Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China (Studies on Ethnic Groups in China) |
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You Are Here: Home > History Books > Islamic History > Item 156
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Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China (Studies on Ethnic Groups in China)
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by Jonathan N. Lipman
Sales Rank: 272799
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List Price: $25.00
$20.00
At Amazon
on 9-14-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 266 pages
Published by: University of Washington Press February 1998
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0295976446
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0295976440
Book Dimensions:
8.8 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
Weighs: 1.1 pounds
Reader Reviews
Most Americans don't know squat about Islam itself, let alone Islam in China. Yet today there are about 15 million Muslims in China, centered mostly in the northwest (Xinjiang province), along the margins of the old Silk Road. And they aren't just an insignificant minority: in the Middle Ages, for instance, Chinese Muslims played a central role in bridging the gulf between China, the Middle East, and Europe, bringing goods and knowledge both ways. (...) Jonathan Lipman's "Familiar Strangers" explores some aspects of Islam in northwestern China from the first arrival of Muslims there in the 8th century up through the 20th. Like most similar histories, it revolves around two major dilemmas that have constantly faced Chinese Muslims (as opposed to non-Chinese Muslims living in China): first, is Islam compatible with Chinese culture? and second, can Chinese Muslims themselves properly be considered Chinese? China's "host" culture has always tended to absorb alien peoples and faiths -- whether they're Mongols and Turks (the so-called "barbarians"), Buddhists from India, or whoever. There were always strangers lurking at the gates of China, drooling with envy or burning with ambition, but almost every one of them who managed to break through eventually assimilated and became, in effect, Chinese: in fact, many sought to do so in the first place. But Muslims were an exception. Their Islamic faith forbade them to have the same kind of relationship with traditional Chinese culture as other groups: for instance, ancestor worship and reverencing the emperor were antipathetic to Islam. Consequently, Chinese Muslims were, while not complete strangers, "familiar strangers", ethnically Chinese, foreign by affiliation. Lipman's history isn't a comprehensive account of Muslim culture on the northwestern Chinese frontier. Instead, it examines how Chinese Muslims reacted to the complexity of belonging to two cultures at once. Lipman explores, for instance, Muslim reaction to acculturation policies under the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and Muslims' role as "strangers in bad times" during the Ming-Qing cataclysm in the 1640s. Chapter 3, "Connections: Muslims in the Early Qing, 1644-1781", analyses the introduction of Naqshabandiya Sufism into China in the early 17th century and the struggle between two rival forms of it -- the orthodox Khafiya and the radical Jahriya -- in the 18th century, the latter a branch of revivalist Wahhabism, the earliest modern version of so-called Islamic "fundamentalism". Chapter 4, "Strategies of Resistance," explores the period between 1784 and 1895, looking at three large-scale Muslim rebellions against the Qing state. Chapter 5 examines Muslim "Strategies of Integration" during the Nationalist period and under the People's Republic. Finally, Lipman sums his findings in chapter 6. The book is a scholarly read and not always easy going. If you don't have much previous knowledge of Chinese history, start elsewhere. But if you've got the background, it's a great read.
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Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China (Studies on Ethnic Groups in China)
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Price: $20.00
Updated on 9-14-2008.
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