Hui people
Encyclopedia
The Hui people are an ethnic group in China, defined as Chinese speaking people descended from foreign Muslims. They are typically distinguished by their practice of Islam
, however some also practice other religions, and many are direct descendants of Silk Road
travelers.
In modern People's Republic of China
, the term "Hui people" refers to one of the officially recognized 56 ethnic groups
into which Chinese citizens are classified. Under this definition, the Hui people are defined to include all historically Muslim communities in People's Republic of China
that are not included in China's other ethnic groups.
Since China's Muslims speaking various Turkic
, Mongolian, or Iranian languages
are all included into those other groups (e.g., Uyghurs, Dongxiang
, or Tajiks
) the "officially recognized" Hui ethnic group consists predominantly of Chinese speakers. In fact, the "Hui nationality" is unique among China's officially recognized ethnic minorities in that it does not have any particular non-Chinese language associated with it.
Nonetheless, included among the Hui in Chinese census
statistics (and not officially recognized as separate ethnic groups) are members of a few small non-Chinese speaking communities. Among them are several thousand Utsuls in southern Hainan province, who speak an Austronesian language (Tsat
) related to that of the Cham Muslim minority of Vietnam, and who are said to be descended from Chams who migrated to Hainan
. A small Muslim minority among Yunnan's Bai people are classified as Hui as well (even if they are Bai speakers), as are some groups of Tibetan Muslims
. The Hui people are concentrated in Northwestern China
(Ningxia
, Gansu
, Qinghai
, Xinjiang
), but communities exist across the country, e.g. Beijing
, Inner Mongolia
, Hebei
, Hainan
, Yunnan
.
Most Hui, although they are not ethnically Han Chinese, are similar in culture to Han Chinese
with the exception that they practice Islam
, and have some distinctive cultural characteristics as a result. For example, as Muslims, they follow Islamic dietary laws
and reject the consumption of pork, the most common meat consumed in Chinese culture, and have also given rise to their variation of Chinese cuisine
, Chinese Islamic cuisine
and Muslim Chinese martial arts
. Their mode of dress also differs primarily in that men wear white caps and women wear headscarves
or (occasionally) veil
s, as is the case in most Islamic cultures.
The Hui people are of varied ancestry, many of whom are direct descendants of Silk Road
travelers. Their ancestors include Central Asian, Arabs, Persian, who married Han Chinese. Several medieval dynasties, particularly the Tang Dynasty
, Song Dynasty
, and Mongol
Yuan Dynasty
encouraged immigration from predominantly-Muslim Persia
and Central Asia
, with both dynasties welcoming traders from these regions and appointing Central Asian officials. In the subsequent centuries, they gradually mixed with Mongols and Han Chinese, and the Hui people were formed. On account of this mixing and long residence in China, the Hui have not retained Central Asian, Persian, or Arabic names, using instead names typical of their Han Chinese neighbors; however, certain names common among the Hui can be understood as Chinese renderings of common Muslim (i.e. Arabic), Persian, and Central Asia
n names (for instance, "Ma" for "Muhammad
").
The word Huihui (回回), which was the usual generic term for China's Muslims during the Ming
and Qing
Dynasties, is thought to have its origin in the earlier Huihe (回纥) or Huihu (回纥), which was the name for the Uyghur State of the 8th and 9th century. Although the ancient Uyghurs were neither Muslims nor were very directly related to today's Uyghur people
, the name Huihui came to refer to foreigners, regardless of language or origin, by the time of the Yuan
(1271–1368) and Ming Dynasties (1368–1644), since during the Yuan Dynasty massive amounts of Muslims came from the west, since the Uyghur land was in the west, this led the Chinese to call all foreigners of all religions, Muslims, Nestorian Christians, and Jews as "HuiHui".
Genghis Khan
called both foreign Jews and Muslims in China "Hui Hui" when he forced them to stop Halal
and Kosher methods of preparing food:
The Chinese called Muslims, Jews, and Christians in ancient times by the same name, "Hui Hui" (Hwuy-hwuy). Crossworshipers (Christians) were called "Hwuy who abstain from animals without the cloven foot", Muslims were called "Hwuy who abstain from pork", Jews were called "Hwuy who extract the sinews". Hwuy-tsze (Hui zi) or Hwuy-hwuy (Hui Hui) is presently used almost exclusively for Muslims, but Jews were still called Lan Maou Hwuy tsze (Lan mao Hui zi) which means "Blue cap Hui zi". At Kaifeng, Jews were called "Teaou kin keaou "extract sinew religion". Jews and Muslims in China shared the same name for synagogue and mosque, which were both called "Tsing-chin sze" (Qingzhen si) "Temple of Purity and Truth", the name dated to the thirteenth century. The synagogue and mosques were also known as Le-pae sze (Libai si). A tablet indicated that Judaism was once known as "Yih-tsze-lo-nee-keaou" (Israelitish religion) and synagogues known as Yih-tsze lo nee leen (Israelitish Temple), but it faded out of use.
Islam was originally called Dashi Jiao during the Tang Dynasty
, when Muslims first appeared in China. "Dashi Fa" literally means "Arab law", in old Chinese (modern Arabs are called alabo). Since almost all Muslims in China were exclusively foreign Arabs or Persians at the time, it was barely mentioned by the Chinese, unlike other religions like Zoroastrism, Mazdaism, and Nestorian Christianity which gained followings in China. As an influx of foreigners, such as Arabs, Persians, Jews, and Christians, most of them, but not all of them were Muslims who came from western regions, they were labelled as Semu
people, but were also mistaken by Chinese as Uyghur, due to them coming from the west (uyghur lands). so the name "Hui Hui" was applied to them, and eventually became the name to refer to Muslims.
Another, probably unrelated, early use of the word Huihui comes from the History of Liao
Dyansty, which mentions Yelü Dashi
, the 12th-century founder of the Kara-Khitan Khanate
, defeating the Huihui Dashibu (回回大食部) people near Samarkand
– apparently, referring to his defeat of the Khwarazm ruler Ahmed Sanjar
in 1141. Khwarazm is referred to as Huihuiguo in the Secret History of the Mongols as well. The widespread and rather generic application of the name "Huihui" in Ming China was attested by foreign visitors as well. Matteo Ricci
, the first Jesuit
to reach Beijing
(1598), noted that "Saracens are everywhere in evidence . . . their thousands of families are scattered about in nearly every province" Ricci noted that the term Huihui or Hui was applied by Chinese not only to "Saracens" (Muslims) but also to Chinese Jews
and supposedly even to Christians. In fact, when the reclusive Wanli Emperor
first saw a picture of Ricci and Diego de Pantoja
, he supposedly exclaimed, "Hoei, hoei. It is quite evident that they are Saracens", and had to be told by an eunuch
that they actually weren't, "because they ate pork". The 1916 Encyclopædia of religion and ethics, Volume 8 said that Chinese Muslims alwatys called themselves Huihui or Huizi, and that neither themselves nor other people called themselves Han, and they disliked people calling them Dungan. A French army Commandant Viscount D'Ollone wrote a report on what he saw among Hui in 1910, during the Qing Dynasty
, he reported that due to religion, Hui were classed as a different nationality from Han as if they were one of the other minority groups like Miao
.
While Huihui or Hui remained a generic name for all Muslims in Imperial China, specific terms were sometimes used to refer to particular groups, e.g. Chantou Hui ("turban
ed Hui") for Uyghurs, Dongxiang Hui and Sala Hui for Dongxiang
and Salar people, and sometimes even Han Hui (漢回) ("Chinese Hui") for the (presumably Chinese-speaking) Muslims more assimilated into the Chinese mainstream society. Some scholars also say that some Hui used to call themselves 回漢子 (Hui Hanzi) "Muslim Han" but now the Communist regime has separated them from other Chinese and placed them into a separate minzu, "Huizu".
Under the aegis of the Communist Party
in the 1930s the term Hui was defined to indicate only Sinophone Muslims. In 1941, this was clarified by a Communist Party committee comprising ethnic policy researchers in a treatise entitled "On the question of Huihui Ethnicity" (Huihui minzu wenti). This treatise defined the characteristics of the Hui nationality as follows: the Hui or Huihui constitute an ethnic group associated with, but not defined by, the Islamic religion and they are descended primarily from Muslims who migrated to China during the Mongol-founded Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368), as distinct from the Uyghur
and other Turkic-speaking ethnic groups in Xinjiang
. The Nationalist government had recognised all Muslims as one of "the five peoples"—alongside the Manchus, Mongols
, Tibetans and Han Chinese
—that constituted the Republic of China
. The new Communist interpretation of Chinese Muslim ethnicity marked a clear departure from the ethno-religious policies of the Nationalists, and had emerged as a result of the pragmatic application of Stalinist ethnic theory to the conditions of the Chinese revolution.
These days, within the PRC, Huizu and is the standard term for the "Hui nationality" (ethnic group), and Huimin, for "Hui people" or "a Hui person". The traditional expression Huihui, its use now largely restricted to rural areas, would sound quaint, if not outright demeaning, to modern urban Chinese Muslims.
A traditional Chinese
term for Islam is 回教 (pinyin
: Huíjiào, literally "the religion of the Hui"). However, since the early days of the PRC, thanks to the arguments of such Marxist Hui scholars as Bai Shouyi
, the standard term for "Islam" within the PRC has become the transliteration
伊斯蘭教 (pinyin: Yīsīlán jiào, literally "Islam religion"). The more traditional term Huijiao remains in use in Singapore, Taiwan, and other overseas Chinese communities.
Qīngzhēn (清真, literally "pure and true") has also been a popular term for the things Muslim since the Yuan or Ming Dynasty. Dru Gladney suggests that a good translation for it would be Arabic
tahára. i.e. "ritual or moral purity" The usual term for a mosque is qīngzhēn sì (清真寺), i.e. "true and pure temple", and qīngzhēn is commonly used to refer to halal
eating establishments and bathhouses.
cites Turkic and Persian manuscripts related to the preaching of the 17th century Kashgar
ian Sufi master Muhammad Yūsuf (or, possibly, his son Afaq Khoja) inside the Ming Empire
(in today's Gansu
and/or Qinghai
), where the Kashgarian preacher is told to have converted ulamā-yi Tunganiyyān (i.e., "Dungan ulema
") into Sufism
.
In English and German, the ethnonym
"Dungan", in various spelling forms, was attested as early as 1830s, typically referring to the Hui people of Xinjiang. For example, James Prinsep in 1835 mentions Muslim "Túngánis" in "Chinese Tartary".
The word (mostly in the form "Dungani" or "Tungani", sometimes "Dungens" or "Dungans") acquired some currency in English and other western languages when a number of books in the 1860-70s discussed the Dungan revolt in north-western China.
Later authors continued to use the term Dungan (in various transcriptions) for, specifically, the Hui people of Xinjiang. For example, Owen Lattimore
, writing ca. 1940, maintains the terminological distinction between these two related groups: the "Tungkan" (i.e. Wade-Giles
for "Dungan"), described by him as the descendants of the Gansu Hui people resettled in Xinjiang in 17-18th centuries, vs. e.g. the "Gansu Moslems" or generic "Chinese Moslems".
The name "Dungan" was used to refer to all Muslims coming from China proper, such as Dongxiang and Salar in addition to Hui. They were called Chinese Muslims by westerners. Reportedly, the Hui disliked the term Dungan and did not want people to refer to them as Dungans, calling themselves either HuiHui or Huizi.
In the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and its successor countries, the term "Dungans" (дунгане) became the standard name for the descendants of Chinese-speaking Muslims who emigrated to the Russian Empire (mostly to today's Kyrgyzstan
and south-eastern Kazakhstan
) in the 1870s and 1880s.
, Chinese Muslims are referred to as Chin Ho
, in Burma and Yunnan Province, as Panthay
.
During the Qing Dynasty
, the term Zhongyuan ren (中原人) was synonymous with being Chinese, especially referring to Han Chinese
and Hui in Xinjiang
or Central Asia. While Hui do not consider themselves Han and are not Han, the Hui consider themselves Chinese and refer to themselves as Zhongyuan ren. The Dungan people, descendants of Hui who fled to Central Asia, called themselves Zhongyuan ren in addition to the standard labels Lao Huihui and Huizi. Zhongyuan ren was used by Turkic Muslims to refer to ethnic Chinese. When Central Asian invaders from Kokand invaded Kashgar
, in a letter the kokandi commander criticizes the Kashgari Turkic Muslim Ishaq for allegedly not behaving like a Muslim and wanting to be a Zhongyuan ren (Chinese).
Pusuman was a name used by Chinese during the Yuan Dynasty
. It could have been a corruption of Musalman (The Persian name for Muslim), or another name for Persians. It either means Muslim or Persian. Pusuman Kuo (Pusuman Guo) referred to the country where they came from. The name "Pusuman zi" (pusuman script), was used to refer to the script that the HuiHui (Muslims) were using.
During the Tang Dynasty mostly Arabic speaking Muslims visited China, Persian speakers formed the majority of Muslims in China in the Song and Yuan dynasties.
In English, the term "Mohammedan" was originally used to refer to Chinese of Islamic faith during the 19th century. During the first half of the 20th century, writers such as Edgar Snow
and Owen Lattimore
who visited the Hui homeland also used the term "Mohammedans" in their accounts. The term gradually fell into disuse, and today the term "Hui" is used in English.
.
The current government of China defines a Hui as a Chinese speaker with foreign Muslim ancestry. Practicing the Islamic religion is not required.
The Hui Chinese have diverse origins, and many of whom are direct descendants of Silk Road travelers. Some in the southeast coast (Guangdong
, Fujian
) and in major trade centers elsewhere in China are of mixed local and foreign descent. The foreign element, although greatly diluted, came from Arab (Dashi) and Persian (Bosi) traders, who brought Islam
to China. These foreigners settled in China and gradually intermarried into the surrounding population while converting them to Islam, while they in turn assimilated in all aspects of Chinese culture, keeping only their distinctive religion.
Early European explorers speculated that T'ung-kan (Hui, called "Chinese Mohammedan") in Xinjiang
originated from Khorezmians who were transported to China by the Mongols, and that they were descended from a mixture of Chinese, Iranians, and Turkic peoples. They also reported that the T'ung-kan were Shafi'ites, which the Khorezmians were also.
A totally different explanation is available for the Hui people of Yunnan
and Northwestern China
, whose ethnogenesis might be a result of the convergence of large number of Mongol, Turkic
, Iranian
or other Central Asia
n settlers in these regions, who were recruited by the Mongol-founded Yuan Dynasty
either as officials (the semu
, who formed the second-highest stratum in the Yuan Empire's ethnic hierarchy, after the Mongols themselves, but before both northern and southern Chinese) or artisans. It was documented that a proportion of the ancestral nomad or military ethnic groups were originally Nestorian Christians many of whom later converted to Islam, while under the Sinicizing pressures of the Ming
and Qing
Dynasties.
Southeastern Muslims also have a much longer tradition of synthesizing Confucian teachings with the Sharia
and Qur'an
ic teachings, and were reported to have been contributing to the Confucian officialdom since the Tang
period. Among the Northern Hui, on the other hand, there are strong influences of Central Asian Sufi schools such as Kubrawiyya, Qadiriyya, Naqshbandi
yya (Khufiyya and Jahriyya
) etc. mostly of the Hanafi
Madhhab
(whereas among the Southeastern communities the Shafi'i
Madhhab is more of the norm). Before the "Yihewani" movement, a Chinese Muslim sect inspired by the reform movement in the Middle East, Northern Hui Sufis were very fond of synthesizing Taoist
teachings and martial arts
practices with Sufi philosophy.
In early modern times, villages in northern Chinese Hui areas still bore labels like "Blue-cap Huihui," "Black-cap Huihui," and "White-cap Huihui," betraying their possible Christian, Judaic and Muslim origins, even though the religious practices among north China Hui by then were by and large Islamic. Hui is also used as a catch-all grouping for Islamic Chinese who are not classified under another ethnic group. In Henan, Guangdong, and Gansu, Jews converted to Islam and were assimilated into the Hui. A lot of Chinese Jews converted to Islam by the 17th century. The Jews worked in government service and owned big properties in China.
A very small minority of Hui are just Han Chinese converted to Islam.
According to legend, a Muhuyindeni person converted an entire village of Han with the to Islam. Another source for the Hui comes from Hui adopting Han children and raising them as Hui.
Unlike the majority of Hui who are of foreign ancestry through their male line and minority through their female line. Hui in Gansu with the surname "Tang" 唐 and "Wang" 汪, are descended from Han Chinese who converted to Islam and married Muslim Hui or Dongxiang people, switching their ethnicity and joining the Hui and Dongxiang ethnic groups, both of which are Muslim.
Tangwangchuan and Hanjiaji were notable for being the lone towns with a multi ethnic community, with both Non-Muslims and Muslims.
The Guomindang official Ma Hetian visited Tangwangchuan and met an "elderly local literatus from the Tang clan" hile he was on his inspection tour of Gansu and Qinghai.
In Gansu
province in the 1800s, a Muslim Hui woman married into the Han Chinese
Kong
lineage of Dachuan, which was descended from Confucius. The Han Chinese groom and his family were converted to Islam after the marriage by their Muslim relatives. In 1715 in Yunnan
province, a few Han Chinese descendants of Confucius
surnamed Kong
married Hui women and converted to Islam. Archives on this are stored in Xuanwei
city.
, and were also settled in Changde, Hunan, where their descendants still live. Muslims in Ming Dynasty Beijing
were given relative freedom by the Chinese, with no restrictions placed on their religious practices or freedom of worship, and being normal citizens in Beijing. In contrast to the freedom granted to Muslims, followers of Tibetan Buddhism and Catholicism suffered from restrictions and censure in Beijing.
Hakka
and Zhuang background), the Muslim
s Rebellion in Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai and Ningxia in Northwestern China and Yuannan, and the Miao people
Revolt in Hunan and Guizhou. These revolts were supported by European Powers at the beginning but eventually put down by the Manchu government. The Dungan people were descendants of the Muslim rebels who fled to Russian Empire
after the rebellion were suppressed by the joint force of Hunan Army led by Zuo Zongtang
(左宗棠) with support from local Hui elites.
The "Encyclopædia of religion and ethics, Volume 8" stated that the Dungan and Panthay revolts by the Muslims was set off by racial antagonism and class warfare, rather than the mistaken assumption that it was all due to Islam and religion that the rebellions broke out. The Russian government spent thousands of rubles on an expedition trying to determine the cause of the Dungan revolt, and were unable to figure it out.
A British officer witnessing the Panthay Rebellion testified that the Muslims did not rebel for religious reasons, and that the Chinese were tolerant of different religions and were unlikely to have caused the revolt by interfering with Islam. In addition, loyalist Muslim forces helped Qing crush the rebel Muslims.
