Ramadan in the Big Apple: A Muslim's Journey

The last two days of the first week of Ramadan, my wife and I finally embarked on our long-awaited trip to New York. We were at the train station by the crack of dawn, before 7 AM, with the sky still dark. Even for a Monday, the station was buzzing with people; I figured a lot of folks, like us, were taking advantage of spring break. We'd planned this trip over a month ago. My wife's main goal was to see a special exhibition at the Asian Society Museum. I threw in, "Let's check out the Metropolitan Museum of Art while we're at it!" But as for what to do with the rest of our time, we were drawing a blank. My wife basically just threw up her hands, saying aside from wanting some good eats (most trips for us Muslims eventually boil down to that one line: "Let's get some good food"), she had no other demands.

When I think of New York these days, my mind doesn't immediately go to iconic landmarks like the Statue of Liberty or the World Trade Center. It feels like "freedom" and the concept of "global trade" are showing signs of continuous decline, perhaps on the brink of being swallowed by the tides of history once again. Instead, what pops into my head are the rumors floating around: daily shootings, rats scurrying through the subways, and all that jazz. The reports and the spread of these stories aren't really about genuinely caring whether New Yorkers are doing well; it's more about proving that folks in New York are worse off than we are. Faced with that kind of information environment, I just decided to go with the flow and document whatever I saw and heard, getting a firsthand feel for everything.

Flushing, Queens: The New Chinese Capital in America

We booked our hotel in Flushing, Queens. When we made the reservation, there was only one reason for choosing that spot: it was cheap. After a full day of hitting the museums, we got back to Flushing around 8 PM. New York, which had been bright and sunny all day, was now buffeted by strong winds, with icy raindrops occasionally hitting us. As my wife and I shivered our way out of the subway station, the streets were still packed with people. Suddenly, my wife shouted, "Sugar-roasted chestnuts!" I gazed at the sign, which looked just like the ones back home in China, and felt a bit disoriented. I said, "We've really come home this time." When I spotted a "Zhang Liang Malatang" (a popular Chinese hotpot chain), I was even more convinced. Most of the people walking around were Chinese faces, the sidewalks teeming with pedestrians, just like Shanghai's People's Square during rush hour. Mandarin was understood everywhere, and most of the signs on both sides of the street were written in Chinese. If you stepped away from the bustling commercial strips into the residential areas, you'd hear passersby talking on the phone with family in a Northeastern Chinese dialect, while a mother behind you might be reminding her school-aged daughter in Mandarin to study hard. If an American were knocked out cold and thrown into a sack, then dropped onto a street in Flushing, they'd wake up in a panic, convinced they'd been sold to China.

Of course, if you're looking for a quiet and safe place in New York, Flushing and its surrounding areas can probably fit the bill. Otherwise, Chinese people wouldn't choose to settle here. Compared to the old Chinatown downtown, a brother I met at the mosque who lives in Flushing put it this way: "It's safer here. Old Chinatown is Manhattan, after all, and you've got all sorts of characters there." I readily agreed. Following the Chinese is the way to go. Chinese people are known for "voting with their feet"—if more and more Chinese are flocking to a place, it pretty much tells you it's at least safe to live there. My wife and I chose a Malaysian restaurant there for our iftar (breaking the fast) that night. The restaurant had a halal certification, but the staff told us the Hainanese chicken rice wasn't halal. In the States, you see this kind of restaurant quite a bit. It’s a good reminder to always ask, even with a halal sign, because when it comes to halal, you can never be too careful.
 

 
 
 
 
Masjid Syed Jamaluddin Afghani: A Dawn Prayer Revelation

This mosque, Masjid Syed Jamaluddin Afghani, is one of four in the Flushing area, named after the renowned modern scholar, Afghani. You can tell from the name that it was founded by the Afghan community. Naming mosques after people is nothing out of the ordinary and pretty common. Not far from here, there's Masjid Hazrati Abu Bakr Siddique, and the Islamic Center in Midtown Manhattan is Masjid Usman Bin Affan. There are countless mosques named after Ali, too. So, a mosque named after a person doesn't really tell you much. This mosque is about two blocks from me, so I decided to go there for Fajr (dawn prayer).

