+ All Categories
Home > Documents > Diasporic Paper FINAL

Diasporic Paper FINAL

Date post: 12-Apr-2015
Category:
Upload: hulegukhan
View: 30 times
Download: 3 times
Share this document with a friend
38
“Diasporic Identities in the Historical Development of the Maritime Muslim Communities of Song-Yuan China” John Chaffee Department of History SUNY at Binghamton Paper submitted to the Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient China’s Muslim maritime communities are remarkable in several regards. They are old – dating to the Tang (618-907) in Guangzhou and at least the Song (960-1279) in Quanzhou – and the contemporary presence of coastal Muslim communities is a testament to their longevity. Compared to other Asian maritime diasporas, they are well documented, appearing in both Arabic and Chinese sources, and having bequeathed a material legacy of mosques, cemeteries, and archaeological remains. The historical literature on these communities, however, has suffered from the tendency either to focus narrowly on specific events or topics, or to paint them with exceedingly broad strokes, often in the course of dealing with their role in maritime trade, with the result that they sit almost outside of history. We know from the study of modern diasporas that significant changes occur in their composition and identity, not only from one era to the next but even from one generation to the next. Yet despite their historical importance as economic, cultural and political intermediaries between the Chinese and their Asian maritime neighbors, we have little sense of the development and evolution of the Muslim communities in China, or of their variable relationship to the Muslim trade diaspora of maritime Asia. “Trade diaspora” has been defined by André Wink, following Abner Cohen, as “the interrelated commercial network of ‘a nation of socially interdependent, but spatially
Transcript
Page 1: Diasporic Paper FINAL

“Diasporic Identities in the Historical Development of the Maritime Muslim Communities of Song-Yuan China”

John Chaffee

Department of History SUNY at Binghamton

Paper submitted to the

Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient

China’s Muslim maritime communities are remarkable in several regards. They

are old – dating to the Tang (618-907) in Guangzhou and at least the Song (960-1279) in

Quanzhou – and the contemporary presence of coastal Muslim communities is a

testament to their longevity. Compared to other Asian maritime diasporas, they are well

documented, appearing in both Arabic and Chinese sources, and having bequeathed a

material legacy of mosques, cemeteries, and archaeological remains. The historical

literature on these communities, however, has suffered from the tendency either to focus

narrowly on specific events or topics, or to paint them with exceedingly broad strokes,

often in the course of dealing with their role in maritime trade, with the result that they sit

almost outside of history. We know from the study of modern diasporas that significant

changes occur in their composition and identity, not only from one era to the next but

even from one generation to the next. Yet despite their historical importance as

economic, cultural and political intermediaries between the Chinese and their Asian

maritime neighbors, we have little sense of the development and evolution of the Muslim

communities in China, or of their variable relationship to the Muslim trade diaspora of

maritime Asia.

“Trade diaspora” has been defined by André Wink, following Abner Cohen, as

“the interrelated commercial network of ‘a nation of socially interdependent, but spatially

Page 2: Diasporic Paper FINAL

2

dispersed communities’” which over time remains “an alien element in the wider society

in which they become settled.” 1 This definition accords well with our knowledge of the

medieval Muslim trading world of maritime Asia, though one might question whether it

consisted of a single diverse diaspora, or a number that were overlapping (Arab, South

Asian, etc.). In either case, it is safe to say that the Chinese Muslim communities

constituted a part of the broader diaspora, occupying important nodes in the diasporic

network. It is also important to recognize that diasporas and their communities exist

within history, with varying patterns of sojourning versus settlement and separateness

from the host cultures versus assimilation. But connectedness to the broader diaspora is

what gave the communities their diasporic character, and it is a character that was

maintained by China’s maritime Muslim communities throughout the long period under

consideration.

I have chosen to focus upon the Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1279-1368) periods

in this paper because that period represented not only a highpoint of Asian maritime

trade, and therefore of interactions between China and the rest of the maritime world, but

also because it is marked by events at its beginning and end that set it off from the Tang

and Ming. At the early end, the rebel Huang Chao’s 黃 巢 sacking of Guangzhou in 879

and his killing of large numbers of foreigners there – 120,000 Muslims, Jews, Christians

1 André Wink, Al-Hind. The Making of the Indo-Islamic World. Vol. I. Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam 7th to 11th Centuries. (3rd edition Leiden, New York, Köln: E. J. Brill, 1996), p. 66; Abner Cohen, “Cultural strategies in the organization of trading diasporas,” in Claude Meillassoux, ed., The development of indigenous trade and markets in West Africa: studies presented and discussed at the Tenth International African Seminar at Fourah Bay College, Freetown, December 1969 (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 266-281. Cohen raises a host of questions about the nature of “trading diasporas,” as he calls them – their organization, structures of authority, forms of communication, etc. – which interrogates through an investigation of West African diasporas. However, he also speaks to the antiquity of trading diasporas, mentioning medieval Arab and Jewish trading diasporas among them (267).

Page 3: Diasporic Paper FINAL

3

and Mazdeans according to the Arab historian Abū Zaid of Sīrāf, writing in 9152 – caused

a rupture in trade relations between China and its maritime partners, to the benefit of

southeast Asian ports where much of the business moved, for perhaps as long as a

generation or two.3 And the massacre and trade shift presumably had deleterious

consequences for the Guangzhou Muslims, who had been numerous and prosperous,

though we have only silence from the sources. Thus the pro-trade policies of the Southern

Tang, Min, and Wuyue during the period of Ten Kingdoms (or Five Dynasties, 907-960),

and especially of the Song in the late tenth century, marked a new beginning for the

foreign community in Guangzhou. This was followed in close order by the spread of

traders to other southeastern ports, among them Hangzhou, Mingzhou, and especially

Quanzhou.

At the latter end of this era, the transition from the Mongols with their generally

pro-foreign, pro-Muslim policies, to the Ming with its far more restrictive policies, can be

seen to mark the end of an era, especially in Quanzhou, where the destructive rule of the

so-called Persian Garrison for much of the 1360s damaged the commercial underpinnings

of that great merchant city and brought its Muslim population into disrepute. Although

the Muslim communities remained large, and had a resurgence during the Zheng He

voyages of the early fifteenth century, generally their roles and activities during the Ming

were much diminished.

2 Cited by Howard Levy, Biography of Huang Ch’ao (Berkeley: Chinese Dynastic History Translations, no. 5, 1961), p. 109. The number itself cannot be taken literally, but it attests to the existence of a sizeable community as well as to a massacre of foreigners when Huang Chao captured Guangzhou. 3 See Wink, Al-Hind, p. 84; G. F. Hourani, Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951), p. 78; and K. N. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilization in the Indian Ocean. An Economic History from the rise of Islam to 1750. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 51. One prominent theory is that most of the China trade moved to Kalah, an island off the west coast of the Malay peninsula.

Page 4: Diasporic Paper FINAL

4

For four centuries, however, the Muslims of southeastern China flourished, and it

is on that period that I am focusing, in an attempt to map the contours of change. Briefly,

I propose a tripartite timeframe. In the first, from the Ten Kingdoms period through at

least the 1020s, trade and merchants were concentrated in Guangzhou, with frequent

tribute missions playing a major role. In the second, covering the rest of the Song,

maritime trade involved multiple ports and free trade, albeit under the supervision of the

maritime trade superintendencies, and the Muslim communities became increasingly

integrated into the society of southeastern China. In the third period, Mongol rule

elevated the status of the Muslims while the Mongol ecumene made possible a large

influx of Muslims from the Middle East and provided unprecedented mobility for them,

both within China and between China and their home countries, thus significantly

altering the nature of the communities and their diasporic identity.

The Chinese communities with which we are concerned were by no means unique

in the medieval maritime world. During the first millennium and a half of the common

era foreign merchant settlements could be found in Champa, Annam, Sumatra, Java, Sri

Lanka, Malabar, and the Sind, not to mention the many settlements in southwestern Asia

and the Mediterranean. They varied widely in terms of their size, history, ethnic and

religious composition, and relations with local powers, but their common participation in

long distance trade created far flung networks and, according to K. N. Chaudhuri, , a

shared commercial culture:

There were certainly well-established conventions in commercial contracts in all the trading cities of the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. The legal corpus protected merchants when the contracts were concluded between inter-communal members, and the reputation of a port of trade turned on the fairness of its legal traditions.4

4 Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilization, p. 12.

Page 5: Diasporic Paper FINAL

5

Nor were the Muslim merchants in Chinese ports alone in their activities.

