Islam in Taiwan
Encyclopedia
Taipei Grand Mosque
The Taipei Grand Mosque is the largest and most famous mosque in Taiwan with a total area of 2,747 square meters. Located in the Daan district of Taipei City, it is Taiwan's most important Islamic structure and was registered as a historic landmark on June 26, 1999 by the Taipei City...
.
The eastward spread of Islam
IslamIslam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
is believed to have first reached Taiwan in the 17th century when Muslim families from the southern Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
coastal province of Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
accompanied Koxinga
Koxinga
Koxinga is the customary Western spelling of the popular appellation of Zheng Chenggong , a military leader who was born in 1624 in Hirado, Japan to Zheng Zhilong, a Chinese merchant/pirate, and his Japanese wife and died in 1662 on the island of Formosa .A Ming loyalist and the arch commander of...
on his invasion of Taiwan to oust the Dutch
Taiwan under Dutch rule
Dutch Formosa refers to the period of colonial Dutch government on Formosa , lasting from 1624 to 1662. In the context of the Age of Discovery the Dutch East India Company established its presence on Taiwan to trade with China and Japan, and also to interdict Portuguese and Spanish trade and...
from the southern city of Tainan in 1661. These people are believed to be the first Muslim settlers on the island. Their descendants however became assimilated into Taiwanese society and adopted the local customs and religions. On Taiwan, there are also descendants of Hui who came with Koxinga
Koxinga
Koxinga is the customary Western spelling of the popular appellation of Zheng Chenggong , a military leader who was born in 1624 in Hirado, Japan to Zheng Zhilong, a Chinese merchant/pirate, and his Japanese wife and died in 1662 on the island of Formosa .A Ming loyalist and the arch commander of...
who no longer observe Islam, the Taiwan branch of the Guo (romanized as Kuo in Taiwan) family is not Muslim, but still does not offer pork at ancestral shrines. The Chinese Muslim Association counts these people as Muslims. Also on Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, one branch of this Ding (Ting) family descended from Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar
Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar
Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar al-Bukhari was Yunnan's first provincial governor in history, appointed by the Mongol Yuan Dynasty....
resides in Taisi Township in Yunlin County
Yunlin County
Yunlin County is a county in the western part of Taiwan, the Republic of China. Yunlin is located to the right of the Taiwan Strait, the east of Nantou County and sharing a border with Changhua County divided by the Zhuoshui River. Yunlin is one of the counties of Taiwan that is part of the Chianan...
. They trace their descent through him via the Quanzhou
Quanzhou
Quanzhou is a prefecture-level city in Fujian province, People's Republic of China. It borders all other prefecture-level cities in Fujian but two and faces the Taiwan Strait...
Ding family of Fujian. Even as they were pretending to be Han chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
in Fujian, they still practiced Islam when they originally came to Taiwan 200 years ago, building a mosque, but eventually became Buddhist or Daoist. The Mosque is now the Ding families Daoist temple. According to Professor Lien Ya Tang (連雅堂) in his book History of Taiwan 《臺灣通史》 (1918), there were few Muslims on the island most of whom were from other provinces in China. There was no spread of Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
and no mosques were built.
The second wave of Muslim migrants occurred during the Chinese Civil War
Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...
in the 20th century when around 20,000 Muslim families fled mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
with the Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
to Taiwan in 1949. Many of them were soldiers and government employees at the time and came from provinces were Islam is strong such as Yunnan
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
, Xinjiang
Xinjiang
Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...
, Ningxia
Ningxia
Ningxia, formerly transliterated as Ningsia, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Located in Northwest China, on the Loess Plateau, the Yellow River flows through this vast area of land. The Great Wall of China runs along its northeastern boundary...
, and Gansu
Gansu
' is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.It lies between the Tibetan and Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, and Shaanxi to the east...
(mostly southern and western regions of China). During the 1950s, contact between Muslims and Han Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
were limited due to differences in custom. The Muslims were largely dependent on each other through the ummah
Ummah
Ummah is an Arabic word meaning "community" or "nation." It is commonly used to mean either the collective nation of states, or the whole Arab world...
