A “strike hard” (Yanda) campaign was launched in Islamic communities in China in 2014. Under this campaign, various expressions of Islamic identity have been labelled as “extremist” ideology or religious fanaticism. Official documents have compared Islamic practices to disease and urged officials to take measures to prevent infection. A nationwide campaign to “Sinicise” Islamic religious communities has now spread beyond Xinjiang, as the recent spate of mosque demolitions in Hui communities reveal.

Our panel explores the Sinicisation of various Islamic communities in China today and yesterday. It thus seeks to more fully explore the roots of Islamophobia in China, past, and present.

Dr. David R. Stroup is a lecturer of Chinese politics at the University of Manchester who focuses on nationalism, ethnic politics, and authoritarian state-society relations in China. In particular, his research focuses on everyday ethnic politics in urban Hui Muslim communities.

Dr. Hannah Theaker is a Lecturer in History and Politics at the University of Plymouth and Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford China Centre. Her research explores the history of late imperial China, focusing on social and religious transformation in Chinese Muslim communities following the Great Northwestern Muslim Rebellion, 1862-1874.

Dr. Rian Thum is a specialist in the history and anthropology of Muslims in China at the University of Manchester, where he is a Senior Lecturer. His book, The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History, argues for the central role of sacred sites and local Islamic texts in the maintenance of Uyghur identity. Thum is Associate Editor of the Journal of Asian Studies and a former fellow of the National Humanities Center and the American Council of Learned Societies.

Rachel Harris is Professor of Ethnomusicology in the School of Arts at SOAS, University of London. Her research focuses on China's Muslim borderlands, Uyghur religious and expressive culture, and cultural policy and heritage in China. She led the AHRC-funded research project "Sounding Islam in China" (2014-2018), and co-edited "Ethnographies of Islam in China" (Hawaii 2021). Her latest monograph "Soundscapes of Uyghur Islam" was published by Indiana University Press in 2020.

Photo credit: AFP / Emeric Fohlen / NurPhoto