Between the state and Islam: Hui Muslim women's religious participation in public space in China
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2010
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Marshallsay, Z.
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APSA 2010 : Connected globe: conflicting worlds, 2010, pp.1-12
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APSA 2010 (27 Sep 2010 : Melbourne, Australia)
Abstract
Muslims living as minorities face enormous challenges in preserving their religious and cultural identity and a variety of strategies have been undertaken in this regard. The Hui Muslims, the largest Muslim minority nationality community in China, have undertaken a strategy of accommodation through reconciling the requirements of Islam and Muslim culture with their host culture, and also in ensuring that Islamic education be the basis to safeguard Islam's core values. This paper focuses on Hui Muslim women's appropriation of public social and cultural space for religious and educational purposes through women's mosques which have been in existence for over 300 years principally in the Central Chinese provinces. Today, these mosques under the leadership and guidance of women religious leaders and educators are nonetheless under contending pressures from both the state and orthodox and reformist Chinese Muslim circles. The Chinese communist state ensures constitutional and legal provisions on gender equality and minority nationality rights, yet is ambivalent on matters relating to religion despite constitutional guarantees of religious freedom. At the same time, in Chinese Muslim circles, as a consequence of globalisation and greater contact with the wider Muslim world, a separate Muslim women's religious culture is seen to act against Islamic orthodoxy on one level, and as obstacles to changes in a modern state. The consequences and implications of women-centred religious culture for women's prospects of greater participation in a changing society is the central consideration of this paper.
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Copyright 2010 Zaniah Marshallsay