Islam, Hui and Localisation in China: In Words and Photographs provides an in-depth research of the Hui, the Chinese Muslims of China, with a primary focus on how Islam is integrated into Chinese culture throughout centuries via the architecture of mosques and other religious sites that are sacred to the Hui.
The book lays out the arrival of Islam into China via trade and why it was embraced by a substantial Chinese population due to its compatibility with traditional and spiritual practices of the Chinese, such as Taoism and Confucianism. Ample references are given to expert writings on China as well as Chinese philosophy.
As Islam continues to be integrated into Chinese culture through various dynastic rule, Prof. Tan Chee-Beng explains how this combination of religion and culture formed the establishment of the Hui as a distinct Chinese subgroup. The contribution of the Hui throughout Chinese history and major Hui political and diplomatic figures are referred to, further establishing that the Hui people were not a minor faction but an important group with major contributions to Chinese history.
About the Author
Tan Chee-Beng (Ph.D., Cornell University, 1979) has taught at the University of Singapore, University of Malaya, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou. He is currently Adjunct Professor at both the Faculty of Arts and Social Science, Tunku Abdul Rahman University, and the Department of Anthropology, CUHK. A cultural anthropologist, he has done research in Malaysia and China. His major publications include, as author, Traditions Matter: Lineage and Rituals in an Emigrant Village in South China (UTAR Press, 2025); The Badeng Kenyah of Belaga in Sarawak (SIRD, 2024); Communalism and the Pursuit of Democracy: A Reflection on the Eradication of Racialism and Promoting Social Harmony (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023); The Baba of Melaka (2021, new edition by SIRD), Chinese Religion in Malaysia (Brill, 2018), and as editor, After Migration and Religious Affiliation (World Scientific, 2015), Routledge Handbook of the Chinese Overseas (Routledge, 2013), Chinese Food and Foodways in Southeast Asia and Beyond (NUS Press, 2011), and Southern Fujian: Reproduction of Traditions in Post-Mao China (The Chinese University Press, 2006).
