Note 47 — Chapter X · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN CHINA.

The Chinese Muhammadans are also said to be keen men of business and successful traders; they monopolise the beef trade and carry on other trades with great success.47 They are thus in touch with every section of the national life and have every opportunity for carrying on a propaganda, but the few Christian missionaries who have concerned themselves with this matter are of opinion that they are not animated with any particular proselytising zeal.48 Still, many recent converts are to be met with, and the fact that a large number of Chinese Muslims can cite the name of the particular ancestor who first embraced Islam points to a continuous process of conversion.49 Apparently the Muslims are not allowed to preach their faith in the streets, as Protestant missionaries do,50 but (as we have seen above)51 they do not fail to make use of such opportunities as present themselves for adding to the number of their sect. One of their religious text-books, “A Guide to the Rites of the True Religion” (published in Canton in 1668), commends the work of proselytising and makes reference to such as may have recently become converts from among the heathen.52 The fundamental doctrines of Islam are taught to the new converts by means of metrical primers,53 and to the influence of the religious books of the Chinese Muslims, Sayyid Sulaymān attributes many of the conversions made in recent years.54 The Muslim seminary at Hochow in Kansu is said to train theological students who return to their several provinces, at the completion of their studies, to promulgate their faith there,55 and in upwards of ten provinces centres are said to have been started where mullās are to be trained for Muslim propaganda.56 Military officers convert many of the soldiers serving under them, to Islam, and Muslim mandarins take advantage of the authority they enjoy, to win converts, but as they are frequently transferred from one place to another, they are not able to exercise so much influence as Muslim military officers.57 Conversions may also occasionally occur, which are not the result of a direct propagandist appeal, e.g. a Turkish traveller who visited Peking in 1895 reported that he found thirty mosques there, among them one that had originally been a temple; this had been the family temple of a wealthy Chinaman, whose life had been saved during the Boxer insurrection by the Mufti Wa-Ahonad (ʻAbd al-Raḥmān); as a token of his gratitude, he embraced the faith of his deliverer.58