The Chinese Islamic Root Islamic in Arabic!

Tianfang Xingli is considered to be a classic islamic text in the Chinese language. It is divided into three parts and one of the parts is known as the Root classic. Recently I was surprised to find out that the Root Classic was translated into Arabic in 1898 by a Chinese Muslim scholar Ma Lianyuan also known as Abd al Hakim al Hajj al-Sayyid Muhammad Nur al-Haqq ibn al-Sayyid Luqman al-Sini. It was published in the Yunnan province as Al’Lataif (The subtleties). What is even more fascinating is that an Arabic commentary on the Root classic by the same author was published in Kanpur in India in 1902. This just makes me wonder how many other Chinese Islamic texts or their commentaries have been translated into Arabic, Persian or other lanuages spoken by large number of Muslims.

Brass Cresent Awards 2009

Alright folks, its that time of the year. Brass Crescent awards are upon us. You have until this Friday to cast your vote for your faviorite Muslim blogs. Here is the URL:

http://www.brasscrescent.org/

Change in Beijing’s Muslim Population Over Time (1959-2000)

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts that I would be posting quantiative data about Muslims in Beijing. (This of it as a Razib style post.) The table below shows changes in Hui Muslim population over time. The source of information is the same as before (Beijing’s Hui Muslim Community). One can definitely see some general trends e.g., while the Muslim population has increased by 75,000 in terms of absolute numbers but its percentage of the overall population has declined. Many districts show a decline in Muslim population, Chaoyang, Haidian and Fengtai are exceptions though. Another interesting thing is that if we compare the absolute numbers of many districts in 1959 nad 2000 then the numbers are more or less the same. Since these numbers should increase by natural birthrate then this actually means a relative decline because of migration.

District	1959	1964	1977	1982	1990	2000
Dongcheng	15,141	17,468	16,059	19,488	17,845	15,035
Xicheng	16,884	19,089	18,344	21,470	20,510	18,202
Chongwen	9,535	11,525	10,582	12,789	11,720	8,350
Xuanwu	28,024	31,442	28,014	32,102	31,090	27,668
Chaoyang	15,915	18,754	22,175	27,037	36,108	50,185
Haidian	8,467	10,567	10,228	14,037	20,702	28,981
Fengtai	5,720	5,082	5,424	6,880	11,200	21,563
Shijingshan		1,462	1,736	2,247	3,322	5,145
Mentougou	716	1,165	1,009	1,089	891	767
Yanshan				893
Hui Population	100,402	116,554	113,571	138,032	153,388	175,896
% of Beijing’s	2.35	2.49	2.40	2.47	2.33	2.04

 Given below is the same data but in a graphical form to make comparison between different districts and eras more comprehensible.

Arabization in Xi’an

I was reading an article about Fashion amongst Chinese Muslims when I came across the following paragraph which I found particularly striking. It talks about the phenomenon of Arabization amongst some Hui in China. It is basically the confusion amongst some people of equating being a better Muslim with adopting Arab cultural norms.

When Lanlan had her hijab made in 1999, Xi’an Muslims no longer called this kind of veil “gaitou.” Their new name was shajin or “Saudi kerchief.” Over the next five years, the number of women wearing Arab style headscarves increased slowly but steadily. When I revisited the Xi’an Muslim district in September of 2004, the young women who covered their heads almost all wore “Saudi kerchiefs.” Veils were almost as common as white caps among women who chose to cover their heads. One reason that helps explain why more Xi’an Muslims were wearing the Saudi headscarf was the increase in the number of locals who made the pilgrimage. Between 1994 and 2000 the number of pilgrims from the Muslim district doubled, and the numbers have continued to rise each year. Imitating the costume, architecture, and eating practices of Arab Muslims has become an important way for local Hui to show their authenticity as Muslims. The Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia, carries a special significance as the originating point of Islam, and many locals conflate contemporary Arab practices with the Islam practised by the Prophet. Xi’an Muslims also admire the prosperity and technological advancement of Saudi Arabia. Locals who made the pilgrimage came home with tales of six lane highways, skyscrapers, and air-conditioned tents.

Wang Daiyu in Emel!

Emel, the Muslim lifestyle magazine has a feature on Muslim bloggers in their current issue. I am also featured in that feature. Be sure to check it out if you have access to the print edition. The URL of the magazine is as follows:

http://www.emel.com

Hui Muslims in Beijing in 1928

I am currently reading “The Development and Decline of Beijng’s Hui Muslim Communitty” by Zhou Chuanbin and Ma Xuefeng. It has a some statistical data on the history of the Muslim community in Beijing. I will be posting this info here from time to time. Here is  the first post.

According to the 1928 Chinese census there were 36,678 Hui Muslims in Beijing which translates into 2.76% of the total population. Here is the population breakdown by districts.

Inner District	% Hui	Outer District	% Hui	Suburb	% Hui
1	1.82	1	1.27	Eastern	3.51
2	1.95	2	1.44	Western	1.65
3	2.23	3	3.94	Southern	0.59
4	1.37	4	14.27	Northern	3.44
5	1.27	5	1.76
6	0.96

From the table above it is clear that Muslims were distributed in all the neighborhoods of Beijing but were especially concentrated in Outer District 4. This is where Ox Street is located so this makes sense. Nearly half of the Muslims settled in the Outer district. Another fact which is not appearent from this data is that Muslim in general tended to live close to the Mosques.

