Note 28 — Chapter X · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN CHINA.

After crushing the revolt in Zungaria, this same emperor Kʼien Lung, in 1770 transported thither from other parts of China ten thousand military colonists, who were followed by their families and other persons, to re-people the country, and they are all said to have embraced the religion of the surrounding Muhammadan population.28 Whether such mass conversions occurred in other parts of the empire also, we have no means of telling, but the existence of a considerable Muhammadan population in every province of China can hardly be explained merely by reference to foreign immigration and the natural growth of population,29 though the numbers are larger in those provinces in which foreign Muhammadans have settled.30 It is unlikely that the Muhammadans in China during the many centuries of their residence in this country, in the enjoyment of religious freedom and the liberal patronage of several of the emperors, should have been entirely devoid of that proselytising zeal which modern observers have noted in their descendants at the present day.31 To such direct proselytising efforts must have been due the conversion of Chinese Jews to Islam; their establishment in this country dates from an early period, they held employments under the Government and were in possession of large estates; but by the close of the seventeenth century a great part of them had been converted to Islam.32 Such propaganda must have been quite quiet and unobtrusive, and indeed more public methods might have excited suspicions on the part of the Government, as is shown by an interesting report which was sent to the Emperor Kʼien Lung in 1783 by a governor of the province of Khwang-Se. It runs as follows: “I have the honour respectfully to inform your Majesty that an adventurer named Han-Fo-Yun, of the province of Khwang-Se, has been arrested on a charge of vagrancy. This adventurer when interrogated as to his occupation, confessed that for the last ten years he had been travelling through the different provinces of the Empire in order to obtain information about his religion. In one of his boxes were found thirty books, some of which had been written by himself, while others were in a language that no one here understands. These books praise in an extravagant and ridiculous manner a Western king, called Muḥammad. The above-mentioned Han-Fo-Yun, when put to the torture, at last confessed that the real object of his journey was to propagate the false religion taught in these books, and that he remained in the province of Shen-Si for a longer time than anywhere else. I have examined these books myself. Some are certainly written in a foreign language; for I have not been able to understand them: the others that are written in Chinese are very bad, I may add, even ridiculous on account of the exaggerated praise given in them to persons who certainly do not deserve it, because I have never even heard of them. Perhaps the above-mentioned Han-Fo-Yun is a rebel from Kan-Su. His conduct is certainly suspicious, for what was he going to do in the provinces through which he has been travelling for the last ten years? I intend to make a serious inquiry into the matter. Meanwhile, I would request your Majesty to order the stereotyped plates, that are in the possession of his family, to be burnt, and the engravers to be arrested, as well as the authors of the books, which I have sent to your Majesty desiring to know your pleasure in the matter.”33