I left home a little before 5:45 AM, and folks in Flushing were still fast asleep. The only people out on the streets were those like me, responding to the call that "prayer is better than sleep," and Koreans heading to church activities. It was my first time seeing churches hold events so early. As I walked, I kept looking at the churches along the road; people were constantly going in, and the music was already blaring inside.

It took about fifteen minutes to get to the mosque. It was too dark to see the whole building, but luckily, a few people wearing hats went in ahead of me, showing me where the door was. Once inside, Fajr hadn't started yet, but there were already about twenty people gathered, mostly South Asian faces, all silently waiting for the Imam to arrive. About five minutes later, there was still no sign of the Imam, and at this point, some folks started to get a little antsy. Someone quickly pushed an elder from the community forward to lead the prayer. An older gentleman in front of me seemed to have a different opinion, suggesting we wait another five minutes, and if the Imam still didn't show, then start. But nobody paid him any mind; they stuck to the schedule and prayed on time.
 



Post-Prayer Greetings: A Lingering Connection

After the prayer, I, as usual, shook hands with the people passing by who were also praying. The others in the mosque weren't in a rush to leave after the prayer; instead, they greeted each other and chatted. Greeting everyone after prayer can actually take a fair bit of time; when there are a lot of people, you feel like you're saying salam a hundred times. Have you ever experienced the "hand-shaking" (shaking hands and exchanging salams) after Eid prayers? I go through this almost every morning after Fajr in our "P-town" (Princeton). After the Imam finishes saying salam to the left and right, the crowd slowly starts to stir. Two strangers who meet will shake hands, smile, and say salam. If you've met a few times, you'll also ask, "How are you doing?" And if you're really familiar, it's like old friends who haven't seen each other in eight hundred years; their eyes meet, a look of surprise and delight crosses their faces simultaneously, then comes the handshake, the salam, and that's not even enough for the ritual. They'll also give each other a hug and exchange a few pleasantries. As other familiar faces pass by, the cycle begins anew.

About ten minutes later, most of the people in the mosque had pretty much left. At this point, the main prayer hall was filled with the sound of an old man and a younger man arguing. They seemed to disagree on the time for imsak (the start of fasting before Fajr). The old man spoke with great conviction, saying that most of the Ulama (scholars) believe that the Fajr time and imsak are the same, and you can pray after imsak. As for ending 15 minutes earlier, that's just for caution. His powerful voice seemed a bit out of place with his frail, trembling body. The younger brother, who was likely the mosque's spokesperson, spoke much softer and more politely. He was probably explaining to the old man what the mosque's regulations were, and so on. The old man cut him off, sticking to his point, and told him, "I don't want to hear what the mosque says. What the mosque decides has nothing to do with me. I just want to tell you what the scholars explain." With that, he limped off, leaning on his cane.

Honestly, it took me years to figure out this issue myself. Imsak is simply the beginning of Fajr time, and iftar (breaking fast) is the beginning of Maghrib time. Ending imsak 15 minutes early and delaying iftar by two or three minutes is purely a precautionary measure. Once you understand that, it becomes much easier to grasp the timing of imsak and iftar. Of course, this was a prime example of the confusion I experienced in my earlier years due to not knowing any better. Understanding the Deen greatly helps in practicing it; a muddled account simply means a muddled life.
 



A Sudanese Brother and a Tire Thief's Den

While they were arguing, I sat against the wall, reciting Quran and eavesdropping (as they say in Northeast China) on their "chit-chat." A young man sitting across from me seemed undisturbed by their discussion; every time I looked his way, he was quietly reading the Quran. When only the two of us were left in the mosque, I got up and walked over to him, pretending to look at the bulletin board above his head, all while trying to figure out how to strike up a conversation. To my surprise, as soon as I got in front of him, he greeted me: "Brother, where are you from?" My heart leapt with joy, and the floodgates of conversation immediately opened. We briefly introduced ourselves. He was Sudanese, named Wasim, and a medical student.

