New Books Network Rian Thum, "Islamic China: An Asian History" (Harvard UP, 2025)
Mar 5, 2026
Rian Thum, Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Manchester and author known for Uyghur scholarship, explores Chinese Muslim lives across Ming to Republican eras. He follows pilgrims, merchants, and scholars. Topics include languages of Muslim texts, transregional diasporas, educational reforms, and detective-like archival book hunting.
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Chinese Muslims Are Ordinary In Global Islam
- Rian Thum argues Chinese Muslims should be treated as ordinary participants in both Chinese and global Islamic history.
- He challenges portrayals that cast Chinese Islam as an exotic, Confucian-compromised outlier by showing deep ties to wider Muslim literatures and networks.
Diverse Demography Of Muslims In China
- Contemporary China has ~25 million Muslims spanning Uyghur, Hui, and other groups with very different histories and geographies.
- Uyghurs are concentrated in Xinjiang; Hui are dispersed across China and largely descend from long-standing Chinese-born Muslim families.
Late Ming To Early Republican Marks A Literary Turning Point
- Thum frames the book from late Ming to early Republican because that's when Chinese Muslim writings and printing become visible and when modern reforms reshape Islamic canons.
- He marks early 20th-century textual literalism as a break from adding books to the canon toward removing texts.