Why are there so few Chinese Muslims in Indonesia and Malaysia?

The Malay world constitute the countries of Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Singapore and the island of Mindanao in Phillipines. While Muslims are in the majority in Indonesia and Malaysia and both these counties have large  Chinese minorities, the percentage of Chinese Muslims is quite small. Thus Indonesia has the largest population of Chinese people outside of China but only 0.4% of the Chinese people in Indonesia are Muslims. The situation in Malaysia is also similar i.e., only 0.5% of the Chinese people in Malaysia are Muslims. There are a number of reasons for this.

Chinese Muslims were instrumental in spreading Islam in the Malay world and thus many communities of Muslims in the Malay world are the direct consequence of daw’ah done by Chinese Muslims. Here we should note that in most cases the Chinese Muslims assimilated into the local culture and their traces of Chineseness were lost. Another factor is that during the colonial period the Dutch in Indonesia and the British in Malaysia adopted a policy of seperating different races and fostering a sense of difference between different people in these countries. As a consequence the social identification of Islam with the Malays because stronger both amongst the Malays and amongst non-Malays. This created a barries for many people who would want to convert to Islam. Additionally Islam came to be associated with people in the lower socio-economic and thus the incentive of converting Islam was even lesser. After independence the vestiges of such kind of thinking still survived in the minds of the people. To change these perceptions what is needed is for people, especially Muslims, to reach out to other people and to show that Islam in a religion for all. However I should add that one should not just have good relations with other people because on wants to convert them but because it is the right thing to do.

Belated Eid Mubarak and other updates

(Image Source: Camel’s Nose Blog)

First of all a belated Eid Mubarak to everyone. I have not been posting that often in the last couple of months or so mainly because of the demands of academic work and also because of some travelling. However the good thing is that I have met other Chinese Muslims in USA during this time. My apologies for not replying to comments for months. I plan to reply to each and every single comment soon. Also if you e-mailed me and have not received a reply then please send me a reminder and I will try to be vigilent this time. Other than that my father is doing quite well. Thank you for your duas.

As always I am giving a howler to the readers whenever I am in a different place. I will be Twin Cities, MN next week. Let me know if anyone wants to meet up.

Ramadan Mubarak

斋月穆巴拉克

Ramadan Mubarak to everyone. May you have a blessed Ramadan!

P.S: I will be on the East Coast for the next 10 days or so. If readers from NY or the DC surrouding area want to meet up, message me.

Chinese Muslims greet holy month of Ramadan

From Xinhua.

Chinese Muslims greet holy month of Ramadan

www.chinaview.cn 2009-08-22 14:42:01

YINCHUAN, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) — Millions of Muslims across China greeted the Muslim holy month of Ramadan Saturday, a season of fasting and spiritual reflection. Forty-eight-year-old farmer Ma Guoxing, a Muslim of Hui ethnic group in Tuanjie Village in Wuzhong, northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, got up very early Saturday and went to a local mosque along with thousands of male Muslims to hear preachings given by an imam. “It is a very important month for us,” Ma said. “If we do a good deed in Ramadan, it will mean we do 1,000 good deeds in other periods of time.” “In a whole of a year, we are expecting this month to come to do more good deeds and accumulate merits,” he said. During Ramadan, the ninth month of the year in the Muslim calendar, Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking and sex from sunrise to sunset. But children, elderly people and the weak do not have to observe the fast. A month later, Muslims will celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the festival that signals the end of Ramadan. More than 2.2 million people of Hui ethnic group live in Ningxia, or about one-third of the total population in the region. Like Ma, most of them began the Ramadan fast Saturday. About 12,000 people in the largest Musilm community of Beijing, the Niujie Street in the southern part of the city, also entered into the month of fast Saturday. “Ramadan can strengthen our mind, restrain our selfish desires and teach us to lead a life in a healthy way,” a young man named Jianming of Hui ethnic group said. China has now 20 million Muslims, about half of them being from the Hui ethnic group. Ramadan began Friday in some areas of Ningxia and for millions of other Muslims in the neighboring Gansu, Qinghai provinces and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. To greet the arrival of Ramadan, 43-year-old Abdul’ahat Kurban has prepared a great deal of food for his family in the Xinjiang regional capital of Urumqi. Like many others, he will send some of his food to his friends. “The country is so prosperous today that few people cannot eat his fill, but we Muslims still keep to the tradition of offering food to others and carry forward the fine virtue Allah taught us,” he said. For Mila, a Muslim resident of Uzbek ethnic group in Urumqi, this year’s Ramadan has a special meaning as the city is still recovering from last month’s deadly riot that left 197 people dead and more than 1,600 others injured. “We went through unprecedented agony more than a month ago. May all the deceased rest in peace and the injured recover soon,” she said. “I wish all people chastened by Ramadan will become more kind to others and achieve a tranquil and harmonious state of mind, andI also wish people of all ethnic groups in the country are united as one forever,” she said.