road condition was better. Such a place was suitable for the caravans to stop and take a rest. The second was the kind of nomadic tribes where the desert knight Antarah was. These tribes lived on their livestock, which was often sold to the settled commercial city-states. Occasionally they also ran some smuggling trades or prey on the careless caravans. The third was the feudal city-states on the edge of the Arabian Peninsula and between Syria and Iraq. The Lakhmid Kingdom and Palmyra were the examples. Palmyra was a vassal of Byzantium, and the Lakhmid Kingdom was a vassal of the Persian Sassanid Empire.
Among these feudal city-states, the knight system had developed quite mature, and miraculously resembled very much the later medieval European knighthood system, which generated its own epics, duels, and even the spiritual love between knights and women. Most of these city-states were Christian or polytheistic. Even the city-states that were affiliated with the Sassanid were mostly dwelled by Christians or polytheists. The role of these city-states for the caravans in Arabian Peninsula was like a port for supply. If the caravans coming out of the Arabian Peninsula went to Persia, it was very likely that they would stay in Al-Hirah, and then continued to Babylon or Ctesiphon. The princes or important families of Al-Hirah were almost ethnically the same as those on the Arabian Peninsula. If they went west to Syria, then they would stop by Petra or Palmyra. There were always the exchanges of information among these three types. Judaism, Christianity, and polytheism all had their own believers in the Arabian Peninsula. Muhammad himself had a lot of close relatives who went to Syria to do business before he started his career, so Christianity should not be unfamiliar to Muhammad, neither did Judaism.
The Arabian Peninsula and the entire Arab region are two different concepts. The Arabian Peninsula is the region I just mentioned, which was shared by cities like Mecca and nomadic tribes. The Arab region also includes Syria in the north and the feudal areas of Iraq. They were places with fragmented authorities. There was not the highest authority, so customary law and arbitration systems were very common and popular among them. These things were not particularly bizarre in themselves. Whether it was tribes or city-states, it was inevitable that there would be various disputes among them. After a dispute arose, there were basically three possible disposal methods: The first one was to fight without any hesitation and solve everything with wars. The second was to compromise all the way through. The third was to act accordingly. If it was really a matter that there was no way to compromise, a war would be the solution. The small matters that could be compromised under the normal circumstances could be solved by arbitrations of notaries. Of course, you can set up a game model in your head and tell which of the three modes was better than the others. If you always compromise, then anyone can bully you; if you have to wage wars for any trivial affair, the young man of your tribe or city-state will soon be wiped out, and you will soon be unable to survive. The wise tribal elders would know when to stop. For the general not-so-serious issues, it was better to avoid battles and invite a third-party arbitrator to coordinate. The arbitrators would naturally generate a customary law system.
For this kind of arbitrator, you can imagine what it was like if you have seen the film "Waterworld". The law enforcer does not belong to any of the water city-states. He himself is actually a businessman. However, he is a businessman who sells judgments. He is known for his impartiality. Other city-states consider him fair. If a city-state invites a big law enforcer known for fairness, then everyone will believe that he will judge the case fairly and if you do business here, you will not be robbed or taken advantage for no reasons. The city-state can make a lot of money. Therefore, it is a good thing for the city-state pay for a great law enforcer. However, to maintain his own business reputation, the law enforcer will not obey every order of the city-state. For example, when the city-state in the movie wanted to sentence the sailor to death, the law enforcer said, like Pontius Pilate, that according to his opinion, the sailor did not commit a crime. If the city must sentence this person to death, he can't continue to enforce the law there. The situation in the Arabian Peninsula was often the same. In fact, it did not have the highest authority. Everyone could be a judge. Even if you didn't take the initiative to be a judge, you just had to have a reputation for fairness and honesty. When you had the reputation that you were an impartial judge and folks never worried that you would favor any party in particular, many people would come to invite you as a judge with jerky or miscellaneous gifts.
Muhammad had already gained such a reputation as an ordinary businessman before he became the Islamic prophet. There were many different sources of Hadith mentioning such a story. It is said that there were disputes between the people of Mecca when they were building an altar. Everyone did not know how to solve it. It was precisely at this point that Muhammad came in. Everyone invited him for arbitration, so he proposed a solution for everyone. As a result, everyone was satisfied. He came in by chance and didn't know that there was such a thing in advance, but everyone thought that this guy was a man of his words and could let him take part. This meant that he had already won such a reputation while doing his business. The judges of the customary law who won this kind of reputation certainly would not only be Muhammad alone, nor were they necessarily believers of a particular religion. As long as you have a far-reaching reputation in the social businesses, everyone would automatically come to you.
After Muhammad established the initial Islamic community, it was also a matter of coincidence to go to Medina. Its direct motivation was similar. There were disputes between the two tribes of Medina. According to the practice of the Arabian Peninsula, they tried to avoid fighting and find an arbitrator. Then Muhammad was the right guy. At first, they only invited Muhammad to mediate disputes between them. But after several lawsuits, they were quite satisfied with the judgments. They felt that Muhammad was a very reliable person, so like in the city-state in "Waterworld", they suggested Muhammad take his people and move to Medina. He could be their arbitrator. They could fare better and Muhammad could have a base in Medina. Also, Muhammad's life would be better than it was in Mecca, whose wealthy nobles never bought his teaching. They were even against him, giving him hard times. However, the Medina tribes promised that as long as Muhammad arrived in Medina, they would let him and his disciples lead a better life than in Mecca, with the only requirement of giving them the fair judgment like before. Then Muhammad took his disciples to Medina. Only after that had he had a formal base.
Muhammad's practices were different before and after having a base. That was where the rule of Qur'an that the later laws are higher than the earlier laws came from, because there was a difference between the periods. The words spoken in the early days are very much like some of the prophets of various Christian denominations in the past, who had emphasized the afterlife. After arriving in Medina, many of his things were designed to solve practical political issues. Early Islam, the Islam before Medina, was difficult to distinguish from many reformists of Christianity. Their own political position was also clearly in favor of the Christian side. The Byzantines and the Sassanids were warring endlessly back then. There was a story mentioned in chapter 30 of the Qur'an that when the Sassanids seemed to have prevailed, Mecca’s polytheists rejoiced and were happy for them while the Islamic community had announced a very obscure statement. In the rough translation into a political language, they meant that the polytheists should not be happy so early because everything is in the hand of God Almighty. From this you can tell that early Islam, before it established an independent political force, was more inclined to monotheism, which meant that it favored Christianity. Thus, they were not having a smooth relationship with the mainstream political powers in Mecca.
In accordance with the practice of commercial city-states, the reason why the Mecca people preferred the Sassanids was probably that the trade routes they ran were closely related to the Sassanids. The Abbas family was a typical example in this respect. Before Muhammad went to Medina, the Abbas family apparently did not take Muhammad and the emerging Islamic community seriously. Their political position within the city-state was on the Persian side, and their established networks and experience also sided with the Persian. After the establishment of the Islamic empire, every family's talents were utilized: the Umayyad family continued to operate in Syria and Egypt, the Christian places. They were appointed as the financial officers in Egypt or the governors in Syria, and so on, all running on their familiar turfs. The Abbas family went to Iraq and became the financial officers of the newly established Kufa City. Obviously, in the pre-Islamic era, the Umayyad family was most familiar with Syria and Egypt, the Christian world. The Abbas family was most familiar with Mesopotamia, which was the Persian sphere of influence. Therefore, the later Islamic Caliphs used their gifts and sent them respectively to the areas that they were most familiar with. This can also explain the conflicting practices of the Abbas family before and after Muhammad’s relocation to Medina.
When Muhammad and his disciples suffered from the coldness of the nobles of Mecca in their early days, he sent his disciples to seek refuge in Abyssinia. Abyssinia was an ally of Byzantium, an important agent of Christian forces in the Arabian Peninsula, and the main rival of the Persian expedition in Yemen. After Muhammad’s persecution by the nobles of Mecca, he first thought of Abyssinia as a sanctuary. It can also be told that the early Islamist groups were politically pro-Christian. After arriving in Medina, it was different. When he gradually gained the upper hand and became a third-party political force independent of Persia and Byzantium, he also had his own political position. In the end, after becoming more powerful than the two parties, he was no longer partial to either one.
Muhammad also had certain exchanges with Jews. The more faithful Hadiths, the so-called Sunnah judged by the Fuqahā, had also recorded that the Jews once asked him to resolve the dispute and inquired about how their cases should be judged. His answer was: Didn't you have the Old Testament and did you not record this in the particular parts of the Old Testament? Why didn't you follow its judgment? When the Jews took out the Old Testament, they saw it. Then they judged the case accordingly. This story shows that Muhammad was a jurist of customary law. The standard of his judgment was not something he came up with by himself, or to judge people according to the principles of his own group, but rather according to the specific people. If they were Jews, then he would judge them according to Jewish customary law. Although the Jews were People of the Book—most of the customary laws were oral, and it was rare to have the Holy Scriptures written on paper like the Jews, who had scriptures like the Old Testament, so they were called the People of the Book, who were superior to the ones without a book in terms of civility—Muhammad's use of the Old Testament was not in a statutory way but in a customary way.
