Abstract
Islam was to come to South and East Asia through both overland and maritime vectors, but was to reach the polities and societies of Southeast Asia and coastal East Asia mainly by sea, along the Indian Ocean girdle of trade which extended from the Arab world through the ports of South Asia and Southeast Asia to the southern extensions of the Chinese world in the East China Sea. It is this maritime sphere which forms the context of this paper, in which efforts are made to explore the earliest manifestations of Islam in Southern India, Southeast Asia and South China, the modes of transmission of the religion and the networks which either facilitated or were created by the extension of Islam to these regions. The study extends until approximately 1500 CE by which time Islam had become a major force in the Asian maritime realm.
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Notes
- 1.
For an overview of the ‘Abbāsid’s trade to the east, see Bertold Spuler (1970) “Trade in the Eastern Islamic Countries in the Early Centuries”, in D. S. Richards (ed.), Islam and the Trade of Asia: A Colloquium (Oxford: Bruno Carssirer), 11–20.
- 2.
Rita R. Di Meglio (1970) “Arab Trade with Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula from the Eighth to the Sixteenth Century”, in D. S. Richards (ed.), Islam and the Trade of Asia: A Colloquium (Oxford: Bruno Carssirer), 106.
- 3.
George F. Hourani [1913–1984] (1951) Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 61.
- 4.
Including the Belitung shipwreck in Southeast Asia, likely an Arab dhow which had sailed out of China with a full cargo of ceramics and had sunk in Southeast Asian waters in c. 826 CE.
- 5.
George Hourani (1951) Arab Seafaring, 66.
- 6.
Michael Pearson (2010) “Islamic Trade, Shipping, Port-states and Merchant Communities in the Indian Ocean, Seventh to Sixteenth Centuries”, in David O. Morgan and Anthony Reid (eds.), New Cambridge History of Islam, Volume 3: The Eastern Islamic World Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 321.
- 7.
For a study of Chinese texts on and connections with Hormuz during this period, see Roderich Ptak (2001) “Hormuz in Yuan and Ming Sources”, Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 88, 27–75.
- 8.
George Hourani (1951) Arab Seafaring, 79.
- 9.
Di Meglio (1970) Arab Trade, 108.
- 10.
Richard M. Eaton (2000) “Islamic History as World History”, in Richard M. Eaton (ed.), Essays on Islam and Indian History (New Delhi: Oxford University Press), 25.
- 11.
Trimingham’s Sufi Orders in Islam initiated scholarly research on the growth of institutionalized Sufism and individual Sufis. See John S. Trimingham (1971) The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
- 12.
André Wink (2010) “The Early Expansion of Islam in India”, in David O. Morgan and Anthony Reid (eds.), New Cambridge History of Islam, Volume 3: The Eastern Islamic World Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 80.
- 13.
André Wink (2010) “The Early Expansion of Islam in India”, 80–81.
- 14.
Michael Pearson (2010) “Islamic Trade”, 322.
- 15.
Hamilton A. R. Gibb (1994) The Travels of Ibn Battuta A.D. 1325–1354, vol. 4, translated with revisions and notes from the Arabic text edited by Charles Defrémery and Beniamino R. Sanguinetti, completed with annotations by Charles F. Beckingham (London: The Hakluyt Society), 797.
- 16.
Hamilton A. R. Gibb (1994) The Travels of Ibn Battuta, vol. 4, 800.
- 17.
However, the earliest Muslim artefacts in the area include a tomb dated to the 170s/780s near Calicut.
- 18.
Michael Pearson (2010) “Islamic Trade”, 324.
- 19.
André Wink (2010) “The Early Expansion of Islam in India”, 81.
- 20.
Richard M. Eaton (2000) “Multiple Lenses: Differing Perspectives of Fifteenth-Century Calicut”, in Richard M. Eaton (ed.), Essays on Islam and Indian History (New Delhi: Oxford University Press), 78–79.
- 21.
Ma Huan [c. 1380–1460] (1970) Ying-yai sheng-lan: The Overall Survey of the Ocean’s Shores, trans. John V. G. Mills (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Reprint of 1433), 140.
- 22.
Richard Eaton (2000) “Multiple Lenses”, 82.
- 23.
Michael Pearson (2010) “Islamic Trade”, 360.
- 24.
Mehrdad Shokoohy (2003) Muslim Architecture of South India: The Sultanate of Ma’bar and the Traditions of the Maritime Settlers on the Malabar and Coromandel Coasts (Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Goa) (London: RoutledgeCurzon).
- 25.
Mehrdad Shokoohy (2003) Muslim Architecture of South India, 24–25.
- 26.
André Wink (2002) Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World, Volume 2: The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest Eleventh–thirteenth Centuries (Leiden: E. J. Brill), 38.
- 27.
For an example, see the Maldives story of the conversion of their ruler in Michael Pearson (2010) “Islamic Trade”, 340.
- 28.
Richard M. Eaton (2000) “Temple Desecration and Indo-Muslim States”, in Richard M. Eaton (ed.), Essays on Islam and Indian History (New Delhi: Oxford University Press), 98.