(Islamic community) that met regularly in a house on Lishui Street (麗水街) in Taipei. However, by the 1960s when Muslims realized that returning to mainland China would be unlikely and out of professional need, contact with Han Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
became more frequent though there was still a considerable degree of interdependence within the ummah. Since the 1980s, thousands of Muslims from Myanmar
Myanmar
Burma , officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar , is a country in Southeast Asia. Burma is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, and the Andaman Sea on the south....
and Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
have migrated to Taiwan in search of a better life. They are descendants of nationalist
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
soldiers that fled Yunnan
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
when the communists took over mainland China.
The majority of Taiwanese Muslims today are relatively recent converts, mostly women, who have married mainlander Muslims. Today there are some 53,000 native Taiwanese Muslims and a further 80,000 Indonesian workers making the current total just over 140,000 Muslims living in Taiwan.
A Democratic Progressive Party
Democratic Progressive Party
The Democratic Progressive Party is a political party in Taiwan, and the dominant party in the Pan-Green Coalition. Founded in 1986, DPP is the first meaningful opposition party in Taiwan. It has traditionally been associated with strong advocacy of human rights and a distinct Taiwanese identity,...
legislator in Taiwan, Yu Tien made offensive comments regarding Muslims, claiming they were a "light hearted joke", linking terrorism to Muslims while campaigning. His wife had said she was a “Muslim terrorist early on … like [Osama] bin Laden.” Yu replied: “People have been saying that I am afraid of my wife. Faced with such a Muslim militant, how could I not be afraid?” He then apologized after the incident, saying he was "Deeply apologetic", and "We weren’t trying to connect Muslims with terrorists and we hope the public doesn’t misunderstand us, We respect every religion.”
In Taiwan, employers can also be fined if they force Muslim workers to come into contact with pork. In Chiayi city a couple was fined for doing that to an Indonesian worker, in addition to other offences such as a long workday and threats of deportation.
Mosques
There are a total of six mosques throughout Taiwan:- Kaohsiung Mosque
- Longgang Mosque (龍岡清真寺), in Jhongli
- Taichung Mosque
- Tainan Mosque
- Taipei Cultural Mosque, owned by the Chinese Muslim Youth League
- Taipei Grand MosqueTaipei Grand MosqueThe Taipei Grand Mosque is the largest and most famous mosque in Taiwan with a total area of 2,747 square meters. Located in the Daan district of Taipei City, it is Taiwan's most important Islamic structure and was registered as a historic landmark on June 26, 1999 by the Taipei City...
, owned by the Chinese Muslim Association
List of Important Muslims Who lived in or were Born in Taiwan
- Bai ChongxiBai ChongxiBai Chongxi , , also spelled Pai Chung-hsi, was a Chinese general in the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China and a prominent Chinese Nationalist Muslim leader. He was of Hui ethnicity and of the Muslim faith...
: an Army general of Hui descent who established Chinese Muslim Association. - Pai Hsien-yungPai Hsien-yungKenneth Hsien-yung Pai , born July 11, 1937) is a writer who has been described as a "melancholy pioneer." He was born in Guilin, Guangxi, China at the cusp of both the Second Sino-Japanese War and subsequent Chinese Civil War...
: Son of Bai. - Ma BuqingMa BuqingMa Buqing was a prominent Ma clique warlord in China during the Republic of China era, controlling armies in the northwestern province of Qinghai.-Life:...
- Ma ChengxiangMa ChengxiangMa Chengxiang was a Chinese Muslim general in the National Revolutionary Army. He was the son of general Ma Buqing, and nephew of general Ma Bufang. He commanded Hui cavalry in Xinjiang, the 5th cavalry army. Ma was a member of the Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang party and a hardliner...
- Ma Ching-chiangMa Ching-chiangMa Ching-chiang was a Chinese Muslim general of the Republic of China Army, who served in the 1970s. He served as Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Service Forces and an advisor of President Chiang Kai-shek.- External links :*...
- Yulbars KhanYulbars KhanYulbars Khan , courtesy name Jingfu , was a Uighur born in Yangi Hissar in 1888. He entered the service in the Kumul Khanate of Muhammad Khan of Kumul and later his son Maksud Shah. He served as an advisor at the court, until when Maksud died in March 1930, governor Jin Shuren abolished the khanate...