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103-517: Qingtongxia had 264,717 residents in 2010. Many residents of Qingtongxia are Hui Muslim . On the bank of the Yellow River outside the city of Qingtongxia is the site of 108 Buddhist stupas which were constructed during the Western Xia period. Qingtongxia Dam on the Yellow River ( 37°53′05″N 105°59′25″E  /  37.88472°N 105.99028°E  / 37.88472; 105.99028 )

206-650: A Chamic -speaking ethnic group which lives southernmost tip of the island near the city of Sanya . They are thought to be descendants of Cham refugees who fled their homeland of Champa in what is now modern Central Vietnam to escape the Vietnamese invasion . Although they are culturally, ethnically and linguistically distinct from the Hui, the Chinese government nevertheless classifies them as Hui due to their Islamic faith. Many Hui are direct descendants of Silk Road travelers. On

309-507: A West-Eurasian origin and 93.3% are East-Eurasian , reflecting historical records of the population's frequent intermarriage, especially with Mongol women. Studies of the Ningxia and Guizhou Hui also found only minor genetic contributions from West-Eurasian populations. Analysis of the Guizhou Hui's Y chromosomes showed a high degree of paternal North or Central Asian heritage, indicating

412-418: A 20-article series entitled "The Middle Eastern Question", written by Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol . During this series, Sir Ignatius expanded the definition of Middle East to include "those regions of Asia which extend to the borders of India or command the approaches to India." After the series ended in 1903, The Times removed quotation marks from subsequent uses of the term. Until World War II , it

515-657: A Hui population of more than one million. In Ningxia, 33.95% of the population are of Hui ethnicity. Hui are the major minority in Qinghai (15.62%), Gansu and Shaanxi and is the overall major minority in Henan and Anhui . Dungan ( simplified Chinese : 东干族 ; traditional Chinese : 東干族 ; pinyin : Dōnggānzú ; Russian : Дунгане ) is a term used in Central Asia and in Xinjiang to refer to Chinese-speaking Muslim people. In

618-447: A Muslim and wanting to be a Zhongyuan ren (Chinese). Some Uyghurs barely see any difference between Hui and Han. A Uyghur social scientist, Dilshat, regarded Hui as the same people as Han, deliberately calling Hui people Han and dismissing the Hui as having only a few hundred years of history. Pusuman : Pusuman was a name used by Chinese during the Yuan dynasty . It could have been

721-501: A corruption of Musalman or another name for Persians. It means either Muslim or Persian. Pusuman Kuo (Pusuman Guo) referred to the country where they came from. The name "Pusuman zi" (pusuman script), was used to refer to the script that the HuiHui (Muslims) were using. Muslim Chinese : The term Chinese Muslim is sometimes used to refer to Hui people, given that they speak Chinese, in contrast to, e.g., Turkic-speaking Salars. During

824-758: A hot, arid climate, especially in the Arabian and Egyptian regions. Several major rivers provide irrigation to support agriculture in limited areas here, such as the Nile Delta in Egypt, the Tigris and Euphrates watersheds of Mesopotamia , and the basin of the Jordan River that spans most of the Levant. These regions are collectively known as the Fertile Crescent , and comprise

927-587: A popular term for Muslim culture since the Yuan or Ming dynasty. Gladney suggested that a good translation for it would be the Arabic tahára . i.e. "ritual or moral purity" The usual term for a mosque is qīngzhēn sì ( 清真寺 ), i.e. "true and pure temple", and qīngzhēn is commonly used to refer to halal eating establishments and bathhouses. In contrast, the Uyghurs were called "Chan Tou Hui" ("Turban Headed Muslim"), and

1030-481: A report on what he saw among Hui in 1910. He reported that due to religion, Hui were classed as a different nationality from Han as if they were one of the other minority groups. Huizu is now the standard term for the "Hui nationality" (ethnic group), and Huimin , for "Hui people" or "a Hui person". The traditional expression Huihui , its use now largely restricted to rural areas, would sound quaint, if not outright demeaning, to modern urban Chinese Muslims. Islam

1133-578: A strategically, economically, politically, culturally, and religiously sensitive area. The region is one of the regions where agriculture was independently discovered, and from the Middle East it was spread, during the Neolithic, to different regions of the world such as Europe, the Indus Valley and Eastern Africa. Prior to the formation of civilizations, advanced cultures formed all over the Middle East during

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1236-419: A traditional dress code, with some men wearing white caps ( taqiyah ) and some women wearing headscarves , as is the case in many Islamic cultures . Hui Muslims descend from Europeans, Arabs , Indo-Iranian Persians, Mongols, Turkic Uyghurs and other Central Asian immigrants. Their ancestors were of Middle Eastern , Central Asian and East Asian origin, who spread Islam in

1339-803: A vital role in the Middle East, and they represent 40.5% of Lebanon, where the Lebanese president , half of the cabinet, and half of the parliament follow one of the various Lebanese Christian rites. There are also important minority religions like the Baháʼí Faith , Yarsanism , Yazidism , Zoroastrianism , Mandaeism , Druze , and Shabakism , and in ancient times the region was home to Mesopotamian religions , Canaanite religions , Manichaeism , Mithraism and various monotheist gnostic sects. The six top languages, in terms of numbers of speakers, are Arabic , Persian , Turkish , Kurdish , Modern Hebrew and Greek . About 20 minority languages are also spoken in