Soon after, another older uncle joined us. They seemed to know each other. The uncle asked Wasim if he was busy, and the young man said, "You know how it is in the hospital; I can only bounce between the mosque and the hospital." I asked, "So you don't go shopping then? How do you get your groceries and stuff?" He just said, "Amazon." The uncle, listening in, chuckled and said, "I still prefer to buy things myself, especially fruits and vegetables. I have to see them with my own eyes." We chatted casually about various topics. They asked me about the situation in China, and I shared my thoughts on Flushing. I told them that what surprised me most about Flushing was how Chinese people online always complained about people here stealing tires. I asked if it was true. Wasim thought for a moment and said that theft is pretty common. "There's a well-known shop around here," he explained, "if you lose something, you go to that shop, and nine times out of ten, you'll be able to buy your stolen item back."

Chinese Muslims in Flushing: A Scattered Community

Compared to Wasim, the uncle was an old hand, very familiar with Flushing. I asked these two brothers living in Flushing if they had ever seen any Chinese Muslims here. The young man thought for a bit and said he knew a young man named Omar, whom he often saw on Fridays and at some hadith (Prophetic tradition) study classes. Besides him, he hadn't seen anyone else. The uncle seemed to know Omar too. He said that the first time he saw that Chinese man, he had long hair. The uncle gestured with his hand to show the approximate length. He told Omar, "Hair this long isn't very good." The second time the uncle saw Omar, he was surprised to find that Omar's hair was cut very, very short. I asked, "Besides Omar?" They tried hard to remember. "Yes, there was one more, but not Hui Muslim like you." I pressed a bit further, "Was Omar a convert or born Muslim?" They said he was a convert.

I then voiced my confusion. I told them it seemed difficult to find Chinese people in the mosque, and it wasn't like the Indo-Pakistani or other ethnic groups who have their own mosques. The uncle immediately corrected my second point. He said, "Mosques are the same everywhere, so there's no need for Chinese people to have their own mosque. That's Islam." The uncle told me to observe the churches in Flushing; there are so many of them, almost every denomination has its own church, and people from different denominations usually don't go to each other's churches. "But here, all the mosques are the same. Chinese people can go to any mosque. Every mosque has the same prayer, the same Jumu'ah. People from different backgrounds can enter confidently. Maybe Chinese Muslims are just spread out among all the mosques." The uncle's words were confirmed later during my stroll; there was one main road where almost every intersection had a Korean church.

The Mosque's True Form: A Hidden Gem

After about an hour of chatting, the uncle got up and motioned for us, inviting us to see the mosque's true "form." The place where we had just prayed was probably less than 100 square meters, and I was thinking, in such a large city, how much room could there possibly be for imagination? Following the uncle's lead, we walked out of the main prayer hall and turned towards a basement entrance. I followed him skeptically. When he opened the door, Wasim and I were both blown away, exclaiming that it was a whole other world! It turned out the place where we had just prayed was just a temporary side hall; the real mosque hadn't been used in winter because the heating hadn't been fixed. Including the basement, this mosque had three floors. The basement was a common area, with even a room for washing the deceased (ghusl). The second and third floors were the men's and women's prayer halls, respectively.

I asked the uncle, "Are there many women?" The uncle said that on Eid, the third floor was packed. I estimated that would be a few hundred people. I asked the uncle how much such a mosque cost and if it was funded by Muslim donations. The uncle said, "About $3 million. Donations from ordinary Muslims definitely aren't enough. There are always some wealthy individuals who cover the vast majority of the costs." Next, we followed the uncle to the first floor. The uncle pointed to a small room by the entrance of the main prayer hall, explaining that it was a restroom for those who didn't have time to go downstairs for wudu. I remarked, "New York is different; everyone's always on the go." The uncle then pointed to an uninstalled iron gate leaning against the wall and mysteriously said, "This iron gate was bought from China." My eyes bulged out as I confirmed with him, "Are you saying this iron gate with the crescent moon decoration on it?" It's quite ironic, I thought. Back home, we might not even be allowed to use such decorations, yet you bought them from China. The uncle chuckled and said, "Chinese people can sell anything!" And he cracked up.
 

 


A Mosque's Distinct Identity & Community Pushback

Stepping outside, the day had also brightened up considerably. The uncle pointed to the entrance. "That spot used to be the original main door," he explained. "We moved the door inward a bit so we could squeeze in two more parked cars." Space is at a premium here, so making smart use of every square foot is absolutely crucial.

