“In Taiwan, a lot of people don't know about Islam; they know only what they see on the TV news,” says Ayoub Ishaque Hsiao (蕭偉君), imam and secretary-general of the Taipei Cultural Mosque. His father, Ishaque Hsiao, was one of the first Muslims to help rebuild the religion on the island after it virtually disappeared during the fifty years of Japanese rule (1895-1945).Today, the younger Hsiao is part of a group of second- and third-generation local Muslims striving to dispel misconceptions about what he says is still considered by many to be a mysterious, foreign religion.
Actually, Islam has had a long history on the island, beginning in the1660s when the Ming dynasty loyalist Koxinga (Cheng Cheng-kung) overthrew Dutch rule and used Taiwan as a base for his fight against the Manchus. Many of Koxinga's soldiers were Muslims, and they eventually stayed, concentrating in Lukang, Tamsui, Taipei, and Keelung. Islam grew for several generations and remained stable until the Japanese occupation, when authorities discouraged all “foreign” religions, and all contact with mainland Chinese Muslims was cut off. Most damaging, there were no imams, or religious leaders –a necessary part of the religion since Muslims must study Islamic doctrine and also Arabic language. As a result, by the time a new population of 20,000 Chinese Muslims came to Taiwan with the Nationalist government in 1949, only slim traces of the religion remained, mainly in the dietary and burial practices of some families. Since then, Islam has grown steadily. Today, the island has 50,000 Muslims.
Taipei's Grand Mosque, opened in 1960, was the first to be built with Arabian-style domes. The faithful originally met in a converted house.
This spring, the Islamic population prepared for one of the biggest events of the past four decades: the grand opening of three new mosques. Construction was completed on Arabian-style mosques in Kaohsiung and Taichung, and the second phase of construction on a new mosque was launched in Lungkang, Taoyuan county. Together, these new facilities represent a US$2.7 million project. About half the funding came from local donations, and half from overseas, mainly from the Middle East. To celebrate, local Muslims planned a grand inauguration ceremony for mid-April, inviting foreign dignitaries from the Middle East and Asia to tour the new mosques and join in the feasting and special services. As of late March, sixteen overseas VIPs had been invited from Saudi Arabia. Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The Chinese Muslim Association, headquartered in Taipei's Grand Mosque, oversaw the ceremonies and provided air transportation and accommodation for the international guests.
The new mosques represent the collective work of Taiwan's Muslims. Although Islamic groups in northern, central, and southern Taiwan raised funds for their own mosques, organizations from Taipei also pitched in to help with construction, fund-raising, and preparations for the inauguration ceremonies. “The Muslim community here is not very large; most people know each other,” says Li Tsung-pai (李宗白), director of the Chinese Muslim Association's Islamic Task Force. “Whenever anything happens for one group, we are all involved.” Li organized a team of students to act as tour guides and translators during the inauguration festivities.
Islam was rejuvenated after the Japanese occupation when many Muslims came to Taiwan from the mainland. Overhead, regulations concerning Ramadan.
With the new facilities, organizations at each of the mosques are planning to expand cultural, educational, and religious activities. In Kaohsiung, local Muslims had worshipped in a 460-square-meter converted Japanese-style home since 1949. The new mosque gives the 6,000 Muslims in southern Taiwan a 2,700-square-meter facility complete with Arabian-style minarets and dome. Inside, the US$1.9 million mosque has a main prayer hall, classrooms, library, and an exhibit hall for Islamic cultural artifacts. Hussein Chen (陳永武), imam of the Kaohsiung mosque, hopes that the new building will help the expansion of Arabic classes held for children during the summer and winter vacations.
In Taichung, construction on a new US$54,000 mosque has been under way since 1988, and was scheduled for completion by early this spring. Taichung's original 130-square-meter mosque was built largely by Muslims who relocated to the area from the mainland in the late 1940s. Noha Wang (王太榮), manager of the Taichung mosque, says that the new facility will allow the two hundred Muslim families in central Taiwan to offer Arabic classes for youths. He also plans to use the new mosque's library to host more activities to inform the general public about Islam. “In the past, because of a lack of funds, we were unable to make too much headway in this area,” he says. “But with a library, now we can let the public know more about our religion.”
Further north in Lungkang, the local Islamic population began raising money for a new mosque in the early 1980s. They have already completed the first phase of construction on the new 1,300-square-meter structure. TheUS$312,000 prayer hall and basement was completed in 1989, and supporters are now collecting US$400,000 to finish the mosque's minarets, kitchen, and dormitory. The original Lungkang mosque was built in 1967 by a group of about thirty Muslim families who had settled in Taoyuan county. The area's Islamic population has grown to four hundred, and as many as two hundred foreign Muslims visit the mosque on special occasions. Most are overseas workers, primarily from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Future projects, according to mosque chairman Pao Chien-cheng (保健城),include building a Muslim cemetery. Lungkang Muslims are hoping to receive land for the project from the Taoyuan county government.