- 29.
Richard M. Eaton (2000) “Temple Desecration and Indo-Muslim States”, 106–107, 113–114. He explains: “It would be wrong to explain this phenomenon by appealing to an essentialized ‘theology of iconoclasm’ felt to be intrinsic to the Islamic religion” as “temples had been the natural sites for the contestation of kingly authority well before the coming of Muslim Turks to India.” He details many examples of temple desecration including the seizure of defeated kings’ state-deity and abduction to the victor’s capital. These acts of temple desecration “were never directed at the people, but at the enemy king and the image that incarnated and displayed the state-deity.”
- 30.
Michael Pearson (2010) “Islamic Trade”, 330. The Shāfi‘ī school is today the key school in Indonesia, the west coast of India, the east coast of Africa and port towns of southern Arabia and the Gulf.
- 31.
Michael Pearson (2010) “Islamic Trade”, 328.
- 32.
David Parkin and Stephen C. Hoadley, ed. (2000) Islamic Prayer Across the Indian Ocean: Inside and Outside the Mosque (London: Routledge), 3.
- 33.
Michael Pearson (2010) “Islamic Trade”, 350, quoting Gaspar Correa’s Lendas da India.
- 34.
Michael Pearson (2010) “Islamic Trade”, 362.
- 35.
Michael Pearson (2010) “Islamic Trade”, 353. They were part of a network of Shāfi‘ī scholars not only from Hadhramaut, but also from Oman, Yemen, Bahrayn and Baghdad.
- 36.
For a seminal study of Hadhrami linkages across the Indian Ocean, mainly in a later period, see Engseng Ho (2006) The Graves of Tarim: Genealogy and Mobility Across the Indian Ocean (Berkeley: University of California Press).
- 37.
See Abraham L. Udovitch (1970) “Commercial Techniques in Early Medieval Islamic Trade”, in D. S. Richards (ed.), Islam and the Trade of Asia: A Colloquium (Oxford: Bruno Carssirer), 37–62.
- 38.
They were also very influential within the inland polities. “Among all South Asian Sufi orders, the Chishtis were the most closely identified with the political fortunes of Indo-Muslim states, and especially with the planting of such states in parts of South Asia never previously touched by Islam. The pattern began in the first several decades of the fourteenth century, when the order’s rise to prominence among Delhi’s urban populace coincided with that of the imperial Tughluqs. The two principal Persian poets of India at that time, Amir Hasan and Amir Khusrau, and the leading historian, Zia al-Din Barani, were all disciples of Delhi’s principal Chishti shaikh, Nizam al-Din Auliya. As writers whose works were widely-read, these men were in effect publicists for Nizam al-Din and his order. And since the three were patronized by the Tughluq court, the public and the ruling classes alike gradually came to associate dynastic fortune with that of the Chishti order.” Richard M. Eaton (2000) “Temple Desecration and Indo-Muslim States”, 101.
- 39.
Richard M. Eaton (2000) “Temple Desecration and Indo-Muslim States”, 100.
- 40.
Deriving its name from Abdul-Qadir Gilani (or Jilani) [1077–1166 CE] who hailed from Gilan in Iran.
- 41.
Suppressed by the Safavids in the early sixteenth century.
- 42.
Michael Pearson (2010) “Islamic Trade”, 326. For an overview of the Kāzarūnī network, see Ralph Kauz (2010) “A Kāzarūnī Network?”, in Ralph Kauz (ed.), Aspects of the Maritime Silk Road: From the Persian Gulf to the East China Sea [East Asian Maritime History, 10](Wiesbaden: Otto Harassowitz), 61–69.
- 43.
John Trimingham (1971) The Sufi Orders in Islam, 21.
- 44.
Ralph Kauz (2010) “A Kāzarūnī Network?”, 61.
- 45.
Entitled Nūr al-ma‘arif (Light of Knowledge).
- 46.
Elizabeth Lambourn (2008) “India from Aden: Khutba and Muslim Urban Networks in Late Thirteenth-Century India”, in Kenneth Hall (ed.), Secondary Cities and Urban Networking in the Indian Ocean Realm, c. 1000–1800 (Lanham: Lexington Books), 55–97.
- 47.
Elizabeth Lambourn (2008) India from Aden, 56.
- 48.
“Persian and Arab traders” is a generic reference to peoples from the Middle East trading on ships crewed by people of a likely diverse range or ethnicities and religions.
- 49.
Gerald R. Tibbetts (1979) A Study of the Arabic Texts Containing Material on South-East Asia (Leiden: E. J. Brill).
- 50.
For details of which see Michael Laffan (2005) “Finding Java: Muslim Nomenclature of Insular Southeast Asia from Śrîvijaya to Snouk Hurgronje”, [Asia Research Institute Working Paper Series, 52] (Singapore: National University of Singapore).
- 51.
Formally Shīʻatu ʻAlī = the party of Ali.
- 52.
Personal correspondence June 2005.
- 53.
