06-18-2003, 05:02 AM
Salaam! I am from China as Brother Aladdin, but from a different province, Yunnan. Yunnan borders on Vietnam, Burma and Laos, not far from Thailand. The distance between Yunnan Province and Zhejiang Province is as far as France and Egypt. I don’t know Aladdin in true life, however, he posted the BBS’s website on a Chinese Muslim BBS so it guides me here and I believe more and more Chinese Muslim who understand English will visit here.
I’d like to make additional remarks on some questions you asked him.
(1) About Muslim population in China. 20 million is rather accurate (of cause, some of them are nominal Muslims). Some world Islamic organizations use false references, which tend to magnify Muslim population in China. These references claim there were 50 million Muslim in China before 1949. As you know, before 1949, China is in the charge of Chinese Kuomintang (now it is in Taiwan), and Kuomintang’s governance of China was in a mess. None population census was conducted in reality. So the number of 50 million is merely a guestimate, which is too rough to hold water, and to believe at all (I guess at that time there was several million Muslims). Due to China's isolation from the world long, Islamic organizations often refer to Taiwan’s false information, and this is the point.
The major event having impact on Chinese Muslim population is the anti-Qing Dynasty Muslim uprising in the mid-1800s, when the uprising failed many people were killed. Before the uprising, take the example of Yunnan Province, every one out of eight are Muslims. And now there are 600 thousands Muslims in Yunnan Province making up 1 to 1.5 percent of the total provincial population, 40 millions.
(2) Chinese Muslim can be classified into two categories: Xinjiang Muslim (or Muslim speaking Turkish Languages, or Turkish Muslim) and inland Muslim (or Muslim Speaking Chinese, or somethmes, Hui Muslim). The former includes six ethnic groups: Uigur, Kazakh, Tatar, Uzbeks, Kirghiz and Tajik; while the later covers: Hui, Dongxiang, Baoan and Salar (the population of Dongxiang, Baoan and Salar is relatively small, and they tend to think they are branches of Hui). Hui and Uigur are the two biggest Muslim communities and make up 80 to 90 percent of the total Muslim population. As for Hui, Swahili is a very good reference frame. According to the prevailing idea, just like Swahili is developed from intermarriage between Arab, Persian and local Bantu in Africa, Hui came from intermarriage between Central Asian mainly speaking various Persian Languages, Persian, Arab and Han. Han is the majority of Chinese accounting for 95% of the total, and when we say Chinese we usually mean Han, for example, Chinese language refers to Han language. These ten ethnic groups are usually called “ten Muslim ethnic groups” and the population of Muslim is calculated using that of the ten Muslim ethnic groups. Undoubtedly, Many people out of the ten Muslim ethnic groups believe in Allah including many Han people and they are very good Muslims. However Han Muslim fails to develop into a community independent of the “ten Muslim ethnic groups” so they have less influence on the majority of Chinese, the Hans. In China, Islam is traditionally regarded as the faith of ethnic minorities while most Chinese are non-believer——neither Islam, nor Christianity, nor Buddhism, nor Taoism, and even, nor communist.
There are also other people believing in Islam, even as far as Tibet. Muslims with the registered permanent residence in Tibet are about some thousands (besides, there are maybe dozens of thousands inland Muslim doing business there), whom are the offspring of inland Muslim and local Tibetan. They speaks Tibetan in ordinary life as well as religious activities, some of them have difficult to speak fluent Chinese. In Lhasa Masjid, Imam usually lectures first in Arabic and then in Tibetan to make what he tells understood.
There an ethnic group named “Dai” living in Xishuangbanna at the southern of Yunnan Province, Dai observes water-splashing festival as Thailand people and they share common cultures and religion. Some inland Muslims settled down here when their trade caravan on the way to Thailand was robbed by bandits. They married Dai women, formed two villages there. They are called “Paxi” or “Paxi Dai” or “Hui Dai”. In Chinese “Hui” has the meaning of “Muslim” and some scholars believe in Dai language Paxi has the meaning of “Persian”. All there indicates there are Muslims, as well as in the eyes of people around them. What the most interesting is, their Masjids are made of bamboo. Each of them all has three names: Chinese name, religious name (or Islamic name) and Dai name.
Chinese Muslim mainly lives in the Northwest of China including Xingjiang and Ningxia, Central North China and Chinese Central Plains as well. South and Southeast including Shanghai and Zhejiang Province are sparsely Muslim-populated relatively.
(3) Chinese Islamic Association, as well as its branches over the country, is the only Muslim organization In China. As you know, China is a country devoid of freedom of association. The authority is alert to any kind of association, even associations such as alumni association. As for Chinese Islamic Association itself, on one hand, you can’t count on it; on the other hand, it is indispensable and contributes a lot for Muslim. Things are just like that. By the way, I must say Christian in China has got a severer situation then other religions including Islam. And there is no denying that the situation is getting better since reform and opening-up.
(4) The main problem of Chinese Muslim is not the lack of religious professionals such as imams and ahungs, but the getting-away of the faith and the undevelopment of education, science and economy. In fact, near ten Islamic institutes aiming to bring up imams have been set up sponsored by the central government and by the aid of Muslim world, located in Beijing, Xinjiang and zhenzhou etc.. Besides, Chinese Muslim has the tradition to train young Muslims for imams in Masjids. Further more, many Arabic language schools have been established in some places where many Muslim lives in, and some of the graduates can serve Islamic activities where others act as Arabic-Chinese interpreters for Arabic companies doing business in China such as Guangzhou and shenzhen. On the other hand, how to educate the younger generation, ordinary of they, to be faithful Muslims remains (rather than Islamic professionals) a problem. Due to historical complex, Chinese Muslims are reluctant to learn Chinese culture or accept national education (common education) in some place and in a certain degree , so here is another problem, too. Education, including religion, science and technology, to ordinary Muslim is an urgent affair.
I make efforts to give you a picture of Chinese Muslim as objectively as possible. Brother Aladdin and I like to answer your questions concerning Chinese Muslim. Anyone who understand Chinese can click these Chinese Muslim websites: www.salamacn.net, www.Islamcn.net or www.kyaz.com. Your visit will be warmly welcomed. More and more Chinese Muslim brothers and sisters will visit the BBS, too.