Links to Articles

* Islam in Taiwan

* Taiwan Muslims' Struggle to Survive by Ma Chao-Yen

* Islam in Taiwan: Cut off from Its Roots, Taiwan's Small Community of Chinese Muslims Struggles to Survive by Peter G. Gowing

* 台灣地區宗教簡介--回教 (A Brief Introduction to Religions in the Taiwan Region: Islam) by The Department of Civil Affairs, ROC

* Muslims of Quanzhou by Xiao Jia Gu

* Chinese of Arab and Persian Descent by Color Q World

* The Hui Ethinic Minority by People's Daily Online

* Chinese Muslims Forge Isolated Path by Luisa Lim

* Islam in China: Accommodation or Separatism? By Dru C. Gladney 

* Xinjiang: China Pre- and Post-Modern Crossroad by Dru Gladney

* Deep in China, a Poor and Pious Muslim Enclave by Jim Yardley

* Ethnic Tensions Smolder in China: Government blocks foreign journalists from reporting on Han-Hui riot by Jehangir Pocha

* Islam in China

* History of Islam in China

* Islam in China (650 - 1980 CE) by Yusuf Abdul Rahman

* Islam during the Qing Dynasty

* Islam in China (1911-Present)

* Islam and Muslims in China by IslamAwareness.net

* Islam: Chinese Muslim History by the Republic of China Yearbook - 2002

* HLA Class I Polymorphism in Mongolian and Hui Ethnic Groups from Northern China by W. Hong, et al.

* A Genome-Based Study of the Muslim Hui Community and the Han Population of Liaoning Province by Michael L. Black, et al.

* Evolution and Migration History of the Chinese Population Inferred from Chinese Y-Chromosome Evidence by Wei Deng, et al. 

* Molecular Evidence for the Temporal Stratification of Chinese Genetic Diversity by M. Black, et al.

* Different Matrilineal Contributions to Genetic Structure of Ethnic Groups in the Silk Road Region in China by Y.G. Yao.

* Physical Anthropology and Ethnicity in Asia: The Transition from
Anthropometry to Genome-based Studies
by A. H. Bittles, et al.

 

 

Muslim Culture in China

* Chinese Mosques

In western China the mosques resemble those of Iran and Central Asia, with tall, slender minarets, curvy arches and dome shaped roofs, as well as the unique multi-layered portals. In northwest China where the Chinese Hui have built their mosques, there is a combination of eastern and western styles. The mosques have flared Buddhist style roofs set in walled courtyards entered through archways with miniature domes and minarets.

* Muslims in China: The Mosques by Jill S. Cowen

* Muslim Chinese Martial Arts

Muslim Chinese martial arts have a long history in China, and many Muslims have participated at the highest level of Chinese martial arts. However, the Qing Dynasty persecutions greatly stimulated the practise of martial arts among Chinese Muslims. The Hui started and adapted many of the styles of wushu such as Bajiquan, Piguaquan, Liu He Quan, and other styles. There were specific areas known to be centers of Muslim martial arts, such as Cang County in Hebei Province. These traditional Chinese martial arts were very distinct from the Turkic styles practised in Xinjiang.

* Chinese Islamic Cuisine

Traditionally, there is a distinction between northern and southern Chinese Islamic cuisine despite both utilizing mutton and lamb. Northern Chinese Islamic cuisine relies heavily on beef, but rarely any ducks, geese, shrimp or seafood, while southern Islamic cuisine is just the opposite, with heavy utilization of those foods, but not beef.

 

Sini Script

 

Sini is a Chinese Islamic calligraphic form for the Arabic script. It can refer to any type of Chinese Islamic calligraphy, but is commonly used to refer to one with thick and tapered effects, much like Chinese calligraphy. It is used extensively in mosques in eastern China, and to a lesser extent in Gansu, Ningxia, and Shaanxi. A famous Sini calligrapher is Hajji Noor Deen Mi Guangjiang.

 

 

 

 

 

The Koran
(in English)

 

 

Xinjiang

 

"Xinjiang" or "Ice Jecen" in Manchu, literally means "New Frontier", a name given during the Manchu Qing Dynasty in China. It is home to a number of Turkic ethnic groups, the largest of which are the Uyghurs. The region is often referred to in older English references (in particular past reference works) as Chinese Turkestan, sometimes East Turkestan or Uyghuristan.

