The nature of Islam in China and South East Asia :-
Islam regards all of humanity as one family as Allah SWT created mankind to get to know each other, including the Chinese and their role in spreading Islam is no less than other races.
The only thing that separates one Muslim from the other is their strength of faith (piety)
in god/Islam. In short, there should be NO discrimination or hate among Muslims just because they are of different race, color or nationality, meaning, what It said is right!
MY CONDOLENCE TO THE LONDON VICTIMS - My eyes bleed and my heart weeps as to the level of man's inhumanity to man. The bombings in UK just remind us to work harder than before to change the world for the better. Good will always triumph over evil and the truth will always stand. My condolence to all bereaved families, GOD BLESS YOU AND EVERYTHING YOU STAND FOR, THE WORLD NEEDS PEOPLE LIKE YOU,NOT AS MATYRS BUT VOICES OF GOOD CONSCIENCE AND GOODWILL!
While it's true that local leaders in Indonesia and Malaysia tend to manipulate the populace's ignorance by resorting to bigotry to scapegoat the Chinese in times of crisis. It is important to gain understanding as to the nature of Islam in South East Asia which happens to be the religion of the majority in the two aforesaid countries.
The form of Islam which came through China to South East Asia during the 14-16th centuries via the Sea Silk Route connecting the port cities of southeastern China to the Gulf of Hormuz to the West was of the Hanafiyah doctrine, an ancient form of Islam considered in the West to be the most liberal branch of Islam. Whereas as of the 17th century and onwards, the form of Islam which spread to the southeast Asian region was of the Syafi doctrine which was more recent and strongly influenced by the radicalization of Islam in much of the Middle East following the first Crusades.
The Syafi doctrine gradually supplanted the Hanafiyah doctrine, the former was disseminated by traders and other immigrants from Gujarat in India and the southern half of the Arabian peninsula, they were brought in by the European colonial authorities who also imported Chinese coolies, traders and other immigrants. These recent Chinese immigrants were mainly Buddhists and Daoists mainly from places such as Guangdong and Fujian in southeastern China unlike the earlier Chinese settlers who were mainly Muslims, many of whom were from places such as Yunnan in western China. Apart from economic reasons, the Arabs, Gujaratis and Chinese new arrivals were brought in to supplant the Chinese Muslim communities and the Hanafite Islam they introduced to the Malay world.
Even though Hanafite Islam was dominant in the Malay world, most of the natives were still nominal Muslims as the Islam introduced to them from China was too rationalistic for them to accept. Moreover, Islam in its Chinese version was already synchronized with Confucianism and Buddhism as well as Daoism but to a lesser extent. The less rationalistic Syafite Islam was deemed more compatible with their mystical animistic-rooted native cultures. Thus the vast majority of the native nominal Muslims converted to Syafite Islam, whereby more and more of them became devout Muslims, a good number of them influenced by the new radicalization of Islam from the Middle East and India.
Chinese Islam developed independently and was not affected by the radicalization of Islam in the Middle East due to China's sheer distance from West Asia. Moreover, one fundamental difference is that the Hanafiyah doctrine represented an inclusive Islam in Chinese, embracing people of all races and nations, whereas the Syafi doctrine represented an exclusive Islam which tended to define non-Muslim races and nations as kafir or non-believers who either had to be ostracized, even exterminated unless they converted to Islam.
The shift in the native Muslim population in South East Asia from Hanafi to Syafi signaled a change in that part of the world from its originally inclusive nature to an exclusive one which tended to exclude the non-Muslim Chinese who began to view Islam negatively and with suspicion. Moreover, the natives of South East Asia were mostly backward, poor and uneducated, this made the Chinese associate Islam with those negative traits. The Chinese Muslims became a minority within a minority, neither accepted by the natives and many among the newly arrived Chinese mainstream from southeastern China.
Is this the final choice of the Indonesian people?
The choice of Islam as a religion is a pretty good one. It is based on a community like, fair, just and equality for all its members. Their religion uses the Kaabah as the icon of worship reflecting the principals of fairness and justice of that religion.
However, the problem of creating equality includes having a set of "morality" that can cause a little bit of anxiety of its people, ie. lack of entertainment, vices that in other societies; is stress reduction among consenting adults.....it is also strict religion that is based mainly on surah, koran of yesteryears.....which mean dogmatism; especially damaging when in hands of Greedy or Dogmatic adherence...creating Jewish like problems of greedy Princes and Military elites.
It will only create a race suitable of running commodity trades and a equitable (what I would say "all are equally rich or poor"), material lacking society. However minorities of other culture, with ostentatious presentation of wealth, will cause RED EYES that can be HIJACKED by PREDATORS of bad intention making a MOCKERY OF THE RELIGION they choose as their guide in life.
I would say, the Achehnese will disagree, Arab traders were said to be the disseminator of the culture and religion. Of course The Almighty has been fair to provide OIL AND GAS deposits to the most pious.....
It is up to the Indonesians BUT THEY HAVE TO REPENT on the murderous history of HARMING INNOCENT ASIA IMMIGRANTS, and understand their choice of lifestyle and not let PREDATORS in their midst mislead their people. While the Immigrant Asian will have to keep their wealth a little bit "hidden" or have second homes in Pasha enclaves away from prying eyes....otherwise they would constantly create new PREDATOR LEADERS among the INDONESIAN NATIVES.
The choice of LIFESTYLES, culture are for the people and their elders to decide. HAVING made that decision, they must understand the implications of such a choice and not use the INNOCENT TRIBES as SCAPEGOATS for perceived unhappiness...(if they are pious!)