Population loss during these revolts was staggering. Some have estimated that the population loss in Shaanxi between 1862 and 1879 was as high as 6,220,000, about 44.6% of the original population before the war, of which 5.2 million was due to war. For the Hui, the figure may have been as high as 1.55 million. In 1990, there were only 132,000 Hui in Shaanxi. (Another source from Zuo Zongtang's written records suggests before the revolt there were 4 million Muslims in Shanxi (population of Shanxi was 13 million in total), and there were only 50,000 Muslims left in Shanxi after the war. The strategy used against Muslims in Shanxi was to make the province Muslim free by either mass killing or evictions, this is because the Han Chinese regarded Shanxi a Chinese heartland whereas places west of Shanxi such as Gansu and Ningxia are barbaric wasteland. Shanxi Muslims that were spared during the war were force relocated west to provinces such as Gansu, and the Shanxi Muslims that were allowed to stay are mainly Xian city Muslims who did not participate in the revolt.)
Poems were written about the victories of Yaqub Beg's forces over the Chinese Muslims (Hui) and the Tungans. Hui rebels battled against Turkic Muslim rebels in addition to fighting the Qing. Yakub Beg
seized Aksu
from Hui forces and forced them north of the Tien Shan mountains, committing massacres upon the Hui (tunganis). Reportedly in 1862 the number of Hui in China proper numbered 30,000,000.
Despite the population loss, the military power of Hui increased, because some Hui who had defected to the Qing side were promoted and granted high positions in the Imperial Army. One of them, Ma Anliang
, became a military warlord in northwest China, and other Generals associated with him grew into the Ma Clique
of the Republican era.
During the Panthay Rebellion, the Qing Dynasty did not massacre Muslims who surrendered, in fact, Muslim General Ma Rulong
, who surrendered and join the Qing campaign to crush the rebel Muslims, was promoted, and became the most powerful military official in the province. Also, the Hui Muslim population of Beijing
was unaffected by the Muslim rebels during the Dungan revolt.
Elisabeth Allès wrote that the relationship between Hui Muslim and Han peoples continued normally in the Henan
area, with no ramifications or consequences from th Muslim rebellions of other areas. Allès wrote in the document "Notes on some joking relationships between Hui and Han villages in Henan" published by French Centre for Research on Contemporary China that "The major Muslim revolts in the middle of the nineteenth century which involved the Hui in Shaanxi, Gansu and Yunnan, as well as the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, do not seem to have had any direct effect on this region of the central plain."
Another revolt
erupted in 1895, which was suppressed by loyalist Muslim troops.
s form a group of Chinese Muslims in Burma. Some people refer to Panthays as the oldest group of Chinese Muslims in Burma. However, because of intermixing and cultural diffusion the Panthays are not as distinct a group as there once were.
and in Xinjiang
to refer to Chinese-speaking Muslim people. In the censuses of Russia and the former Soviet Central Asia, the Hui are enumerated separately from Chinese, and are labelled as Dungans. In both China and the former Soviet republics where they reside, however, members of this ethnic group call themselves Lao Huihui or Zhongyuanren, not Dungans. Zhongyuan 中原, literally means "The Central Plain," and is the historical name of Shaanxi
and Henan
provinces. Most Dungans living in the former Soviet Union are descendants of Hui people from Gansu and Shaanxi.
, 7.2 % Khuffiya, 1.4% Qadariyya, and 0.7 % Kubrawiyya.
Muslim General Ma Bufang
allowed polytheists to openly worship and Christian missionaries to station themselves in Qinghai. General Ma and other high ranking Muslim Generals even attended the Kokonuur Lake Ceremony where the God of the Lake was worshipped, and during the ritual, the Chinese national Anthem was sung, all participants bowed to a Portrait of Kuomintang
party founder Dr. Sun Zhongshan, and the God of the Lake was also bowed to, and offerings were given to him by the participants, which included the Muslims. Ma Bufang invited Kazakh Muslims to attend the Ceremony honoring the God. Ma Bufang received audiences of Christian missionaries, who sometimes gave him the Gospel
. His son Ma Jiyuan
received a silver cup from Christian missionaries.
The Muslim Ma Zhu wrote "Chinese religions are different from Islam, but the ideas are the same"
During the Panthay Rebellion, the Muslim leader Du Wenxiu said to a Catholic priest- "I have read your religious works and i have found nothing inappropriate." "Muslims and Christians are brothers."
just like Han women, it was noticed that it was extremely prevalent among Hui in Gansu
. The Dungan people, descendants of Hui from northwestern China who fled to central Asia, also practised foot binding up to 1948. However, in southern China, in Canton the westerner James Legge
enocountered a mosque which had a placard denouncing footbinding, saying Islam did not allow it since it constituted violating the creation of God.
Hui marriages resemble typical Chinese marriages except traditional Chinese superstitious rituals are not used.
where Arab women are restricted and forced to wear encompassing clothing. Hui women point out these restrictions as "low status", and feel better to be Chinese than to be Arab, claiming that it is Chinese women's advanced knowledge of the Quran which enables them to have equality between men and women.
A French army Commandant Viscount D'Ollone wrote a report on what he saw among Hui in 1910, during the Qing Dynasty, Sichuanese Hui were slacking in their practice of Islamic alcohol and tobacco restrictions and ritual washing; Friday prayers were not followed. Chinese practices like incense burning at ancestral tablets and honoring Confucius were taken up; however, the one practice which was observed most stringently was the banning of pork consumption.
The Sunni Gedimu and the Yihewani burned incense during worship. This was viewed as Daoist or Buddhist influence. The Hui were also known as the "White capped" HuiHui used incense during worship, while the Salar, also known as "black capped" HuiHui considered this to be a heathen ritual and denounced it.
Some Hui burned incense with ancestral tablets like non Muslim Han Chinese
, and honored the philosopher Confucius
with ceremonies.
In Yunnan
province, during the Qing Dynasty, tablets which wished the Emperor a long life were placed in at the Mosque entrance. No minaret
s were available and no chanting was done when calling for prayer. The mosques were similar to Buddhist Temples, and incense was burned inside the mosques as well.
Hui people usually have a Chinese name and a Muslim name in Arabic, the Chinese name is used primarily. Sometimes Hui do not remember their Muslim names.
When Hui people adopt foreign names, they do not use their Muslim names. Instead, they, like Han Chinese, prefer to adopt Christian European names. An example of this is Pai Hsien-yung
, a Hui author in America, who adopted the name Kenneth. His father was the Muslim General Bai Chongxi, who had his children adopt western names such as Patsy, Diana, Daniel, Richard, Alfred, Amy, David, Kenneth, Robert and Charlie.
The Hui followed Chinese customs and Islamic law, refusing to consume alcohol, opium, and tobacco. Large numbers of Hui enlisted in the military and were praised for their martial skills.
Circumcision
in Islam is known as khitan
. There is some disagreement among Islamic scholars as to whether it is required, recommended, or forbidden, with a plurality of experts taking the second view. Since circumcision in China does not have the weight of pre-existing traditions as it does in the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere in the Muslim world, circumcision rates among Hui are much lower than among other Muslim groups (where the procedure is in many places nearly always carried out).
Hui were also better off than other Muslims in China. The Europeans noted that Turki
Muslims people would prostitute their daughters due to poverty, while such a thing would never happen among Tungan Muslims (Hui), which was why Turki prostitutes were common around the country.
was a collection of Islamic and Confucian texts written by various Hui Authors in the 18th century, including Liu Zhi (scholar)
.
New works were written by Hui intellectuals following education reform by Ma Clique
Warlords and Bai Chongxi
. Texts were also translated from Arabic.
A new edition of a book by Ma Te-hsin, called Ho-yin Ma Fu-ch'u hsien-sheng i-shu Ta hua tsung kuei Ssu tien yaohui, which was printed in 1865 was reprinted in 1927 by Ma Fuxiang.
The General Ma Fuxiang invested in new editions of Confucian and Islamic texts. He edited Shuofang Daozhi. a gazette, and books such as Meng Cang ZhuangKuang: Hui Bu Xinjiang fu.
In 1844 "The Chinese repository, Volume 13" was published, including an account of an Englishman who stayed in the Chinese city of Ningbo
. There he visited the local mosque, the Hui running the mosque was from Shandong, and he was a descendant of Muslims from the Arabian city of Medina
. He was able to read and speak Arabic with ease, but was totally illiterate in Chinese. He was born in China and spoke Chinese as well.
The Hui Na family in Ningxia is known to practice both parallel and cross cousin marriage
. The Najiahu village in Ningxia is named after this family, descended from Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar
.
There is a distinction between women marrying out, and men moving in to the women's household. Zhao nuxu is a practice where the son in law moves in with the wife's family. Some marriages between Han and Hui are conducted this way, with some Han men moving in with their Hui wife and her family. The husband does not need to convert, but the wife's family follows Islamic customs. No census data collects this type of marriage, the census only reports data where the wife moves in with the groom's family.
In Beijing Oxen street there were 37 Han Hui couples, two of which were Han with Hui wives, the other 35 were Hui men with Han. Data was collected in different Beijing districts. In Ma Dian 20% of intermarriage were Hui women marrying into Han families, in Tang Fang 11% of intermarriage were Hui women marrying into Han families. 67.3% of intermarriage in Tang Fang were Han women marrying into a Hui family and in Ma Dian 80% of intermarriag were Han women marrying into Hui families.
During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period
(Wudai) (907-960), there are examples of Persian women marrying minor state's Chinese kings. Some Chinese officials from the Song Dynasty
era also married women from Dashi (Arabia). Li Nu
, the son of Li Lu, from a Han Chinese Li family in Quanzhou visited Hormuz
in Persia in 1376. He married a Persian
or an Arab
girl, and brought her back to Quanzhou
. He then converted to Islam. Li Nu was the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty reformer Li Chih.
In Hui discourse, marriage between a Hui woman and a Han man is not allowed unless the Han converts Islam, despite this it occurred several times in the towns of Eastern China. Generally Han of both sexes have to convert to Islam before marrying. This practice helps increase the population of Hui. In 1982 a case occurred where a Han married a Hui woman and moved into her family. A case of switching nationality occurred in 1972 when a Han man married a Hui woman, and is currently considered a Hui after converting to Islam.
In Henan
province, a marriage was recorded between Han boy and Hui girl without the Han converting to Islam, during the Ming Dynasty
. They had two children who became Muslim. Steles in Han and Hui villages record this story and Hui and Han members of the Lineage celebrate at the ancestral temple together.
In Gansu
province in the 1800s, a Muslim Hui woman married into the Han Chinese
Kong lineage of Dachuan, which was descended from Confucius. The Han Chinese groom and his family were only converted to Islam after the marriage by their Muslim relatives. In 1715 in Yunnan
province, few Han Chinese descendants of Confucius
married Hui women and converted to Islam. Archives on this are stored in Xuanwei
city.
Research has shown that Hui men marrying Han women display education above average, and Han men who also marry Hui women display education that is above average.
, and the Ma Clique
warlords promoted western, modern secular education and reform.
Elite Hui received both Muslim and Confucian education. They studied the Koran and Confucian texts like the Spring and Autumn Annals
.
Hui people refused to follow the May Fourth Movement. Instead, they taught both modern, western education such as science, along with traditional Confucian literature and Classical Chinese languages with Islamic education and Arabic in their schools. They merely incorporated the new instead of destroying the old and replacing it.
The Hui Muslim Warlord Ma Bufang
built a girl's school for Muslim girls in Linxia which taught modern secular education.
Hui also have female Imams, called Nu Ahong, which they had for centuries. They are the only female Imams in the world, they guide female Muslims in worship and prayer.
Hui and Muslim Salars are against coeducation
(grouping male and female students together) due to Islam, Uyghur
s are the only Muslims in China do not mind coeducation and practice it.
Muslims served extensively in the Chinese military, as both officials and soldiers. It was said that the Muslim Dongxiang
and Salar were given to "eating rations", a reference to military service.
The Hui descend from foreign Muslim mercenaries serving the Tang Dynasty
. In 756, over 4,000 Arab mercenaries joined the Chinese against An Lushan. They remained in China, and some of them were ancestors of the Hui people.
Hui people have extensively served in the Chinese military. During the Ming Dynasty
, Hui Generals and troops loyal to Ming fought against Mongols and Hui loyal to the Yuan Dynasty in the Ming conquest of Yunnan
. Hui also fought for Ming against aboriginal tribes in southern China during the Miao Rebellions (Ming Dynasty)
. This resuled in many Hui soldiers of the Ming Dynasty being settled in Yunnan
and Hunan
provinces in southern China.
During the Qing Dynasty
, Hui troops in the Imperial army helped crush Hui rebels during the Dungan revolt, Panthay Rebellion, and Dungan Revolt (1895)
.
The Qing Dynasty also preferred to use Hui in Xinjiang as police.
Yang Zengxin
, the Han Chinese governor of Xinjiang
, extensively relied on Hui Generals like Ma Shaowu
and Ma Fuxing
.
Qing Muslim General Zuo Baogui (左寶貴) (1837–1894), from Shandong
province, was martyred in Pingyang
in Korea by Japanese cannonfire in 1894 while defending the city. A memorial to him was built.
Hui troops fought against western armies for the first time in the Boxer Rebellion
, winning several battles including the Battle of Langfang
and Battle of Beicang
. These troops were the Kansu Braves led by General Dong Fuxiang
.
Military service continued into the Republic of China. The Chinese government appointed Hui General Ma Fuxiang
as military governor of Suiyuan. After the Kuomintang
party took power, Hui participation in the military reached new levels. Qinghai
and Ningxia
were created out of Gansu
province, and the Kuomintang appointed Hui Generals as military Governors of all three provinces. They became known as the Ma Clique
.
Hui Generals and soldiers fought for the Republic of China against Tibet in the Sino-Tibetan War
, against Uyghur rebels in the Kumul Rebellion
, the Soviet Union in the Soviet Invasion of Xinjiang
, and against Japan in the Second Sino Japanese War.
Hui forces fought for the Kuomintang (aka the Chinese nationalists) against the Communists in the Chinese Civil War
, and against rebels during the Ili Rebellion.
Bai Chongxi
, a Hui General, was appointed to the post of Minister of National Defence, the highest Military position in the Republic of China. After the Communist victory, and evacuation of the Kuomintang to Taiwan, Hui people continued to serve in the military.
Ma Bufang
, the Muslim General who fought a bloody war against the Tibetans, was made the ambassador of the Republic of China (Taiwan) to Saudi Arabia. His brother, Ma Buqing
remained a military General on Taiwan.
Bai Chongxi
and Ma Ching-chiang
were other Hui who continue to serve in Taiwan as military Generals.
Ma Zhanshan
was a Hui guerilla fighter against the Japanese.
A Hui General, Ma Fuxiang, commented on the willingness for Hui people to become martyrs in Battle (see Martyrdom in Islam), saying:
The Chinese Islamic Association issued "A message to all Muslims in China from the Chinese Islamic Association for National Salvation" in Ramadan of 1940 during the Second Sino-Japanese War
.
Ahong is the Chinese word for Imam. During the war against Japan, the Imams supported Muslim reisistance in battle, calling for Muslims to participate in the Jihad against Japan, and becoming a shaheed (islamic term for martyr).
The Japanese planned to invade Ningxia
from Suiyuan in 1939 and create a Hui puppet state. The next year in 1940, the Japanese were defeated militarily by the Kuomintang Muslim General Ma Hongbin
, who caused the plan to collapse. Ma Hongbin's Hui Muslim troops launched further attacks against Japan in the Battle of West Suiyuan.
The PLA used Hui soldiers, who formally had served under Ma Bufang
to crush the Tibetan revolt in Amdo during the 1959 Tibetan uprising
.
Generals were Kuomintang
party members, and encouraged Chinese nationalism in their provinces. Ma Qi
, Ma Lin (warlord)
, and Ma Bufang
were Hui Generals who served as Military Governors of Qinghai
, Ma Hongbin
served as military Governor of Gansu
, and Ma Hongkui
served as military governor of Ningxia
. All of them were Kuomintang party members. General Ma Fuxiang
, a Hui Kuomintang member, was promoted to Governor of Anhui and became chairman of Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs. Ma Bufang, Ma Fuxiang, and Bai Chongxi were all members of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang, which ruled China in a Single-party state
. Bai Chongxi
, as a Kuomintang member, helped build the Taipei Grand Mosque
on Taiwan
. Many members of the Hui Ma Clique
were also Kuomintang
members.
Hui put Kuomintang
Blue Sky with a White Sun
party symbols on their Halal
restaurants and shops. A Christian missionary in 1935 took a picture of a Muslim meat restaurant in Hankow which had Arabic and Chinese lettering indicating that it was Halal (fit for Muslim consumption), and it had two Kuomintang party symbols on it.
, refer to themselves and other Hui people as Chinese in English, and consider themselves to practice Chinese, Confucian Culture.
The term Chinese Muslim is sometimes used to refer to Hui people. This is based mainly in the fact that their native language is a Chinese dialect, in contrast to Turkic speaking Salars and other Muslims. During the Qing Dynasty, "Chinese Muslim" (Han Hui) was the term sometimes used to refer to Hui people, which differentiated them from non-Chinese speaking Muslims. In contrast, the Uyghurs were called "Chan Tou Hui" ("Turban Headed Muslim"), and the Turkic Salars called "Sala Hui" (Salar Muslim). While the Turkic speakers often referred the Hui as "Dungan". John Stuart Thomson
, who traveled in China called them "Mohammedan Chinese". Because the Qing Dynasty grouped Muslims by language, the Chinese-speaking Hui had to wear the queue
, while most Turkic Hui do not, except for their leaders. They have also been called "Chinese Mussulmans", when Europeans wanted to distinguish them from Han Chinese
.
The Qing authorities considered both Han and Hui to be Chinese, and in Xinjiang Both Hui and Han were classified as merchants regardless of profession. Laws were passed segregating the different races, in theory, keeping Turkic Muslims apart from Hui and Han, however, the law was not followed. Hui and Han households were built closer together in the same area while Turkic Muslims would live farther away from the town.
Before the 1911 Xinhai Revolution
, when the revolutionaries faced the ideological dilemma on how to unify the country while at the same time acknowledging ethnic minorities, Hui people were noted as Chinese Muslims, separate from Uyghurs. The Jahriyya Sufi leader Ma Yuanzhang said in response to accusations that Muslims were disloyal to China: "Our lives, livelihoods, and graves are in China. . . . We have been good citizens among the Five Nationalities!". The Muslim General Ma Fuxiang
encouraged Confucian style assimilation for all Muslims into Chinese culture, and even set up an assimilationist group for this purpose. Imams such as Hu Songshan
encouraged Chinese nationalism in their mosques, and the Yihewani was led by many nationalist Imams.
For some Uyghurs, there is barely any difference between Hui and Han. A Uyghur social scientist, Dilshat, regarded Hui as the same people as Han, deliberately calling Hui people Han and dismissing the Hui as having only a few hundred years of history.
The Kuomintang
party and, Chiang Kai-shek
, the Kuomintang party leader, considered all the minority peoples of China, including the Hui, as descedants of Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor and semi mythical founder of the Chinese nation, and belonging to the Chinese Nation Zhonghua Minzu
and he introduced this into Kuomintang ideology, which was propagated into the educational system of the Republic of China
.
benefits they will get from the Chinese government. These Hui are concentrated on the southeast coast of China, especially Fujian
province. In 1913, a westerner noted that many people in Fujian
province had Arab ancestry, but were no longer Muslim.