Hangzhou, Mingzhou, and especially Guangzhou and Quanzhou were host to multiple

diasporic populations, of which those from Annam, Srivijaya, Chola India, and Korea

were noteworthy. But given the preeminent role played by the largely Arab and Persian

Muslims in long-distance trade, and perhaps even in the regional trade between China

and southeast Asia, they seem to have been the most prominent of the trade diasporas in

China. In Chinese discussions of “foreign merchants” or “foreign guests” (fanshang 蕃

商, fanke 蕃 客), specific examples most typically involve Arabs (Dashi 大 食) or

individuals with Arabic names. This accords with economic reality, for according to

Zhou Qufei 周 去 非 writing in 1178, “As for the wealth and largest quantities of

valuable goods, none can compare with Arabia. Then comes Java, then Srivijaya, and

then all the other countries.”5

Any attempt to trace the evolution of the Muslim communities in China must

begin by considering the macro-historical factors that helped to shape them. In the

Middle East, the increasing importance of the Mediterranean economy and the emergence

of what Janet Abu-Lughod has famously described as a world system in maritime Asia

were arguably factors behind the decline of long-dominant Baghdad during the late

Abbasid and Buyyid, and the corresponding rise of the Fatimid and then the Mamluk

5 Zhou Qufei 周 去 非, Lingwai daida jiaozhu 嶺 外 代 答 校 注. Yang Wuquan 楊 武 泉, ed. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1999), 3:126. Mention should also be made of the Tamil merchants from Chola India, whose considerable role in the maritime trade of the 11th-13th centuries made them a visible presence on Quanzhou and elsewhere. See John Guy, “Tamil Merchant Guilds and the Quanzhou Trade,” in Angela Schottenhammer, ed., The Emporium of the World: Maritime Quanzhou, 1000-1400 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), pp. 283-309.

Page 6: Diasporic Paper FINAL

6

regimes in Cairo. The unprecedented economic growth of the maritime Asia, driven in

large part by the size and dynamism of the Song economy, created new powers such as

Chola, Srivijaya, Java and Champa, new ports like Calicut, Palembang and Quanzhou,

and new merchant diasporas, among them the Chinese, as Kenneth Hall shows in his

article in this issue. Where Abbasid-Tang trade had relied upon dangerous but direct sea

voyages from the Persian Gulf to China, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries a more

lucrative and secure system of segmented trade involved the transshipment of goods in

South Indian, and sometimes Southeast Asian ports.6 Shipping changed as well, with

large Chinese-style seagoing junks with nailed hulls replacing the smaller Arab and

Southeast Asian vessels as the preferred ships for long-distance trade among merchants

of all nationalities.7

For Muslim traders, the expanded trading system meant more business in more

places, albeit with more rivals. The largely dyadic ties between Guangzhou and the

Middle East were replaced by a network of Muslim communities, and given the spread of

Islam into India and even into certain segments of Southeast Asian society, one could no

longer assume that these communities would consist just of Arabs and Persians, although

in China at least the Arabs and Persians appear to have dominated the Muslim maritime

communities in the Song-Yuan period. At the same time, the fluidity of the Asian

maritime world was such that Arabs were commonly used as tribute envoys to China by

South and Southeast Asian kingdoms, Chola, Champa and Srivijaya among them. For

example, Pu Jiaxin 蒲 加 心 (probably Abu Kasim) first appears in Chinese records as a

6 Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilization p. 39; Tansen Sen, Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade: The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600-1400 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003), pp. 160-1. 7 Sen, Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade, pp. 176-7. See, too, his article in this issue.

Page 7: Diasporic Paper FINAL

7

“foreign guest” in 1004, and subsequently as the Muscat envoy at in 1011, the Chola vice

envoy in 1015, and the Arabian vice envoy in 1019.8

Two things served to distinguish the diasporic communities in the ports of China

from those elsewhere in Asia. One was the enormous size and wealth of the Chinese

market. In its heyday, the city of Quanzhou had a population in the hundreds of

thousands, making it the most important port in the world, and while we have no figures

on the size of the foreign communities there, it is reasonable to assume that they were

correspondingly large. Second was the role of the Chinese government, in the form of the

tribute system and the maritime trade superintendencies (Shibosi 市 舶 司) that regulated

overseas trade in China’s ports, institutions that did much to shape commerce and the

merchant communities from the tenth through the thirteenth centuries. As we shall see

these factors did much to shape the historical development of the Muslim maritime

communities in China.

* * * * *

Although most of our evidence for the revival and then burgeoning of maritime

trade in the tenth and eleventh centuries comes from the Song, it clearly had its origins

under the southern kingdoms during the Five Dynasties period (907-960). According to

Hugh Clark, Guangzhou in Southern Han (917-971), Quanzhou in Min (909-945), and

Mingzhou in Wuyue (907-988) all flourished as a result of the trade, and their respective

8 Robert Hartwell, Tribute Missions to China, 960-1126 (Philadelphia, 1983), pp. 188, 198, 200, 206. See Tansen Sen’s discussion of this phenomenon in Buddhism, Diplomacy and Trade, 167-8. Hartwell’s privately published work consists of tables by country which collate information concerning each of the tribute missions from a variety of Song sources. He intended it as a supplement to a planned monograph on the tribute mission, international trade and politics, which unfortunately he never wrote.

Page 8: Diasporic Paper FINAL

8

kingdoms all benefited fiscally as a result.9 While we have no direct evidence about the

Muslim communities in those cities, they must have been there since in the tenth-century

maritime trade was still the exclusive domain of non-Chinese.

During the early years of the Song, the government was proactive in its

encouragement of maritime trade. The first Song maritime trade superintendency was

opened in Guangzhou in 971, and this was subsequently followed by the creation of two

new superintendencies in Hangzhou and Mingzhou.10 During the Yongxi 雍 熙 reign

period (984-987), eunuch officials were sent abroad on four missions to invite the trade

of merchants from all foreign countries in the southern seas, with instructions that they

were to go to the maritime trade superintendency in Hangzhou to obtain their licenses.11

While the maritime trade superintendencies were an extremely significant

innovation,12 during the first half century of the Song tribute missions may well have

been more important for the practice of maritime trade. During the reigns of the first three

emperors (960-1022), the high water period of the Song tributary system, fifty-six

missions came from the kingdoms of the southern seas. Of these, almost half (twenty-

three) were from the Middle East.13 The Song tributary system was a complex institution

9 Hugh R. Clark, “The Southern Kingdoms between the T’ang and the Sung” draft chapter, Cambridge History of China, Volume 5, The Sung, Part I. 10 Tuo Tuo 脫 脫, Song shi 宋 史 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1977), 186:4558. Hereafter cited as SS. 11 SS 186:4559 12 There is some disagreement among scholars on this point. As early as the eighth century the Tang had a supervisor or superintendent of foreign trade (shibo shi市 舶 使 ), but whether this meant that there was an office or superintendency, as some have argued, is debatable. Wang Zhenping has argued persuasively that the shibo shi were ad hoc commissioners, typically eunuch, and representing imperial palace interests, certainly a far cry from the superintendencies of Song times. Wang Zhenping, “T’ang Maritime Trade Administration,” Asia Major 4.1 (1991), pp. 25-27. 13 The figures have been compiled from Hartwell, Tribute Missions to China. A fuller breakdown is given below:

Page 9: Diasporic Paper FINAL

9

that reflected the unique international configuration that obtained in East Asia at the end

of the first millennium. Song relations with its continental neighbors to the north – the

Liao and Xixia, and later the Jin – were notable for the pragmatic willingness by the Song

emperors to compromise the hierarchical principles of the tributary system in order to

maintain peace.14 Along the southern frontier, more traditional notions of hierarchy and

hegemony predominated in Song relations with Vietnam (Nanyue 南 越 or Jiaozhi 交 趾)

and Champa (Zhancheng 成), though they also utilized the “loose rein” (jimi羈 縻)

system of frontier administration begun by the Tang.15 In contrast to both of these

tributary relationships, commerce was central in the Song’s tribute relations with the

countries of the southern seas, which were too distant to be militarily or geographically

consequential to the Song. The connection between trade and tribute went beyond the

lavish and mutual gift-giving that characterized tribute missions generally. According to

one Southern Song source, “This year (968), the Arab kingdom sent an envoy bearing

Tributary Missions from the Southern Seas in the Northern Song

Maritime

Southeast Asia South Asia

Southwest Asia

Totals

Taizu 960-75 9 4 4 17 Taizong 976-97 9 2 8 19 Zhenzong 998-1022 3 6 11 20 Renzong 1023-63 1 4 2 7 Yingzong 1064-67 0 0 0 0 Shenzong 1068-85 4 3 7 14 Zhezong 1086-1100 3 1 3 7 Huizong 1101-26 2 0 1 3 Totals 31 20 36 87

14 See Morris Rossabi, ed., China Among Equals: the Middle Kingdom and Its Neighbors, 10th-14th Centuries (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), especially Wang Gungwu, “The Rhetoric of a Lesser Empire: Early Sung’s Relations With Its Neighbors.” 15 See James Anderson, The Rebel Den of Nùng TríCao: Eleventh-Century Rebellion and Response along the Sino-Vietnamese Frontier (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006), Chapter 1.

Page 10: Diasporic Paper FINAL

10

tribute goods, and from that tribute mission on, merchant ships have come and gone

without ceasing.”16 Part of the connection was physical. The maritime missions all

stopped first in the city of Guangzhou, where they were undoubtedly welcomed by their

fellow countrymen, since they would have been bearing news, letters and goods.