The common practice of the customary law was that you could choose. You could choose to use your classics, if you had one, or not. The Jews did not turn to their own rabbis or jurists to file lawsuits, but instead they went to Muhammad. This in itself meant that they did it according to the customary law. And Muhammad let them choose, telling them that with the rules of the Old Testament or not, they could make their own decisions. This was a typical practice of customary law. You could choose between different legal systems. You could vote with your feet and check judges of different systems. If you were not satisfied with this judge, you could send for another judge to arbitrate, and the previous one would not make things difficult for you. If you asked one to arbitrate, according to the customs you should give the person a gift for its hard work; if you find another judge to arbitrate, you should also give that person a gift to pay for his hard work. Different judges were like private companies that ran the legal business. People who went to court were like customers paying for certain services.
After Muhammad arrived in Medina, the charters he signed with the major families of Medina had also included Jewish because there were Jewish communities as well. Later when his power grew he tried to establish a pure Islamic rule in the Arabian Peninsula. Then the Jews were asked to withdraw from the Arabian Peninsula. Otherwise, they would face wars. Therefore, there was longer Jewish power on the Arabian Peninsula. This also led to the logic of what the Fuqahā call the "later laws are higher than the earlier laws." The Qur'an often has different accounts of the same thing. For example, in the case of alcoholism, Muhammad did not ban them from drinking alcohol at the very beginning. However, after seeing many people making mistakes after drinking, he severely prohibited them from drinking. For the Jews, he signed the charter, a treaty, with them at first, and then he drove them out. The opponents of Islam often use such evidence to prove that Muhammad was not good and he did not keep his promise. But in fact, such things are common during the development of customary law.
Customary law is a huge repository of information. There are many contradictory things in it, depending on how you select. If you want to explain the existing cases, either this or that could be the precedent. Allowing drinking is a precedent, prohibiting drinking is also a precedent. What kind of precedent do you use? It will involve the issue of the hierarchical chain. What kind of precedents have priority? The general interpretation of the Fuqahā is that precedents after the creation of Islam have the priority; regarding the rules established by Muhammad himself, the later ones are prior to the earlier ones. However, for the interpretations of the Fuqahā instead of Muhammad's teachings, things would be just the opposite: the rules that can be traced back to the Qur'an have the priority; the rules that could only be dated back to people like the second and third generation of the disciples have lower priority; the rules that are summed up from the customary laws of each location rank the last. Of course, the opinions of the Fuqahā of various sects are also different. Their views on the priorities of various laws and regulations are not the same, but what they have in common is that they are jurists of customary law that will rank different customary laws in a hierarchical chain. Nonetheless, the order of the hierarchical chain varies from people to people.
Muhammad himself was also a jurist of customary law. He was already so before Islam came into being. After Islam was created, his own method of legislation also followed the logic of customary law. He very clearly agreed with the practice of creating new laws. The more faithful Hadith has such a record. When He sent a disciple named Muadh to Yemen, they had the following dialogue. The disciple asked him, "The Messenger of Allah, if I run into cases and disputes, how should I deal with them?" The teacher replied that it should be done according to the Qur'an. The disciple asked again, "If there is no clear record in the Qur'an, what should be done?" The answer was to solve the problems according to the Hadiths. What should he do if there was no clear related record in the Hadiths? The teacher replied that he should use his wisdom. Such a dialogue clearly establishes a mechanism for making new laws: Things are clearly stipulated in the Qur'an and the Hadiths, you should do accordingly; if it is not specifically stated, you should use your own wisdom according to the principles of the Qur'an and Hadiths to create new laws that will fit the need of the time. Therefore, the Islamic jurists and judges have been possessing the right to create new laws according to the actual immediate occasions from the very beginning. In fact, the matter has been explicitly prescribed in the Qur'an and the Sunnah, there is still the issue of interpretation. The subsequent social environment has undergone great changes. Interpreting the same sentence in one way or the other can make a huge difference. It is almost the same as creating new laws with people's own wisdom.
Take drinking as an example, what the original text says is that the Prophet banned the wine. At the time, the wine was the major alcohol product, but then there were many other kinds of alcohols invented that were not available at the very beginning. The Chinese characters from “rum” and “wine” all include the character of “alcohol”. However, in other languages than Chinese, their shapes are completely different, which means that there is not a common word for “alcohol”. Then should the later invented rum be banned as well? That depends on the Fuqahā. The Fuqahā can interpret in this way: Even though the Prophet was in an age where there was no rum and it seemed that the Prophet had not prohibited it, but we have to follow the spirit of the Prophet himself. When he tried to ban alcohol, the Prophet said that "Every wine which intoxicates is forbidden." Then you can see that the key to this sentence is not the word "wine", but rather the word "intoxicate", "Every wine which intoxicates is forbidden." Therefore, although rum is not the kind of alcohol the Prophet mentioned at his time, it can still make you drunk, which means that it still intoxicates you. Then should we ban it? According to the words of the Prophet, of course it should be prohibited.
However, if the Faqih happened to be the financial officer of an empire and he wanted to have a good relationship with the king at that time, who thought that the taxation on alcohol was a very important financial income. The King hoped to have some convenient interpretations because regardless of alcohol's good and evil, it would always be good for the treasury. The king would ask the Faqih to do him a favor and interpret it as the kind of statement that meets the needs of enriching the treasury. Then this Faqih could also interpret oppositely: The Prophet had the wise words that "Every wine which intoxicates is forbidden." However, the emphasis of this sentence is on the word "wine". Though Other things that do not belong to wine also intoxicate people, the Prophet did not mention them. Therefore, if he did not mention it, we should not think on behalf of the Prophet. What the Prophet didn't forbid should not be prohibited by us. Otherwise, it would mean that we are as wise as the Prophet. I will be blasphemy. Hence, we should not ban the rums and the financial officer could continue to collect taxes on them. Both of these interpretations are feasible. Students of different Fuqahā can obey the words of each of their teachers respectively and form various interpretations.
Another thing that had a significant influence on later law creation was another sentence in the Sunnah. The Prophet said that if a person created good laws, the person should receive two blessings; if the person's creation was not good, he could only get one blessing. The implication of this is that creating new laws itself is a good thing and it is a matter that helps accumulate blessings. If his creation is good, then he will receive two blessings. No doubt this is commendable. Even if his creation is not good, it does not matter. Though he hasn't achieved something, at least it is hard work. The person is not going to have misfortune or punishment for this, but will only get less reward, only one blessing. The extended interpretation from this Hadith indicates that the Prophet was in favor of creating new laws itself. You can still earn your one blessing by your hard work even if you mess it up. If you do a good job and make everyone happy, then your contribution is great. From such a start, it is natural that Sharia has been a customary law system from the outset. Only two parts within the system are truly holy and inviolable, the Qur'an and the Sunnah. Although early Fuqahā like Hanifa (Note: the founder of the Hanafi school) often thought that only the Quran was sacred and inviolable, later people believed that there were more sacred and inviolable things. It is generally believed that the Sunnah were also sacred and inviolable, which were only slightly lower than the Qur'an. However, without exception, they all believed that there was a need to create new laws.
Then some people divided the later faqihs into the Ahl ar-Ra'y (the faction of rational discretion) and the Ahl al-Hadith (the people of hadith), believing that the Ahl al-Hadith were more dogmatic, and the Ahl ar-Ra'y paid more attention to reasoning. However, this categorization is not an absolute one. The grandmasters acknowledged by the Ahl ar-Ra'y include Abu Bakr and Umar, the two most orthodox caliphs. All Muslims, no matter to which school they belong, generally believe that the two caliphs were very close to the Prophet himself. They were the publicly elected caliphs without controversy, so their teachings should be good. They were themselves masters of the Ahl ar-Ra'y who often made judgments based on their own reasoning, but meanwhile they were also the main sources the Ahl al-Hadith often relies on because they had personally seen and known the Prophet. The Hadiths they had reported are generally considered with high authority. Then were they of the Ahl ar-Ra'y or of the Ahl al-Hadith? The answer is both.
When the Prophet was alive, the nobles of Mecca ridiculed and opposed his religion according to the principles of trade freedom and religious freedom at first. After he moved to Medina, the Abbas family still stood on the side of these people. Although the Umayyad family did not agree with the pro-Persian camp, it still adhered to the position of free trade and multi-religious and theoretically opposed Muhammad. After Muhammad occupied Medina, the location of his city-state happened to cut off the trade between Mecca and Syria, which brought about a peculiar effect. The earlier Muhammad and Muslims were more against the Persian than against the Byzantine. However, the city of Medina first cut off the trade route leading to Byzantium, so the first people who fought with Medina was not the pro-Persian noble faction, but Abu Sufyan and his allies. With the prevalence of Republicanism in the Arabian Peninsula at that time, the ruling and opposition parties would often switch with each other's position, which was largely determined by the several powerful families. The reason why Abu Sufyan wanted to fight Medina was not mainly because of theoretical differences, but because a camel team he invested in was intercepted while passing through Medina. It was like Germany would declare war on Britain if the British Royal Navy had intercepted a German fleet. Or like the U.S. would declare war on Germany if German submarines had intercepted American ships.
In the end, Sufyan failed to win after a few battles. Then the Sufyan family simply surrendered to Muhammad. After Islam occupied Medina, it would be the best for them If they could eliminate Muslims and reopen the Syrian trade route. When they failed to do so, they'd rather surrender and join them to conquer Syria together. When they were affiliated to the Byzantine Empire they could open the Syrian trade route. Then why not just simply conquer the Byzantine Empire and the whole Syrian trade route would be theirs. Wasn't that better than relying on the Byzantine Empire? The only thing that was unacceptable was that if the Muslims could neither conquer the whole Byzantium nor continue the trade route to Byzantium, which forced others to attack them. Therefore, the Umayyad family would either fight against the Muslims in Medina and destroy them to open the Syrian trade route, or simply join Islam. However, the premise of their joining in Islam was that Islam must wage jihad and conquer Syria, after which the Syrian trade route would be theirs again. Abu Bakr and Umar managed to achieve this for them, so Sufyan's children, Mu'awiyah and Yazid, also became high-rank officials in Syria. Eventually, they turned against their masters and overturned the Prophet’s close comrades, becoming Caliphs themselves.