I am sure THE ALMIGHTY will look highly on their choice and make JUDGEMENT on those who break covenant with the same choices made on FREE WILL.........
Will god does say in the Quran
The only thing that separates one Muslim from the other is their strength of faith (piety)
in god/Islam, In short, there should be NO discrimination or hate among Muslims just because they are of different race, color or nationality, meaning, what it said is right!
Islam, Indonesia and China
Islam which had been in China since the early Tang period flourished in China during the Ming Dynasty. Many people in Yunnan, Shaanxi, Hebei and other areas in China were Muslims. There were also burgeoning Muslim communities on China's southeastern coast, notably in Guangzhou and Quanzhou. Muhammad Ma Huan who accompanied Admiral Zheng He on his voyages to South East Asia beginning in 1406 were Both Muslims.
Islam regards all of humanity as one family as Allah SWT created mankind to get to know each other, including the Chinese and their role in spreading Islam is no less than other races.
The Chinese played an major role in the initial stage of the propagation of Islam in South East Asia. Dr Asvi Warman Adam from LIPI (Indonesian Institute of Science), states that without them (the Chinese), the Islamization process in Java during the Middle Ages would not have taken place. "The Chinese and Islam have a relationship that goes back a very long time," he said.
Historical facts show that Chinese Muslims pioneered the dissemination of Islam in Java during the 14-16th centuries. They came to trade, settle down and spread the religion in what are today Indonesia and other countries in South East Asia. Others were simply looking for a better life or seeking political refuge from oppression, especially during the Qing Dynasty.
It is said that the naval expeditions led by Admiral Zheng He had a secret agenda to spread Islam in South East Asia.
The huge Chinese armada at times consisted of 62 ships manned by 27,800 soldiers, most of them Chinese Muslims who were prepared to adapt to varying local conditions in the lands they were to be stationed with their different cultures and religious beliefs.
Therefore, Zheng was accompanied by an entourage of Muslim ulama, from China and elsewhere to solidify relations with Muslim communities outside China proper.
After the formation of Chinese Muslim communities on the northern coast of Java, Islam began to spread into the island's agrarian hinterland where the Hindu-Buddhist culture was still strong. From these communities arose the Walisongo or nine Chinese Muslim saints who pioneered the Islamization of the majority of the island's native populace.
In time, leaders of the Chinese Muslims as well as other Chinese came to be accepted as royalty and aristocracy by the indigenous people.
In what is today Indonesia and within her socio-political and cultural context, it is a controversial issue to discuss the Chinese identity of the Walisongo which many Indonesians are unaware of, there are even those who know it but deny it for ulterior motives of theirs. The contribution of the Chinese to Islam in present day Indonesia has been whitewashed by three centuries of European colonization in the archipelago.
In 1970, Indonesian professor Slamet Muljana wrote a book explaining that the Walisongo are Chinese and upon its publication, the book was banned by the Indonesian government.
However, the first Chinese Muslim communities in South East Asia were not in Java but in Palembang in East Sumatra and Sambas in West Kalimantan. Only several years later were the first Chinese Muslim communities founded on Java's northern Coast.
Many Indonesian Muslims as well as non-Muslim Chinese are unaware of the link between China and Islam as well as its role in the Islamization of what is today Indonesia due to the political conditions during the colonial period and post-colonial Indonesia.
The discrimination against the Chinese in Indonesia cannot be separated from the apartheid policies of the Dutch colonial authorities who divided their colonial subjects along racial lines. There existed a racial caste system made legitimate by colonial laws and statutes placing the whites on the top, Chinese and other Asians ("Foreign Orientals) in the middle and indigenous people at the bottom.
As the Chinese were the most numerous among the "Foreign Orientals" they became an object of ire of many natives who resented their dominance in trade and commerce which was useful for the Dutch who preferred to make use of Chinese middlemen instead of dealing directly with the native populace. Worse still, the Dutch employed a good number of Chinese as administrators, such as tax collectors and the business of gambling was left to the Chinese, all of which contributed to the negative stereotype of the Chinese as an avaricious, merciless and egoistic race.
In order to normalize the relationship between the Chinese and indigenous people to the harmonious and peaceful one that existed during the pre-colonial period, it is therefore very important for the two sides to respect each other.
In relation to this aspect of harmonizing Chinese-indigenous relations as well as those between China and Indonesia who are now strategic partners - a milestone in contemporary Asian politics, the history of the contribution of the Chinese Muslims towards the Islamization of Java and elsewhere in Indonesia has to be written in school textbooks to be taught in Indonesian schools. These facts have to be made known to both people from a young age so that there will always be good relations between the Chinese and Indonesians, China and Indonesia.
It is a pity that there is hardly anything mentioned about the Chinese presence in the Malay Archipelago in the pre-colonial period, what more that concerning the dissemination of Islam. Indonesian history textbooks only mention about a so-called "Chinese invasion" of Java ordered by Kubilai Khan while actually it was a Tartar invasion not one initiated by the Han people even though there were many Han troops among the expeditionary force.
Even today in Indonesia, in spite of the discrimination faced by the Chinese many Chinese Muslims continue to contribute significantly to their faith and a good number of Chinese still convert to Islam. This shows that within a religious context, there is no barrier to integration but only due to the socio-political conditions in contemporary Indonesia is there racism against the Chinese.
Recently, books about the role played by Chinese Muslim communities in disseminating Islam in Java and elsewhere in Indonesia have been published and this is a positive development.
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