Taichung's new mosque opened in April, giving central Taiwan's 200 Muslim families a place for worship, language study, and social activities.
Over the past fifty years, the Muslim community has slowly strengthened the faith, despite being a religious minority with limited funds and, initially, limited communication with the Muslim population in mainland China. The Muslims who came to Taiwan in the 1940s found virtually nothing of the original Islamic community. “We found some traces of the religion here, but after the fifty-year Japanese occupation, we didn't find a single Muslim,” says T.L. Mai (買德麟), secretary-general of the Chinese Muslim Association in Taipei. “Under the Japanese, the Muslims forgot their faith.”
But the new Muslim arrivals did discover that some Chinese families around the island abstained from pork on certain days of the month, and refused to offer it during rituals honoring their ancestors. When the newly arrived Muslims visited some of these families, they were encouraged by what they found. Mai explains that most Chinese families keep a small ancestral shrine in their home, but these families had a different sort of shrine. Says Mai:” Inside the box, they had a book bound in cloth; the book was the Koran.”
The oldest and largest Muslim family on Taiwan is believed to be the Kuo family of Lukang. They claim descent from the Tang dynasty general Kuo Tsu-yi.Today only part of the descendants are Muslims. But rediscovered Muslim families from around the island have been encouraged to rejoin the faith, with some success.
After ten years of fund-raising, Muslims in Taoyuan county have completed phase one of their new mosque in Lungkang. Next goal: collecting US$400,000 to finish the minarets, kitchen and dormitory.
Islam was rebuilt through grassroots efforts. Many of the Muslims who came after 1949 were military personnel or government workers, so they had limited funds for building an institutional base for the religion. “This is nota wealthy religion,” says Noha Wang. But lack of finances did not deter them. In Taipei, for example, T.L. Mai explains that the Islamic population in the capital city simply began gathering at the shop of a Muslim jeweler. This loose association of friends eventually decided to build what was then Taiwan's only mosque. Pooling resources in 1949, they converted a traditional Japanese-style home on Lishui Street into the first mosque. The structure served Taipei-area Muslims for more than thirty years.
Islam received a boost during the 1950s as the ROC government developed and strengthened relations with many countries in the Middle East. The ties led to increased educational and religious exchanges, and local Muslims began receiving some financial support from overseas Islamic organizations, especially from those based in Saudi Arabia. In 1960, with assistance from overseas donations, the 2,900-square-meter Grand Mosque was built in central Taipei. It was the first mosque built on the island, in the Arabian style. Previous mosques had been built in converted homes or, in the case of the earliest Chinese Muslims, built in Chinese style. In 1983, the smaller and more modest Taipei Cultural Mosque was built. It serves the southern part of the city and is the headquarters of the Chinese Muslim Youth League.
Although a strong network of mosques is now in place and the Islamic population continues to grow, Muslims remain a small minority on the island – and they have found that following the rigid tenants of the religion can be difficult. For example, one of the five basic pillars of the religion is the salat, or ritual prayers performed daily at dawn, midday, mid-afternoon, sunset, and after nightfall. “According to Islam, Muslims pray five times a day,” says Mai. “But here, only a few people can do that.”
“This is not an Islamic country,” he continues, explaining that many of the basic rituals of the religion are not easy to perform because Sunday is the weekly day off in Taiwan. “But in Islam, Friday is a day of worship,” Mai says. “Here, many Muslims cannot come to the Friday teaching.”
Eating poses other problems because Muslims must adhere to certain dietary restrictions. The largest problem is the taboo on pork, a staple in Chinese cuisine. In addition, the meat they do eat must be killed by either a Muslim halal butcher, or one who is “of the Book,” meaning Christians or Jews. “I feel life is easier for Muslims in foreign countries than here,” Mai says, referring to the food problem. There are a few halal butcher shops and restaurants in areas where there is an Islamic population.
Intermarriage presents another challenge in Taiwan's predominantly nonMuslim society. “According to our religion, Muslim men can marry non-Muslim women of the Book,” Mai says. He stresses that a husband cannot make his wife become a Muslim. “He can never force her to convert. It must be voluntary. But he has the duty to explain Islam to her.” Muslim women, however, are forbidden from marrying non-Muslim men unless the men convert.
In fact, most of the growth of the religion locally over the past forty years has been the result of natural population increase rather than through conversions. Islam varies greatly from Buddhism or Chinese folk religions. Most difficult to accept for many non-Muslim Chinese is giving up the Confucian tradition of ancestor worship, including the display of an ancestral tablet and shrine in one's home. Muslims are not allowed to follow this tradition.
In general, Taiwan Muslims practice the religion at varying levels of orthodoxy. Clothing is a good example. “Very few Muslim women here wear a veil,” Mai says. In fact, his daughter, a student at National Taiwan University, is one of the few. When she decided to adopt the veil as her daily dress last year, she was considered such a rarity that several local newspapers interviewed and photographed her.
