MODERN CHINA / ISLAM / INTELLECTUAL HISTORY
I’m Fuwei Li, a historian of modern China. I study how Muslim communities and the states that govern them decide who may speak with authority—and who belongs.
ABOUT
My work connects Chinese history with the intellectual and religious worlds of Islam.
I am completing my Ph.D. in History at the University of Arkansas and am affiliated with its King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies. My research follows Chinese Muslim scholars, students, texts, and institutions across China and the Middle East.
I grew up in Xi’an, where study with an ahong, or Muslim cleric, taught me to read xiao’erjing—vernacular Chinese written in Arabic script. That training, together with archival research in Cairo and fieldwork in Xi’an, shapes how I approach translation, religious learning, and historical evidence.
01 / RESEARCH
DISSERTATION & BOOK PROJECT
Islamic Argument and Authority in Republican China
How shared practices of learning and argument allowed Chinese Muslims to recognize one another’s claims across enduring disagreement.
Read about the projectSECOND RESEARCH PROJECT
Religious authority and national recognition in wartime Cairo
How China’s legation evaluated Muslim students at al-Azhar in 1943, and made language and national knowledge measures of belonging.
Read about the projectUPCOMING TALK
Association for Asian Studies · Boston · March 18–21, 2027.
“Learning Islam, Testing China: Evaluation of Muslim Students from China in Wartime Cairo, 1943.” Accepted for presentation.
02 / TEACHING
I help students turn their observations into questions, test interpretations against evidence, and explore connections across political, religious, and linguistic boundaries.
Teaching philosophy & coursesUniversity of Arkansas, Fayetteville
University of Cincinnati
Lanzhou University · Minor in Ethnology
CONTACT
Research, teaching, and conversations across Chinese and Islamic history.
Department of History