1442-489: Is Aramaic and its dialects are spoken mainly by Assyrians and Mandaeans , with Western Aramaic still spoken in two villages near Damascus, Syria. There is also an Oasis Berber -speaking community in Egypt where the language is also known as Siwa . It is a non-Semitic Afro-Asiatic sister language. Persian is the second most spoken language. While it is primarily spoken in Iran and some border areas in neighbouring countries,

1545-509: Is located in Qingtongxia. A major irrigation canal branches off the river near the dam and runs north. Qingtongxia City has 1 subdistrict, 8 towns and 1 farm. This Ningxia location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Hui people The Hui people are an East Asian ethnoreligious group predominantly composed of Chinese-speaking adherents of Islam . They are distributed throughout China, mainly in

1648-529: Is more and more common in press texts translated from English sources, albeit having a distinct meaning). In the four Slavic languages, Russian Ближний Восток or Blizhniy Vostok , Bulgarian Близкия Изток , Polish Bliski Wschód or Croatian Bliski istok (terms meaning Near East are the only appropriate ones for the region. However, some European languages do have "Middle East" equivalents, such as French Moyen-Orient , Swedish Mellanöstern , Spanish Oriente Medio or Medio Oriente , Greek

1751-510: Is no longer accurate, strictly speaking, just as with Bosniaks in former Yugoslavia. The Hui nationality is the most widely distributed ethnic minority in China, and it is also the main ethnic minority in many provinces. There are 10,586,087 Hui people in China (2010 census), accounting for 0.79% of the total population, making them the third largest ethnic group after Han Chinese and Zhuang . Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and Gansu Province have

1854-629: Is present in areas in neighboring countries. It is a member of the Turkic languages , which have their origins in East Asia. Another Turkic language, Azerbaijani , is spoken by Azerbaijanis in Iran. The fourth-most widely spoken language, Kurdish , is spoken in the countries of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey, Sorani Kurdish is the second official language in Iraq (instated after the 2005 constitution) after Arabic. Hebrew

1957-429: Is the official language of Israel , with Arabic given a special status after the 2018 Basic law lowered its status from an official language prior to 2018. Hebrew is spoken and used by over 80% of Israel's population, the other 20% using Arabic. Modern Hebrew only began being spoken in the 20th century after being revived in the late 19th century by Elizer Ben-Yehuda (Elizer Perlman) and European Jewish settlers, with

2060-469: Is used by a source in a story. Mideast is also acceptable, but Middle East is preferred. European languages have adopted terms similar to Near East and Middle East . Since these are based on a relative description, the meanings depend on the country and are generally different from the English terms. In German the term Naher Osten (Near East) is still in common use (nowadays the term Mittlerer Osten

2163-625: Is Μέση Ανατολή ( Mesi Anatoli ), and Italian Medio Oriente . Perhaps because of the political influence of the United States and Europe, and the prominence of Western press, the Arabic equivalent of Middle East (Arabic: الشرق الأوسط ash-Sharq al-Awsaṭ ) has become standard usage in the mainstream Arabic press. It comprises the same meaning as the term "Middle East" in North American and Western European usage. The designation, Mashriq , also from

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2266-793: The Arabian Peninsula ( Magan , Sheba , Ubar ). The Near East was first largely unified under the Neo Assyrian Empire , then the Achaemenid Empire followed later by the Macedonian Empire and after this to some degree by the Iranian empires (namely the Parthian and Sassanid Empires ), the Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire . The region served as the intellectual and economic center of

2369-518: The Central Powers , was defeated by the British Empire and their allies and partitioned into a number of separate nations, initially under British and French Mandates . Other defining events in this transformation included the establishment of Israel in 1948 and the eventual departure of European powers, notably Britain and France by the end of the 1960s. They were supplanted in some part by

2472-521: The Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea (see also: Indo-Mediterranean ). It is the birthplace and spiritual center of religions such as Christianity , Islam , Judaism , Manichaeism , Yezidi , Druze , Yarsan , and Mandeanism , and in Iran, Mithraism , Zoroastrianism , Manicheanism , and the Baháʼí Faith . Throughout its history the Middle East has been a major center of world affairs;

2575-682: The International Organization for Migration , there are 13 million first-generation migrants from Arab nations in the world, of which 5.8 reside in other Arab countries. Expatriates from Arab countries contribute to the circulation of financial and human capital in the region and thus significantly promote regional development. In 2009 Arab countries received a total of US$ 35.1 billion in remittance in-flows and remittances sent to Jordan , Egypt and Lebanon from other Arab countries are 40 to 190 per cent higher than trade revenues between these and other Arab countries. In Somalia ,

2678-639: The Maghreb and the Sudan . The term the " Greater Middle East " also includes parts of East Africa , Mauritania , Afghanistan , Pakistan , and sometimes the South Caucasus and Central Asia . The term "Middle East" may have originated in the 1850s in the British India Office . However, it became more widely known when United States naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan used the term in 1902 to "designate

2781-625: The Ming and Qing dynasties . It is thought to have had its origin in the earlier Huihe ( 回紇 ) or Huihu ( 回鶻 ), which was the name for the Uyghur State of the 8th and 9th centuries. Although the ancient Uyghurs were not Muslims the name Huihui came to refer to foreigners, regardless of language or origin, by the time of the Yuan (1271–1368) and Ming dynasties (1368–1644). The use of Hui to denote all foreigners—Muslims, Nestorian Christians, or Jews—reflects bureaucratic terminology developed over

