Customer Reviews

Mythology and Folklore of the Hui, a Muslim Chinese People

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Great pictures (for black and white), including of the tombs of some of the great Chinese Muslim saints; but regarding content the author displays very little interest/appreciation for the religion of Islam; he presents a book that is quite "fuzzy around the edges," with very little regard for the vast wealth of Islamic/Sufi tradition in China, including the Naqshbandiyya (Khuffiyya/Jahriyya) and Qadiriyya orders. One would wish to see in a book like this much more probing and intelligent representation of these truely fascinating people, the Hui Muslims.

I have to concur with the other reviewers. Indeed the book has wonderful pictures. But- for one thing- the Hui are not exactly an ethnic group- they are extremely diverse, live all over China, and range from committed Muslims to atheist cadres- so a study of the "Hui folktales" does not necessarily shed light on what it means to be Hui; these folktales are not part of a shared heritage. Perhaps if the scope was more specific, i.e. "Folktales of the Hui of Ningxia," this would have worked better. Of course many of the stories are interesting- particularly those dealing with the intersection of Islam and traditional Chinese religion.

i think that the stories in the book are not the stories of the Muslim people their own. this is because there is great distance between anthors and the culture of the people whom they wrote about. the people like Hui in China might not like to tell such stories that they collected in the book