For al-Hajjâj, see http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/itl/denise/hajjaj.htm. André Wink notes that some of the Mappillas of the Malabar Coast also traced their origins to those who fled from al-Hajjâj. See André Wink (2010) “The Early Expansion of Islam in India”, in David O. Morgan and Anthony Reid (eds.), The New Cambridge History of Islam, Volume 3: The Eastern Islamic World Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 78–99.
- 54.
Laffan assumes that Ziftî (ﺰﻔﺘﻲ) should be read as Zanqî or Zanqay (ﺰﻨﻘﻲ) and that the following insular reference is to Hainan.
- 55.
Pierre-Yves Manguin provides another translation of this from Ferrand’s French version: “[…] the country of Champa, with its principal town of the same name […] is peopled by Muslims, Christians and idolators. The Muslim religion went there in the time of Othman […] and the Alids, expelled by the Omeyyads and by Hajjaj, took refuge there […]” Pierre-Yves Manguin (2001) “The Introduction of Islam into Champa”, in Alijah Gordon (ed.), The Propagation of Islam in the Indonesian-Malay Archipelago (Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Sociological Research Institute), 290–291.
- 56.
Similar claims were made by Marvazī (twelfth century) and ‘Aufī (thirteenth century). See Donald D. Leslie (1986) Islam in Traditional China: A Short History to 1800 (Belconnen: Canberra College of Advanced Education), 39; Sayyid Q. Fatimi (1963) Islam Comes to Malaysia (Singapore: Malaysian Sociological Research Institute), 53–56.
- 57.
For whom, see Bernard Lewis (1986) The Encyclopaedia of Islam (New ed.), vol. 1 (Leiden: E. J. Brill), 400–403 s.v. Alids.
- 58.
The tenth and eleventh centuries were a key period in the introduction of Islam to the East African coast. The founder of Kilwa was known as ‘Ali ibn al-Hussain ibn ‘Ali, while the frequency of the name ‘Ali among subsequent rulers suggests that the name had a special significance for some Islamic communities in this period. João De Barros [1496–1570] (1778) Décadas da Ásia ([Lisboa: Regia Officina Typografica], vol. 1, book 8, chapter 6) notes, from the chronicle existing at that time, rulers of Kilwa with the names Alé Bumale, Alé Bufoloquete, Alé Bonebaquer, Alé Ben Daúte and Alé Boni.
- 59.
The Chinese transcription of the name Zābaj/Zābag, for which see Laffan, Finding Java.
- 60.
Friedrich Hirth [1845–1927] and William W. Rockhill [1854–1914] (1970) Chau Ju-Kua; His Work on the Chinese and Arab Trade in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, Entitled Chu-fan-chï (Taibei: Chengwen chubanshe, Reprint of St Petersburg 1911), 60. Their note to this part of the text (64, note 3) suggests: “P’u stands for Bū, an abbreviation of Abū ‘father’, which precedes so many Arabic names. The phrase 多姓蒲 “many are surnamed P’u”, occurring here and there in Chinese ethnographical literature may safely be taken to indicate Arab settlements.” See Friderick Hirth (1896) Die Insel Hainan nach Chao Ju-kua (Berlin: de Gruyter), 487, note.
- 61.
In Hadith - Sahih Al-Bukhārī 8.223, narrated by Sahl bin Sad, it is noted: “The most beloved name to ‘Ali was Abū Turāb, and he used to be pleased when we called him by it, for none named him Abū Turab (for the first time), but the Prophet. Once ‘Ali got angry with (his wife) Fātima, and went out (of his house) and slept near a wall in the mosque. The Prophet came searching for him, and someone said, ‘He is there, lying near the wall.’ The Prophet came to him while his (‘Ali’s) back was covered with dust. The Prophet started removing the dust from his back, saying, ‘Get up, O Abū Turāb!’”
- 62.
Likely “Kra”.
- 63.
For further details, see Gerald Tibbetts (1979) A Study of the Arabic Texts, 118–128. The Middle Eastern ceramics found in the area are described in Bennet Bronson (1996) “Chinese and Middle Eastern Trade in Southern Thailand during the Ninth Century A.D.”, in Amara Srisuchat (ed.), Ancient Trades and Cultural Contacts in Southeast Asia (Bangkok: Office of the National Cultural Commission), 181–200.
- 64.
Under the early name Po-lu-shi and Po-luo-suo (sometimes obviously confused in Chinese texts with Bo-si or Persia) and later under the names Bin-su, Bian-shu and Bin-cuo for Pansur/Pancur. See Roderich Ptak (1998) “Possible Chinese References to the Barus Area (Tang to Ming)”, in Claude Guillot (ed.), Histoire de Barus, Sumatra: le site de Lobu Tua: étude et documents [Cahier d’Archipel, 30], vol. 1 (Paris: Archipel), 119–138.
- 65.
See Gerald Tibbetts (1979) A Study of the Arabic Texts, 92–93, 95–96, 114–115, 140–143. Jane Drakard has also studied these sources in Jane Drakard (1989) “An Indian Ocean Port: Sources for the Earlier History of Barus”, Archipel 37, 53–82.
- 66.