 

 

Gansu

 

Linxia ( 臨夏) once known as Hezhou (河州), is a county-level city in the province of Gansu. It is located in the valley of the Daxia River (a tributary of the Huanghe) southwest of Lanzhou. It is the seat of Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, which is the centre of the ethnic minority of the Dongxiang.

 

 

Ningxia

 

Ningxia (寧夏) is the home of the Hui. While some Hui are ethnically indistinguishable from the Han , many Hui retain Central Asian and Middle Eastern genetic features, most notably Arabs and Persians, such as dark skin and lighter-colored eyes in addition to their Islamic clothing. As a stop along the legendary Silk Road, the Hui were influenced by the Islamic traders and became Muslims.

 

 

Shaanxi

 

Shaanxi (陝西) is a north-central province of the People's Republic of China, and includes portions of the Loess Plateau on the middle reaches of the Yellow River as well as the Qinling Mountains across the southern part of the province.

 

 

Yunnan

 

Yunnan is noted for a very high level of ethnic diversity. Among the country's fifty-six recognised ethnic groups, twenty-five are found in Yunnan. Some 38% of the province's population are members of minorities, including the Yi, Bai, Hani, Tai, Dai, Miao, Lisu, Hui, Lahu, Va, Nakhi, Yao, Tibetan, Jingpo, Blang, Pumi, Nu, Achang, Jinuo, Mongolian, Derung, Manchu, Shui, and Buyei.

 

 

Guangxi

 

Guangxi, full name Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is a Zhuang autonomous region of the People's Republic of China.

Its location in southern China, along its border with Vietnam, and mountainous terrain, has made it one of the border frontiers of Chinese civilization. Even into the 20th century it was considered an open, wild territory.

 

 

Fujiang

 

During the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), Quanzhou (泉州), Fujiang, was one of the world's largest seaports, hosting a large community of foreign-born inhabitants from across the Eurasian world. Due to its reputation, Quanzhou has been called the starting point of the Silk Road via the sea.

 

 

Hui Pan-Nationalism

Hui pan-nationalism refers to the post-1949 (the foundation of the People's Republic of China) phenomenon of a sense of common nationhood kindled among diverse communities of Chinese-speaking Muslims (typically members of the Hui ethnic-cultural group), due to the dialectics between the Hui nationality designation by the Communist government and the process of modernization of traditional Muslim Chinese groups and individuals.

Hui pan-nationalism should be distinguished from nationalist sentiments by minority groups who are also Muslim such as those of the Uyghurs.

 

 

HUI

Excerpts from Wikipedia.org

The Hui people (回族) are a Chinese ethnic group, typically distinguished by their practice of Islam. Hui is the abbreviation of the full name Huihui "回回". They form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. They are concentrated in Northwestern China (Ningxia, Gansu, Shaanxi, Xinjiang), but communities exist across the country. Most Hui are similar in culture to Han Chinese with the exception that they practice Islam, and have some distinctive cultural characteristics as a result. For example, as Muslims, they follow Islamic dietary laws and reject the consumption of pork, the second most common meat consumed in Chinese culture (chicken being the most), and have also given rise to their variation of Chinese cuisine, Chinese Islamic cuisine and Muslim Chinese martial arts. Their mode of dress also differs only in that men wear white caps and women wear headscarves or (occasionally) veils, as is the case in most Islamic cultures.

The definition of Hui after 1949 does not include ethnic groups such as the Uyghur, who live in the Mainland China and practice Islam. The ancestors of some Hui People and all Uyghur people were Uyghurs who built the Uyghur Empire. After the fall of the Uyghur Empire, four groups fled to Gansu, Qinghai and Ningxi and two groups fled to Southern Xinjiang who intermarried with local Tocharian people. Only the Uyghur People retain the Turkic language. Prior to 1949, the definition of Hui refered to Chinese Muslim with Turkic ancestry which later extended to non-Turkic Muslim such as Southern Chinese Muslim who were predominantly Malay and Arabic origins. Included among the Hui in Chinese census statistics (and not officially recognized as a separate ethnic group) are several thousand Utsuls in southern Hainan province, who speak an Austronesian language (Tsat) related to that of the Cham Muslim minority of Vietnam, and who are said to be descended from Chams who migrated to Hainan.

A traditional Chinese term for Islam is 回教 (literally "the religion of the Hui"), though the most prevalent is the transliteration 伊斯蘭教 (pinyin: 'Yīsīlán jiào, literally "Islam religion").

