| Islam In China |
Article Index for Islam In |
Website Links For Islam |
Information AboutIslam In China |
|
China has some of the oldest Muslim history, dating back to as early as 650 , when the uncle of the Prophet Muhammad , Sa`ad Ibn Abi Waqqas , was sent as an official envoy to Emperor Gaozong . Throughout the History Of Islam In China , Chinese Muslim s have influenced the course of Chinese History . Today, Islam is one of the largest Religion s in China with estimates of the number of Muslims ranging from 20 million to 100 million. BBC Religion & Ethics- Islam HISTORY See Also: History of Islam in China , one of China's oldest Mosque s]] Islam was first brought to China by an envoy sent by Uthman , the third Caliph , in 651 , less than twenty years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad . The envoy was led by Sa`d Ibn Abī Waqqās , the maternal uncle of the Prophet himself. Yung Wei , the Tang emperor who received the envoy then ordered the construction of the Memorial mosque in Canton , the first mosque in the country. It was during the Tang Dynasty that China had its golden day of cosmopolitan culture which helped the introduction of Islam. The first major Muslim settlements in China consisted of Arab and Persian merchants.Israeli (2002), pg. 291 In the region, the Hui Chi tribe accepted Islam , and the name was the beginnings of the reference to the huihui or the Hui as they are know today. By the time of the administrators to act as officers of Taxation and Finance . Muslims headed most corporations in China in the early Yuan period.Richard Bulliet, Pamela Crossley, Daniel Headrick, Steven Hirsch, Lyman Johnson, and David Northrup. The Earth and Its Peoples. 3. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. ISBN 0-618-42770-8 Muslim scholars were brought to work on calendar making and astronomy. Also, a principle architect of Dadu , the capital of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty was a Muslim who was assisted by Chinese.Gernet, Jacques. A History of Chinese Civilization. 2. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. During the following Ming Dynasty , Muslims continued to be influential around government circles. Six of Ming Dynasty founder Zhu Yuanzhang 's most trusted generals were Muslim, including Lan Yu who, in 1388, led a strong imperial Ming army out of the Great Wall and won a decisive victory over the Mongols in Mongolia, effectively ending the Mongol dream to re-conquer China. Additionally, the Yongle Emperor hired Zheng He , perhaps the most famous Chinese Muslim and China's foremost explorer, to lead seven expeditions to the Indian Ocean , from 1405 and 1433. However, during the Ming Dynasty, new immigration to China from Muslim countries was restricted in an increasingly Isolationist nation. The Muslims in China who were descended from earlier Immigration began to assimilate by speaking Chinese Dialects and by adopting Chinese names and Culture . Mosque architecture began to follow traditional Chinese Architecture . The rise of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) made relations between the Muslims and Chinese more difficult. The dynasty prohibited ritual slaughtering of animals, followed by forbidding the construction of new mosques and the Pilgrimage to Mecca .Keim(1954), pg.605 The Qing rulers belonged to the Manchu , a minority in China, and employed the tactics of Divide And Conquer to keep the Muslims, Hans, Tibetans and Mongolians in conflict with each other. These repressive policies resulted in five bloody Hui rebellions, most notably the Panthay Rebellion , which occurred in Yunnan province from 1855 to 1873 , and the Dungan Revolt , which occurred mostly in Xinjiang , Shensi and Gansu , from 1862 to 1877 . After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, Sun Yat Sen , who established the Republic Of China immediately proclaimed that the country belonged equally to the Han, Hui (Muslim), Meng (Mongol), and the Tsang (Tibetan) peoples. Conditions for the Muslims worsened during the Cultural Revolution . The government began to relax its policies towards Muslims in 1978 . Today, Islam is experiencing a modest revival and there are now many mosques in China. There has been an upsurge in Islamic expression and many nation-wide Islamic associations have been organized to co-ordinate inter-ethnic activities among Muslims. Islam in China PEOPLE See Also: Hui people Uyghur people Kazak Dongxiang Kyrgyz Salar Tajik Uzbek Bonan Tatar Tibetan Muslims Ethnic Groups are officially classified along with the Tibetan People , unlike the Hui who are Han Chinese but are classified as a separate people. Muslims live predominantly in the areas that border Central Asia, Tibet and Mongolia, i.e Xinjiang , Ningxia , Gansu and Qinghai , which is know as the "Quran Belt". A. Doak Barnett, ''China on the Eve of the Communist Takeover'', p182 Number of Muslims in China China is home to a large population of adherents of Islam. According to the ''s in China.Counting up the number of people of traditionally Muslim nationalities who were enumerated in the 1990 census gives a total of 17.6 million, 96% of whom belong