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 [...]

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Malay-Muslim & Chinese-Muslim Paradox

I have mentioned before that I will cover the topic of Chinese Muslims in Malaysia one of these daya but have not been able to do so mainly because of grad work. Plus I feel that opening up this topic would be equivalent to opening the Pandora’s box. I found this article while addresses some [...]

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Chinese Islam and the Dominant Narrative

For any social community, religious or otherwise there is usually one dominant narrative and many more multiple narratives. If the community is large enough then owing to ideological, cultural or geographic reasons the dominant narrative of the sub-community may differ with the dominant narrative in as far as it will emphasize the role of the [...]

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Islam in China Blog: 10 Months Later

(A Hui Muslim Source: Vladimir Dinets Travel Site)
Time flies. The Islam in China blog has been up for 10 months now and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. 50,000 hits later it is time to reflect and chart out a course for the future. My schedule and commitments in the offline world are such that [...]

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Hussein Ye

For a change I thought I should talk about a Chinese Muslim who is more well known beyond the Chinese Muslim sphere. Hussein Ye is a Malaysian scholar of Chinese descent and has dedicated himself to the task of dawah being a convert himself. People from South Asia may be familiar with him since he [...]

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Muslim Manga Artist

The topic of Manga and Anime amongst Muslim artists has come up before. As a side note I have noticed that many people from Gulf like Japanese Anime since they grew up with it. I would expect that may be at least one of them may start something. While there may not be a large [...]

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Chinese Origin of Paper Money in the Islamic World

Paper money was first invented in China in the 13th century and soon made its way to Islamic world. In both of these places it did not survive for long. Paper money was first introduced in the Islamic world by the Mongol ruler Gaykhatu of the Il-Khan dynasty who ruled the present day Iran, Iraq [...]

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Ibn Batutta’s Observations in China

Ibn Battuta the famous 13th century Muslim traveler from Morocco. He was an extremely well travelled man of his day. He traveled from Morocco to all the way to China. He was greatly impressed by the Chinese people and the amount of wealth in that country. Here are some observations that Ibn Battuta made in [...]

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Muslims of Linxia Photoessay in New York Times

Although this is a couple of years old but the New York Times has a nice photo essay of Muslims in Linxia. Be sure to check it out.

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Xiao’erjing: Chinese Language in Arabic Script

Xiao’erjing 小儿经/小儿锦 is the name given to the Arabic script when it is used to write any of the Chinese Languages by Chinese Muslims of different ethnicities and also by the Dungan (descendants of Chinese Muslims in Central Asia). The Dungans were however forced by the Soviets to convert to the Cyrillic script. Xiao’erjing should [...]

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