Islam in China More Legitimate Than Their Death in 632 CE

Asian Intercultural Contacts he presence of Muslims in as they did not proselytize, the China challenges the con- government did not interfere Tventional wisdom about with the practice of their reli- both the country’s isolationism gion. Nor did it impose itself on and homogeneity in traditional their communities, which had times. In fact, pre-modern their own judges who adminis- China dealt with a great variety tered Islamic law. They formed of foreign states, tribes, empires, virtually self-governing entities. and confederations, and numer- Other than one disastrous ous foreign religions reached episode, relations between and influenced the so-called China, the Islamic communities, Middle Kingdom. Globalization, and the world were amicable. A to use modern terminology, af- conflict erupted between Tang fected China long before the and Arab armies near the Talas twenty-first century. Other than River in Central Asia. In 751, Buddhism, Islam was China’s Arab forces defeated the Chi- most important foreign religious nese, but had to return to West import. Indeed Muslims, both Asia because of the temporary Chinese and non-Chinese, cur- turbulence accompanying the rently are found throughout the Abbasid overthrow of the country. A survey of the history Umayyad Caliphate (661–750). of the Islamic communities in The Abbasids, one of the most China is essential for an under- glorious West Asian dynasties standing of the present status of (750–1258), claimed descent Muslims in the country. Islam from one of Muhammad’s un- reached China within a few cles, portrayed themselves as decades after Muhammad’s Islam In ChIna more legitimate than their death in 632 CE. Muslims have enemy, and capitalized on resided in the Middle Kingdom By Morris Rossabi Umayyad discord and corrup- for about a millennium and a tion. However, much more typi- half. Although the sources yield Photo montage by Willa Davis. cal patterns in Tang-Islamic only fragmentary information relations were peaceful trade and about the role of Muslims in Tang recruitment of Muslims as China, teachers can capitalize on the students’ surprise about the pres- interpreters, translators, and craftsmen. Although the Tang professed ence of Islam in an unlikely location to offer insights about accommo- economic self-sufficiency, they actually required horses for their cav- dations and conflicts between majorities and minorities. These insights alry and sought the profusion of products listed in Edward Schafer’s illuminate Chinese culture, and simultaneously, Islamic contributions The Golden Peaches of Samarkand. Muslim merchants often conveyed to China. Such studies will perhaps undermine conventional wisdom these goods to China. In short, both the Tang and the Muslims ac- about traditional China and its purported isolationism and exclusion- commodated to, and benefited from, contact with each other. ary foreign policy. Yet again, other than one incident, the Muslim and Chinese communities interacted peacefully. However, according to the contempo- Early history of sino-Islamic Contacts raneous Arab historian, Abu Zayd, the Tang rebel Huang Chao killed Muslims from West and Central Asia started to arrive during the Tang over 100,000 Muslims, Nestorians, and Jews in his attack on (618–907) era in China. A cosmopolitan dynasty, the Tang welcomed Guangzhou in 878. Abu Zayd exaggerated the number, but the violence foreigners, challenging the perception of Chinese isolationism and gov- points to commercial rivalries and Chinese scapegoating of the Mus- ernment limitations on outsiders. Muslims lived among Southeast lim and foreign communities for the troubles plaguing the late Tang. Asian, Hindu, and Korean communities, and Islam was one belief sys- There is no earlier evidence of such hostility, but neither is there any ev- tem among several, including Nestorian, Zoroastrian, and Manichean idence of the construction of a mosque during this time, despite the religions in Tang China. Changan, the Tang capital, was the destina- later claims of Chinese Muslims. Mosques in Guangzhou and Xian tion for many foreign Muslims, but other towns and cities in the North- were not built until the early part of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). west and Southeast also housed small Islamic communities. Some Until then, Muslims worshipped in simple buildings which have not traveled overland by the traditional Silk Roads from Iran via Central survived into the modern world. Sources offer maddeningly few de- Asia and the oases of Turfan and Hami to China, while others traveled tails about prayer halls, rituals, and knowledge of Islam. by boat through the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean to the ports of The Song dynasty (960–1279) witnessed the arrival of an increased Southeast China. Nearly all were merchants lured by the