to just three nationalities: Hui 8.6 million, Uyghurs 7.2 million, and Kazakhs 1.1 million. Other nationalities that are traditionally Muslim include Kyrghyz, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Tatars, Salar, Bonan, and Dongxiang. See Dru C. Gladney, "Islam in China: Accommodation or Separatism?", Paper presented at Symposium on Islam in Southeast Asia and China, Hong Kong, 2002. Available at http://www.islamsymposium.cityu.edu.hk. The 2000 census reported a total of 20.3 million members of Muslim nationalities, of which again 96% belonged to just three groups: Hui 9.8 million, Uyghurs 8.4 million, and Kazakhs 1.25 million. The BBC gives a range of 20 million to 100 million Muslims in China.http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/china_4.shtml The figure of 100 million is based on a 1938 statistical yearbook placing the number of Muslims at 50 million, as well as census data from the 1940s, which showed roughly 48 million Muslims.There are in China 48,104,241 Mohammedan followers and 42,371 mosques, largely in Sinkiang, Chinghai, Manchuria, Kansu, Yunnan, Shensi, Hopei, and Honan. "Ferm, Vergilius (ed.). An Encyclopedia of Religion; Westport, CT: Greenwood Press (1976), pg. 145. pub. in 1945 by Philosophical Library. 1976 reprint is unrevised. Demographers at the survey and the 2000 census show that only a minority practice any Religion In China , a result of decades of Communist rule. Thus, Muslims ,like other religious believers in China , probably became secular throughout these decades, meaning that the number of people of Muslim origin could be lot larger. --> RELIGIOUS PRACTICE The vast majority of China 's Muslim s are Sunni Muslims. A notable feature of the some Muslim communities in China is the presence of Female Imams . news.bbc.co.uk Chinese Muslims and the Hajj Some Chinese Muslims may have made the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca on the Arabian peninsula between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, yet there is no written record of this prior to 1861 . Briefly during the Cultural Revolution , Chinese Muslims were not allowed to attend the Hajj,and only did so through Pakistan, but this policy was reversed in 1979. Chinese Muslims now attend the Hajj in large numbers, typically in organized groups. A record 9,600 Chinese Muslim pilgrims from all over the country attended the Hajj in Mecca, Saudi Arabia in 2006 Ministry of Hajj official site http://www.hajinformation.com/main/y1155.htm REPRESENTATIVE BODIES Islamic Association of China See Also: Islamic Association of China The Islamic Association of China claims to represent Chinese Muslims nationwide. At its inaugural meeting on May 11, 1953 in Beijing, representatives from 10 nationalities of the People's Republic of China were in attendance. China Islamic Association See Also: China Islamic Association In April 2001, the government set up the China Islamic Association, which was described as aiming to "help the spread of the Qur'an in China and oppose religious extremism". The association is to be run by 16 Islamic religious leaders who are charged with making "a correct and authoritative interpretation" of Islamic creed and canon. It will compile and spread inspirational speeches and help imams improve themselves, and vet sermons made by clerics around the country. This latter function is probably the key job as far as the central government is concerned. It is worried that some clerics are using their sermons to spread sedition. Some examples of the religious concessions granted to Muslims are:
ISLAMIC EDUCATION IN CHINA Over the last twenty years a wide range of Islamic educational opportunities have been developed to meet the needs of China’s Muslim population. In addition to mosque schools, government Islamic colleges, and independent Islamic colleges, a growing number of students have gone overseas to continue their studies at international Islamic universities in Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, and Malaysia.Harvard Asia Quarterly CULTURE AND HERITAGE The Mongol conquest of the greater part of Eurasia in the 13th century brought the extensive cultural traditions of China and Persia into a single empire, albeit one of separate khanates, for the first time in history. The intimate interaction that resulted is evident in the legacy of both traditions. In China, Islam influenced technology, sciences, philosophy and the arts. In terms of material culture, one finds decorative motives from central Asian Islamic architecture and calligraphy, the marked halal impact on northern Chinese cuisine and the varied influences of Islamic medical science on Chinese medicine. Taking the Mongol Eurasian empire as a point of departure, the ethnogenesis of the Hui, or Sinophone Muslims, can also be charted through the emergence of distinctly Chinese Muslim traditions in architecture, food, epigraphy and Islamic written culture. This multifaceted cultural heritage continues to the present day.CHINA HERITAGE NEWSLETTER China Heritage Project, The Australian National University ISBN 1833-8461 No. 5, March 2006 Islamic Architecture See Also: Chinese mosques |
|
|