But there is also evidence of a direct connection between tribute and trade. The

Arab envoys, in particular, are frequently identified as “ship owners” (bozhu 舶 主), and

in some cases they were actually from the Guangzhou community. The examples of the

Arab merchant Pu Ximi 蒲 希 密 (Abu Hamid?) and his son Pu Yatuoli 蒲 押 陀 黎

(Abu Adil?) are instructive in this regard. In 976, Pu Ximi was sent by the “Arab King”

Kelifu 珂 黎 拂 .17 Seventeen years later, in 993, he was back again, but the stated

circumstances were very different:

Formerly when I was at home, I received a letter from the foreign headman of Guangzhou urging me to go to the capital and offer tribute. He said much in praise of the emperor’s virtues, who had commanded a liberal treatment towards the foreigners to the viceroy of Guangnan, in order to console the foreign traders and make them import things from distant countries.18

Two years later Pu Yatuoli explained his own mission in a memorial to the throne:

My father Pu Ximi, seeking commercial profits, took ship and came to Guangzhou, and when five years had passed without his return, my mother sent me this long distance to see him. Upon my arrival in Guangzhou I saw him.19

16 Shantang kaosuo 山 堂 考 索 by Zhang Ruyu , cited in Song huiyao jigao 宋 會 要 輯 稿 (Taipei: Shijie shuju, 1964), Fanyi, 7/3a. This will be cited hereafter as SHY. 17 SS, 3:47. According to Robert M. Hartwell, Tribute Missions, p. 195, Al-Muti was Caliph of Baghdad at the time. Perhaps “ke-li-fu” was a translation of “caliph” rather than his name. 18 SS, 490:14119; largely following the translation of Jitsuzo Kuwabara, “On P’u Shou-keng, a Man of the Western Regions, who was the Superintendent of the Trading Ships’ Office in Ch’üan-chou towards the End of the Sung dynasty, together with a General Sketch of Trade of the Arabs in China during the T’ang and Sung Eras, Part 1,” Memoirs of the Research Department of the T∩y∩ Bunko 2 (1928):41. 19 SS, 490:14119-20; Kuwabara, “P’u Shou-keng,” p. 78.

Page 11: Diasporic Paper FINAL

11

The Pu father and son surely represent the Arab trading elite of the late tenth

century. Theirs was a wealthy family with a well-established involvement in the China

trade, but maintaining their primary residence in the west (Ximi’s wife remained there).

Although the missions of 976 and 998 were both “sent” by the caliph of Baghdad, their

own accounts make it clear that they were the initiators. The role of the headman,

moreover, accords with the observation of Zhu Yu 朱 彧 (early 12th c.) that the headman

“is specifically responsible for exhorting the foreign merchants to send tribute.”20

I would suggest that the initiative for many – though certainly not all – of the

maritime tribute missions came from the foreign merchant community of Guangzhou.

This is not to say that they were fraudulent, but rather that they were often proposed by

the merchants and undertaken with the support of their rulers. This helps to explain an

apparently anomalous memorial from 1016 by the Guangzhou prefect, Chen Shiqing 陳

世 卿, proposing that limits be set on the size of tribute missions:

The embassies with their envoys, vice-envoys, subordinate officials (panguan 判 官), and assisting officials (fangshouguan 防 援 官) should be limited to 20 for Arabia

(Dashi), Chola (Zhunianguo 注 輦 國), Srivijaya (Sanfoqi 三 佛 齊), and Java (Shepo

闍 婆), and 10 for Annam (Zhancheng 占 城), Tambralinga (Danliumei 丹 流 眉),

Borneo (Boni 勃 尼), Guluo 古 邏, and the Philippines (Moyi 摩 逸), and they should

be given documents for their travel. Guangzhou foreign residents (fanke 蕃 客) who falsely substitute for them should be found guilty.21

At first glance, the last sentence would appear to deny the participation of the merchants

in Guangzhou. But since we know that merchants in Guangzhou legitimately participated

20 Zhu Yu, 朱 彧, Pingzhou ketan萍 洲 可 談 (Song; Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1989), 2:27.

Page 12: Diasporic Paper FINAL

12

in tribute missions, the concern here was presumably about proper credentialing rather

than barring the merchants as such. Moreover, since the Song government had no means

of enforcing quotas on the size of missions at their purported point of departure, this

proposal was almost certainly aimed at the envoys as they assembled their retinue for the

trip to the capital.

Given the close connection between trade and tribute missions, it seems likely

that most foreign merchants were sojourners, like Pu Ximi having close family members

in their home countries – or possibly other Asian port cities – and maintaining a foreign

political identity. Su Che 蘇 (1039-1112) provides a prime example of just this sort

of sojourning merchant. Xinya Tuoluo 辛 押 陀 羅 was an Arab merchant who served as

an envoy for Arabia and Muscat and lived in Guangzhou for several decades and was

reported to have amassed a fortune of “several hundred wan strings of cash” – that is,

several million. After returning to his home country – around 1072 – he was executed by

his ruler. Xinya’s case came to Su’s attention because of the question whether Xinya’s

adopted son, a former slave, could inherit his estate (the answer was no), but for us it

demonstrates how merchant-envoys could play a consequential role in both their home

countries and Guangzhou.22 At the same time, the late eleventh century date makes him

something of an anomaly, since for reasons that are not entirely clear, the maritime

tribute missions virtually ceased after the 1020s, and although they revived somewhat in

the late eleventh century, they never regained the prominence that they had had for the

21 SHY, Fanyi, 7/20b; Li Tao , Xu zizhi tongjian changbian (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju), 87:1998. This will hereafter be cited as XCB. 22 Su Che 蘇 撤, Longchuan lüe zhi 龍 川 略 志 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1982), 5:28-9.

Page 13: Diasporic Paper FINAL

13

first sixty years of the dynasty.23 With the missions curtailed, the maritime trade

superintendencies and the legal framework developed by the Chinese for the treatment of

foreign merchants became the paramount factors shaping the Muslim communities, no

longer just in Guangzhou, but in various port cities along the coast, particularly

Quanzhou.

* * * * * *

The maritime trade superintendencies were unique institutions in the medieval

maritime world. In addition to the three established in the early Song at Guangzhou,

Hangzhou and Mingzhou, five others were created, most notably at Quanzhou in 1087,

which quickly assumed the position of the premier port for overseas commerce.24 The

multiple superintendencies provided overseas merchants with a choice of ports at which

to do their business, while the superintendencies themselves provided a remarkable

attention to a wide range of trade-related activity. According to Zhu Yu, foreign ships

entering Chinese waters from the south first encountered signal beacons set up every 30 li

as lighthouses and, once spotted by the Song navy, which maintained naval stations along

the coast, they were escorted to Guangzhou or one of the other officially sanctioned ports.

After they had docked, the ships were placed under armed guard until the

superintendency officials had had a chance to inspect and tax their goods (including the

23 The major exceptions to this pattern of sharply decreased tribute activity after the 1020s were the Uighurs, Tibetans, Vietnamese, and Champans, all of them continental neighbors of the Song. Hartwell, Tribute Missions, passim. 24 As Hugh Clark has shown, Quanzhou’s role as a major port for maritime trade dates back to the tenth century, and although in theory, ships from overseas either had to stop first at one of the other superintendencies, or risk being caught for smuggling, officials seem to have often looked the other way. Hugh Clark, “The Politics of Trade and the Establishment of the Quanzhou trade Superintendency,” in Zhongguo yu haishang sichou zhi lu 中 國 與 海 上 絲 綢 之 路 (China and the Maritime Silk Route), edited by Lianheguo jiaokewen zuzhi haishang sichou zhilu zonghe kaocha Quanzhou guoji xueshu

Page 14: Diasporic Paper FINAL

14

compulsory purchase of certain commodities), after which the foreign merchants were

permitted to market them.25

In emphasizing the role of the superintendencies, I do not mean to suggest that

they caused the flourishing trade of this era. *****

Did the superintendencies serve to promote or curtail trade. As Zhu’s account

suggests, many of the maritime trade superintendencies’ functions concerned the

supervision of trade (departing ships were also inspected to guard against the export of

copper specie), the collection of tariffs, and compulsory purchases,26 and free market

advocates could well argue that these inhibited trade. However, the superintendencies

were also charged with the promotion of trade, and this included providing for the

welfare foreign merchants, or as Zhou Qufei 周 去 非 put it, “The superintendency [of

maritime trade] taxes the merchants and protects them.”27 In the Southern Song

provisions were made for those in urgent need, such as shipwrecked seamen, who were

given allowances while they awaited repatriation.28 In addition, in the tenth month of

every year, the Quanzhou and Guangzhou maritime trade superintendencies each hosted

the foreign merchants to a great feast, at the substantial cost of 300 strings of cash in each

place.29 Although we lack the economic data to prove or disprove the efficacy of the

superintendencies, my own impression is that their bureaucratic character and their

taolunhui zuzhi weiyuanhui 聯 合 國 教 科 文 組 織 海 上 絲 綢 之 路 綜 合 考 察 泉 州 國 際 學 術 討 論 會 組 織 委 員 會 (Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 1991), pp. 376-81. 25 Zhu Yu, Pingzhou ketan, 2:25. 26 Laurence J. C. Ma, Commercial Development and Urban Change in Sung China (960-1279) (Ann Arbor: Department of Geography, University of Michigan, 1971), pp. 37-8. 27 Zhou Qufei 周 去 非, Lingwai daida jiaozhu 嶺 外 代 答 校 注. Yang Wuquan 楊 武 泉, ed. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1999), 3:126 28 SS 491:14137. The citation specifically concerns Japanese sailors, but presumably sailors from other countries would have been similarly treated.