2884-648: The Near East , Fertile Crescent , and Levant . These are geographical concepts, which refer to large sections of the modern-day Middle East, with the Near East being the closest to the Middle East in its geographical meaning. Due to it primarily being Arabic speaking, the Maghreb region of North Africa is sometimes included. The countries of the South Caucasus  – Armenia , Azerbaijan , and Georgia  – are occasionally included in definitions of

2987-563: The Sassanid Empire . However, it would be the later Islamic Caliphates of the Middle Ages , or Islamic Golden Age which began with the Islamic conquest of the region in the 7th century AD, that would first unify the entire Middle East as a distinct region and create the dominant Islamic Arab ethnic identity that largely (but not exclusively) persists today. The 4 caliphates that dominated

3090-775: The Somali Civil War has greatly increased the size of the Somali diaspora , as many of the best educated Somalis left for Middle Eastern countries as well as Europe and North America . Non-Arab Middle Eastern countries such as Turkey , Israel and Iran are also subject to important migration dynamics. A fair proportion of those migrating from Arab nations are from ethnic and religious minorities facing persecution and are not necessarily ethnic Arabs, Iranians or Turks. Large numbers of Kurds , Jews , Assyrians , Greeks and Armenians as well as many Mandeans have left nations such as Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey for these reasons during

3193-501: The South Caucasus . It also includes all of Egypt (not just the Sinai ) and all of Turkey (including East Thrace ). Most Middle Eastern countries (13 out of 18) are part of the Arab world . The most populous countries in the region are Egypt, Turkey, and Iran, while Saudi Arabia is the largest Middle Eastern country by area. The history of the Middle East dates back to ancient times , and it

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3296-467: The Stone Age . The search for agricultural lands by agriculturalists, and pastoral lands by herdsmen meant different migrations took place within the region and shaped its ethnic and demographic makeup. The Middle East is widely and most famously known as the cradle of civilization . The world's earliest civilizations, Mesopotamia ( Sumer , Akkad , Assyria and Babylonia ), ancient Egypt and Kish in

3399-624: The Tang period on. Before the " Yihewani " movement, a Chinese Muslim sect inspired by the Middle Eastern reform movement, northern Hui Sufis blended Taoist teachings and martial arts practices with Sufi philosophy. Middle Eastern The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula , the Levant , Turkey , Egypt , Iran , and Iraq . The term came into widespread usage by

3502-559: The United Kingdom and western European nations in the early 20th century as a replacement of the term Near East (both were in contrast to the Far East ). The term "Middle East" has led to some confusion over its changing definitions. Since the late 20th century, it has been criticized as being too Eurocentric . The region includes the vast majority of the territories included in the closely associated definition of West Asia , but without

3605-557: The Uyghurs . The Hui predominantly speak Chinese , while using some Arabic and Persian phrases. The Hui ethnic group is unique among Chinese ethnic minorities in that it is not associated with a non- Sinitic language . The Hui have a distinct connection with Islamic culture . For example, they follow Islamic dietary laws and reject the consumption of pork , the most commonly consumed meat in China, and have therefore developed their own variation of Chinese cuisine . They also have

3708-533: The ethnonym Dungan . Joseph Fletcher cited Turkic and Persian manuscripts related to the preaching of the 17th century Kashgarian Sufi master Muhammad Yūsuf (or, possibly, his son Afaq Khoja ) inside the Ming Empire (in today's Gansu and/or Qinghai ), where the preacher allegedly converted ulamā-yi Tunganiyyāh (i.e., "Dungan ulema ") into Sufism . As early as the 1830s, Dungan , in various spellings appeared in both English and German, referring to

3811-485: The first native Hebrew speaker being born in 1882. Greek is one of the two official languages of Cyprus , and the country's main language. Small communities of Greek speakers exist all around the Middle East; until the 20th century it was also widely spoken in Asia Minor (being the second most spoken language there, after Turkish) and Egypt. During the antiquity, Ancient Greek was the lingua franca for many areas of

3914-732: The northwestern provinces and in the Zhongyuan region. According to the 2010 census, China is home to approximately 10.5 million Hui people. Outside China, the 170,000 Dungan people of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan , the Panthays in Myanmar , and many of the Chin Haws in Thailand are also considered part of the Hui ethnicity. The Hui were referred to as Hanhui during the Qing dynasty to be distinguished from

4017-472: The (presumably Chinese-speaking) Muslims more assimilated into the Chinese mainstream society. In the 1930s, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) defined the term Hui as indicating only Sinophone Muslims. In 1941, this was clarified by a CCP committee comprising ethnic policy researchers in a treatise entitled "On the question of Huihui Ethnicity" (回回民族问题, Huíhui mínzú wèntí). This treatise defined

4120-952: The 12th-century founder of the Kara-Khitan Khanate , defeating the Huihui Dashibu ( 回回大食部 ) people near Samarkand —apparently, referring to his defeat of the Khwarazm ruler Ahmed Sanjar in 1141. Khwarazm is referred to as Huihuiguo in the Secret History of the Mongols as well. While Huihui or Hui remained a generic name for all Muslims in Imperial China, specific terms were sometimes used to refer to particular groups, e.g. Chantou Hui (" turbaned Hui") for Uyghurs, Dongxiang Hui and Sala Hui for Dongxiang and Salar people , and sometimes even Han Hui ( 漢回 ) ("Chinese Hui") for

