Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China / Edition 1

by Jonathan N. Lipman

Overview

Open-access edition: DOI 10.6069/9780295800554

The Chinese-speaking Muslims have for centuries been an inseparable but anomalous part of Chinese society—Sinophone yet incomprehensible, local yet outsiders, normal but different. Long regarded by the Chinese government as prone to violence, they have challenged fundamental Chinese conceptions of "self" and "other" and denied the totally transforming power of Chinese civilization by tenaciously maintaining connections with Central and West Asia as well as some cultural differences from their non-Muslim neighbors.

Familiar Strangers narrates a history of the Muslims of northwest China, at the intersection of the frontiers of the Mongolian-Manchu, Tibetan, Turkic, and Chinese cultural regions. Based on primary and secondary sources in a variety of languages, Familiar Strangers examines the nature of ethnicity and periphery, the role of religion and ethnicity in personal and collective decisions in violent times, and the complexity of belonging to two cultures at once. Concerning itself with a frontier very distant from the core areas of Chinese culture and very strange to most Chinese, it explores the influence of language, religion, and place on Sino-Muslim identity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780295976440
Publisher:	University of Washington Press
Publication date:	01/01/1998
Series:	Studies on Ethnic Groups in China
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	318
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.72(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jonathan N. Lipman is professor emeritus of history at Mount Holyoke College. He is the author of Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China (University of Washington Press, 1998); coauthor of Modern East Asia: An Integrated History (Pearson, 2012); and coeditor of Islamic Thought in China: Sino-Muslim Intellectual Evolution from the 17th to the 21st Century (Edinburgh University Press, 2016) and Violence in Chinese Society: Studies in Culture and Counterculture (SUNY, 1990).

Table of Contents

List of Maps

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction: Purposes and Form of a Muslim History in China

1. The Frontier Ground and Peoples of Northwest China

2. Acculturation and Accommodation: China's Muslims to the 17th Century

3. Connections: Muslims in the Early Qing, 1644-1781

4. Strategies of Resistance: Integration by Violence

5. Strategies of Integration: Muslims in New China

Conclusion: Familiar Strangers

Chinese Character Glossary

Bibliography

Index

What People are Saying About This

John Voll

No published study comes close to providing this kind of comprehensive and informed study of the history of Islam and Muslims in China.

Pamela Kyle Crossley

By far the most developed historical treatment of Muslims in China, lucidly written and useful for readers from undergraduate to specialist.

Editorial Reviews

"This book lays the foundation for future studies of Chinese Muslims . . . and demonstrates the far-reaching impact Chinese Muslims have had upon Chinese society and history."

Journal of Asian and African Studies

"Jonathan N. Lipman appeals for such a new approach with a warning against the conceptual pitfalls of 'hegemonic narrative' and the 'errors of universalism and overgeneralization that plague the dominant paradigms,' especially in the study of Chinese history."

James D. Frankel

Jonathan N. Lipman appeals for such a new approach with a warning against the conceptual pitfalls of 'hegemonic narrative' and the 'errors of universalism and overgeneralization that plague the dominant paradigms, ' especially in the study of Chinese history.

--James D. Frankel "Religious Studies Review" (1/1/2011 12:00:00 AM)

This book lays the foundation for future studies of Chinese Muslims . . . and demonstrates the far-reaching impact Chinese Muslims have had upon Chinese society and history.

-- "Journal of Asian and African Studies"

From the Publisher

Jonathan N. Lipman appeals for such a new approach with a warning against the conceptual pitfalls of 'hegemonic narrative' and the 'errors of universalism and overgeneralization that plague the dominant paradigms,' especially in the study of Chinese history.

Religious Studies Review - James D. Frankel

The first account (according to the author) of the Muslim experience in China written in a European language. Lipman (history and Asian studies, Mount Holyoke College) examines the nature of ethnicity and periphery, the role of religion and ethnicity in personal and collective decisions in violent times, and the complexity of belonging to two cultures at once. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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