Conception of Jihad and its Practices in Islam of China

Abstract

Chinese Muslims, as minorities living in Inland China, have never developed a complex or elaborate theory of Jihad in mainstream Chinese culture. However, as a result of being minorities and because of suffering from discriminative policies in the Qing Empire, the Muslims in Yunnan, Qinghai, Gansu and Xinjiang, indeed, launched several holy wars in order to retaliate against the massacres committed by the imperial armies. Some of these Muslims, for example, sacrificed their lives with forms of suicide bombings against the so-called "infidel" enemy. As a result of such oppression, some Muslim scholars of that era interpreted Jihad within an extremist approach. In modern times, Jihad is rendered by the separate movements in Xinjiang as "a key to the gate of the Paradise" in the struggle for Eastern Turkistan. Under the People's Republic, Jihad is interpreted by the official Islamic associations as an effort to get rid of the selfish desire for constructing a harmonious socialist China, with Muslim scholars frequently emphasizing the peaceful nature of Jihad. Therefore, Jihad is often employed in China by different Muslim groups in various contexts as an instrument for divergent political purposes.