Some well known Hui clans around Quanzhou
in Fujian
, such as the Ding
and the Guo
families, are examples of these Hui who identify as Muslim by nationality but do not practice Islam. Due to more people of these clans identifying as Hui the population of Hui has grown. All these clans needed were only evidence of ancestry from Arab, or Persian, or other Muslim ancestors to be recognized as Hui, and they do not need to practice Islam. It was the Communist party and its policies which encouraged the definition of Hui as a nationality or ethnicity. It is taboo to offer pork to ancestors in the Ding clan family. However, the living Ding family members themselves consume pork. The Chinese Government's Historic Artifacts Bureau preserved tombs of Arabs and Persians whom Hui are descended from around Quanzhou
. Many of these Hui worship village gods and do not have Islam as their religion, some are Buddhists, Daoists, followers of Chinese Folk Religions, secularlists, and Christians. Many clans with thousands of members in numerous villages across Fujian recorded their genealogies and had Muslim ancestry. These Hui clans originating in Fujian have strong sense of unity among their members, despite being scattered across a wide area in Asia, such as Fujian, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, and Philippines.
On Taiwan, there are also descendants of Hui who came with Koxinga
who no longer observe Islam, the Taiwan branch of the Guo (romanized as Kuo in Taiwan) family is not Muslim, but still does not offer pork at ancestral shrines. The Chinese Muslim Association counts these people as Muslims. Also on Taiwan
, one branch of this Ding (Ting) family descended from Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar
resides in Taisi Township in Yunlin County
. They trace their descent through him via the Quanzhou
Ding family of Fujian. Even as they were pretending to be Han Chinese
in Fujian, they still practiced Islam when they originally came to Taiwan 200 years ago, building a mosque, but eventually became Buddhist or Daoist. The Mosque is now the Ding families Daoist temple.
An attempt was made by the Chinese Islamic Society to reconvert the Hui of Fujian back to Islam in 1983, sending 4 Ningxia
Imams to Fujian. This futile endeavour ended in 1986, when the final Ningxia Imam remaining decided to go back and leave Fujian. A similar endeavour in Taiwan also failed to meet its goals.
Before 1982, it was possible for a Han to change ethnicity to the Hui nationality just by converting, after 1982 converted Han were no longer counted as Hui, instead, they are now known as "Muslim Han". Hui people consider other Hui who do not observe Islamic practices to still be Hui, they consider it impossible to ever lose their Hui nationality, even if a Hui becomes atheist the other Muslim Hui still consider them to be Muslim, albeit a bad one.
The Dungan Revolt and Panthay revolts by the Hui were also set off by racial antagonism and class warfare, rather than the mistaken assumption that it was all due to Islam that the rebellions broke out. During the Dungan revolt fighting broke out between Uyghurs and Hui.
In 1936, after Sheng Shicai expelled 20,000 Kazakh
s from Xinjiang to Qinghai, the Hui led by General Ma Bufang
massacred their fellow Muslims, the Kazakhs, until there were 135 of them left.
The Hui people have had a long presence in Qinghai
and Gansu
, or what Tibetans call Amdo
, although Tibetans have historically dominated the local politics. The situation was reversed in 1931 when the Hui general Ma Bufang
inherited the governorship of Qinghai
, stacking his government with Hui and Salar and excluding Tibetans. In his power base in Qinghai's northeastern Haidong Prefecture
, Ma compelled many Tibetans to convert to Islam and acculturate into the Hui community. When Hui started migrating into Lhasa
in the 1990s, racist rumors circulated among Tibetans in Lhasa
about the Hui, such as that they were cannibals or ate children. On February 2003, Tibetans rioted against Hui, destroying Hui-owned shops and restaurants. With Islamophobic sentiments high following the Taliban's demolition of two Buddha statues, local Tibetan Buddhist religious leaders lead a regional boycott movement that encouraged Tibetans to boycott Hui-owned shops, spreading the myth that Hui put the ashes of cremated imam
s in the cooking water they use to serve Tibetans food, in order to convert Tibetans to Islam.
Occasionally tensions result in scuffles between Hui communities and the native Tibetans and some Muslims have stopped wearing the traditional white caps that identify their religion, and many women now wear a hairnet instead of a scarf in order to better assimilate into the community. The Hui community usually support the Chinese government in anti Tibetan separatism. In addition, Chinese speaking Hui have problems with Tibetan Hui (the Tibetan speaking Kache minority of Muslims).
Tensions with Uyghurs arose because Qing and Republican Chinese authorities used Hui troops and officials to dominate the Uyghurs and crush Uyghur revolts. Xinjiang's Hui population increased by over 520 percent between 1940 and 1982, an average annual growth of 4.4 percent, while the Uyghur population only grew at 1.7 percent. This dramatic increase in Hui population led inevitably to significant tensions between the Hui and Uyghur Muslim populations. Some old Uyghurs in Kashgar
remember that the Hui army at the Battle of Kashgar (1934)
massacred 2,000 to 8,000 Uyghurs, which causes tension as more Hui moved into Kashgar from other parts of China. Some Hui criticize Uyghur separatism, and generally do not want to get involved in conflict in other countries over Islam for fear of being perceived as radical. Hui and Uyghur separate from each other, praying and attending different mosques.
A legend in Ningxia
states that four Hui surnames common in the region - Na, Su, La, and Ding - originate with the descendants of one Nasruddin, a son of Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar
, who "divided" the ancestor's name (Nasulading, in Chinese) among themselves.
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, however some also practice other religions, and many are direct descendants of Silk Road
Silk Road
The Silk Road or Silk Route refers to a historical network of interlinking trade routes across the Afro-Eurasian landmass that connected East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean and European world, as well as parts of North and East Africa...
travelers.
In modern People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, the term "Hui people" refers to one of the officially recognized 56 ethnic groups
Ethnic minorities in China
Ethnic minorities in China are the non-Han Chinese population in the People's Republic of China. The People's Republic of China officially recognizes 55 ethnic minority groups within China in addition to the Han majority. As of 2010, the combined population of officially recognised minority...
into which Chinese citizens are classified. Under this definition, the Hui people are defined to include all historically Muslim communities in People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
that are not included in China's other ethnic groups.
Since China's Muslims speaking various Turkic
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...
, Mongolian, or Iranian languages
Iranian languages
The Iranian languages form a subfamily of the Indo-Iranian languages which in turn is a subgroup of Indo-European language family. They have been and are spoken by Iranian peoples....
are all included into those other groups (e.g., Uyghurs, Dongxiang
Dongxiang people
The Dongxiang people are one of 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China...
, or Tajiks
Tajiks in China
Tajiks , are an ethnic group that lives in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China...
) the "officially recognized" Hui ethnic group consists predominantly of Chinese speakers. In fact, the "Hui nationality" is unique among China's officially recognized ethnic minorities in that it does not have any particular non-Chinese language associated with it.
Nonetheless, included among the Hui in Chinese census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
statistics (and not officially recognized as separate ethnic groups) are members of a few small non-Chinese speaking communities. Among them are several thousand Utsuls in southern Hainan province, who speak an Austronesian language (Tsat
Tsat language
Tsat is a language spoken near Sanya, Hainan, China by the Utsuls. Tsat is a member of the Malayo-Polynesian group within the Austronesian language family, and is related to the Cham languages, originally from the coast of present-day Vietnam...
) related to that of the Cham Muslim minority of Vietnam, and who are said to be descended from Chams who migrated to Hainan
Hainan
Hainan is the smallest province of the People's Republic of China . Although the province comprises some two hundred islands scattered among three archipelagos off the southern coast, of its land mass is Hainan Island , from which the province takes its name...
. A small Muslim minority among Yunnan's Bai people are classified as Hui as well (even if they are Bai speakers), as are some groups of Tibetan Muslims
Tibetan Muslims
The Tibetan Muslims, also known as the Kachee , form a small minority in Tibet. Despite being Muslim, they are classified as Tibetans, unlike the Hui Muslims, who are also known as the Kyangsha or Gya Kachee...
. The Hui people are concentrated in Northwestern China
Northwestern China
Northwestern China includes the autonomous regions of Xinjiang and Ningxia and the provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu, and Qinghai.-Administrative divisions:ProvincesAutonomous Regions-Outer Northwest China:...
(Ningxia
Ningxia
Ningxia, formerly transliterated as Ningsia, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Located in Northwest China, on the Loess Plateau, the Yellow River flows through this vast area of land. The Great Wall of China runs along its northeastern boundary...
, Gansu
Gansu
' is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.It lies between the Tibetan and Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, and Shaanxi to the east...
, Qinghai
Qinghai
Qinghai ; Oirat Mongolian: ; ; Salar:) is a province of the People's Republic of China, named after Qinghai Lake...
, Xinjiang
Xinjiang
Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...
), but communities exist across the country, e.g. Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
, Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in the northern region of the country. Inner Mongolia shares an international border with the countries of Mongolia and the Russian Federation...
, Hebei
Hebei
' is a province of the People's Republic of China in the North China region. Its one-character abbreviation is "" , named after Ji Province, a Han Dynasty province that included what is now southern Hebei...
, Hainan
Hainan
Hainan is the smallest province of the People's Republic of China . Although the province comprises some two hundred islands scattered among three archipelagos off the southern coast, of its land mass is Hainan Island , from which the province takes its name...
, Yunnan
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
.
Most Hui, although they are not ethnically Han Chinese, are similar in culture to Han Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
with the exception that they practice Islam
Islam in China
Throughout the history of Islam in China, Chinese Muslims have influenced the course of Chinese history. Chinese Muslims have been in China for the last 1,400 years of continuous interaction with Chinese society...
, and have some distinctive cultural characteristics as a result. For example, as Muslims, they follow Islamic dietary laws
Islamic dietary laws
Islamic dietary laws provide direction on what is to be considered clean and unclean regarding diet and related issues.-Overview:Islamic jurisprudence specifies which foods are ' and which are '...
and reject the consumption of pork, the most common meat consumed in Chinese culture, and have also given rise to their variation of Chinese cuisine
Chinese cuisine
Chinese cuisine is any of several styles originating in the regions of China, some of which have become highly popular in other parts of the world – from Asia to the Americas, Australia, Western Europe and Southern Africa...
, Chinese Islamic cuisine
Chinese Islamic cuisine
Chinese Islamic cuisine is the cuisine of the Hui and other Muslims living in China.-History:Due to the large Muslim population in western China, many Chinese restaurants cater to, or are run by, Muslims. Northern Chinese Islamic cuisine originated in China proper...
and Muslim Chinese martial arts
Muslim Chinese martial arts
The Hui started and adapted many of the styles of Chinese martial arts such as Bajiquan, Piguaquan, Liu He Quan, and other styles.There were specific areas known to be centers of martial arts, such as Cang County in Hebei Province....
. Their mode of dress also differs primarily in that men wear white caps and women wear headscarves
Headscarf
Headscarves or head scarves are scarves covering most or all of the top of a woman's hair and her head. Headscarves may be worn for a variety of purposes, such as for warmth, for sanitation, for fashion or social distinction; with religious significance, to hide baldness, out of modesty, or other...
or (occasionally) veil
Veil
A veil is an article of clothing, worn almost exclusively by women, that is intended to cover some part of the head or face.One view is that as a religious item, it is intended to show honor to an object or space...
s, as is the case in most Islamic cultures.
The Hui people are of varied ancestry, many of whom are direct descendants of Silk Road
Silk Road
The Silk Road or Silk Route refers to a historical network of interlinking trade routes across the Afro-Eurasian landmass that connected East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean and European world, as well as parts of North and East Africa...
travelers. Their ancestors include Central Asian, Arabs, Persian, who married Han Chinese. Several medieval dynasties, particularly the Tang Dynasty
Tang Dynasty
The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...
, Song Dynasty
Song Dynasty
The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...
, and Mongol
Mongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...
Yuan Dynasty
Yuan Dynasty
The Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who ruled most of present-day China, all of modern Mongolia and its surrounding areas, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. It is considered both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an...
encouraged immigration from predominantly-Muslim Persia
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
and Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
, with both dynasties welcoming traders from these regions and appointing Central Asian officials. In the subsequent centuries, they gradually mixed with Mongols and Han Chinese, and the Hui people were formed. On account of this mixing and long residence in China, the Hui have not retained Central Asian, Persian, or Arabic names, using instead names typical of their Han Chinese neighbors; however, certain names common among the Hui can be understood as Chinese renderings of common Muslim (i.e. Arabic), Persian, and Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
n names (for instance, "Ma" for "Muhammad
Muhammad (name)
Muhammad was a prophet and an Arabic religious and political leader who preached and established Islam.Muhammad may also refer to:*Muhammad , listing people with the given name or surname Muhammad...
").
"Huihui" and "Hui"
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
and Qing
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
Dynasties, is thought to have its origin in the earlier Huihe (回纥) or Huihu (回纥), which was the name for the Uyghur State of the 8th and 9th century. Although the ancient Uyghurs were neither Muslims nor were very directly related to today's Uyghur people
Uyghur people
The Uyghur are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia. Today, Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China...
, the name Huihui came to refer to foreigners, regardless of language or origin, by the time of the Yuan
Yuan Dynasty
The Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who ruled most of present-day China, all of modern Mongolia and its surrounding areas, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. It is considered both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an...
(1271–1368) and Ming Dynasties (1368–1644), since during the Yuan Dynasty massive amounts of Muslims came from the west, since the Uyghur land was in the west, this led the Chinese to call all foreigners of all religions, Muslims, Nestorian Christians, and Jews as "HuiHui".
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....
called both foreign Jews and Muslims in China "Hui Hui" when he forced them to stop Halal
Halal
Halal is a term designating any object or an action which is permissible to use or engage in, according to Islamic law. The term is used to designate food seen as permissible according to Islamic law...
and Kosher methods of preparing food:
Among all the [subject] alien peoples only the Hui-hui say “we do not eat Mongol food”. [Cinggis Qa’an replied:] “By the aid of heaven we have pacified you; you are our slaves. Yet you do not eat our food or drink. How can this be right?” He thereupon made them eat. “If you slaughter sheep, you will be considered guilty of a crime.” He issued a regulation to that effect ... [In 1279/1280 under Qubilai] all the Muslims say: “if someone else slaughters [the animal] we do not eat”. Because the poor people are upset by this, from now on, Musuluman [Muslim] Huihui and Zhuhu [Jewish] Huihui, no matter who kills [the animal] will eat [it] and must cease slaughtering sheep themselves, and cease the rite of circumcision.
The Chinese called Muslims, Jews, and Christians in ancient times by the same name, "Hui Hui" (Hwuy-hwuy). Crossworshipers (Christians) were called "Hwuy who abstain from animals without the cloven foot", Muslims were called "Hwuy who abstain from pork", Jews were called "Hwuy who extract the sinews". Hwuy-tsze (Hui zi) or Hwuy-hwuy (Hui Hui) is presently used almost exclusively for Muslims, but Jews were still called Lan Maou Hwuy tsze (Lan mao Hui zi) which means "Blue cap Hui zi". At Kaifeng, Jews were called "Teaou kin keaou "extract sinew religion". Jews and Muslims in China shared the same name for synagogue and mosque, which were both called "Tsing-chin sze" (Qingzhen si) "Temple of Purity and Truth", the name dated to the thirteenth century. The synagogue and mosques were also known as Le-pae sze (Libai si). A tablet indicated that Judaism was once known as "Yih-tsze-lo-nee-keaou" (Israelitish religion) and synagogues known as Yih-tsze lo nee leen (Israelitish Temple), but it faded out of use.
Islam was originally called Dashi Jiao during the Tang Dynasty
Tang Dynasty
The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...
, when Muslims first appeared in China. "Dashi Fa" literally means "Arab law", in old Chinese (modern Arabs are called alabo). Since almost all Muslims in China were exclusively foreign Arabs or Persians at the time, it was barely mentioned by the Chinese, unlike other religions like Zoroastrism, Mazdaism, and Nestorian Christianity which gained followings in China. As an influx of foreigners, such as Arabs, Persians, Jews, and Christians, most of them, but not all of them were Muslims who came from western regions, they were labelled as Semu
Semu
Semu is the name of a caste established in China under the Yuan Dynasty. Contrary to popular belief, the term "Semu" did not imply that caste members had "colored eyes" in contrast with black-eyed Mongol Yuan people...
people, but were also mistaken by Chinese as Uyghur, due to them coming from the west (uyghur lands). so the name "Hui Hui" was applied to them, and eventually became the name to refer to Muslims.
Another, probably unrelated, early use of the word Huihui comes from the History of Liao
History of Liao
History of Liao, or Liao Shi is a Chinese historical book compiled officially in the Yuan Dynasty founded by the Mongols, under the direction of the great historian Tuotuo, and finalized in 1343...
Dyansty, which mentions Yelü Dashi
Yelü Dashi
Yelü Dashi , or Yeh-Lü Ta-Shih was the founder of the Western Liao dynasty, or the Kara-Khitan Khanate....
, the 12th-century founder of the Kara-Khitan Khanate
Kara-Khitan Khanate
The Kara-Khitan Khanate, or Western Liao was a Khitan empire in Central Asia. The dynasty was founded by Yelü Dashi, who led the remnants of the Liao Dynasty to Central Asia after fleeing from the Jurchen conquest of their homeland in North and Northeast of modern day China...
, defeating the Huihui Dashibu (回回大食部) people near Samarkand
Samarkand
Although a Persian-speaking region, it was not united politically with Iran most of the times between the disintegration of the Seleucid Empire and the Arab conquest . In the 6th century it was within the domain of the Turkic kingdom of the Göktürks.At the start of the 8th century Samarkand came...
– apparently, referring to his defeat of the Khwarazm ruler Ahmed Sanjar
Ahmed Sanjar
Ahmad Sanjar Ahmad Sanjar Ahmad Sanjar (Mu'iz ud-Dīn Ahmad-e Sanjar; was the sultan of the Great Seljuq Empire from 1118 to 1153. He was initially the sultan of Khorasan until he gained the rest of the territory upon the death of Muhammad I....
in 1141. Khwarazm is referred to as Huihuiguo in the Secret History of the Mongols as well. The widespread and rather generic application of the name "Huihui" in Ming China was attested by foreign visitors as well. Matteo Ricci
Matteo Ricci
Matteo Ricci, SJ was an Italian Jesuit priest, and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China Mission, as it existed in the 17th-18th centuries. His current title is Servant of God....
, the first Jesuit
Jesuit China missions
The history of the missions of the Jesuits in China is part of the history of relations between China and the Western world. The missionary efforts and other work of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, between the 16th and 17th century played a significant role in continuing the transmission of...
to reach Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
(1598), noted that "Saracens are everywhere in evidence . . . their thousands of families are scattered about in nearly every province" Ricci noted that the term Huihui or Hui was applied by Chinese not only to "Saracens" (Muslims) but also to Chinese Jews
Chinese Jews
Chinese Jews may refer to:*History of the Jews in China*Kaifeng Jews...
and supposedly even to Christians. In fact, when the reclusive Wanli Emperor
Wanli Emperor
The Wanli Emperor was emperor of China between 1572 and 1620. His era name means "Ten thousand calendars". Born Zhu Yijun, he was the Longqing Emperor's third son...
first saw a picture of Ricci and Diego de Pantoja
Diego de Pantoja
Diego de Pantoja or Diego Pantoja, Chinese: 龐迪我, or Pang Diwo 龐迪我 , was a Spanish Jesuit and missionary to China who is best known for having accompanied Matteo Ricci in Beijing. His name also appears in some sources as Didaco Pantoia.He came to Macao on 20 July 1597...
