In the first years of the postcolonial era, students of politics in the new nation- states often assumed that “primordial” ties of kinship, language, ethnicity, and religion would gradually give way to a more encompassing sense of national political community. The emergence of such an expanded civic sense, it was hoped, would be paralleled by the development of economic, educational, and even religious institutions similarly premised on a broader, more socially accommodative, and self-consciously sustained concept of community. The expansion of political and economic opportunities made possible by the departure of European nationals, of course, might result in momentary incidents of communal competition. Ultimately, however, the social bases of conflict and solidarity would shift from their earlier organization to newly created bonds of class and profession, and the potential political divisiveness of these would be constrained by an overarching allegiance to national community and common interests. Although Marxist students of nation building rejected the integrative optimism of this model, they tended to assume that, in Asia as in Europe in earlier centuries, regional, ethnic, and religious allegiances would eventually give way to those of class and economic interest. Politics and social identity in Asia's new states were, in a word, “posttraditional,” and posttraditionalism was, almost by definition, political community in search of a new self.

The Hui minority, the largest of ten Muslim nationalities in China, is distributed throughout every province and city and over 70 percent of all counties (Map 1; Diao 1967:169). This paper endeavors to shift discussion away from conventional considerations of whether the Hui are really “Muslim” or merely inheritors of a cultural tradition somewhat different from the Han majority. Instead, I propose to examine one important area of interest to Hui communities throughout China, namely the lore and events surrounding various tombs and shrines, which I categorize as historic, Sufi, and local. Historic tombs reflect concerns that put local Hui identity in an international perspective; Sufi tombs link the Hui in national networks and often divide them regionally; and local tombs evoke interests that are more communal, reflecting practical concerns and personal identities.

Scholarly discussion of Javanese society has consistently linked variation in Islamic orthodoxy to differences of socioeconomic class, political behavior, and social conflict. In the most widely known sociological formula, Clifford Geertz distinguished three varieties of Javanese Islam and correlated each with a particular social class. Abangan, or Javanist Muslim, tradition was described as a syncretic blend of animist, Hindu-Buddhist, and Islamic elements that was predominant among the mass of rural Javanese. Santri tradition was identified as a more orthodox variant of Islam, especially widespread among merchants and wealthier peasants. Finally, priyayi tradition was identified as an elite heritage strongly influenced by the Hindu-Buddhist values of earlier Javanese courts and linked to Java's traditional gentry and the administrative bureaucracy that replaced it in the modern era (Geertz 1956; Geertz 1960:5–6).

In Peninsular Malaysia, the conventional ethnic divisions are “Malay,” “Chinese,” “Indian,” and “Other.” At first glance, this classification seems to represent the popular conception of “race” (the everyday term) as well as the “official” definition. According to the Malaysian constitution, a Malay is a person who was born locally, habitually speaks Malay, follows Malay custom, and professes Islam (Mohammed Suffian bin Hashim 1976:291). The Chinese and Indian communities are supposed to consist of the descendants of immigrants from China and the Indian subcontinent. “Other” is a catchall category for the small number of Eurasians, Thais, Europeans, and other persons who do not fit into the three major categories.

Riots, rebellions, and other disturbances have broken out periodically in most parts of South Asia in modern times. Both early resistance to British rule and the religious and nationalist violence of the later colonial period have attracted a good deal of attention from scholars. One of the general trends apparent from this research is the weakening of distinctions among “communal,” “economic,” and “political” disturbances, and detailed studies have emphasized the ambiguity of most riots. Ostensibly religious affrays often reflected more general social and economic tensions, while the expression of economic grievances was often channeled by cultural or political beliefs.

In 1984 two publications appeared that were designed to make available little known source material—archaeological and paleographic in one case, textual in the other—important for the historiography of the eastern Islamic world over the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. These publications are based on relics from port cities on the northern and southern shores of this world—Quanzhou (Zaitun) on the China coast, Semarang and Cirebon on the north coast of Java. Along with many other emporia old and new, these cities were incorporated into an extensive and thriving network of maritime exchange in the fields of commerce, religion, and civilization. The continued development of this network was threatened and ultimately forestalled by the antagonism of the conservative inland states of both Java and China on the one hand and the hostility of European maritime power on the other. But its legacy is not a trivial one.