Note 39 — Chapter X · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN CHINA.

The Muhammadans in China tend to live together in separate villages and towns or to form separate Muhammadan quarters in the towns, where they will not allow any person to dwell among them who does not go to the mosque.39 Though they thus in some measure hold themselves apart, they are careful to avoid the open exhibition of any specially distinguishing features of the religious observances of their faith, which may offend their neighbours, and they have been careful to make concessions to the prejudices of their Chinese fellow-countrymen. In their ordinary life they are completely in touch with the customs and habits that prevail around them; they wear the pigtail and the ordinary dress of the Chinese, and put on a turban, as a rule, only in the mosque. To avoid offending against a superstitious prejudice on the part of the Chinese, they also refrain from building tall minarets, wherever they build them at all.40 But for the most part, their mosques conform to the Chinese type of architecture, often with nothing to distinguish them from an ordinary temple or dwelling.41 Every mosque is obliged by law to have a tablet to the emperor, with the inscription on it, “The emperor, the immortal, may he live for ever,” and the Muhammadans prostrate themselves before it in accordance with the regular Chinese custom, though with various expedients to satisfy their consciences and avoid the imputation of idolatry.42 Even in Chinese Tartary, where the special privilege is allowed to the Musalman soldiers, of remaining unmixed, and of forming a separate body, the higher Muhammadan officials wear the dress prescribed to their rank, long moustaches and the pigtail, and on holidays they perform the usual homage demanded from officials, to a portrait of the emperor, by touching the ground three times with their forehead.43 Similarly all Muhammadan mandarins and other officials in other provinces perform the rites prescribed to their official position, in the temples of Confucius on festival days; in fact every precaution is taken by the Muslims to prevent their faith from appearing to be in opposition to the state religion, and hereby they have succeeded in avoiding the odium with which the adherents of foreign religions, such as Judaism and Christianity are regarded. They even represent their religion to their Chinese fellow-countrymen as being in agreement with the teachings of Confucius, with only this difference, that they follow the traditions of their ancestors with regard to marriages, funerals, the prohibition of pork, wine, tobacco, and games of chance, and the washing of the hands before meals.44 Similarly the writings of the Chinese Muhammadans treat the works of Confucius and other Chinese classics with great respect, and where possible, point out the harmony between the teachings contained therein and the doctrines of Islam.45