宁夏回族贸易融入世界
来源：基督教科学箴言报
穆罕默德·优素福拿起一个硕大的洋葱，情不自禁地微微一笑。在宁夏银川的一个贸易展览会上出现的这种蔬菜让他感到高兴，不仅是因为它的尺度，还因为洋葱属于清真菜，能在穆斯林餐桌上得到接受。
优素福先生是一名马来西亚商人，靠从中国西北的这个偏远角落进口清真食品营利。他是这个穆斯林地区希望吸引的那种外国商人，政府渴望从全球数十亿美元的伊斯兰食品业中分得一份蛋糕。
银川市副市长马迎秋提到生活在宁夏自治区的穆斯林少数民族时说：“我们三分之一的人口是回民。他们跟伊斯兰国家的人有着相同习俗，他们是本地区的竞争优势。”
随着当地政府努力培育与中东和其他穆斯林国家新的经济联系，这个中国贫困地区的人们开始重新发现伊斯兰世界。
本地的回族伊斯兰教研究所所长马平（音译）说，宁夏穆斯林走出了数百年的宗教孤立，正在产生“一种国际的群体感”。他说：“稳定曾是这里最重要的，但现在是发展。”
正是出于对资金的渴求，宁夏政府９月９～１３日举行了第三届国际清真食品穆斯林用品贸易洽谈会。官员们说：“这是宁夏迈入世界的机会。”在持续４天的贸易展会期间，当地生产者摆出了清真肉类和蔬菜。商贩还出售衣服、陶瓷以及其他面向穆斯林消费者的商品。
优素福就是其中的外国买家之一，不过，他的供应者马盛克（音译）似乎只是宁夏努力打入伊斯兰食品市场的少数成功故事当中的一个。大多数生产者难以找到立足之地，而新来者面临的一大挑战是，近来中国货币的升值导致出口产品在国际市场上变得更贵。当地一名张姓羊农说：“我们已经失去了价格优势，解决办法是生产质量更好的肉类。我们需要加强标准。”
据政府统计数据显示，宁夏的清真食品业规模一年接近７亿美元，但只有不到３％的产品出口到国外。不过，宁夏成功地吸引了阿拉伯世界的注意。例如，突尼斯大使馆派出一支队伍参加展览会，寻找穆斯林游客，而沙特阿拉伯的展台则提供椰枣和中文版的《可兰经》。
宁夏与伊斯兰世界其他地方的紧密联系，为银川一家清真寺的阿訇瓦利·尤拉带来了福音。他说：“由于贸易关系，越来越多人了解了伊斯兰教。这对宗教和社会都是好事。”
原文地址：http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0916/p06s04-woap.html
英文原文：
Chinese Muslims join global Islamic market
They are forging economic ties with the Muslim world at a time when interest in Islam is also growing.
By Peter Ford | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the September 16, 2008 edition
Yinchuan, China - Mohammed Yussuf picks up a giant onion and smiles as he admires it. The vegetable on display at a trade fair here pleases him not only because of its proportions; the onion's main virtue in his eyes is that it is halal, acceptable on Muslim dining tables.
Mr. Yussuf, a Malaysian businessman, makes a tidy profit importing halal foods from this remote corner of northwestern China. He's the type of foreign trader this Muslim region hopes to attract more of, in its bid to grab a slice of the multibillion dollar global Islamic food business.
"One-third of our population is Hui," says Ma Yingqiu, this city's deputy mayor, referring to the Muslim ethnic minority who live in the Autonomous Region of Ningxia. "They have the same habits as people in Islamic countries. They are this region's competitive advantage."
As the local government strives to forge new economic ties with Middle Eastern and other Muslim nations, citizens of this impoverished part of China bordering the Gobi Desert are rediscovering Islam. Emerging from centuries of religious isolation, Ningxia Muslims are developing "an international sense of community," says Ma Ping, head of the Institute of the Hui and Islam here.
While that might once have unnerved the Chinese government, always uneasy about divided loyalties, Ningxia's desperate economic straits – it is the country's third poorest province – have prompted a rethink, says Professor Ma.
