Islam during the Yuan Dynasty

The establishment of the Yuan Dynasty in China had dramatically benefited Islam in China in contrast to previous dynasties. Muslims in China were given an elevated status in the hierarchy of the new regime. The impact on China by its Muslims at this time, including the advancement of Chinese science and the designing of Khanbaliq is vast and largely unknown. It is estimated that in the fourteenth century, the total population of Muslims was 4,000,000. [Israeli (2002), p. 285]

History

Elevated Status

Though the Yuan Dynasty was the only Khanate not to convert to Islam, the Mongol rulers of the Dynasty elevated the status of Muslims versus the Chinese, and placed many foreign and non-Han Chinese Muslims in high-ranking posts instead of native Confucian scholars. The state encouraged Muslim immigration, as Arab, Persian and Turkic immigration into China accelerated during this period. The Mongol emperors brought hundreds of thousands of Muslims with them from Persia to help administer the country.Fact|date=August 2008 Many worked in the elite circles arriving as provincial governors. They were referred to as Semu.

The territory of the Yuan was administered in 12 districts during the reign of Kublai Khan with a governor and vice-governor each. According to Iranian historian Rashidu'd-Din Fadlu'llah, of these 12 governors, 8 were Muslims; in the remaining districts, Muslims were vice-governors. [ [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ip1CkGgR0JgC&pg=PA349&lpg=PA349&dq=ma+chinese+surname+muslim&source=web&ots=h88yW2-bqA&sig=SNRIeWeUlubq2sLdPULtNUlGdY8&hl=en#PPA349,M1 Islam the Straight Path: Islam ... - Google Book Search ] at books.google.co.uk]

Over 10,000 Muslim names can be identified in Yuan historical records. The standard word used to denote Muslims in Chinese language documents of the late Yuan period is "Huihui". The Muslims were overseen by a Huihui named Yeheidie'erding (Amir al-Din) who designed Qionghua island which sits in the lake of Beihai Park in central Beijing. [Yang Huaizhong, "Yeheidie'erding" (Amir al-Din) in Bai Shouyi, Zhongguo Huihui minzu shi, op. cit., pp.813-818.] This was part of a larger strategy of the Mongol dynasties to divide subject peoples from an administrative class. In addition, native Chinese and their descendants were sent out of China to administer other parts of the Mongol Empire, including West Asia, Russia and India (as Mughal dynasty) in successive centuries.Fact|date=September 2008 In the fourteenth century, the total population of Muslims was 4,000,000. [Israeli (2002), p. 285]

New Communities

The Yuan Dynasty saw the formation of Muslim communities in North China and Yunnan. The descendants of these communities who were to merge completely with the local Han Chinese, nevertheless sought down to our own day to preserve their own personality and were to show a marked tendency to autonomy.Gernet, Jacques. A History of Chinese Civilization. 2. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-521-49712-4]

Muslim Influence

cience

Muslim scientists were brought to work on calendar making and astronomy. Kublai Khan brought Iranians to Beijing to construct an observatory and an institution for astronomical studies.Richard Bulliet, Pamela Crossley, Daniel Headrick, Steven Hirsch, Lyman Johnson, and David Northrup. The Earth and Its Peoples. 3. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. ISBN 0-618-42770-8] Jamal ad-Din, a Persian astronomer, presented Kublai Khan with seven Persian astronomical instruments. [Zhu (1946)] The work of Islamic geographers also reached China during the Yuan Dynasty and was later used in the Ming Dynasty to draw the Western Regions in the "Da Ming Hun Yi Tu", the oldest surviving world map from East Asia.

Muslim doctors and Arabic medical texts, particularly in anatomy, pharmacology, and ophthalmology, circulated in China during this time. The Chinese emperor, Kublai Khan, who suffered from alcoholism and gout, accorded high status to doctors. New seeds and formulas from the Middle East stimulated medical practice. The traditional Chinese study of herbs, drugs, and portions came in for renewed interest and publication. One of the medical texts introduced from the Islamic world included Avicenna's "The Canon of Medicine", much of which was translated into Chinese as the "Hui Hui Yao Fang" ("Prescriptions of the Hui Nationality") by the Hui people in Yuan China. [citation|title=Oriental Medicine|last=Jan Van Alphen, Anthony Aris|first=Fernand Meyer, Mark De Fraeye|publisher=Serindia Publications|year=1995|isbn=0906026369|page=201]

Economy

The Mongols used Persian, Arab and Uyghur administrators to act as officers of taxation and finance. Muslims headed most corporations in China in the early Yuan period but as the Chinese bought shares, most corporations acquired mixed membership, or even complete Chinese ownership.

It was during the Yuan Dynasty that the port of Quanzhou flourished. Led by the Chinese Muslim tycoon Pu Shougeng they submitted to the Mongol advance.Fact|date=August 2008 This was in stark contrast to the port of Guangzhou that was sacked. Quanzhou was made famous on account of the accounts of the famous travelers Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo who visited the port. Today a large number of stone inscriptions can be seen at Quanzhou, such as 300 stone inscriptions on tombs, graves and mosques.Fact|date=August 2008

Designing Khanbaliq

The Muslim architect Yeheidie'erding (Amir al-Din) learned from Han architecture and designed and led the construction of the capital of the Yuan Dynasty, Khanbaliq. [ http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/data/minorities/Hui.html The Hui ethnic minority ] The construction of the walls of the city began in 1264 and was completed in 1292, while the imperial palace was built from 1274 onwards. The design of Khanbaliq followed the book Zhouli, in that the rules of “9 vertical axis, 9 horizontal axis”, “palaces in the front, markets in the rear”, “left ancestral worship, right god worship” were taken into consideration. It was broad in scale, strict in planning and execution, complete in equipment.. [《明史纪事本末》、《纲鉴易知录》卷八] Khanbaliq would last until 1368 when Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming Dynasty and future Hongwu Emperor, made his imperial ambitions known by sending an army toward the Yuan capital. [Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. The Cambridge Illustrated History of China". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-521-66991-X] The last Yuan emperor fled north to Shangdu and Zhu declared the founding of the Ming Dynasty after razing the Yuan palaces of Khanbaliq to the ground. [Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. The Cambridge Illustrated History of China". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-521-66991-X]

Other Events in this Period

Marco Polo also met Nasaruddin who was the son of the conqueror and governor of Yunnan Sayid Ajjal of Bokhara, as appointed by the Mongols.

Notes

ee also

* Islam during the Song Dynasty
* Islam during the Ming Dynasty
* History of Islam in China
* Religion in China
* Islam in China
* Jamal ad-Din