, he supposedly exclaimed, "Hoei, hoei. It is quite evident that they are Saracens", and had to be told by an eunuch
Eunuch
A eunuch is a person born male most commonly castrated, typically early enough in his life for this change to have major hormonal consequences...
that they actually weren't, "because they ate pork". The 1916 Encyclopædia of religion and ethics, Volume 8 said that Chinese Muslims alwatys called themselves Huihui or Huizi, and that neither themselves nor other people called themselves Han, and they disliked people calling them Dungan. A French army Commandant Viscount D'Ollone wrote a report on what he saw among Hui in 1910, during the Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
, he reported that due to religion, Hui were classed as a different nationality from Han as if they were one of the other minority groups like Miao
Miao people
The Miao or ม้ง ; ) is an ethnic group recognized by the government of the People's Republic of China as one of the 55 official minority groups. Miao is a Chinese term and does not reflect the self-designations of the component nations of people, which include Hmong, Hmu, A Hmao, and Kho Xiong...
.
While Huihui or Hui remained a generic name for all Muslims in Imperial China, specific terms were sometimes used to refer to particular groups, e.g. Chantou Hui ("turban
Turban
In English, Turban refers to several types of headwear popularly worn in the Middle East, North Africa, Punjab, Jamaica and Southwest Asia. A commonly used synonym is Pagri, the Indian word for turban.-Styles:...
ed Hui") for Uyghurs, Dongxiang Hui and Sala Hui for Dongxiang
Dongxiang people
The Dongxiang people are one of 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China...
and Salar people, and sometimes even Han Hui (漢回) ("Chinese Hui") for the (presumably Chinese-speaking) Muslims more assimilated into the Chinese mainstream society. Some scholars also say that some Hui used to call themselves 回漢子 (Hui Hanzi) "Muslim Han" but now the Communist regime has separated them from other Chinese and placed them into a separate minzu, "Huizu".
Under the aegis of the Communist Party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
in the 1930s the term Hui was defined to indicate only Sinophone Muslims. In 1941, this was clarified by a Communist Party committee comprising ethnic policy researchers in a treatise entitled "On the question of Huihui Ethnicity" (Huihui minzu wenti). This treatise defined the characteristics of the Hui nationality as follows: the Hui or Huihui constitute an ethnic group associated with, but not defined by, the Islamic religion and they are descended primarily from Muslims who migrated to China during the Mongol-founded Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368), as distinct from the Uyghur
Uyghur people
The Uyghur are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia. Today, Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China...
and other Turkic-speaking ethnic groups in Xinjiang
Xinjiang
Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...
. The Nationalist government had recognised all Muslims as one of "the five peoples"—alongside the Manchus, Mongols
Mongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...
, Tibetans and Han Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
—that constituted the Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
. The new Communist interpretation of Chinese Muslim ethnicity marked a clear departure from the ethno-religious policies of the Nationalists, and had emerged as a result of the pragmatic application of Stalinist ethnic theory to the conditions of the Chinese revolution.
These days, within the PRC, Huizu and is the standard term for the "Hui nationality" (ethnic group), and Huimin, for "Hui people" or "a Hui person". The traditional expression Huihui, its use now largely restricted to rural areas, would sound quaint, if not outright demeaning, to modern urban Chinese Muslims.
A traditional Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
term for Islam is 回教 (pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
: Huíjiào, literally "the religion of the Hui"). However, since the early days of the PRC, thanks to the arguments of such Marxist Hui scholars as Bai Shouyi
Bai Shouyi
Bai Shouyi , also known as Djamal al-Din Bai Shouyi, was a prominent Chinese Muslim historian, thinker, social activist and ethnologist who revolutionized recent Chinese historiography and pioneered in relying heavily on scientific excavations and reports...
, the standard term for "Islam" within the PRC has become the transliteration
Transliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
伊斯蘭教 (pinyin: Yīsīlán jiào, literally "Islam religion"). The more traditional term Huijiao remains in use in Singapore, Taiwan, and other overseas Chinese communities.
Qīngzhēn (清真, literally "pure and true") has also been a popular term for the things Muslim since the Yuan or Ming Dynasty. Dru Gladney suggests that a good translation for it would be Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
tahára. i.e. "ritual or moral purity" The usual term for a mosque is qīngzhēn sì (清真寺), i.e. "true and pure temple", and qīngzhēn is commonly used to refer to halal
Halal
Halal is a term designating any object or an action which is permissible to use or engage in, according to Islamic law. The term is used to designate food seen as permissible according to Islamic law...
eating establishments and bathhouses.
"Dungan"
Hui people everywhere are referred to by Central Asian Turkic speakers and Tajiks as Dungans. This term has a long pedigree as well. The region's historian Joseph FletcherJoseph Fletcher (historian)
Joseph F. Fletcher, Jr., usually referred to simply as Joseph Fletcher was an American historian of China and Central Asia, a professor at East Asian Languages and Civilizations Department of Harvard University...
cites Turkic and Persian manuscripts related to the preaching of the 17th century Kashgar
Kashgar
Kashgar or Kashi is an oasis city with approximately 350,000 residents in the western part of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Kashgar is the administrative centre of Kashgar Prefecture which has an area of 162,000 km² and a population of approximately...
ian Sufi master Muhammad Yūsuf (or, possibly, his son Afaq Khoja) inside the Ming Empire
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
(in today's Gansu
Gansu
' is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.It lies between the Tibetan and Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, and Shaanxi to the east...
and/or Qinghai
Qinghai
Qinghai ; Oirat Mongolian: ; ; Salar:) is a province of the People's Republic of China, named after Qinghai Lake...
), where the Kashgarian preacher is told to have converted ulamā-yi Tunganiyyān (i.e., "Dungan ulema
Ulema
Ulama , also spelt ulema, refers to the educated class of Muslim legal scholars engaged in the several fields of Islamic studies. They are best known as the arbiters of shari‘a law...
") into Sufism
Sufism
Sufism or ' is defined by its adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a '...
.
In English and German, the ethnonym
Ethnonym
An ethnonym is the name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms and autonyms or endonyms .As an example, the ethnonym for...
"Dungan", in various spelling forms, was attested as early as 1830s, typically referring to the Hui people of Xinjiang. For example, James Prinsep in 1835 mentions Muslim "Túngánis" in "Chinese Tartary".
The word (mostly in the form "Dungani" or "Tungani", sometimes "Dungens" or "Dungans") acquired some currency in English and other western languages when a number of books in the 1860-70s discussed the Dungan revolt in north-western China.
Later authors continued to use the term Dungan (in various transcriptions) for, specifically, the Hui people of Xinjiang. For example, Owen Lattimore
Owen Lattimore
Owen Lattimore was an American author, educator, and influential scholar of Central Asia, especially Mongolia. In the 1930s he was editor of Pacific Affairs, a journal published by the Institute of Pacific Relations, and then taught at Johns Hopkins University from 1938 to 1963...
, writing ca. 1940, maintains the terminological distinction between these two related groups: the "Tungkan" (i.e. Wade-Giles
Wade-Giles
Wade–Giles , sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a romanization system for the Mandarin Chinese language. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Wade during the mid-19th century , and was given completed form with Herbert Giles' Chinese–English dictionary of 1892.Wade–Giles was the most...
for "Dungan"), described by him as the descendants of the Gansu Hui people resettled in Xinjiang in 17-18th centuries, vs. e.g. the "Gansu Moslems" or generic "Chinese Moslems".
The name "Dungan" was used to refer to all Muslims coming from China proper, such as Dongxiang and Salar in addition to Hui. They were called Chinese Muslims by westerners. Reportedly, the Hui disliked the term Dungan and did not want people to refer to them as Dungans, calling themselves either HuiHui or Huizi.
In the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and its successor countries, the term "Dungans" (дунгане) became the standard name for the descendants of Chinese-speaking Muslims who emigrated to the Russian Empire (mostly to today's Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan , officially the Kyrgyz Republic is one of the world's six independent Turkic states . Located in Central Asia, landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east...
and south-eastern Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
) in the 1870s and 1880s.
Other terms
In ThailandThailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, Chinese Muslims are referred to as Chin Ho
Chin Haw
Chin Haw or Chin Ho are Chinese people who migrated to Thailand via Burma or Laos. Most of them were from Yunnan, the southern province of China.- Migration :...
, in Burma and Yunnan Province, as Panthay
Panthay
Panthays form a group of Chinese Muslims in Burma. Some people refer to Panthays as the oldest group of Chinese Muslims in Burma. However, because of intermixing and cultural diffusion the Panthays are not as distinct a group as they once were.-Etymology:...
.
During the Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
, the term Zhongyuan ren (中原人) was synonymous with being Chinese, especially referring to Han Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
and Hui in Xinjiang
Xinjiang
Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...
or Central Asia. While Hui do not consider themselves Han and are not Han, the Hui consider themselves Chinese and refer to themselves as Zhongyuan ren. The Dungan people, descendants of Hui who fled to Central Asia, called themselves Zhongyuan ren in addition to the standard labels Lao Huihui and Huizi. Zhongyuan ren was used by Turkic Muslims to refer to ethnic Chinese. When Central Asian invaders from Kokand invaded Kashgar
Kashgar
Kashgar or Kashi is an oasis city with approximately 350,000 residents in the western part of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Kashgar is the administrative centre of Kashgar Prefecture which has an area of 162,000 km² and a population of approximately...
, in a letter the kokandi commander criticizes the Kashgari Turkic Muslim Ishaq for allegedly not behaving like a Muslim and wanting to be a Zhongyuan ren (Chinese).
Pusuman was a name used by Chinese during the Yuan Dynasty
Yuan Dynasty
The Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who ruled most of present-day China, all of modern Mongolia and its surrounding areas, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. It is considered both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an...
. It could have been a corruption of Musalman (The Persian name for Muslim), or another name for Persians. It either means Muslim or Persian. Pusuman Kuo (Pusuman Guo) referred to the country where they came from. The name "Pusuman zi" (pusuman script), was used to refer to the script that the HuiHui (Muslims) were using.
During the Tang Dynasty mostly Arabic speaking Muslims visited China, Persian speakers formed the majority of Muslims in China in the Song and Yuan dynasties.
In English, the term "Mohammedan" was originally used to refer to Chinese of Islamic faith during the 19th century. During the first half of the 20th century, writers such as Edgar Snow
Edgar Snow
Edgar P. Snow was an American journalist known for his books and articles on Communism in China and the Chinese Communist revolution...
and Owen Lattimore
Owen Lattimore
Owen Lattimore was an American author, educator, and influential scholar of Central Asia, especially Mongolia. In the 1930s he was editor of Pacific Affairs, a journal published by the Institute of Pacific Relations, and then taught at Johns Hopkins University from 1938 to 1963...
who visited the Hui homeland also used the term "Mohammedans" in their accounts. The term gradually fell into disuse, and today the term "Hui" is used in English.
Classification as Ethnic Minority
The category of Hui to described foreign Muslims moving into China dates back to the Song dynastySong Dynasty
The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...
.
The current government of China defines a Hui as a Chinese speaker with foreign Muslim ancestry. Practicing the Islamic religion is not required.
Caucasian genetics of Hui people
Caucasian ancestry is also prevalent among the Hui people, 6.7% Hui people's maternal genetics have an Caucasian origin, while slightly over 30% paternal genetics also have an Caucasian origin.Origins
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
, Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
) and in major trade centers elsewhere in China are of mixed local and foreign descent. The foreign element, although greatly diluted, came from Arab (Dashi) and Persian (Bosi) traders, who brought Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
to China. These foreigners settled in China and gradually intermarried into the surrounding population while converting them to Islam, while they in turn assimilated in all aspects of Chinese culture, keeping only their distinctive religion.
Early European explorers speculated that T'ung-kan (Hui, called "Chinese Mohammedan") in Xinjiang
Xinjiang
Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...
originated from Khorezmians who were transported to China by the Mongols, and that they were descended from a mixture of Chinese, Iranians, and Turkic peoples. They also reported that the T'ung-kan were Shafi'ites, which the Khorezmians were also.
A totally different explanation is available for the Hui people of Yunnan
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
and Northwestern China
Northwestern China
Northwestern China includes the autonomous regions of Xinjiang and Ningxia and the provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu, and Qinghai.-Administrative divisions:ProvincesAutonomous Regions-Outer Northwest China:...
, whose ethnogenesis might be a result of the convergence of large number of Mongol, Turkic
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
, Iranian
Iranian peoples
The Iranian peoples are an Indo-European ethnic-linguistic group, consisting of the speakers of Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, as such forming a branch of Indo-European-speaking peoples...
or other Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
n settlers in these regions, who were recruited by the Mongol-founded Yuan Dynasty
Yuan Dynasty
The Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who ruled most of present-day China, all of modern Mongolia and its surrounding areas, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. It is considered both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an...
either as officials (the semu
Semu
Semu is the name of a caste established in China under the Yuan Dynasty. Contrary to popular belief, the term "Semu" did not imply that caste members had "colored eyes" in contrast with black-eyed Mongol Yuan people...
, who formed the second-highest stratum in the Yuan Empire's ethnic hierarchy, after the Mongols themselves, but before both northern and southern Chinese) or artisans. It was documented that a proportion of the ancestral nomad or military ethnic groups were originally Nestorian Christians many of whom later converted to Islam, while under the Sinicizing pressures of the Ming
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
and Qing
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
Dynasties.
Southeastern Muslims also have a much longer tradition of synthesizing Confucian teachings with the Sharia
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
and Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
ic teachings, and were reported to have been contributing to the Confucian officialdom since the Tang
Tang Dynasty
The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...
period. Among the Northern Hui, on the other hand, there are strong influences of Central Asian Sufi schools such as Kubrawiyya, Qadiriyya, Naqshbandi
Naqshbandi
Naqshbandi is one of the major Sufi spiritual orders of Sufi Islam. It is considered to be a "Potent" order.The Naqshbandi order is over 1,300 years old, and is active today...
yya (Khufiyya and Jahriyya
Jahriyya
Jahriyya is a Sufi order in China that once existed in Persia and the Turkish World. Founded by Hadrat Abu Yaqub Yusuf Hamdani, it was brought to China in the 1760s by Ma Mingxin...
) etc. mostly of the Hanafi
Hanafi
The Hanafi school is one of the four Madhhab in jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. The Hanafi madhhab is named after the Persian scholar Abu Hanifa an-Nu‘man ibn Thābit , a Tabi‘i whose legal views were preserved primarily by his two most important disciples, Abu Yusuf and Muhammad al-Shaybani...
Madhhab
Madhhab
is a Muslim school of law or fiqh . In the first 150 years of Islam, there were many such "schools". In fact, several of the Sahābah, or contemporary "companions" of Muhammad, are credited with founding their own...
(whereas among the Southeastern communities the Shafi'i
Shafi'i
The Shafi'i madhhab is one of the schools of fiqh, or religious law, within the Sunni branch of Islam. The Shafi'i school of fiqh is named after Imām ash-Shafi'i.-Principles:...
Madhhab is more of the norm). Before the "Yihewani" movement, a Chinese Muslim sect inspired by the reform movement in the Middle East, Northern Hui Sufis were very fond of synthesizing Taoist
Taoism
Taoism refers to a philosophical or religious tradition in which the basic concept is to establish harmony with the Tao , which is the mechanism of everything that exists...
teachings and martial arts
Martial arts
Martial arts are extensive systems of codified practices and traditions of combat, practiced for a variety of reasons, including self-defense, competition, physical health and fitness, as well as mental and spiritual development....
practices with Sufi philosophy.
In early modern times, villages in northern Chinese Hui areas still bore labels like "Blue-cap Huihui," "Black-cap Huihui," and "White-cap Huihui," betraying their possible Christian, Judaic and Muslim origins, even though the religious practices among north China Hui by then were by and large Islamic. Hui is also used as a catch-all grouping for Islamic Chinese who are not classified under another ethnic group. In Henan, Guangdong, and Gansu, Jews converted to Islam and were assimilated into the Hui. A lot of Chinese Jews converted to Islam by the 17th century. The Jews worked in government service and owned big properties in China.
Small Minority of Converted Han
The majority of are descended from foreign Muslims who took specific Chinese like Ma, derived from their original Muslim name, and intermmarried with Han Chinese.A very small minority of Hui are just Han Chinese converted to Islam.
According to legend, a Muhuyindeni person converted an entire village of Han with the to Islam. Another source for the Hui comes from Hui adopting Han children and raising them as Hui.
Unlike the majority of Hui who are of foreign ancestry through their male line and minority through their female line. Hui in Gansu with the surname "Tang" 唐 and "Wang" 汪, are descended from Han Chinese who converted to Islam and married Muslim Hui or Dongxiang people, switching their ethnicity and joining the Hui and Dongxiang ethnic groups, both of which are Muslim.
Tangwangchuan and Hanjiaji were notable for being the lone towns with a multi ethnic community, with both Non-Muslims and Muslims.
The Guomindang official Ma Hetian visited Tangwangchuan and met an "elderly local literatus from the Tang clan" hile he was on his inspection tour of Gansu and Qinghai.
In Gansu
Gansu
' is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.It lies between the Tibetan and Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, and Shaanxi to the east...
province in the 1800s, a Muslim Hui woman married into the Han Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
Kong
Kong (surname)
Kong is Chinese, Korean surname, Gong in Common.-Origin:*孔 from Ji clan of South Yan state at BC 7th century*孔 from Zheng Mu Gong in Zheng of Zhou Dynasty at BC 7th century...
lineage of Dachuan, which was descended from Confucius. The Han Chinese groom and his family were converted to Islam after the marriage by their Muslim relatives. In 1715 in Yunnan
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
province, a few Han Chinese descendants of Confucius
Confucius
Confucius , literally "Master Kong", was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period....
surnamed Kong
Kong (surname)
Kong is Chinese, Korean surname, Gong in Common.-Origin:*孔 from Ji clan of South Yan state at BC 7th century*孔 from Zheng Mu Gong in Zheng of Zhou Dynasty at BC 7th century...
married Hui women and converted to Islam. Archives on this are stored in Xuanwei
Xuanwei
Xuanwei is a county-level city, under the jurisdiction of Qujing, in Yunnan Province, China.-External links:*...
city.
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty employed many Muslims and the Ming Emperor treated Muslims relatively freely. Several Hui people in Taiwan even claimed that the first Ming Emperor Ming Taizu was a Hui. However, people from mainland China dispute this claim. Hui troops were also used by the Ming Dynasty to crush the Miao and other aboriginal rebels during the Miao RebellionsMiao Rebellions (Ming Dynasty)
The Miao Rebellions were a series of Rebellions of the aboriginal Miao and other aboriginal tribes of southern China. The Ming Dynasty crushed the rebels with overwhelming force...