When Abu Sufyan promised to convert to Islam, only he himself, the patriarch of his own family, was converted to Islam. His own descendants, including Mu'awiyah and Yazid who later became caliphs, were not converted at this time. It was after Abu Bakr and Umar decided to send troops to Syria and all Arabs joined their action had they all converted to Islam. You can tell Abu Sufyan's shrewdness and cleverness as a sly old man and veteran businessman: When he was defeated by Muhammad, it was right for him to sign the treaty with Muhammad to preserve his commercial privileges. But as for his children's conversion, it required some more observation. Only when Islam could ensure that the Syrian trade route will be opened, would his family be completely loyal. Otherwise, his children and grandchildren could still turn to Byzantium.
As for the Abbas family, they followed the nobles of Mecca and ignored Muhammad when his power was relatively small, When Muhammad was so powerful in Medina that Mecca was falling into his hands, the Abbas family went to Medina with all their money in Mecca to join Muhammad. Muhammad forgave them, claiming that they were still relatives after all. After that, he let them continue their previous job to manage the money and finance in Medina. After the Islamic empire had taken Syria and Egypt from the Byzantium and conquered the entire Persian Empire, they got the position of the financial officers in the newly established Kufa City, and his own power was not reduced. The Abbas family then held the position of financial officers in Syria for a long time. Finally, when the external war ended, Syria under the control of the Umayyad family fought with Muhammad’s son-in-law Ali, who was in control of Iraq. When the Umayyad family gradually gained the upper hand and Ali’s faction was about to lose, the Abbas family once again demonstrated their canny talent as a political broker.
Let's review their whole story again. The Abbas family was against Muhammad together with the nobles the Mecca at the very beginning. When Mohammed was winning and Mecca was about to lose, they went to Medina with the money of Mecca. When Iraq fought with Syria, the Abbas family sided with Iraq and opposed the Syrian Umayyad family at first. However, when the Umayyad family was about to win, The Abbas family went to Syria with the money from the Iraqi treasury to join the Umayyad family before Iraq's total failure, which was followed by the complete collapse of Ali and Iraq's complete conquered by Syria. In these two events, the Abbas family adopted a policy of opportunist that took commercial interests as the priority. However, after the Umayyad family caused widespread dissatisfaction, they again dressed as the most devout Muslims and described the Umayyad family as people who did not genuinely believe in Islam and joined Islam only out of speculation. They claimed that the Umayyad family later treated the Prophet's family and disciples badly because of their nature. If we follow the purely objective historical research method to study the materials, we can say that the accusations made by the Abbas family against the Umayyad family were basically facts, but the same accusations could also be applied to the Abbas family. Nevertheless, the boasts for themselves made by the Abbas family were not true.
After the Umayyad family came to power, it levied a head tax on Christians, which was equivalent to taking over the main income of the Byzantine Empire. We should note that some opponents of Islam regard the head tax as a form of religious persecution, the Islamic religious persecution against the infidels, especially Christians. However, from the real history of finance, the head tax was first set by the Byzantine Empire for its own needs. One of the important reasons that the Christian of the Byzantine Empire did not want to exert great efforts to resist the Muslims was that Byzantium was also an autocratic empire. If Islam came and they just needed to pay the same amount of tax as to the Byzantine emperor, then why should they bother to fight if they just had to pay the same head tax? For the Byzantine Christians, they just didn't want to be involved in the war between the two empires. They would still pay the same head tax no matter which side won. They just wanted to be the simple audience. Then Byzantium had lost and Islam came. Well, the Muslims could go wherever they like, be it Damascus or Alexandria. If Byzantium fought back, the Byzantines could also go wherever they like, be it Damascus or Alexandria. None of these mattered. After all, they would just have to pay the head tax to whichever ruler. This is their position, a surrendering pose.
Among the Byzantine territories, the real resistants to Islam were the ancestors of the later Lebanese, which was then called the Mardaites. Why did they have to resist Islam? Because they were free tribes. The Byzantines had no way to rule on them and only received some little gifts from them. Sometimes Byzantium also paid tribute to them so that they wouldn't attack the empire's borders. They used to govern themselves and had political autonomy. Therefore, they initially refused to obey the Byzantine Empire and later did not obey the rule of the Islamic Empire. Mu'awiyah’s troops had already reached Constantinople but failed to take down Lebanon. To relieve their worries, the Muslims also needed to pay tribute to these Mardaite Christians in Lebanon as the Byzantine Empire did. This is the difference between having the political freedom or not. The Christians in Damascus and Syria and the Coptic Christians in Egypt had no political freedom and were always compliant with the rulers, be they the Byzantine Empire or the Islamic empire. They never care who would govern them. However, the mountain people in Lebanon were barbarians, so no one could rule them. This is the real key.
After Mu'awiyah and his children occupied Syria and made the Syrian Christians their own major source of financial revenues, they were totally unconcerned about how Sharia had developed, allowing civil society to develop it themselves. Therefore, in the period of the Umayyad Dynasty, the development of Sharia jurists was in full compliance with Hayek's so-called spontaneous order. It is another matter to discuss if it is right or not in the sense of the religion. However, if you regard the customary law as a market economic system, the fact that the Fuqahā of different schools selling their own arbitrations was a process of free competition. The free competition is both unfair and fair. This seems contradictory, but careful interpretation will render it clearness.
What is fairness? If your understanding of fairness is to eliminate all innate conditions and accidental factors as what the later progressive liberals believe, then free competition among the jurists couldn't achieve this. For the equally reputable Fuqahā, it would largely be a matter of incidence for them to pass down their teaching. The later “four major schools” or any number of major schools was a common sense instead of something they themselves proclaimed. In the beginning, it was not the four but the seven major schools. There were three more. These three disappeared not because their systems were not perfect, but out of accidental reasons. Let's say I was Zhang Sanfeng, and my most favored disciple, Zhang Cuishan, was killed by brigands on his way to trade with camels. By then, Zhang Cuishan’s third-generation disciples were still young and had not learned the essence of my knowledge while the greatest disciple who had learned it died in such an unfortunate way. Then I, the grand master Zhang Sangfeng, died before having the time to nurture the third-generation disciples. Under such a circumstance, where the third-generation disciples failed to learn all the knowledge of the grand master while Zhang Cuishan, who had learned all the things, unfortunately died prematurely, my school went downhill in the third generation. It was not because my teaching was bad that my school faced such a downfall. Meanwhile, another contemporary school had a good luck. Their greatest disciple who learned that all the knowledge did not meet brigands when he went out to do business. The disciple managed to pass all his best stuff to the third generation and on and on. This school continued to grow stronger as time went by. Do you think this is fair? It's not fair at all. From the perspective of the founders, the two schools were on the same level. However, out of coincidence, one became the widely respected and decent school while the other was only known by a few experts.
Nevertheless, there is another way to explain fairness, which is purely of the common-law method. In this explanation, a strong ability does not necessarily guarantee the inheritance, but as the Bible says, the race is not to the swift but time and chance happen to them all. What is fairness? It means no artificial intervention by the emperor or the king. If the Roman emperor wanted to annihilate you, your disciples could still prosper. If the Roman emperor wanted to support you, your followers might still just fade away. The First Emperor of Qin tried his best to bolster Han Feizi and his Legalist disciples, but in the end, the Legalists still couldn't stand firm; even if the emperor enforced his will to crack down the Confucians, the Confucianists still won after all. In the sense of the customary-law competition, the emperor was not the authority. The political leader cannot overcome the market. The market is the true authority. The decisions made by the ideological market are often inconsistent with the decisions made by the dignitaries, and political power can never change the decisions of the market, no matter how great the power is. From this point of view, the competition between the Fuqahā was fair. No matter who was in power, be it the Umayyad family, the later Abbas, or the later Islamic empires that were more autocratic, the caliphs, sultans, or other monarchs were often preferential to certain schools. They often wanted to help one school while suppressing another. However, the final result would be determined by the market. They couldn't get whatever they want. In this sense, the competition among the Fuqahā was exactly fair, free and in line with market principles.
In the Umayyad Dynasty, the Fuqahā were basically cultivated through this kind of free competition. The Umayyad family was unlike the later rulers. It did not interfere with the matters among the Fuqahā because its main financial officers were Syrian Christians and its major financial income came from the Syrian Christians as well. The Islamic elders' interpretation of the Shariah had little effect on its fiscal revenue, so it was happy not to involve. Moreover, when Islam was first formed, the rules were still relatively loose. There were not many cases from the caravans entering the Arabian Peninsula that needed to be judged, unlike the situation after getting into Syria and Iraq, which would be more complicated and there would be more cases that needed to be judged. The secularism of the Umayyad family was reflected in the fact that it often did not care about the issues that did not involve money, which would be left to the civil society to solve.