profits to be number of Arabs and Iranians along the Southeast coast of China. A made from providing Chinese products to the Arab and Iranian worlds. Muslim cemetery in Quanzhou attests to their presence and to their po- A few settled in China, where they received cordial receptions. As long sitions, mostly as merchants and artisans. Zhao Rugua, a superintendent 4 EDUCATION ABOUT ASIA Volume 14, Number 2 Fall 2009 Asian Intercultural Contacts of maritime trade, gathered information from them about South, South- east, and West Asia, which he then incorporated into a monograph on some of the Islamic countries and the goods they produced. Conflicts in sino-Islamic Relations The Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century ushered in an era of considerable contact between China and the Islamic world and an even greater increase of foreign Muslims into the Middle Kingdom. It was also an era of significant exchanges and of well-documented actors whose biographies would interest teachers and students. Muslim sol- diers, administrators, craftsmen, scientists, and merchants flocked to China, and Chinese relations with Iran developed and had some im- pact on both countries. For example, Chinese paintings, porcelains, and textiles influenced Iranian tile work, illustrated manuscripts, and porcelains. Teachers can readily make use of the images provided in the cat- alog for the 2002 Metropolitan Museum of Art/Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibition The Legacy of Genghis Khan to illustrate the The Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century connections to students (see www.lacma.org/khan). Teachers can also describe the exchanges in astronomy, medicine, and products that ben- ushered in an era of considerable contact efited both Mongol-ruled Iran and China. Educators also have, for the first time, a cast of characters about whom sources are available. Hav- between China and the Islamic world and an ing served the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) in vital positions, the Finance Minister Ahmad, the administrator of Yunnan province Saiyid Ajall even greater increase of foreign Muslims into Shams al-Din, and the Iranian astronomer Jalal al-Din received atten- tion from historians and writers, and accounts of these Muslims’ careers the Middle Kingdom. provide insight into Sino-Islamic relations. The relationship was, in gen- eral, mutually beneficial, but there were stirrings of anti-Muslim senti- Statue of Genghis Khan in front of the Mongolian government building in Sükhbaatar ments in China, especially with regard to the imposition of stiff taxes by Square, Ulaanbaatar. Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Genghis_Khan_statue_UB_MGL.JPG. Ahmad and Muslim financial administrators and tax collectors. The Ming dynasty provided even more renowned Chinese Muslim figures. The life and career of Zheng He was particularly colorful and Despite such Islamic accommodations, the succeeding dynasty’s evocative. Dispatched by the Yongle emperor (1403–1424), Zheng com- relationship with the Muslim community deteriorated. In the 1750s, manded seven seaborne expeditions to South and Southeast Asia and the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) annexed territories in the Northwest, the east coast of Africa. Ma Huan, one of the voyagers, wrote an which had substantial non-Chinese Muslim peoples. The Qing court account of these travels, which has been translated into English, and sev- instructed its officials to permit the local people to practice their reli- eral non-specialized studies on Zheng’sexpeditions have been published gion and not to allow Chinese merchants to exploit them. Still, many over the past few years. Toward the dynasty’s end, a number of Chinese officials either disobeyed or ignored these instructions, leading to pre- Muslims wrote the first explications of the Islamic community’sreligion dictable results. A Sufi order, which emphasized a mystical union with and its relation to Confucianism. They may have been reacting to the God and a form of Islam not influenced by Confucianism and Bud- growing unease of the Chinese with Islam in the Yuan and Ming, which dhism, justified establishment of a separate Muslim state. Rebellions culminated in the Muslims’ adoption of Chinese names and language. “A erupted, most of which religious leaders led or actively embraced. Lead- transformation of their status from temporary to permanent residents” ers known as Khojas were often the principal rebel commanders. This may also have prompted attempts at self-definition and identification. violence culminated in a major rebellion in the Northwest from 1862 They “felt the need to acknowledge, and account for, their displace- to 1878 and in a Muslim and multi-ethnic revolt in Yunnan from 1856 ment—for their presence in China.”1

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