Encyclopedia of Islam

children

  

137  J

---

and government inefficiency and corruption 

have also had detrimental effects on children 

in Muslim countries. International agencies 

and relief organizations, including a number of 

Islamic ones, have sometimes intervened to help 

children faced with the harmful effects of such 

developments, but the resources of these organi-

zations are limited.

See also 

abortion

; 

biography

; 

birth

 

rites

; 

cir

-

cUmcision

; 

FUnerary

 

ritUals

; 

kuttab

.

Further reading: Hamid Ammar, Growing Up in an Egyp-

tian Village: Silwa, Province of Aswan (1954. Reprint, 

London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966); Elizabeth 

Warnock Fernea, ed., Children in the Muslim Middle East

(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995); Avner Giladi, 

Children of Islam: Concepts of Childhood in Medieval 

Muslim Society (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992).

China

The People’s Republic of China includes within 

its borders a substantial Muslim population. 

According to the 1990 census, there were 

17,587,370 Muslims in China. Chinese-speaking 

Muslims, or Hui, numbered 8,602,978 and are 

the largest percentage of the Muslim population. 

The Hui can be found throughout China—there 

are large communities on the southern Chi-

nese coast, in Guangdong and Fujian provinces, 

which had very early contact with Muslim sea 

traders. In Yunan province in southeast China, 

there is also a sizeable Muslim population. There 

are some quite different variations of belief 

and practice between these and the other Hui 

communities that live in close proximity with 

Han Chinese society and the Hui of Gansu and 

Ningxia provinces in the north. In these two 

provinces, Muslims constitute the majority of 

the population, and therefore Islamic social and 

cultural characteristics are stronger and more 

visible. Xinjiang, in Chinese Central Asia, is also 

a majority Muslim province. However, the Hui 

constitute a minority there, while mostly Turkic-

speaking  peoples dominate. In this last group, 

the majority are the Uyghurs, who numbered 

about 7,214,431 in 1990. There are also a large 

number of Kazakh, Kirghiz, Uzbek, and other 

Muslim ethnic groups in Xinjiang.

The influence of i

slam

 spread in China fol-

lowing the conversion of the Mongol rulers of the 

13th century. With the rise of the Qing dynasty in 

the 18th and 19th centuries, discrimination and 

persecution increased along with greater outside 

political, economic, and social control. During 

this period, there were prominent Muslim rebel-

lions and attempts to create an Islamic state in 

Yunan as well as Xinjiang and Gansu. Sufi broth-

erhoods, in particular the Naqshabandis, played 

a large role in the rebellions. With the end of any 

central state control following the Nationalist 

Revolution in 1911, there were once again large-

scale uprisings in Xinjiang, Gansu, and Ningxia, 

often pitting one Muslim ethnic group against 

another, with the Hui allying more often with the 

Han than with other Muslims. These uprisings 

ended as the Chinese Communist Party consoli-

dated control over the region in the late 1940s and 

1950s. The Communist state has recognized 10 

separate Muslim nationalities that enjoy a greater 

degree of autonomy in areas where they are a 

minority. However, in Xinjiang, Han immigration 

has increased significantly, which has hindered 

the economic development of the indigenous 

population. This has brought some unrest to the 

region, leading to increased repression by the Chi-

nese Communist authorities in their “war against 

terrorism.”

See also c

entral

 a

sia

 

and

 

the

 c

aUcasUs

; 

com

-

mUnism

; n

aqshabandi

 s

UFi

 o

rder

.

David Reeves