Cina Yunnan Adalah Nenek Moyang Asia Tenggara

8/8/2019 Cina Yunnan Adalah Nenek Moyang Asia Tenggara

1/6

Islam and Commerce in Old YunnanPart of Trade Routes

Taken From : http://www.cpamedia.com/trade-routes/islam-commerce-yunnan/

Yunnanese Chinese and, prominently amongst them, Chinese Muslims or Hui have long beenassociated with the commerce of the Golden Triangle area where Laos, Burma and Thailandmeet Southwest China. As early as A.D. 1416 the Chinese Muslim translator and voyager MaHuan noted the presence of a back door by which it was possible to travel between Yunnan andnorthern Thailand. Similarly, the first Englishman to have left an account of his travels inSoutheast Asia, the merchant Ralph Fitch, noted in his Voyage begun in the Yeere of Our Lord 1583, and ended in 1591 that to the town of Jamahey [Chiang Mai] come many merchants outof Ch ina, and bring great store of Muske, Gold, Silver, and many other things of China worke.

Burma. Kyanzittha archer (c. 1287) Burma. Kyanzittha falconer (c. 1287)

In fact, whilst it is clear that overland trade routes between Yunnan and Southeast Asia are of great antiquity, extending back as far as Tang Dynasty times (618-907 A.D.) and probablybefore, Hui Muslim involvement in (and, largely, control of) these trade routes is a later

phenomenon, commencing with the Mongol domination of China under the Yuan Dynasty(1280-1368 A.D.). Any historical study of the Muslim Chinese traders in the Golden Triangleshould, therefore, begin with a brief look at the origins and nature of Muslim society in Yunnan

the ancestral home of those Hui Muslims better known as Panthay in Burma, and as Haw inLaos and Thailand.
http://www.cpamedia.com/trade-routes/http://www.cpamedia.com/trade-routes/http://www.cpamedia.com/trade-routes/http://www.cpamedia.com/trade-routes/


2/6

Panthay (Hui Muslim) muleteer, Shan States, c. 1895 Panthay caravaneer, Shan States c. 1895

It is generally supposed that Muslim settlement in the Yunnan region dates from the time of theTang dynasty. Certainly the Tang annals record the surrender of many black -robed Muslimswho were subsequently resettled in western Yunnan. Subsequent notices dating from the YuanDynasty (1271-1368) indicate further Muslim settlement in north-eastern and especially south-

western Yunnan. Marco Polo, who travelled through Yunnan at the beginning of the Yuan period, noted the presence of Saracens among the population. Similarly the Persian historianRashid al-Din (died 1318) records in his Jami' ut-Tawarikh that the Great city of Yachi [almostcertainly Dali] in Yunnan was exclusively inhabited by Muslims.

The Role of Sayyid Ajall

Prominent amongst those Muslims who settled in Yunnan during the Yuan Dynasty was SayyidAjall Shams al-Din Umar al-Bukhari, appointed by the Mongols to govern this region of south-west China on their behalf, and widely believed by the Muslims of Yunnan to have firstintroduced Islam into the province indeed, for the Yunnanese Hui, he has become a kind of universal ancestor. Fortunately Chinese chronicles dating from Yuan times deal with SayyidAjall in some depth, and it is possible to gain a fairly accurate picture of his contribution to theestablishment of an influential, commercially-motivated Muslim community in Yunnan and inthe neighbouring Tibetan and Southeast Asian regions.

The scion of a distinguished family from Bukhara in present-day Uzbekistan, Sayyid Ajallentered Mongol service after leading a thousand Uzbek cavalrymen in submission to Genghis


3/6

Khan. His new masters were clearly impressed with his loyalty and ability, for he rose rapidlythrough the ranks of the Yuan military until, in 1259, he was appointed second in command of aMongol expedition to crush the remnants of the Southern Sung Dynasty, with specialresponsibility for transport and supplies. In 1264 he was further promoted to become effectivegovernor of a vast region embracing much of modern Shaanxi, Gansu and Sichuan.

Well-to-do Panthay, Shan State, c. 1900 Panthay imam and assistants, Panglong,XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Unadministered Wa States, late 19th century

The Yuan court clearly valued Sayyid Ajall highly, for it awarded him 5,000 ounces of silver andmany other gifts. The highest recognition of his services came in 1274, when Kublai Khanappointed him Governor of Yunnan. The Mongols had but recently conquered Yunnan, in 1252-3, but Kublai Khan was well aware of the strategic importance of the province, located at the hubof important trade routes to Tibet, India and Southeast Asia. Moreover, the Great Khan hoped touse Yunnan as a springboard for his projected conquest of Burma. Thus, according to SinologistMorris Rossabi:

Control of the region was, for Kublai, a high priority. He started to establish military colonies ineach of the thirty-seven circuits of Yunnan. He also began to encourage high-ranking Muslimofficials to migrate to the region, offering them land, money and other incentives. The Muslimcolonists arrived in three waves. The first accompanied Kublai in his initial conquest of Yunnan;the second reached the region in the early years of Kublai's reign; and the third accompaniedSayyid Ajall when he became governor in 1274.