, and were also settled in Changde, Hunan, where their descendants still live. Muslims in Ming Dynasty Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
were given relative freedom by the Chinese, with no restrictions placed on their religious practices or freedom of worship, and being normal citizens in Beijing. In contrast to the freedom granted to Muslims, followers of Tibetan Buddhism and Catholicism suffered from restrictions and censure in Beijing.
Muslim revolts
During the mid-nineteenth century, a series of civil wars broke out throughout China by various ethnic-lingual groups against the ruling Manchu-Mongol-Han Bannerman and Han Confucians elites. These include the Taiping Rebellion in Southern China (whose leaders were Evangelical Christians of ethnic Han ChineseHan Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
Hakka
Hakka people
The Hakka , sometimes Hakka Han, are Han Chinese who speak the Hakka language and have links to the provincial areas of Guangdong, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan and Fujian in China....
and Zhuang background), the Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s Rebellion in Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai and Ningxia in Northwestern China and Yuannan, and the Miao people
Miao people
The Miao or ม้ง ; ) is an ethnic group recognized by the government of the People's Republic of China as one of the 55 official minority groups. Miao is a Chinese term and does not reflect the self-designations of the component nations of people, which include Hmong, Hmu, A Hmao, and Kho Xiong...
Revolt in Hunan and Guizhou. These revolts were supported by European Powers at the beginning but eventually put down by the Manchu government. The Dungan people were descendants of the Muslim rebels who fled to Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
after the rebellion were suppressed by the joint force of Hunan Army led by Zuo Zongtang
Zuo Zongtang
Zuo Zongtang , spelled Tso Tsung-t'ang in Wade-Giles and known simply as General Tso in the West, was a Chinese statesman and military leader in the late Qing Dynasty....
(左宗棠) with support from local Hui elites.
The "Encyclopædia of religion and ethics, Volume 8" stated that the Dungan and Panthay revolts by the Muslims was set off by racial antagonism and class warfare, rather than the mistaken assumption that it was all due to Islam and religion that the rebellions broke out. The Russian government spent thousands of rubles on an expedition trying to determine the cause of the Dungan revolt, and were unable to figure it out.
A British officer witnessing the Panthay Rebellion testified that the Muslims did not rebel for religious reasons, and that the Chinese were tolerant of different religions and were unlikely to have caused the revolt by interfering with Islam. In addition, loyalist Muslim forces helped Qing crush the rebel Muslims.
Population loss during these revolts was staggering. Some have estimated that the population loss in Shaanxi between 1862 and 1879 was as high as 6,220,000, about 44.6% of the original population before the war, of which 5.2 million was due to war. For the Hui, the figure may have been as high as 1.55 million. In 1990, there were only 132,000 Hui in Shaanxi. (Another source from Zuo Zongtang's written records suggests before the revolt there were 4 million Muslims in Shanxi (population of Shanxi was 13 million in total), and there were only 50,000 Muslims left in Shanxi after the war. The strategy used against Muslims in Shanxi was to make the province Muslim free by either mass killing or evictions, this is because the Han Chinese regarded Shanxi a Chinese heartland whereas places west of Shanxi such as Gansu and Ningxia are barbaric wasteland. Shanxi Muslims that were spared during the war were force relocated west to provinces such as Gansu, and the Shanxi Muslims that were allowed to stay are mainly Xian city Muslims who did not participate in the revolt.)
Poems were written about the victories of Yaqub Beg's forces over the Chinese Muslims (Hui) and the Tungans. Hui rebels battled against Turkic Muslim rebels in addition to fighting the Qing. Yakub Beg
Yakub Beg
Muhammad Yaqub Bek was a [Turkic peoples] adventurer who became head of the kingdom of Kashgaria.-Spelling variants:In English-language literature, the name of Yaqub Beg has also been spelt as Yakub Beg , Yakoob Beg , or Ya`qūb Beg...
seized Aksu
Aksu
Aksu , is a city in the Chinese autonomous region of Xinjiang and the capital of Aksu Prefecture...
from Hui forces and forced them north of the Tien Shan mountains, committing massacres upon the Hui (tunganis). Reportedly in 1862 the number of Hui in China proper numbered 30,000,000.
Despite the population loss, the military power of Hui increased, because some Hui who had defected to the Qing side were promoted and granted high positions in the Imperial Army. One of them, Ma Anliang
Ma Anliang
Ma Anliang , a Hui, was born in 1855, in Linxia, Gansu, China. He became a general in the Qing dynasty army, and of the Republic of China. His father was Ma Zhanao, and his younger brother was Ma Guoliang...
, became a military warlord in northwest China, and other Generals associated with him grew into the Ma Clique
Ma clique
The Ma clique or Ma family warlords is a collective name for a group of Muslim warlords in Northwestern China who ruled the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Ningxia from the 1910s until 1949. There were 3 families in the Ma clique , each of them respectively controlled 3 areas, Gansu,...
of the Republican era.
During the Panthay Rebellion, the Qing Dynasty did not massacre Muslims who surrendered, in fact, Muslim General Ma Rulong
Ma Rulong
Ma Rulung was a Chinese Muslim who originally rebelled against the Qing dynasty along with Du Wenxiu in the Panthay Rebellion. He later defected to the Qing side. After officially surrendering in 1862 his forces effectively occupied the capital of Yunnan. He then helped the Qing forces crush his...
, who surrendered and join the Qing campaign to crush the rebel Muslims, was promoted, and became the most powerful military official in the province. Also, the Hui Muslim population of Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
was unaffected by the Muslim rebels during the Dungan revolt.
Elisabeth Allès wrote that the relationship between Hui Muslim and Han peoples continued normally in the Henan
Henan
Henan , is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the central part of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is "豫" , named after Yuzhou , a Han Dynasty state that included parts of Henan...
area, with no ramifications or consequences from th Muslim rebellions of other areas. Allès wrote in the document "Notes on some joking relationships between Hui and Han villages in Henan" published by French Centre for Research on Contemporary China that "The major Muslim revolts in the middle of the nineteenth century which involved the Hui in Shaanxi, Gansu and Yunnan, as well as the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, do not seem to have had any direct effect on this region of the central plain."
Another revolt
Dungan Revolt (1895)
The Dungan Revolt was a rebellion of various Muslim ethnic groups in Qinghai and Gansu against the Qing Dynasty.-Revolt:Rival Sufi Naqshbandi orders fought against each other. They accused each other of various misdeeds, and filed a lawsuit against each other through the office of the Xining prefect...
erupted in 1895, which was suppressed by loyalist Muslim troops.
Panthays
PanthayPanthay
Panthays form a group of Chinese Muslims in Burma. Some people refer to Panthays as the oldest group of Chinese Muslims in Burma. However, because of intermixing and cultural diffusion the Panthays are not as distinct a group as they once were.-Etymology:...
s form a group of Chinese Muslims in Burma. Some people refer to Panthays as the oldest group of Chinese Muslims in Burma. However, because of intermixing and cultural diffusion the Panthays are not as distinct a group as there once were.
Dungans
Dungan is a term used in territories of the former Soviet UnionSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and in Xinjiang
Xinjiang
Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...
to refer to Chinese-speaking Muslim people. In the censuses of Russia and the former Soviet Central Asia, the Hui are enumerated separately from Chinese, and are labelled as Dungans. In both China and the former Soviet republics where they reside, however, members of this ethnic group call themselves Lao Huihui or Zhongyuanren, not Dungans. Zhongyuan 中原, literally means "The Central Plain," and is the historical name of Shaanxi
Shaanxi
' is a province in the central part of Mainland China, and it includes portions of the Loess Plateau on the middle reaches of the Yellow River in addition to the Qinling Mountains across the southern part of this province...
and Henan
Henan
Henan , is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the central part of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is "豫" , named after Yuzhou , a Han Dynasty state that included parts of Henan...
provinces. Most Dungans living in the former Soviet Union are descendants of Hui people from Gansu and Shaanxi.
Islamic sects
The Islamic scholar Ma Tong recorded that among 6,781,500 Hui in China, 58.2 % were Gedimu, 21% Yihewani, 10.9% JahriyyaJahriyya
Jahriyya is a Sufi order in China that once existed in Persia and the Turkish World. Founded by Hadrat Abu Yaqub Yusuf Hamdani, it was brought to China in the 1760s by Ma Mingxin...
, 7.2 % Khuffiya, 1.4% Qadariyya, and 0.7 % Kubrawiyya.
Relations with other religions
Some Hui believed that Islam was the true religion through which Confucianism could be practiced, accusing Buddhists and Daoists of being heretics, like most other Confucian scholars. They emphasized that Islam was superior to "barbarian" religions.Muslim General Ma Bufang
Ma Bufang
Ma Bufang was a prominent Muslim Ma clique warlord in China during the Republic of China era, ruling the northwestern province of Qinghai. His rank was Lieutenant-general...
allowed polytheists to openly worship and Christian missionaries to station themselves in Qinghai. General Ma and other high ranking Muslim Generals even attended the Kokonuur Lake Ceremony where the God of the Lake was worshipped, and during the ritual, the Chinese national Anthem was sung, all participants bowed to a Portrait of Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
party founder Dr. Sun Zhongshan, and the God of the Lake was also bowed to, and offerings were given to him by the participants, which included the Muslims. Ma Bufang invited Kazakh Muslims to attend the Ceremony honoring the God. Ma Bufang received audiences of Christian missionaries, who sometimes gave him the Gospel
Gospel
A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...
. His son Ma Jiyuan
Ma Jiyuan
Ma Jiyuan , was a Ma clique warlord in China during the Republic of China era, ruling the northwestern province of Qinghai. He was the son and only child of general Ma Bufang and commanded nationalist forces against the communists at the Heshui Campaign, Meridian Ridge Campaign, and the Lanzhou...
received a silver cup from Christian missionaries.
The Muslim Ma Zhu wrote "Chinese religions are different from Islam, but the ideas are the same"
During the Panthay Rebellion, the Muslim leader Du Wenxiu said to a Catholic priest- "I have read your religious works and i have found nothing inappropriate." "Muslims and Christians are brothers."
Chinese Culture
Hui women practiced foot bindingFoot binding
Foot binding was the custom of binding the feet of young girls painfully tight to prevent further growth. The practice probably originated among court dancers in the early Song dynasty, but spread to upper class families and eventually became common among all classes. The tiny narrow feet were...
just like Han women, it was noticed that it was extremely prevalent among Hui in Gansu
Gansu
' is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.It lies between the Tibetan and Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, and Shaanxi to the east...
. The Dungan people, descendants of Hui from northwestern China who fled to central Asia, also practised foot binding up to 1948. However, in southern China, in Canton the westerner James Legge
James Legge
James Legge was a noted Scottish sinologist, a Scottish Congregationalist, representative of the London Missionary Society in Malacca and Hong Kong , and first professor of Chinese at Oxford University...
enocountered a mosque which had a placard denouncing footbinding, saying Islam did not allow it since it constituted violating the creation of God.
Hui marriages resemble typical Chinese marriages except traditional Chinese superstitious rituals are not used.
Unique Islamic practices
Hui women are self aware of their relative freedom as Chinese women in contrast to the status of women in Saudi ArabiaSaudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
where Arab women are restricted and forced to wear encompassing clothing. Hui women point out these restrictions as "low status", and feel better to be Chinese than to be Arab, claiming that it is Chinese women's advanced knowledge of the Quran which enables them to have equality between men and women.
A French army Commandant Viscount D'Ollone wrote a report on what he saw among Hui in 1910, during the Qing Dynasty, Sichuanese Hui were slacking in their practice of Islamic alcohol and tobacco restrictions and ritual washing; Friday prayers were not followed. Chinese practices like incense burning at ancestral tablets and honoring Confucius were taken up; however, the one practice which was observed most stringently was the banning of pork consumption.
The Sunni Gedimu and the Yihewani burned incense during worship. This was viewed as Daoist or Buddhist influence. The Hui were also known as the "White capped" HuiHui used incense during worship, while the Salar, also known as "black capped" HuiHui considered this to be a heathen ritual and denounced it.
Some Hui burned incense with ancestral tablets like non Muslim Han Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
, and honored the philosopher Confucius
Confucius
Confucius , literally "Master Kong", was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period....
with ceremonies.
In Yunnan
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
province, during the Qing Dynasty, tablets which wished the Emperor a long life were placed in at the Mosque entrance. No minaret
Minaret
A minaret مناره , sometimes مئذنه) is a distinctive architectural feature of Islamic mosques, generally a tall spire with an onion-shaped or conical crown, usually either free standing or taller than any associated support structure. The basic form of a minaret includes a base, shaft, and gallery....
s were available and no chanting was done when calling for prayer. The mosques were similar to Buddhist Temples, and incense was burned inside the mosques as well.
Hui people usually have a Chinese name and a Muslim name in Arabic, the Chinese name is used primarily. Sometimes Hui do not remember their Muslim names.
When Hui people adopt foreign names, they do not use their Muslim names. Instead, they, like Han Chinese, prefer to adopt Christian European names. An example of this is Pai Hsien-yung
Pai Hsien-yung
Kenneth Hsien-yung Pai , born July 11, 1937) is a writer who has been described as a "melancholy pioneer." He was born in Guilin, Guangxi, China at the cusp of both the Second Sino-Japanese War and subsequent Chinese Civil War...
, a Hui author in America, who adopted the name Kenneth. His father was the Muslim General Bai Chongxi, who had his children adopt western names such as Patsy, Diana, Daniel, Richard, Alfred, Amy, David, Kenneth, Robert and Charlie.
The Hui followed Chinese customs and Islamic law, refusing to consume alcohol, opium, and tobacco. Large numbers of Hui enlisted in the military and were praised for their martial skills.
Circumcision
Circumcision
Male circumcision is the surgical removal of some or all of the foreskin from the penis. The word "circumcision" comes from Latin and ....
in Islam is known as khitan
Khitan (circumcision)
Khitān or Khatna is the term for male circumcision carried out as an Islamic rite, to introduce males into Islam and as a sign of belonging to the wider Islamic community. It is also referred to by the term Taharah, 'purity'....
. There is some disagreement among Islamic scholars as to whether it is required, recommended, or forbidden, with a plurality of experts taking the second view. Since circumcision in China does not have the weight of pre-existing traditions as it does in the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere in the Muslim world, circumcision rates among Hui are much lower than among other Muslim groups (where the procedure is in many places nearly always carried out).
Hui were also better off than other Muslims in China. The Europeans noted that Turki
Uyghur people
The Uyghur are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia. Today, Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China...
Muslims people would prostitute their daughters due to poverty, while such a thing would never happen among Tungan Muslims (Hui), which was why Turki prostitutes were common around the country.
Literature
The Han KitabHan Kitab
The Han Kitab was a collection of Chinese Islamic texts, written by Chinese Muslims, which synthesized Islam and Confucianism. It was written in the early 18th century during the Qing dynasty. Its name is similarly synthesised: 'Han' is the Chinese word for Chinese, and 'kitab' means book in...
was a collection of Islamic and Confucian texts written by various Hui Authors in the 18th century, including Liu Zhi (scholar)
Liu Zhi (scholar)
Liu Zhi was a Chinese Muslim scholar of the Qing period from Nanjing.- Biography :In his childhood, he received instruction from his father, Liu Sanjie . At the age of 12, he studied scriptures with Yuan Ruqi at the Garden of Military Studies Mosque in Nanjing, . At the age of 15, he began a...
.
New works were written by Hui intellectuals following education reform by Ma Clique
Ma clique
The Ma clique or Ma family warlords is a collective name for a group of Muslim warlords in Northwestern China who ruled the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Ningxia from the 1910s until 1949. There were 3 families in the Ma clique , each of them respectively controlled 3 areas, Gansu,...
Warlords and Bai Chongxi
Bai Chongxi
Bai Chongxi , , also spelled Pai Chung-hsi, was a Chinese general in the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China and a prominent Chinese Nationalist Muslim leader. He was of Hui ethnicity and of the Muslim faith...
. Texts were also translated from Arabic.
A new edition of a book by Ma Te-hsin, called Ho-yin Ma Fu-ch'u hsien-sheng i-shu Ta hua tsung kuei Ssu tien yaohui, which was printed in 1865 was reprinted in 1927 by Ma Fuxiang.
The General Ma Fuxiang invested in new editions of Confucian and Islamic texts. He edited Shuofang Daozhi. a gazette, and books such as Meng Cang ZhuangKuang: Hui Bu Xinjiang fu.
Language
Hui speak Chinese dialects as their native languages. The Hui of Yunnan (Burmaese called them Panthays) were reported to be fluent in Arabic. During the Panthay Rebellion, Arabic replaced Chinese as official language of the rebel kingdom. In Tianjin, Hui could speak an old, archaic form of Arabic, when they met Arab Muslims in recent times, it was found out that Old Arabic and Modern Arabic were very different, so Modern Arabic is now being taught to Hui.In 1844 "The Chinese repository, Volume 13" was published, including an account of an Englishman who stayed in the Chinese city of Ningbo
Ningbo
Ningbo is a seaport city of northeastern Zhejiang province, Eastern China. Holding sub-provincial administrative status, the municipality has a population of 7,605,700 inhabitants at the 2010 census whom 3,089,180 in the built up area made of 6 urban districts. It lies south of the Hangzhou Bay,...
. There he visited the local mosque, the Hui running the mosque was from Shandong, and he was a descendant of Muslims from the Arabian city of Medina
Medina
Medina , or ; also transliterated as Madinah, or madinat al-nabi "the city of the prophet") is a city in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, and serves as the capital of the Al Madinah Province. It is the second holiest city in Islam, and the burial place of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, and...
. He was able to read and speak Arabic with ease, but was totally illiterate in Chinese. He was born in China and spoke Chinese as well.
Marriage
Endogamy is practiced by Hui who are members of different sects, mainly marrying among themselves than with Muslims from other sects.The Hui Na family in Ningxia is known to practice both parallel and cross cousin marriage
Cousin marriage
Cousin marriage is marriage between two cousins. In various jurisdictions and cultures, such marriages range from being considered ideal and actively encouraged, to being uncommon but still legal, to being seen as incest and legally prohibited....
. The Najiahu village in Ningxia is named after this family, descended from Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar
Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar
Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar al-Bukhari was Yunnan's first provincial governor in history, appointed by the Mongol Yuan Dynasty....
.
Intermarriage outside ethnic group
Intermarriage involves a Han Chinese woman or a Han Chinese man converting to Islam to marry a Hui. In extremely rare cases, marriage takes place without conversion. In specifically northwest China, intermarriages involve Han women moving in but in some cases it is Han men.There is a distinction between women marrying out, and men moving in to the women's household. Zhao nuxu is a practice where the son in law moves in with the wife's family. Some marriages between Han and Hui are conducted this way, with some Han men moving in with their Hui wife and her family. The husband does not need to convert, but the wife's family follows Islamic customs. No census data collects this type of marriage, the census only reports data where the wife moves in with the groom's family.
In Beijing Oxen street there were 37 Han Hui couples, two of which were Han with Hui wives, the other 35 were Hui men with Han. Data was collected in different Beijing districts. In Ma Dian 20% of intermarriage were Hui women marrying into Han families, in Tang Fang 11% of intermarriage were Hui women marrying into Han families. 67.3% of intermarriage in Tang Fang were Han women marrying into a Hui family and in Ma Dian 80% of intermarriag were Han women marrying into Hui families.
