Muslim Graveyards Contested: Religionization of Space in Urbanizing Early Twentieth-Century Guangzhou

Abstract: This article examines the historical limitations and possibilities faced by minority Muslims as they contest the evolving religious-secular spatial order in urban China. Between the 1920s and 1930s, five documented incidents of Muslim cemetery infringements occurred in Guangzhou (Canton), where private and state actors sought to appropriate land for development. In response, local Chinese Muslims raised their voices and adopted various strategies to contest these actions directly or to encourage state authorities to intervene on their behalf. By engaging with historical print periodicals, government directives, and inscriptions found in the cemeteries, this article explores how these strategies were based on the religious(-secular) vocabulary of post-imperial Chinese politics, leading to the spatial religionization of burial sites as “Islamic,” marked by material demarcations. Muslims strategically utilized the discourse of “religion” authorized by the state, organized themselves institutionally to engage in unofficial policing, political lobbying, and legal-bureaucratic procedures, and garnered public support through national and international Muslim networks.