4223-563: The 6,781,500 Sunni Hui in China followed 58.2% Gedimu , 21% Yihewani , 10.9% Jahriyya , 7.2% Khuffiya, 1.4% Qadariyya and 0.7% Kubrawiyya Sufi schools. Among the northern Hui, Central Asian Sufi schools such as Kubrawiyya , Qadiriyya , and Naqshbandiyya ( Khufiyya and Jahriyya ) were strong influences, mostly of the Hanafi Madhhab . Hui Muslims have a long tradition of synthesizing Confucian teachings with Qur'anic teachings and reportedly have contributed to Confucianism from

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4326-482: The Arabian Peninsula in particular have benefitted economically from petroleum exports. Because of the arid climate and dependence on the fossil fuel industry, the Middle East is both a major contributor to climate change and a region that is expected to be severely adversely affected by it. Other concepts of the region exist, including the broader Middle East and North Africa (MENA), which includes states of

4429-624: The Arabic root for East , also denotes a variously defined region around the Levant , the eastern part of the Arabic-speaking world (as opposed to the Maghreb , the western part). Even though the term originated in the West, countries of the Middle East that use languages other than Arabic also use that term in translation. For instance, the Persian equivalent for Middle East is خاورمیانه ( Khāvar-e miyāneh ),

4532-591: The Chinese government to one of China's ten historically Islamic minorities. Today, the Chinese government defines the Hui people as an ethnicity without regard to religion, and includes those with Hui ancestry who do not practice Islam. Chinese census statistics count among the Hui (and not as officially recognized separate ethnic groups) the Muslim members of a few small non-Chinese-speaking communities. These include several thousand Utsuls in southern Hainan Province , who speak an Austronesian language ( Tsat ) related to

4635-907: The Dutch settlers no longer observe Islam and their descendants embrace the Chinese folk religion . The Taiwanese branch of the Guo (Kuo in Taiwan) clan with Hui ancestry does not practice Islam, yet does not offer pork at their ancestral shrines. The Chinese Muslim Association counts these people as Muslims. Also on Taiwan , one branch of the Ding (Ting) clan that descended from Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar resides in Taisi Township in Yunlin County . They trace their descent through him via

4738-463: The Gulf was the most important passage for Britain to control in order to keep the Russians from advancing towards British India . Mahan first used the term in his article "The Persian Gulf and International Relations", published in September 1902 in the National Review , a British journal. The Middle East, if I may adopt a term which I have not seen, will some day need its Malta , as well as its Gibraltar ; it does not follow that either will be in

4841-409: The Hebrew is המזרח התיכון ( hamizrach hatikhon ), and the Turkish is Orta Doğu. Traditionally included within the Middle East are Arabia , Asia Minor , East Thrace , Egypt , Iran , the Levant , Mesopotamia , and the Socotra Archipelago . The region includes 17 UN -recognized countries and one British Overseas Territory . Various concepts are often paralleled to the Middle East, most notably

4944-549: The Hui disliked the term Dungan, calling themselves either Huihui or Huizi. In the Soviet Union and its successor countries, the term "Dungans" (дунгане) became the standard name for the descendants of Chinese-speaking Muslims who emigrated in the 1870s and 1880s to the Russian Empire , mostly to today's Kyrgyzstan and south-eastern Kazakhstan . The Panthay are a group of Chinese Muslims in Myanmar (Burma) and Yunnan Province . In Thailand , Chinese Muslims are referred to as Chin Ho ( จีนฮ่อ ). The Utsuls of Hainan are

5047-454: The Hui people of Xinjiang. For example, James Prinsep in 1835 mentioned Muslim "Túngánis" in Chinese Tartary . The word (mostly in the form "Dungani" or "Tungani", sometimes "Dungens" or "Dungans") acquired currency in English and other western languages when books in the 1860–70s discussed the Dungan Revolt . Later authors continued to use variants of the term for Xinjiang Hui people. For example, Owen Lattimore , writing ca. 1940, maintained

5150-455: The Hui-hui say "we do not eat Mongol food". [Cinggis Qa’an replied:] "By the aid of heaven we have pacified you; you are our slaves. Yet you do not eat our food or drink. How can this be right?" He thereupon made them eat. "If you slaughter sheep, you will be considered guilty of a crime." He issued a regulation to that effect   ... [In 1279/1280 under Qubilai] all the Muslims say: "if someone else slaughters [the animal] we do not eat". Because

5253-410: The Levant, all originated in the Fertile Crescent and Nile Valley regions of the ancient Near East. These were followed by the Hittite , Greek , Hurrian and Urartian civilisations of Asia Minor ; Elam , Persia and Median civilizations in Iran , as well as the civilizations of the Levant (such as Ebla , Mari , Nagar , Ugarit , Canaan , Aramea , Mitanni , Phoenicia and Israel ) and