During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms was between 907–960/979 AD and an era of political upheaval in China, between the fall of the Tang Dynasty and the founding of the Song Dynasty. During this period, five dynasties quickly succeeded one another in the north, and more than 12 independent states were...
(Wudai) (907-960), there are examples of Persian women marrying minor state's Chinese kings. Some Chinese officials from the Song Dynasty
Song Dynasty
The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...
era also married women from Dashi (Arabia). Li Nu
Li Nu
Lin Nu was a Chinese scholar and merchant in the early Ming dynasty. He is the ancestor of the philosopher Li Zhi.His father was Lin Lu. In 1376 Lin Nu visited Ormuz in Persia, converted to Islam, and married either a Persian or an Arab girl and brought her back to Quanzhou in Fujian.-References:...
, the son of Li Lu, from a Han Chinese Li family in Quanzhou visited Hormuz
Ormus
The Kingdom of Ormus was a 10th to 17th century kingdom located within the Persian Gulf and extending as far as the Strait of Hormuz...
in Persia in 1376. He married a Persian
Persian people
The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...
or an Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
girl, and brought her back to Quanzhou
Quanzhou
Quanzhou is a prefecture-level city in Fujian province, People's Republic of China. It borders all other prefecture-level cities in Fujian but two and faces the Taiwan Strait...
. He then converted to Islam. Li Nu was the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty reformer Li Chih.
In Hui discourse, marriage between a Hui woman and a Han man is not allowed unless the Han converts Islam, despite this it occurred several times in the towns of Eastern China. Generally Han of both sexes have to convert to Islam before marrying. This practice helps increase the population of Hui. In 1982 a case occurred where a Han married a Hui woman and moved into her family. A case of switching nationality occurred in 1972 when a Han man married a Hui woman, and is currently considered a Hui after converting to Islam.
In Henan
Henan
Henan , is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the central part of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is "豫" , named after Yuzhou , a Han Dynasty state that included parts of Henan...
province, a marriage was recorded between Han boy and Hui girl without the Han converting to Islam, during the Ming Dynasty
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
. They had two children who became Muslim. Steles in Han and Hui villages record this story and Hui and Han members of the Lineage celebrate at the ancestral temple together.
In Gansu
Gansu
' is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.It lies between the Tibetan and Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, and Shaanxi to the east...
province in the 1800s, a Muslim Hui woman married into the Han Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
Kong lineage of Dachuan, which was descended from Confucius. The Han Chinese groom and his family were only converted to Islam after the marriage by their Muslim relatives. In 1715 in Yunnan
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
province, few Han Chinese descendants of Confucius
Confucius
Confucius , literally "Master Kong", was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period....
married Hui women and converted to Islam. Archives on this are stored in Xuanwei
Xuanwei
Xuanwei is a county-level city, under the jurisdiction of Qujing, in Yunnan Province, China.-External links:*...
city.
Research has shown that Hui men marrying Han women display education above average, and Han men who also marry Hui women display education that is above average.
Education
Hui have been interested in modern education and reform. Several Hui, such as Hu SongshanHu Songshan
Hu Songshan , a Hui, was born in 1880, in Tongxin County, Ningxia, China. His father was a Gansu ahong belonging to the Khafiya menhuan, a Chinese-style Sufi order. When he was 18 he joined Wang Naibi of Haicheng. At age 21, he became imam of the Yihewani sect, which was founded by Ma Wanfu...
, and the Ma Clique
Ma clique
The Ma clique or Ma family warlords is a collective name for a group of Muslim warlords in Northwestern China who ruled the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Ningxia from the 1910s until 1949. There were 3 families in the Ma clique , each of them respectively controlled 3 areas, Gansu,...
warlords promoted western, modern secular education and reform.
Elite Hui received both Muslim and Confucian education. They studied the Koran and Confucian texts like the Spring and Autumn Annals
Spring and Autumn Annals
The Spring and Autumn Annals is the official chronicle of the State of Lu covering the period from 722 BCE to 481 BCE. It is the earliest surviving Chinese historical text to be arranged on annalistic principles. The text is extremely concise and, if all the commentaries are excluded, about 16,000...
.
Hui people refused to follow the May Fourth Movement. Instead, they taught both modern, western education such as science, along with traditional Confucian literature and Classical Chinese languages with Islamic education and Arabic in their schools. They merely incorporated the new instead of destroying the old and replacing it.
The Hui Muslim Warlord Ma Bufang
Ma Bufang
Ma Bufang was a prominent Muslim Ma clique warlord in China during the Republic of China era, ruling the northwestern province of Qinghai. His rank was Lieutenant-general...
built a girl's school for Muslim girls in Linxia which taught modern secular education.
Hui also have female Imams, called Nu Ahong, which they had for centuries. They are the only female Imams in the world, they guide female Muslims in worship and prayer.
Hui and Muslim Salars are against coeducation
Coeducation
Mixed-sex education, also known as coeducation or co-education, is the integrated education of male and female persons in the same institution. It is the opposite of single-sex education...
(grouping male and female students together) due to Islam, Uyghur
Uyghur people
The Uyghur are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia. Today, Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China...
s are the only Muslims in China do not mind coeducation and practice it.
History of military service in the Chinese army
Muslims "have often filled the more distinguished military positions.", many Muslims joined the Chinese army. During the Tang Dynasty, 3,000 Chinese soldiers, and 3,000 Muslim soldiers were traded to each other in an agreement.Muslims served extensively in the Chinese military, as both officials and soldiers. It was said that the Muslim Dongxiang
Dongxiang people
The Dongxiang people are one of 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China...
and Salar were given to "eating rations", a reference to military service.
The Hui descend from foreign Muslim mercenaries serving the Tang Dynasty
Tang Dynasty
The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...
. In 756, over 4,000 Arab mercenaries joined the Chinese against An Lushan. They remained in China, and some of them were ancestors of the Hui people.
Hui people have extensively served in the Chinese military. During the Ming Dynasty
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
, Hui Generals and troops loyal to Ming fought against Mongols and Hui loyal to the Yuan Dynasty in the Ming conquest of Yunnan
Ming conquest of Yunnan
The Ming conquest of Yunnan was the final phase in the Chinese Ming dynasty expulsion of Mongol Yuan dynasty rule from China in the 1380s.-War:Muslim troops fought in both the Chinese Ming army and the Yuan Mongol army....
. Hui also fought for Ming against aboriginal tribes in southern China during the Miao Rebellions (Ming Dynasty)
Miao Rebellions (Ming Dynasty)
The Miao Rebellions were a series of Rebellions of the aboriginal Miao and other aboriginal tribes of southern China. The Ming Dynasty crushed the rebels with overwhelming force...
. This resuled in many Hui soldiers of the Ming Dynasty being settled in Yunnan
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
and Hunan
Hunan
' is a province of South-Central China, located to the south of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and south of Lake Dongting...
provinces in southern China.
During the Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
, Hui troops in the Imperial army helped crush Hui rebels during the Dungan revolt, Panthay Rebellion, and Dungan Revolt (1895)
Dungan Revolt (1895)
The Dungan Revolt was a rebellion of various Muslim ethnic groups in Qinghai and Gansu against the Qing Dynasty.-Revolt:Rival Sufi Naqshbandi orders fought against each other. They accused each other of various misdeeds, and filed a lawsuit against each other through the office of the Xining prefect...
.
The Qing Dynasty also preferred to use Hui in Xinjiang as police.
Yang Zengxin
Yang Zengxin
Yang Zengxin , born in Mengzi, Honghe, Yunnan in 1859, was the ruler of Xinjiang after the Xinhai Revolution in 1911 until his assassination in 1928.-Life:...
, the Han Chinese governor of Xinjiang
Xinjiang
Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...
, extensively relied on Hui Generals like Ma Shaowu
Ma Shaowu
Ma Shaowu was a Hui born in Yunnan, in Qing dynasty China. He was a member of the Xinjiang clique during the Republic of China.- Family history :...
and Ma Fuxing
Ma Fuxing
Ma Fuxing was a Hui born in Yunnan, in Qing dynasty China. He was an ex-convict. During Yang Zengxin's reign in Xinjiang, Ma was appointed as a military commander, and then Titai of Kashgar....
.
Qing Muslim General Zuo Baogui (左寶貴) (1837–1894), from Shandong
Shandong
' is a Province located on the eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history from the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River and served as a pivotal cultural and religious site for Taoism, Chinese...
province, was martyred in Pingyang
Pingyang
Pingyang may refer to:*Linfen, formerly known as Pingyang, county-level city of Shanxi*Princess Pingyang , Chinese princess of the Tang Dynasty*Pingyang County , of Wenzhou, Zhejiang*Towns named Pingyang...
in Korea by Japanese cannonfire in 1894 while defending the city. A memorial to him was built.
Hui troops fought against western armies for the first time in the Boxer Rebellion
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also called the Boxer Uprising by some historians or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in northern China, was a proto-nationalist movement by the "Righteous Harmony Society" , or "Righteous Fists of Harmony" or "Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists" , in China between...
, winning several battles including the Battle of Langfang
Battle of Langfang
The Seymour Expedition, also known as the First Intervention, was an attempt by a multi-national military force to march to Beijing and protect the diplomatic legations and foreign nationals in the city from attacks by Boxers in 1900...
and Battle of Beicang
Battle of Beicang
The Battle of Beicang , during the Boxer Rebellion, was fought August 5, 1900 between the Eight Nation Alliance and the Chinese army. The Chinese army was forced out of its prepared entrenchments and retreated to Yangcun. The Eight-Nation Alliance army at Beicang consisted of Japanese, Russian,...
. These troops were the Kansu Braves led by General Dong Fuxiang
Dong Fuxiang
Dong Fuxiang , a Chinese, was born Gansu, China. He commanded an army of Chinese Muslim soldiers, which included the later Ma clique generals Ma Anliang and Ma Fuxiang. According to the Western calendar, his birth date is in 1839.- Religion :Conflicting accounts are given about his religion and...
.
Military service continued into the Republic of China. The Chinese government appointed Hui General Ma Fuxiang
Ma Fuxiang
Ma Fuxiang . Ma, a Dongxiang muslim leader, had a military and political career which spanned the Qing dynasty through the early Republic of China and illustrated the power of family, the role of religious affiliations, and the interaction of Inner Asian China and the national government of...
as military governor of Suiyuan. After the Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
party took power, Hui participation in the military reached new levels. Qinghai
Qinghai
Qinghai ; Oirat Mongolian: ; ; Salar:) is a province of the People's Republic of China, named after Qinghai Lake...
and Ningxia
Ningxia
Ningxia, formerly transliterated as Ningsia, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Located in Northwest China, on the Loess Plateau, the Yellow River flows through this vast area of land. The Great Wall of China runs along its northeastern boundary...
were created out of Gansu
Gansu
' is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.It lies between the Tibetan and Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, and Shaanxi to the east...
province, and the Kuomintang appointed Hui Generals as military Governors of all three provinces. They became known as the Ma Clique
Ma clique
The Ma clique or Ma family warlords is a collective name for a group of Muslim warlords in Northwestern China who ruled the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Ningxia from the 1910s until 1949. There were 3 families in the Ma clique , each of them respectively controlled 3 areas, Gansu,...
.
Hui Generals and soldiers fought for the Republic of China against Tibet in the Sino-Tibetan War
Sino-Tibetan War
The Sino–Tibetan War occurred in 1930–1932 when the Tibetan army under the 13th Dalai Lama invaded Xikang and Yushu in Qinghai in a dispute over monasteries. The Ma clique warlord Ma Bufang secretly sent a telegram to the Sichuan warlord Liu Wenhui, and the leader of the Republic of China, Chiang...
, against Uyghur rebels in the Kumul Rebellion
Kumul Rebellion
The Kumul Rebellion was a rebellion of Kumulik Uyghurs who conspired with the Chinese Muslim General Ma Zhongying to overthrow Jin Shuren, governor of Xinjiang. The Kuomintang wanted Jin removed because of his ties to the Soviet Union, so it approved of the operation while pretending to acknowledge...
, the Soviet Union in the Soviet Invasion of Xinjiang
Soviet Invasion of Xinjiang
The Soviet invasion of Xinjiang was a military campaign in the Chinese northwestern region of Xinjiang in 1934. White Russian forces assisted the Soviet Red Army.- Background :...
, and against Japan in the Second Sino Japanese War.
Hui forces fought for the Kuomintang (aka the Chinese nationalists) against the Communists in the Chinese Civil War
Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...
, and against rebels during the Ili Rebellion.
Bai Chongxi
Bai Chongxi
Bai Chongxi , , also spelled Pai Chung-hsi, was a Chinese general in the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China and a prominent Chinese Nationalist Muslim leader. He was of Hui ethnicity and of the Muslim faith...
, a Hui General, was appointed to the post of Minister of National Defence, the highest Military position in the Republic of China. After the Communist victory, and evacuation of the Kuomintang to Taiwan, Hui people continued to serve in the military.
Ma Bufang
Ma Bufang
Ma Bufang was a prominent Muslim Ma clique warlord in China during the Republic of China era, ruling the northwestern province of Qinghai. His rank was Lieutenant-general...
, the Muslim General who fought a bloody war against the Tibetans, was made the ambassador of the Republic of China (Taiwan) to Saudi Arabia. His brother, Ma Buqing
Ma Buqing
Ma Buqing was a prominent Ma clique warlord in China during the Republic of China era, controlling armies in the northwestern province of Qinghai.-Life:...
remained a military General on Taiwan.
Bai Chongxi
Bai Chongxi
Bai Chongxi , , also spelled Pai Chung-hsi, was a Chinese general in the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China and a prominent Chinese Nationalist Muslim leader. He was of Hui ethnicity and of the Muslim faith...
and Ma Ching-chiang
Ma Ching-chiang
Ma Ching-chiang was a Chinese Muslim general of the Republic of China Army, who served in the 1970s. He served as Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Service Forces and an advisor of President Chiang Kai-shek.- External links :*...
were other Hui who continue to serve in Taiwan as military Generals.
Ma Zhanshan
Ma Zhanshan
Ma Zhanshan or Ma Chan-san , was a Chinese Muslim general who initially opposed the Imperial Japanese Army in the invasion of Manchuria, briefly defected to Manchukuo, and then rebelled, and fought against the Japanese in Manchuria and in other parts of China.-Early life:Ma was born...
was a Hui guerilla fighter against the Japanese.
A Hui General, Ma Fuxiang, commented on the willingness for Hui people to become martyrs in Battle (see Martyrdom in Islam), saying:
"They have not enjoyed the educational and political privileges of the Han Chinese, and they are in many respects primitive. But they know the meaning of fidelity, and if I say 'do this, although it means death,' they cheerfully obey".
The Chinese Islamic Association issued "A message to all Muslims in China from the Chinese Islamic Association for National Salvation" in Ramadan of 1940 during the Second Sino-Japanese War
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany , the Soviet Union and the United States...
.
"We have to implement the teaching "the love of the fatherland is an article of faith" by the Prophet Muhammad and to inherit the Hui's glorious history in China. In addition, let us reinforce our unity and participate in the twice more difficult taks of supporting a defensive war and promoting religion.... We hope that ahongs and the elite will initiate a movement of prayer during Ramadan and implement group prayer to support our intimate feeling toward Islam. A sincere unity of Muslims should be developed to contribute power towards the expulsion of Japan."
Ahong is the Chinese word for Imam. During the war against Japan, the Imams supported Muslim reisistance in battle, calling for Muslims to participate in the Jihad against Japan, and becoming a shaheed (islamic term for martyr).
The Japanese planned to invade Ningxia
Ningxia
Ningxia, formerly transliterated as Ningsia, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Located in Northwest China, on the Loess Plateau, the Yellow River flows through this vast area of land. The Great Wall of China runs along its northeastern boundary...
from Suiyuan in 1939 and create a Hui puppet state. The next year in 1940, the Japanese were defeated militarily by the Kuomintang Muslim General Ma Hongbin
Ma Hongbin
Ma Hongbin , was a prominent muslim Ma clique warlord in China during the Republic of China era. He was the acting Chairman of Gansu and Ningxia Provinces for a short period.- Life :...
, who caused the plan to collapse. Ma Hongbin's Hui Muslim troops launched further attacks against Japan in the Battle of West Suiyuan.
The PLA used Hui soldiers, who formally had served under Ma Bufang
Ma Bufang
Ma Bufang was a prominent Muslim Ma clique warlord in China during the Republic of China era, ruling the northwestern province of Qinghai. His rank was Lieutenant-general...
to crush the Tibetan revolt in Amdo during the 1959 Tibetan uprising
1959 Tibetan uprising
The 1959 Tibetan uprising, or 1959 Tibetan Rebellion began on 10 March 1959, when a revolt erupted in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, which had been under the effective control of the Communist Party of China since the Seventeen Point Agreement in 1951...
.
Politics
The Majority of the Hui Muslim Ma CliqueMa clique
The Ma clique or Ma family warlords is a collective name for a group of Muslim warlords in Northwestern China who ruled the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Ningxia from the 1910s until 1949. There were 3 families in the Ma clique , each of them respectively controlled 3 areas, Gansu,...
Generals were Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
party members, and encouraged Chinese nationalism in their provinces. Ma Qi
Ma Qi
Ma Qi was a Chinese Muslim warlord in early 20th century China.-Early life:His grandfather Sa-la Ma , is a Salar. He was born in 1869 in Daohe, now part of Linxia, Gansu, China. His father was Ma Haiyan...
, Ma Lin (warlord)
Ma Lin (warlord)
Ma Lin, , chairman of the government of Qinghai ; brother of Ma Qi. A Muslim born in 1873, Linxia, Gansu, China, he mainly succeeded to the posts of his brother, being general of southeastern Gansu province, as well as councillor of the Qinghai provincial government and acting head of the...
, and Ma Bufang
Ma Bufang
Ma Bufang was a prominent Muslim Ma clique warlord in China during the Republic of China era, ruling the northwestern province of Qinghai. His rank was Lieutenant-general...
were Hui Generals who served as Military Governors of Qinghai
Qinghai
Qinghai ; Oirat Mongolian: ; ; Salar:) is a province of the People's Republic of China, named after Qinghai Lake...
, Ma Hongbin
Ma Hongbin
Ma Hongbin , was a prominent muslim Ma clique warlord in China during the Republic of China era. He was the acting Chairman of Gansu and Ningxia Provinces for a short period.- Life :...
served as military Governor of Gansu
Gansu
' is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.It lies between the Tibetan and Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, and Shaanxi to the east...
, and Ma Hongkui
Ma Hongkui
Ma Hongkui , was a prominent warlord in China during the Republic of China era, ruling the northwestern province of Ningxia. His rank was Lieutenant-general. His courtesy name was Shao-yun .- Life :...
served as military governor of Ningxia
Ningxia
Ningxia, formerly transliterated as Ningsia, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Located in Northwest China, on the Loess Plateau, the Yellow River flows through this vast area of land. The Great Wall of China runs along its northeastern boundary...