 

Origin of Islam in China

Uthman, the third Caliph of Islam, sent the first official Muslim envoy to China in 650. The envoy, headed by Sa`d ibn Abī Waqqās, arrived in the Tang capital, Chang'an, in 651 via the overseas route. Huis generally consider this date to be the official founding of Islam in China. The Ancient Record of the Tang Dynasty recorded the historic meeting, where the envoy greeted Emperor Gaozong of Tang China and tried to convert him to Islam. Although the envoy failed to convince the Emperor to embrace Islam, the Emperor allowed the envoy to proselytize in China and ordered the establishment of the first Chinese mosque in the capital to show his respect for the religion. In Arab records there are only sparse records of the event.

 

Origins of the Hui

The Hui Chinese have diverse origins. Some in the southeast coast are descended from Muslim traders who settled in China and gradually intermarried and assimilated into the surrounding population keeping only their distinctive religion. A totally different explanation is available for the Mandarin Chinese-speaking Yunnan and Northern Huis, whose ethnogenesis might be a result of the convergence of large number of Mongol, Turkic or other Central Asian settlers in these regions who formed the dominant stratum in the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. However, even Cantonese Muslims, of the southeastern coast, typically resemble northern Asians much more so than their typical Cantonese neighbours.

It was documented that a proportion of these nomad or military ethnic groups were originally Nestorian Christians many of whom later converted to Islam, while under the sinicizing pressures of the Ming and Qing states.

This explains the ethnonym "Hui," in close affinity with that of "Uyghur," albeit Sinicized and contradistinctive from "Uyghur" in usage. The ethnonym "Hui," though for a long time used as an umbrella term (at least since Qing) to designate Muslim Chinese speakers everywhere and Muslims in general (for example, a Qing Chinese might describe a Uyghur as a "Chantou" who practiced the "Hui" religion), was not used in the Southeast as much as "Qīngzhēn", a term still in common use today, especially for Muslim (Hui) eating establishments and for mosques.

Southeastern Muslims also have a much longer tradition of synthesizing Confucian teachings with the Sharia and Qur'anic teachings, and were reported to have been contributing to the Confucian officialdom since the Tang period. Among the Northern Hui, on the other hand, there are strong influences of Central Asian Sufi schools such as Kubrawiyya, Qadiriyya, Naqshbandiyya (Khufiyya and Jahriyya) etc. mostly of the Hanafi Madhhab (whereas among the Southeastern communities the Shafi'i Madhhab is more of the norm). Before the "Ihwani" movement, a Chinese variant of the Salafi movement, Northern Hui Sufis were very fond of synthesizing Taoist teachings and martial arts practices with Sufi philosophy.

In early modern times, villages in Northern Chinese Hui areas still bore labels like "Blue-cap Huihui," "Black-cap Huihui," and "White-cap Huihui," betraying their possible Christian, Judaic and Muslim origins, even though the religious practices among North China Hui by then were by and large Islamic. Hui is also used as a catch-all grouping for Islamic Chinese who are not classified under another ethnic group.

 

Surnames

These are surnames generally used by the Hui ethnic group:

 

