Hui Corporate Strategies and Islamic Cultural Capital and in Qing Guangzhou

Abstract

This article adapts methods from the study of late imperial Chinese society to understand Hui families’ pursuit of Islamic cultural capital in Qing Guangzhou. It outlines three processes that crystallized by the middle of the nineteenth century: the integration of Guangzhou’s mosques into regional and long-distance commercial networks; the institutionalization of Islamic education at the city’s mosques; and the rationalization of mosque management. Through an analysis of mosque inscriptions and three Hui genealogies, it shows that the local development of Islamic learning and the organization of mosque authority were linked to the wider social field in which Hui families competed for status.