Practicing Islam in Taiwan

Four waves of immigration have led to the presence of a Muslim community on the island.

story and photos BY MARK CALTONHILL

Just as at any Taiwanese wedding, a large photo of the happy couple stands proudly at the entrance, red envelopes of cash are presented as gifts, and the bride, Ma Hsing-hui, appears in three different dresses during the course of the celebratory meal.

But here the similarities end, for Ma and husband-to-be Fan Hsiang-shun are members of Taiwan’s Islamic community, and their banquet is being held in the Taipei Grand Mosque.

Located opposite Daan Forest Park on Xinsheng South Road, the mosque has spacious grounds. Since its construction in the late 1950s, it has generally represented a quiet and largely forgotten corner of the city, as only around one-tenth of one percent of Taiwan’s population are Muslims. Nevertheless, the presence in recent years of around 100,000 Indonesian domestic workers and laborers in the country at any given time, as well as other Muslims from Malaysia, the Philippines, Pakistan, India, and elsewhere, has not only re-energized this community – particularly on Fridays, the Islamic day of prayer – but has also transformed the congregation and the social role of the mosque.

These foreign workers might be considered a fourth wave of Muslim immigration, says Ismail Wang, general manager of the mosque, before going on to offer a brief history of Islam in Taiwan. The first wave of arrivals came with Zheng Cheng-gong (known to the West as Koxinga), the Ming-dynasty loyalist who expelled the Dutch from Tainan in 1661. On the run from the new Qing dynasty in China, Zheng’s forces included a sizable number of Muslims of the Hui (å›ž) ethnic minority from southwest China. Zheng’s soldiers established agricultural-military garrisons in the south and west of the island while they waited for orders to retake the mainland and re-establish the earlier dynasty. When instead they were conquered by Qing forces two decades later, the camps were demilitarized, and the former soldiers embarked on careers in farming, fishing, and trade.

Over the next three centuries, although Muslim communities were formed – and mosques and cemeteries constructed – in Lukang, Tamsui, Keelung, Taipei, and elsewhere, few if any traces remain today. Similarly, their beliefs, practices and adherence to religious rules gradually waned.

Nevertheless, says Wang, occasional evidence of this first wave is still encountered. Most notable are members of the Guo (éƒ) family of Lugang, who although professing to follow traditional Chinese religious practices, do not eat pork on Fridays nor offer it to their ancestral spirits, and who like to keep their heads covered during rituals.

There are also two families in Keelung whose ancestral shrine contains a Qur’an and examples of Arabic script, although they did not understand the significance of these objects until contact with newly arrived Muslims in recent decades. Similarly, two or three families in Tainan are reported to observe funeral customs more associated with Islam than Daoism or Buddhism, such as ceremonial washing of the body and wrapping it in white cloth.

Then there are the many people surnamed Ding (ä¸) in Taixi Township in Yunlin County. Known as the “Muslim Ding” despite practicing Taiwan’s usual mix of Buddhism, Daoism, and local religion, they trace their origins back to a Central Asian nobleman named Sayyid Shamsuddin Omar who settled in China during the Mongolian Yuan dynasty (1279-1367) when China was part of Genghis Khan’s empire. They later moved to Quanzhou in Fujian Province, hid themselves among the general Chinese population using “Ding” to represent the last syllable of “Shamsuddin,” and then came to Taiwan along with a great many others from that coastal area of China during the Qing dynasty. Given that “Sayyid” is an honorific title given to descendants of the prophet Mohammed, they may even be connected to the great prophet, the Chinese Muslim Association (CMA) has suggested.

The final vestiges of Islamic worship were wiped out under Japanese colonial rule (1895-1945), when all foreign religions were proscribed.

The members of the second wave of Muslim immigrants to Taiwan were also military personnel – particularly navy – accompanying Chiang Kai-shek to the island in 1949 in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. They too expected to return home quickly, in their case to vanquish Mao Zedong. In the meantime, they met in private houses built in the Japanese colonial style, and most notably in a converted shop in Taipei’s Lishui Street not far from today’s mosque. Many of these adherents came from southeast China, and included Muslims from the military bases at Nanjing and Anhui who were also ethnic Hui with origins from further west in China.

