There is the possibility that with China's increasing interaction with the rest of the world, the Hui will be subject to the same process that profoundly influenced Islam in South East Asia, and Malaysia in particular, during the latter half of the 20th century - the rustic and austere brand of Islam practised by the Saudis, perceived as the most genuine and orthodox form, displacing more idiosyncratic and relaxed local practices.

Great point about religious tradition being maintained due to observation of filial piety. The Middle Eastern/Central Asian paternal ancestry of the Hui is readily discernable in many of them - longer noses and far more hirsute jowls.

yes, saudi money is no doubt flowing into mosques in nxingia and other parts of china where there are non-trivial numbers of hui. there are though differences with the malaysian case

1) malaysia and southeast asia in general has always had foreign muslims, whether they were arabs, persians or gujaratis, as representatives of "orthodoxy." malays themselves follow the shafi tradition from what i recall, and are rather ostenatious about imitating and emulating arab, as opposed to south asian (hanafi) muslim norms. china proper, until recently, has been rather insulated from foreign inputs, and so there is a more explicit contrast between "new teaching" and "old teaching."

2) muslims, and malays, are the dominant demographic element in malaysia, ergo, a 'dominionist' islamic paradigm can be 'practically' implemented (a soft form is already enforced via the preference given to islam as the 'state religion,' even though 40% of the population is not muslim). in china, amongst the hui, this sort of ideology is basically a prescription for suicide (not that muslims are known to be averse to suicide!). the manchu emperors in fact did consider simply exterminating all of china's hui muslims because of disturbances from their community.

The Middle Eastern/Central Asian paternal ancestry of the Hui is readily discernable in many of them - longer noses and far more hirsute jowls.

yes, the hui are aware of this too. i once read an ethnography where villagers introduced the researcher to an old man whom they termed a 'true hui,' who had a long nose, green eyes and a full beard. even if the hui are less than 10% genetically non-han (which seems likely) in a large enough population a few people will randomly exhibit all the phenotypic markers which are classically 'hui' and so stand out as physical archetypes of the original muslim men who settled down.

p.s. from my reading on this topic in the past it seems likely that in great swaths of southeast china, and in the region around guanghzhou, historically attested hui communities have been absorbed into the han milieu. this did not happen in the northwest and yunnan because the muslim communities were numerous enough vis-a-vi the han to maintain their distinctiveness. conversely, in kaifeng it seems that many members of the jewish community switched to islam in the 19th century, though they continued to wear 'blue caps,' as opposed to the normative white caps typical of muslims (the majority of the kaifeng jews seem to have simply been absorbed into the han).

Nice subject, deserves deeper treatment. Keep it up!

A standard Chinese term for Caucasians is "tall noses" (gao bizi) referring to the high bridge. The first Caucasians in China were middle eastern, and everyone alse inherited it.

Chinese are almost totally indifferent to the small, ridiculous (in Chinese terms) religious differences between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism (and Catholic-Protestant-Mormon), though they're keenly aware that some peoples are better to do business with than others.

I think that the average resident Hui probably is not distinguishable from the average Chinese in the same area, but that as part of ethnicity- affirmation both sides cherry-pick distinctive individuals and traits. This is not to say that there are not some western-looking Hui.

Chinese Islam, like the Polish Uhlan Islam I mentioned earlier, strikes me as what assimilated, westernized, modern Islam could be. And like Unitarian-Episcopal-Reform Jewish religion, it's lax.

I still believe that the biggest single negative influence in Islam is the very heavily subsidized Saudi missionaries, madrasas, and the Saudi charitable work which gives them a good reputation. Fundamentalism is not spontaneous.

I doubt that fundamentalism will get far in China, not even in Xinjiang where the Uighur Muslims are a majority. There've been many signs of unrest but the Chinese security services are fearsome and Xinjiang is pretty dependent on the rest of China.

not even in Xinjiang where the Uighur Muslims are a majority.

they are only a majority in "uigheristan," that is, the tarim basis. dzungharia is mostly han. it seems likely that xinjiang as a whole is already majority han. it seems the uighers are likely to be demographically swamped....

Muslims in China, like Christians, are heavily persecuted. The idea that they are somehow "assimilated," especially in areas like Xinjiang, is ridiculous. The only way that it could be considered to be assimilation is if you define assimilation as meaning "becoming non-Islamic." China has extensive programs in Xinjiang designed to minimize the role of Islam with the ultimate goal of abolishing its presence there completely.

This is a fairly underreported story, but I've seen it in numerous places, including numerous mainstream papers.

arcane, the gist of my comment was of course not about xinjiang. and remember, the majority of muslims in china speak a chinese dialect as their mother tongue, the uighers loom large because of regional concentration, not because they are the absolute majority of believers in islam. the chinese have traditionally had different attitudes toward chinese muslims (hui or dungan) as opposed to non-chinese ethnic muslims. these distinctions really are important, you can't gloss them over.

I agree with you on that, I was just responding to some of the other comments... sorry!

it's cool.

Interesting Issue Razib. Good Job..
I knew that Muslims are from the minority in China, but I never knew that there were ancient roots of them.
Thanx..

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