Revolts in Xinjiang, Shaanxi and Gansu

From 1755–1757, the Qianlong Emperor was at war with the Dzungars of Dzungaria. With the conquest of the Dzungaria, there was attempt to divide the Xinjiang region into four sub-khanates under four chiefs who were subordinate to the emperor. Similarly, the Qing made members of was a member of the Ak Taghliq clan of East Turkestan Khojas, rulers in the western Tarim Basin, south of the Tianshan Mts. In 1758-59, however, rebellions against this arrangement broke out both north and south of the Tian Shan mountains. Then in the oasis of Ush to the south of Lake Balkash in 1765. In Gansu, disagreements between the adherents of Khafiya and Jahriya, two forms of Sufism as well as perceived mismanagement, corruption, and anti-Muslim attitudes of the Qing officials resulted in attempted uprisings by Hui and Salar followers of the Jahriya in 1781 and 1783, but they were promptly suppressed. Kashgaria was able to be free of Qing control during an incursion by Jahangir Khoja who had invaded from Kokand, which lasted from 1820–1828. The oases of Kashgar and Yarkand were not recaptured until 1828, after a three year campaign. In Kashgaria, this incursion was followed by another invasion in 1829 by Mahommed Ali Khan and Yusuf Khoja, the brother of Jahangir. In 1846, a new Khoja revolt in Kashgar under Kath Tora led to his accession to rulership of Kashgar as an authoritarian ruler. His reign, however, was brief, for at the end of seventy-five days, on the approach of the Chinese, he fled back to Kokand amid the jeers of the inhabitants. The last of the Khoja revolts was in 1857 under Wali Khan, a self-indulgent debaucherer, and the murderer of the famous German explorer, Adolf Schlagintweit. Wali Khan had invaded Kashgar from his base in Kokand, capturing Kashgar. Aside from his murder of Adolf Schlagintweit, his cruelty found many other reflections in the local legends. It is said that he killed so many innocent Muslims that four or six minarets were built from the skulls of the victims ( kala minara ); or that once, when an artisan made a sabre for him, he tested the weapon by cutting off the artisan's son head, who came with his father and was standing nearby, after that with words " it's a really good sabre " he presented artisan with a gift. This reign of tyranny did not make Kashgarians miss the Khoja too much when he was defeated by Qing troops after ruling the city for four months and forced to flee back to Kokand.

 

Dungan Revolt or Hui Minorities' War

The Dungan Revolt is also known as the Hui Minorities' War and the Muslim Rebellion. The term is sometimes used to refer to the Panthay Rebellion in Yunnan as well. It was an uprising by members of the Hui and other Muslim ethnic groups in China's Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia provinces, as well as in Xinjiang, between 1862 and 1877.

The purpose of this uprising was to develop a Muslim country in the western bank of Yellow River (Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia). Some people say it was directed against the Qing Dynasty, but there is no evidence at all showing they intent to attack the capital of Beijing. The uprising was actively encouraged by the leaders of the Taiping Rebellion. When it failed, it instigated immigration of some of the Dungan people into Imperial Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Before the war, the population of Shaaxi province was about 13 million, minimum 1,750,000 are Dungan (Hui). After the war, the population dropped to 7 million, 150,000 fled, left to between 50,000, the rest died in ten years. Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province, was the Holy city of Dungan (Hui) in China before the revolt. But once-flourishing Chinese Muslim communities fell 93% in the revolt in Shaaxi province.

Between 1648 and 1878, around twelve million Hui and Han Chinese were killed in ten unsuccessful uprisings.

 

Panthay Rebellion

The Panthay Rebellion (杜文秀起义, 1856 - 1873) was a separatist movement of the Hui people and Chinese Muslims, against the imperial Qing Dynasty in southwestern Yunnan Province, China, as part of a wave of Hui-led multi-ethnic unrest.

The unfavorable discrimination with which the Hui were treated by the Han and by the imperial administration was at the root of their rebellions. The Panthay Rebellion began out of a conflict between Han and Muslim tin miners in 1853, which degenerated into rebellion. In the following year, a massacre of Muslims was organized by the Qing officials responsible for suppressing the revolt.

Starting from 1855 the Muslim majority of Yunnan had risen against the oppression to which they were subjected by the mandarins. They rose against the tyranny and extortion universally practiced by this official class, from which they were excluded. The mandarins had secretly hounded mobs on to the rich Panthays, provoked anti-Muslim riots and instigated destruction of their mosques. The religious hatred of the Panthays was thus aroused. The widespread Muslim desire for revenge for insults to their religion led to a universal and well-planned rising.

The rebellion started as a local uprising. It was sparked off by the Panthay laborers of the silver mines of Li'nanxian village in Yunnan who rose up against the Chinese.

The Islamic Kingdom of Yunnan was proclaimed after the fall of Tali-fu. Tu Wen-hsiu, leader of the Panthays, assumed the regnal title of Sultan Suleiman and made Tali-fu his capital. The eight years from 1860 to 1868 were the heyday of the Sultanate.

The Imperial Government had waged an all-out war against the Panthays with the help of French artillery experts. Their modern equipment, trained personnel and numerical superiority were no match for the ill-equipped Panthays with no allies. Thus, in less than two decades of its rise, the power of the Panthays in Yunnan fell.

Though largely forgotten, the bloody rebellion caused the death of up to a million people in Yunnan.  Many surviving Hui refugees escaped over the border to neighboring countries, Burma, Thailand and Laos, forming the basis of a minority Chinese Hui population in those nations.