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China and Islam: The Prophet, the Party, and Law (Cambridge University Press, 2016) is an ethnographic account of the ways in which Chinese Muslims (Hui) reconcile sharia (Islamic law and ethics) with post-socialist law in the People's Republic of China. China and Islam examines the intersection of two critical issues of the contemporary world: Islamic revival and an assertive China, questioning the assumption that Islamic law is incompatible with state law. It finds that both Hui and the Party-State invoke, interpret, and make arguments based on Islamic law, a minjian (unofficial) law in China, to pursue their respective visions of 'the good,' in processes that are fraught with tension. Based on fieldwork in Linxia, 'China's Little Mecca', this study follows Hui clerics, youthful translators on the 'New Silk Road', female educators who reform traditional madrasas, and Party cadres as they reconcile Islamic and socialist laws in the course of the everyday. The first study of Islamic law in China and one of the first ethnographic accounts of law in postsocialist China, China and Islam unsettles unidimensional perceptions of extremist Islam and authoritarian China through Hui minjian practices of law. For an interview about the book with Ian Johnson in the New York Times, please click here. To read Chapter 6 "Moral Economies," please click here.
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2017 Distinguished Book Award Honourable Mention
Asian Law & Society Association |
Books of the Year 2017
Times Literary Supplement |
Books of the Year 2017
Times Higher Education |
"Among the many qualities and contributions of Matthew Erie's rich monograph on Islam, law, and legal practice in China, one of the most significant is the breadth and depth of the ethnographic account. The book's portrayal of an Islam that is dynamic, and yet not totalizing, is a difficult feat to render, one that requires sustained access, deep commitment, and enduring relationships." - Law & Society Review
"Matthew Erie’s pathbreaking book on the status of Islamic minorities in China will be of interest to legal anthropologists, legal historians, legal sociologists, and political scientists. China and Islam: The Prophet, the Party, and Law is timely and innovative. The steady rise of China on the world scene has drawn global attention to the state’s treatment of religious minorities." -American Journal of Comparative Law
"China and Islam is a valuable ethnographically oriented resource for students and scholars of interdisciplinary legal studies. It is also relevant to those who care about religious studies, Islamic studies, China studies, or fieldwork in difficult places." -International Journal of Law in Context
"Matthew Erie's new book, China and Islam, is a tour de force both in the scope of the material covered and the sophisticated analysis." -China Quarterly
"This book is path-breaking. . . and has opened up new horizons in various academic fields and interdisciplinary studies." -Journal of Chinese Political Science
"China and Islam: The Prophet, the Party, and Law (Cambridge) is an outstanding ethnography by Matthew S. Erie, a lawyer-anthropologist fluent in Arabic and Chinese. He focuses on the Hui, one of China’s largest Muslim minorities, and on the tensions that arise between their sharia-based traditions and the party-state’s determination to maintain ideological control while accepting that religion cannot be fully co-opted, let alone extirpated, as it develops trade links with Muslims elsewhere." -Times Literary Supplement
"Matthew Erie, trained in Arabic, Chinese, and the law brings his impressive credentials to bear on this thirteen years of fieldwork, mainly in Linxia, which is known as "China's Little Mecca." He has worked in archived in Linxia, Lanzhou, Beijing, Hong Kong, Harvard, and Princeton, consulting sources in Chinese and English, and conducted numerous interviews with Muslim clerics, Hui and Han officials engaged in work in ethnic minority affairs, and residents of the area. The result is a deeply researched and outstanding work of scholarship that questions the assumption that Islamic law is incompatible with state law." - The Journal of Asian Studies
"This complex book searches for, and locates, Islamic law in today's China. In this regard, it encompasses much more than just the law and covers a great deal of Muslim life in China since, of course, the law touches everything." -Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review
"[Erie's] work is timely and contributes enormously to the growing body of work on Islam in Asia." -Journal of Law and Religion
"Matthew S. Erie, an anthropologist-lawyer, has written a pioneering study. . . Erie deserves praise for his decade of persistent navigation of the constraints and obstacles of the People's Republic of China. . . Beyond the already impressive task of doing this investigation, he has produced a considerable subtlety and breadth, contributing both general claims and detailed ethnography, answering many questions, and successfully setting a baseline for future research." -Twentieth-Century China
"Erie brilliantly analyzes and interprets in detail the concept of minjian (民間), which may be vaguely translated as "customary law" or "interpersonal" relationships, as well as "informal legal norms." His investigative, linguistic, and descriptive talent, as well as his penchant for detail and his capacity to connect the seemingly disparate dots that he discovered along the way, make his narrative about minjian unexpected and fascinating." -China Journal
"[Scholars'] largely Eurocentric examples led me to want to explore such studies as Matthew S. Erie’s China and Islam: The Prophet, the Party, and Law (Cambridge University Press). I was in Jerusalem in November and descended into the Well of Souls (aka the Holy of Holies), the foundation cave under the Dome of the Rock. Standing there was a group of Chinese Muslims telling a flabbergasted local that there are “at least 80 million” Muslims in China (official figures are around a third of that). Overhearing them reminded me why Erie’s ethnographic account of this significant yet unfamiliar group is on my to-read list. -Times Higher Education
"Matthew Erie’s China and Islam: The Prophet, the Party, and Law presents a model of the contribution that legal ethnography can make to understanding not only the regulation of social life in contemporary China but also to a myriad of critical issues constituting the multi-faceted relationship of Islam to contemporary nation-states. As both a socio-legal and comparative inquiry, Erie’s ethnographic and scholarly investment over the better part of decade has produced a rich empirical account that speaks in a wide range of theoretical and disciplinary registers and offers value for an equally wide range of readers." - JOTWELL (Journal Of Things We Like (Lots))
"...a remarkable ethnographic journey..." - Asian Journal of Law and Society
"...China and Islam is a tour de force investigation of Islam and the Hui in China that demonstrates how a Muslim minority practices Islamic law in a socio-political context that does not officially recognize Islamic law. China and Islam should be sought after by advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and advanced scholars alike who seek to learn, or learn more, about Islamic law and practice in China. Indeed, interested readers will certainly do no better than to read this highly nuanced and remarkable book." - Sociology of Islam
"This book is not only helpful for people to understand the actual relations between China's secular state and Islam, but [it is] also inspiring for subsequent studies in countries that appear to be veery different from China." - Religious Studies Review
"The book is [a] very well researched and insightful account of Hui Muslims and challenges they face practising Islam and Islamic law in China." - The Muslim News
"In his detailed account of this uneasy relationship between the state and religion, Erie has written a book that will resonate in discussions across disciplines. The subject of China’s relationship with Islam is one that is becoming increasingly important, not only as a domestic issue, but an international one, as its Belt and Road Initiative brings it into deeper and more frequent interactions with Muslim states and societies, making Erie’s book that much more relevant." - Newbooks.asia
"Matthew Erie’s pathbreaking book on the status of Islamic minorities in China will be of interest to legal anthropologists, legal historians, legal sociologists, and political scientists. China and Islam: The Prophet, the Party, and Law is timely and innovative. The steady rise of China on the world scene has drawn global attention to the state’s treatment of religious minorities." -American Journal of Comparative Law
"China and Islam is a valuable ethnographically oriented resource for students and scholars of interdisciplinary legal studies. It is also relevant to those who care about religious studies, Islamic studies, China studies, or fieldwork in difficult places." -International Journal of Law in Context
"Matthew Erie's new book, China and Islam, is a tour de force both in the scope of the material covered and the sophisticated analysis." -China Quarterly
"This book is path-breaking. . . and has opened up new horizons in various academic fields and interdisciplinary studies." -Journal of Chinese Political Science
"China and Islam: The Prophet, the Party, and Law (Cambridge) is an outstanding ethnography by Matthew S. Erie, a lawyer-anthropologist fluent in Arabic and Chinese. He focuses on the Hui, one of China’s largest Muslim minorities, and on the tensions that arise between their sharia-based traditions and the party-state’s determination to maintain ideological control while accepting that religion cannot be fully co-opted, let alone extirpated, as it develops trade links with Muslims elsewhere." -Times Literary Supplement
