veiled4allah veiled4allah: Chinese gleams of Muslim light

Al-Muhajabah's Islamic Blogs Home
« Muslim voices 8/2 to 8/9 | veiled4allah archives | Imagine the America you want to live in #4 »
Comments (3, last by Al-Munaqabah) | Trackbacks (1 in, 0 out) | 

Email this link | Print this entry | RDF

Further Reading | Elsewhere | Search Options
Add this entry to your hotlist (View your hotlist)

Chinese gleams of Muslim light

Date: August 09, 2003 | 10 Jumada al-Akhir 1424 Hijriah
Blog: veiled4allah
Subjects: history
One of the mysteries that continues to puzzle historians is why, at the height of its global power and influence in the 1400s, China chose to turn inwards and away from the rest of the world. Nicholas Kristof provides a good overview of this question in 1492: The Prequel.

Kristof gives a great deal of attention to the great fleet of the Chinese admiral, Zheng He. A good profile of Zheng He is Admiral of the Western Seas. One historian argues that Zheng He reached America 72 years before Columbus did.

An interesting fact about Zheng He is that he was a Muslim. This aspect of his story is given prominence in Zheng He: The Chinese Muslim Admiral.

Muslims have been in China since at least the 700s C.E. and there are approximately 20 million Muslims in China today. Historical Sketch of the Hui Muslims of China provides some information.

Many Chinese Muslims are from the Xinjiang province. As its former name of Eastern or Chinese Turkestan indicates, Xinjiang is closely related to the Central Asian republics such as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. The major ethnic group are the Uighurs.

Xinjiang did not come under effective control of China until 1949, and has been struggling since then for independence. As Human Rights Watch reports:

Much like Tibetans, the Uighurs in Xinjiang, have struggled for cultural survival in the face of a government-supported influx by Chinese migrants, as well as harsh repression of political dissent and any expression, however lawful or peaceful, of their distinct identity. Some have also resorted to violence in a struggle for independence Chinese authorities have not discriminated between peaceful and violent dissent, however, and their fight against "separatism" and "religious extremism" has been used to justify widespread and systematic human rights violations against Uighurs, including many involved in non-violent political, religious, and cultural activities.
Additional reports on China's repression in Xinjiang and of Chinese Muslims are Strangers in Their Own Land and Muslims refuse to be pushed out of Beijing. Added: You can also read about the plight of Uighurs in neighboring Kyrgyzstan.

On a brighter note, you can read about Sufi orders in China. Japanese Muslim author Sachiko Murata has written Chinese Gleams of Sufi Light, a translation of two Chinese Sufi books and an examination of their historical and religious context.
~ Posted by Al-Muhajabah, a member of the reality-based community, at 03:35 PM

Comments

Brian Ulrich said: Total comments: 41   gold stargold stargold stargold star

Subject: Re: Chinese gleams of Muslim light

The Oxford History of Islam has a really good intro to Islam in China, though it favors the modern period.

~ Posted at August 9, 2003 06:27 PM | Comment Permalink
Ken Hagler said: Total comments: 43   gold stargold stargold stargold star

Subject: Re: Chinese gleams of Muslim light

I've been interested in Zheng He since I first heard about the Chinese voyages of exploration a few years ago. The best source of information I've found on him and his voyages is a book called When China Ruled the Seas. It's very thorough, and much more interesting than a typical academic book.

There's a retired British submarine commander who believes that Zheng He actually circumnavigated the Earth, and he's trying to build a replica of one of the big treasure ships to prove it could be done. If he can pull it off, it will be the largest wooden ship build in 600 years.

The drawing comparing a treasure ship to the Santa Maria doesn't really do the Chinese ships justice. They're a lot more impressive when you compare them to a WWII aircraft carrier...



~ Posted at August 9, 2003 08:08 PM | Comment Permalink
moderator Al-Munaqabah said: Total comments: 996   gold stargold stargold stargold stargold star

Subject: Re: Chinese gleams of Muslim light

I think the British submarine guy may be the same amateur historian that I linked to about whether Zheng He discovered America.

This was a fun one to research smile

~ Posted at August 9, 2003 08:18 PM | Comment Permalink

All comments are copyright their authors

RSS feed of comments on this entry

Finished reading and posting comments? Return to veiled4allah

Trackbacks

What is trackback?
You Pinged Me

Here's who's pinging me:

RSS feed of trackbacks to this entry

Note: The links in the "You pinged me" section are generated automatically as a way of showing who is linking to me. Display of these links does not constitute endorsement of the content of those sites.


Further reading

Recent entries

The following is a list of the ten most recent entries in veiled4allah as of Mar 03, 2006:

View a list of all entries in veiled4allah

Related entries

This entry has been tagged as covering the following subjects: history. The following is a list of the ten most recent entries in Al-Muhajabah's Islamic Blogs that share any of these tags:

A semantic analysis of this entry also suggests the following keywords to search for related content on: chinese gleams, human rights, uighurs xinjiang, british submarine, muslims china, chinese, Chinese, china, China, heng, muslims, Muslims, Xinjiang, xinjiang, been, uighurs, Uighurs, Muslim, muslim, religious, good, admiral, Sufi, sufi, years

What links here: View a list of other entries in this blog (if any) that link to this entry

Or look generally for informational pages on my website tagged with history

Results of Semantic Search

A semantic search of Al-Muhajabah's Islamic Blogs suggests the following as the ten entries most closely related to this entry:



Elsewhere

External resources

Check out other web pages (if any) that I've bookmarked via del.icio.us that share the same tags: history

Explore reference materials from Answers.com about these subjects: history

Read news stories at Common Times about these subjects: history

View search results at gada.be metasearch service for these subjects: history

Find books at Amazon.com on these subjects: history

Other views

Check Waypath for blog entries generally related to this entry, or Technorati or Bloglines for blog entries that link to this entry.

Technorati tags: View blog entries, bookmarks and photos tagged by others with the same subjects as this entry:



Search options

     

For external resources on the topic of this entry, you can run a search for its title chinese gleams of muslim light (Google, DayPop, Feedster) or keyword(s) history (Google, DayPop, Feedster). DayPop is a search engine similar to Google that focuses on searching news sources and blogs. Feedster searches blogs via RSS feeds.

Home
All materials in veiled4allah are written by Al-Muhajabah unless otherwise noted. You may copy, display, or distribute the materials in veiled4allah for non-commercial purposes as long as you give me proper attribution as the author.