There was an Al Jazeera video on the subject of Chinese Muslims posted on theonlinecitizen, a popular Singapore website. One of its readers complained that the subject had no relevance for Singaporeans.
I feel differently.
To me one of Singapore's defining traits is its multi-culturalism. It is an article of faith. Indeed when Singaporeans give vent to their resentments of those newly among us, the complaint is often that the newcomers speak no English and keep to themselves. In other words, they are not "multi-cultural" like us -- not Singaporean enough. A Malay friend mentioned how he felt a stranger among the new Chinese immigrants in his HDB estate, who form a tight group among themselves and speak a different language. All I could think of at the time was to remind him that it may well be part of the Singapore condition ("My neighbor is another language" -- Edwin Thumboo).
I wonder if my friend knows that China has a long history of engagement with Islam, which is welcome by Muslims inside and outside the country. By some accounts the first Muslim envoy to China, led by Sa'dd ibn Abi Waqqas, the maternal uncle of the Prophet Mohammad, was received in 651A.D. by the emperor Gaozong of the Tang dynasty, who ordered the construction of a memorial mosque in Canton. According to the Arab historian Tabari (deceased 923 A.D.), al-Mansur (754-775 A.D.), the second of the Abbasid caliphs, had declared that in laying the foundations of Baghdad by the Tigris "there is no obstacle between us and China. Everything on the sea can come to us."
Contributions by Chinese Muslims are felt everywhere in China, and as far as Singapore. The first governor of the province of Yunnan, the first designer of the city that would be Beijing, eminent scholars of astronomy and mathematics, important officials of finance and tax... The Ming dynasty fleet that brought the first Chinese settlors to Malacca and visited Sumatra, Java and in all likelihood Singapore in the early fifteenth century was commanded by a Chinese Muslim, Hajji Mahmud Shams, better known as Admiral Cheng Ho, or Zheng He. Nearer our own time, Baiderluden Omar, better known as General Bai Chongxi, was widely regarded as the best strategist in the Chinese army during the second world war. And closer to home, Mrs Chen was raised by her maternal grandmother in a Muslim household.
I will console my friend as follows. This strange tongue that you sometimes hear around you, that makes you feel that part of your house is not your home, should remind you of the kind of people we are. It celebrates what is best about us. And though at first it may sound jarring, I hope you will not feel as estranged knowing that Allah is also praised and worshipped in this language.
09 May 2011
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