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Ive been to that place, and I must say its one of the most beautiful and breath takingplaces I have ever seen. Also, the Chinese solders (back in 1991) when we went at the Pak-Sino border were so nice, the poor guys even let us borrow their coats in that extreme temperature. It gives you a nice picture of pak-china friendship :)
What sucks about this is that on the other side of the pass lives an another oppressed community of the Muslim Ummah. The ethnic Uighurs of Xinjiang province of China are living under state sponsored oppression. Discrimination is practiced at massive scale and the dominant Han Chinese think of them as foreigners. The Uighurs like to call their place Eastern Turkestan. Since they don’t have an international personality of the stature of Dalai Lama of Tibet, their voice for self determination goes unheard in the international community. To get an idea, one only has to read the travelogues of people who visit the province.
For example:
The Chinese Government is intent on eliminating them. Instead of embarking on a murder rampage of a massive scale, just like what the Serbs did to Muslims of Bosnia and Hitler’s SS thugs did to the European Jews, the Chinese Government has adopted a different approach. They have transported Han Chinese from Eastern China to the province en masse. Furthermore, if a Han Chinese male marries an Ethnic Uighur, he gets a huge benefit package from the Government. Kinda like low-intensity ethnic cleansing.
The university in the provincial capital, Urumqi, has eliminated the local language from all of its instruction. That’s like a Punjabi Prime Minister replacing Urdu language instruction in all of Karachi schools with Punjabi.
On the other hand, Pakistan’s friendship with China has paid the most significant strategic dividends. Off course there’s no special relationship, but one only has to look no further than the armed forces – the sole guarantee of Pakistan’s existence. For example, the bulk of PAF fleet is of Chinese origin.
As a powerless individual I can only pray to Allah to better the lives of our Uighur brothers and sisters.
Aameen!
Ah, yes, brings back old memories. During my high school days a bunch of us took a trip to the Khunjerab pass. The whole trip was fantastic.
As for the Muslims of China, a tear drops for their suffering. How low has the Ummah gotten, that we have to make friends with the very people that are out to destroy our religion. From the Christian west to Hindu India, and finally to the Chinese and Phillipines. Islam is under attack my friends. Our survival rests in unity, modernization and strong leadership. All three score low for the Muslims right now and hence the squeeze continues.
My Grandad was a Major in the Engineers core who made the road :)
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*Originally posted by xguru: *As for the Muslims of China, a tear drops for their suffering. How low has the Ummah gotten, that we have to make friends with the very people that are out to destroy our religion.
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China isn't out to destroy Islam.. it's out to destroy one ethnic group.
China's persecution of the Uighars is more ethnic based than religion based. It persecutes the Uighers because they are a Turkish people, rather than a Chinese people.
The Muslims from the Hui ethnic group in China, which forms the majority of the Muslim population of China, get treated differently, because they are viewed as a "Chinese" ethnicity.
Hui Muslims receive funding from Beijing to construct masjids and train ulema, and China relaxes a number of its laws for them such as the one-child-per-family policy that is applied to other ethnic groups in China.
Uighar Muslims, on the other hand, get persecuted.
^ yup.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by mAd_ScIeNtIsT: *
China isn't out to destroy Islam.. it's out to destroy one ethnic group.
China's persecution of the Uighars is more ethnic based than religion based. It persecutes the Uighers because they are a Turkish people, rather than a Chinese people.
The Muslims from the Hui ethnic group in China, which forms the majority of the Muslim population of China, get treated differently, because they are viewed as a "Chinese" ethnicity.
Hui Muslims receive funding from Beijing to construct masjids and train ulema, and China relaxes a number of its laws for them such as the one-child-per-family policy that is applied to other ethnic groups in China.
Uighar Muslims, on the other hand, get persecuted.
[/QUOTE]
Thanks for this information! I really appreciate it! Where can I know more about Chinese Muslims. I was doing a project on Muslim minorities.
^^
I had used google to search for the information. I had once read a news article years ago that mentioned how Hui Muslims were treated differently than Uighar Muslims, and tried to find it online. I failed, but came across a few sites that mentioned that China's government is easier on the Hui.
During Mao's Cultural revolution, when all religious activity in China was surpressed, Islam along with Christianity and other beliefs with ruthlessly surpressed. China's government turned masjods into pi farms and forced the imams to be the pig farmers, executing those who refused. Islam was driven underground.
In 1978, however, China's government permitted freedom of belief for a limited number of religious beliefs including Islam, and Muslim practices re-emerged. In recent years, as I mentioned, the government has been releasing funds to help re-establish the Islamic culture of Hui Muslims through restoring and building masjids and training ulema.
Did you know that during the up to around the 13th century AD, chinese muslim traders controlled the economy, and maintained a very distinct, very Islamic cultural identity? Unfortunately, much as Jewish economic power in the West today has made them a target of hate, non-Muslim Chinese became jealous of the Muslims economic power and they began to be persecuted under later dynasties of Emperors, being forced to integrate into the majority Han culture. Many Muslims changed their names to fit in by shortening them, so the name Muhammed became Mu, Hussain became Hu, and Hassan became Ha - a way by which many ethnic Chinese muslims can be identified today.
I'll try and post pictures of some of the main mosques in China... Chinese muslims contrsuted some truly grand mosques in the past that the current Chinese government is restoring.
The Great Mosque of Xi'an (founded in AD 742 by arab traders and expanded over the centuries). Note how the architects styled this cutome-built mosque to consist entirely of historical chinese styling, having no domes and no minarets as Arab and subcontinental mosques do, yet avoided carving images as per Islamic teachings. Also note the combination of chinese and arabic lettering
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Here is something interesting - a combination of arabic calligraphy and chinese calligraphy - arabic letters in chinese style.
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