The links between Barus and the various ports of the Middle East are discussed in Claude Guillot (2003) “Chapter II—Conclusions historiques”, in Claude Guillot (ed.), Histoire de Barus, Sumatra: le site de Lobu Tua: étude archéologique et documents [Cahier d’Archipel, 30], vol. 2 (Paris: Archipel), 45–46 and 60–62.
- 67.
Claude Guillot and Sonny C. Wibisono (1998) “Le verre à Lobu Tua: Étude préliminaire”, in Claude Guillot (ed.), Histoire de Barus, Sumatra: le site de Lobu Tua: étude et documents [Cahier d’Archipel, 30], vol. 1 (Paris: Archipel), 189–206; Claude Guillot (2003) “Céramique du Proche-Orient”, in Claude Guillot (ed.), Histoire de Barus, Sumatra: le site de Lobu Tua, vol. 2, 171–196.
- 68.
Marie-France Dupoizat (2003) “Céramique chinoise”, in Guillot, Claude (ed.), Histoire de Barus, Sumatra: le site de Lobu Tua: étude archéologique et documents [Cahier d’Archipel 30], vol. 2 (Paris: Archipel), 103–169.
- 69.
Claude Guillot (2003) Histoire de Barus, vol. 2. See “Chap. VII—Verre”, 268, plate 58. See also Ludvik Kalus (2000) “Le plus ancienne inscription islamique du monde malais?”, Archipel 59, 23–24.
- 70.
Friedrich Hirth and William Rockhill (1970) Chau Ju-kua, 51.
- 71.
For one of the few historical reports on this community, see Chen Dasheng and Claudine Salmon (1989) “Rapport preliminaire sur la decouverte de tombes musulmanes dans l’Ile de Hainan”, Archipel 38, 75–106.
- 72.
See, for example, Y. Subbarayalu (1998) “The Tamil Merchant-Guild Inscription at Barus: A Rediscovery”, in Claude Guillot (ed.), Histoire de Barus, Sumatra: le site de Lobu Tua: étude et documents [Cahier d’Archipel, 30], vol. 1 (Paris: Archipel), 25–33. The inscription is dated to the equivalent of 1088 CE.
- 73.
Geoff Wade (2012) “Southeast Asian Islam and Southern China in the Second Half of the Fourteenth Century”, in Geoff Wade and Li Tana (ed.), Anthony Reid and the Study of the Southeast Asian Past (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies), 129; Suwedi Montana (1997) “Nouvelles données sur les royaumes de Lamuri et Barat”, Archipel 53, 92. There remains much dispute over the dating and other aspects of this gravestone. See also Claude Guillot and Ludvik Kalus (2008) Les Monuments Funéraires et l’histoire du Sultanat de Pasai à Sumatra (Paris: Association Archipel), 178–179.
- 74.
Geoff Wade (2012) “Southeast Asian Islam”, 129; “This kingdom, you must know, is so frequented by the Saracen merchants that they have converted the natives to the Law of Mahommet—I mean the townspeople only, for the hill people live for all the world like beasts…” Marco Polo [1254–1324] (1871) The Book of Ser Marco Polo, vol. 2, trans. Henry Yule (London: John Murray), 284.
- 75.
Geoff Wade (2012) “Southeast Asian Islam”, 129; for further details of the gravestones, see Elizabeth Lambourn (2004) “The Formation of the Batu Aceh Tradition in Fifteenth-Century Samudera-Pasai”, Indonesia and the Malay World 32, 211–248.
- 76.
Geoff Wade (2012) “Southeast Asian Islam”, 129–130; See A. H. Hill (1960) “Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai”, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 33.2, 1–215.
- 77.
Hamilton A. R. Gibb (1994) The Travels of Ibn Battuta A.D. 1325–1354, vol. 4, translated with revisions and notes from the Arabic text edited by Charles Defrémery and Beniamino R. Sanguinetti, annotated by Charles F. Beckingham (London: The Hakluyt Society), 876–877.
- 78.
Elizabeth Lambourn (2004) “The Formation of the Batu Aceh Tradition”.
- 79.
Claude Guillot and Ludvik Kalus (2008) Les Monuments Funéraires, 178–179.
- 80.
Claude Guillot and Ludvik Kalus (2008) Les Monuments Funéraires, 58–59.
- 81.
This was recorded in the Amoghapasa inscription at Rambahan. See Hermann Kulke (2009) “Adityawarman’s Highland Kingdom”, in Dominik Bonatz et al. (eds.), From Distant Tales: Archaeology and Ethnohistory in the Highlands of Sumatra (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing), 229–252.
- 82.
Hermann Kulke (2009) “Adityawarman’s Highland Kingdom”, 233.
- 83.
Hermann Kulke (2009) “Adityawarman’s Highland Kingdom”, 239.
- 84.
An identification supported by Yamamoto Tatsuro’s equation of Kailūkarī, the name of the largest city in Tawālisī according to Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, with the Cham name Klaung Garai, which is the name of a Cham temple complex (Po Klaung Garai) located at Phanrang in what is today Ninh Thuận Province. It comprises three towers dating back to about 1300, built during the reign of Cham King Jaya Simhavarman II. See Yamamoto Tatsuro [1910–2001] (1936) “On Tawalisi as Described by Ibn Battuta”, Memoirs of the Research Department of the Tōyō Bunko 8, 117.