"Matthew Erie, trained in Arabic, Chinese, and the law brings his impressive credentials to bear on this thirteen years of fieldwork, mainly in Linxia, which is known as "China's Little Mecca." He has worked in archived in Linxia, Lanzhou, Beijing, Hong Kong, Harvard, and Princeton, consulting sources in Chinese and English, and conducted numerous interviews with Muslim clerics, Hui and Han officials engaged in work in ethnic minority affairs, and residents of the area. The result is a deeply researched and outstanding work of scholarship that questions the assumption that Islamic law is incompatible with state law." - The Journal of Asian Studies
"This complex book searches for, and locates, Islamic law in today's China. In this regard, it encompasses much more than just the law and covers a great deal of Muslim life in China since, of course, the law touches everything." -Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review
"[Erie's] work is timely and contributes enormously to the growing body of work on Islam in Asia." -Journal of Law and Religion
"Matthew S. Erie, an anthropologist-lawyer, has written a pioneering study. . . Erie deserves praise for his decade of persistent navigation of the constraints and obstacles of the People's Republic of China. . . Beyond the already impressive task of doing this investigation, he has produced a considerable subtlety and breadth, contributing both general claims and detailed ethnography, answering many questions, and successfully setting a baseline for future research." -Twentieth-Century China
"Erie brilliantly analyzes and interprets in detail the concept of minjian (民間), which may be vaguely translated as "customary law" or "interpersonal" relationships, as well as "informal legal norms." His investigative, linguistic, and descriptive talent, as well as his penchant for detail and his capacity to connect the seemingly disparate dots that he discovered along the way, make his narrative about minjian unexpected and fascinating." -China Journal
"[Scholars'] largely Eurocentric examples led me to want to explore such studies as Matthew S. Erie’s China and Islam: The Prophet, the Party, and Law (Cambridge University Press). I was in Jerusalem in November and descended into the Well of Souls (aka the Holy of Holies), the foundation cave under the Dome of the Rock. Standing there was a group of Chinese Muslims telling a flabbergasted local that there are “at least 80 million” Muslims in China (official figures are around a third of that). Overhearing them reminded me why Erie’s ethnographic account of this significant yet unfamiliar group is on my to-read list. -Times Higher Education
"Matthew Erie’s China and Islam: The Prophet, the Party, and Law presents a model of the contribution that legal ethnography can make to understanding not only the regulation of social life in contemporary China but also to a myriad of critical issues constituting the multi-faceted relationship of Islam to contemporary nation-states. As both a socio-legal and comparative inquiry, Erie’s ethnographic and scholarly investment over the better part of decade has produced a rich empirical account that speaks in a wide range of theoretical and disciplinary registers and offers value for an equally wide range of readers." - JOTWELL (Journal Of Things We Like (Lots))
"...a remarkable ethnographic journey..." - Asian Journal of Law and Society
"...China and Islam is a tour de force investigation of Islam and the Hui in China that demonstrates how a Muslim minority practices Islamic law in a socio-political context that does not officially recognize Islamic law. China and Islam should be sought after by advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and advanced scholars alike who seek to learn, or learn more, about Islamic law and practice in China. Indeed, interested readers will certainly do no better than to read this highly nuanced and remarkable book." - Sociology of Islam
"This book is not only helpful for people to understand the actual relations between China's secular state and Islam, but [it is] also inspiring for subsequent studies in countries that appear to be veery different from China." - Religious Studies Review
"The book is [a] very well researched and insightful account of Hui Muslims and challenges they face practising Islam and Islamic law in China." - The Muslim News
"In his detailed account of this uneasy relationship between the state and religion, Erie has written a book that will resonate in discussions across disciplines. The subject of China’s relationship with Islam is one that is becoming increasingly important, not only as a domestic issue, but an international one, as its Belt and Road Initiative brings it into deeper and more frequent interactions with Muslim states and societies, making Erie’s book that much more relevant." - Newbooks.asia