Page 15: Diasporic Paper FINAL

15

regulations provided merchants with relatively reliable expectations of the cost of doing

business in China that was beneficial to them in their commercial calculations. These

could be upended by official corruption – a problem that elicited considerable discussion

by officials – but the evidence suggests that the Song regulation of maritime trade was far

less corrupt than it had been in the Tang, when postings to Guangzhou were commonly

regarded as an avenue to instant wealth.30

The Song government viewed the foreign merchant communities as a group apart,

and it was content to let them live separately and govern themselves. Zhu Yu gives a

vivid depiction of the Guangzhou community in the late eleventh century:

The foreign ward (fanfang ) is where those from the various countries from across the ocean congregate and live. There is a foreign headman (fanzhang ) who administers the public affairs of the foreign quarter and is specifically responsible for exhorting the foreign merchants to send in tribute. Foreign officials (fanguan ) are used for this, and their hats, robes, shoes and tablets are like those of Chinese (Huaren ). When foreigners have a crime, they go to Guangzhou for investigation of the particulars (jushi ), then the matter is sent to the foreign quarter to dispose of it. [The guilty party] is tied up on a wooden ladder, and is beaten with a bamboo cane. ... In cases of serious crime (shangzui ⌧) the Guangzhou [government] adjudicates.31

The practice of legal extraterritoriality, to which the second half of this description refers,

had its origins in the Tang, if not before,32 and despite some complaints the Song

29 SHY, Zhiguan, 44/24a-b; Zhou Qufei, Lingwai daida, 3:126. 30 See Jitsuzo Kuwabara detailed treatment of corruption related to maritime trade in the Tang and Song in “P’u Shou-keng,” Pt. II, Memoires of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko, No. 7 (1935), pp. 48-55. Although his many examples span the Tang and Song, those relating to the Tang tend to be accounts of the fabulous wealth garnered by Guangzhou officials, while those in the Song are largely related to legal cases forbidding or prosecuting corruption. 31 Zhu Yu, Pingzhou ketan, 2:27 32 According to the Tang Code, “As to the Hua-wai-jen 化外人 living in China, all offences committed by persons of one nationality shall be tried according to the laws of that nation, but the offences committed between a person of one nationality and that of another shall be tried according to the Chinese laws.” (Kuwabara, p. 46, citing Tanglü shuyi, zh. 6)

Page 16: Diasporic Paper FINAL

16

authorities were quite accommodating in allowing its use, including some cases involving

Chinese and foreigners together.33

Like extraterritoriality, the use of foreign headmen (fanzhang) had Tang

precedents, as reported in an Arab account:

“The merchant Sulayman reports that at Canton, which is the point for the gathering of merchants, there is a Muslim man who is invested by the chief of the Chinese with the power to settle conflicts among Muslims who are in the district [of Canton]. This is according to the wishes of the Chinese sovereign. At the time of festivals, it is he who directs the Muslim prayers, makes the “khotba”, and pronounces vows in support of the legal authority that governs the Muslims. The manner in which he exercises his charge does not raise up any criticism among the merchants of Iraq (Irak?) when the sentences conform to justice, according to the stipulations of the Book of God and of Islamic law.”34

Song references to foreign headmen are few in number but revealing. We learn from a

1073 case that the position was not hereditary, for when the Arab headman in

Guangdong, the Maintaining Submission Commandant35 保 順 郎 將 Pu Tuopoli Ci 蒲

陀 婆 離 慈, asked to have his son Mawu 麻 勿 (Mahmud) succeed him, he was turned

down, though Ma-wu was given the lesser rank of Commandant (langjiang 郎 將). The

account then provides this gloss on the headman’s jurisdiction:

The countries [with merchants] subordinate 部 屬 [to the headman] were varied

in name. Thus there was Wuxun 勿 巡 (Muscat, Oman), Tuopoli 陀 婆 離 [the

33 For example, Kuwabara, p. 47, quotes Lou Yue’s Gongkui ji, zh. 88: “The foreign traders live together with the Chinese people, and according to the old custom, when they quarreled with the local people, unless it be bodily injury, they were tried according to their own laws.” See John Chaffee, “Medieval Extraterritoriality: Law and Maritime Merchant Communities in Tang-Song China,” paper presented at the Asian Merchant Cultures at the Crossroads Conference, Hofstra University, March 2006. 34 Sulayman, Akhbar al-Sin wa ‘l-Hind. Relation de la Chine et de l’Inde, rϑdigϑe en 851 , Jean Sauvaget, trans. (Paris, 1948), p. 12. 35 Hucker, Charles, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985), p. 369 (#4496): Sung laudatory title conferred on friendly alien military chiefs.

Page 17: Diasporic Paper FINAL

17

“tuo” is not right], Yuluhedi 俞 盧 和 地 (Al-Katif, a port in Bahrein), Maluoba

麻 囉 (Merbat), and others, but all are headed 冠 by the Arab kingdom.36

Since the Arab headman’s authority was confined to Middle Easterners, there must have

been other headmen for other groups, though apart from a Southern Song reference to a

Champa headman (in Quanzhou), we can only speculate about how many there were.37

From 1072, the year before Pu Tuopoli Ci’s request, we have another intriguing

incident. Xinya Tuoluo 辛 押 陀 羅, the Muscat envoy whose personal fortunes were

discussed above, requested that during the course of his return [to Muscat] he be given

permission to examine the affairs of the headmaster’s office in Guangzhou (fanzhangsi

蕃 長 司), and he also offered to make a donation for the restoration of Guangzhou’s city

walls. His request was referred to the Guangzhou authorities for decision, while his offer

was declined.38 Most scholars in discussing this passage have focused on the city wall

proposal, but Pu’s request is, if anything, more revealing, both for its reference to the

unsurprising but important fact that the headman had an administrative apparatus, and

also for suggesting an interest by the home government in the Guangzhou community.39

Thanks, perhaps, to the vividness of Zhu Yu’s earlier quoted description of

Guangzhou’s foreign ward and the similarities between it and the quarters for foreign

merchants found in many other Eurasian ports, which were often legally designated as

such, the idea that foreign merchants in China resided in foreign quarters has gained wide

36 SS 490:14121. 37 SHY, Fanyi 4, 84a. 38 SHY, Fanyi 4, 84a; SS 490:14121. 39 It is of course possible that Pu’s request was personally motivated, but his request was made in his capacity as envoy and received a positive response from the court.

Page 18: Diasporic Paper FINAL

18

acceptance among historians.40 In fact, historical records reveal a rather more

complicated picture. Although it seems likely that localities – or quarters – where

countrymen or kinsmen congregated were common in China as elsewhere, there is little

evidence for the existence of foreign wards. Billy So has argued that there is no evidence

for them in Quanzhou.41 In one of the few extant references to foreign residents in

Quanzhou, Zhu Mu 祝 穆 (d. after 1246), it is true, wrote that: “There are two types of

foreigners. One is white and the other black. All live in Quanzhou. The place where they

are living has been called ‘foreigners’ lane’ (fanren xiang 蕃 人 巷).”42 Apart from its

intriguing division of foreigners along racial lines – Arabs vs. south and southeast

Asians? – the passage’s use of “lane” suggests a rather more informal unit than “ward”

(fang), with its connotations of a walled block. The Northern Song scholar-official Zheng

Xie 鄭 俠 (1044-1119) had this description of Quanzhou: “Maritime merchants crowd

the place. Mixing together are Chinese and foreigners. Many find rich and powerful

neighbors.”43 Although he could have been talking only about conditions in the

marketplace, the maritime commercial district, which lay between the city’s southern

40 See, for example, Wheatley, Paul, “Geographical Notes on Some Commodities Involved in the Sung Maritime Trade,” Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 32.2, no. 186 (1959), p. 28-9; Kuwabara, p. 34; and John Guy, p. 287. For an excellent consideration of the evidence concerning foreign quarters, see Chen Dasheng 陳 達 生, “Synthetical Study Program on the Islamic Inscriptions on

the Southeast Coastland of China,” in Zhongguo yu haishang sichou zhi lu 中 國 與 海 上 絲 綢 之 路 (China and the Maritime Silk Route), edited by Lianheguo jiaokewen zuzhi haishang sichou zhilu zonghe kaocha Quanzhou guoji xueshu taolunhui zuzhi weiyuanhui 聯 合 國 教 科 文 組 織 海 上 絲 綢 之 路 綜 合 考 察 泉 州 國 際 學 術 討 論 會 組 織 委 員 會 (Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 1991), pp. 173-4. 41 Billy So [So Kee Long], Prosperity, Region, and Institutions in Maritime China. The South Fukien Pattern, 946-1368. (Cambridge, Mass., London: Harvard University Press, 2000), p. 54. 42 Zhu Mu 祝 穆, Fangyu shenglan 方 輿 生 覽 (Taipei: Wenhai chubanshe, 1981), 12/5a.