I looked back at the mosque again, and it was then that I truly saw its distinct identity as a mosque. The not-so-tall minarets on either side stood in clear contrast to the surrounding buildings. Mosques like this are actually a rare find in urban areas. When you factor in the cost, having a dome and minarets means you need a completely undeveloped plot of land, which is practically a pipe dream in Manhattan.

Of course, they also run into some bumps in the road here. For instance, neighboring residents complain that during Jumu'ah (Friday congregational prayer), there are too many people, the loudspeakers are too loud, and they demand the mosque keep its windows closed, and so on. The uncle, with a slight hint of disdain, scoffed, "The prayer itself is only half an hour, and it's not like it's every single day. They clearly just don't want a mosque here and are looking for trouble."

However, there are exceptions. Wasim mentioned that his landlord, who is Chinese, has actually been eager to visit the mosque with him. I encouraged him, saying, "You've absolutely got to bring him. Don't forget about our Chinese brothers and sisters!"

Dar Al Taqwa Islamic Center: Another Welcoming Spot

After wrapping up my chat with them, I made my way to another mosque, and this one was much more polished by comparison. Wasim had told me about this mosque, saying that scholars often give lectures there, and he really enjoys going. The people at this mosque were also very courteous. When they saw me come in, they warmly asked where I was from and then inquired about where I was planning to break my fast that evening, insisting that I come back because they had iftar (breaking fast) meals ready. Before I left, one of them pointed to the door and said, "The mosque door is always open. You're welcome to come any time." Alhamdulillah!
 

 


Streets Lined with Diverse Houses of Worship
 
 

As I walked along the main thoroughfares, it was striking to see church after church, often right next to each other, especially Korean churches at almost every intersection. It truly made me ponder the diverse religious landscape of this city.
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3.4 Imam Training and Appointments

Imams have always been required to attend occasional training on Party doctrine; as community leaders, working with United Front — and hence the Party-state — has always been a part of their role. However, the number of political training sessions required of imams has dramatically increased since 2014, as has oversight of the content taught within mosques (see 5.0 Cultural Control). In particular, the state has taken much closer control of imam appointments, and has further tightened systems for the appointment, management, and training of religious professionals. This has included:
a) audits of existing religious personnel and the creation of a public SARA database of religious clergy,
b) crackdowns on unregistered imams,
c) tightened appointment regulations for imams, and
d) increased political requirements placed on imams.

Imam licenses are issued by regional Islamic Associations, and are valid for five years. Most provinces have had regulations requiring some formal revalidation of credentials for license renewal for some years, although the requirements for revalidation varied by province. However, audits have intensified in recent years, with some regions requiring all imams to retrain and register. In 2019, Qingtongxia, Ningxia, conducted a complete audit and “clean-up” of all mosque religious personnel, requiring them all to exchange their licenses, likely as part of a province-wide audit ordered after the identification of serious failures in religious work in Ningxia. 115 Linxia similarly audited religious students in mosques across 2017-18, checking for “over-quota” enrollments, and students below the age of 18. As part of the process, Linxia established detailed logs of students in the city. 116 The newly established databases of registered clergy provide further heft to the increased oversight of religious professionals. Launched in May 2023 on the SARA website, the database contains extensive information on individuals, including names, ID numbers, photographs, and titles. 117 It allows users to swiftly check the credentials of any imam (or indeed religious professionals of other faiths). 118

In-post evaluations of imams have also been substantially enhanced, with a focus on political performance. Islamic Associations across the country have established codes of conduct for imams, requiring them to work to actively promote cultural change and Sinicization. Assessment procedures and reviews provide teeth to ensure imams must work towards Party ends. In 2021, Wuhan Islamic Association required imams and mosque leaders to sign “target pledges,” committing them to the work objectives outlined at their conference, a process overseen by representatives from the city’s Ethnic and Religious Affairs Committee. 119 Qinghai Islamic Association has published new, detailed regulations (currently in a pilot phase) for the annual assessment of imams in the province. 120 Under this system, imam performance is to be assessed on an annual basis through a series of inspections and year-end assessments. Although led by the Islamic Association, evaluation committees may include local cadres and cadres from Religious Affairs. Political thought is the category of performance given the greatest weight within the evaluation, and underperforming imams are given a warning and provided with suggestions for improvement. Without improvement, they can be unilaterally dismissed. 121 United Front and local cadre involvement in annual reviews of imam performance is evident in other provinces as well. 122

