Chapter X · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN CHINA.
Reading edition
Up to this period the Muhammadans appear to have been looked upon as a foreign community in China, but after the expulsion of the Mongol dynasty in the latter part of the fourteenth century they received no fresh addition to their numbers from abroad, in consequence of the policy of isolation which the Chinese government now adopted; and being thus cut off from communication with their co-religionists in other countries, they tended, in most parts of the empire, gradually to become merged into the mass of the native population, through their marriages with Chinese women and their adoption of Chinese habits and manners. The founder of the new Ming dynasty, the emperor Hungwu, extended to them many privileges, and their flourishing condition during the period that this dynasty lasted (1368–1644) is shown by the large number of mosques erected.
Notes in this chapter
Note 1 · Kanz al-ʻUmmāl, vol. v. p. 202. ↑Note 2 · Bretschneider (2), p. 6. ↑Note 3 · On the origin of this name, see Devéria, p. 311; Mission d’Ollone, p. 420 sqq. ↑Note 4 · De Thiersant, vol. i. pp. 19–20. ↑Note 5 · D’Ollone gives the following warning as to the uncertainty of our knowledge of Islam in China:—“Or rien n’est moins connu que l’Islam chinoiNote 6 · Chavannes, p. 172. ↑Note 7 · De Thiersant, vol. i. pp. 70–1. ↑Note 8 · This legend has been exhaustively discussed by Broomhall: Islam in China, cap. iv, vii. ↑Note 9 · Thus the people of Khotan claim that Islam was first brought to their land by Jaʻfar, a cousin of the Prophet (Grenard: Mission Dutreuil de Note 10 · De Thiersant, vol. i. p. 153. ↑Note 11 · Reinaud: Relation des Voyages faits par les Arabes et les Persans dans l’Inde et à la Chine, i. pp. 13, 64. (Paris, 1845.) ↑Note 12 · Id. p. 58. ↑Note 13 · That there was some migration westward also of Chinese into the conquered countries of Islam, where they would come within the sphere of itsNote 14 · Howorth, vol. i. p. 161. ↑Note 15 · For Chinese biographies of Sayyid Ajall, see R. du M. M., viii. p. 344 sqq. and xi. p. 3 sqq.; Mission d’Ollone, p. 25 sqq. ↑Note 16 · Broomhall, p. 127. ↑Note 17 · Mission d’Ollone, pp. 435–6. ↑Note 18 · Howorth, vol. i. p. 257. ↑Note 19 · Marco Polo, vol. i. pp. 219, 274; vol. ii. p. 66. ↑Note 20 · Rashīd al-Dīn (Yule’s Cathay, p. 9). ↑Note 21 · Vol. iv. pp. 270, 283. ↑Note 22 · Id. p. 258. ↑Note 23 · ʻAbd al-Razzāq al-Samarqandī: Maṭlaʻ al-saʻdayn, foll. 60–1. (Blochet, pp. 249–52.) ↑Note 24 · Zenker, pp. 798–9. Mélanges Orientaux, p. 65. (Publications de l’École des Langues Orientales Vivantes, Sér. ii. t. 9.) (Paris, 1883.) ↑Note 25 · Schefer, pp. 29–30. Zenker, p. 796. ↑Note 26 · De Thiersant, tome i. pp. 154–6. ↑Note 27 · Broomhall, p. 92 sqq. Devéria: Musulmans et Manichéens chinois. (J. A. 9me Sér., tome x. p. 447 sqq.) ↑Note 28 · De Thiersant, tome i. pp. 163–4. ↑Note 29 · The Muhammadans are said to be more prolific than the ordinary Chinese, and the Chinese census, which counts according to families, estimateNote 30 · Broomhall, in chap. xii. of his Islam in China, gives the total as between five and ten millions. D’Ollone puts it as low as four millions (Note 31 · Vide infra, pp. 309–310. ↑Note 32 · Clark Abel: Narrative of a journey in the interior of China, p. 361. (London, 1818.) ↑Note 33 · De Thiersant, tome ii. pp. 361–3. ↑Note 34 · One missionary, writing from Peking in 1721, says, “La secte des Mahométans s’étend de plus en plus.” (Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, tomeNote 35 · J. B. du Halde: Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique et physique de l’Empire de la Chine, tome iii. p. 64. (Paris,Note 36 · Anderson, p. 151. Grosier, tome iv. p. 507. ↑Note 37 · T͟hamarāt al-Funūn, 17th Shawwāl, p. 3. (Bayrūt, A.H. 1311.) ↑Note 38 · Mission d’Ollone, p. 279. R. du M. M., tome ix. pp. 577, 578. ↑Note 39 · Broomhall, p. 226. Grosier, tome iv. p. 508. ↑Note 40 · Vasil’ev, p. 15. ↑Note 41 · Broomhall, p. 237. ↑Note 42 · Id. pp. 186, 228. ↑Note 43 · Arminius Vambéry: Travels in Central Asia, p. 404. (London, 1864.) ↑Note 44 · Vasil’ev, p. 16. ↑Note 45 · De Thiersant, tome ii. pp. 367, 372. ↑Note 46 · De Thiersant, tome i. p. 247. T͟hamarāt al-Funūn, 28th Shaʻbān, p. 3. ↑Note 47 · Broomhall, p. 224. ↑Note 48 · Du Halde, loc. cit. Broomhall, p. 282. ↑Note 49 · Mission d’Ollone, pp. 210, 