"Stability used to be the top priority here, but now it is development," he says. "What the government wants most is money."
It was in search of money that the Ningxia government last week held the third annual International Halal Food and Muslim Commodities Trade Fair, which closed here over the weekend. "This fair is Ningxia's chance to march into the world," provincial governor Wang Zhengwei proclaimed at the opening ceremony.
For four days, local producers manned stands offering meats and vegetables, which Hui Muslims consider halal if they don't use manure made from human or animal excrement to grow them. Vendors also sold clothes, ceramics, and other goods aimed at Muslim consumers.
Yussuf was one of the few foreign buyers at the fair, however, and his supplier, Ma Shengke, seemed to be one of only a handful of success stories so far in Ningxia's efforts to break into the competitive Islamic food market.
Most producers are having difficulty carving out a niche, a challenge to all newcomers but one that is heightened for Ningxia's would-be exporters by the recent rise in the value of the Chinese currency, which makes their goods more expensive on world markets.
"We have lost our price advantage, so the solution is to produce better quality meat," says Zhang Hongen, a local sheep farmer. "We need to impose standards."
Ningxia's halal food industry is worth nearly $700 million a year, according to government statistics, but less than 3 percent of its output is sold abroad, Ma Yingqiu points out. "We are still at the beginning of this and we have to work on it," the deputy mayor acknowledges. "But since we are starting from such a small base, it should be easy to grow fast."
Ningxia has, nonetheless, managed to attract some attention from the Arab world, whence came the Muslim traders who introduced Islam into China more than 1,000 years ago. Today's 10 million Hui people are descended from those merchants.
The Tunisian embassy, for example, sent a team to the fair in search of Muslim tourists, while the Saudi Arabian stand offered dates and Chinese versions of the Koran.
The Saudi-based Islamic Development Bank funded the construction of Ningxia's Islamic Scripture College and an Arabic language school, and China's policy of opening to the world has fostered other links. Ten thousand Chinese Muslims went on the hajj to Mecca last year, a record number. Others visit the Middle East for business or tourism, and some 250 religious students leave China each year to study in Egypt, Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.
Interest in Islam is clearly rising in Ningxia. New mosques are under construction (there are now 3,700 licensed mosques in the province, twice the number of a few decades ago), but even so the Scripture College is turning out imams, known locally as ahongs, faster than mosques can employ them.
Ordinary Muslims are turning in greater numbers to traditional Islamic dress, say local residents. "More and more people are wearing headgear, and more and more people are taking religious practice seriously," says Shami Ahmed, an Indian Muslim who came here five years ago to teach English. "Maybe it's because more are going on the hajj and see Muslims outside."
Ningxia's closer links with the rest of the Islamic world are a blessing for Wali Younla, an ahong at Yinchuan's main mosque. "Thanks to these trade relations more and more people get to know Islam," he says. "That's a good thing for religion and for society."
The Chinese government keeps a close eye on these developments, though. Mosques must be licensed, foreign imams are not allowed to preach in them, and youngsters are not allowed to pray in mosques.
"The government supports economic links, which it hopes will increase, but has a cautious attitude to cultural and religious links," with the Middle East explains Professor Ma. For the sake of trade, however, "they have put their concerns on the backburner," he believes. "The Ningxia authorities are confident they can minimize negative cultural influences and maximize economic influences."
Loose religious adherence
There are few signs that stricter strains of Islam, as practiced in parts of the Arab world, are having much impact on life in Ningxia at the moment. Female ahongs continue to flourish in a Hui tradition of women-only mosques where women lead the prayers, which would horrify mainstream Middle Eastern Muslims. Ramadan, the holy fasting month, does not appear to be widely observed.
Last Wednesday, as a few dozen men in white skullcaps filed out of the Xihuan mosque after noon prayers, the Jinxiuyuan Halal Sheep Entrails restaurant across the street was doing a roaring lunchtime trade in defiance of religious regulations.
"We Hui people keep our lifestyle and our religion and our beliefs, but we have to lead our normal lives," says Ms. Ma, the deputy mayor. "We practice our religion according to local conditions."