Islam in China: The Earliest Contacts

by Tony Lambert

The introduction of Islam into China is shrouded in mystery. Little is available on the subject in English. One of the most useful sources is still Islam in China published by Marshall Broomhall of the China Inland Mission as long ago as 1910. As this book is now extremely rare, we publish some extracts about the early history of Islam in China — a subject of considerable interest for all those burdened to bring the gospel to Chinese Muslims.

(From chapter 1, “China and the Arabs”)

The Sui dynasty (581-618 ad) was in power throughout the youth and early Meccan period of Mohammed’s career, and it would be absurd to expect any embassy from Arabia [to China] at this period. Yet strange to say, the Chinese Mohammedan monuments and most famous historians definitely claim, in spite of all statements to the contrary, that Islam entered China under the Sui dynasty as early as 586-601 a.d. As this was some years before Mohammed claimed to have received his commission as a prophet, the Chinese Mohammedan assertions may be safely regarded as not deserving much serious consideration.

With the illustrious T’ang dynasty (618-907 a.d.) we enter upon firmer historical ground. The capital is once again brought back to the famous city of Sianfu [Xi’an] and the earliest reliable notices of Arab aggression are to be found here. It may be safely stated that within about five years of Mohammed’s death [in 632 a.d.] if not before the Chinese court at Xianfu had good knowledge of troubles in the West. At the same time it is important for the modern student of Islam to remember that the dream of a world-wide mission had probably never crossed the mind of Mohammed himself, and it certainly did not manifest itself until circumstances compelled the Caliph Omar against his own expressed desire, to launch out into the vast continents of Asia and Africa.

Within one hundred years of the Prophet’s birth, the Mohammedan Empire had spread to the Atlantic Ocean in the West and to the banks of the Insdus, and Kashgar in Transoxiana in the East. Before this resistless flood the disheartened Persians fled, abandoning their strongest outposts. Yezdegerd, the last of the Sassanian dynasty sought refuge among the Turkish tribes of Ferghana and “solicited, by a suppliant embassy, the more solid and powerful friendship of the Emperor of China.” (Gibbon)

China was at this time at the height of her power under the famous Emperor T’ai Tsung (627-50 a.d.), who is perhaps best known as the one who welcomed the Nestorian priest Olopan whose arrival is recorded on the Nestorian Tablet at Sianfu. At this time the frontiers of China had been carried even to the borders of Persia. The embassy from Yezdegerd of Persia according to the official records of the T’ang dynasty was in the year 638 a.d. or just about six years after Mohammed had been buried at Medina. Five years later another embassy, this time from the [Eastern] Roman Empire, reported that they had been defeated by the Arabs and had been compelled to pay tribute. Whether Yezdegerd really entrusted his crown to the safe-keeping of China while he made his last stand against the Moslem power as some report is uncertain, but his efforts were in vain for being betrayed by the Turks — upon whose help he relied — he perished, and with him the Sassanian dynasty.

These embassies from the once great empires of Rome and Persia were probably the first real warnings China received of a new power which was evidently to be feared and with which she was ere long to come into direct conflict. In 650 a.d. the famous Emperor T’ai Tsung died leaving the empire to his son Kao Tsung. One of the first matters of importance to which the new emperor had to direct his attention was another appeal from the defeated Persians. Firuz, the son of Yezdegerd, called in the Chinese Annals ‘Pi-lu-ssu’, appealed in 650 a.d. to China for aid. China, probably already fully conscious that the Arabs must be no mean foe, replied that Persia was too far west for her to send troops. She did not, however, turn an entirely deaf ear to the appeal, but dispatched an embassy to the Caliph Othman to plead the cause of the fallen power and not improbably to ascertain for herself the real situation.

In response to this situation, the Caliph Othman, still at the height of his popularity, sent one of his famous generals with an official reply to the Chinese Court. This general was received at Sianfu with great honor in 651 a.d. and the following is the standing record of this event:

“In the year 651 a.d. the king of ‘Ta-shih’ (Arabia) [from the Persian word Tazi meaning Arab] sent for the first time an envoy with presents to the Chinese Court and at the same time announced that the House of ‘Ta-shih’ had already reigned 34 years and had had three kings.” These three kings would of course be Mohammed himself and the two caliphs, Abu Bekr and Omar, the envoy being sent by the Caliph Othman. The Chinese historian, Ssu Ma-kwang, notes the constant fighting which took place between the Arabs and other powers in Transoxania during the first six years of Kao Tsung’s reign and reports, at a somewhat later date, the utter defeat of the Greeks and Persians. Firuz, hopeless of regaining the Persian throne, accepted the post of Captain of the Guard to the Chinese Emperor in 674 a.d. and was still courteously styled the King of Persia. Some years later his son called by the Chinese ‘Ni-ni-cha’ also came to Sianfu where he was appointed Guard of the Imperial Horse. He died in the city in 707 a.d.; and thus the proud successors of the great Chosroes of Persia, fugitives before the erstwhile feeble Arabs, died as refugees of the Chinese Emperor. The annals of Sianfu report that these Persian princes had obtained permission to erect in 671 a.d. a temple in the capital. This would, of course be a Mazdean [Zoroastrian] and not a Mohammedan building.

