Islam is fully respected in China

So many ‘reports’ claiming that the Chinese authorities are trying to wipe out Islam in China have appeared recently, that it will be useful to share my observations during a recent trip through Gansu (September, 2019).

Cultural Revolution

However, my first encounter with the respect for Islam in China was during the most anti-religious period of its recent history: the Cultural Revolution. When I studied in China in 1975, the dining hall in my school had a separate section for Halal food. It was even separated from our section and one of the caretakers of the dining hall noted that ‘Muslims don’t like to smell pork’. That struck me as odd, but at least it was a clear sign of respect for Muslim dietary habits.

No non-Halal food

September 1 - 18, 2019, I had the privilege of joining a group of 10 people in a road trip through South Gansu and North Sichuan. While much of that trip was through Tibetan area, we also crossed a Muslim region during the first stage of the trip.

When we drove through a piece of Ningxia on our way to Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu, we had lunch at a Halal restaurant attached to a gas station. That by itself is a sign of respect for the large number of Muslims in the region. Look at the sign on the wall.

Apart from the problematic English, this proves that the authorities do not allow non-Muslims to bring their own food and eat it there.

Lanzhou

Driving into Lanzou, I noted women wearing hijabs. My first guess was that these were visitors from nearby Muslim regions. However, the following day, when we walked through the city, I saw many more. That couldn’t all be domestic tourists.

During our walk along the Yellow River that flows through Lanzhou, I noted a large mosque.

I immediately took a picture, believing it was THE Mosque of Lanzhou. That proved wrong. That day I saw several smaller and larger, older and modern, mosques. Moreover, all of them were marked by crescent moons. The Western media reports about mosques being torn down or having the crescent moon taken off are obviously wrong.

Linxia

The following day, our group passed through Linxia. Linxia is an autonomous prefecture, a special administrative institution in China meant for regions in which an ethnic minority actually is the majority. Linxia is inhabited by the Hui who are descendants of merchants from Persia and Central Asian countries who travelled to China over the Silk Road and settled in that region as outposts for their home regions. They used to speak various languages, but as they were doing business with Chinese counterparts, they soon started to communicate in Chinese. When you look at the photos in this blog, you will easily recognise non-Chinese features, but Hui now speak Chinese.

Sitting in the front passenger seat of our car, I had my radar open for minarets of mosques popping up from the villages along the road. When spotting the first, I tried to make a picture, but that proved hard from a rapidly driving car (that part of the trip we were still using expressways). However, then I had the same experience as the day before: there were so many mosques everywhere, that it seemed unnecessary to make a picture of even one, so I gave up trying to shoot one while driving.

An interesting aspect was that many villages had two mosques: an older one in the traditional Chinese Muslim style and a new one, in Arab style. Apparently, that is the fashion nowadays. This contradicted another criticism about the position of Islam in China in the recent Western media. Many report that the Chinese government has promulgated that new mosques in China should be design in the traditional Chinese style and that middle eastern style mosques would be torn down. Even if such a regulation was issued, it is very openly ignored in Gansu. All new mosques are in Arab style and all have crescent moons.

Once we drove into the city of Linxia, it was easier to take pictures. And . . . the targets for pictures were easy to pick due to their size.

I am also adding picture of a butcher as an example of the middle east-like ambiance and a hijab store with a convenient indication of its merchandise in English.

Buddhism and Islam

Yet the following day, we drove to Langmusi, a town known for its two famous Buddhist monasteries. However, the town also has a Muslim quarter. I saw a sign saying: ‘Muslim Quarter’, indicating that the local authorities regard this as something that may interest visitors. When we had almost reached that sign, we heard a loadspeaker broadcast by the Imam announcing the next prayers. The mosque at Langmusi is a traditional Chinese one, combining Chinese and Central Asian architecture.

The inside is like all mosques all over the world.

Buddhism and Islam coexist peacefully in Langmusi.

During a recent visit to Zhangjiajie (January 2020), a scenic region in Hunan, I noticed an interesting propaganda poster for 'civilised tourism'. Zhangjiajie is a minority region, and 'honouring local habits' was one of the slogans on the poster. It was illustrated with the following picture

The picture shows young tourist eating a pork sausage from a pack shouting: 'Pork really is most delicious!'. The man in the background, whose identity is clearly indicated by his clothes and the building in the background, is appalled. The government department in charge of making this poster clearly sees disrespect for Halal dietary habits as a typical example of such undesired behaviour.