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5356-481: The Middle East for more than 600 years were the Rashidun Caliphate , the Umayyad caliphate , the Abbasid caliphate and the Fatimid caliphate . Additionally, the Mongols would come to dominate the region, the Kingdom of Armenia would incorporate parts of the region to their domain, the Seljuks would rule the region and spread Turko-Persian culture, and the Franks would found the Crusader states that would stand for roughly two centuries. Josiah Russell estimates

5459-411: The Middle East. " Greater Middle East " is a political term coined by the second Bush administration in the first decade of the 21st century to denote various countries, pertaining to the Muslim world , specifically Afghanistan , Iran , Pakistan , and Turkey . Various Central Asian countries are sometimes also included. The Middle East lies at the juncture of Africa and Eurasia and of

5562-504: The Middle East. Arabic, with all its dialects, is the most widely spoken language in the Middle East, with Literary Arabic being official in all North African and in most West Asian countries. Arabic dialects are also spoken in some adjacent areas in neighbouring Middle Eastern non-Arab countries. It is a member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Several Modern South Arabian languages such as Mehri and Soqotri are also spoken in Yemen and Oman. Another Semitic language

5665-408: The Middle East. For the period between the 1970s and 1990s, the Arab states of the Persian Gulf in particular provided a rich source of employment for workers from Egypt, Yemen and the countries of the Levant, while Europe had attracted young workers from North African countries due both to proximity and the legacy of colonial ties between France and the majority of North African states." According to

5768-418: The Mongols, and descended from a mixture of Chinese, Iranian and Turkic peoples. They also reported that the T'ung-kan were Shafi'ites , as were the Khorezmians . The Hui people of Yunnan and Northwestern China resulted from the convergence of Mongol, Turkic, and Iranian peoples or other Central Asian settlers recruited by the Yuan dynasty, either as artisans or as officials (the semu ). The Hui formed

5871-400: The Muslims of China are not significantly related, East Asians, Han Chinese, and most of the Hui and Dongxiang of Linxia share more genes with each other. This indicates that native East Asian populations were culturally assimilated, and that the Hui population was formed through a process of cultural diffusion . An overview study in 2021 estimated that West Eurasian -related admixture among

5974-447: The Persian Gulf. Naval force has the quality of mobility which carries with it the privilege of temporary absences; but it needs to find on every scene of operation established bases of refit, of supply, and in case of disaster, of security. The British Navy should have the facility to concentrate in force if occasion arise, about Aden , India, and the Persian Gulf. Mahan's article was reprinted in The Times and followed in October by

6077-646: The Qing dynasty, Chinese Muslim (Han Hui) was sometimes used to refer to Hui people, which differentiated them from non-Chinese-speaking Muslims. However, not all Hui are Muslims, nor are all Chinese Muslims, Hui. For example, Li Yong is a famous Han Chinese who practices Islam and Hui Liangyu is a notable atheist Hui. In addition, most Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kirghiz and Dongxiang in China are Muslims, but are not Hui. John Stuart Thomson , who traveled in China, called them "Mohammedan Chinese". They have also been called "Chinese Mussulmans", when Europeans wanted to distinguish them from Han Chinese . Throughout history,

6180-407: The Quanzhou Ding family of Fujian. While pretending to be Han Chinese in Fujian, they initially practiced Islam when they came to Taiwan 200 years ago, but their descendants have embraced Buddhism or Taoism. An attempt was made by the Chinese Islamic Society to convert the Fujian Hui of Fujian back to Islam in 1983, by sending four Ningxia imams to Fujian. This futile endeavour ended in 1986, when

6283-563: The Republic of China at the time and the founder of the Chinese Muslim Association . Some scholars refer to this group as Han Chinese Muslims or Han Muslims , while others call them Chinese Muslims , Chinese-speaking Muslims or Sino-Muslims . The Hui were officially recognised as an ethnic group by the People's Republic of China government in 1954. The government defines the Hui people to include all historically Muslim communities not included in China's other ethnic groups; they are therefore distinct from other Muslim groups such as

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6386-573: The Republic of China. A traditional Chinese term for Islam is " 回教 " ( pinyin : Huíjiào , literally "the religion of the Hui"). However, since the early days of the PRC, thanks to the arguments of such Marxist Hui scholars as Bai Shouyi , the standard term for "Islam" within the PRC has become the transliteration " 伊斯蘭教 " (pinyin: Yīsīlán jiào , literally "Islam religion"). The more traditional term Huijiao remains in use in Singapore, Taiwan and other overseas Chinese communities. Qīngzhēn : ( 清真 , literally "pure and true") has also been

6489-400: The Roman Empire and played an exceptionally important role due to its periphery on the Sassanid Empire . Thus, the Romans stationed up to five or six of their legions in the region for the sole purpose of defending it from Sassanid and Bedouin raids and invasions. From the 4th century CE onwards, the Middle East became the center of the two main powers at the time, the Byzantine Empire and

6592-414: The Turkic Salars called "Sala Hui" (Salar Muslim), while Turkic speakers often referred to Hui as "Dungan". Zhongyuan ren : During the Qing dynasty , the term Zhongyuan ren ( 中原人 ; 'people from the Central Plain ') was the term for all Chinese, encompassing Han Chinese and Hui in Xinjiang or Central Asia. While Hui are not Han, they consider themselves to be Chinese and include themselves in

