The Hui Muslims in China
How did Islam come into China?
Some historical evidences show that Islam officially came to China as early as 651C.E. Islam spreads through China mainly in the two regimes; from the seventh to the tenth centuries (during the Tang Dynasty, 618-907) and mainly from the thirteenth to the fourteenth centuries (during the Mongol founded-Yuan Dynasty). Muslims spread throughout China in three different ways apart from conversions in the Kansu and Shensi provinces of farther east.
The first way of Islam’s spread in China is personal traveling for trading and probably preaching. Temporary trading outposts such as Quranzhou, Changzhou and Guanzhou (Canton) had visitors of mixed ethnics and religious groups such as Jews, Nestorian Christians and Muslims. These commercial centers evolved into permanent settlements. Therefore, Muslims came to China using overland route through Silk Road and/or by sea to south-eastern china through theSpice Route as travellers and traders. In Quanzhou there are evidences of still hundreds of gravestones with inscriptions in Arabic, Persian and Chinese marking the lives and deaths of Muslims from Yemen, Persia and Central Asia. (Dillon, 1996:16)
Gladeny in his article “Islam and Modernity in China,” concludes “Archaeological discoveries of large collections of Islamic artefacts and epigraphy on the southeast coast suggest that the earliest Muslim communities in China were descended from Arab, Persian, Central Asian, and Mongolian Muslim merchants, militia, and officials.”
The second method is both forced relocation and migration for getting posts. Mongol conquest of the thirteenth centuries caused larger migrations. Muslims from major Islamic centres of Central Asia including Bukhara and Samarkand [skilled armourers, craftsmen & enslaved women and children] were taken to China to serve for Mongol aristocrats. As the Mongols establish the Yuan Dynasty in 1271, they used these emigrants as tax collectors, administrators and border guards because of the relatively more reliability of the emigrants than the Han Chinese.
The Ming Dynasty, founded by Zhu Yuanzhang, anti-Mongol resistance forces, was established including multi-ethnics society with Muslims of Central Asia origin. Nanjing, the first cosmopolitan capital city of Ming Taizu became the major centre of Islamic learning and culture. Wang Daiyn, an illustrious Islamic scholar of China wrote the influential zhengjiao zhenguan (righteous community on the true religion) and other religious treatises in that city. After shifting to Gansu and Ningxia in the northwest and Yunnan in the southeast, the Hui communities were established.
The third is blood-ties through intermarriage. As Gladney mentions it, they intermarried with the local Chinese and raised their children as Muslims. The Muslim men married the Han Chinese women and remained settled in the local areas. The community tries hard to prevent marriages between a Muslim women and a non-Muslim man even today in regions like Sinkiang (Xinjiang), a Uyghur dominated autonomous region, since Islam forbids.
Who are the Hui Muslims?
The term Hui, some times Huihui, has been used in different periods as both the name of ethnic group and as a description of religious adherence (to denote Muslims). Islam is commonly designated Hui Hui Kiao or Sect of the Hui Hui in China. It is also known by other titles Ts`ing Chen Kiao meaning “The Pure and True Religion,” or the Siao Kiao, “The Small Sect,” in contradistinction to Confucianism, The Great Religion. According to Professor Giles’s Dictionary, Broomhall says that Hui signifies “To come or go back to the starting point; to return”. (Broomhall, 1966:167)
By quoting some Qur’anic texts, for instance, to God is your ultimate return, and He is Omnipotent (Qur’an 11:4), Bloomhall defines the positive meaning of Hui “to return.” Hughes in a chapter titled “Mohammedanism” in his book “Religion in China” discusses, “The origin of the name is a matter of considerable controversy” (Hughes, 1950:104). It might allude to the custom of ‘turning’ to Mecca in prayer (possibly also returning in pilgrimage), or returning of the body to death or return of the mind to the truth. It can also be seen in the contrary way of the meaning of “to return”. Since the Muslims are considered as immigrants they are named Hui or to return meaning as if they were never at home in China and destined to leave. In addition, the term appeared in about the Mongol period. Gladney mentions Bai’s argument in a chapter titled “The Hui Hui People and the Hui Hui Religion,” that even though the Hui are descendents of Muslims and have inherited certain Muslim cultural traditions such as abstaining from eating pork, they do not necessarily believe in Islam.
Are the Muslims in China fully integrated to the society?
During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Nanjing became a centre of Islamic learning. Muslims fully integrated into the Han society by adopting the Chinese name and some customs while retaining Islamic mode of dress and dietary restrictions. No sooner was the isolationism increased and immigration from Muslim countries slowed down drastically and was restricted finally. The Muslims in China became isolated from the rest of the world and gradually more sinicized. They adopted the Chinese language and Chinese dress. They began speaking Chinese dialects. They changed their names. They married the Han Chinese women and adopted the family name of their wives. They changed from being Muslims in China to “Chinese Muslims.” They used Arabic script for writing in Eastern China but to a lesser extent in the northwest. Mosque architecture began to follow traditional Chinese architecture without minarets and domes in southern China.