- 85.
See Louis-Charles Damais [1911–1966] (1956) “Études Javanaises: Les tombes Musulmans dates de Tralaya”, Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 48, 353–415. See listing and dates of the graves on p. 411.
- 86.
The grave remains today an Islamic pilgrimage site.
- 87.
Hermanus J. De Graaf and Theodore G. T. Pigeaud (1984) Chinese Muslims in Java in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries: The Malay Annals of Sĕmarang and Cĕrbon, ed. Merle C. Ricklefs [Monash Papers on Southeast Asia, 12] (Melbourne: Monash University), 20. I am assigning this text more veracity than hitherto accorded to it for reasons detailed below.
- 88.
Hermanus De Graaf and Theodore Pigeaud (1984) Chinese Muslims in Java, 14. This fits precisely with the date of the Trowulan grave, but those who are suspicious of the Parlindungan source might point to the fact that Damais’ article on the graves was published in 1956, while Parlindungan’s work Tuanku Rao within which the “Annals” are contained was only published in 1964, allowing for the grave information to be incorporated in the latter work.
- 89.
Denys Lombard and Claudine Salmon (2001) “Islam and Chineseness”, in Alijah Gordon (ed.), The Propagation of Islam in the Indonesian-Malay Archipelago (Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Sociological Research Institute), 184. See also the correlation in Javanese texts between Champa and the spread of Islam as detailed by Pierre-Yves Manguin (2001) “The Introduction of Islam into Champa”, in Alijah Gordon (ed.), The Propagation of Islam in the Indonesian-Malay Archipelago (Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Sociological Research Institute), 294–295.
- 90.
Ludvik Kalus (2003) “Les sources épigraphiques musulmanes de Barus”, in Claude Guillot (ed.), Histoire de Barus, Sumatra: le site de Lobu Tua: étude archéologique et documents [Cahier d’Archipel, 30], vol. 2 (Paris: Archipel), 303–338. For the tombstone cited, see 305–306. John Miksic drew my attention to this artefact.
- 91.
Geoff Wade (2012) “Southeast Asian Islam”, 134.
- 92.
Geoff Wade (2012) “Southeast Asian Islam”, 134–135; The title Maharaja was still in use for the ruler of Brunei in the early fifteenth century.
- 93.
Geoff Wade (2012) “Southeast Asian Islam”, 135; Rudolf A. Kern (2001) “The Propagation of Islam in the Indonesian-Malay Archipelago”, in Alijah Gordon (ed.), The Propagation of Islam in the Indonesian-Malay Archipelago (Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Sociological Research Institute), 36.
- 94.
Either the same sultan whom Ibn Baṭṭūṭa had met in the 1340s, or his son.
- 95.
Geoff Wade (2012) “Southeast Asian Islam”, 135.
- 96.
Rudolf Kern (2001) “The Propagation of Islam”, 66.
- 97.
Lambourn also describes booming local tombstone production during this period. See Elizabeth Lambourn (2004) “The Formation of the Batu Aceh Tradition”.
- 98.
The term used was “Hui-hui,” likely derived from Hui-gu, the term by which the Chinese knew the Uighurs.
- 99.
An endonym for Chinese persons.
- 100.
Wake has made a detailed study of the complexities of this process. See Christopher H. Wake (1983) “Melaka in the Fifteenth Century”, in Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley (eds.), Melaka: The Transformation of a Malay Capital c. 1400–1980, vol. 1 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press), 128–161.
- 101.
Christopher Wake (1983) “Melaka in the Fifteenth Century”, 143. Tomé Pires’ account of the history of Malacca which he collected during the early sixteenth century specifically states that Iskander Shah was initially not a Muslim. The account relates that only at the age of 72 did he agree to marriage with some of the daughters of the ruler of Pasai and at the same time to accept the Islamic faith. See Armando Cortesão [1891–1977] (1944) The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires, vol. 2 (London: The Hakluyt Society), 241–242.
- 102.
The questions of conversion and naming are hugely complex, and when one examines the situations in these polities, we observe much hybridity in the situations of early Islam in South and Southeast Asia. The question of how the Muslim trade communities related to their host polities is an integral element of this. The term sultan was Sanskritized and adopted by Hindu rulers, Muslim governors administered for Hindu kings, Hindus adopted Islamic garb, and so forth. The complexities of the gradual process of Islamization thus require much more detailed and specific studies than is allowed by this simple overview. The various works of Wink, Eaton, Lambourn and Feener are useful for elucidating the issues of Islamic hybridity in South Asia, the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia.
- 103.