The tightening of oversight over existing imams is matched by increased oversight of imam appointments. Although imam appointments are theoretically overseen by mosque management committees, both the new standards for appointment processes and oversight of the mosque management committees ensure that only imams acceptable to the Party can be appointed. Once again, the rhetorical justification around such changes is about “standardization,” and ensuring the quality of personnel. Both the “Measures for the Qualifications of Islamic Clergy” and “Measures for the Appointment of Major Clerical Positions in Islamic Activity Venues” contain regulations intended to favor in-province candidates, and ensure final approval of imams and imam appointments is determined by the local Islamic Association. 123

Emerging local regulations suggest that implementation is going further than required by Islamic Association regulations. For instance, regulations on imam appointment trialed in 2023 in the Ningxia city of Zhongwei’s Shapotou district begin with a strong assertion of the role of imams in “conscientiously implementing the important theories of General Secretary Xi Jinping on religious work,” ensuring Sinicization, and their duty to ceaselessly strengthen the identification of their congregations with “our great motherland, the Chinese peoples, Chinese culture, the Chinese Communist Party and Socialism with Chinese characteristics.” The document further stipulates that imams be licensed by the Ningxia Islamic Association, and that mosque management committees are not permitted to draw up their own shortlists. Instead, they will be presented with a shortlist of 3-5 candidates chosen by the local Religious Bureau. Two candidates selected from the list by the mosque management committee will then be interviewed by local government, PSB, undergo a formal written examination, and a sermon competition overseen by the United Front. 124 The whole process ensures that political acceptability of candidates is prioritized over any wishes of the congregation, and further makes it impossible for a mosque to appoint an imam from outside Ningxia. Additionally, registered imams are required to report any travel plans that would take them outside the province to their village, township, and local Religious Bureau for approval. 125

The tightening of control over non-compliant imams is backed by threats to strip them of their credentials. In Hualong, for instance, imam Ma Guoxiang was detained for fifteen days in 2018 and stripped of his credentials as an imam for “spreading extreme opinions and inappropriate language” in his preaching. 126 Online reports suggest that the removal of licenses from imams in Hualong targeted large numbers of clerics, as part of a broad parcel of actions taken to police Islamic activity including multiple mosque closures. 127 Muslim social media accounts have repeatedly posted a four-minute recording from 2019 of an official in Hualong announcing the names of numerous sanctioned imams, seemingly as a tacit protest against the measures. 128 Policing imams via control of their licenses is an ongoing tactic for control: the CIA stripped licenses from three Ningxia imams for unknown reasons in mid-2023. 129

Removal of imam credentials can have serious consequences, beyond even the deprivation of livelihood. In Henan, imam Han Daoliang was dismissed after Zhengzhou officials accused him of being Salafi, forcing him into exile in Malaysia. 130 Elsewhere, scattered evidence suggests that some unregistered imams may have been given longer jail sentences. One request seeking legal advice submitted by a poster to an online platform in late 2018 says that her husband was detained on suspicion of the crime of “disturbing public order” for being an unregistered imam. 131

Such action to control imam licenses works in tandem with previous measures to tighten control of mosque management committees, who previously had significant latitude in their choice of imam. Monitoring of imams and other Islamic scholars has also involved attempts to recruit imams to work directly on behalf of the party-state: in late 2020, NPR reported on the case of a newly appointed imam and member of the local Islamic Association, who was offered a salary and lucrative board position to secretly report back to security authorities. 132

Congregations who resist the installation of a government-approved imam can also find themselves targeted. In a 2019 case reported by Bitter Winter, a mosque in Xining was shut down during Friday prayers for purported violation of fire safety regulations. However, worshippers suggested that this was revenge for their refusal to accept the appointment of an imam whose religious stances did not reflect those of the congregation. 133 In 2018 in Hualong County, Qinghai, thirteen were arrested under the “Sweeping Black and Eliminating Evil” campaign in response to an incident in which Yaqutan Village Mosque attempted to install an imam without official approval. 134
 


3.5 Impact of Organizational Interventions

All changes to the organization share a singular goal: reducing any resistance to the implementation of Sinicization policy, and ensuring that local Islamic leadership can be coerced into the appearance of support for the campaigns. Changes to the composition of mosque management committees and village-level committees often precede renovations or other interventions into mosque affairs. By co-opting mosque management committees and grassroots Party organizations, the party-state manufactures the authority and justification for these changes. The combined campaign to control the appointments of imams, the operations of Islamic Associations and village-level governance, and to atomize mosques and provincial Islam, has been largely successful in ensuring that widescale resistance to Sinicization policy has been impossible.

