The Utsuls are thought to be descendants of
Cham refugees who fled their homeland of
Champa in what is now modern Central
Vietnam to escape the
Vietnamese invasion. After the Vietnamese completed the conquest of Cham in 1471, sacking
Vijaya, the last capital of the Cham kingdom, a Cham prince and about 1,000 followers moved to Hainan, where the
Ming dynasty allowed them to stay. Several Chinese accounts record Cham arriving on Hainan even earlier, from 986, shortly after the Vietnamese captured the earlier Cham capital of
Indrapura in 982, while other Cham refugees settled in
Guangzhou. While most of the Chams fled Champa to
Cambodia, a small business class fled northwards. How they came to acquire the name Utsul is unknown. Their population was greatly reduced during the
Second Sino-Japanese War by the Japanese that more than 4,000 Utsuls were killed in Sanya as Chinese armies were hiding among them from the invading Japanese. Hundreds of Utsul Muslim houses and mosques in
Sanya were destroyed by the Japanese in order to build an airport.
Discrimination In 2020, it was reported that Beijing had started a religious crackdown aimed at the Utsul community as part of their political efforts. Restrictions included limiting the size of mosques, requiring a
Chinese Communist Party member on mosque management committees, forbidding the use of Arabic words on food stalls (such as "
halal"), and forbidding the wearing of
hijab. ==Identity==