The general approach of the civil society was to find a highly respected Faqih for arbitrations. These Fuqahā were normally amateurs. Legal judgment was not what they did for a living. Like Hanifa, he was actually a Persian businessman. He sold silk and clothes and became a rich guy and local leader. He nurtured some hobbies after getting rich and he thought that Sharia was fantastic, a thing worth collecting. He felt that if he didn't collect it, the ancient Sharia would be lost, which would be a very unfortunate thing. After he had learned something, some people came to him and asked for advice. Then he naturally took the chances. If people were willing to be his disciples, he would teach them something. If folks were willing to turn to him for arbitration, he would also arbitrate for them in a friendly manner. Then all of a sudden, a school came into being. In fact, for the founder of the school, he was just enjoying his hobbies. Malik was a judge in Medina, but he was not the kind of judge officially appointed by the government like our later imagination according to the centralized bureaucratic system. He also judged according to the old rules of the Medina communities and the customs of the time and place.
These two people were the earliest two of the schools of Fiqh. Their main contribution was to regulate the principles of Fiah - not creation, but standardization. The principles of customary law had long been there in a hidden way that even the greatest Fuqahā could only clarify what was previously unclear and vague. The major achievement of Hanifa was to improve the analogical method of law creation. If a case had not been directly recorded in previous scriptures and hadiths, then they could use an analogy to solve it. Like the example of drinking I just mentioned, if the previous scriptures only talked about wine without mentioning rum or other alcohols, what should we do with rum? We'll just have to use the analogy. Wine is intoxicating, so is rum, so we must ban it. Although the Prophet did not say how to deal with rum, he talked about how to deal with wine, then we should refer to the Prophet's handling of wine to deal with rum. And that's it. In this way, the analogy solves the problem. Of course, you need to use reasoning in the analogy. Malik’s chief success was creating the principle of consensus. He was different from Hanifa, who was a businessman instead of an official while Malik himself was at least a judge, who must be responsible for the community of Medina. What he meant was that the analogy alone was not enough. Cases with explicit stipulation were fine, but what about the ones without a clear stipulation? The same case could be judged in several different analogies, which would cause controversy. Under such a circumstance, which analogical arbitration was the right one? People should also go over the hierarchical chain. Among the several analogical adjudications, which one should we give priority to? The answer was to follow the consensus. The one that could achieve the best social effect was the best adjudication.
The so-called best adjudication was not a good or bad judgment. There could be several different interpretation methods in the same case, which were all in line with Islam. People wouldn't treat one as the orthodox while denouncing the others as heretic orders given by Satan. It would not be the case. These judgments were all legitimate, but their effects varied from each other. We could score the first one 90, the second one 80, and the third one 60 only. All three of them had passed the line of 60, which meant that they were all qualified. However, from the perspective of social effect, the verdict that hit 90 was the best for the society. It had the lowest cost and the highest benefit to the society. Then we should give priority to the one with the lowest cost and the highest benefit. This is called the principle of consensus. Consensus and analogy are not completely contradictory: the ones chosen by the consensus were often several different analogies and vice versa. Among several different interpretations that were in conformity with the consensus, people could also tell which analogy was the most reasonable and which one was far-fetched.
In the end, after several hundred years or even a longer period of development, the matter of selection has become a major research topic for the Fuqahā. The selection deals with the question of how to prioritize the thousands of and even the endless amount of interpretations generated among the various principles of law creation. Prioritization is the most difficult task. The Fiqh schools first prioritize inheritance because Hadith is all about inheritance. What is the way of inheritance? A certain disciple listened to what the Prophet had said, and then he told his disciples what the words of the Prophet were. Then the third-generation disciples learned this from the second generation. Later the fourth generation passed it down from the third generation and all the way through. With the help of the historical textual research, we can tell that the second and third generation of disciples did exist, and all the later generations of disciples were all real people, who were all highly respected and reliable. In this case, we would declare that this Hadith is sahih ("authentic") and has a complete chain of inheritance. However, if one of the generations was historically obscure and no one knows who they were, or if one or several of the generations were not reputable enough, then this clue will appear unclear and more ambiguous. In Fiqh terms, this Hadith will be called da'if ("weak").
We should notice that the difference between an authentic Hadith and a weak Hadith is not a difference of good and evil. A weak Hadith is not a lie or heretic record, but effectively weaker. Normal Fuqahā believe that we should quote the authentic ones as long as they are available instead of the weak ones; but if some cases are special, where not a single authentic Hadith can be used, then a weak Hadith is better than nothing. That is to say, no matter how weak a Hadith is, it will be slightly better than the creation solely by our ration. After all, it is still based on a little bit of evidence. Even the not-so-good testis unus will be better than relying on people's own reasoning. Only in the absence of even the weak Hadiths can people use their head and read the Qur'an to create a new law with the right of law creation taught by the Prophet.
Of course, Islam is an extremely complex system, and so is Fiqh. Any conclusions for them will not be absolute but general. Among the early Fuqahā, mutual respect was prevalent. Even if people were of different schools, they would not accuse the others as heretics. The practice that was invented later in the 20th century by Hasan Banna after Mawdudi, which often called themselves the true Muslims while denouncing the ones with different Fiah opinions as heretics or ignorants and proclaimed the latter as the targets of jihad like pagans, was quite rare in the early Islam, if not totally absent. The usual early practice of Islam was this: If one person claimed to be a Muslim, other Muslims could not declare that this person was a heretic if they would not agree with the person's opinion. Because only Allah knows who the real Muslim is. If you wronged someone by accusing it as not a Muslim while Allah thought that it was a Muslim, then you would greatly endanger your soul in the Judgment Day (The Complete Collection of Sahih al-Bukhari, 6103-5). If this kind of thing can be avoided, it should be avoided as much as possible.
The Fuqahā of the Umayyad Dynasty were spontaneously generated from the civil society in the way we just mentioned. If someone became a Faqih, it was mainly because local businessmen or other people thought that he was a very reliable judge, which made more people turn to him in lawsuits. The Umayyad Dynasties, strictly speaking, did not have the so-called judicial system in the modern sense. It had governors, military officers, and tax collectors, but no professional judicial system. The governors could manage judicial affairs, but they were only responsible for what we now call political affairs. In other words, as long as the matter was not concerned with the state interests, military affairs, and financial affairs, the governors would generally not bother to judge the cases and leave them to the parties involved. When people were asked to solve the cases independently, they were likely to look for a Faqih for arbitration.
The verdicts of the Faqih were not necessarily enforced because the Faqih was probably not a government official but a businessman. The verdict was like, John and Joe had a dispute over, say, the inheritance, then I would quote what the Prophet had said. One's expenditure on charity should not exceed one-third, or else he would be treating his heirs badly. The heirs of the direct line should take the bulk, half of it, and the male relatives should take lesser, one-third, and the female relatives should take the least, one-sixth. After that, I would do the math for them and divide the share. However, what should I do if both John and Joe would not obey my verdict? I would not force them to do it with a blade. I had already arbitrated the case for them and they could do whatever they like. I had a lot of business to tend to in my shop. I had already been nice to them by becoming their arbitrator and no one could blame me for ignoring them after the verdict. They could follow my opinion or not, that was it. If they were reasonable people and acknowledged me as a master of great esteem, then the words from the master should have the authority. Everyone should be like the princes who turned to the King Wen of Zhou and said that the master's judgment was the fairest solution and the case should just be solved in this way. If they wouldn't listen to the master, then sorry, they could either duel with each other or find another master for arbitration. I the master had business to tend to and I would go back to my own shop to deal with my own staff instead of those guys. This was the case back then.
Of course, in this way many of the people, especially local elders and businessmen who are highly respected, would think that if everyone could be a judge and the kinder and tenderer people would accept the verdicts while the harsh and stubborn folks would be reluctant to follow them, wouldn't it be a bad thing? We'd better reach an agreement together. How should we achieve that? By inviting all the available respected local Fuqahā from all fields to have a seminar for coordination. Since they were all masters, if their opinions varied from each other, well, it would also be a difficult case for us ordinary folks who were not masters... Let's have a good time together and the masters could coordinate with each other. All the masters could put aside their differences and have a joint agreement let those of us who were not masters see that the masters had reached an agreement and It would be impossible to have better judgment in this case. Wasn't that marvelous? Therefore, such academic meetings were held many times and this way of creating new laws was called the consensus.
What's the key to the consensus? It's that great minds think alike. We can also find support from the Hadiths. According to the more authentic Hadith, Muhammad once said that what the Muslim public approved was more consistent with the will of Allah. It was a very controversial issue to interpret the word "public". According to the prevailing explanation at the time, the so-called "Muslim public" did not include people like the illiterate or any of the mobs, but only the accomplished and erudite Fuqahā. Therefore, according to this interpretation, the way of consensus is to form new interpretation by the consent of the public where masters reach an agreement based on the sentence spoken by the Prophet. Interpretations created this way will be more reliable and more authoritative. In this way of interpretation, the so-called public refers to the more pious and learned Muslims, if not the Fuqahā. The unanimous interpretation of the Sharia by these truly learned Muslims will be the most faithful explanation.
