When we think of Hong Kong, Islam is not something that springs to mind. Popular images of Hong Kong portray hyper-modern skyscrapers, Chinese signs in bright neon, a place of commercial and gastronomic delights. The Hong Kong that is popularly imagined evokes an association of dynamic cultural fusion, the exotic yet familiar, a cocktail of tradition and innovation. Islam does not share these associations. More typically Islam is considered a traditional and monolithic religion and ideology. Islam in Hong Kong is therefore an issue and topic that sounds unusual. If you are unfamiliar with Hong Kong, the words simply seem...

Riding on Hong Kong’s crowded but efficient Mass Transit Railway (MTR) underground system is an experience that personifies the modern ism of Hong Kong. The trains, despite the estimated 4 million passengers they take every day, are noticeably clean, impressively frequent, and easily accessible. The mix of passengers indicates at once that Hong Kong is a Chinese city but it is also ethnically and socially mixed and is home to both the wealthy and the poor. All sorts of people use the MTR, for all sorts of trips to many different destinations. One very common everyday excursion is the cross-harbour...

Much of the history discussed in the previous chapter is tied to the British colonial regime. It is therefore important to bring this story up to date and to chart the significant transformations that have occurred within Hong Kong’s Islamic community in the post-colonial era, not least because these new developments are representative of the zeitgeist in which this book has been written. What follows is a discussion of some events significant to Muslims since the handover of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China. The date of 1997 is used solely for practical purposes providing a very contemporary...

Chungking Mansions may be one of the places most readily associated with Muslims in Hong Kong. Only 270 metres separate the Kowloon Mosque and Chungking Mansions. Indeed proximity to the Kowloon Mosque, its legion of Pakistani shop owners, halal restaurants, and African Muslim traders prove that the Islamic association is rightly deserved. It is also the case that while Chungking Mansions is important to discuss, and while it is a fascinating and compelling topic, it represents only a small aspect of the lived experience of Islam in Hong Kong. If we are to grasp Islam in Hong Kong as it...

A dear Bangladeshi friend tells me that all individuals enter the world as Muslim. Elaborating on this declaration, he explains that all humans are born knowing only purity and goodness, delivered from god. He argues that life, with all its distractions, the very many things to do and experience, ends up taking us away from this initial state of innocence. In reading the Qur’an and following Islam he asserts that one becomes Muslim again. This is not an unusual belief, Sardar (2004, p. 54) discusses an English convert to Islam who loathes the label of convert and tells people that...

Everyday life is characterised by de Certeau (1984, p. 43) as a ‘vast ensemble’ of ‘procedures’. Islam, perhaps more so than any other religion with the exception of orthodox Judaism, places a great focus on orthopraxis, the following of correct procedures. The daily lives of Muslims involve an array of religious obligations, and as such, these procedures have come to be more indicative of Islam in the non-Muslim sphere than the actual tenets of Islamic belief to which they relate. The five pillars of Islam dictate the obligations Muslims must attend to continually, daily, monthly, annually, and in reference to...

Preserving a halal diet is one of the obligations that Muslims have that highlights their presence as minorities among non-Muslims in a distinct way. Keeping a halal diet in a non-Islamic country reminds Muslims of their religious identity. Unlike the wearing of the veil that reveals a woman publicly as a Muslim, halal food requires a Muslim to be conscientious of their own difference from the non-Muslim majorities they live among. While it is an aspect of religious observance, it is also a very practical reminder to Muslims of their minority status. It is therefore odd for those who have...

Everyday life in Hong Kong involves the navigation of a variety of languages. Many people can go about their daily lives without having to speak anything other than their mother tongue. However, more often than not, daily exchanges, work, and schooling necessitate communications and transactions in other languages. During the colonial period, English was the key language in the territory in terms of administration and law. Cantonese has always been an integral part of daily life in the city and has displaced English since the handover. Cantonese now functions as the official language while English occupies a secondary role as...

Our first encounters with people are often dictated by a broad set of essential associations, of previous experiences and simple stereotypes. Chapter 1 briefly highlighted how pervasive stereotypes of Muslims are. The debate in this chapter will challenge popular representations of Muslims even further. The discussion on language has already shown how complex the cultural intersections are in the lives of some of Hong Kong’s young Muslims, and also how mundane and quotidian they are. In this chapter I present an in-depth exploration of two characters from my research. Pari and Fazeelah, from whom we have already heard a little...

Towards the end of my research I attended a conference on multiculturalism in Melbourne. The event had a broad scope dealing with issues of citizenship, migration, work and ethnicity. In the concluding forum provided by the keynote speakers, two comments were raised that are key to the issues covered in this chapter. One professor commented that while he had enjoyed the papers that were presented, he wished that there was a deeper engagement with the everyday experiences of the topics that were covered; particularly, he suggested with Muslim communities. I could not help but agree with the timely need to...

All everyday activities are linked in some way to the use of space; they occur within a physical space and can have an impact on and influence over multiple spaces. As humans, we physically occupy space and thus all discussions about society are in a variety of ways connected to geography, architecture and space. Youth have a special relationship with space because they are limited in terms of the places they may access and the freedom they have to come and go in spaces that are of legitimate use for them. Urban space such as street benches, bus stops, playgrounds,...

During the very beginning of my research I was passed an anonymous letter via a friend. What I read challenged some of my perceptions of Islam in the territory, about the international school community, and Hong Kong itself. It was donated as a contribution to the voices of young Muslims in Hong Kong. All I know about the girl that wrote to me is that she is from a wealthy South Asian Muslim family, she excels in her studies, she attended an international school in Hong Kong, and at the time she was planning to go to university in the...