Crain Mosque in Yangzhou integrated in Chinese local style
Why did the anti-Muslim sentiments develop during the Ch`ing Dynasty (1644-1911)?
The Muslim Chinese, though fewer in numbers, had powerful positions as merchants, caravaneers, miners and soldiers in China. They had a relatively strong socioeconomic status. They were officers and administrators. They excel in handicraft arts, finances and commerce. Archaeological discoveries of Arabic & Chinese script, calligraphy, epigraphy and architecture might prove some of these facts. The Qing Dynasty made relations between the Muslims and the Manchu Chinese difficult. The Manchu government must have planned to hold the natural frontier line west of Xinjiang and to keep a delicate balance of power between the various peoples so that the Manchus could rule them all. (Chu, 1966:4) The Manchu government prohibited ritual slaughtering of animals, followed by forbidding the construction of new mosques and pilgrimage to Mecca. The Manchu minority Qing Dynasty employed tactics of divide and conquer that resulted several bloody Hui rebellions, notably the Panthay Rebellion and the Dungan Revolt.
The anti-Hui violence perpetrated by Han Chinese officials. In 1839 a local military official organized a Han militia that, with the implicit consent of ranking civil officials, killed 1700 Hui in the border town of Mianning. Six years later, in 1845, local Qing officials, with the covert assistance of bands from the Han secret societies, barred the gates of the city of Baoshan in southwestern Yunnan and carried out a three-day cleansing(xicheng) of the Hui populace. More than 8000 Muslim Yunnanese, men and women, young and old, were slaughtered.
After Hengchun left Kunming in early 1856, a strongly anti-Muslim faction quickly began to take hold in Kunming. Composed of high provincial officials, including the provincial judge (fansi), the local elite, and several powerful retired officials, this group fomented a policy of “attacking the Muslims in order to exterminate the Muslims.” These people organized and guided a reign of terror against the Muslims in Kunming. This orchestrated violence peaked on May19, 1856, when Qingsheng, the provincial judge, issued orders allowing “the authorized slaying [of Muslims] without being held accountable [gesha wulun]”-a directive some say was miswritten when posted to read “kill them one and all.” And then every Muslim family within the provincial capital, regardless if they were men or women, young or old, were all mercilessly killed. The massacre lasted three days and three nights. The city’s five mosques were looted and torched. Within 72 hours, as many as 4000 Muslims have been slaughtered. Several witnesses would later contend that the numbers were two of three times that. This plan was to eradicate the Hui. (Atwil, 2006)
The causes of the anti-Hui sentiment that fuelled these massacres are unclear; it is said that, one obvious factor was that more and more Han immigrants were flowing into the province. Due to the encouraged incentives from the central government, the overpopulated Han Chinese began migrating in ever increasing numbers to Yunnan. This great influx of the Han settlers led to widespread violence between the new comers and the established Yunnanese. Despite such perceived differences and the luminal status of the Muslim Yunnanese, many nineteenth century Hui did not base their identity solely on religious faith; they also based it on occupation, community solidarity, and putative common origins. Because of the multitudinous complexities of the transregional, multiethnic world of Yunnan, a Panthay Rebellion has occurred. So compelling was the ambivalence of the various peoples of Yunnan toward one another and the intricate actions and reactions among them has made the rebellion a Muslim-led.
http://www.hsais.org/2essay0405_4.htm
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/arc/ind/6_china/southern/sou_eng.htm
There are ten predominantly Muslim nationality population groups in China either based on their languages or their culture or traditions. The two largest Muslim groups are the Hui and the Uyghur. According to the 2000 census, there are 9.8 million Hui Muslim Chinese among the 20.3 million Muslims living in China although the census registered people by nationality, not religious affiliation, Gladney emphasises. The population figures are clearly influenced by politics and interpretations so that the actual number of Muslims is still unclear. The CIA world fact book reads 27 million Chinese Muslims as well. However, there are more Muslims living in China today than there in the so-called Islamic states (such as Malaysia) except Iran, Turkey and Egypt. Gladney calls it a successful Muslim accommodation to minority status in China, he believes, the Muslim groups allow reconciliation of the dictates of Islam to the context of their particular socio-historical settings. In Muslim majority areas such as Sinkiang (Xingjiang), the Muslims are a block against sinification. Their religious organization does not allow an easy assimilation to the China’s rule (mostly the Han culture). Its consequences resulted until recently Muslim massacre in Sinkiang (July 2009 incident on Chinese Muslims).
http://www.shabestan.net/en/pages/?cid=1468
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4482048.stm
What influences has this big number of Chinese Muslim population brought?