6695-434: The Turkic-speaking Muslims, which were referred to as Chanhui . The Republic of China government also recognised the Hui as a branch of the Han Chinese rather than a separate ethnic group. In the National Assembly of the Republic of China , the Hui were referred to as Nationals in China proper with special convention . The Hui were referred to as Han people Muslims by Bai Chongxi, the Minister of National Defense of

6798-427: The Yuan and Ming dynasties. Arab were white cap , Persians black cap and Jews blue cap Huihui. Islamic mosques and Jewish synagogues at the time were denoted by the same word, Qīngzhēnsì ( 清真寺 : Temple of Purity and Truth). Kublai Khan called both foreign Jews and Muslims in China Huihui when he forced them to stop halal and kosher methods of preparing food: "Among all the [subject] alien peoples only

6901-414: The area between Arabia and India". During this time the British and Russian empires were vying for influence in Central Asia , a rivalry that would become known as the Great Game . Mahan realized not only the strategic importance of the region, but also of its center, the Persian Gulf . He labeled the area surrounding the Persian Gulf as the Middle East. He said that, beyond Egypt's Suez Canal ,

7004-488: The area. Several medieval Chinese dynasties, particularly the Tang , Song and Mongol , witnessed foreign immigration from predominantly Muslim Persia and Central Asia , with both dynasties welcoming foreign Muslim traders from these regions and appointing Central Asian officials. In subsequent centuries, the immigrants gradually spoke Chinese and settled down, eventually forming the Hui. A study in 2004 calculated that 6.7 percent of Hui peoples' matrilineal genetics have

7107-468: The average Northwestern Chinese minority groups was at ~9.1%, with the remainder being dominant East-Eurasian ancestry at ~90.9%. The study also showed that there is a close genetic affinity among these ethnic minorities in Northwest China (including Uyghurs , Huis, Dongxiangs , Bonans , Yugurs and Salars ) and that these cluster closely with other East Asian people , especially in Xinjiang , followed by Mongolic , and Tungusic speakers , indicating

7210-519: The censuses of Russia and Central Asian nations, the Hui are distinguished from Chinese, termed Dungans. However, in both China and Central Asia members of this ethnic group call themselves Lao Huihui or Zhongyuanren, rather than Dungan. Zhongyuan 中原, literally means "The Central Plain," and is the historical name of Shaanxi and Henan provinces. Most Dungans living in Central Asia are descendants of Hui people from Gansu and Shaanxi. Hui people are referred to by Central Asian Turkic speakers and Tajiks by

7313-469: The characteristics of the Hui nationality as an ethnic group associated with, but not defined by, Islam and descended primarily from Muslims who migrated to China during the Mongol-founded Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), as distinct from the Uyghur and other Turkic-speaking ethnic groups in Xinjiang. The Nationalist government by contrast recognised all Muslims as one of "the five peoples"—alongside the Manchus , Mongols , Tibetans and Han Chinese —that constituted

7416-764: The classificiation of the African country, Egypt, among those counted in the Middle East challenges the usefulness of using such terms. The description Middle has also led to some confusion over changing definitions. Before the First World War , "Near East" was used in English to refer to the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire , while "Middle East" referred to the Caucasus , Persia , and Arabian lands, and sometimes Afghanistan , India and others. In contrast, " Far East " referred to

7519-624: The core of what historians had long referred to as the cradle of civilization (multiple regions of the world have since been classified as also having developed independent, original civilizations). Conversely, the Levantine coast and most of Turkey have relatively temperate climates typical of the Mediterranean , with dry summers and cool, wet winters. Most of the countries that border the Persian Gulf have vast reserves of petroleum . Monarchs of

7622-477: The countries of East Asia (e.g. China , Japan , and Korea ). With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, "Near East" largely fell out of common use in English, while "Middle East" came to be applied to the emerging independent countries of the Islamic world . However, the usage "Near East" was retained by a variety of academic disciplines, including archaeology and ancient history . In their usage,

7725-509: The country is one of the region's largest and most populous. It belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch of the family of Indo-European languages . Other Western Iranic languages spoken in the region include Achomi , Daylami , Kurdish dialects, Semmani , Lurish , amongst many others. The close third-most widely spoken language, Turkish , is largely confined to Turkey, which is also one of the region's largest and most populous countries, but it

7828-643: The economy of the Western world [...] Within this contextual framework, the United States sought to divert the Arab world from Soviet influence. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the region has experienced both periods of relative peace and tolerance and periods of conflict particularly between Sunnis and Shiites . Arabs constitute the largest ethnic group in the Middle East, followed by various Iranian peoples and then by Turkic peoples ( Turkish , Azeris , Syrian Turkmen , and Iraqi Turkmen ). Native ethnic groups of

7931-455: The final Ningxia imam left. A similar endeavour in Taiwan also failed. Until 1982, a Han could "become" Hui by converting to Islam. Thereafter, a converted Han counts instead as a "Muslim Han". Symmetrically, Hui people consider other Hui who do not observe Islamic practices as still Hui, and that their Hui nationality cannot be lost. For both of these reasons, simply calling them "Chinese Muslims"

8034-515: The highest in the world, and the international oil cartel OPEC is dominated by Middle Eastern countries. During the Cold War, the Middle East was a theater of ideological struggle between the two superpowers and their allies: NATO and the United States on one side, and the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact on the other, as they competed to influence regional allies. Besides the political reasons there