Page 19: Diasporic Paper FINAL

19

wall and the river, was also the location of three of the city’s mosques, strongly

suggesting that the foreigners generally resided in that district. We also have a thirteenth

century description of Quanzhou as a place where “foreign merchants live scattered

amidst the people.”44

In contrast to Quanzhou, Guangzhou most definitely had a foreign ward, as the

earlier quotation by Zhu Yu makes clear. But many foreign merchants did not live in it.

An official in 1018 described how ‘In Guangzhou there are many foreign and Chinese

great merchants [whose homes] lack the protection of the city walls 無 城 池 郛 郭 and

proposed some military protection for the district.45 It is conceivable that he was in fact

referring to the foreign ward, but Zheng Zai 鄭 載, the former fiscal intendent of

Guangdong, clearly was not, when he wrote in 1036 that: “Every year in Guangzhou

there are many foreign guests (fanke) who take their wives and sons to reside outside of

Guangzhou. Hereafter we should ban [those in] Guangzhou from selling them any real

estate.” The issue was referred to the Guangzhou prefect and the current fiscal intendent

for consideration.46 Then there were those who settled within the city walls. Yue Ke 岳

珂 (1183-1240) also recounts the case of a merchant, a “white foreigner” (baifanren 白

43 Zheng Xia 鄭 俠 , Xitang ji西 塘 集 (Siku quanshu ed.), 8:20b. 44 Liu Kezhuang 劉 克 莊, Houcun xiansheng da quanji後 村 先 生 大 全 集, zh. 62, cited in Chen

Gaohua 陳 高 華 and Cheng Shangsheng 陳 尚 勝, Zhongguo haiwai jiaotong shi中 國 海 外 交 通 史 (Taibei: Wenjin chubanshe, 1992), p. 153. 45 XCB 94:2166. 46 SHY, Xingfa, 2/21a.

Page 20: Diasporic Paper FINAL

20

番 人 – an Arab?) from Champa, who had received imperial permission to stay in

Guangzhou, where he ran a lucrative shipping business.

“In the course of time he took a permanent residence inside the city. His house and rooms were very luxurious even trespassing the laws. But as the inspector of trading ships’ object was to encourage the coming of foreign traders, thereby to increase the national revenue, and also as he was not Chinese, the authorities did not make any investigation of the matter.”47

These quotations suggest that attempts by the government to limit the residences of

foreigners were commonly ignored in the free and easy commercial atmosphere of Song

Guangzhou.

Two other institutions played a crucial cultural role in the lives of China’s

maritime Muslim communities: mosques and cemeteries. Donald Leslie has suggested

that the mosques were “built for the needs of the local community rather than for the

glory of Allah or the spreading of the faith,”48 and indeed, I have found no evidence of

active proselytizing among the maritime Muslims. It seems likely that the Guangzhou

community had both a mosque and a cemetery in Tang times, though the evidence is

poor. For the Song, however, we have evidence of two mosques in Guangzhou (the

Huaishengsi 懷 聖 寺 and Guangta 光 塔 or Shining Pagoda), two in Quanzhou (the

Shengyousi 聖 友 寺 and Qingzhensi 清 真 寺), and one each in Hangzhou and

Chang’an.49 Guangzhou and Quanzhou both had Muslim cemeteries as well. The Song

writer Fang Xinru 方 信 孺 describes a cemetery for several thousand foreigners ten li

47 Yue Ke 岳 珂, Tingshi 桯 史 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981), 11:125, following Kuwabara Jitsuzo, “On P’u Shou-keng, Part 1” Memoirs of the Research Department of the T∩y∩ Bunko 2 (1928), p. 44 48 Donald Daniel Leslie, Islam in Traditional China (Canberra: Canberra College of Advanced Education, 1986), p. 41.

Page 21: Diasporic Paper FINAL

21

west of Guangzhou in which the deceased were buried with their heads to the south but

facing west.50 For Song Quanzhou, we have this wonderfully detailed account by Lin

Zhiqi 林 之 奇 (1112-76) of the creation of a cemetery by a Srivijayan merchant:

There are scores of rich merchants from Srivijaya who are living or were born in Quanzhou. Among them is a man called Shi Nuowei 絁 _幃. Shi is famous for his generosity among his fellow foreign residents in Quanzhou. The building of a cemetery is but one of his many generous deeds. This cemetery project was first proposed by another foreigner named Pu Xiaxin 蒲 霞 辛 [who did not see it through]. The idea has been carried out and accomplished by Shi. The location of this cemetery is on the hillside to the east of the city. After the wild weeds and rubble were cleared, many graves have been built. The cemetery is covered with a roof, enclosed by a wall, and safely locked. All foreign merchants who die in Quanzhou are to be buried there. Construction started in 1162 and was finished a year later. Such a benevolent deed releases all foreigners in this land from worry [concerning their own graves after death] and enables the dead to be free of regrets. Such kindness will certainly promote overseas trade and encourage foreigners to come. It is much appreciated that Shi has carried it out. Therefore, I write this essay to commemorate the event so that [news of it] will be widely circulated overseas.51

Many scholars have argued from a slightly later account of this cemetery in Zhao

Rukua’s 趙 汝 适 Zhufan zhi 諸 蕃 志 that Shi was an Arab from Siraf. Billy So has

shown conclusively how Lin’s account, with its description of Shi as a Srivijayan, is the

earlier and more reliable.52 However, I would suggest that the early role of Pu Xiaxin (Pu

being the surname of many Arabs, probably deriving from Abu) in proposing the

cemetery and the reiterated statement that it was for “all foreign merchants” suggests that

Shi was a Muslim and the cemetery intended for the use of the Muslim community, given

49 Leslie, Islam, pp. 40, 44 50 Fang Xinru 方 信 孺 , Nanhai bai yong 南 海 百 詠, cited in Leslie, Islam, p. 43 51 So, Prosperity, Region and Institutions, pp. 53-4, from Lin Zhiqi 林 之 奇, Zhuozhai wenji 拙 齋 文 集 (Siku quanshu ed.), 15:1b-2a. 52 So, Prosperity, Region and Institutions, pp. 54-5.

Page 22: Diasporic Paper FINAL

22

the preeminent role played by the Muslims among the foreigners in Quanzhou.53

Moreover, given the common use of Arab merchants by various maritime Asian states to

serve as tribute envoys in the early Song that was mentioned above, it is quite plausible

that a leading Srivijayan merchant would have been Muslim.

* * * *

With the possible exception of residential patterns, most of the aspects of the

merchant communities that we have discussed thus far served to foster a sense of

corporate identity, of otherness from surrounding Chinese society. But there were other

forces at work that fostered their integration, especially over the course of generations.

First, a number of foreigners, most of them with Arab names, were given official

rank during the course of the Song. Zhu Yu’s description of the Guangzhou headman

describes him as a “foreign official” with the appurtenances of a regular official, and in

fact we know that some of the headmen, at least, were granted official rank, as were

many of the tribute envoys. In 1136, the cash-strapped Song court rewarded the Arab

merchant Pu Luoxin 蒲 囉 辛 with the official title of chengxinlang 承 信 郎 (Gentleman

of Trust – a prestige title for officials which had the rank of 9B) for importing a cargo of

frankincense valued at 300,000 strings.54 Although such honors may well have had the

primary effect of setting such individuals above their fellow merchants, I would suggest

53 In further support of this argument is the fact that the major Muslim cemetery in Quanzhou, dating to Song-Yuan times and existing to this day, is found to the east of the city. That merchants with a common geographic and/or ethnic origin might be widely dispersed geographically and move from one point on their periphery to another (e.g., Srivijaya to Quanzhou) is entirely in keeping with the idea of a trade diaspora. 54 SS 185:4537-8; SHY, Fanyi, 7:46a. The motivation behind this was clearly to encourage the maritime trade so as to raise revenue for the cash-strapped government. In addition to Pu, a Chinese merchant named Cai Jingfang was similarly rewarded for a cargo worth 980,000 strings. The edict further stated that maritime affairs officials in Guangzhou and Fujian would be promoted one rank when cargoes of 120,000 ounces of silver.