. All of them were Kuomintang party members. General Ma Fuxiang
Ma Fuxiang
Ma Fuxiang . Ma, a Dongxiang muslim leader, had a military and political career which spanned the Qing dynasty through the early Republic of China and illustrated the power of family, the role of religious affiliations, and the interaction of Inner Asian China and the national government of...
, a Hui Kuomintang member, was promoted to Governor of Anhui and became chairman of Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs. Ma Bufang, Ma Fuxiang, and Bai Chongxi were all members of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang, which ruled China in a Single-party state
Single-party state
A single-party state, one-party system or single-party system is a type of party system government in which a single political party forms the government and no other parties are permitted to run candidates for election...
. Bai Chongxi
Bai Chongxi
Bai Chongxi , , also spelled Pai Chung-hsi, was a Chinese general in the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China and a prominent Chinese Nationalist Muslim leader. He was of Hui ethnicity and of the Muslim faith...
, as a Kuomintang member, helped build the Taipei Grand Mosque
Taipei Grand Mosque
The Taipei Grand Mosque is the largest and most famous mosque in Taiwan with a total area of 2,747 square meters. Located in the Daan district of Taipei City, it is Taiwan's most important Islamic structure and was registered as a historic landmark on June 26, 1999 by the Taipei City...
on Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
. Many members of the Hui Ma Clique
Ma clique
The Ma clique or Ma family warlords is a collective name for a group of Muslim warlords in Northwestern China who ruled the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Ningxia from the 1910s until 1949. There were 3 families in the Ma clique , each of them respectively controlled 3 areas, Gansu,...
were also Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
members.
Hui put Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
Blue Sky with a White Sun
Blue Sky with a White Sun
The Blue Sky with a White Sun serves as the design for the party flag and emblem of the Kuomintang , the canton of the flag of the Republic of China, the national emblem of the Republic of China , and as the naval jack of the ROC Navy....
party symbols on their Halal
Halal
Halal is a term designating any object or an action which is permissible to use or engage in, according to Islamic law. The term is used to designate food seen as permissible according to Islamic law...
restaurants and shops. A Christian missionary in 1935 took a picture of a Muslim meat restaurant in Hankow which had Arabic and Chinese lettering indicating that it was Halal (fit for Muslim consumption), and it had two Kuomintang party symbols on it.
Chinese identity
Some prominent Hui, such as Imam Ma Chao-yen of the Taipei Grand MosqueTaipei Grand Mosque
The Taipei Grand Mosque is the largest and most famous mosque in Taiwan with a total area of 2,747 square meters. Located in the Daan district of Taipei City, it is Taiwan's most important Islamic structure and was registered as a historic landmark on June 26, 1999 by the Taipei City...
, refer to themselves and other Hui people as Chinese in English, and consider themselves to practice Chinese, Confucian Culture.
The term Chinese Muslim is sometimes used to refer to Hui people. This is based mainly in the fact that their native language is a Chinese dialect, in contrast to Turkic speaking Salars and other Muslims. During the Qing Dynasty, "Chinese Muslim" (Han Hui) was the term sometimes used to refer to Hui people, which differentiated them from non-Chinese speaking Muslims. In contrast, the Uyghurs were called "Chan Tou Hui" ("Turban Headed Muslim"), and the Turkic Salars called "Sala Hui" (Salar Muslim). While the Turkic speakers often referred the Hui as "Dungan". John Stuart Thomson
John Stuart Thomson
John Stuart Thomson was an author from the United States. He wrote the books China Revolutionized, The Chinese, Bud and Bamboo, and Fil and Filippa: Story of Child Life in the Philippines.-Works:...
, who traveled in China called them "Mohammedan Chinese". Because the Qing Dynasty grouped Muslims by language, the Chinese-speaking Hui had to wear the queue
Queue (hairstyle)
The queue or cue is a hairstyle in which the hair is worn long and gathered up into a ponytail. It was worn traditionally by certain Native American groups and the Manchu of Manchuria.-Manchu Queue:...
, while most Turkic Hui do not, except for their leaders. They have also been called "Chinese Mussulmans", when Europeans wanted to distinguish them from Han Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
.
The Qing authorities considered both Han and Hui to be Chinese, and in Xinjiang Both Hui and Han were classified as merchants regardless of profession. Laws were passed segregating the different races, in theory, keeping Turkic Muslims apart from Hui and Han, however, the law was not followed. Hui and Han households were built closer together in the same area while Turkic Muslims would live farther away from the town.
Before the 1911 Xinhai Revolution
Xinhai Revolution
The Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, also known as Revolution of 1911 or the Chinese Revolution, was a revolution that overthrew China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing , and established the Republic of China...
, when the revolutionaries faced the ideological dilemma on how to unify the country while at the same time acknowledging ethnic minorities, Hui people were noted as Chinese Muslims, separate from Uyghurs. The Jahriyya Sufi leader Ma Yuanzhang said in response to accusations that Muslims were disloyal to China: "Our lives, livelihoods, and graves are in China. . . . We have been good citizens among the Five Nationalities!". The Muslim General Ma Fuxiang
Ma Fuxiang
Ma Fuxiang . Ma, a Dongxiang muslim leader, had a military and political career which spanned the Qing dynasty through the early Republic of China and illustrated the power of family, the role of religious affiliations, and the interaction of Inner Asian China and the national government of...
encouraged Confucian style assimilation for all Muslims into Chinese culture, and even set up an assimilationist group for this purpose. Imams such as Hu Songshan
Hu Songshan
Hu Songshan , a Hui, was born in 1880, in Tongxin County, Ningxia, China. His father was a Gansu ahong belonging to the Khafiya menhuan, a Chinese-style Sufi order. When he was 18 he joined Wang Naibi of Haicheng. At age 21, he became imam of the Yihewani sect, which was founded by Ma Wanfu...
encouraged Chinese nationalism in their mosques, and the Yihewani was led by many nationalist Imams.
For some Uyghurs, there is barely any difference between Hui and Han. A Uyghur social scientist, Dilshat, regarded Hui as the same people as Han, deliberately calling Hui people Han and dismissing the Hui as having only a few hundred years of history.
The Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
party and, Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
, the Kuomintang party leader, considered all the minority peoples of China, including the Hui, as descedants of Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor and semi mythical founder of the Chinese nation, and belonging to the Chinese Nation Zhonghua Minzu
Zhonghua minzu
Zhonghua minzu , usually translated as Chinese ethnic groups or Chinese nationality, refers to the modern notion of a Chinese nationality transcending ethnic divisions, with a central identity for China as a whole...
and he introduced this into Kuomintang ideology, which was propagated into the educational system of the Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
.
Hui as nationality or as religion
Some Hui clans who identify as Hui and are recognized as such by the Chinese government are Hui because of their ancestry only, and do not practice Islam as their religion. They had Muslim ancestors but they do not practice Islam anymore. Throughout history, when their ancestors first abandoned Islam as a religion, their identity has been fluid, claiming their "identity" based on what was convenient for the time. The modern definition of Hui by the Chinese government is as a nationality, and not a religion. These Hui are led to identify as Hui out of interest in their ancestry or because of Affirmative actionAffirmative action
Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...
benefits they will get from the Chinese government. These Hui are concentrated on the southeast coast of China, especially Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
province. In 1913, a westerner noted that many people in Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
province had Arab ancestry, but were no longer Muslim.
Some well known Hui clans around Quanzhou
Quanzhou
Quanzhou is a prefecture-level city in Fujian province, People's Republic of China. It borders all other prefecture-level cities in Fujian but two and faces the Taiwan Strait...
in Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
, such as the Ding
Ding (surname)
Ding is the simplest written Chinese family name in existence . It is written in two strokes and is first on the Chinese surname stroke order.-Speculated origins:...
and the Guo
Guo
"Guo", written in Chinese: 郭, is one of the most common Chinese surnames and means "the wall that surrounds outside a city" in Chinese; it can also be spelled Cok, Guo, Quo, Quoc, Quach, Quock, Que, Quek, Kuo, Kok, Koc, Kwok, Kuok, Gock or Koay....
families, are examples of these Hui who identify as Muslim by nationality but do not practice Islam. Due to more people of these clans identifying as Hui the population of Hui has grown. All these clans needed were only evidence of ancestry from Arab, or Persian, or other Muslim ancestors to be recognized as Hui, and they do not need to practice Islam. It was the Communist party and its policies which encouraged the definition of Hui as a nationality or ethnicity. It is taboo to offer pork to ancestors in the Ding clan family. However, the living Ding family members themselves consume pork. The Chinese Government's Historic Artifacts Bureau preserved tombs of Arabs and Persians whom Hui are descended from around Quanzhou
Quanzhou
Quanzhou is a prefecture-level city in Fujian province, People's Republic of China. It borders all other prefecture-level cities in Fujian but two and faces the Taiwan Strait...
. Many of these Hui worship village gods and do not have Islam as their religion, some are Buddhists, Daoists, followers of Chinese Folk Religions, secularlists, and Christians. Many clans with thousands of members in numerous villages across Fujian recorded their genealogies and had Muslim ancestry. These Hui clans originating in Fujian have strong sense of unity among their members, despite being scattered across a wide area in Asia, such as Fujian, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, and Philippines.
On Taiwan, there are also descendants of Hui who came with Koxinga
Koxinga
Koxinga is the customary Western spelling of the popular appellation of Zheng Chenggong , a military leader who was born in 1624 in Hirado, Japan to Zheng Zhilong, a Chinese merchant/pirate, and his Japanese wife and died in 1662 on the island of Formosa .A Ming loyalist and the arch commander of...
who no longer observe Islam, the Taiwan branch of the Guo (romanized as Kuo in Taiwan) family is not Muslim, but still does not offer pork at ancestral shrines. The Chinese Muslim Association counts these people as Muslims. Also on Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, one branch of this Ding (Ting) family descended from Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar
Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar
Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar al-Bukhari was Yunnan's first provincial governor in history, appointed by the Mongol Yuan Dynasty....
resides in Taisi Township in Yunlin County
Yunlin County
Yunlin County is a county in the western part of Taiwan, the Republic of China. Yunlin is located to the right of the Taiwan Strait, the east of Nantou County and sharing a border with Changhua County divided by the Zhuoshui River. Yunlin is one of the counties of Taiwan that is part of the Chianan...
. They trace their descent through him via the Quanzhou
Quanzhou
Quanzhou is a prefecture-level city in Fujian province, People's Republic of China. It borders all other prefecture-level cities in Fujian but two and faces the Taiwan Strait...
Ding family of Fujian. Even as they were pretending to be Han Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
in Fujian, they still practiced Islam when they originally came to Taiwan 200 years ago, building a mosque, but eventually became Buddhist or Daoist. The Mosque is now the Ding families Daoist temple.
An attempt was made by the Chinese Islamic Society to reconvert the Hui of Fujian back to Islam in 1983, sending 4 Ningxia
Ningxia
Ningxia, formerly transliterated as Ningsia, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Located in Northwest China, on the Loess Plateau, the Yellow River flows through this vast area of land. The Great Wall of China runs along its northeastern boundary...
Imams to Fujian. This futile endeavour ended in 1986, when the final Ningxia Imam remaining decided to go back and leave Fujian. A similar endeavour in Taiwan also failed to meet its goals.
Before 1982, it was possible for a Han to change ethnicity to the Hui nationality just by converting, after 1982 converted Han were no longer counted as Hui, instead, they are now known as "Muslim Han". Hui people consider other Hui who do not observe Islamic practices to still be Hui, they consider it impossible to ever lose their Hui nationality, even if a Hui becomes atheist the other Muslim Hui still consider them to be Muslim, albeit a bad one.
Ethnic tensions
Hatred of foreigners from Chinese Muslim officers stemmed from the arrogant way foreigners handled Chinese affairs, rather than for religious reasons, the same reason other non-Muslim Chinese hated foreigners. Promotion and wealth were other motives among Chinese Muslim military officers for anti-foreignism.The Dungan Revolt and Panthay revolts by the Hui were also set off by racial antagonism and class warfare, rather than the mistaken assumption that it was all due to Islam that the rebellions broke out. During the Dungan revolt fighting broke out between Uyghurs and Hui.
In 1936, after Sheng Shicai expelled 20,000 Kazakh
Kazakhs
The Kazakhs are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia ....
s from Xinjiang to Qinghai, the Hui led by General Ma Bufang
Ma Bufang
Ma Bufang was a prominent Muslim Ma clique warlord in China during the Republic of China era, ruling the northwestern province of Qinghai. His rank was Lieutenant-general...
massacred their fellow Muslims, the Kazakhs, until there were 135 of them left.
The Hui people have had a long presence in Qinghai
Qinghai
Qinghai ; Oirat Mongolian: ; ; Salar:) is a province of the People's Republic of China, named after Qinghai Lake...
and Gansu
Gansu
' is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.It lies between the Tibetan and Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, and Shaanxi to the east...
, or what Tibetans call Amdo
Amdo
Amdo is one of the three traditional regions of Tibet, the other two being Ü-Tsang and Kham; it is also the birth place of the 14th Dalai Lama. Amdo encompasses a large area from the Machu River to the Drichu river . While culturally and ethnically a Tibetan area, Amdo has been administered by a...
, although Tibetans have historically dominated the local politics. The situation was reversed in 1931 when the Hui general Ma Bufang
Ma Bufang
Ma Bufang was a prominent Muslim Ma clique warlord in China during the Republic of China era, ruling the northwestern province of Qinghai. His rank was Lieutenant-general...
inherited the governorship of Qinghai
Qinghai
Qinghai ; Oirat Mongolian: ; ; Salar:) is a province of the People's Republic of China, named after Qinghai Lake...
, stacking his government with Hui and Salar and excluding Tibetans. In his power base in Qinghai's northeastern Haidong Prefecture
Haidong Prefecture
Haidong Prefecture is a prefecture of Qinghai province in Western China. Its name literally means "east of the Lake."-Geography:...
, Ma compelled many Tibetans to convert to Islam and acculturate into the Hui community. When Hui started migrating into Lhasa
Lhasa
Lhasa is the administrative capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China and the second most populous city on the Tibetan Plateau, after Xining. At an altitude of , Lhasa is one of the highest cities in the world...
in the 1990s, racist rumors circulated among Tibetans in Lhasa
Lhasa
Lhasa is the administrative capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China and the second most populous city on the Tibetan Plateau, after Xining. At an altitude of , Lhasa is one of the highest cities in the world...
about the Hui, such as that they were cannibals or ate children. On February 2003, Tibetans rioted against Hui, destroying Hui-owned shops and restaurants. With Islamophobic sentiments high following the Taliban's demolition of two Buddha statues, local Tibetan Buddhist religious leaders lead a regional boycott movement that encouraged Tibetans to boycott Hui-owned shops, spreading the myth that Hui put the ashes of cremated imam
Imam
An imam is an Islamic leadership position, often the worship leader of a mosque and the Muslim community. Similar to spiritual leaders, the imam is the one who leads Islamic worship services. More often, the community turns to the mosque imam if they have a religious question...
s in the cooking water they use to serve Tibetans food, in order to convert Tibetans to Islam.
Occasionally tensions result in scuffles between Hui communities and the native Tibetans and some Muslims have stopped wearing the traditional white caps that identify their religion, and many women now wear a hairnet instead of a scarf in order to better assimilate into the community. The Hui community usually support the Chinese government in anti Tibetan separatism. In addition, Chinese speaking Hui have problems with Tibetan Hui (the Tibetan speaking Kache minority of Muslims).
Tensions with Uyghurs arose because Qing and Republican Chinese authorities used Hui troops and officials to dominate the Uyghurs and crush Uyghur revolts. Xinjiang's Hui population increased by over 520 percent between 1940 and 1982, an average annual growth of 4.4 percent, while the Uyghur population only grew at 1.7 percent. This dramatic increase in Hui population led inevitably to significant tensions between the Hui and Uyghur Muslim populations. Some old Uyghurs in Kashgar
Kashgar
Kashgar or Kashi is an oasis city with approximately 350,000 residents in the western part of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Kashgar is the administrative centre of Kashgar Prefecture which has an area of 162,000 km² and a population of approximately...
remember that the Hui army at the Battle of Kashgar (1934)
Battle of Kashgar (1934)
The Battle of Kashgar was a military confrontation that took place in 1934 during the Xinjiang Wars. Turkic Muslim Uighur and Kirghiz fighters under Emir Abdullah Bughra and the other Turkic separatists began four separate attacks over a six-day period on Hui and Han Chinese soldiers led by General...
massacred 2,000 to 8,000 Uyghurs, which causes tension as more Hui moved into Kashgar from other parts of China. Some Hui criticize Uyghur separatism, and generally do not want to get involved in conflict in other countries over Islam for fear of being perceived as radical. Hui and Uyghur separate from each other, praying and attending different mosques.
Surnames
Hui people commonly believe that their surnames originated as "Sinified" forms of their foreign Muslim ancestors some time during the Yuan or Ming eras. These are some common surnames used by the Hui ethnic group:- Ma for MuhammadMuhammadMuhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
- Mu for MuhammadMuhammadMuhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
- Han for MuhammadMuhammadMuhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
- Ha for Hasan
- Hu for HusseinHusseinHussein , is an Arabic name which is the diminutive of Hassan, meaning "good", "handsome" or "beautiful"...
- Sai for Said
- Sha for ShahShahShāh is the title of the ruler of certain Southwest Asian and Central Asian countries, especially Persia , and derives from the Persian word shah, meaning "king".-History:...
- Zheng for Shams
- Guo (Koay) for Kamaruddin
- Cai (Chuah) for OsmanOsmanOsman is a name of differing origins; an English origin surname , and an Arabic origin given name , it may refer to:-English origin surname:* Arthur Arnold Osman , British nephrologist...
A legend in Ningxia
Ningxia
Ningxia, formerly transliterated as Ningsia, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Located in Northwest China, on the Loess Plateau, the Yellow River flows through this vast area of land. The Great Wall of China runs along its northeastern boundary...
states that four Hui surnames common in the region - Na, Su, La, and Ding - originate with the descendants of one Nasruddin, a son of Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar
Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar
Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar al-Bukhari was Yunnan's first provincial governor in history, appointed by the Mongol Yuan Dynasty....
, who "divided" the ancestor's name (Nasulading, in Chinese) among themselves.
Prominent Hui
- Bai ChongxiBai ChongxiBai Chongxi , , also spelled Pai Chung-hsi, was a Chinese general in the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China and a prominent Chinese Nationalist Muslim leader. He was of Hui ethnicity and of the Muslim faith...
(白崇禧), general of the Republic of China - Bai ShouyiBai ShouyiBai Shouyi , also known as Djamal al-Din Bai Shouyi, was a prominent Chinese Muslim historian, thinker, social activist and ethnologist who revolutionized recent Chinese historiography and pioneered in relying heavily on scientific excavations and reports...
(白壽彝), prominent Chinese historian and ethnologist - Pai Tzu-liPai Tzu-liPai Tzu-li was a Chinese Muslim general of the 36th Division , who served under Generals Ma Zhongying and Ma Hushan. He was the secretary to Ma Zhongying, and his age was estimated to be about 40...
