Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: Islam in a plural Asia
- PART I THE IMPACT OF THE STEPPE PEOPLES
- PART II THE GUNPOWDER EMPIRES
- PART III THE MARITIME OECUMENE
- 9 Islamic trade, shipping, port-states and merchant communities in the Indian Ocean, seventh to sixteenth centuries
- 10 Early Muslim expansion in South-East Asia, eighth to fifteenth centuries
- 11 Follow the white camel: Islam in China to 1800
- 12 Islam in South-East Asia and the Indian Ocean littoral, 1500–1800: expansion, polarisation, synthesis
- 13 South-East Asian localisations of Islam and participation within a global umma, c. 1500–1800
- 14 Transition: the end of the old order – Iran in the eighteenth century
- PART IV THEMES
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
11 - Follow the white camel: Islam in China to 1800
from PART III - THE MARITIME OECUMENE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2011
By
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: Islam in a plural Asia
- PART I THE IMPACT OF THE STEPPE PEOPLES
- PART II THE GUNPOWDER EMPIRES
- PART III THE MARITIME OECUMENE
- 9 Islamic trade, shipping, port-states and merchant communities in the Indian Ocean, seventh to sixteenth centuries
- 10 Early Muslim expansion in South-East Asia, eighth to fifteenth centuries
- 11 Follow the white camel: Islam in China to 1800
- 12 Islam in South-East Asia and the Indian Ocean littoral, 1500–1800: expansion, polarisation, synthesis
- 13 South-East Asian localisations of Islam and participation within a global umma, c. 1500–1800
- 14 Transition: the end of the old order – Iran in the eighteenth century
- PART IV THEMES
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
The inhabitants of Jiezi, a Muslim village of the Salar ethnic group in Qinghai, China, tell an interesting story about the circumstances of their migration from Central Asia many centuries ago. As the story goes, they had left Samarqand centuries earlier, fleeing injustice and tyranny. They had moved generally eastward – to ‘China, the Land of Peace and Harmony’ – but arrived in the specific location of Jiezi ‘following the lead of a white camel with a Qurʾān strapped to its head for guidance’. The white camel in this story is noteworthy. Recall that the caliph ʿUmar entered Jerusalem on a white camel, thereby sending a message of peace and harmony; more importantly, the Prophet Muḥammad determined the spot of his mosque in Medina by letting his white camel loose and following it until it stopped to rest. The implications of the story are quite clear: the journey of Muslims from Samarqand to China – outside the ‘House of Islam’ – was justified and even divinely approved. It was to be seen as akin to other significant events in Islamic history: the making of Jerusalem part of the Islamic world, and the very creation of the first Islamic polity. One could take it even a step further: the journey to Jiezi was nothing less than a re-enactment of the hijra. Just as Muḥammad had fled tyranny and injustice, so too the Muslims from Samarqand.
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- The New Cambridge History of Islam , pp. 409 - 426Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
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