Shariʿa as taboo of modern law: Halal food, Islamophobia, and China
<p>On July 1, 2016, a Chinese Muslim (Hui) man named Mr. Xian Guolin, from Gansu province, opened a halal beef noodle shop near People’s Square, the center of Shanghai. On July 12, Mr. Xian reported on Weixin (a popular peer-to-peer micro-blogging site in the People’s Republic of China, or PR...
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| Format: | Journal article |
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Cambridge University Press
2018
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| _version_ | 1826264711302217728 |
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| author | Erie, MS |
| author_facet | Erie, MS |
| author_sort | Erie, MS |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | <p>On July 1, 2016, a Chinese Muslim (Hui) man named Mr. Xian Guolin, from Gansu province, opened a halal beef noodle shop near People’s Square, the center of Shanghai. On July 12, Mr. Xian reported on Weixin (a popular peer-to-peer micro-blogging site in the People’s Republic of China, or PRC), that a group of approximately 100 Hui, claiming to represent halal restaurants in Shanghai, gathered in front of the restaurant to protest its opening. The Hui argued that the restaurant violated the “Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Agreement,” an oral understanding among the Hui business community that no one will open a halal restaurant within 400 meters of an existing one (hereinafter the “400-meter rule”). There were, in fact, at least two other halal restaurants in the neighborhood surrounding Xian’s restaurant. Over the next week, scores of Hui gathered in front of Xian’s restaurant accosting customers, destroying the restaurant’s tables, and threatening Xian’s relatives. </p> <br/> <p>Xian documented all of this on Weixin, where netizens called his attackers the “noodle mafia.” In response, non-Muslim Han Chinese residents of Shanghai patronized Xian’s restaurant in solidarity against the enforcement of the 400-meter rule, saying that it was an extralegal rule and only state law, not “ethnic rules” should apply to such disputes. On July 19, the police intervened by mediating the dispute, and Xian agreed to alter his restaurant’s Chinese sign, by taking down the halal (qingzhen) symbol and characters for “beef meat” (niurou). While the dispute fizzled, online commentators were incensed at the outcome, claiming, “what was wiped out was not ‘beef meat’ but the legal system!” and “religion has replaced the law,” asserting that religious mob justice had superseded formal law.</p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-06T20:12:14Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:2af65eb0-a4ed-46b9-a631-d4ae9f6f288d |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-06T20:12:14Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:2af65eb0-a4ed-46b9-a631-d4ae9f6f288d2022-03-26T12:28:09ZShariʿa as taboo of modern law: Halal food, Islamophobia, and ChinaJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:2af65eb0-a4ed-46b9-a631-d4ae9f6f288dSymplectic Elements at OxfordCambridge University Press2018Erie, MS<p>On July 1, 2016, a Chinese Muslim (Hui) man named Mr. Xian Guolin, from Gansu province, opened a halal beef noodle shop near People’s Square, the center of Shanghai. On July 12, Mr. Xian reported on Weixin (a popular peer-to-peer micro-blogging site in the People’s Republic of China, or PRC), that a group of approximately 100 Hui, claiming to represent halal restaurants in Shanghai, gathered in front of the restaurant to protest its opening. The Hui argued that the restaurant violated the “Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Agreement,” an oral understanding among the Hui business community that no one will open a halal restaurant within 400 meters of an existing one (hereinafter the “400-meter rule”). There were, in fact, at least two other halal restaurants in the neighborhood surrounding Xian’s restaurant. Over the next week, scores of Hui gathered in front of Xian’s restaurant accosting customers, destroying the restaurant’s tables, and threatening Xian’s relatives. </p> <br/> <p>Xian documented all of this on Weixin, where netizens called his attackers the “noodle mafia.” In response, non-Muslim Han Chinese residents of Shanghai patronized Xian’s restaurant in solidarity against the enforcement of the 400-meter rule, saying that it was an extralegal rule and only state law, not “ethnic rules” should apply to such disputes. On July 19, the police intervened by mediating the dispute, and Xian agreed to alter his restaurant’s Chinese sign, by taking down the halal (qingzhen) symbol and characters for “beef meat” (niurou). While the dispute fizzled, online commentators were incensed at the outcome, claiming, “what was wiped out was not ‘beef meat’ but the legal system!” and “religion has replaced the law,” asserting that religious mob justice had superseded formal law.</p> |
| spellingShingle | Erie, MS Shariʿa as taboo of modern law: Halal food, Islamophobia, and China |
| title | Shariʿa as taboo of modern law: Halal food, Islamophobia, and China |
| title_full | Shariʿa as taboo of modern law: Halal food, Islamophobia, and China |
| title_fullStr | Shariʿa as taboo of modern law: Halal food, Islamophobia, and China |
| title_full_unstemmed | Shariʿa as taboo of modern law: Halal food, Islamophobia, and China |
| title_short | Shariʿa as taboo of modern law: Halal food, Islamophobia, and China |
| title_sort | shariʿa as taboo of modern law halal food islamophobia and china |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT eriems shariʿaastabooofmodernlawhalalfoodislamophobiaandchina |