Islam is one of the major religions of China. The population of Chinese Muslims is estimated at over 100 million. Many live in the desert regions of Xiangchan, but a large number also live in the more fertile regions in mid and eastern China.
Muslims in China come from many different ethnic backgrounds, including Turcoman, Uighur, Mandarin and others. Typically, the Muslim minorities have prospered in China, even during the hardest economic times for the rest of the country, as they have been granted a number of exemptions from the national laws, including the right to bear more than one child. Nonetheless, Islam has suffered, as have all other religions, under the communist, atheist-propagating regimes that have enforced strict secularism throughout schools and institutions for the past 50 years.
Traditional Islamic-Sino calligraphy.
The Muslims in the urban areas of China have developed a very fine expression of their Islamicity seen most impressively in the Islamic architecture and calligraphy.
Mihrab of a mosque, ornamented with traditional Islamic-Sino calligraphy.