Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T05:32:00.587Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Panthay (Chinese Muslims) of Burma and Yunnan*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Moshe Yegar
Get access

Extract

In 1856 a Muslim Sultanate was founded in Yunnan, the southwestern Chinese province that borders Burma. In 1873, seventeen years later, this Sultanate was annihilated. The Muslim inhabitants of Yunnan are known as the Panthays.

There are several versions concerning Muslim origins in Yunnan. A tradition held by the Panthays themselves tells that the Emperor of China requested the Prophet Mohammed to send some Muslims to help him to get rid of evil spirits. The Prophet sent him 360 men, with whose aid the evil spirits were routed. The Arabs were welcomed with great honour and were allowed to settle near the capital. In course of time their numbers increased to such an extent that the Imperial Government was disturbed. The Muslims were therefore dispersed to the border areas of the Empire and resettled there. This account was related to the British mission which visited the Panthay Sultanate, by the Governor of the town of Momien. A very similar Chinese version tells of a Muslim army, several thousand strong, which came to the rescue of the Emperor of China at his request. After quelling the rebellion, the Muslims feared to return home, because during their long sojourn abroad they had been polluted by pork and other prohibited things, and decided to remain in China. Eventually they were sent to Yunnan and other places and became loyal subjects of the Emperor.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian History , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , March 1966 , pp. 73 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1966

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Lt. Fytch, General Albert, Burma Past and Present, with personal reminiscences of the country (London, 1878), II, p.299.Google Scholar

2. Anderson, John, Mandalay to Momien, a Narrative of the two expeditions to Western China of 1868 and 1874 under Colonel Edward B. Sladen and Colonel Horace Browne (London, 1876) p.233Google Scholar; Scott, J. George and Hardiman, J.P., Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States (Rangoon, 1900) Part I, Vol. I, p.607.Google Scholar

3. Anderson, , p.223Google Scholar. The full translation of the Chinese document that was given to the British Delegation is to be found on pp 456–7. Anderson was the physician of the Delegation, (for comparison see also: Journal of the Straits Branch, Royal Asiatic Society, No. 9, 06 1882, pp.165–6.)Google Scholar

4. Fatimi, S.Q., “The Role of China in the spread of Islam in South-East Asia”, unpublished paperGoogle Scholar. See also Fytch, , p.298Google Scholar; Scott, & Hardiman, , pp. 267. 607.Google Scholar

5. Anderson, , p. 227.Google Scholar

6. Anderson, , p. 225Google Scholar and also a letter to the present writer dated 25 May 1962 from Major C.M. Enriquez (ret.), an historian and inhabitant of Mogok in Burma. This town has a big Panthay community.

7. Anderson, , p. 229Google Scholar

8. Ibid, pp. 231–2.

9. Ibid, pp. 224–5.

10. Fytch, pp. 297–8Google Scholar; Scott, & Hardiman, , pp. 609Google Scholar. See also Hobson-Jobson which copies Fytch's views (Col. Henry Yule & A.C. Burnel, Hobson-Jobson A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive. New edition edited by William Crooke, (London, 1903) p.669. At the same place Hobson-Jobson cites contradictory views according to which there is no connection between “Puthi” and “Panthay”.

11. Capt, Gill, William, The River of Golden Sand, A Journey through China and Eastern Tibet to Burma (London, 1883) p.251Google Scholar. Scott & Hardiman, p.607, copies from this source.

12. DrThaung, , “Panthay Interlude in Yunnan. A Study in Vicissitudes through the Burmese Kaleidoscope,” Burma Research Society Fiftieth Anniversary Publication, No. 1 (Rangoon 1961) p. 474.Google Scholar

13. Fytch, , p. 97Google Scholar; Anderson, , pp. 229, 233–5Google Scholar; DrThaung, , pp.474–5Google Scholar; Clifford, Hugh, Further India, being the story of exploration from the earliest times in Burma, Malaya, Siam & Indo-China (London, 1904) pp.242–3.Google Scholar

