Islam in China: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in China

In 31H or 651AD, the third Muslim Caliph Othman bnu Affan sent adelegation of fifteen people to Yung Way, the Emperor of Tang Dynasty.They arrived by sea, landed in Canton. They then visited the Emperor inShang-An (currently, Sian or Xi’an), they were well received and builtthe first Mosque there. This was the first mosque built in China and itexists to this day.

In 96H or 714AD, Muslim armies reached the border of China for thefirst time and entered Kashgar, which is now in the northwest of China,in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. This occurred during thetime of the sixth Umayyad Caliph al-Walid I bnu Abdel Malik bnuMarwan (ruled from 705AD to 715AD). Accordingly, the governor ofIraq, al-Hajjaj bnu Yusuf al-Thaqafi sent an army under the leadership ofQutaiba bnu Muslim al-Bahili (lived from 48H or 668AD to 96H or715AD). The Chinese Emperor then agreed to pay tribute to the Muslimsas a sign of allegiance to the Muslim State. Islam then spread in Chinathrough commerce and Muslim state support to the Chinese statewhenever requested during the Umayyad and Abbasid Dynasties. Withthe collapse of the Ming Dynasty in 1644, Muslim remained oppresseduntil the Republican Revolution in 1911. Oppression returned andcontinued since 1948 with the Communists takeover.

Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region or East Turkestan as knownhistorically, remained under Muslim control from 715AD until 1073AD,when non-Muslim Turkish tribes gained control over it, followed byGenghis Khan Mongol armies in 1221. After the Islamization of theMongols, this region became an independent Muslim state until it wasoccupied by Chinese Manchu rulers in 1644. It gained briefindependence under Muslim revolts in 1872-76, 1931-34 and 1940-44.

Currently, the People’s Republic of China has an area of 9,640,011 sqkm, excluding the Special Administrative Regions or Hong Kong (1,104sq km) and Macao (28 sq km) and their populations. It is the third largestcountry in the world after Russia and Canada, with similar size to theUnited States of America. It is also the most populous country in theworld; with one fifth of the world population.

M. Broomhall estimated the Muslim population in 1850 at 9,641,000or 2.3% of the total population. Then in 1910, he puts the estimate between five and ten million, or up to 2.4% of the total population. It isalso reported that a 1936 census puts the Muslim population at 10.5%.However, there is no evidence that such census took place.

The first comprehensive census was taken in 1953, and almost everydecade since then. These censuses recorded ethnic affiliation of thepopulation, where ten of the ethnic minorities are Muslim. These areBonan (Bao’An), Dongxiang, Hui, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Salar, Tajik, Tatar,Uygur (Uighur) and Uzbek. Almost half of Muslims in China are Hui,while over 40% are Uygur. More than 90% of the population of Chinabelongs to the non-Muslim Han ethnicity. Table 2.6.1a presents thecensus count of each Muslim ethnicity since 1953 and their percentage ofall Muslims in China.

Hence, based on ethnic census data, the Muslim population in Chinaincreased from 8.0 million or 1.4% in 1953, to 9.2 million or 1.3% in 1964,to 14.6 million or 1.5% in 1982, to 17.6 million or 1.6% in 1990, to 20.3million or 1.6% in 2000, to 23.1 million or 1.7% in 2010. Thus, assumingthat the percentage of Muslims will increase by a tenth of a percentagepoint per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to reach 28million or 2.1% by 2050 and twenty million or 2.6% by 2100.

More than half of Muslims livein the northeastern most province of Xinjiang Uyghur AutonomousRegion or East Turkistan, where they make up almost 60% of the totalpopulation. According to official estimates, the percentage of Muslimsdecreased from 93.5% in 1941 to 91.3% in 1949. With the migration ofethnic Han Chinese (non-Muslims), the percentage of Muslims decreasedsignificantly according to subsequent censuses; from 90% in 1953 to 58%in 2000 and 2010.

A quarter of the Muslim population lives in the northeasternprovinces of Ningxia, Gansu and Qinghai, where their share of thepopulation is 35%, 17% and 7%, respectively. These percentages did notchange much since the 1953 census. Table 2.6.1d shows the distributionof Muslim ethnic minority groups in each Chinese province according tocensus data since 1982. Hainan and Chongqing provinces were splitfrom Guangdong and Sichuan provinces, respectively in 1988 and 1997.A choropleth map of China illustrating the presence of Muslims perprovince is presented in Figure 2.6.1b, where white is less than 1% of the provincial population and the darker the region, the more is thepercentage of Muslims.

Historical Muslim population dataset for China

The figures below are from the CoMPS historical dataset. Population values are expressed in thousands; 2100 is a modelled projection, not a present-day count.

For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.