Naturally, the interpretations made in this way are actually not unified. When Iraqi Fuqahā held a meeting and reached a consensus, the consensus would be the most "public" one for them. The over one hundred local Fuqahā of Iraq all believed that this was the end result of seeking an agreement. However, the Damascus Fuqahā also held another meeting and their consensus might be completely different from the Iraqi one. Meanwhile, the Medina Fuqahā held the third meeting, reaching another different consensus. In fact, the consequence of the principle of consensus was forming various local schools. The process of reaching a consensus was actually a process in which the local customary law was integrated with the Arab customary law and Islamic law. The original Islamic law was actually a fusion of Islam and the Arab customary law. Then, for instance, when the Iraqi Fuqahā came to a consensus after some research, the process would spontaneously integrate the local customs of Iraq that had long been existing before Islam. When the Damascus Fuqahā had held a similar public meeting, normally they would also absorb the local Syrian customs. Fuqahā of different places then formed different schools. The whole process itself was in effect a process of generating the customary law.
In the time of the Umayyad Dynasty, such a process of generating the customary law was still roughly spontaneous. The several major methods of law creation I have just mentioned were used by different people in different proportion and the conclusions of different meetings by the Fuqahā of different places varied. The natural result was that first, Sharia became increasingly abundant with growing number of precedents, and second, the number of schools also grew, which generally were still in free competition. The courts ran by the various Fuqahā were of civil nature whereas the official government of the Umayyad Empire did not interfere with civil affairs. Although the nature of Sharia was not completely settled during this period, the basic direction had been fixed: Sharia is mainly a private law, especially a commercial law, an inheritance law, and a civil law. When it came to the political affairs, the Fuqahā dared not to judge, because this kind of matter would bring them death if they accidentally messed with the big shots during the process. People would only turn to the governors in this kind of cases. The new Sharia judgments continuously generated by the civil courts were basically civil ones.
However, from ancient times to the present, no matter when and where, there is always a gap between the civil society and the official and the former always have to criticize the latter. The caliph's court cared only about war and tax. From the standpoint of the civil society, the caliph had never cared for them but would only visit them to collect money and men. When people wanted the government to solve problems for them, the government never cared, so folks could only turn to the Fuqahā. Naturally, the people would feel that the Fuqahā were their representatives who would speak for them while the governors sent by the caliph were the bad guys who would only take things from them. Therefore, the public opinion usually inclined to the Fuqahā.
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Chinese to English: 政治避难申请书 General field: Law/Patents Detailed field: Government / Politics
Translation - English Translator: Travis Fan
Luo Jing: My application for political asylum
Dear US Government:
The first reason for my application:
I was born in Wuli town, Ankang City, Shaanxi Province, where there was hardly any Christian faith. I was very fortunate that when I attended university, I met a British teacher. Although he taught us for only one semester and returned to the UK, he had a profound influence on me.
He was the quietest and most modest young teacher I have ever seen. He often told us the story of the Bible. He organized students to perform drama at Christmas, describing the origin and significance of Christmas. It wasn’t until then I realized that Christmas was the day when my Savior Jesus was born. From then on, the good words and good deeds of my teacher guided me towards Christian faith gradually. His gentle and humble character, which did not drift with the current, had aroused my interest in this belief. I began to want to communicate more with this gentle Christian.
He often invited my schoolmates and me to read the Bible stories together on weekends, but because the school did not encourage Religious propaganda, he left the school soon, and my understanding of Christ began to fade.
Until 2012, due to the pressure of study and the confusion between life choices, I went to the church in Haidian, Beijing, and sat in the church. When I first time listened to the choir practicing the hymns, I was calmed down. I sat alone there and even didn’t want to leave. Later, Lord touched me. When I sang, I couldn’t help but shed tears, and I knew that there really was a Lord, that is the Lord Jehovah. He dominated everything. At that moment, I believed, my irritable and empty heart had been cured, I was willing to believe in Him. So at the weekend, I took the initiative to find the pastor of the Christian Church in Haidian. When we first time met, he gave me a bilingual version of the Bible in Chinese and English as a gift, and I also learned that the name of this pastor was Bian Wenai. Later, when I was introduced to the college fellowship, I heard more sermons from the pastor. My understanding of life changed great, and my life was changed, as well. I was no longer that utilitarian, and no longer talking casually to hurt people’s feeling. However, in 2016, the school no longer allow student fellowship to evangelize the university students. One of my leaders was Wang Yi, who was warned not to organize the party. Later the student fellowship was dissolved. Wang Yi went to Singapore.
When my parents learned that I believed in the Lord in 2018, they did not allow me to attend church, and would no longer listen to what I said about Jesus Christ and the Bible. Anything related to faith was stopped in my family because they were inconsistent with national policies. The government did not advocate the freedom of youth to believe and to gather. Moreover, the government kept cracking down on the gatherings of religious organizations on the grounds of safeguarding the public order of the country. My parents did not know Christianity and thought it was a cult somewhat like Falun Gong. They were afraid of being implicated and influenced. They felt that I had embarked on a road contrary to the state and government. And that once I was arrested, it would be a kind of family disgrace. So when I was looking for church gatherings, my parents and relatives didn’t allow me to leave the house and sat around me, criticizing me and strongly opposing my intention of going to Sunday worship and Bible study.
My parents and relatives, fearing involvement and feeling ashamed to be stopped by the state, threatened me that if I persisted in attending a Christian gathering, they would call the police and draw a demarcation line with me.
But I knew Christianity is the truth. God knew the pressure I was under. He showed me a way that I still attended the gatherings quietly. But I was afraid of being reported. I could only participate temporarily and irregularly in different churches to study the Bible. The ministries who preached the gospel to college students on campus have been stopped because the government stipulates that nobody could publicly preach the gospel in schools and other public places. Once caught by the school police, they would be expelled from the school. Students who listened to the gospel were warned not to participate in religious activities. On the eve of the Spring Festival of 2019, my church in Yanjiao, Beijing, was suddenly assaulted, sealed up and warned by the police when we were gathering. Later, we regathered quietly, but the brethren were still afraid the police would come again. They told me to be careful. So we dared not fix our worship activities here.
A more serious situation happened when I went out in 2018, my parents always called me to ask where I was, whether I was attending a worship activity or not. If I were, they would call the police. Their neighbors also knew what was happening, they kept asking me questions, and whispering behind my back that the reason why I was a spinster was that I had been delayed by such a cult, the Christianity. They rumored that I had attended college for nothing, and didn’t work hard after graduation, just because I believed in Christianity. It was an illegal cult and an act against national security and the government. My Relatives around also said that this belief had delayed my good future that I could not contribute to the country. All these incidents had caused a lot of pressure and injury to my spirit. I was very depressed every day. I dared not go out, dared not meet acquaintances, dared not speak loudly, but I knew in my heart that I was a hard-working person. I worked not smoothly, which was not because of my faith, but because I wanted the freedom to choose, I wanted my God to help me and change my life. When I came into contact with the gospel, my thoughts were no longer the same as theirs. Despite my love for my parents, my mind was free, and my belief was my choice. I would not change my faith due to difficulties. I preferred to believe in my God, willing to rely on the Lord Jesus to face life again.
Before this Dragon Boat Festival, I saw people preparing for the festival in Chinese supermarkets in the United States. Every family was happy and harmonious. It seemed that the joyful atmosphere couldn’t strike a responsive chord in my heart because I missed my family. I couldn’t tell others about my current status. I was afraid of being repatriated. My parents were also under pressure in China. Their relatives and neighbors always gossiped that I had become good-for-nothing as a result of my christ faith, which was negative teaching typicality for their children. My belief humiliated my parents. I made them live in constant anxiety because the representatives of several Christian church gatherings were called to talk by the relevant departments of the Public Security Bureau. These churches have been disbanded. My cousins never contacted me since then. They thought I was a disgrace to our family. If I go back to that country, it’s OK, but I have to give up my faith, not go to church, not read the Bible, not listen to preachers. But I know that I had connected my life to my Lord, and I can’t give up. So I can’t go back home although it is there. I want to seek help from the U.S. government by appealing this political asylum application. Please grant me a chance to freely rely on and believe in Jesus Christ, for God once said, “The fear of the Lord God is the beginning of wisdom.” ¬—Proverbs 9:10
I plead with the U.S. government to provide legal protection for religious beliefs and to help Gospel ministries promote their work in Chinese colleges and universities. Let more college students in China know and understand the Gospel and get timely fed.
In order to dispel this unhappiness, I now have time to attend nearby church meetings, confess, sing hymns, and pray. Slowly I can be happier.
The second reason for my application:
After my graduation in 2010, I got my first job in China South Locomotive, which is now called CRRC Corporation Limited. I worked as an interpreter and assistant minister in the Overseas Business Department. In 2010, because I did not want to join the Communist Party, I abandoned my application for the party’s membership. The reason was that I want to keep the freedom of choice. I didn’t want to enter the system. My belief should be free. I shouldn't choose my faith because of the needs of my job and future. I hoped I have the right to choose my own beliefs.
Because I am not a party member, I have lost the room for promotion. I was constantly being pushed aside by my colleagues within the company. In 2010, I was transferred to the casting and forging Department of China South Locomotive without my consent, which is a remote and hostile working environment for women like me. There were almost no women working there. The dust in the factory was very heavy, and the noise was deafening. Every day, my skin had an allergy. They tried to force me to quit in this way. In this circumstance, I was under enormous physical and mental pressure, so I had to leave the state-owned key enterprise finally. After that, I tried to apply for the same position in the Bombardier Company in China. However, after the personnel investigation on me, they still dared not to employ me. Because they judged that normally speaking, an ordinary hardworking person in my position would never have chosen to abandon the job, they were afraid of taking political risks. My future was once again ruined, and I could not work in other state-owned key enterprises. The Chinese government had killed my future because of my belief. Up to now, I have no stable job.