, general of the 36th Division (National Revolutionary Army)36th Division (National Revolutionary Army)The 36th Division was a cavalry division in the National Revolutionary Army. It was created in 1932 by the Kuomintang for General Ma Zhongying, who was also its first commander. It was made almost entirely out of Hui Muslim troops, all of its officers were Hui, with a few thousand Uighurs forced... - Dong FuxiangDong FuxiangDong Fuxiang , a Chinese, was born Gansu, China. He commanded an army of Chinese Muslim soldiers, which included the later Ma clique generals Ma Anliang and Ma Fuxiang. According to the Western calendar, his birth date is in 1839.- Religion :Conflicting accounts are given about his religion and...
(董福祥), Qing Dynasty General - Hai Feng (海峰), a professor of University and an author of a book on DunganDunganDungans , called by Chinese and translated in Chinese language as Hui , are an ethnic group of Persian origin. The Dungans are dispersive people, comprising the majority population of Ningxia Autonomous Region, and scatter in other parts of China...
language - Hui Liangyu (回良玉), a Vice Premier of the People's Republic of ChinaPeople's Republic of ChinaChina , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
- Hu SongshanHu SongshanHu Songshan , a Hui, was born in 1880, in Tongxin County, Ningxia, China. His father was a Gansu ahong belonging to the Khafiya menhuan, a Chinese-style Sufi order. When he was 18 he joined Wang Naibi of Haicheng. At age 21, he became imam of the Yihewani sect, which was founded by Ma Wanfu...
(虎嵩山), Imam and Chinese nationalistChinese nationalistChinese nationalist can refer to:* Chinese nationalism* Kuomintang - Chinese Nationalist Party in Taiwan.... - Jia Xiaochen (贾晓晨), Hong Kong singer
- Lan YuLan Yu (general)Lan Yu was a Chinese general who contributed to the founding of the Ming Dynasty. His ancestral home was in present-day Dingyuan County, Anhui. In 1393 Lan was suspected and accused of plotting a rebellion and eventually put to death by the Hongwu Emperor...
, Ming DynastyMing DynastyThe Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
general who ended the Mongol dream to reconquer China. - Li Zhi (李贄), famous Confucian philosopher in Ming DynastyMing DynastyThe Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
, would perhaps be considered a Hui if he lived today because of some his ancestors being Persian Muslims. - Liu Bin Di was a Hui KMTKuomintangThe Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
officer who died while fighting against Uyghur rebels in the Ili Rebellion. Liu was killed by Uyghur rebels backed by the Soviet Union. - Liu Duo (刘铎), Miss China World 2006
- Cecilia LiuCecilia LiuLiu Shishi , better known as Cecilia Liu, is a Chinese film and television actress and ballerina.-Biography:...
(劉詩詩), an actress - Ma DexinYusuf Ma DexinYusuf Ma Dexin was a Hui Chinese scholar of Islam from Yunnan, known for his fluency and proficiency in both Arabic and Persian, and for his knowledge of Islam.- Hajj :...
(马德新), Islamic scholar in Yunnan - Ma AnliangMa AnliangMa Anliang , a Hui, was born in 1855, in Linxia, Gansu, China. He became a general in the Qing dynasty army, and of the Republic of China. His father was Ma Zhanao, and his younger brother was Ma Guoliang...
(馬安良) Qing Dynasty General - Ma ZhanshanMa ZhanshanMa Zhanshan or Ma Chan-san , was a Chinese Muslim general who initially opposed the Imperial Japanese Army in the invasion of Manchuria, briefly defected to Manchukuo, and then rebelled, and fought against the Japanese in Manchuria and in other parts of China.-Early life:Ma was born...
(馬占山), guerilla warrior against the Japanese during the Second Sino-Japanese WarSecond Sino-Japanese WarThe Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany , the Soviet Union and the United States... - Ma ChengxiangMa ChengxiangMa Chengxiang was a Chinese Muslim general in the National Revolutionary Army. He was the son of general Ma Buqing, and nephew of general Ma Bufang. He commanded Hui cavalry in Xinjiang, the 5th cavalry army. Ma was a member of the Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang party and a hardliner...
, (馬呈祥), warlordWarlordA warlord is a person with power who has both military and civil control over a subnational area due to armed forces loyal to the warlord and not to a central authority. The term can also mean one who espouses the ideal that war is necessary, and has the means and authority to engage in war...
in China during the Republic of ChinaRepublic of ChinaThe Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
era, son of Ma Buqing - Ma Ching-chiangMa Ching-chiangMa Ching-chiang was a Chinese Muslim general of the Republic of China Army, who served in the 1970s. He served as Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Service Forces and an advisor of President Chiang Kai-shek.- External links :*...
, Republic of China ArmyRepublic of China ArmyThe ROC Army's current operational strength includes 3 armies, 5 corps. As of 2005, the Army's 35 brigades include 25 infantry brigades, 5 armoured brigades and 3 mechanized infantry brigades...
Lt. General - Ma Dunjing (1906-1972), (馬惇靖) Republic of China Lieutenant-General
- Ma Dunjing (1910-2003), (馬敦靜) Republic of China Lieutenant-General
- Ma FuluMa FuluMa Fulu , a Hui, was the son of General Ma Qianling, and the brother of Ma Fucai, Ma Fushou, and Ma Fuxiang. He joined the martial arts hall and attended military school. In 1895, he served under general Dong Fuxiang, leading loyalist Chinese Muslims to crush a revolt by rebel Chinese Muslims and...
(馬福綠) Qing Dynasty Army Officer - Ma FushouMa FushouMa Fushou , a Hui, was the son of General Ma Qianling, and the brother of Ma Fucai, Ma Fulu, and Ma Fuxiang. He joined the martial arts hall and attended military school after three years of training in 1892....
(馬福壽) Qing Dynasty Army Officer - Ma FuxiangMa FuxiangMa Fuxiang . Ma, a Dongxiang muslim leader, had a military and political career which spanned the Qing dynasty through the early Republic of China and illustrated the power of family, the role of religious affiliations, and the interaction of Inner Asian China and the national government of...
(馬福祥) Qing Dynasty General and a warlordWarlordA warlord is a person with power who has both military and civil control over a subnational area due to armed forces loyal to the warlord and not to a central authority. The term can also mean one who espouses the ideal that war is necessary, and has the means and authority to engage in war...
in China during the Republic of ChinaRepublic of ChinaThe Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
era - Ma Fuyuan (馬福元) Republic of China general
- Ma Guoliang Qing Dynasty Army Officer
- Ma HaiyanMa HaiyanMa Haiyan was a muslim General of the Qing Dynasty. Originally a Salar rebel, he defected to Qing government during the Dungan revolt and helped crush revolt Dungans.He was the father of Ma Qi and Ma Lin...
(馬海晏) Qing Dynasty General - Ma HongbinMa HongbinMa Hongbin , was a prominent muslim Ma clique warlord in China during the Republic of China era. He was the acting Chairman of Gansu and Ningxia Provinces for a short period.- Life :...
(馬鴻賓) Republic of China general - Ma HongkuiMa HongkuiMa Hongkui , was a prominent warlord in China during the Republic of China era, ruling the northwestern province of Ningxia. His rank was Lieutenant-general. His courtesy name was Shao-yun .- Life :...
(馬鴻逵) Republic of China general - Ma HushanMa HushanMa Hu-shan was the half-brother and follower of Ma Chung-ying, a Ma Clique warlord. He ruled over an area of southern Xinjiang, nicknamed Tunganistan by westerners from 1934 to 1937.-Tunganistan:...
(馬虎山) Republic of China general - Ma JiyuanMa JiyuanMa Jiyuan , was a Ma clique warlord in China during the Republic of China era, ruling the northwestern province of Qinghai. He was the son and only child of general Ma Bufang and commanded nationalist forces against the communists at the Heshui Campaign, Meridian Ridge Campaign, and the Lanzhou...
(馬繼援) Republic of China general - Ma Ju-lung Republic of China general
- Ma Julung, Qing DynastyQing DynastyThe Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
general - Ma ZhancangMa ZhancangMa Zhancang was a Chinese muslim general of the 36th Division , who served under Generals Ma Zhongying and Ma Hushan. At the Battle of Kashgar , he repulsed an attack of Uighurs led by the Syrian Arab Tawfiq Bay, wounding Tawfiq...
(馬占倉) Republic of China general - Ma Lin (warlord)Ma Lin (warlord)Ma Lin, , chairman of the government of Qinghai ; brother of Ma Qi. A Muslim born in 1873, Linxia, Gansu, China, he mainly succeeded to the posts of his brother, being general of southeastern Gansu province, as well as councillor of the Qinghai provincial government and acting head of the...
(馬麟) Qing Dynasty and Republic of China general - Ma LinyiMa LinyiMa Linyi was a Chinese Muslim born in Hunan province during the Qing Dynasty.In 1912 he became Minister of Education of Gansu province, appointed by the Republic of China Kuomintang government....
Gansu Minister of Education - Ma QiMa QiMa Qi was a Chinese Muslim warlord in early 20th century China.-Early life:His grandfather Sa-la Ma , is a Salar. He was born in 1869 in Daohe, now part of Linxia, Gansu, China. His father was Ma Haiyan...
(馬麒), Qing Dynasty and Republic of China general - Ma QixiMa QixiMa Qixi , a Hui from Gansu, was the founder of the Xidaotang, a Chinese-Islamic school of thought.-Education and teaching:Ma was born into the family of a Taozhou ahong of the Beizhuang menhuan, a Sufi order. At 11 years of age, he studied with a non-Muslim who was an examination graduate at the...
, founder of the XidaotangXidaotangXidaotang is a Chinese-Islamic school of thought. It was founded by Ma Qixi , a Chinese Muslim from Lintan in Gansu, at the beginning of the 20th Century... - Ma QianlingMa QianlingMa Qianling was a Dongxiang Muslim General who defected to the Qing Dynasty in 1872 during the Dungan revolt along with his superior General Ma Zhanao and General Ma Haiyan. He then assisted General Zuo Zongtang in crushing the rebel Muslims. His trading activities were a success...
(馬千齡) Qing Dynasty General - Ma Zhanao (馬占鰲) Qing Dynasty General
- Ma ZhanhaiMa ZhanhaiMa Zhanhai was a Chinese Muslim Battalion Commander who was killed in action during the Qinghai Tibet War which was part of the Sino-Tibetan War. He served in Ma Bufang's Qinghai army.-References:...
, Republic of ChinaRepublic of ChinaThe Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
general - Ma HualongMa HualongMa Hualong , was the fifth leader of the Jahriyya, a Dungan Sufi order in northwestern China. From the beginning of the Dungan Revolt in 1862, until his surrender and death in 1871, he was one of the main leaders of the revolt.-Biography:Ma Hualong became the leader of the Jahriyya ca...
(马化龙), one of the leaders of the Muslim Rebellion of 1862-77. - Ma ShaowuMa ShaowuMa Shaowu was a Hui born in Yunnan, in Qing dynasty China. He was a member of the Xinjiang clique during the Republic of China.- Family history :...
(馬紹武), Daotai of KashgarKashgarKashgar or Kashi is an oasis city with approximately 350,000 residents in the western part of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Kashgar is the administrative centre of Kashgar Prefecture which has an area of 162,000 km² and a population of approximately... - Ma ShenglinMa ShenglinMa Shenglin was a Hui Jahriyya Sufi rebel who fought against the Qing dynasty in the Panthay Rebellion.In the late 1860s, when Qing loyalist Muslim General Ma Rulong led the reconquest western Yunnan, Ma Shenglin defended town of Greater Donggou against Ma Rulong’s army in a battle of in central...
(馬聖鱗), Panthay Rebellion rebel and great uncle of Ma Shaowu - Ma Sheng-kuei, a General of the 36th Division (National Revolutionary Army)36th Division (National Revolutionary Army)The 36th Division was a cavalry division in the National Revolutionary Army. It was created in 1932 by the Kuomintang for General Ma Zhongying, who was also its first commander. It was made almost entirely out of Hui Muslim troops, all of its officers were Hui, with a few thousand Uighurs forced...
- Ma Yuanzhang, (馬元章) a JahriyyaJahriyyaJahriyya is a Sufi order in China that once existed in Persia and the Turkish World. Founded by Hadrat Abu Yaqub Yusuf Hamdani, it was brought to China in the 1760s by Ma Mingxin...
Sufi leader, uncle of Ma ShaowuMa ShaowuMa Shaowu was a Hui born in Yunnan, in Qing dynasty China. He was a member of the Xinjiang clique during the Republic of China.- Family history :... - Ma XiaoMa XiaoMa Xiao was a Chinese muslim brigade commander in Liu Wenhui's army. He fought against the Tibetan army in the Sino-Tibetan War.-References:...
, Republic of ChinaRepublic of ChinaThe Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
general in Liu WenhuiLiu WenhuiLiu Wenhui was one of the warlords of Sichuan province during China's Warlord era. Liu who rose to prominence in Sichuan in the 1920s and 1930s, came from a peasant family. At the beginning of his career, he was aligned with the Kuomintang , commanding the Sichuan-Xikang Defence Force from 1927 to...
's army - Ma XinyiMa XinyiMa Xinyi ; was an eminent Hui muslim official and a military general of the late Qing Dynasty in China....
, (馬新貽), official and a military general of the late Qing Dynasty in China. - Tang KesanTang KesanTang Kesan was a Chinese Muslim. In Xikang province during the Sino-Tibetan War Tang Kesan represented the Kuomintang.- Career :Tang was a Muslim from Shandong province, and he promoted Muslim education. He worked with Muslim General Bai Chongxi...
, representaive of the KuomintangKuomintangThe Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
in XikangXikangXikang or Sikang , is a defunct province of the Republic of China , comprising most of the Kham region of traditional Tibet, where Khampas, a subgroup of the Tibetan ethnicity, live. The area is also home to a small minority of Mongol ethnicity... - Kasim TuetKasim TuetKazim Wilson Tuet Wai-sin , known commonly as Kasim Tuet or Wilson Tuet, was a Chinese entrepreneur who played a major role in the development of Islam in Hong Kong. He was one of the pioneers of Chinese Muslim education in the city.-Background and life:Tuet was a member of a Hui family of Gansu...
, entrepreneur and Islamic educationalist in Hong Kong - Su Chin-shouSu Chin-shouSu Chin-shou was a Chinese muslim general of the 36th Division , who served under Generals Ma Zhongying and Ma Hushan. He was the Chief of Staff of General Ma Zhancang and was appointed as one of the two tao-yins of Kashgar in May, 1933...
,a General of the 36th Division (National Revolutionary Army)36th Division (National Revolutionary Army)The 36th Division was a cavalry division in the National Revolutionary Army. It was created in 1932 by the Kuomintang for General Ma Zhongying, who was also its first commander. It was made almost entirely out of Hui Muslim troops, all of its officers were Hui, with a few thousand Uighurs forced... - Sha Baoliang, (沙宝亮), Chinese singer.
- Shi Zhongxin, mayor of HarbinHarbinHarbin ; Manchu language: , Harbin; Russian: Харби́н Kharbin ), is the capital and largest city of Heilongjiang Province in Northeast China, lying on the southern bank of the Songhua River...
from 2002 to February 2007, whose ancestors came from JilinJilinJilin , is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the northeastern part of the country. Jilin borders North Korea and Russia to the east, Heilongjiang to the north, Liaoning to the south, and Inner Mongolia to the west... - Wang Zi-PingWang Zi-PingWang Zi-Ping was a Chinese-Muslim practitioner of Chinese Martial Arts and traditional medicine from Changzhou, Cangxian county, Mengcun, Hebei Province. He served as the leader of the Shaolin Kung Fu division of the Martial Arts Institute in 1928 and was also the vice chairman of the Chinese...
, martial artist who participated in the Boxer RebellionBoxer RebellionThe Boxer Rebellion, also called the Boxer Uprising by some historians or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in northern China, was a proto-nationalist movement by the "Righteous Harmony Society" , or "Righteous Fists of Harmony" or "Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists" , in China between... - Zuo Baogui (左寶貴) (1837–1894), Qing Muslim General from ShandongShandong' is a Province located on the eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history from the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River and served as a pivotal cultural and religious site for Taoism, Chinese...
province, was martyred in PingyangPingyangPingyang may refer to:*Linfen, formerly known as Pingyang, county-level city of Shanxi*Princess Pingyang , Chinese princess of the Tang Dynasty*Pingyang County , of Wenzhou, Zhejiang*Towns named Pingyang...
in Korea by Japanese cannonfire in 1894 while defending the city. A memorial to him was built. - Zhang ChengzhiZhang ChengzhiZhang Chengzhi is a contemporary Hui Chinese author. Often named as the most influential Muslim writer in China, his historical narrative History of the Soul, about the rise of the Jahriyya Sufi order , was the second-most popular book in China in 1994.-Biography:Zhang was born in Beijing in 1948...
(張承志), contemporary author and alleged creator of the term "Red GuardsRed Guards (China)Red Guards were a mass movement of civilians, mostly students and other young people in the People's Republic of China , who were mobilized by Mao Zedong in 1966 and 1967, during the Cultural Revolution.-Origins:...
" - Zheng HeZheng HeZheng He , also known as Ma Sanbao and Hajji Mahmud Shamsuddin was a Hui-Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat and fleet admiral, who commanded voyages to Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa, collectively referred to as the Voyages of Zheng He or Voyages of Cheng Ho from...
(鄭和), a fleet admiral and probably the most famous Muslim in Chinese history.
Related group names
- Dungan (in KyrgyzstanKyrgyzstanKyrgyzstan , officially the Kyrgyz Republic is one of the world's six independent Turkic states . Located in Central Asia, landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east...
, KazakhstanKazakhstanKazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
) - PanthayPanthayPanthays form a group of Chinese Muslims in Burma. Some people refer to Panthays as the oldest group of Chinese Muslims in Burma. However, because of intermixing and cultural diffusion the Panthays are not as distinct a group as they once were.-Etymology:...
(in Burma) - Utsul (in HainanHainanHainan is the smallest province of the People's Republic of China . Although the province comprises some two hundred islands scattered among three archipelagos off the southern coast, of its land mass is Hainan Island , from which the province takes its name...
Island; speakers of a Malayo-Polynesian language, but officially classified by the Chinese government as Hui)
See also
- Chin HawChin HawChin Haw or Chin Ho are Chinese people who migrated to Thailand via Burma or Laos. Most of them were from Yunnan, the southern province of China.- Migration :...
- Chinese Thai, one-third of whom are Hui - Hui pan-nationalismHui pan-nationalismHui pan-nationalism refers to the common identity among diverse communities of Chinese-speaking Muslims ....
- Islam in ChinaIslam in ChinaThroughout the history of Islam in China, Chinese Muslims have influenced the course of Chinese history. Chinese Muslims have been in China for the last 1,400 years of continuous interaction with Chinese society...
- Hui Minorities' War
- Panthay Rebellion
Further reading
- Islam in China, Hui and Uyghurs: between modernization and sinicization, the study of the Hui and Uyghurs of ChinaChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, Jean A. BerlieJean BerlieJean Berlie is a French socio-anthropologist specialising in Asia and China.-Background:...
, White Lotus Press editor, Bangkok, Thailand, published in 2004. ISBN 974-480-062-3, 9789744800626.