Introduction

 This is a Hui museum mosque in Ningxia.

These are the Hui living in Ningxia

In this blog post, I will be exploring Hui’s life in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and how it is influenced by traditions and modernity. The focus of this is not simply looking at what traditions they are still following compared to centuries ago, but more importantly how they have come to identify themselves as a minority in modern People’s Republic of China. How does assimilating into the Han culture influence the Hui’s identity and the lives today? In what areas, have the Hui withdrawn from adapting to the Han’s practices?


After having explored about these questions, I am going to focus on two major areas: the role of Islam and education and secondly, marriage practices. Through examining both of these areas, we can understand how the Hui construct their identities based on the differences they have with the Han. In order to achieve such differences, both use of old tradition and modernization are needed to be practiced simultaneously to have such result.

Why Hui at Ningxia?

Ningxia received its name in 1227 AD, after the Yuan Dynasty authorities got control over the Western Xia. The name Ningxia signifies “the pacification and stabilization of Western Xia, and peaceful Western Xia ("Ningxia History").”
Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (寧夏回族自治區) established on October 25th, 1958 by the People’s Republic of China ("Ningxia"). It is one out of five autonomous regions in China. It is located in northwest China, bordered by the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces and the Inner Mongolian autonomous region ("Ningxia"). It has a population of about 6 million people, predominantly Han inhabitants, and nearly one-third Hui inhabitants. The rest of the Hui inhabitants are scattered in other provinces across China such as Gansu, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Hebei, Henan, Yunnan and Shandong Provinces. Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region was once an important part of the Silk Road that connected the rest of China to central China and Europe.
Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region is a site filled with history dating back to the Qing Dynasty. It has been the home location for Genghis Khan’s reign, known as the Sung Dynasty. This is the period when an increasing numbers of Muslims immigrated to China and prospered. The importance of studying the Hui communities living in this region is fact, to understand what are the authentic traditional practices they still follow today? Many Hui living in this region are yet following these traditions very strictly. Thus, in this region we can discover where assimilation has taken place and how the majority population in China has socially accepted them as a minority group.