page_title: Islam in Taiwan
section_title: Second wave of migration
hierarchical_section_title: Islam in Taiwan / The spread of Islam to Taiwan / Second wave of migration
caption_attribution_description: English: Longgang Mosque, Zhongli, Taoyuan, Taiwan中文: 中華民囯臺灣省桃園縣中壢市龍岡清真寺
context_page_description: Islam is a slowly growing religion in Taiwan and it represents about 0.3% of the population. There are around 60,000 Muslims in Taiwan, in which about 90% belong to the Hui ethnic group. There are also more than 180,000 foreign Muslims working in Taiwan from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines, as well as other nationalities from more than 30 countries. As of 2018, there are eleven mosques in Taiwan, with the most notable being the Taipei Grand Mosque, the oldest and largest one.
  Taiwanese Muslims, which are mostly descended from Chinese Muslims in Mainland China, is Sunni Muslims and mostly belong to the Hanafi school. Nevertheless, they practically face no problem at all with other groups of Muslim schools. Differences are more a matter of mutual curiosity rather than conflict. In contrast to China's persecution of Uighurs, Taiwan is defending the rights of Taiwanese Muslims, promoting its relationship with Muslim-majority countries, and welcoming Muslim immigrants and tourists.
context_section_description: The second wave of Muslim migrants occurred during the Chinese Civil War in the 20th century when around 20,000 Muslim families fled mainland China with the Nationalist Government to Taiwan in 1949 at the end of Chinese Civil War under General Bai Chongxi. Many of them were soldiers and government employees at the time and came from provinces were Islam is strong such as Yunnan, Xinjiang, Ningxia, Anhui and Gansu (mostly southern and western regions of China). First mainland Chinese Muslim settlers in Taiwan founded Taiwan's first mosque in 1947, the Taipei Grand Mosque in Taipei. The mosque symbolized the friendly gesture from the ROC Government to Islam and also reinforced ROC diplomatic ties with their Muslim allies. After the establishment of the mosque, diplomatic activities between Republic of China and other Muslim countries developed considerably and trade and commerce increased remarkably.
  This second wave of Muslim migration from Mainland China to Taiwan resulted in the creation of other mosques in Taiwan, such as the Kaohsiung Mosque in 1949 in Kaohsiung, Taipei Cultural Mosque in 1950 in Taipei and Taichung Mosque in 1951 in Taichung.
  During the 1950s, contact between Muslims and Han Chinese were limited due to differences in custom. The Muslims were largely dependent on each other through the ummah (Islamic community) that met regularly in a house on Lishui Street (Chinese: 麗水街) in Da'an District, Taipei, the original site of the Taipei Grand Mosque before it was relocated to its current site at Xing Sheng South Road (Chinese: 新生南路). However, by the 1960s when Muslims realized that returning to mainland China would be unlikely and out of professional need, contact with Han Chinese became more frequent though there was still a considerable degree of interdependence within the ummah.
  In 1953, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution condemning the ROC government for its actions and guerrilla warfare inside Burma. Finally, an agreement was reached between Taipei, Yangon and Bangkok for evacuation of all Kuomintang irregular forces under command of General Li Mi to Taiwan. Civil Air Transport transported 5,583 Kuomintang soldiers and 1,040 dependents to Taiwan. The majority of these guerrilla forces were Muslim and had no place to worship in their new Taiwan home and so they started to construct the Longgang Mosque in Zhongli in 1964 and was completed three years later in 1967. There are around 200 Muslim families living around this area with most of them belongs to Ma family clans. There are numerous Halal Yunnan, Burmese and Thai restaurants around the area as well.
  Around those periods, a few Muslim leaders held seats in the Legislative Yuan and National Assembly. There were Muslims serving as ranking officers of the Republic of China Armed Forces, notably Lieutenant General Ma Ching-chiang which once became one of the top advisers of President Chiang Kai-shek. Muslims also held important posts in the diplomatic service, such as the ROC Ambassador to Kuwait Wang Shi-ming.
caption: Longgang Mosque in Zhongli District, Taoyuan City.
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