Matthew Erie's new book, China and Islam, is a tour de force both in the scope of the material covered and the sophistication of its analysis. The book explores the tensions and intersections between localized practices of Islamic law among the Hui Muslim minority in northwest China and the Party-state's secular laws and policies.
The book probes the interstitial nodes of the minjian, meaning, literally, “between people,” where local practices negotiate with a range of state and non-state actors. Erie defines minjian as “those institutions and norms that have not (necessarily) received the state's imprimatur” (p. 13); in other words, a sort of autonomous, grey zone of activities (shari'a law, ritual actions, religious education and marriage, gift giving and Islamic banking) that are under constant pressure, mediation and compromise with the Party-state and its bureaucratic organs.
Erie convincingly argues that secular state law and Islamic religious law are not necessarily antagonistic. In the case of the Hui and many other Muslim communities across the globe, the minjian is a realm of negotiation (both subterfuge and submission) where contradictory expectations can be worked out in a flexible, pragmatic fashion. This is what Erie labels the “Hui social field,” a fluid and heterogeneous set of interpretive practices and norms that come to define the boundaries of Hui-ness in contemporary China.
The study is based on 20 months of ethnographic field research and over 200 interviews; yet the author's ability to work comfortably in Chinese-language sources (historical, contemporary, as well as statistical data) adds real depth and sophistication to his analysis, one that moves comfortably between the complexities of Islamic law and the PRC's rapidly evolving legal code. The book revolves around the one million Muslims that live in the Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, but Erie travelled widely throughout Northwest China and adeptly places Gansu's Hui community within the wider context of reform-era China and the CCP's larger set of ethnic and religious policies. In his analysis, Erie engages with key intellectual debates in not only anthropology but other disciplines like legal studies, political science and even political economy; while it makes for dense reading at times, the range of insights is impressive and beyond the scope of this short review.
In the first two chapters Erie meticulously charts the historical formation of different Muslim “teaching schools,” what others have labelled sects, tides or even modes of Islamic practice. These schools are rooted in dissonant interpretations and ritual practices of Muslim law, or shari'a (jiaofa). In subsequent chapters, the book explores the important role of rituals in defining the fluid boundaries of these different teaching schools. Erie also explores the diverse landscape of Hui education, where state schools compete with a range of private, ethnic and religious schools, with the Party-state and the market pushing and pulling young Hui students in different directions. Similarly, the “interpretive interventions” of Hui women (p. 223) allow them to navigate between the patriarchal structures of state and Islamic law, empowering them to protect their own well-being. In short, the dual-tracks of state and Islamic law leave open spaces for creative manoeuvring in education, marriage, ritual and divorce practices.
The book also wades into the political economy of the Hui social field. Here Erie explores the ethics and economics of gift giving, and contradictory efforts to link Muslims in the northwest with the global umma of Islamic capital under the banner of a “New Silk Road.” Ultimately the Hui “moral economy” is hindered by “the negative externalities of Islamic extremism” (p. 271) and the Party-state's insistence that stability maintenance must always trump economic development in the volatile West.
Erie convincingly demonstrates the mercurial nature of the boundary between acceptable local practices and secular laws and policies in Hui areas. These minjian spaces are far more constricted than Habermas's notion of a public sphere in Western liberalism, yet they remain both highly dynamic and crucial for understanding state–society relations in China more broadly.
Perhaps surprisingly, the Party-state draws on the authority of Islamic law and its Hui interpreters to exercise its governance in Muslim areas. By co-opting Hui clerics and other religious teachers, Party officials seek legitimacy and acceptance for its rule, thus opening spaces for unofficial religious practices and the mediation of disputes. This results in what Erie terms an “anxious collaboration” (p. 78) between the Party-state and its Hui citizens.
In recent years, however, tensions have sharpened in China's West. The 2009 Ürümqi riots soured the public mood and stoked often irrational fears of Muslim “terror.” China's current president, Xi Jinping, is set on Sinicizing foreign faiths, like Islam and Christianity, fearing their ability to undermine faith in the Party and “rule of law.” Will this troubling trend constrict or even morph the minjian over time? If so, Erie's research suggests a corresponding impact on the Party-state's ability to maintain control and social stability in frontier regions.
In sum, Matthew Erie's new book makes a number of important new contributions to the academic literature on a diverse set of topics from gender politics to ethnic policy in China, and will be of interest to scholars of Islam, law and human ethics, to name but a few. Sinologists will also appreciate this fine work of meticulous ethnography.
