ABSTRACT
China’s Muslims are now facing their second millennium under Chinese rule. Many of the challenges they confront remain the same as they have for the last 1400 years of interaction with Chinese society, but many others are new as a result of China’s transformed and increasingly globalized society, and especially the watershed events of the September 11 terrorist attacks with the subsequent “war on terrorism.” Muslims in China live as minority communities amid a sea of people who, in their view, are largely pork-eating, polytheist, secularist, and “heathen” (kafir). Nevertheless, many of their small and isolated communities have survived in rather inhospitable circumstances for over a millennium. In response to the theme of this book, this chapter explores the integration and non-integration of Muslim groups and their identity conflicts in China today, charting the background of recent expressions of violence among some Muslim groups.