Initially I thought at least the Han and Chinese government knows what Islam is. Some scholars discuss that Muslims scholarships has been employed. A few Chinese students graduated from Al-Azhar University and went back to China to teach. There is an Islamic college at Urumqi, the capital of Xingjiang. One student from Urumqi College says in an interview that he camet to that college just to be certified and become formal. He believes that he got sufficient Islamic knowledge at his village informally. The Chinese Muslims have got recent policy improvements to connect to the outside world. The main problem I found in my research shows that the Chinese Muslim groups do not even know each other. They are far more different from one another. I disagree with people who might say that it is because these Muslim groups follow different versions of Islam. The different dress code or different architectures of mosques does not alienate the Chinese Muslims from following the basic tenets of Islam since there is no clear evidence of dictating such things either in the Qur’an or ahadith. Obviously, there are clear dietary restrictions in the Qur’an.
However, my opinion focuses on culture. These communities give priority and more value towards culture more than anything else. They maintain their own languages. Each group preferred to be identified by the founders’ names of their respective communities. Muslims stand outside the community of Chinese and live in their own community. They established their own tightly organized community based on, of course, Islamic beliefs and cultural rules. When we think of the Hui they are highly diversified to the whole of China but they are neither connected to each other nor tied with the non-Hui Muslim communities nor influenced the Han majority. Islam was not known to Chinese even though the Hui Muslims are distributed all over China. Chinese scholars had little or no interest about Islam. I put section of a quote from Wolfram Eberhard’s book entitled “China’s Minorities: Yesterday and Today,” an extract from the eighteenth century,
“Their holy book in one volume is called Qur’an. It has 30 sections… It forbids Muslims to wear red. They say when one wears red, then the calamity of war will follow. Men all wear black, women white. They say fire overcomes metal, and water overcomes fire. They also say that the people of the sunrise [country] have white faces, full eyes, small noses, little beard. They are good riders and shooters. Their dresses are long. Their priests worship every morning. They have no statues or paintings. They accept no office, do not go to war, do not drink alcohol, wine or smoke….” (Eberhard, 1982:59)
It is sometimes strange as well when some one writes about something without knowledge of what he (she) is writing about. In Chinese cuisine the meat is predominantly pork and the cooking fat is pork grease. Muslims are forbidden to eat pork. Anti-Muslim Chinese say that Muslims do not eat pork because their ancestor was a pig. The Hui did not teach Islam but expertise in businesses. They have halal restaurants but they sell alcoholic beverages.
I believe that most of the studies have been done in the cities rather than the villages, where majority of the people live in. This might have also a biased effect on the results of the study of Chinese Muslims. City women might veil and do not mix with men in Uyghur communities whereas rural women have to go to the farm and do some farming activities so that they mix with others. In very recent times, veiling is considered as traditional so that women in the cities do not veil anymore. That means not only geographical location but also time reference and educational standards do affect the results of the study of Muslim practices. I became to observe the way the Solar Muslim women wear their headscarves looks like the headscarve wearing style of women who follow Sikh religion.
How have the Chinese Muslims accommodate to the Chinese rule? Did they abandon or retain Islam?
Generally, I dare to say that it depends on the Muslim population groups and geographical settlement of the Muslims. For instance, the Xingjiang Uyghur Muslims retain the most distinctive Muslim culture in the whole of China since Islam is important to Uyghur not only as faith but also part of their culture that distinguishes them from the Han Chinese. They speak their own language. They have their own dress code. They are identified as “turban wearing Muslims” because they constantly wear white turbans on their heads. That made them to be considered as separatists, terrorists and religious extremists by china’s government in an excuse of global counter terrorism. Nevertheless, according to reports from Xinjiang, China has flooded this province with the Han Chinese to balance the economy since it is fertile and rich land. The Uyghurs covered 94 percent of the population in 1950 but less than half today. It is an irony to settle the Han Chinese towards Xinjiang and massacring the Muslim citizens by labelling them as separatists and terrorists.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4435135.stm
http://china.globaltimes.cn/society/2009-07/446078.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4482048.stm
The Hui are the third largest minority group and the largest Muslim groups in china. They reside in all of china’s provinces and regions and cities and even towns. They are widely distributed or diversified throughout china. They are less segregated from the Han, the Majority Chinese, of all the Muslim and non-Muslim minorities. They have more demographic proximity and cultural accommodation to the Han. They are assimilated to the Han culture. They wear the Han style clothing. The Hui Muslims are distinguished by their languages since they speak the languages the local people speak wherever they live. They got the name Chinese-speaking Muslims. They do not have fair skins as the Uyghurs but still kept their high-bridged noses, coloured eyes and their heavy beards. They adopted Chinese family names. On the other hand, they preserve an attachment to use Arabic script for decoration and symbolic as well as religious purposes. They continue to use a large number of Arabic and Persian words as well. They have higher level of socioeconomic status compared to the rest. The Hui still excel at trade even if today their mule and camel caravans have increasingly been replaced by fleets of trucks. They are also renowned as hoteliers and restaurateurs. But, are the Hui tied to each other?