They established local branches of the CMA and Chinese Muslim Youth League, and in 1976 inaugurated the Islamic Cultural and Educational Foundation. They also assisted the Republic of China to foster good relationships with Middle Eastern and other Islamic countries. Indeed, the CMA had been founded in Hankou, Hubei Province in 1938 specifically to unite Muslims behind Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist cause and to help it gain international support in its battles against the Japanese invaders and subsequently Mao’s Communists.

Building the Grand Mosque

During the 1950s, as it appeared increasingly unlikely that Chiang’s Kuo-mintang-led forces would retake the mainland, Muslim friends around the world made donations to build a Grand Mosque in Taipei, which opened in April 1960. It was the first mosque built in Arabian style on Chinese soil, says the CMA, and in 1999 it was recognized as a historic site by the Taipei City Government, thus protecting it from previous threats of demolition due to disputes over land rights. With a total area of more than 2,700 square meters and a prayer hall rising to a height of 15 meters, it is the largest mosque in Taiwan. The then Shah of Iran and the King of Jordan were major financial contributors, and the Saudi Arabian government continues to offer support.

There is one other mosque in Taipei, and another four in Kaohsiung, Tainan, Taichung, and Jhongli.

A key force behind construction of the Grand Mosque was the CMA’s founder, General Bai Chong-xi, the ROC’s most famous Muslim. In 1924, he played a leading role in overthrowing the Guangxi warlord Lu Rong-ting to bring the province under KMT control, and he was chief of staff of the Nationalist army during the Northern Expedition (1926-1928). For most of the civil war period (1945-49), Bai was Minister for National Defense, but he was largely ignored by Chiang Kai-shek, who wielded almost complete control. They fell out finally in 1948, and although Bai continued as a member of the KMT’s central executive committee, he lived in effective retirement in Taiwan from the age of 56 until he died at the age of 73 in 1966. He was given a military funeral, and his mausoleum is by far the largest and most impressive grave in the Muslim section of the cemetery a short walk from the Liuzhangli MRT station in Taipei.

Bai and his family, along with the many soldiers under his command who made it to Taiwan safely in 1949 or shortly afterwards, were part of the 20,000 or so Muslims of the second wave of immigration. But many more Nationalist forces and other refugees took decades to reach Taiwan if they made it at all, having left China from the northeast to Korea and Japan, from the west to India and Nepal, or even more numerously from the southwest to Burma and Thailand. In these latter countries, Kuomintang forces set up entire villages, some of which exist to this day. Some people engaged in farming and business, others in smuggling and other illicit occupations, and some engaged in guerrilla warfare.

In 1953, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution condemning the KMT-led ROC government for waging war from Burma, and agreement was reached to evacuate around 5,500 of these irregular forces and their families to Taiwan. Mostly Muslim, they settled in the Jhongli area of Taoyuan County, which explains the presence of the Longgang Mosque (é¾å²¡æ¸…çœŸå¯º) in that city, which dates from 1964.

More non-combatant Muslim – as well as many non-Muslim – refugees from Thailand and Burma arrived during the 1980s, many settling in the Nanshijiao area of the Zhonghe suburb of Taipei commonly known as Burma Street (ç·¬ç”¸è¡—), as well as in Jhongli and elsewhere. These constitute the third wave of immigration. Mostly originating from China’s Yunnan Province, they are predominantly of Hui ethnicity, like most of those before them.

According to official statistics, the ROC currently has around 50,000 Muslim citizens, the result of these second and third waves of immigration, their descendents, and a small number of conversions. General Manager Wang says the true figure is nearer to 20,000, and many of those are culturally Muslim rather than religiously so. He estimates that around 90% of Taiwan’s Muslims are ethnic Hui, whereas just under half of China’s more than 20 million Muslims are Hui.

Chinese Muslims are Sunni, rather than Shiite, and belong to the Hanafi school. Nevertheless, Wang says, this in no way presents doctrinal or practical problems with visiting Muslims of other schools such as Shafia Indonesians, Maliki North Africans, and Hambani Saudis. Differences are more a matter of mutual curiosity than conflict.