At one time, I was going to get married, but my marriage plan was canceled due to the loss of my job. I had been in love with Luning, my ex-boyfriend, for four years, but his parents disagreed with our marriage because I have lost my job and my future. They had been interfering in our relationship until we finally broke up. This incident had been a great blow on my spirit. I’ve been unmarried since I broke up.
Because I had no stable source of income and lived in poverty, I wanted to study in the United States, but that seemed only to be an extravagant hope. I dared not tell people about my experience, because I was afraid of being repatriated. I will still be excluded from the mainstream system in China because I am not a member of the communist party. There will be no room for my improvement, even if there would be, I must abandon my faith and choose to join the Party first.
In the unseen world, God had chosen me, and I decided to be a believer voluntarily in 2012. I always stand firm in my choice. So when I came to the United States, I found that the American people were enthusiastic, obliging and kind, which gave me the courage to make final decision to apply for political asylum from the U.S. government. I sincerely hope that the U.S. government and immigration officers could grant me the opportunity to start my second life. May I have the freedom to choose my beliefs and breathe the free air. I yearn for freedom because I am honest, kind, motivated, enthusiastic, and willing to help others at any time. And I will be a law-abiding and hardworking person, not causing trouble or giving burden to the American people. Thank you so much.
Applicant: Luo Jing
English to Chinese: Effects of Pressure on Intrinsic Reaction Kinetics of Biomass Char Combustion in Oxygen Enriched Environment General field: Tech/Engineering Detailed field: Chemistry; Chem Sci/Eng
Source text - English Effects of Pressure on Intrinsic Reaction Kinetics of Biomass Char Combustion in Oxygen Enriched Environment
De Silva LorensuHewaAsela, Qinhui Wang*, Han Long, Chi Yong, LuoZhongyang
State Key Laboratory of Clean Energy Utilization, Zhejiang University, 310027, Zheda Road 38, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
Abstract
The combustion kinetics of sawdust derived char was studied between793 and 1213Kfurnace temperature using a pressurized thermogravimetric analyzer (PTGA). Kinetic Parameter of char combustion wereanalyzed between 1 and 10 atm, and reaction rate data were recorded at five oxygen concentrations, which were 20, 40, 60, 80, and 100%, in each pressure level. For further calculations of intrinsic reaction order, surface area of the char was obtained using BET method. In each experiment, char combustion rates were measured after 10% conversion. It was found that the reaction orders were influenced by temperature as well as total pressure of the oxygen; and reaction orders are laid between 0.5 and 0.98 andglobal activation energies are found within the narrow range of 122-132 kJ/mol over the investigated pressure and temperature ranges. Derived kinetic parameters showed that activation energies of the reactions were not significantly affected by an increasing pressure and order of the reaction was significantly influenced over the investigated pressure range. Results obtained by the study were used to improve some critical parameters of CaO-based near zero emission gasification system which was developed by Zhejiang University China and Institute of Engineering Thermophysics of Chinese Academy of Science.
Introduction
Oxyfuel combustion has received great attention as a post combustion carbon capture and storage (CCS) method, which can be applied for various fuels. Biomass is an environmentally friendly energy source that can produce CO2 rich flue gas in oxygen enriched combustion environment. The CO2 rich product gas that is produced by oxy-fuel combustion can be either used for enhanced oil recovery, beverage industry and coal-bed methane applications (Payneet al., 1989), or be sequestered in geologic reservoirs too (Shaddix and Murphy, 2006).
Oxyfuel combustion simply defined as combustion in oxygen rather than air with recycled flue gas. Oxyfuel combustion concept was proposed in 1982 by Abraham in the context of providing a CO2-rich flue gas for enhanced oil recovery (Wallet al., 2009) and this concept is now use in both turbine power cycles and pulverized coal plants. Flue gas of oxyfuel combustion mainly consists of high concentration CO2and water vapor (Wallet al., 2009). Water vapor is easily separated and produce stream of CO2 ready for sequestration.
As pressure effect on char combustion is closely related with retrofitting industrial applications to oxyfuel combustion technology, extensive researches have been carried out regarding the pressure effect on combustion and oxyfuel combustion. Char reactivity studies have been performed in different types of experimental equipments such as thermogravimetric analyzer (Zimbardi, 2000), entrained flow reactors or drop tubes (Saastamoinen et al., 1993; Shaddix and Murphy, 2006), and using other different models (Sorensen, et al., 1996; Czakiert and Nowak., 2010). MacNeil and Basu studied the effect of pressure on char combustion under pressurized conditions (Basu and MacNeil, 1998). Wallman and Carlsson (Wallman and Carlsson, 1991) thoroughly investigated the burning rate of coal under pressurized conditions and the combustion kinetics at elevated pressures.
Moreover, to improve the accuracy of the results, combustion kinetics of coal chars in oxygen-enriched environments was also studied by Shaddix et al. using both nth-order Arrhenius expression and nth-order Langmuir-Hinshelwood kinetic equations (Shaddix and Murphy, 2006); and while Lasse H. Sorensen et al. derived evaluated the coal char reactivity and kinetic data and compared kinetic data by using different shrinking-core models (Sorensen and Gjernes, 1996).
The objective of this paper is to present intrinsic reaction reactivity data, determine kinetic data of biomass char combustion, such as reaction order, activation energy of biomass char combustion under pressurized oxyfuel conditions, and discover the reaction rate variations patterns with the temperature, oxygen concentrations, and pressure. These reaction and kinetic data that help to determine the several key parameters of Zhejiang University China and Institute of Engineering Thermophysics of Chinese Academy of Science developed CaO-based near zero emission gasification system, which is extensively described in the literature (Guan et al., 2007; Han et al., 2010; Han et al., 2010; Han et al., 2011)
Discoveries of the study also help to retrofit existing coal fired industrial applications to biomass fired applications (Mousavian and Mansouri, 2011). Furthermore, under pressurized oxy-fuel conditions, none of the researches have been carried out to determine kinetic data for biomass combustion.
Determination of the kinetics of biomass char combustion and influence of oxygen concentration on reaction rate can be used to determine the biomass supply rate, optimum oxygen concentration need to maintain in CaO regeneration unit of CaO-based near zero emission gasification system, which was developed by Zhejiang University China and Institute of Engineering Thermophysics of Chinese Academy of Science developed (Wang et al., 2005; Guan et al., 2007). This process is extensively described in the literature (Guan et al., 2007; Han et al., 2010; Han et al., 2010; Han et al., 2011). Moreover, pressurized oxyfuel combustion kinetics of biomass char are playing very important role in feasibility studies of high pressure oxyfuel coal fired applications retrofit to biomass fired applications(Mousavian and Mansouri, 2011); as biomass combustion under oxyfuel conditions is comparatively new technology, numbers of investigations available on biomass char reactivities under oxygen enriched combustion are very limited(Branca and Blasi, 2010) –especially considering numbers of studies at higher pressure levels. Furthermore, under pressurized oxy-fuel conditions, none of the previous investigations have been derived kinetic data for biomass combustion.
Fundamental knowledge on kinetics of biomass combustion in oxygen-enriched environment is still need to be improved especially under pressurized conditions. Therefore, a broad range of investigations on oxy-combustion of biomass and related kinetic studies are needed for comprehension of the fundamental knowledge and to facilitate the further development of oxy-combustion of biomass.
The objective of this paper is to present intrinsic reactivity data, determine kinetic data, such as reaction order, activation energy of biomass char combustion under pressurized oxyfuel conditions, and reaction rate variations with the temperature, oxygen concentrations and pressure that help to determine the key parameters of Zhejiang University China and Institute of Engineering Thermophysics of Chinese Academy of Science developed CaO-based near zero emission gasification system.
In this study, sawdust was selected as a typical material due to its wide availability in China. A pressurized thermo gravimetric analyzer (PTGA) was occupied to determine reaction rates of the biomass combustion.
Experimental Section
Sample Preparation
Sawdust derived biomass char samples were used in the current investigation as an experimental material. Chars were made under laboratory condition using 0.15 to 0.2 mm diameter sized particles, which were obtained by sieving the sawdust. Biomass char samples were prepared by heating the sawdust samples in crucibles – under atmospheric pressure in nitrogen environment – to 900 º C at 25K/min heating rate, and holding at that temperature for 10 minutes. Proximate and ultimate analysis of sawdust is presented in Table 1.
Table 1 Proximate and ultimate analyses of sawdust
To minimize the variations among samples, sawdust char samples were pyrolyzed under laboratory condition, although it is understood that chars made under laboratory conditions are not the true representations of chars produced in industrial scale. Several authors (Mccarthy, 1981) showed that the kinetics of char combustion were influenced by the heating rate of the initial sample, the residence time at the final pyrolysis conditions, and the applied final temperature. In order to minimize the influence of char preparation condition variations among char samples on kinetic data, the same experimental conditions, including heating rate, pressure, gas flowrate, and residence time at the final temperature, were used.
Experimental Apparatus and Procedures
All Experiments were conducted using a Cahn Thermax 500 pressurized thermogravimetric analyzer (PTGA) that measures sample mass continuously with time. This PTGA consists of a reaction chamber equipped with a highly sensitive balance, an electrically heated furnace, a gas metering system that accurately control the gas concentrations, and a pressure control system that accurately control the total pressure. A schematic diagram of the PTGA is shown in Fig. 1.