8137-576: The identity of Hui people has been fluid, often changing as was convenient. Some identified as Hui out of interest in their ancestry or because of government benefits. These Hui are concentrated on the southeast coast of China, especially Fujian province. Some Hui clans around Quanzhou in Fujian, such as the Ding and Guo families, identify themselves by ethnicity and no longer practice Islam. In recent years, more of these clans have identified as Hui, increasing

8240-540: The language of the Vietnamese Champa Muslim minority . According to anthropologist Dru Gladney , they descend from Champa people who migrated to Hainan . A small Muslim minority among Yunnan 's Bai people are classified as Hui as well, although they speak Bai . Some groups of Tibetan Muslims are classified as Hui as well. Huihui ( 回回 ) was the usual generic term for China's Muslims (White Hui), Persian Christians (Black Hui) and Jews (Blue Hui) during

8343-565: The larger group of Zhongyuan ren . The Dungan people , descendants of Hui who fled to Central Asia, called themselves Zhongyuan ren in addition to the standard labels lao huihui and huizi . Zhongyuan ren was used by Turkic Muslims to refer to ethnic Chinese. When Central Asian invaders from Kokand invaded Kashgar , in a letter the Kokandi commander criticised the Kashgari Turkic Muslim Ishaq for allegedly not behaving like

8446-514: The last century. In Iran, many religious minorities such as Christians , Baháʼís , Jews and Zoroastrians have left since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 . The Middle East is very diverse when it comes to religions , many of which originated there. Islam is the largest religion in the Middle East, but other faiths that originated there, such as Judaism and Christianity , are also well represented. Christian communities have played

8549-459: The late 20th century, scholars and journalists from the region, such as journalist Louay Khraish and historian Hassan Hanafi have criticized the use of "Middle East" as a Eurocentric and colonialist term. The Associated Press Stylebook of 2004 says that Near East formerly referred to the farther west countries while Middle East referred to the eastern ones, but that now they are synonymous. It instructs: Use Middle East unless Near East

8652-458: The majority of whom were Muslims who came from western regions, were labelled as Semu people, but were also mistaken by Chinese for Uyghur, due to them coming from the west (Uyghur lands). The name "Hui Hui" was applied to them, and eventually became the name applied to Muslims. Another, probably unrelated, early use of the word Huihui comes from the History of Liao , which mentions Yelü Dashi ,

8755-471: The official population. They provided evidence of their ancestry and were recognized as Hui. Many clans across Fujian had genealogies that demonstrated Hui ancestry. These clans inhabited Fujian, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines. None of these clans were Muslims but they do not offer pork during their ancestral worship . In Taiwan, the Hui clans who followed Koxinga to Formosa to defeat

8858-619: The poor people are upset by this, from now on, Musuluman [Muslim] Huihui and Zhuhu [Jewish] Huihui, no matter who kills [the animal] will eat [it] and must cease slaughtering sheep themselves, and cease the rite of circumcision." The widespread and rather generic application of the name Huihui in Ming China was attested to by foreign visitors as well. Matteo Ricci , the first Jesuit to reach Beijing (1598), noted that "Saracens are everywhere in evidence . . . their thousands of families are scattered about in nearly every province" Ricci noted that

8961-941: The population formed through male-dominated migration, potentially via a northern route, followed by massive assimilation of Guizhou aborigines into Han Chinese and Hui Muslims. The East Asian Y-chromosome haplogroup O-M122 is found in large quantities, about 24–30%, in other Muslims groups close to the Hui like the Dongxiangs , Bo'an , and Salar people . While the Y chromosome haplogroup R1a (found among Central Asians , South Asians and Europeans) are found among 17–28% of them. Western mtDNA makes up 6.6% to 8%. Other haplogroups include D-M174 , N1a1-Tat , and Q , commonly found among East Asians and Siberians. The majority of Tibeto-Burmans, Han Chinese, and Ningxia and Liaoning Hui share paternal Y chromosomes of East Asian origin which are unrelated to Middle Easterners and Europeans. In contrast to distant Middle Easterners and Europeans with whom

9064-448: The population of what he calls "Islamic territory" as roughly 12.5 million in 1000 – Anatolia 8 million, Syria 2 million, and Egypt 1.5 million. From the 16th century onward, the Middle East came to be dominated, once again, by two main powers: the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid dynasty . The modern Middle East began after World War I , when the Ottoman Empire, which was allied with

9167-455: The probability of a shared recent common ancestor of "Altaic speakers". A genome study, using the ancestry-informative SNP (AISNP) analysis, found only 3.66% West-Eurasian-like admixture among Hui people, while the Uyghurs harbored the relative highest amount of West-Eurasian-like admixture at 36.30%. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the term "Hui" was applied by

9270-662: The region include, in addition to Arabs, Arameans , Assyrians , Baloch , Berbers , Copts , Druze , Greek Cypriots , Jews , Kurds , Lurs , Mandaeans , Persians , Samaritans , Shabaks , Tats , and Zazas . European ethnic groups that form a diaspora in the region include Albanians , Bosniaks , Circassians (including Kabardians ), Crimean Tatars , Greeks , Franco-Levantines , Italo-Levantines , and Iraqi Turkmens . Among other migrant populations are Chinese , Filipinos , Indians , Indonesians , Pakistanis , Pashtuns , Romani , and Afro-Arabs . "Migration has always provided an important vent for labor market pressures in