Page 23: Diasporic Paper FINAL

23

that the sartorial and ritual privileges that accompanied official rank would also have

given them respectability and entrée into local elite society. It is noteworthy that in the

Southern Song we find cases of foreigners contributing to public works, a typically elite

activity. Although Xinya Tuoluo’s offer of funds to rebuild the Guangzhou city walls was

turned down in 1072, as noted above, in 1211 the foreign merchant Pulu 簿 錄, was

publicly acknowledged for his contributions to the rebuilding of the walls of Quanzhou.55

Foreign merchant contributions also underwrote the coast guard ships in the Quanzhou

region in the late twelfth century.56

During the last years of the Song, the Pu family of Quanzhou achieved a far more

substantial measure of political success. The family had come to China from Arabia via

time in the “south seas” – probably a Southeast Asian kingdom. Pu Kaizong 蒲 開 宗

migrated to Quanzhou, and was able to obtain an official rank, most likely due to the

value of the goods he imported, and established his family. At least one – possibly two –

of his sons served as prefects. The third, and most famous, was Pu Shougeng 蒲 壽 庚 (d.

1296), who by the mid-1270s was serving concurrently as Superintendent of Maritime

Trade and zhaofushi 招 撫 使 or “master of pacification”, a term used for local military

commanders.57 Shougeng’s even more important role in the early Yuan will be treated

55 Kuwabara, “On P’u Shou-keng,” p. 52, citing Quanzhou fuzhi泉 州 府 志 , zh. 4. 56 Kuwabara, “On P’u Shou-keng,” p. 52. As Tansen Sen notes in his article in this issue, the Southern Song government relied heavily upon Chinese maritime merchants for the support of the navy. 57 The literature on Pu Shougeng is large, and complicated, for elements of his biography and genealogy are disputed. My account follows that of Billy So, Prosperity, Region, and Institutions, pp. 107-10, and Appendix B (pp. 301-5).

Page 24: Diasporic Paper FINAL

24

below. Here it is enough to note that the success of the Pus reflects the remarkable

acceptance that the Muslim community had gained by the end of the Song.

Official toleration – and even at times, encouragement – of expanding foreign

activities in Song life extended beyond the granting of titles and office to select

individuals. In 1104 permission was given for foreign merchants and “locally-born

foreign guests” to travel to other prefectures and even Kaifeng, so long as they had first

procured a certificate from the superintendent of maritime trade. This was done at the

suggestion of the Guangzhou superintendent, who stated that foreign guests from Arabia

and other countries had recently requested permission to do so.58

Even more striking was the government’s willingness to countenance and, indeed,

encourage foreign boys to study in Chinese schools. The biography of Cheng Shimeng 程

師 孟 describes his educational activities while serving as prefect of Guangzhou during

the Xining era (1068-77): “[He performed] a major restoration of the [prefectural] school,

and daily led the students in their instruction, so that those who arrived with their books

on their backs came one after the other. The sons of foreigners all desired admission to

the school.”59 Cai Tao 蔡 絛 (d. after 1147) describes how, during the Daguan 大 觀

(1107-10) and Zhenghe 政 和 (1111-17) eras, the prefectures of Guangzhou and

58 SHY, Zhiguan, 44/8b-9a; Song huiyao jigao bubian宋 會 要 輯 稿 (Beijing: Quanguo tushuguan wenxian shuwei fuhi zhongxin chuban, 1988), 642. 59 Gong Mingzhi 龔 明 之, Zhongwu jiwen中 吳 紀 聞, (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1986), 3:55.

Page 25: Diasporic Paper FINAL

25

Quanzhou asked to establish foreign schools (fanxue 蕃 學).60 The Song huiyao provides

an account of the appointment of a preceptor for the Guangzhou foreign school. This was

done in 1108 at the suggestion of Zeng Tingdan 曾 鼎 旦, the former preceptor of the

Jiazhou賀 州 prefectural school in Guangdong, who received the appointment. In his

memorial Zeng stated:

I have observed that the school for foreigners in Guangzhou has gradually become well ordered, and I would like to request that the court select someone of talent from the southern prefectures who would work [on reforming] the local customs, committed to the task of instruction, and to working for months and even years. I anticipate that among the sons sent by foreigners [to the school], those who receive the pleasure of education will have mutual regard [with the educated] of the southern provinces.61

This document is remarkable both for its confidence in the power of acculturation and for

its lack of xenophobia. The merchant community is not viewed as a threat, and indeed,

Zeng looks to its acceptance by the educated elite of the region.

I would suggest that one reason for this liberal attitude is that it reflected an

emerging social reality. By the late Northern Song, the maritime communities had

flourished in Guangzhou for close to two hundred years and elsewhere for several

generations.62 Although there must have been a constant coming-and-going of merchants

from abroad, there were core communities which, through intermarriage, had settled and

established families, taking on more and more of a settler identity. It would be nice to

know more about the wives whom the foreign merchants married and where they came

60 Cai Tao 蔡 絛, Tieweishan congtan 鐵 圍 山 叢 談 , zh. 2; cited by Kuwabara, 59. Cai went on to describe how Huizong personally examined Korean students who had been studying at the Imperial University. 61 SHY, Chongru, 2/12a.

Page 26: Diasporic Paper FINAL

26

from, but the records are largely silent. During the Yuanyou 元 祐 era (1086-93), the

court discovered to its alarm that a man surnamed Liu 劉 from the foreign quarter of

Guangzhou had married an imperial clanswoman, and forbade any repeat.63 In another

case, from 1137, a complaint was lodged against a military official for having married his

younger sister to a “great merchant” by the name of Pu Yali 蒲 亞 裏 (a two-time envoy

from Arabia) “in order to profit from his [Pu’s] wealth.” The emperor’s response was

interesting; he directed the complainant – the Guangzhou prefect – to “urge” Pu to return

to his own country.64

These examples are, of course, exceptional. The most likely source of marriage

ties for the foreign community were the families of Chinese maritime merchants. As

described by Li Yukun, they were a new and prosperous group during the Song,

including not only those who dealt in maritime commerce from the safety of Chinese

ports, but who also went abroad in large numbers, making their own impact in turn on

port cities of South and Southeast Asia.65 In light of the large overlap in their economic

interests and activities, and most likely of marriage ties, Billy So has argued that the

foreign and Chinese merchants of Quanzhou collectively constituted a “South Fukien

62 According to an edict in SHY, Zhiguan, 44:9b-10a (also in Song huiyao jigao bubian, p. 642), dated 1114, maritime foreigners from the various countries had lived in China for five generations (wushi 五 世). 63 Zhu Yu, Pingzhou ketan, 2:31-2. See John Chaffee, Branches of Heaven: A History of the Imperial Clan of Sung China (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 1999), pp. 92-3. 64 SHY, Zhiguan, 44/20a-b. Pu had been a tribute envoy from Arabia in 1131 and again, in 1134, when his ship was attacked by pirates off the coast of Champa, losing four men and his goods and suffering injury. SHY, Fanyi, 4:93-4. 65 Li Yukun 李 玉 昆, Quanzhou haiwai jiaotong shilue 泉 州 海 外 交 通 史 略 (Xiamen: Xiamen University Press, 1995), 45-67.

Page 27: Diasporic Paper FINAL

27

merchant group”.66 Although I have some reservations about such a formulation, given

the continuing differences in ethnicity and religion, the trend during the Song was clearly

towards increasing integration between the foreign and Chinese merchant communities.

* * * * *

The southeastern coast of China with its maritime communities was the last

region of the Song to succumb to the Mongol invasions. Indeed, only after the fall of

Hangzhou in 1276 and the flight of the remnants of the Song court down the coast did the

war come to the region. The fall of Quanzhou occurred in early 1277, due to the secret

surrender of Pu Shougeng, about whom we will have more to say below. In Guangdong,

the loyalist forces hung on until 1279, when the Mongol naval victory at Yaishan

extinguished the Song dynasty.

The economic disruptions caused by the Mongol invasion for the southeastern

coast seem to have been minor. There is some evidence that Yuan import taxes on the

maritime trade were higher than they had been during the Song.67 However, geopolitical

concerns gave maritime trade routes special importance. By the late thirteenth century the

heyday of secure continental travel had passed. Fighting among the Chinggisid branches,

especially the revolt of Ögödei’s grandson Qaidu against Qubilai, added to the dangers of

that travel. At the same time, the close alliance between Qubilai and the Il-khans in Persia

66 Billy K.L. So, Prosperity, Region, and Institutions, pp. 205-10. 67 According to Marco Polo, the Yuan government levied a general import tax of 10%, but it was 30% on small wares, 44% on pepper, and 40% on lignum aloes, sandalwood, other drugs and general goods. Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo the Venetian, John Masefield, ed. (London: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1908), p. 318 (Ch. 77). By comparison, “a 10% per cent charge imposed on ‘fine’ quality goods (i.e., small bulk and high value goods) and a 15 per cent on ‘coarse’ goods were the norm.” Laurence Ma, Commercial Development and Urban Change, p. 37.