See Journal of the Federated Malay States Museums 9.3 (1921), which contains Ivor H. N. Evans [1886–1957] (1921) “A Grave and Megaliths in Negri Sembilan with an Account of Some Excavations”, 163–164; W. A. Wallace (1921) “Plans of the Negri Sembilan Grave and Megaliths with Notes”, 175–183; and C. Boden Kloss [1877–1949] (1921) “Notes on the Pengkalan Kempas Tombstone”, 184–189. See also Richard J. Wilkinson [1867–1941] (1931) “The Pengkalan Kěmpas ‘Saint’”, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 9.1, 134–135.
- 104.
The gravestone, which is extant, is an example of the batu Aceh tradition.
- 105.
See Chen Dasheng 陳達生 (1984) Quanzhou Yisilan jiao shike 泉州伊斯蘭教石刻 (Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe).
- 106.
Geoff Wade (2012) “Southeast Asian Islam”, 136–137; Demak first appeared in Ming texts (under the name Dan-ba) in 1377, which gels well with the thesis that it emerged as a base for the Muslim refugees who had fled from Southern China in the 1360s. See Geoff Wade, trans. (2005) Southeast Asia in the Ming Shi-lu: An Open Access Resource (Singapore: Asia Research Institute and the Singapore E-Press, National University of Singapore), http://epress.nus.edu.sg/msl/entry/1883.
- 107.
Geoff Wade (2012) “Southeast Asian Islam”, 137; relevant materials can be gleaned from the Ming shilu 明實錄, Mingshi 明史 and Shuyu zhouzi lu 殊域周咨錄. The last of these works notes that the Chinese who sojourned in Java were generally Muslims.
- 108.
Geoff Wade (2012) “Southeast Asian Islam”, 137; see Hermanus De Graaf and Theodore Pigeaud (1984) Chinese Muslims in Java; and Douwe A. Rinkes (1996) Nine Saints of Java, trans. H. M. Froger (Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Sociological Research Institute).
- 109.
Denys Lombard and Claudine Salmon (2001) “Islam and Chineseness”, 183.
- 110.
Slamet Muljana [1929–1986] (1968) Runtuknja Keradjaan Hindu-Djawa dan Timbulnja Negara-negara Islam di Nusantara (Jakarta: Bhratara), as quoted in Denys Lombard and Claudine Salmon (2001) “Islam and Chineseness”, 184.
- 111.
Hermanus De Graaf and Theodore Pigeaud (1984) Chinese Muslims in Java, 15.
- 112.
Hermanus De Graaf and Theodore Pigeaud (1984) Chinese Muslims in Java, 15–16.
- 113.
For further details of which, see Denys Lombard and Claudine Salmon (2001) “Islam and Chineseness”, 115–117.
- 114.
Jean P. Moquette [1856–1927] (1912) “De datum op den grafsteen van Malik Ibrahim te Grisse”, Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal, Land en Volkenkunde 54, 208–214. Again the gravestone derived from Cambay.
- 115.
Hermanus De Graaf and Theodore Pigeaud, however, write of a tradition which holds that the first Muslim ruler of Demak (who was of Chinese origin) did not emerge until the last quarter of the fifteenth century. See Hermanus J. De Graaf and Theodore G. T. Pigeaud (1976) Islamic States in Java 1500–1700 (‘s-Gravenhage: KITLV), 6–8.
- 116.
Armando Cortesão (1944) The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires, Passim; Geoff Wade (2010) “Early Muslim Expansion in South-East Asia”, in David O. Morgan and Anthony Reid (eds.), New Cambridge History of Islam,Volume 3: The Eastern Islamic World Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 399.
- 117.
Lode F. Brakel (2004) “Islam and Local Traditions: Syncretic Ideas and Practices”, Indonesia and the Malay World 32.92, 12; Geoff Wade (2010) “Early Muslim Expansion in South-East Asia”, 399–401.
- 118.
Geoff Wade (2010) “Early Muslim Expansion in South-East Asia”, 401.
- 119.
Richard M. Eaton (2000) Islamic History as World History (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 38.
- 120.
R. Michael Feener (2010) “Southeast Asian Localisations of Islam and Participation Within a Global Umma, c. 1500–1800”, in David O. Morgan and Anthony Reid (eds.), New Cambridge History of Islam, Volume 3: The Eastern Islamic World Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 470–503. See also: Michael Feener and Michael F. Laffan (2005) “Sufi Scents Across the Indian Ocean: Yemeni Hagiography and the Earliest History of Southeast Asian Islam”, Archipel 70, 185–208.
- 121.
Michael Feener and Michael F. Laffan (2005) “Sufi Scents across the Indian Ocean”.
- 122.
Michael Feener (2010) “Southeast Asian Localisations of Islam”.
- 123.
Elizabeth Lambourn (2003) “From Cambay to Pasai and Gresik: The Export of Gujarati Grave Memorials to Sumatra and Java in the Fifteenth Century AD”, Indonesia and the Malay World 31, 90.
- 124.
Elizabeth Lambourn (2003) “From Cambay to Pasai and Gresik”, 225.
- 125.
Recorded in the Jiu Tang shu, or “Older History of the Tang Dynasty”, in juan 10. Dashi 大食, deriving from the Persian name Tazi, referring to a people in Persia. It was later used by the Persians to refer to the Arab lands. The Chinese used it from the Tang dynasty until the twelfth century to refer to the Arabs.
