Heritage Literacy in the Lives of Chinese Muslims

This book offers an intimate ethnographic window into the ways Chinese Muslims produce, maintain, and transmit religious, cultural, and historical knowledge through their everyday practices ofheritage literacy.Sino-Muslims in China inhabit a unique landscape of religious and spiritual expression, shaped by the intersections of the Islamic faith with Chinese cultural traditions, and where the spoken and written word plays a vital role in sustaining Islamic heritage across generations. Drawing from multiple personal narratives across diverse regions — including Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Qinghai, Gansu, Jilin, Henan, and Hong Kong SAR — this book illuminates the lived experiences of Chinese Muslims as they navigate the intersections of faith, language, and identity. These accounts trace practices of heritage literacy shaped by migration, linguistic-semiotic ideologies, life-cycle rituals, and forms of artistic expression. The authors show how practices of heritage literacy, rooted in Islamic traditions yet responsive to contemporary shifts, tether Sino-Muslims to a broader sense of Muslimness while also anchoring them in local Chinese cultural and historical milieus and diverse linguistic traditions. This interdisciplinary study offers new insights into the significance of heritage literacy in linguistic anthropological study, and the vital role of narrative in preserving and articulating Islamic heritage in China’s evolving sociocultural landscape.