A new study shows how women in a small Chinese minority use group chanting to learn, bond and challenge the idea that their voices are too soft to matter.
A Chorus That Cannot Be Ignored
Every evening during Ramadan, a quiet street in Shandong’s capital fills with sound. Inside a women’s mosque, dozens of voices rise together in a steady rhythm. The chorus is loud enough to carry outside the walls.
According to research published in 2026 in Traditions of Music and Dance, that sound is far more than prayer. It is a strategy. Ethnomusicologist Jiaqi Li of The Chinese University of Hong Kong spent months with Hui Muslim women in Jinan. He observed their gatherings, interviewed their leaders and analysed their music.
His central finding is simple but powerful. When women chant in unison, they build knowledge, friendship and social standing. Moreover, they challenge a stubborn claim that women’s voices are too weak to count.
The Hui are one of China’s Muslim minorities, and Jinan is a mostly Han Chinese city. Therefore, the women’s gatherings carry extra meaning. They protect a religious and cultural identity in a place where Muslims are few. This article explains what Li found, why it matters and what remains unfinished.
A Mosque Run by Women, Found Almost Nowhere Else
Chinese Islam has two features that scholars describe as nearly unparalleled in the Muslim world. The first is the nüsi, a women-only mosque. The second is the shiniang, a female religious teacher whose title means “teacher mother.”
Shiniang lead prayers for women and help manage daily mosque affairs. In addition, they handle tasks where male clerics would be considered inappropriate, such as washing and dressing the bodies of women who have died. Many can recite large parts of the Qur’an from memory.
The women also keep alive Jing-Tang songs, or “scripture hall songs.” The tradition began in the seventeenth century, when Islamic education spread across China. The songs mix Arabic, Persian and Chinese. As a result, they are simple, musical and easy to memorise.
Originally, both men and women sang them. Over time, however, men drifted away. Some felt the songs were too basic. Meanwhile, more men gained the chance to study in the Middle East and receive training they considered more orthodox. Consequently, many men today have forgotten the chants.
Women kept them. In fact, the songs became what one scholar calls the women’s “sound of faith.” Today, a tradition once shared by everyone belongs mostly to women, and they treat it with pride.
The “Soft Voices” Myth
Progress has limits. Li reports that male imams still lead weddings and funerals, even when the main person involved is a woman. When he asked why, some Hui men said women cannot handle such occasions. Others said women’s voices are too soft to be heard during lively gatherings.
Ahong Ma Yuxi, the female imam of the Jinan women’s mosque, answered with action. Her congregation studies, practises and sings together almost every night. Li argues that this daily training turns individual voices into a collective force.
Scholars offer useful background. Researcher Maria Jaschok has described Hui women as living inside a “double bind” shaped by two patriarchal traditions, Islamic and Confucian. Confucian thought historically kept men and women apart, and unmarried women rarely left home. Both traditions, in this reading, expected women to stay silent.
Against that backdrop, chanting aloud together becomes more than worship. Besides expressing faith, it challenges the expectation of silence. Li’s point is that the women never needed to argue about volume. Instead, they built it through teamwork.
Singing Through the Rubble in Xiaojinzhuang
Xiaojinzhuang is a historic Hui village on the edge of Jinan. Its community formed during the Ming Dynasty around a Chinese-style mosque built in 1490. Today, however, the village looks like a construction site. Many houses were demolished, the promised new homes never arrived, and the COVID-19 pandemic froze what little progress remained.
As a result, many families moved to other parts of the city. Even so, the women keep coming. Some travel from distant neighbourhoods and pay higher taxi fares to reach the mosque. Once there, they donate money, prepare the iftar meal from the afternoon onward and gather to recite.
Notably, only one kind of man appears during the evening. The ahong, or male imam, steps out briefly to read scripture at private homes and then returns to rest.
Shiniang Mi leads the community. Although the women have no formal musical or Arabic training, their voices become remarkably harmonious on major religious occasions. The reason is patient correction of pronunciation and daily practice.
Li recorded a simple declaration of faith, sung to a steady 2/4 beat. He describes the sound as powerful, precise and in tune. For him, the chanting works like a “quiet anchor.” While the physical village fractures, the songs give women stability, continuity and dignity.
The Shiniang Tune: A Voice People Remember
Long before the women’s mosque existed, female voices already carried through Jinan. In the 1990s, some shiniang delivered wa’z, or religious sermons, in the streets of Hui neighbourhoods. Unlike male clerics, they often chanted these sermons with melody. Locals even coined a name for the style, the “shiniang tune.”
Li sees that name as meaningful. Residents could have highlighted the male clergy, but they chose to remember the women’s sound. Therefore, female voices were once widely heard and appreciated, even if later generations downplayed them.
Li studied a 1990s recording of a late shiniang known as Shiniang Jin. She chanted a parable about a thirsty young man who eats an apple floating down a river. He then realises he never received the owner’s permission. So he travels to find the owner. Moved by his honesty, the owner rewards him by offering his daughter in marriage. The lesson is clear: never use something without the owner’s consent.