- 126.
Michael Flecker (2001) “A Ninth-century AD Arab or Indian Shipwreck in Indonesia: First Evidence for Direct Trade with China”, World Archaeology 32.3, 335–354.
- 127.
Note, by comparison, the 10,000 Muslim population of Chaul (= Saymur), the main port for the Konkan coast as given by al-Mas’udi. Wink suggests that the exodus of Arabs from China at this time was responsible for the rise of the major ports in the isthmian region, particularly Kalāh. See André Wink (1990) Al Hind: The Making of the Indo Islamic World, Volume 1: Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam, Seventh–Eleventh Centuries (Leiden: E. J. Brill), 84.
- 128.
George Hourani [1913–1984] (1951) Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 63.
- 129.
Zvi Ben-dor Benite (2010) “Follow the White Camel: Islam in China to 1800”, in David O. Morgan and Anthony Reid (eds.), New Cambridge History of Islam, Volume 3: The Eastern Islamic World Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 415.
- 130.
Elizabeth Lambourn’s research suggests that, at least in the Subcontinent, some Muslim merchants were formally integrated into the administrative structures of coastal polities and thus did operate as formal envoys of those polities.
- 131.
For which see George Coedès (1968) The Indianized States of Southeast Asia (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press), 141–144.
- 132.
The last Muslim envoy from Sanfoqi to China in this period was Abū Abdullah in 1028. The next envoy was Di-hua-jia-luo (Dewakara) in 1077. This 50-year hiatus seems to suggest that the Cōḷa attacks on the Śrīvijayan realm had quite serious repercussions.
- 133.
Wang Pu 王溥 [922–982] (2006) Tang huiyao 唐會要 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe), 100.1799. See Donald D. Leslie (1986) Islam in Traditional China, 38.
- 134.
See Geoff Wade (2005) Champa in the Song Hui-yao [Asia Research Institute Working Paper Series, 53] (Singapore: Asia Research Institute).
- 135.
See Pierre-Yves Manguin (2001) “The Introduction of Islam into Champa”, 292.
- 136.
Referring mainly to Islamic peoples of Central Asia.
- 137.
Hirth also cites from the Tushu jicheng (juan 1380) a fourteenth-century reference to a temple at the port of Liantang on Hainan, where the deity was known as Bozhu 舶主, or “Lord of the Ships”, where pork was forbidden and where everyone referred to the temple as the Fanshen miao 蕃神廟, or “Temple of the foreign deity.” See Kuwabara Jitsuzō (1928) “On P’u Shou keng, part 1”, Memoirs of the Research Department of the Tōyō Bunko 2, 1–79; Kuwabara Jitsuzō (1935) “On P’u Shou keng, part 2”, Memoirs of the Research Department of the Tōyō Bunko 7, 1–104. See vol. 2, 21.
- 138.
Friedrich Hirth and William Rockhill (1970) Chau Ju-kua, 16, note 2. See also Kuwabara Jitsuzo (1928) “On P’u Shou keng, part 1”, 44 for full text.
- 139.
For a wide range of studies relating to the port of Quanzhou, see Angela Schottenhammer, ed. (2001) The Emporium of the World: Maritime Quanzhou 1000–1400 (Leiden, Boston, Köln:: E. J. Brill).
- 140.
The oldest mosque in Quanzhou—the Qingjing Mosque—reputedly dates from the eleventh century when the port began to rise in importance.
- 141.
Ludvik Kalus (2003) “Réinterprétation des plus anciennes stèles funéraires islamiques nousantariennes: I. Les deux inscriptions du ‘Champa’”, Archipel 66, 63–90.
- 142.
al-Idrīsī [c. 1100–1165](1970–1984) Opus Geographicum, edited by Enrico Cerulli et al. (Naples: Instituto Universitario Orientale), 2 vols., cited in Michael Laffan (2005) “Finding Java”, 22, n. 65.
- 143.
For major studies of Muslims on the China coast in this period, see John Chaffee (2008) “Muslim Merchants and Quanzhou in the Late Yuan-Early Ming: Conjectures on the Ending of the Medieval Muslim Trade Diaspora”, in Angela Schottenhammer (ed.), The East Asian ‘Mediterranean’: Maritime Crossroads of Culture, Commerce, and Human Migration (Wiesbaden: Otto Harassowitz), 115–132; John Chaffee (2008) “At the Intersection of Empire and World Trade: The Chinese Port City of Quanzhou (Zaitun), Eleventh-Fifteenth Centuries”, in Kenneth R. Hall (ed.), Secondary Cities and Urban Networking in the Indian Ocean Realm, c. 1400–1800 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield), 99–122; John Chaffee (2006) “Diasporic Identities in the Historical Development of the Maritime Muslim Communities of Song-Yuan China”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 49.4, 395–420; John Chaffee (2001) “The Impact of the Song Imperial Clan on the Overseas Trade of Quanzhou”, in Angela Schottenhammer (ed.), The Emporium of the World: Maritime Quanzhou, 1000–1400 [Sinica Leidensia, 49](Leiden and Boston: E. J. Brill), 13–46; Mukai Masaki (2009) “Mongoru chika Fukken enkai-bu no Musurimu kan’nin-sō” モンゴル治下福建沿海部のムスリム官人層, Kansai Arabu kenkyūkai 関西アラブ研究会 7, 79–94; Mukai Masaki (2012) “Trade Diaspora at the Periphery of Empire: Influx of Central Asian Muslims in Fujian Coastal Region During the Yuan Period”, Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies (Toronto: no publisher).