Experiments on the biomass char were performed under three different pressure levels, i.e. 1, 5, and 10 atm. For each pressure level experiment were carried out at seven different temperature levels, i.e. 793, 833, 873, 913, 1013, 1113, and 1213K. Moreover, under each temperature level five different O2 concentrations, i.e. 20, 40, 60, 80, and 100% were investigated. Since flue gas was not recycled, CO2 component was used to simulate the recirculated flue gas.
At the beginning of each experiment gas flow rate was accurately set at 1 l/min and 10 ± 1% mg of the biomass char sample wascarefully placed in the combustion chamber. After placing the char sample, chamber was purged byCO2for 10 minutes to remove oxygen and other gases that entered while it was open. When experiment was conducted at pressurized conditions, chamber pressure was increased to desired value using the computer software – ThermalAcq, TherMax, which was provided with the Cahn Thermax 500 system, and then the chamber was electrically heated at 25K/minrate until temperature reached to desired value. For atmospheric pressure experiments, the reaction chamber was electrically heated – without increasing pressure – at same heating rate used in the pressurized conditions until temperature reached to desired value. After temperature reached to desired value and became steady at that value, oxygen was injected into the combustion chamber with a certain flowrate, which was described in the experimental condition. As furnace temperature was higher than fire point of the char, when oxygen entered into the furnace, reaction between O2 and biomass char would be started. The sample mass, along with the sample temperature and system pressure, was continuously monitored during an experiment until sample weight became constant value to calculate the rate of the reaction. Finally, pressure of the chamber was gradually released and set to the atmospheric pressure forthe experiments conducted under pressurized conditions and wait until temperature of the chamber drop to room temperature. Table 2 O2 and CO2concentrations used in each pressure and temperature levels for biomass char combustion (same conditions were used in all selected pressure levels, i.e. 1, 5, 10 atm, and all selected temperatures, i.e. 793, 833, 873, 913, 1013, 1113, 1213K)
Kinetic Data Determination
Intrinsic reaction rates were determined using the data provided by TGA at each experimental run. As microbalance of the TGA measures sample mass continuously with time, reaction rate can be determined at any given time during the reaction.
The apparent reaction rate (ρ) was calculated using the following relationship (eq.1)
Where w is the mass of carbon remaining in the char at reaction time t. Since the apparent reaction rates are not entirely free from the physical influence of surface area, intrinsic kinetics of the reaction was studied in this experiment. The intrinsic reaction rate is defined as the apparent rate per unit char surface area (Roberts and Harris, 2000).Surface areas of the biomass chars were measured by BET method using nitrogen adsorption and desorption at liquid nitrogen temperature -196 °C with Autosorb-1-C(Quantachrome Instrument Corp.).Measured average surface is 41.5m2/g. This determined area was used for all the calculations that are related with this study. Most authors have based on the nth order Arrhenius model, which shows the influence of temperature on reaction rate constant (k),to interpret the kinetic data of burning char particles(Field et al., 1967; Mitchell, 1992; Branca and Blasi, 2004; Czakiert and Nowak, 2010). Moreover, studies using thermogravimetric analyzers to measure the low and intermediate-temperature oxidation of chars under both atmospheric and pressurized conditions have found that the nth-order Arrhenius expression works well over a wide range of oxygen partial pressures(Hu et al., 2001). In accordance with previous researchers, a same model (eq.2) has also been used in this study to investigate the kinetic data of biomass char combustion.
The global reaction rate follows the expression
The intrinsic reaction rate (ri) expressed in g/(m2s) can be determined directly from thermogravimetric data and the surface areas that were determined by BET method.
According to the Arrhenius equation;
By taking the natural logarithm of Eq. 3;
Where according to Eq. 2:
Taking the natural logarithm of the Eq. 2;
Where Ea(J/mol), R (J/mol K), T(K), k (g/m-2s-1Pan), A, and n are Activation energy, universal gas constant, absolute temperature, intrinsic rate constant, frequency factor, and order of the reaction respectively.
To improve the accuracy of the reaction rate constant (k), k was obtained by averaging the k values that were calculated in all oxygen partial pressure levels – at same temperature – that were investigated in this study.
Activation energies (Ea) of the reactions were determined from slopes of the plots of logarithmic form of Arrhenius equation (Fig. 2) while reaction orders (n) of oxygen were determined by slopesof logarithmic form of power-law expression (Fig. 3).
Results and Discussion
Biomass char combustion rate is not a constant function of conversion or reaction time, consequently, average reaction rate cannot be used to calculate or compare the reaction rates and kinetic data of the char oxidation at different pressure and temperature.As a result, all reported reaction rates in this study were calculated after 10% burn-off. Furthermore, to improve the accuracy of the reaction rates, average value of the reaction rates between 9-11% char conversion level was taken.
Generally, surface area of the biomass char can be changed with the combustion and increasing pressure. Even though it is known that surface area of the initial char sample can be slightly changed with pressure and burn off, it was assumed in this experiment, after the 10% burn off, surface area of the initial char sample is equal to the surface area of the 10% burned off char sample.
The intrinsic reaction rate was calculated at 10% burn-off using the apparent data, which were directly provided by TGA and surface area of the biomass char. The surface area used for this experiment was obtained from BET method, which is comprehensively described in the literature(Kini, 1964; Gaspard, et al., 2008). To investigate the effects of pressure on biomass char oxidation, 105 different experimental conditions were used. At each experimental condition, adequate amount of experiments were repeated to improve the accuracy of the results.
An example curves (Fig. 4) illustrate the changes in the intrinsic reaction rate – reaction conditions are total pressure 1 atm and temperature 833K– with percentage of biomass char conversion ratio at different oxygen partial pressures. It can be seen that the reaction rate increased with the increasing oxygen partial pressure. When oxygen concentration is 20% reaction is not stable as 40% or higher; which means stability of the reaction can also be affected by the oxygen concentration. However, with the increasing temperature, oxidation reaction becomes stable even with 20% oxygen concentration. All the other graphs that were plotted by rate vs. conversion have also shown the similar behavior while rate of the reaction keep increasing with increasing oxygen pressure at each temperature and each pressure levels.
Changes in the sample masses with time at different temperaturesandtotal pressure levels – while maintaining constant oxygen partial pressure – are illustrated in Figs. 5-7.According to obtained results temperature influence on reaction is considerably high.
For instance, at 1 atm total pressure and 793K with 40% oxygen concentration,reaction completes after almost 120s whileat 1013K it only takes approximately48s to complete the reaction with same total pressure and oxygen concentration. However, magnitude of temperature influence on the biomass char oxidation is reduced when temperature is increasing. For instance, at 1 atm total pressure and 1213K with 40% oxygen concentration, oxidation reaction completes after almost 28s. Difference of the reaction completion time was reduced by 20s when temperature increases from 1013 to 1213K, while difference of the reaction completion time was reduced by 72s when temperature increases from 793 to 1013K.
However, at higher total pressure, with the increase of oxygen pressure,influence of the temperature on time taken to complete the reaction becomes less influential than lower pressures. Nevertheless, even in higher pressure levels, temperature influence on reaction is considerable.
All the graphs in Fig.5-7 show similar behavior with the increasing temperature. At the beginning of the oxidation, reaction starts with the lower rate, then biomass char reacts with the oxygen at the increasing rate and achieves the peak reaction rate after that reaction rate decreases while reaction rate become lowering. However, in these graphs, with the increasing temperature is cannot differentiate the increment and decrement of the reaction rate. Nevertheless, above mention reaction rate variation exists even at higher temperature levels, if reaction occurs within the zone I.
Effect of O2 partial pressure on relationship between the sample weight and time at 833K and 1, 5, 10 atm was illustrated by Figs. 8-10 respectively. According to the results, influence of the oxygen concentration on reaction rate is significant. For instance, at 1 atm total pressure with 40% oxygen concentration, reaction completes after almost 100s but at 10 atm total pressure with the same partial pressure and all other condition, 55s takes to complete the reaction – see Fig 8 and Fig 10. Reaction time reduced by half by increasing oxygen pressure from 0.4 atm to 4atm inside the reactor.
There are many similarities among the behavior of the reactions that were conducted with different total pressure levels while maintaining same partial pressure. Reaction completion time is reduced with the increasing oxygen partial pressure. Moreover, in atmospheric conditions, reaction time rapidly reduced when oxygen partial pressure increased. All the graphs (Figs. 8-10) behaved in similar manner while partial pressure of O2 was increased. Furthermore, it can clearly be differentiate that there is a major reaction rate difference between 40 and 60% of oxygen at 1atm pressure level, after that, reaction rate is not significantly sensitive to the increasing oxygen pressure. Biomass char is a porous material so that with increasing oxygen concentration all the pores are occupied by the oxygen and CO2.After all the contacting areas are totally occupied by O2 and CO2 gas mixture further increase of the pressure does not helps to increase the reaction rate by considerable level. Nevertheless, increasing oxygen concentration helps to increase the reaction rate by the improving O2 and biomass char contact area.
When considering the results obtained by Fig.5-7 with the Fig 8-10, reaction rate of the oxyfuel combustion can be increased by two ways, which are increasing partial pressure of theoxygen and temperature of the reactor.
The Intrinsic reaction rates of the biomass char oxidation as a functions of the O2 concentration at all temperatures and all pressure levels are presented in Figs. 11-13. Behavior of the intrinsic reaction rates with temperature and partial pressure of the oxygen is clearly and briefly identified by these figures (Figs. 11-13). Each temperature under the atmospheric pressure, intrinsic reaction rate behaves linearly with the partial pressure of the oxygen; which confirms that reactions that are conducted under 1 atm were occurred under the kinetic control region or zone I. According to the conducted experiments, at the atmospheric pressure, when the reaction temperatures are less than 913K, reaction rates are highly sensitive to the temperature but after913K reaction rates are less sensitive to the increase of the temperature.