Li identifies three features of this style. First, the stories are accessible and encouraging. Second, the melodies follow the Chinese pentatonic scale, which suits the tones of Mandarin. Third, the language blends Shandong dialect with Arabic, Persian and Chinese words. Consequently, listeners with little Arabic can still follow the message.
Naming habits have changed too. Older shiniang used their husband’s surname, whereas younger ones use their own. Li reads this as a sign of growing individual recognition.
A Women’s Mosque Between Two Giants
On Yongchang Street in the Jinan Hui Community, three mosques stand within about 200 metres of each other. The Southern Grand Mosque dates to 1295. The Northern Grand Mosque came later, after doctrinal disputes. The women’s mosque sits between them. Men remain divided by that old split, but women largely ignore it.
History explains why the women’s mosque matters. Two small women’s prayer spaces once existed in Jinan, yet both were demolished in the 1960s. For decades afterwards, women had no fixed place of their own. Then, in 1996, the local government funded the new building. It gave women a large, permanent and independently managed space. It also united believers from different sects.
Another milestone came earlier. In 1993, Ma Yuxi became the first woman in Jinan to earn an ahong qualification through formal religious education. She later became head of the women’s mosque. Notably, she rejected the title shiniang and insisted on being called ahong, citing her credentials.
Some residents grumbled, and a few kept using the old title in private. Nevertheless, her strong will and legitimate training won the community over.
Today, women no longer depend on one lone pioneer. Instead, they learn together. Furthermore, they no longer need to study religion exclusively from men.
Ramadan Nights: When the Women’s Mosque Outdraws the Men
During Ramadan 2024, Li walked Yongchang Street at night. Around 70 to 100 women gathered each evening, and attendance topped 100 on some nights. Because the women’s mosque holds about 150 people, it felt full. By contrast, the Southern Grand Mosque, which fits 600, drew only about 20 men on most nights.
Ramadan 2024 on Yongchang Street
| Women’s mosque | Southern Grand Mosque | |
|---|---|---|
| Capacity | About 150 | About 600 |
| Typical nightly attendance | 70–100 (over 100 on some nights) | About 20 |
| Group praise-singing (zanci) during taraweeh | Nearly all women joined | Fewer than 10 people, only in the final week |
| Sound of “āmīn” after prayers | Loud and synchronised | Rarely heard as a group |
The difference in sound was striking. After prayers, the women answered together with a resounding “āmīn.” Li rarely heard that from men.
During the nightly taraweeh prayers, women also recited zanci, which are praises for God and the Prophet. Their voices carried outside the building. In the men’s mosques, however, most worshippers recited alone, partly because many men did not know the lyrics or melodies.
An administrator named Zhao explained the appeal. Women are usually busy with family matters, she said, and Ramadan gives them a rare chance to meet and strengthen their bonds.
Why Women Join: Faith, Friendship and Freedom
Many women in the congregation never attended formal mosque schools. They learn line by line under ahong Ma, holding sheets with Chinese spellings of Arabic verses.
One piece, Qingzhen Yan (“Words of Purity”), explains the phrase “There is no God but Allah.” Its melody comes from Shandong folk music, and it uses a simple five-note scale. Because the 2/4 rhythm is plain, beginners can feel the pulse quickly.
Interviews revealed three reasons women attend.
Why Hui Women in Jinan Join the Chanting
| Reason | What it means in daily life |
|---|---|
| Freedom after retirement | Fewer limits from work units or political ties; many were government workers and Party members |
| Community | Stronger bonds with neighbours and other Hui friends |
| Hope for the afterlife | Belief that devotion may lead to paradise (tianyuan) |
Li notes that this marks a shift. Earlier studies in other regions described women’s recitation mainly as a substitute for missing education. In Jinan, by contrast, the practice also builds Hui identity and religious networks. It even offers comfort when women think about death.
Quiet Power, and Its Limits
Li argues that the women use two main tools: shared labour and shared learning. Together, these tools have earned them deep respect. Several men told him that Islamic teaching places women’s status slightly lower than men’s. Yet the same men admired, and even envied, the women’s religious skill. Li reads that mixed feeling as evidence of quiet change.
He is careful not to overstate the picture. Women still have limited access to major religious activities. A respected elder told Li it was hard for women to study Arabic and advanced religion, and Li admitted feeling disappointed by that view.
In addition, critics in the wider Muslim world question the dialect-based style, citing nonstandard pronunciation. The women continue anyway. Li sees that as a gentle challenge to the idea of one uniform global Islam.
Politics plays a role too. China has campaigned to make religion more “Chinese,” but Li notes that the campaign has had little effect in Jinan. The gatherings are informal and happen around regular prayers. Moreover, the pentatonic melodies already sound local.
Why This Story Matters
Li draws three lessons. First, the women’s sound is more than devotion, because it works as a political intervention. Second, the women’s mosque acts as a sanctuary where authority is renegotiated. Third, the case complicates simple stories about Islam and feminism.
The study ends with a hopeful image. Challenging marginalisation does not always require loud confrontation. Even the softest voices, when harmonised, can reshape religious life. The question now is how Hui women will expand the spaces they have built.
Reference: Li, J. (2026). “Unity Is Strength”: A Sonic Strategy of Women among Hui Communities in Jinan, China. Traditions of Music and Dance, 1-24.
