Chinese Ways of Being Muslim

Chinese Ways of Being Muslim: Negotiating Ethnicity andReligiosity in Indonesia

Author: Hew Wai Weng

Publisher: NIAS Press

ISBN: 9788776942113

Pages: 305pp

Price: RM134

Weight: 0.500kg

Unique insights into the cultural politics of Muslim andChinese identity in Southeast Asia today.

Many recent works on Muslim societies have pointed to agrowing ‘de-culturalization’ and ‘purification’ of Islamic practices. Instead,by exploring themes such as architectural designs, preaching activities,political engagement and cultural celebrations, this book describes andanalyses the formation and negotiation of Chinese Muslim cultural identities inIndonesia today — a rapidly evolving environment where there are multiple waysof being or not being Chinese and Muslim.

By engaging with the notions of ‘inclusive Chineseness’ and‘cosmopolitan Islam’, this book gives insights not only into the culturalpolitics of Muslim and Chinese identities in Indonesia today but also into thepossibilities and limitations of ethnic and religious cosmopolitanism in manyother contemporary societies.

“For much of modern Indonesian history, the socialcategories of Muslim and Chinese were seen as incompatible; to convert to Islamwas to lose one’s Chineseness. This engagingly written book provides a powerfulethnographic account of just why this is changing, and of what it means to beboth Chinese and Muslim in Indonesia. This fascinating study also offersinsight into processes even more general in our world: how we moderns balance multipleself-identities in an age of plurality and unprecedented mobility.” – Robert W.Hefner, Boston University

“Hew’s Chinese Ways of Being Muslim blows apart the usualidentifications between ethnicity and religion in Indonesia. This pathbreakingbook paints an intriguing portrait of how Chinese Muslims in Indonesia arecharting a form of Islamic piety that is both assertive and inclusive. A first.”– Engseng Ho, Duke University

“In this adroit analysis of Chinese ways of being Muslim inIndonesia – from celebrity preachers and hybrid mosques to Chinese holidays andconversion controversies – Hew Wai Weng sheds important light on the religiousand political entanglements between Islam, ethnicity, and nation. In doing so,this book admirably fills a lamentable lacuna of scholarship on Chinese Muslimsin post-authoritarian Indonesia.” – James B. Hoesterey, Emory University

About the author: Hew Wai Weng is a Fellow at the Instituteof Malaysian and International Studies, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (IKMAS,UKM), work­ing on Chinese Muslim identities, Hui migration patterns, and urbanmiddle-class Muslim aspirations in Malaysia and Indonesia.