Language also poses a challenge, as Muslims must learn Arabic because all prayer is conducted in that language. But it is especially difficult to translate the Arabic words for places, persons, and historic events into Chinese. Translators try to choose Chinese characters that have similar sounds or meanings, but this is often idiosyncratic. The result is that Mandarin-speaking Muslims in Taiwan, mainland China, Singapore, and other places often translate important Arabic words and names differently, complicating communication.
The religion can be especially challenging for children. Mai explains that the social pressure to excel in school makes it difficult for youths to find spare time for studying Islamic doctrine. “In our country, aspirations run very high,” he says. “Students all want to enter the best schools, to study in the U.S. or Europe. They have no time to go to the mosque.”
Another difficulty for children is that the Muslim population is so spread out that many families live far from the mosques. Hsiao teaches classes for children on Saturday afternoons and Sundays at the Taipei Cultural Mosque. He says attendance fluctuates between forty and one hundred students depending on exam schedules and when children from outside the city can make it.
Muslims have learned to educate their children as best they can given the constraints of time and limited funds. Li Tsung-pai of the Islamic Task Force explains that he must also be flexible with teachers since the classes are taught on a volunteer basis. “The main problem we are facing is that if teachers have a conflict with work, they cannot come. That's an ordinary occurrence,” he says. To cope with irregular attendance, the classes are offered on a progressive basis; students enter one of four levels and take classes as they can until they can move up to another level. To make it easier for kids to come, the task force sends a van around Taipei to pick up students.
The difficulties kids face are familiar to Muslims of all ages living in Taiwan's fast-paced, competitive society. Finding time and energy for religious education is difficult in the midst of constant pressure to succeed academically and economically. “If you have a couple of hours free at night, should you use it to study Arabic, or study computers or another language which may seem to help you to achieve a better life?” Li asks. “This is the basic problem everyone struggles with. It's very difficult for someone to determine the percentage of effort they should put into religion versus daily life.”
Despite the difficulties, Taiwan's Muslims have persevered. The handful of Islamic organizations that operate on the island are very active despite their relatively small numbers. Longest running is the Chinese Muslim Association, based in Taipei. Authorized by the late President Chiang Kai-shek, the group was founded in 1938 in Hankow, in mainland China's Hupeh province, as the National Salvation Association of Chinese Muslims. The original goals were to unify the Islamic population against the Japanese during the Sino-Japanese War, and to strengthen bonds with Islamic countries. The association was resurrected in Taipei in 1958. Its major accomplishments include translating the Koran into Chinese; helping to build mosques in Taipei, Lungkang, Taichung, and Kaohsiung; establishing Muslim cemeteries in various areas of the island; starting Arabic language classes; organizing regular hajj pilgrimages to Mecca (thirty-seven to date); translating Islamic books and publishing association periodicals; and organizing this spring's inauguration of the new mosques.
Taiwan Muslims have also benefited from educational exchanges with Middle Eastern countries. According to T.L. Mai of the Chinese Muslim Association, local students began studying in the Middle East during the 1970s, primarily in Saudi Arabia and Libya, with some studying in Turkey and Jordan. Most studied Islam, Islamic law, Arabic, and Islamic economics. These students received scholarships from the various universities attended. In addition, the Islamic Cultural and Educational Foundation of the ROC was founded in 1976 to provide scholarships to Muslim students as well as to promote Islamic culture, translate Arabic works, and organize cultural exchanges. In its sixteen years of operation, the foundation has provided US$160,000 in scholarships for 1,400 young men to study Islamic doctrine in Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Malaysia.
Several organizations have been set up to serve on Muslim youth. The Chinese Muslim Youth League was founded in Canton in 1949 and moved to Taiwan that same year. Now based in the Taipei Cultural Mosque, it is overseen by Hsiao. In addition to regular classes in Arabic and Islam, the league hosts an all-island family outing each summer and fall to help bring Muslim families together. It also sponsors, several local youths attend an international summer camp each year hosted by the World Assembly of Muslim Youth in Saudi Arabia.
The Chinese Muslim Association also organizes various activities and projects. It offers classes in Arabic and Islamic doctrine for children and adults, both Muslim and non-Muslim, and publishes educational books, videos, and a monthly bulletin for local and overseas Chinese Muslims. Current projects include developing a guidebook to standardize translation of Arabic names of people, places, and historical events into Mandarin to facilitate exchange of writing among Chinese Muslims.
Back at Taipei's Cultural Mosque, Hsiao is discussing plans to develop a group of local missionaries to travel overseas and around the island. Currently there are only three or four. He is also visiting Muslim families, asking them to help encourage other Muslims to strengthen their faith.
In these modest ways the Muslim faith continues to grow, slowly but steadily. “We are not as aggressive as other religions,” says Mai. Rather than putting the bulk of his energy into conversions, he and others are content to focus on developing a sense of community within the Islamic population that already exists on the island. “We concentrate on strengthening ourselves,” Mai says. Despite such unassuming attitudes, anyone visiting the new mosques in Kaohsiung, Taichung, or Lungkang will see clear evidence of the renewed strength of Taiwan's Muslims.■