Behavior of the intrinsic reaction rates at 5 atm also very similar to the behavior of 1atm. However, behavior of the reaction rates at 10atm is slightly different from the behavior of both 1 and 5atm. At 10 atm, over 913K, behavior of the intrinsic reaction rate with oxygen concentration is not linear as other reactions; that mean reaction zone is overlapped. However, linearity is not deviated by considerable amount according to the other graphs were discussed. Consequently, reaction zone overlapping is neglected in the calculations.
The order of the reaction between oxygen and char is the slope of the line through the data points when plotting ln [rate] vs. ln [PO2], which is demonstrated by Eq.6 and Fig.3. According to these equations intrinsic reaction orders were determined directly from Fig.14, 15, and 16; and all the determined reaction orders are listed in Table. 3. Reaction orders are decreasing with the increasing temperature and pressure (Hu et al., 2001).
All the determined reaction orders under different experimental conditions are within the range of 0.55158-0.98201.These values were obtained by the OriginPro software package. In literature, orders of the carbon oxidation reaction reported in between 0.25 and 1, which can be identified as a broad range. The reaction orders obtained in this study also agree with the results obtained in literature. The differences in the values may come from the fuel type and the experimental conditions as well as the employed equipments and the introduced model of combustion (Sorensen et al., 1996).
Order of the reaction decreases rapidly when temperature is increasing within the bottom part of the temperature range under the 1atm pressure. However, at higher temperature levels, order of the reaction is not considerably sensitive to temperature; this scenario is clearly showed in the Fig.14.
Order of the reaction become less sensitive to temperaturewhen temperature is increasing; temperature increasing means reaction rate increasing. Thus, at the higher reaction rates order of the reaction become less sensitive to temperature. Under the higher pressure levels also, same results can be obtained but range of the reaction order changes is reduced and at the higher temperature and higher pressure levels change of the reaction order is negligible. For instant, at 10atm, when temperature changes from 1013 to 1213K order of the reaction changed only by 0.002778 while at 1 atm when temperature changes from 1013 to 1213K order of the reaction changed by 0.11656, which is 43times higher than the value at 10atm therefore change of reaction order at high pressure and high temperature is negligible.
According to the natural logarithm of Arrhenius equation which is graphed in Fig.2, activation energies at pressure levels 1, 5, and 10 atm were directly determined using Fig.15 for biomass char oxidation. Tab. 4 shows the determined activation energies by Fig.15. OriginPro 8 used to determine the best fit line and gradient of the graph.
According to the obtained results, activation energy of the biomass char combustion varied between 122kJ/mol and 132kJ/mol. These values agreed well with a previous study where a range from 71 to 162kJ/mol was reported for the activation energy range of the biomass char combustion (Antal and Gronli, 2003). Total pressure does not have significant influence on the activation energy of biomass char combustion under oxyfuel conditions, although the activation energy slightly decreased with increasing total pressure. Moreover, according to the research of Walker et al., three ideal temperature zones can be identified in char combustion on the basis of rate-governing process(zone1)(Walker et al., 1959).
In Zone I, the reaction is controlled by chemical kinetics with an intrinsic activation energy of reaction about 115-172 kJ/mol for char oxidation (Walker et al., 1959; Smith, 1978). Considering the values of activation energy obtained in this study, it could be concluded that the combustion reaction in this study had been controlled by chemical kinetics. Lin, S.Y was thoroughly studied about reaction zones and claimed that, if reaction occurs in Zone I, reaction rate is linearly increased with the oxygen pressure (Lin et al., 2000). Results obtained in this experiment also behave in same manner as explained, see fig. 11-13, which further verified that oxidation reaction in this study were controlled by chemical kinetics and the reaction occurred in zone I. The gas flowrate used in this study (1l/min) was very beneficial to make the reaction occur in Zone I, since flowrate assure the sufficient contact between biomass char and oxygen even under the 20% Oxygen concentration.
Published research works about the behavior of activation energy of combustion under pressurized oxy-fuel conditions are very few. According to the most of the researchers, activation energy of the char oxidation reaction is decreased with the increasing oxygen pressure (Monson et al., 1995; Eric C., 1996; Basu and MacNeil, 1998).However, when the Arrhenius plots for each pressures level – 1, 5, and 10atm – are compared in the same figure (see Figure17), it can be differentiate by their slopes since they does not have much variation. According to the results it can be suggested that activation energy is not a strong function of total pressure in other words activation energy of the reactions was not significantly affected by total pressure. Nevertheless, activation energy just slightly decreased when O2 pressure increased.
Reaction zone is extremely important when determining the activation energy, if reaction zone is shifted or overlapped activation energy can be change significantly. As obtained activation energies do not change by considerable amount, it can be verified that reaction zone did not change within the reaction conditions that were used in this experiment.
Conclusions
Measurements of intrinsic reactivities of biomass char to O2 at pressures up to 10 atm have been made by thermogravimetric analysis under elevated oxygen pressure. The nth order approximation to the rate equation is suitable to describe low and medium temperature biomass char oxidation reaction for partial pressure of oxygen up to 10 atm.
Reaction orders are highly dependable on the reaction temperature and within the tested temperature range order of the reaction reduced with the increasing temperature.
Intrinsic reaction rates of biomass char oxidation largely influenced by the oxygen pressure. However when temperature is increasing magnitude of the influence is not very significant. Measured reaction orders were not constant over the investigated pressure range. These reaction orders are decreased with the increasing oxygen pressure and increasing temperature. Reaction orders become less sensitive to temperature with increasing temperature – especially at higher temperature. Activation energies do not significantly influenced by the total pressure within the investigated pressure range – 1-10 atm. However, activation energies slightly reduced when total pressure increased. Oxyfuel combustion behavior of the biomass chars under high-pressure and high-temperature conditions can be predicted by using intrinsic reaction rate data. It is useful to develop more comprehensive models that can be applied for different type of char and other combustible materials too.
Acknowledgement
This work has been supported by the collaboration project of CERC-ACTC(2010DFA72730-202) and Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-09-0696)
Translation - Chinese 生物质半焦富氧燃烧中压力对本征反应动力学的影响
L. H. A. De Silva，王勤辉*，韩龙，池涌，骆仲泱
浙江大学能源清洁利用国家重点实验室，浙江杭州浙大路38号，310027
压力对生物质半焦燃烧的影响与工业上富氧燃烧设备改进有密切关系，因此在压力对燃烧和富氧燃烧的影响方面开展过大量的研究工作。生物质半焦燃烧反应在不同种类的实验设备——如热重分析仪[4]、气流床反应器和沉降炉落Mac Neil 和Basu研究了增压状态下压力对半焦燃烧的影响[8]。管反应器中均有研究[2, 5]，并且引入了不同的反应模型[6, 7]。Wallman和Carlsson深入地研究了煤在加压条件下的燃烧速率和燃烧动力学[9]。为提高结果的精确性，Shaddix等采用n阶阿累尼乌斯公式和n阶Langmuir-Hinshelwood动力学方程研究了煤半焦的富氧燃烧反应动力学[2]。而Lasse H. Sorensen等使用收缩核模型评价了煤半焦反应数据和比较了动力学参数[6]。最近在生物质富氧燃烧领域的研究增加了，因为大多数的燃煤工业设备（如锅炉、流化床燃烧器等）已被改装以适应生物质的燃烧。方梦祥等使用了热重-傅里叶变换红外光谱分析联用(TG-FTIR)分析技术研究了生物质燃烧动力学并考察了氧浓度对燃烧动力学的影响[10]。最近，骆仲泱等研究了氧浓度对生物质富氧燃烧特点的影响[11]。尽管对于生物质半焦的燃烧特点已经有相应研究，但针对生物质半焦增压状态下的氧化反应动力学，总压对本征反应动力学的影响，以及生物质半焦富氧燃烧时对反应速率的影响等却知之甚少。
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Bio
Dear clients,
I'm Travis Fan, a translator on legal documents and history/religion/politics/music-related materials, working for Law Offices of Chung N. Phang, 300 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, Oakland, CA 94612.
In 2014, I initiated the famous we-media Tosanto (冬川豆) Culture Communication Co., Ltd., in Shenzhen, China.
In 2019 I got my doctorate from Zhejiang University as a hydrogen energy engineering specialist.
List of my publications:
1. Aug. 12, 2012. Intrinsic reaction kinetics of biomass chars with oxygen at elevated pressures. Energy engineering, China
2. Sep. 1, 2013. Simulation of CaO sorbent biomass chemical looping gasification system based on fluidized bed technology. Proceedings of the 7th national fluidization technology conference, China
3. Apr. 4, 2014. Enhanced hydrogen-rich gas production from steam gasification of coal in a pressurized fluidized bed with CaO as a CO2 sorbent. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy
4. March 1, 2016. Simulation and evaluation of biomass chemical looping gasification system using CaO as CO2 sorbent. Proceedings of the 10th Korea-Japan-China Student Symposium
5. Sep. 1, 2018. Genetic algorithms and neural networks in optimization of sorbent enhanced H2 production in FB and CFB gasifiers. Energy Conversion and Management.
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