According to the annals, Sayyid Ajall's rule over Yunnan was both fair and just. He encouragedthe local people to develop agriculture, promoting irrigation works, rice farming and forestry.The newly-settled Muslims were permitted to take local women as wives, and encouraged todevelop trade and commerce. The caravan traffic to India and Southeast Asia became a virtual


4/6


5/6

mosques and halal restaurants intended to serve the needs of the Muslim caravaneers providingthe bases of future, trade-based Islamic communities. The requirement of performing the haj pilgrimage to Mecca similarly provided a stimulus to travel, and it is noteworthy in this contextthat in the first half of the 14th century chronicler Wang Dayuan recorded the existence of anoverland road between Yunnan and Arabia.

The Muslim population of Yunnan may be broadly divided into three main groups: those of thenorth-east, who are the descendants of Uighur military colonists sent to farm in the Zhaotongarea in 1313; those of the south-east who live in and around Jianshui and who are thedescendants of Muslim refugees fleeing famine or rebellion in the north-west Chinese provincesof Shaanxi, Ningxia and Gansu at various disparate periods; and those of the south-west, centredin and around Dali, who trace their ancestry to Sayyid Ajall Shams al-Din Umar and his CentralAsian followers and associates. Seemingly it was this latter, south-western Hui group whichcame to specialise in trade with Tibet, Burma and the Shan States; certainly it is noteworthy thatthe greater part of the Hui population resident in the Golden Triangle region today identify thenative place of their ancestors as one of several districts in western Yunnan between Dali and theBurmese frontier.

Caravan and leader with luggage unloaded in courtyard of Peter Goullart's house, Lijiang, c.1940

Yunnan, as China's south-westernmost province, has for many centuries represented acommercial and cultural entrept between the remainder of China and the various regions of Tibet, Assam and Southeast Asia. Trade routes, generally commencing in such Yunnanesecommercial centres as Kunming in central Yunnan, Dali and Tengchong in the wes t, and Puer [formerly Simao] in the south, wound their way across rivers and over mountain ranges, throughsome of the most inhospitable terrain in mainland Southeast Asia, to reach the high plateau of Tibet in the north-west, or the fertile rice plains of Burma and Thailand to the west and south.

Often, but far from always, trade was primarily channelled southward, and as Yunnanese HuiMuslims came to dominate long-distance caravan commerce, so their communities and mosquestended to develop in and around the south gate suburbs of many Yunnanese towns.

By the late 18th century the caravans of Yunnanese Muslim traders ranged over an areaextending from the Chamdo region of eastern Tibet, through Assam, Burma, Thailand and Laos,to the south Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Guizhou and Guangxi. Goods carried south during


6/6

the winter season included finished cloth (wool, cotton and velvet), fruit, nuts, carpets, brassutensils and salt. The same caravans returned north carrying raw cotton, tea, opium, gem-stonesand sometimes grain. No doubt numbers of Han Chinese and non-Chinese hill peoples were alsoinvolved in this trade, yet sources agree that the long-distance caravan commerce of Yunnan wasprimarily in the hands of Hui Muslim caravaneers.

Little is known for certain of the quantity or nature of the goods exchanged in the earlycommerce between Yunnan and north Thailand certainly Fitch's short list (Muske, Gold,Silver, and many other things of China worke) bears little relation to goods known to have been carried during the 19th and early 20th centuries but we may surmise that, with the probableexception of opium, the overland commerce of the 15th and 16th centuries was essentiallysimilar to that of the later, recorded period. It is also probable that transport was by means of mule or mule and pony caravan, elephants being too slow, too expensive and too cumbersomefor the distance and the terrain, whilst oxen are similarly too slow and lack the sure-footedness of mules on mountain trails. Besides perhaps surprisingly pound-for-pound mules are capable of carrying greater burdens than either oxen or elephants, and over much greater distances.Although there is no substantive documentary evidence, it is possible to make certain deductionswith regard to the caravaneers of the 13th to 17th centuries A. D., many of whom were certainlyHui Muslims.

Text copyright Andrew Forbes / CPA 2008.

An earlier version of this article, together with an extensive bibliography, may be found in:Forbes, Andrew, & Henley, David, The Haw: Traders of the Golden Triangle (Bangkok:Teak House, 1997).

Cina Yunnan Adalah Nenek Moyang Asia Tenggara

Documents

Transcript of Cina Yunnan Adalah Nenek Moyang Asia Tenggara