Ishmael, My Son

China has two people groups of Islamic faith:

1) Uighurs are not ethnically Chinese but rather from the Turkic ethno-linguistic group, more closely related to and resembling Central Asians such as Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyzs, etc. There are about 10 million Uighurs in China, mostly in the far northwest province of Xinjiang.

2) Hui are the descendants of Arab men who

intermarried with Han Chinese women as they entered China via both the northern and southern routes of the Silk Road, with influxes occurring in the 7th and 13th centuries. Hui exhibit a more Chinese phenotype, but retain semblances of their Arab fathers. Though their population of 12 million is spread across China, it is concentrated in the north-central provinces of Ningxia and Gansu. Hui are reputed as the least pious Muslims in the world. About 96% profess Islamic faith, 4% are ethnically Hui yet nonreligious.

(I like ethnography.)

Our dear Hui friends run a family hole-in-the-wall restaurant nearby. They've got three darling grandchildren. They're very poor but exceedingly warm and generous. Tonight the toddler granddaughter, Heiqiche, is sleeping on a box outside the doors of the restaurant, which is located on a busy, night-life sort of street. She had a serious fall recently so her arm is in a rag sling. The family was able to get medical help for her arm, but to do so the grandma had to travel with Heiqiche to their hometown in western China. I'm not sure why.

I've been trying to build bridges with these kind folks, emphasizing our similarities as people of belief and relative outsiders in Han Chinese culture.

I tried to tell them that Michael's middle name is Isaac, since of course Muslims also consider Abraham (that is, Ibrahim) their patriarch.

You probably know that the Qur'an and Genesis have areas of agreement, one instance is the basic story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son. It's not easy to communicate about this however, because I know the Chinese names for Genesis characters which are rendered from Hebrew, not from Arabic. Though I can say Abraham and Isaac in Chinese, those transliterations are different than what is used by the Hui, who only know Arabic names.

Simply telling the account of Abraham and Isaac immediately clicked with these semi-literate folks of oral tradition. They recognized the story before it had barely escaped my lips, and starting doting over Michael, smiling and calling him by his middle name, a name which is very familiar and dear to them.

I felt so satisfied having overcome a communication barrier and built a happy bridge!

The next day I was replaying the jovial scene in my mind, and suddenly realized that they were calling him ISHMAEL! Qur'anic tradition names Ishmael as the son who was nearly sacrificed, not Isaac, and of course Arabs believe they are descended of Ishmael's bloodline.

Now when we stop by to say hello, we are greeted as "Hello ISHMAEL! Ishmael, Ishmael, come in Ishmael!"

Ishmael, my son.