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The Dongxiang People

Deep within the Gansu province, south of the Yellow River and nestled high in the mountains east of Linxia City – dubbed the Mecca of Chinese Islamic belief – live the Dongxiang, a poor farming people whose population is estimated around 640,000.

The Dongxiang are China’s 4th largest Muslim minority group, and its prevailing origin theory asserts they are the descendants of Mongolian soldiers who were stationed in the region by Genghis Khan in his conquest of China in the 13th century. According to this tradition, Khan’s men “intermarried with local women and gradually developed into their own distinct ethnic group [1].” It has also been noted that the Dongxiang share village names and some customs with Central Asian countries, namely Uzbekistan [2]. And still yet, Dongxiang surnames reflect Han, Hui, and Tibetan origin as well [3].

Regardless of their lineage, the Dongxiang’s identity is firmly rooted in their longstanding Islamic faith. “Dongxiang” itself is a Chinese word meaning “people of eastern villages.3” The Dongxiang choose to refer to themselves using the Islamic term, “Santa.” Christian missionaries visited them in the 1940’s but there were no resulting conversions. By the time the Communist Party took over China in 1949 there was “one mosque for every 30 Dongxiang homes1,” and today there is a paid Muslim worker per every 18 families4. Up until very recently there were zero known Dongxiang believers.

While there are believed to be a handful of Dongxiang Christians today, they are nonetheless categorized as Unreached by missions organizations; and breaking Islam’s stranglehold on the Dongxiang will not be easy for a few reasons. Because foreigners are restricted, Han Chinese believers in the region have the best physical access to the Dongxiang, but even they are met with resistance and harassment for sharing the Gospel [4]. Harder still, only about 12% of Dongxiang are even literate in Chinese1. The Dongxiang speak their own language, which is itself almost entirely verbal. To date, there is no Bible translation in their language, and other resources, such as picture books or audio renderings of Bible stories in their language, are minimal at best.

Our prayer for the Dongxiang is that the small number of believers among them would be discipled, encouraged, and emboldened in their witness to their own people. We also pray for the nearby Chinese believers, that they would not grow weary in efforts to reach the Dongxiang for Christ, and that the fruit of their work among them would also yield increasing Bible resources for them.

We pray that God continues to inspire missional urgency for the Dongxiang and the many other unreached people groups in China and around the world. The Gospel knows no boundaries or challenges it cannot hurdle, and it is the power of God to save people of every tribe and tongue, no matter how difficult the task may seem. 

[1] “Dongxiang in China.” Joshua Project, n.d. https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/18444/CH. 

[2] Jim Yardley, “Deep in China, a Poor and Pious Muslim Enclave,” New York Times, March 19, 2006, sec.    World, https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/world/asia/deep-in-china-a-poor-and-pious-muslim-enclave.html. 

[3] James S. Olson, “Dongxiang,” in An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of China (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998), pp. 64-66, http://psulibrary.palawan.edu.ph/wtbooks/resources/pdf/902032.pdf.

[4] Callie, “Who Are the Dongxiang?,” The Church at Brook Hills, accessed October 6, 2020, https://www.brookhills.org/blog/who-are-the-dongxiang/.