Islam during the Tang Dynasty

The History of Islam in China goes back to the earliest years of Islam. Only eighteen years after Muhammad's death, the third Caliph of Islam, Uthman ibn Affan sent a delegation led by Sa`d ibn Abi Waqqas, the maternal uncle of Muhammed, to the Chinese Gaozong Emperor.

Origins

During the Tang Dynasty, Sa`d's delegation of Muhammad’s companions to China landed in the coastal city of Guangzhou in the southwest of China, where they founded the first mosque in the country, Huaisheng Mosque, located on Guangta Street. Roughly translated, huaisheng means "remember the sage," indicating that it is a memorial mosque for Muhammad.

Early contacts between Islam and China

Arab people are first noted in Chinese written records, under the name "Dashi" in the annals of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), (Tashi or Dashi is the Chinese rendering of Tazi--the name the Persian people used for the Arabs). [Israeli, Raphael (2002). "Islam in China". United States of America: Lexington Books. ISBN 073910375X.] . Records dating from 713 speak of the arrival of a "Dashi" ambassador. The first major Muslim settlements in China consisted of Arab and Persian merchants. [Israeli (2002), pg. 291]

In 751 the Abbasid Caliphate defeated the Tang Dynasty in the Battle of Talas River. The Tang Dynasty saw the creation of the first Muslim embassy, with the exchange of an emissary from Emperor Gaozong of Tang, with a general from the Caliph Osman. There were also requests for help from the Muslim soldiers. In 756, a contingent probably consisting of Persians and Iraqis was sent to Kansu to help the emperor Su-Tsung in his struggle against the rebellion of An Lushan. Less than 50 years later, an alliance was concluded between the Tang and the Abbasids against Tibetan attacks in Central Asia. A mission from the Caliph Harun al-Rashid(766-809) arrived at Chang'an. These diplomatic relations were contemporaneous with the maritime expansion of the Islamic world into the Indian Ocean and as far as East Asia after the founding of Baghdad in 762. After the capital was changed from Damascus to Baghdad, ships begin to sail from Siraf, the port of Basra, to India, the Malaccan Straits and South China. Canton, or Khanfu in Arabic, a port in South China, counted among its population of 200,000, merchants from Muslims regions. Gernet, Jacques. A History of Chinese Civilization. 2. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-521-49712-4]

Early Muslims in China

One of the earliest mosques in China the The Great Mosque in Xian was built in 742 (according to an engraving on a stone tablet inside)

During the Tang Dynasty a steady stream of Arab and Persian traders arrived in China through the silk road and the overseas route through the port of Quanzhou. The Muslim had their mosques in the foreign quarter on the south bank of the Canton River. Not all of the immigrants were Muslims, but many of those who stayed formed the basis of the Chinese Muslim population and the Hui ethnic group. It is recorded that in 758, a large Muslim settlement in Guangzhou erupted in unrest and fled. The same year, Arab and Persian pirates who probably had their base in a port on the island of Hainan. This caused some of the trade to divert to Northern Vietnam and the Chaozhou area, near the Fujian border. The Muslim community in Canton had constructed a large mosque (Huaisheng Mosque), destroyed by fire in 1314, and constructed in 1349-51; only ruins of a tower remain from the first building.

The Arab and Persian immigrants introduced polo, their cuisine, their musical instruments, and their knowledge of Islamic medicine to China. In 923, the Chinese botanist Li Hsün's "Medical Matters from the Countries beyond the Sea" described 121 medicinal drugs imported from the Western Regions, generally referring to Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and the Middle East. He introduced fifteen new entries to the Chinese lexicon adopted from the Western Regions. The famous Persian physician Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (known as "Rhazes" in Europe) had a Chinese student who impressed him with his ability to listen to his lectures and take down notes very quickly using a form of Chinese shorthand known as 'grass-writing'. This may have inspired the naming system used by Razi to classify drugs in Arabic pharmacology. Some Arab pharmacologists in the 9th century had also learnt Chinese herbal medicine. [cite web|title= Scientific Transfer and Scholarship in Medieval Arabic Pharmacology|author=Dr. Oliver Kahl|url=http://muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?ArticleID=692|publisher=Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester|date=8 March 2006|accessdate=2008-08-11]

References

ee also

*Islam during the Song Dynasty
*History of Islam in China
*Islam in China
*Islam by country
*Religion in China
*Demographics of the People's Republic of China