431. ↑Note 50 · Broomhall, pp. 274, 282. ↑Note 51 · P. 307. ↑Note 52 · Broomhall, pp. 231–2. ↑Note 53 · W. J. Smith, p. 175. Mission d’Ollone, p. 407 sqq. ↑Note 54 · T͟hamarāt al-Funūn, loc. cit. ↑Note 55 · Broomhall, p. 240. ↑Note 56 · The Missionary Review of the World, vol. xxv. p. 786 (1912). ↑Note 57 · Mission d’Ollone, p. 431. ↑Note 58 · R. du M. M., iii. p. 124 (1907). ↑Note 59 · Broomhall, pp. 242, 286, 292 sqq. ↑Note 60 · Vasil’ev, pp. 3, 5, 14, 17. ↑Note 61 · For a longer list of Muhammadan insurrections, see Mission d’Ollone, p. 436. ↑Note 62 · Sayyid ʻAlī Akbar: K͟hitāy Nāmah, p. 83. “If the emperor of China embraces Islam, his subjects must inevitably become Muslims too, because tNote 63 · T͟hamarāt al-Funūn, 26th Shawwāl, p. 3. (A.H. 1311.) ↑Note 64 · The emperors of this dynasty cultivated friendly relations with the Muhammadan princes on their western frontier, and there was a frequent iNote 65 · It is not improbable that these letters gave rise to the later legend of one of the Chinese emperors having become a convert to Islam.24 ThiNote 66 · Up to the establishment of the Manchu dynasty in 1644 there is no record of any Muhammadan uprising, and the followers of Islam appear to haNote 67 · About thirty years later, his successor, the Emperor Kʼien Lung, showed distinguished marks of his favour towards the Muhammadans by ennobliNote 68 · After crushing the revolt in Zungaria, this same emperor Kʼien Lung, in 1770 transported thither from other parts of China ten thousand miliNote 69 · This report bears testimony to the activity of at least one Muhammadan missionary in the eighteenth century, and the growth of Islam, which Note 70 · Similarly, in the famine that devastated the province of Kwangtung in 1790, as many as ten thousand children are said to have been purchasedNote 71 · The Muhammadans in China tend to live together in separate villages and towns or to form separate Muhammadan quarters in the towns, where thNote 72 · The Chinese government, in its turn, has always given to its Muhammadan subjects (except when in revolt) the same privileges and advantages Note 73 · The Chinese Muhammadans are also said to be keen men of business and successful traders; they monopolise the beef trade and carry on other tNote 74 · Turkish and other Muslim missionaries have in recent years been visiting China and endeavouring to stir up among the Chinese Muslims a more Note 75 · In 1867 a Russian writer,60 in a remarkable work on Islam in China, expressed the opinion that it was destined to become the national faith Note 76 · The history of Islam in Africa, covering as it does a period of well-nigh thirteen centuries and embracing two-thirds of this vast continentNote 77 · The information we possess of the spread of Islam among the heathen population of North Africa is hardly less meagre than the few facts recoNote 78 · The army of seven thousand Berbers that sailed from Africa in 711 under the command of Ṭāriq (himself a Berber) to the conquest of Spain, waNote 79 · How superficial the conversion of the Berbers was may be judged from the fact that when the pious ʻUmar b. ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz in A.H. 100 (A.D. 7Note 80 · It is not improbable that the other great national movement that originated among the Berber tribes, viz. the rise of the Almohads at the beNote 81 · Some of the Berber tribes, however, remained heathen up to the close of the fifteenth century,12 but the general tendency was naturally towaNote 82 · The sixteenth century witnessed the birth of a movement of active proselytising in the Mag͟hrib, which has been traced to the reaction excitNote 83 · From the Sahara the knowledge of Islam first spread among the Negroes of the Sudan. The early history of this movement is wrapped in obscuriNote 84 · Of the introduction of Islam into the ancient kingdom of Songhay, which is said to have been in existence as early as A.D. 700, we have onlyNote 85 · In the same century there were founded on the Upper Niger two cities, destined in succeeding centuries to exercise an immense influence on tNote 86 · According to the Kano Chronicle it was the Mandingos who brought the knowledge of Islam to the Hausa people; the date is uncertain,30 as areNote 87 · An unsuccessful attempt to convert the Bambara was made by a marabout, named ʻUmaru Kaba, early in the twentieth century. This man had found