ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a case study of the Chinese Hui author Zhang Chengzhi and how he has used religious and political symbols to imagine the past and construct the present in post-Mao China. Zhang's writings are known in China both for exotic ethnic/religious stories and for their bold attacks on Western imperialism and global capitalism in the name of Islam. Islam in China and Hui Muslims in particular are still an insufficiently studied area. The chapter discusses and critiques Bruce Lincoln's theory of myth and political myth-making in order to provide a theoretical framework for the analysis of Zhang's religious and political rhetoric and of his popularity in China. It also explains that his justification for people's violence' in contemporary politics, based on his mythical imaging of an Islamic past. The Jahrinya Sufi order, with which Zhang Chengzhi identifies, played an important role in bloody Hui rebellions in Yunnan, Shensi and Gansu provinces between 1862 and 1877.
