Just for those curious, there's a new website, Islam in China, which might be interesting to some. The site points out that there are more Muslims in China than there are in Saudi Arabia. In fact, if the Muslims of China were a nation unto themselves they would be equivalent to Iraq in population. Of these Muslims about half are Hui, Chinese speaking Muslims who are defined as a nationality. The other half consists mostly of Turkic speaking Muslims who are of Chinese nationality, but not Chinese speaking. While the Turkic Muslims of China have not traditionally been part of Chinese culture or the nation-state, the Hui have long lived among the Han Chinese as a distinctive ethno-religious minority.
I will be contributing a piece at some point in the near future which explores some of the peculiarities of the Hui, and what that can teach us about how a universal international system of beliefs can be transformed by becoming embedded into distinct cultures. For example, throughout Chinese history rebels have pointed to cosmological portents and drawn upon the institutional framework of religious secret societies, usually Daoist or Buddhist. In the 19th century the Manchu dynasty began to repress the Muslims the Chinese speaking Muslims because of their nonconformity with the norms of the Han majority. The Muslims engaged in violent rebellions across northwest and southwest China around the banner of their religious faith, but interestingly the rebellious leaders of the community made recourse to Daoist slogans and symbolism to communicate the seriousness of their message.
- Log in to post comments
Very interesting topic, Razib. Look forward to your forthcoming post. I've long been interested in the subject myself. Most Chinese Muslims are in the NorthWest, but there are interestingly also many of them on the coast who were converted by Arab traders. This also resembles, by the way, the South Asian situation. And while there doesn't seem to be the tension over monotheist/polytheist or 'idolatrous'/non-idolatrous traditions as in South Asia, I am still curious how the Hui coexisted with the (for example, pig-eating, non-hijab wearing, polygyny-frowning) Han. Also, some really neat stuff evolved from the synergy between Arabic and Chinese calligraphy traditions. Check out this video of a Chinese Muslim woman writing out Bismillah. Interestingly, she has both a 'Chinese' and an Arabic name, a dualism I've usually never seen in a South Asian context, though some Indonesians, for example, do have mixed-Sanskritic-Arabic names.
Most Chinese Muslims are in the NorthWest, but there are interestingly also many of them on the coast who were converted by Arab traders. This also resembles, by the way, the South Asian situation. And while there doesn't seem to be the tension over monotheist/polytheist or 'idolatrous'/non-idolatrous traditions as in South Asia, I am still curious how the Hui coexisted with the (for example, pig-eating, non-hijab wearing, polygyny-frowning) Han.
there are some confusions here. the hui muslims along the coast probably have the same origins as those of ningxia. a substantial number ended up being assimilated into the han, so their numbers are smaller (some han families in southeast china do not give pig offerings to their ancestral graves). the hui's paternal ancestors were mostly like of central asian provenance (whether turk or tajik is irrelevant) and arrived with the yuan/mongol period. some muslims did arrive along the coastal route during the tang period, and were resident in guangzhou, but these foreign communities were exterminated in violence in the 9th century (there were purges against all foreign religions, which included buddhism). additionally why would you think that the han were polygyny frowning? from what i know high status han men took multiple wives, and sometimes even more concubines. do you know something i don't? the food taboos created barriers. the hui called their faith the true and pure religion. they lived separate lives, but were found in particular professions. for example the hui did not conceive of the military as a low status job as the han did, so they were overrepresented in the armies. this became awfully convenient for the manchus who used them as shock troops in their drive to the muslim west.
I'm curious where you got this
"some han families in southeast china do not give pig offerings to their ancestral graves). " from?
here. a closer reading of the chapter suggests these people don't consider themselves han anymore, but hui, despite the fact that they are pretty much indistinguishable from the han (the chapter seems to suggest that hui identification is a more recent identification of the lineage, though it did have muslim antecedents).