Review: China's Early Mosques, by Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt

Abstract

Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt China's Early Mosques Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015, 368 pp., 8 maps, 140 color and 60 b/w illus. $160/£95, ISBN 9780748670413 This well-illustrated book is a most welcome addition to art and architectural history studies, especially in the fields of Islamic and Chinese art. I know this because I have had the opportunity to use the volume on several occasions. In one case, as I was preparing for a trip to Xinjiang, I found the book indispensable not only for my preparation to visit this area of Central Asian China but also for the accurate information it provided. Before the publication of China's Early Mosques , I had visited important early Muslim sites in southeast and north-central China, but until I read Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt's text, I had great difficulty sorting fact from fiction about the monuments I saw. There is absolutely no other book in English or any European language that covers China's mosques. Further, in addition to being unique, it is lucidly written, shedding light on a topic that might otherwise seem bewildering to the non-Islamic, non-China specialist. This volume will remain the standard work on Chinese mosques well into the future. Chapter 1 opens the book with an introduction to Islam in China, with its population of about 23 million Muslims, the majority of whom are Hui (about 10 million), followed by Uyghurs (about 8.4 million); the rest are largely members of other Turkic-speaking ethnic groups. The written record and material remains provide considerable evidence of trade between China and both South Asia …