9373-519: The rising influence of the United States from the 1970s onwards. In the 20th century, the region's significant stocks of crude oil gave it new strategic and economic importance. Mass production of oil began around 1945, with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates having large quantities of oil. Estimated oil reserves , especially in Saudi Arabia and Iran, are some of

9476-579: The second-highest stratum in the Yuan ethnic hierarchy (after the Mongols but above Chinese). A proportion of the ancestral nomad or military ethnic groups were originally Nestorian Christians , many of whom later converted to Islam under the Ming and Qing dynasties. However, Hui peoples from Gansu , along with their Dongxian neighbors, did not receive substantial gene flow from Western and Central Asia or European populations during their Islamization. Most Hui people are Sunni Muslims , and their Islamic sects can be divided into: Ma Tong recorded that

9579-540: The southeast coast (e.g., Guangdong , Fujian ) and in major trade centers elsewhere in China, some are of mixed local and foreign descent. The foreign element, although greatly diluted, came primarily from Iranian ( Bosi ) traders, who brought Islam to China. These foreigners settled and gradually intermarried, while assimilating into Chinese culture. Early European explorers speculated that T'ung-kan (Dungans, i.e. Hui, called "Chinese Mohammedans") in Xinjiang , originated from Khorezmians who were transported to China by

9682-699: The term Huihui or Hui was applied by Chinese not only to "Saracens" (Muslims) but also to Chinese Jews and supposedly even to Christians. In fact, when the reclusive Wanli Emperor first saw a picture of Ricci and Diego de Pantoja , he supposedly exclaimed, "Hoei, hoei. It is quite evident that they are Saracens", and had to be told by a eunuch that they actually weren't, "because they ate pork". The 1916 Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics , Volume 8 said that Chinese Muslims always called themselves Huihui or Huizi, and that neither themselves nor other people called themselves Han, and they disliked people calling them Dungan. French army Commandant Viscount D'Ollone wrote

9785-516: The term describes an area identical to the term Middle East , which is not used by these disciplines (see ancient Near East ). The first official use of the term "Middle East" by the United States government was in the 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine , which pertained to the Suez Crisis . Secretary of State John Foster Dulles defined the Middle East as "the area lying between and including Libya on

9888-600: The terminological distinction between these two related groups: the Donggan or "Tungkan" (the older Wade-Giles spelling for "Dungan"), described by him as the descendants of the Gansu Hui people resettled in Xinjiang in the 17–18th centuries, vs. e.g. the "Gansu Moslems" or generic "Chinese Moslems". The name "Dungan" sometimes referred to all Muslims coming from China proper , such as Dongxiang and Salar in addition to Hui. Reportedly,

9991-511: The west and Pakistan on the east, Syria and Iraq on the North and the Arabian peninsula to the south, plus the Sudan and Ethiopia ." In 1958, the State Department explained that the terms "Near East" and "Middle East" were interchangeable, and defined the region as including only Egypt , Syria, Israel , Lebanon , Jordan , Iraq, Saudi Arabia , Kuwait , Bahrain , and Qatar . Since

10094-569: The western Middle East and until the Muslim expansion it was widely spoken there as well. Until the late 11th century, it was also the main spoken language in Asia Minor ; after that it was gradually replaced by the Turkish language as the Anatolian Turks expanded and the local Greeks were assimilated, especially in the interior. English is one of the official languages of Akrotiri and Dhekelia. It

10197-411: Was also the "ideological conflict" between the two systems. Moreover, as Louise Fawcett argues, among many important areas of contention, or perhaps more accurately of anxiety, were, first, the desires of the superpowers to gain strategic advantage in the region, second, the fact that the region contained some two-thirds of the world's oil reserves in a context where oil was becoming increasingly vital to

10300-660: Was based in Cairo , for its military forces in the region. After that time, the term "Middle East" gained broader usage in Europe and the United States. Following World War II, for example, the Middle East Institute was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1946. The corresponding adjective is Middle Eastern and the derived noun is Middle Easterner . While non-Eurocentric terms such as "Southwest Asia" or "Swasia" have been sparsely used,

10403-563: Was customary to refer to areas centered around Turkey and the eastern shore of the Mediterranean as the " Near East ", while the " Far East " centered on China , India and Japan . The Middle East was then defined as the area from Mesopotamia to Burma , namely, the area between the Near East and the Far East. In the late 1930s, the British established the Middle East Command , which

10506-475: Was long considered the "cradle of civilization". The geopolitical importance of the region has been recognized and competed for during millennia. The Abrahamic religions, Judaism , Christianity , and Islam , have their origins in the Middle East. Arabs constitute the main ethnic group in the region, followed by Turks , Persians , Kurds , Azeris , Copts , Jews , Assyrians , Iraqi Turkmen , Yazidis , and Greek Cypriots . The Middle East generally has

10609-526: Was originally called Dashi Jiao during the Tang dynasty , when Muslims first appeared in China. "Dashi Fa" literally means "Arab law" in Old Chinese . Since almost all Muslims in China were exclusively foreign Arabs or Persians at the time, it was rarely mentioned by the Chinese, unlike other religions like Zoroastrism or Mazdaism , and Nestorian Christianity , which gained followings in China. As an influx of foreigners, such as Persians, Jews and Christians,

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