This expanded party-state control not only minimizes resistance but also solidifies the party-state’s position in the community. Further surveillance, messaging and facilitation of indoctrination, and centralization of authority are all made possible by establishing such granular levels of control. In a striking example of authoritarian centralization, the party-state is using localized offices and stakeholders to draw religious communities into compliance with nationalized aims.


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Historical Background

Though China is typically not considered part of the “Islamic World,” Muslim communities have long lived within the territorial boundaries of Chinese-administered states. At present, China’s estimated Muslim population totals just over 1.8% of China’s 1.4 billion people–approximately 25 million people in all.2
Of China’s 56 recognized nationalities (referred to as 民族, “minzu”), ten are predominantly Muslim, with Hui and Uyghurs being the largest and second largest Muslim groups respectively.3

While China’s Islamic community is overwhelmingly Sunni, Muslims in China belong to a wide array of sectarian and jurisprudence traditions. In addition to the non-Sufi, primarily Hanafi schools of the Gedimu and Yihewani sects, many of China’s Muslims belong to Sufi orders, including several in the Naqshbandiyya tradition.4 Likewise, a small percentage of China’s Muslims belong to Salafi congregations.5
Geographically, China’s Islamic heartland predominantly rests in the northwestern “Qur’an Belt” (comprising Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Gansu, eastern Qinghai and Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region).6
However, significant Islamic communities also reside in Yunnan, Henan, Hebei, Hainan, Shandong, Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia, and Hui enclave communities exist in most of China’s major cities.7

Short history of Islam in China prior to the PRC (approximately 700-1949)

The history of Islam in China stretches back almost as far as the beginning of the faith itself. Muslim traders first arrived in China via sea routes through the Indian Ocean as early as the 7th century.8 In addition, other Muslims arrived via overland travel along trade routes that made up the Silk Road. Yet another wave of Muslim settlement occurred with the arrival of Muslim (usually Turkic) armies of the Yuan Dynasty who conquered China in the 12th and 13th centuries.9
As a result, by the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Chinese-speaking Muslim communities existed alongside Mongolic and Turkic Muslim groups throughout China, especially in Shaanxi, Ningxia, Gansu and eastern Qinghai.10 Islam in China thus bore the influence of the Arab, Persian and Turkic Muslims, as well as the local Chinese whom they converted or with whom they intermarried. Though at the outset these communities were regarded as temporary residents in China, intermarriage and integration gave these communities a sense of rootedness in China.11
Through this long history, the process of integrating Muslims into various Sino-centered administrative states has been uneven. Internecine sectarian conflicts between rival Sufi orders led to the outbreak of violence in Qinghai, Gansu, and Ningxia as well as Yunnan in the 18th and 19th centuries. These so-called “Muslim Rebellions,” which the Qing armies brutally suppressed, resulted in devastation and massive loss of human life.12
These conflicts also sowed seeds of mistrust between Muslims and non-Muslims that still influence interethnic relations in the northwest and elsewhere today.13
In the aftermath of these conflicts, the Qing attempted several “civilizing” missions in Muslim regions.
 
 
————————————————————
 
2 Estimates taken from the CIA World Factbook (accessed

September 14, 2023): https://www.cia.gov/the-world-fact-

book/countries/china/#people-and-society

3 The other groups are (from largest population to smallest):

Kazakh, Dongxiang, Kyrgyz, Salar, Tajik (Pamiri), Bao’an,

Uzbek, and Tatar. See, Guo 2020, p. 3-5.

4 Ha 2022.

5Al Sudairi 2016.

