News & Comment
Expanding Chinese Oppression against Muslims,
Not Only the Uyghurs, Now Also the Hui Muslims

News:

As reported by Reuters recently School students in Linxia county in Gansu province, home to many members of the Muslim Hui ethnic minority, are prohibited from entering religious buildings on winter break, a district education bureau said, as authorities step up control of religious education. Students must also not read scriptures in classes or in religious buildings, the bureau said, adding that all students and teachers should heed the notice and work to strengthen political ideology and propaganda.

A picture of the notice was shared online by Xi Wuyi, a Marxist scholar at the state-backed Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and an outspoken critic of rising Islamic influence in China. In a post on the social media platform Weibo, she welcomed the apparent move by authorities. A man who answered the telephone at the Linxia education bureau hung up when asked by Reuters to verify authenticity of the notice, while a woman at the district education bureau declined to comment.

Comment:

The widespread oppression against Muslims in China is getting clear, not lead only by racial nor geopolitical reason as Xinjiang region in frontier, but mainly driven by the hatred against Islam and fear of the rise of Islam in China. Its proven because now Ningxia province was also becoming targeted for Islamic teachings restriction, they are wary of the influence of Islam could pose to their officially atheist Communist Party whose performed rigid political and social control.

There has been a strong narrative about the difference between the fate of Muslim Uyghurs and Muslim Hui in the media, that China's repressive treatment is more due to racial issues and geopolitical interests. The Hui, estimated at around 11 million are concentrated within the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. In skin and blood, the Hui are little different from their Han brethren as Mandarin is also their mother tongue. All this time, the narrative often said the Hui is luckier than the Uyghur. Unlike the Hui, the Uyghurs who speak a Turkic language written with an Arabic script and mostly reside in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region - face an alarming amount of state discrimination which maintains a pervasive system of ethnic discrimination against Uighur and sharply curbs religious and cultural expression.

However, now, these two tales of Muslims in China are not relevant anymore. The Hui Muslims have also come under scrutiny from some intellectuals who fear creeping Islamic influence on society. In 2016, the government of Gansu banned religion in nurseries after a video of a young girl reciting the Quran was posted online. Gansu is home to around 1.6 billion Hui Muslims, the third largest population of Muslims in China's provinces and regions, behind Xinjiang and Ningxia.

This paranoid action against Islam and Muslims -whether Uyghur or Hui - actually based on China’s long historical experience of their powerlessness against the power of the Islamic Aqeedah. The Chinese regime is well aware of the enormity of the power of the Islamic ideology which their state has felt from the 7th century CE, having witnessed how rapidly it affected their people who flocked to convert to Islam. The Islamic Khilafah in the era of Al-Walid bin 'Abdul Malik had been conquering Central Asia - including the China area - under the commander of Qutaibah bin Muslim which began in 86 AH / 705 CE. China witnessed the power of the Muslims at that time, who managed to conquer the territories of Asia, and cannot be blocked by the authorities there. This experience had a tremendous political impact which is engraved in the memory of Chinese history, especially when Qutaibah successfully conquered the city of Kashgar, Samarkand and were able to successfully control the Silk Road trade routes in Central Asia which were very important for China and the world.

The history will repeat itself biithnillah, and China’s predatory regime will again face the second Qutaibah under the command of the Islamic Khilafah for the second time. Commander like Qutaibah under the banner of Islam will liberate the Muslim Uighurs and restore the geopolitical power of Islam in Central Asia, where blood, property and honor of every Muslim will be protected.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Fika Komara
Member of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir