Muslims within the present-day borders of the People's Republic of China, and indeed within the borders of late imperial China and its republican successor, can be divided broadly into two categories. First, there are the Chinese-speaking Muslims, known today as the Hui, who are distributed throughout the whole of the country. There are Hui mosques and communities in all provinces of China and in most towns and cities, including Beijing, but there are significant Hui concentrations in the northwest provinces of Gansu and Qinghai, the Ningxia Autonomous Region, and the southwest province of Yunnan. In both the northwest and the southwest it is possible to speak of clear and well-defined Muslim societies rather than minority communities in a wider non-Muslim society. In appearance and language there is very little to distinguish the Hui from the majority population of China, the Han, although they do...