Page 28: Diasporic Paper FINAL

28

made the sea-route between China and the Middle East strategically important and

popular.68

Following the Song conquest, the Mongols moved quickly both to encourage the

maritime trade and to bring the Muslim merchants under their control. By the mid-1280s,

Shibosi (Maritime Trade Bureaus) had been established in Quanzhou, Hangzhou,

Qingyuan (Ningbo), Shanghai, and Ganpu to supervise the maritime trade. The

Muslim merchants, for their part, were organized into ortoy (wotuo ), merchant

associations – long used in the north – that were supervised by the state, but also

provided with financing for commercial ventures and various privileges (for example, the

right to bear arms) as well as restrictions for their members. Most significantly, and most

lucratively, the ortoy had a monopoly on most of the valuable commodities of the

maritime trade, from which private traders were barred.69

Politically as well as economically, the Muslims in China benefited greatly from

the Mongol policy of favoring non-Chinese, following only the Mongols themselves and

ahead of all Chinese, for use in government. The Semuren (“[people of] varied

categories”), as they were known, included large numbers of Uighurs and other central

Asians, but also Persians and Arabs. The most famous Muslim official was undoubtedly

the notorious Ahmad, a central Asian Muslim who directed Yuan fiscal administration

68 Elizabeth Endicott-West, “Merchant Associations in Yüan China: The Ortoy,” Asia Major, 3rd Ser., 2-2 (1989):147; Thomas T. Allsen, Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), Chapters 4 and 5. 69 Endicott-West, “Merchant Associations,” p. 139. The commodities specifically restricted to the ortoy traders included “gold, silver, copper, iron, and boys and girls (that is, slaves).” For a treatment of the role of merchants in the early years of the Mongol empire, see Thomas Allsen, “Mongolian Princes and Their Merchant Partners, 1200-1260,” Asia Major, 3rd Ser., 2-2 (1989):83-126.

Page 29: Diasporic Paper FINAL

29

from 1262 until his assassination in 1282, but throughout the empire educated Muslims

were in demand.70

In Quanzhou, Pu Shougeng and his family benefited immediately and greatly

from Mongol policies. He was immediately appointed military commissioner for Fujian

and Guangdong, while continuing on as superintendent for Maritime Trade, and from

then until the end of his life in 1296, he held a succession of high-level provincial posts in

Guangdong, Jiangxi, and especially Fujian. A son and a grandson both held important

provincial positions in Fujian into the 1320s, and his son-in-law, Fo Lian 佛 蓮 , was a

merchant of great wealth from Bahrain who at the time of his death had a fleet of eighty

ocean-going ships.71 As for the rest of the southeast, Morris Rossabi provides the

following description:

Some Muslims in the southeastern provinces attained high office. According to the gazetteer of Chekiang province, they served as censors, darughachi, and pacification commissioners. Similarly, in Canton, Foochow, and other coastal cities, the Yuan appointed Muslims to positions in government, particularly in the financial administration. Khubilai’s edicts and regulations were often translated into Persian and Arabic, implying that Muslims played an influential role in government.72

Despite the advantages provided by the ortoy and Mongol recruitment policies,

there remains a question as to how much these benefited the Muslim merchant elite of

coastal China beyond the Pu family. In his studies of political the politics of the late

thirteenth century, Yokkaichi Yasuhiro has identified three patronage networks that

contested political and commercial domination of Fujian. At their upper end, these

involved close ties between Mongol princes, empresses and generals at the court and

70 See Morris Rossabi, Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 71, 178-84. 71 So, Prosperity, Region, and Institutions, 114-6; Li Yukin, 50-1.

Page 30: Diasporic Paper FINAL

30

powerful Muslim merchant-officials.73 Those merchant-officials in turn served as patrons

of Chinese merchant families that actually undertook the maritime trade. One of these

networks involved Pu Shougeng and his family, but in the other two cases, Chinese

merchant families of diverse backgrounds, answered to central Asian Muslim officials.

These officials, moreover, were central Asian Muslims with no prior history of

involvement in the maritime trade, though their families soon became major participants

in it.74 Much work still needs to be done to integrate Yokkaichi’s findings into our history

of the maritime communities, but it seems like that, with the exception of the Pu family,

the Song Muslim merchant elite was subordinated in the new political order.

There was a key difference between the remarkable record of office-holding by

Muslims under the Yuan and their much more modest accomplishments in the Song:

whereas in the Song office-holding worked to integrate leading Muslims into the Chinese

elite, in the Yuan it served to accentuate Muslim-Chinese differences. I would suggest,

further, that this contrast reflects a broader change in the character of the maritime

Muslim communities.

Numerically, the Muslim communities in Quanzhou and other southeastern ports

flourished as never before under the Mongols. According to a Chinese source from the

72 Morris Rossabi, “The Muslims in Early Yüan Dynasty,” in China under Mongol Rule, ed., John D. Langlois, Jr. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), p. 276. Rossabi also notes that Muslims accounted for thirty percent of the superintendents of maritime trade in the Yuan. (p. 275) 73 Yokkaichi Yasuhiro , “Gencho kyūtei ni okeru kōeki to teishin shūdan’ ☯ Bulletin of the Graduate

Division of Literature of Waseda University 45.4 (2000): 3-15.

74 Yokkaichi Yasuhiro, “The Structure of Political Power and the Nanhai Trade from the Perspective of Local Elites in Zhejiang in the Yuan Period,” paper presented at the meetings of the Association for Asian Studies, San Francisco, March 2006.

Page 31: Diasporic Paper FINAL

31

late Yuan, Quanzhou at that time had six or seven mosques.75 Writing in the 1350s, the

Arab traveler Ibn Battuta describes large and vibrant communities in Guangzhou,

Quanzhou and Hangzhou, among other places.76 He is also quite clear in describing the

Muslims as residing in discrete quarters in Zaytun (thought by most to be Quanzhou),

Sin-ul-Sin (Guangzhou?), and Khansa (Lin’an).77 Although there are questions about

whether he actually visited China, if he didn’t he clearly drew upon the writings of those

who had. For example, in his discussion of Zaytun (Quanzhou), Ibn Battuta speaks of one

Burhan al-Din of Kazerun (in Persia), who maintained a hermitage outside the city and

had frequent visits from Arab merchants, since it was to him that they paid sums that they

owed to Shaykh Abu Ishaq in Kazerun.78 This same Burhan al-Din is reported in Chinese

records (including a Ming stele) to have served as the Imam of the Qingjing Mosque ca.

1350, right when Ibn Battuta was supposed to have been in China.79

The disparity between Ibn Battuta’s descriptions of foreign quarters and our

earlier conclusion that foreign quarters were often ignored when they did exist is striking.

One might argue that Battuta, long familiar with Muslim quarters in other parts of the

Eurasian world, shaped his account to his expectation that this was how Muslim traders

lived in non-Muslim societies. However, I think it more likely that he was reflecting a

real change, that in the Yuan the Muslim residential centers had formalized into quarters.

This accords with Morris Rossabi’s description of the Yuan Muslim communities:

75 Chen Dasheng, 陳 達 生, Quanzhou Yisilan jiao shike 泉 州 伊 斯 蘭 教 石 刻. (Fuzhou: Ningxia renmin chubanshe, Fujian renmin chubanshe, 1984), p. 1, citing A Record of the Qingjingsi Mosque, written by Wu Jian in 1350. 76 Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325-1354, H. A. R. Gibb, trans. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1929), Chapter IX (292-300). 77 Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and Africa, pp. 288, 290, 293-4. 78 Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and Africa, p. 288. 79 Chen Dasheng, Quanzhou Yisilan jiao shike, pp. 15-18.

Page 32: Diasporic Paper FINAL

32

A branch office of the Wo-t’o tsung kuan-fu 斡 脱 總 管 府 or Central Bureau

supervising the Ortagh (which was later to be known as the Ch’üan-fu-ssu 泉 府 司 or “supervising Money Bureau”) was established in the city both in order to regulate the ortagh or Muslim merchant associations and to provide loans and encourage them. The Arabs and Persians who resided in Ch’üan-chou formed virtually self-governing communities.80

Chen Dasheng’s 陳 達 生 collection of stone stelae and inscriptions from

Quanzhou provides another perspective on the Yuan Muslim community of that city.

Chen provides forty-two gravestone inscriptions in Arabic or Arabic and Persian (three

contain Chinese as well) and all but three of Yuan origin (the three being Southern Song).

Of these, seven were for women and three are recorded as having performed the Haj, or

pilgrimage to Mecca. Twenty-five of the entries provide nisbâs (surnames indicating their

place of origin), and the distribution is striking. Three were from Arabic locales (two

from Siraf and one from Yemen), two from central Asia (Bukhara, Armenia, and

Turkestan), and the remaining nineteen from Persia or cities in Persia. Of the three

inscriptions that use Chinese, two provide no place of origin, while the third, for a

Persian, suggests that his mother or wife was Chinese.81

These inscriptions are remarkable for apparently reflecting a community of new

immigrants in constant contact with the Muslim world of the Middle East, with uncertain

ties to the pre-Mongol Muslim diaspora which had been characteristic of the Quanzhou

Muslims. There is little evidence of sinicization, and much to suggest that the deceased

were recent arrivals, for example, the seven inscriptions for women; there is virtually no

evidence of foreign Muslim women in the port cities before the Yuan. It has also been

80 Rossabi, “The Muslims in Early Yüan Dynasty,” 275.

Page 33: Diasporic Paper FINAL

33

argued that Quanzhou’s Ashab Mosque – the walls and entrance of which are still

standing – is strikingly similar to two famous fourteenth century mosques in Cairo, which

would suggest the rapid transfer of architectural knowledge.82 The preponderance of

Persians among the deceased is also striking, and surprising, for the Arab ports most

commonly associated with the maritime trade are almost unrepresented.

