- Islam in Vietnam
Islam in Vietnam is primarily the religion of the
Cham people , a minority ethnic group related to Malays; however, roughly one-third of theMuslim s inVietnam are of other ethnic groups.Farah 2003: 283-284] [Levinson and Christensen 2002: 90]However, there is a community describing themselves of mixed ethnic origins (Cham, Khmer, Malay, Minang, Viet, Chinese and Arab), who practice Islam and are also known as Cham, or Cham Muslims, around the region of
Chau Doc in the Southwest. Taylor 2007]History
Uthman , the thirdCaliph ofIslam , sent the first official Muslim envoy to Vietnam and Tang Dynasty China in650 .Fact|date=April 2007 Seafaring Arab traders are known to have made stops at ports in theChampa Kingdom en route toChina very early in thehistory of Islam ; however, the earliest material evidence of the transmission of Islam consists ofSong Dynasty -era documents from China which record that the Cham familiarised themselves with Islam in the late 10th and early 11th centuries. [Hourani 1995: 70-71] [GCRC 2006: 24] The number of followers began to increase as contacts withSultanate of Malacca broadened in the wake of the 1471 collapse of the Champa Kingdom, but Islam would not become widespread among the Cham until the mid-17th century.Taouti 1985: 197-198] In the mid-19th century, many Muslims Chams emigrated fromCambodia and settled in theMekong River Delta region, further bolstering the presence of Islam in Vietnam. Malayan Islam began to have an increasing influence on the Chams in the early 20th century; religions publications were imported from Malaya, Malay clerics gave "khutba " (sermons) in mosques in theMalay language , and some Cham people went to Malayanmadrasah to further their studies of Islam. [Teng 2005] [GCRC 2006: 26]After the 1976 establishment of the
Socialist Republic of Vietnam , some of the 55,000 Muslim Chams emigrated toMalaysia . 1,750 were also accepted as immigrants byYemen ; most settled inTa'izz . Those who remained did not suffer violent persecution, although some writers claim that theirmosque s were closed by the government. In 1981, foreign visitors to Vietnam were still permitted to speak to indigenous Muslims and pray alongside them, and a 1985 account described Ho Chi Minh City's Muslim community as being especially ethnically diverse: aside from Cham people, there were alsoIndonesia ns, Malays,Pakistan is,Yemen is,Oman is, andNorth Africa ns; their total numbers were roughly 10,000 at the time. However, Vietnam's Muslims remained relatively isolated from the mainstream of world Islam, and their isolation, combined with the lack of religious schools, caused the practice of Islam in Vietnam to become increasingly syncretic. Command ofArabic is not widespread even among religious leaders, and some Muslims are reported to pray toAli and refer to him as the "Son of God ". Vietnam's largest mosque was opened in January 2006 inXuan Loc ,Dong Nai Province ; its construction was partially funded by donations fromSaudi Arabia . ["Dong Nai" 2006-01-16]Demographics
Vietnam's April 1999 census showed 63,146 Muslims. Over 77% lived in the Southeast Region, with 34% in
Ninh Thuan Province , 24% inBinh Thuan Province , and 9% inHo Chi Minh City ; another 22% lived in theMekong River Delta region, primarily inAn Giang Province . Only 1% of Muslims lived in other regions of the country. The number of believers is gender-balanced to within 2% in every area of major concentration except An Giang, where the population of Muslim women is 7.5% larger than the population of Muslim men. [Census 1999: Table 83] This distribution is somewhat changed from that observed in earlier reports. Prior to 1975, almost half of the Muslims in the country lived in the Mekong River Delta, and as late as 1985, the Muslim community in Ho Chi Minh was reported to consist of nearly 10,000 individuals. Of the 54,775 members of the Muslim population over age 5, 13,516, or 25%, were currently attending school, 26,134, or 48%, had attended school in the past, and the remaining 15,121, or 27%, had never attended school, compared to 10% of the general population. This gives Muslims the second-highest rate of school non-attendance out of all religious groups in Vietnam (the highest rate being that forProtestant s, at 34%). The school non-attendance rate was 22% for males and 32% for females. [Census 1999: Table 93] Muslims also had one of the lowest rate of university attendance, with less than 1% having attended any institution of higher learning, compared to just under 3% of the general population. [Census 1999: Table 104]Official representation
The Ho Chi Minh City Muslim Representative Committee was founded in 1991 with seven members; a similar body was formed in An Giang Province in 2004. [GCRC 2006: 26]
ee also
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Religion in Vietnam References
Notes
ources
*cite book|last=Taylor|first=Philip|title=Cham Muslims of the Mekong Delta: Place and Mobility in the Cosmopolitan Periphery|publisher=NUS Press, Singapore|date=2007|id=ISBN 978 9971693619
*cite book|last=Farah|first=Caeser E.|title=Islam:Beliefs and Observances|publisher=Barron's|date=2003|id=ISBN 0764122266
*cite book|last=Hourani|first=George Fadlo|title=Arab Seafaring (Expanded Edition)|publisher=Princeton University Press|date=1995|id=ISBN 0691000328
*cite book|last=Levinson|first=David|coauthors=Christensen, Karen|title=Encyclopedia of Modern Asia|date=2002|publisher=Thomson Gale|id=ISBN 0684312476
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*cite paper|title=Religion and policies concerning religion in Vietnam|url=https://www.mofa.gov.vn/ctc_quocte/ptklk/nr040819162124/ns070205095603/Relegion%20and%20Policies%20regarding%20Religion%20in%20Vietnam.doc/download|publisher=Government Committee for Religious Affairs|location=Hanoi, Vietnam|date=2006|accessdate=2007-03-29
*cite conference|url=http://www.gso.gov.vn/Modules/Doc_Download.aspx?DocID=2191|format=Excel|title=Table 83: Muslim believers as of 1 April 1999 by province and by sex|booktitle=Population and Housing Census Vietnam 1999|publisher=Tổng Cục Thống kê Việt Nam|date=1999-04-01|accessdate=2007-03-29
*cite conference|url=http://www.gso.gov.vn/Modules/Doc_Download.aspx?DocID=2213|title=Table 93: Population aged 5 and over as of 1 April 1999 by religion, by sex and by school attendance|date=1999-04-01|accessdate=2007-03-29|publisher=Tổng Cục Thống kê Việt Nam|format=Excel|booktitle=Population and Housing Census Vietnam 1999|
*cite conference|title=Table 104: Population aged 5 and over as of 1 April 1999 by religion, by sex and by education level (Attending/attended)|date=1999-04-01|accessdate=2007-03-29|publisher=Tổng Cục Thống kê Việt Nam|format=Excel|url=http://www.gso.gov.vn/Modules/Doc_Download.aspx?DocID=2234|booktitle=Population and Housing Census Vietnam 1999|
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