6 Gladney 1991, p. 27

7 See population figures in Stroup 2022.
 
8 Gladney 1987, p. 498.

9 Lipman 1997, p. 31-35.

10 Gladney 1991, Lipman 1997, Israeli 2002.

11 Benite 2005.

12 Kim 2004, Atwill 2005.

13 Stroup 2024.

14 Schluessel 2020. view all

Beginning as early as 2018, a heightened level of awareness arose in international news media about the Chinese party-state’s programme of coercive renovation of mosques and other Islamic community spaces throughout China.1 In the following years the phenomenon of sinicization of Islam became a concern among human rights and policy activists, journalists and policymakers. Much of the international coverage of this widespread campaign focused on its impact on architecture in specific cases. Thus, the campaign for sinicization became synonymous with a particular repertoire of actions: stripping domes off of mosques, demolishing minarets, erecting ‘Chinese-style’ ornamentation on mosque buildings, and minimizing the use of Arabic script in public spaces. However, a closer examination of the sinicization campaign reveals a much wider scope for intervention and a broader array of tactics employed by the party-state to curb religious expression in Muslim communities. Beyond architecture, the campaign touches on matters connected to theology, ritual, diet, dress, education, and mosque employment, among others. Understanding sinicization, then, requires a broad and detailed examination of the campaign’s many aspects, as well as the scale at which it has been implemented nationwide. This report lays out a comprehensive survey of the impacts of the sinicisation of Islam programme on Hui communities from 2017 to the present. As detailed in the report, this slate of policies makes the ruling party-state the sole arbiter for correct observation of religion and allows it to exert near total authority on matters of religious belief, practice and expression. Following a brief historical overview of the origins of this campaign, our report provides a two-part overview of the campaign itself. In part one, we focus on the documents which establish the campaign. In part two, we take a detailed look at its enforcement. The rhetoric of the sinicisation campaign established clear norms of appropriateness for Islamic religious belief and practice in accordance with standards set by the party-state. Thus, Part I of this report provides detailed analysis of key policy documents undergirding sinicisation policy. Through this analysis, we reveal the framework, ambitions, and proposed measures which this sprawling campaign comprises. Our report focuses on two key documents that elucidate these standards of appropriateness and empower the state’s capacity to enforce them: the General Office of the State Council’s “Opinions on Suggestions for Strengthening and Improving Islamic Work under the New Situation”, more commonly known as Document No. 10 of the Xinjiang Papers, and the China Islamic Association’s (2018) “Five Year Plan for Maintaining Progress toward the Sinicization of Islam in Our Nation (2018-2022).” Together, these documents provide a blueprint for radical transformation of Islamic communities and social organisation, and lay the groundwork for further measures, including those which reduce the numbers of mosques in China, and implement additional means of surveillance of Muslim migrants within China.
 
 
In practice, the guidelines established by the documents we overview produced a vast system of policies whose implementation and enforcement depends upon a complicated network of actors, infrastructure, and tactics. In Part 2 of this report, we provide a preliminary overview of this wide-ranging campaign, assessing its implementation in five key areas: 1) Mosque Organization, 2) Aesthetics, 3) Cultural Control, 4) Surveillance and Monitoring, and 5) Mosque Closures. In each domain we illustrate how party-state interventions seek to securitize religious identity and restrict Islamic expression to only those party-state approved practices. In so doing, the party-state depicts any practices from international Islam as inherently threatening to China’s national security and cultural existence. Similarly, through these measures, the Sinicisation empowers the party-state as the arbiter of cultural correctness in Muslim communities and marginalizes—and in some cases totally silences—non-standard or non-hegemonic practice.

The effects of this campaign are wide-ranging. Because of the broad powers they give to the party-state to suppress religious activity falling outside its own narrowly construed parameters, the measures identified in this report present a profound threat to Muslim identity and practice within the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The concealed nature of much of the policies in question means that, to date, the impacts of these policies have been systematically underestimated by observers.

Among our top-line findings is that the campaign is iterative and progressive in implementation. To date, we estimate that the campaign enforced the closure of approximately one third of all mosques in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. We suggest that these closures represent only the first stages of the campaign and that further measures to affect party-state control will continue to be implemented in the future. In our conclusion, we make a number of suggestions about where future research can continue to expand our understanding of this campaign and its influence on China’s Muslim communities.
 
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