Although the Embassy of 651 a.d. mentioned above is the first official mention of ambassadors from Arabia, there is reason to think that distinguished Arabs had been received at the Chinese Court before. China recorded in her annals the fruitless siege of Constantinople by the Caliph Moawiyah (Mo-I) in 675 a.d. The political changes which had taken place through Arabia’s overthrow of Persia and the way in which the new power had risen are clearly outlined in the following quotation from the T’ang History which reveals a measure of accuracy in China’s knowledge of Mohammed and his claims:

“Ta-shih comprises territory which formerly belonged to Persia. The men have large noses and black beards. They carry a silver knife on a silver girdle. They drink no wine and know no music. The women are white and veil the face when they leave the house. There are great temples. Every 7th day, the king addresses his subjects from a lofty throne in the temple with the following words: ‘Those who have died by the hand of the enemy will rise again to heaven; those who have defeated the enemy will be happy.’ Hence it is that the Ta-shih are such valiant warriors. They pray five times a day to the Heavenly Spirit ... At the time of the Sui Dynasty, 610 a.d. a man from Persia was feeding his cattle on the western mountains of Medina (Mo-ti-na). A lion said to him, ‘On the western side of the mountains are many holes. In one of these is a sword and close to it a black stone with the inscription in white, “Whoever possesses me becomes ruler.” The man went and found everything as the lion said. He proclaimed himself king on the western frontier and overcame all who withstood him.’” The substance and date of this account agree in the main with what is known of Mohammed who at about the age of forty according to the Koran had his visions in the cave at Hira.

We come to that period when the terrible Arab General Kutaiba was conducting his campaign in Central Asia. Here he destroyed the heathen temples, exacted tribute in men and money, built mosques and settled Muslim farmers as colonists. India, distressed by the Arabs under Mohammed Kasim and Tibet both appealed to China for aid, the embassies bringing among their presents a number of many-colored birds “which could talk” — evidently parrots. China responded and sent about this time an army of 200,000 men commanded by a nephew of the Emperor against Kutaiba, only, however, to sustain defeat. Kutaiba after his successes sent an embassy to the Chinese Court. The Chinese record of this reads as follows:

“In 713 a.d. an envoy appeared from Ta-shih bringing as presents beautiful horses and a magnificent girdle. When he was presented to the Emperor Hsuan Tsung he refused to perform the prescribed obeisance saying ‘In my country we only bow to God (T’ian shen) and never to a prince.’ At first they wanted to kill the envoy; one of the ministers however interceded for him saying that a difference in court etiquette of foreign countries should not be considered as a crime.”

Kutaiba had made himself master of the country bordering upon the Chinese Empire. The Turks and Tartars had been defeated and the Chinese army also. What was there to prevent Kutaiba extending his conquests into China itself? Flushed with success and ambitious of yet greater things he is said to have actually demanded the submission of China, the government of which country had been promised to him should he succeed. The T’ang Records state that at this time the ordinary route between China and Constantinople was impassable on account of Arab troops. What the consequences to China might have been but for the death at this critical period of Kutaiba’s patron, Mohammed Kasim and of the Caliph Walid I himself, it is impossible to say. It is at least probable that China would have been subjected to Mohammedan invasion. The presents of the Emperor and his wise counsels probably stayed any immediate collision and the turn in the tide of the Mohammedan conquests which followed upon the death of the Caliph Walid I, the subsequent assassination of Kutaiba, the overthrow of the Omeyide dynasty by the Abbasides, with all the fury of rival princes and contending sects which immediately broke upon the Moslem Empire, in all probability saved China from the sword of Islam.

It is a profoundly interesting fact, and worthy of special consideration, that the events in Asia just recorded nearly synchronize with the Battle of Tours in Europe. We thus see the Arab advance checked in the west by Charles Martel in 732 a.d. and the Moslem progress eastward arrested on the borders of the Chinese Empire at about the same time.

Copyright OMF International