Social challenges

A bigger issue is the perception of the Islamic community by the wider Han Chinese society, which tends to view the religion as alien to traditional Chinese culture. Ironically, some Taiwanese Muslims criticize the nation’s freedom of belief, as well as what they see as its biased educational system, as directly contributing to the deterioration of Islam. Working and living in Taiwan, some Muslims find it difficult to carry out their duty to pray five times each day – salat, one of the Five Pillars of Islam – as well as the precept of sawm, fasting during Ramadan.

Moreover, since Saturday and Sunday are Taiwan’s days of rest, many Muslims cannot make it to their mosques on Friday, the Islamic day of worship, missing out on the teachings by the imam, elders, or international scholars held in association with the midday prayer.

Diet is another problem as Taiwan has few halal restaurants or butcher shops.

The competitive atmosphere in the schools presents another challenge for parents, who find it difficult to persuade their children to spend time studying Arabic or the Qu’ran when there are so many other subjects they must learn.

Further erosion is blamed on the smallness of the Muslim population, with members in isolated areas often marrying non-Muslims or converts who are unfamiliar with religious and social traditions. Elderly Muslims speak of their fears that the history of the assimilation of the Lukang families might repeat itself with the present generation.

One issue of great importance to Muslim Taiwanese, and which sets them off markedly from the majority of their fellow citizens, concerns funeral rites, says Wang. Chinese burials often take place weeks, months, and occasionally even years after the person has died. But a Muslim should be buried within 72 hours of death, usually on the second day after “returning to purity,” as passing away is called.

No coffin is used, but after being cleaned, the body is wrapped in white cloths, three for men and five for women. There is no ritual, no music, no prayers, no incense, no flowers, and definitely no praying for favors in or from the afterlife. Prayers are said, however, to ask that the person’s sins be forgiven and he or she be admitted to paradise.

Cremation is not used, and burial in the ground is normal, although burial at sea is permitted if land cannot be reached within 72 hours. This was not the case with Osama bin Laden, Wang adds.

The mosque is open to visitors, and thousands of school pupils come each year. Wang says he is often asked about al Qaeda, the September 11 attacks, and Islamic terrorism. In what seems to be an attempt to justify those acts, Wang says he tells questioners to check the definition of “terrorism” and they will realize who the true terrorists are.

Wang estimates that about 40 to 50% of Taiwan’s Muslims will make the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca at some stage of their lives. While it is each person’s duty, not everyone has the ability or means.

Charity (zakat) is another of the Five Pillars, says Wang. This is not limited to giving money, and a group from his mosque visits foreign laborers under detention in Sanxia, Yilan, and elsewhere, usually for overstaying their work visas. Volunteers help them with paperwork and other needs. Other groups visit elderly, ill, and poor people in the community, and yet others focus on visiting prisons.

The mosque runs a Qu’ran and Arabic class on Sunday mornings for children and a convert class once a month for adults. Converts, of whom there are perhaps two or three dozen per year, consist either of those who became interested in Islam while living overseas or those who wish to marry a Taiwanese Muslim.

Neither participant in today’s wedding ceremony is a convert, with both families originating from the Jhongli Yunnanese community. The ceremony is being held in Taipei because so many relatives and friends now live in the capital (as do around 40% of all Taiwanese Muslims) and because the Longgang Mosque is simply too small to accommodate the large number of guests. Even here at the Grand Mosque there will need to be two sittings. The bride will welcome the first diners in her first dress, see them off at the door in her second, welcome the next diners in that same dress, and see them off in her third.

Another noticeable difference from a typical local wedding scene is the large number of diners – many of Southeast Asian and African origin – enjoying lunchboxes in the garden. Both indoors and out, most of the women wear headscarves, and a great many of the men sport beards of varying lengths according to their ages. The women and men head off separately when prayers are called; the men use the main hall, while the women go elsewhere.

Finally the food is served, with some distinct departures from the usual Taiwanese wedding-banquet fare. The second dish served, for example, Yunnan-style beef (æ»‡å¼ç…¨è‚‰), derives from the newlyweds’ ancestral homeland, while the last dish, “South Sea dessert” (å—æ´‹é¢¨æƒ…), reflects their parent’s sojourn in Southeast Asia.