I have once visited a Cham Muslim village in An Giang and encounter some in my workplace. Rather than “what do we think” about them, I myself prefer the question: “What do we know about them?”, as to the best of my knowledge their presence is largely unknown to Vietnamese in general. What’s their history, how did they convert into Islam, how different are they from the rest of the Muslim world, to what extent does their Muslim blend with local culture, how does it feel to practice Islam in a country where the religion is so unusual and often associated with terrorism, etc. These are some questions arose in my mind.

Most of all I think that they are Vietnamese, no matter what religion they practice and how different their lifestyle may be from the majority of Kinh ethnic people. Vietnam is not a homogeneous country and we should embrace that diversity of our people.