These findings for Quanzhou are echoed in other localities as well. In an article

surveying Muslim stone inscriptions from the entire southeast, Chen Dasheng found that,

with the intriguing exception of Hainan Island, which has Song and possibly even late

Tang inscriptions, the dated inscriptions were overwhelmingly from the Yuan and the

nisbâs indicated primarily Persian origins.83

Taken together, the evidence points to an influx of Middle Eastern Muslims into

southeastern China during the Yuan with dramatic consequences for the local

communities. The opportunities for Muslim employment in the Mongol empire together

with the unparalleled ease of communication within Eurasia elicited both an influx of

Middle Eastern Muslims into China and their movement between cities in China. The

many Persians represented may indicate that even in Quanzhou many had come via the

overland route, though another possibility is that Muslims from the Ilkhanate, centered as

it was in Persia and northern Iraq, were specially favored and so especially numerous.

Whatever the explanation, the result of the influx on the southeastern Muslim

81 Chen Dasheng, Quanzhou Yisilan jiao shike. The last-mentioned inscription is No. 46, for one Ahmad bin Khawaja Kakyin Alad, and the Arabic/Persian part of the inscription states that “he died in Zaytun, the town where the mother of the Ahmad family lives.” (pp. 38-9) 82 Chen Dasheng, Quanzhou Yisilan jiao shike, p. 10, citing the observations of the Dutch scholar Max van Berchem. The Egyptian mosques cited are the Mosque-madrasah of Sultan Hasan and the Sultan Faradj’s Khankah of Sultan Barkuk’s Mausoleum. 83 Chen Dasheng, “Synthetical Study Program on the Islamic Inscriptions,” pp. 165-7. The datable inscriptions came from Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Fuzhou, Hangzhou and Yangzhou, as well as Hainan.

Page 34: Diasporic Paper FINAL

34

communities was to make them more insular, more foreign, and probably more orthodox

religiously.

The closing years of the Yuan along with the early Ming mark a further change

for the maritime Muslim communities. Beginning in 1311, the secular powers of the

Muslim headmen (qadi) were circumscribed and in 1328 the qadi were ordered abolished

entirely, though how effective that was is questionable since Ibn Batuta speaks of them.

In addition, around 1340 laws were enacted circumscribing certain marriage practices of

Jews and Muslims. According to Donald Leslie, by the 1350s dissatisfaction with the

Mongols was such that the Muslims gave support to Zhu Yuanzhang, the Ming founder.84

Then in the late 1350s, even as the dynasty was unraveling, a local army in Quanzhou

known as the Persian Garrison (Yisibaxi 亦 思 巴 奚) under the leadership of Ya-wu-na

亞 兀 納, another Pu in-law, rebelled and held sway over southern Fujian for a period of

almost ten years. Their regime was marked by its destructiveness and damaged both the

local Muslim community and Quanzhou’s maritime trade.85

* * * * *

I have tried in this paper to sketch out the evolution of the maritime Muslim

communities of southeastern China from the tenth to fourteenth centuries. Although the

resulting picture is far from complete, I believe that we can discern some clear contours

of the significant changes that occurred during that four-century period. In this

conclusion I would like to recapitulate my argument by, first, contrasting the early Song

Concerning Hainan, Chen cites Tang reports that local magnates or chiefs there preyed upon Arab merchant ships, plundering cargoes and keeping the crews as servants. (p. 168) 84 Leslie, Islam, pp. 88-91 85 So, 2001:122-5; Maejima, 1974:47-71

Page 35: Diasporic Paper FINAL

35

and Yuan, and then by considering the emergence of a Sino-Muslim elite during the

Song, and its fate under the Mongols.

The Muslim communities of the tenth and fourteenth centuries offer striking

contrasts. The former was small and confined largely to Guangzhou, and the merchants

who comprised it were facing a new commercial reality, namely the shift to a segmented

trading system, in which goods moving between the Middle East and China were

typically transshipped in southern India and/or Southeast Asia, rather than going directly.

They were also operating under a Chinese government that promoted maritime commerce

and was accommodating to merchant settlement. The prominent role played by the tribute

system during this period reflects the small size of trade, at least relative to what was to

follow. The tribute records, moreover, indicate that the Middle Eastern envoys did not

always come from their home countries but at times came from the Guangzhou

community, and also that Arabs (or Persians) also served as envoys from South and

Southeast Asia. It would thus appear that the Muslim trade diaspora had come to play a

significant role in inter-state relations as well as commerce in eastern Asia.

At the later end of our timeframe, the southeastern Muslim communities of Yuan

China were far larger in size and more dispersed, with significant concentrations in

Hangzhou, Yangzhou, Mingzhou and Fuzhou in addition to Guangzhou and Quanzhou, a

reflection at least in part of flourishing trade. They, too, benefited from a supportive

government, but in a very different way, since they were preferentially employed by the

Mongols and so attained a level of political power that would have been unthinkable prior

to the Yuan. From the evidence of both tomb inscriptions and Ibn Battuta’s travel

account, they appear to have been far more directly connected to their homelands

Page 36: Diasporic Paper FINAL

36

(especially Persia) than had previously been the case, a fact that would have accentuated

their foreignness in the Chinese social and cultural landscape.

As for our middle period, three of the major changes from the early Song were the

expansion of maritime trade, especially during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the

increase in the number of ports officially involved in that trade, and the decreased

visibility of tribute missions, with government support coming primarily from the

superintendencies. But most notably, we can see clear signs of assimilation. Although the

evidence remains fragmentary, the signs of dispersed residence, of interest in Chinese

education, of intermarriage, and of access to minor office for some leaders together

suggest a process of social integration, albeit one that was qualified by adherence to

Islam and continual interactions with the broader Muslim diaspora of maritime Asia.

Billy So’s earlier-mentioned suggestion that the Quanzhou Muslims be considered part of

a “South Fukien merchant group” is useful for highlighting the close connection between

the Muslim community and the non-Muslim Chinese maritime merchants. But I would

prefer to view the process of assimilation as producing a Sino-Muslim elite consisting of

wealthy and long-resident Muslim families in Southern Song Quanzhou (and probably

elsewhere), who at the same time remained connected to the broader Muslim trade

diaspora.

This formulation, if accepted, raises further questions. Many relate to the

evolution of the Muslim trade diaspora – the relative roles of Chinese and other Asian

communities in it, the role played by political changes in the Middle East, and the impact

of the Mongol imperium on it – on which I hope the accompanying papers will shed

light.

Page 37: Diasporic Paper FINAL

37

More specifically, what happened to the Sino-Muslim elite during the Yuan? The

preeminent example of that elite is, of course, the family of Pu Shougeng, which

established itself under the Song but had its greatest power and glory during the Yuan. In

Quanzhou, at least, they played a critical transitional role, not only in Pu Shougeng’s

orchestrating the surrender of Quanzhou to the Mongols, but also in providing local,

albeit Muslim, leadership in Quanzhou and Fujian during the early Yuan. When we move

beyond the Pus, however, the situation becomes murky, for Yokkaichi’s research

suggests that the Sino-Muslim elite was not an important source for Muslim officials. At

the least, we can note that both the path to success and the political hierarchy had

changed drastically, transforming families like the Pus from at least semi-assimilated

members of elite society to representatives of the foreign overlords. Although

assimilation and intermarriage undoubtedly continued through the Yuan, the context was

very different. For example, Su Tangshe 蘇 唐 社, a descendent of the Northern Song

official and writer Su Song 蘇 頌 (1020-1101), not only married a woman from Pu

Shougeng’s family but also took the Arabic name of Ahmed 阿 合 末 when he settled in

Quanzhou.86 While such an inversion of the social hierarchy must have benefited the

Muslims in the short-run, it proved to be a long-term liability.

Let me end with a word about the Ming. Although it is beyond the purview of this

paper, I would suggest that the cessation in the widespread movement of people across

Eurasia which followed the fall of the Mongol empire together with the decline in

maritime trade during the early Ming caused a further, great change for the Muslim

86 Billy So, Prosperity, Region, and Institutions, pp. 116-7, citing a Su family genealogy.

Page 38: Diasporic Paper FINAL

38

communities of the southeast. Although it may have been delayed by the Zheng He

voyages under the Yongle Emperor, the ensuing isolation from both the Middle East and

the rest of maritime Asia marked the end of their diasporic identity. The communities

continued and at times even thrived, but as an ethnic minority, not a trade diaspora.


Recommended