14. Anderson, , pp. 241–2, 244.Google Scholar

15. Fytch, , p.302.Google Scholar

16. The northern part of Burma was conquered by the British during the third Anglo-Burmese War, 1885.

17. Fytch, , p.98. See also p. 96.Google Scholar

18. Ibid, p.98. See also Vol.1, p.218: DrThaung, , p.476.Google Scholar

19. Fytch, , pp. 98–9Google Scholar; Dr. Thaung, ibid.

20. DrThaung, , p.478.Google Scholar

21. Fytch, , pp. 107–8Google Scholar; Anderson, , p.94Google Scholar; DrThaung, , p.478.Google Scholar

22. Anderson, , p.246Google Scholar. See also Clifford, , pp. 276–290Google Scholar; DrThaung, , p.480.Google Scholar

23. DrThaung, , p.480Google Scholar. From time to time the British sent a few rifles to the Governor of Momien. See Woodman, Dorothy, The Making of Burma (London, 1962) p.190.Google Scholar

24. Fytch, , pp.113, 302.Google Scholar

25. Ibid, p.301.

26. Anderson, , p.220.Google Scholar

27. Capt. Gill, p.94.

28. Scott, & Hardiman, , p.610Google Scholar. See also Dawson, G.W., Burma Gazetteer of the Bhamo District (Rangoon, 1907)Google Scholar (?) Reprint 1960, p.19.

29. Fytch, , pp.97, 301–2.Google Scholar

30. Anderson, , p. 340.Google Scholar

31. Fytch, , p. 114.Google Scholar

32. Anderson, , p. 340.Google Scholar

33. Fytch, , p. 116Google Scholar; Anderson, , p.340Google Scholar; DrThaung, , pp. 479, 481–2.Google Scholar

34. Anderson, , pp.344–5Google Scholar; Scott, & Hardiman, , p.611.Google Scholar

35. Mitton, G.E. (Lady Scott), Scott of the Shan Hills, Orders and Impressions (London 1936) p.193Google Scholar; Capt. Yule, Henry, A Narrative of the mission sent by the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava in 1855, with notices of the country, Government and people (London, 1858) p. 150.Google Scholar

36. Max, & Ferrars, Bertha, Burma (London, 1900) p. 158Google Scholar; SirScott, J. George, Burma and Beyond (London, 1932) p.224Google Scholar; O'Connor, V.C. Scott, The Silken East, A record of life and travel in Burma (London, 1904) p.210–11Google Scholar. The paths of these convoys passing through the Shan Hills are described by Yule, p.148, and by SirCrosthwaite, Charles, The Pacification of Burma (Burma, 1912) p.75.Google Scholar

37. Yule, , p.147.Google Scholar

38. O'Connor, Scott, p.824.Google Scholar

39. Crosthwaite, , p.222.Google Scholar

40. Ibid, p.225. See also Mitton, pp.144–152; 163.Google Scholar

41. Crosthwaite, , p.75.Google Scholar

42. This paragraph and those which follow are based on interviews held by the present writer with leaders of the Panthay community in Rangoon during May, June, and July 1962 and also on visits to their centres in Mandalay and Taunggyi in April of the same year.

43. Grantham, S.G., Census of India, 1921, Vol.X, Burma, Pt.I, Report (Rangoon, 1923) pp. 105, 210–211.Google Scholar

44. Bennison, J.J., Census of India, 1931, Vol. XI, Burma, Pt.I, Report (Rangoon, 1933) p.231.Google Scholar

45. U Khin, a Burman resident in Washington, in correspondence with the present writer, estimated the total Panthay population in 1960 to have been a quarter of a million. This included 100,000 Panthays in Burma and from 150,000 to 300,000 in Yunnan. The estimate was drawn from the account of an elderly Panthay used in the Burmese daily Hanthawaddi in 1960. The evidence of other sources suggests that these figures are highly exaggerated.

46. One of the elders and leaders of the community, Haji Mohamel Kemal ed-Din who migrated from Yunnan to Burma in 1938 and who now lives in Rangoon, compiled a few Arabic text books in Chinese. He also translated Muslim prayers into Chinese and wrote another book on the precepts of the haj. All this was done on his own initiative. His books are not widely used by members of his community.