- 144.
The assumption is that this official surnamed Pu was, like other members of the Pu clan, a Muslim. There exists in Leran, East Java an Islamic gravestone dated AH 475 (1082 CE) for a woman, the daughter of Maimun. However, there is no firm evidence that the gravestone originated in Java and was possibly brought there as ballast. See Ludvik Kalus and Claude Guillot (2004) “Réinterprétation des plus anciennes stèles funéraires islamiques nousantariennes: II. La stèle de Leran (Java) datée de 475/1082 et les stèles associées”, Archipel 67, 17–36.
- 145.
This is noted in Minshu 閩書, juan 152.
- 146.
For the most detailed available account of Pu Shougeng, see Kuwabara Jitsuzō (1928 and 1935) “On P’u Shou-keng”.
- 147.
For a study of this aspect, see Mukai Masaki (2007) “Hojukō gunji shūdan to Mongoru kaijō seiryoku no taitō” 蒲寿庚軍事集団とモンゴル海上勢力の台頭, Tōyō gakuhō 東洋学報 89.3, 67–96.
- 148.
Personal communication from Li Tana. For original text, see Chen Ching-ho 陳荊和, ed. (1985–1986) Daietsu shiki zensho: kōgōbon 校合本 < 大越史記全書 > (Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư), 3 vols. (Tōkyō: Tōkyō University, Tōyō bunko kenkyūjo), 348–349.
- 149.
One apparent victim of the battles at this time was Pu Ha-ting, a Sayyid of the sixteenth generation and builder of the Xianhe Mosque in Yangzhou, who died in 1275. See Donald D. Leslie (1986) Islam in Traditional China, 48.
- 150.
Zvi Ben-dor Benite (2010) “Follow the White Camel”, 416.
- 151.
Chen Dasheng and Ludvik Kalus (1991) Corpus d’inscriptions arabes et persanes en Chine, province de Fu-jian, vol. 1 (Paris: Librairie Orientalists Paul Geuthner), 101, 178.
- 152.
Chen Dasheng and Ludvik Kalus (1991) Corpus d’inscriptions, 178.
- 153.
Chen Dasheng and Ludvik Kalus (1991) Corpus d’inscriptions, 107
- 154.
Chen Dasheng and Ludvik Kalus (1991) Corpus d’inscriptions, 315–316.
- 155.
Ralph Kauz (2010) “A Kāzarūnī Network?”, in Ralph Kauz (ed.), Aspects of the Maritime Silk Road: From the Persian Gulf to the East China Sea [East Asian Maritime History, 10](Wiesbaden: Otto Harassowitz), 68.
- 156.
Literally “coloured eyes”.
- 157.
Chen Dasheng and Ludvik Kalus suggest an alternative—that the term “yi-xi-ba-xi” should be reconstructed as ispāh and that it derives from the Persian term sepâh, meaning “great army”. See Chen Dasheng and Ludvik Kalus (1991) Corpus d’inscriptions, 45, note 151.
- 158.
It is also likely not coincident that another senior person whom Ibn Baṭṭūṭa met in Quanzhou was Shaykh al-Islām Kamāl al-Dīn, “a pious man” who indeed came from Isfahān. Was he the other leader of the rebellion, named in the Chinese texts as “A-mi-li-ding” (= Kamāl al-Dīn)?
- 159.
The claim that Yongle and other Ming emperors were secret Muslims is not supported by any accepted source.
- 160.
Chen Dasheng 陳達生 (1984) Quanzhou Yisilan jiao shike 泉州伊斯蘭教石刻 (Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe), 11–13.
- 161.
For studies of these networks, see Yokka′ichi Yasuhiro (2008) “Chinese and Muslim Diasporas and the Indian Ocean Trade Network Under Mongol Hegemony”, in Angela Schottenhammer (ed.), The East Asian Mediterranean—Maritime Crossroads of Culture, Commerce, and Human Migration[East Asian Maritime History, 6] (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz), 73–102; Mukai Masaki (2010) “Contacts Between Empires and Entrepôts and the Role of Supra-regional Network: Song-Yuan-Ming Transition of the Maritime Asia 960–1405”, Empire, Systems, and Maritime Networks: Reconsidering Supra-regional Histories in Prenineteenth Century Asia Working Paper Series 1, 1–24.
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Wade, G. (2019). Islam Across the Indian Ocean to 1500 CE. In: Schottenhammer, A. (eds) Early Global Interconnectivity across the Indian Ocean World, Volume II. Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97801-7_5
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