New Books in Islamic Studies 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 scholar of Chinese Muslim and Uyghur history. He traces pilgrims, merchants, and scholars across Ming to Republican eras. He discusses mosque libraries, multilingual texts, diaspora networks, and how biographies reveal changing identities. He also explores translation of Islamic ideas into Chinese thought and the authority of travel.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Chinese Muslims Are Ordinary Participants In Global Islam
- Rian Thum argues Chinese Muslims should be treated as ordinary participants in both Chinese and global Islamic histories.
- He found extensive Persian and Arabic literatures used by Chinese Muslims, challenging the view they practiced an isolated, Confucianized Islam.
Demography And Distribution Of Muslims In China
- China today hosts about 25 million Muslims across every province, mainly Uyghurs and Hui, with several other Muslim-majority ethnicities.
- Uyghurs are regionally concentrated in Xinjiang; Hui are dispersed across cities and rural pockets and trace roots to 1,200+ years of conversions.
Why The Book Focuses On Ming To Early Republican Era
- Thum frames the late Ming to early Republican period (circa 1600s–early 20th c.) as a coherent window because of surviving Chinese Muslim print culture.
- Late Ming shows the first Chinese-language Muslim works; early 20th c. brings print, modernism, and movements to excise texts.