Gladney discusses that the “enigmatic Hui” are in search of ethnic group. They are diverse but less tied. It is difficult to make accurate generalizations about the Hui because of great regional variations in their history and culture. For instance, the Hui communities in Gansu and Ningxia, in northwest china practice Islam in their day to day life whereas the Hui inhabitants of the cities of Quanzhou and Changzhou in Fujian province on the south-eastern coast have a large-pronounced Islamic character and have assimilated more closely with the local Han population.
Mosques:
The Xian mosque contains an inscribed monument which states that the first mosque was built in the seventh century. This mosque claims to be the earliest one built by the Prophet’s uncle. Other commentators say it was built by the emperor’s approval because of his admiration for the teachings of Islam. Several mosques have the Chinese style of architecture of locality. They do not have the typical dome, nor as a rule minarets. The dome is replaced by a four-sided roof with green tiles. A good example is the Great Mosque of Xi`an below took the present form of architecture during the Ming dynasty.
There are also mosques built in the Middle Eastern style or mosques built in elsewhere apart from China.
Conclusion
It is very difficult to make accurate generalizations on the study of Chinese Muslims. There is no clear and accurate work on Chinese Muslims since scholars do have considerable arguments. It is a very complicated study because of the dissimilarity of the Chinese Muslims from region to region. One writer negates the other. Some of the studies show individual interviews, personal biases and political designs.
Muslim groups in China are more different from one another than they are similar. Islam is the only unifying category of identity for Chinese Muslims. The Muslims in China although they had long socioeconomic history they did not influence either the outside world or the Chinese citizens (both Muslims and non-Muslims). Muslims lived in a continuous interaction with the Han communities for almost fourteen centuries still situations unresolved. They contributed a tremendous amount of work (calligraphy, writing, administration, trade, agriculture, etc) at various levels simultaneously they faced massacres and detentions that lasted even today in Xinjiang region.
Cited works:
• Ashiwa, Yoshiko and Wank, L. David, Making Religion, Making the State: the Politics of Religion in Modern China, and by Gladney, C. Dru, Islam in China: State Policing and Identity Politics, Stanford University Press, California, 2009.
• Atwill, G. David, The Chinese sultanate: Islam, ethnicity, and the Panthay Rebellion in SouthWest China, 1856-1873, Stanford University Press, California, 2006.
• Broomhall, Marshall, Islam in China: a Neglected Problem, with illustrations, monumental rubbings, maps, etc, Paragon Book Reprint Corp., New York, 1966.
• Chu, Wen-Diang, The Moslem Rebellion in Northwest China, 1862-1878; a study of government minority policy, Mouton and Co., Publishers, The Hague, The Netherlands, 1966.
. Dillon, Michael, China’s Muslims, Oxford University Press, New York, 1996.
• Eberhard, Wolfram, China’s Minorities: Yesterday and Today, Wadsworth Publishing Company, Belmont, California, 1982.
• Hughes, E. R., Hughes, K., Religion in China, William Brendon and Son, UK, 1950.
• Yang, M. Mayfair, Afflictions of Modernity and State Formation: by Gladney, C. Dru, Islam and Modernity in China: secularization or Separatism?, University of California Press, 2008.
• http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/features.php?searchterm=010_ethnic.inc&issue=010
• http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/features.php?searchterm=005_calligraphy.inc&issue=005
• http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/editorial.php?issue=005
Additional pictures:
A copy of the Qur’an below found in Xinjian, China dating from the Ming dynasty
The picture next to the leaves of the Qur’an shows a mosque; this mosque exhibits Chinese local architectural mosque inscription in both languages, Chinese and Arabic.
The modern style mosque with domes and minarets which is similar to the mosques elsewhere in the world and it has Chinese inscriptions at both ends of the gate.
The mosque built in Chinese local architectural design.
The temples of any religion were having similar structure to this kind of mosques. The reasons might be, in one hand, to prevent the destruction of the buildings by winds. On the other hand, the Confucius deep-rooted leaders of China might have restricted these activities. The third reason could be the level of knowledge of the designers and builders. Or it could also be for security purposes the Muslims themselves did not want it to be special so that it won’t be prone to attacks. For instance, mosques have been destroyed especially during the Cultural Revolution.
