The Entire History of Muslim China

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this was a poem written by one of the great Emperors of China praising the prophet Muhammad
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peace be upon him and cherishing the religion of Islam that he brought to Mankind and to many of
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you this may come as a surprise what does Islam have to do with China and how could it have had such an effect on the Chinese society that even an emperor would take the time to write and express
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his love and affection for the prophet himself but what you don't realize is that China used to
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be the center of Islam in Asia with many Muslim rulers and a few independent Muslim sultanates
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even the story of Aladdin was said to have taken place in the Muslim lands of China from Scholars
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to Warriors to Sailors and some of the greatest Kung Fu masters of their time the Muslims of China
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have had a deep impact in Chinese history and in this video I'm going to show you the entire
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history of Islam in China Our Story begins in the mid 600s Muslim merchants from Arabia and
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East Africa and Persia began sailing east across the oceans building a trading Network that reached
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as far away as China during the reign of the third caleff a delegation was sent in 650 to
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the then ruling emperor of China gifts were given greetings were exchanged and eventually the emperor ordered a mesjid to be built in the port city of Guang Joo to support the growing
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community of Muslim traitors there but around the same time that this was happening the Muslims had just finished the conquest of Persia and they were now entering Central Asia from the West
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Side by now the Chinese Empire had been expanding to the east setting up garrisons in the region to
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protect their Western flank it was clear that the two empires were on a collision course with each
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other competing for influence in the Plains of Central Asia but only one of them would
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come out Victorious their fight began in the fagana valley in 7:15 when the Muslims deposed
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a local King and installed their own ruler in his place in response the Chinese sent an army
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of 10,000 men to take control of the valley and reinstall the king under their Command 2 years
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later the Muslims then attacked again this time attacking directly the Muslim garrisons but the
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Chinese were well prepared and managed to defeat the Muslims at the Battle of Aku it was a major
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setback for the Muslim expansion in Central Asia and the Chinese were able to force the umay out of
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the fagana valley but while the Muslim armies had been pushed out of the region for the time being Muslim merant continued to travel east along the Silk Road making it as far as the capital of China
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there more Muslim communities were built Inland and in 742 one of China's most famous masjids was
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built eventually the Muslim armies would return to the Valley in Central Asia this time under
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the flag of the Abbasid caliphate and in 751 the Muslims managed to avenge themselves and defeat
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the Chinese at the Battle of talas marking the end of Chinese expansion to the west and bringing
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Islamic rule to the region soon after the Chinese began to retreat back inward but not because
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they had lost the battle rather a new threat had emerged some 2,500 mil to the East and this time
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the Muslims would be on their side you see in 755 a rogue Chinese General proclaimed himself
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the new emperor of China and the Empire erupted into Civil War in response the Chinese requested
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support from the Muslims and the Abbas had sent 3,000 soldiers to help fight against the rebels
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eventually the Tang Dynasty was able to regain control of the situation and just when it looked
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like the rebellion was about to be defeated one of the Rebel generals decided to switch sides
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in an attempt to gain the emperor's forgiveness for his rebellion in 760 he went on to the city
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of young Joe arrived in the Muslim quarters of the city massacred thousands of Arab and
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Persian Merchants before making off with the loot he had stolen from them he then brought this immense wealth as a gift to the Emperor who then forgave him it was the first massacre
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of the Muslim population during the Tang Dynasty but unfortunately it wouldn't be the last and in 874 another Rebellion broke out wreaking havoc throughout the country for a full
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decade and during that time the Rebellion leader hangcha LED his army to Guang Joo where China's
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first mjid and Muslim Community had originally been built he then masser tens of thousands of
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Muslims as well as Christians and Jews and zarrian and other foreigners living in the city twice now the Muslims had been slaughtered but still they would keep coming back the two
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rebellions had we weakened the Tang Dynasty immensely and eventually in 907 the empire was split into competing kingdoms and yet the flow of Muslim merchants never decreased soon
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after the Song Dynasty emerged as the main power of China in 960 and under the new rulers Muslims
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from Persia and Arabia found new opportunities with many of them now beginning to work for the
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government throughout their reign the Song Dynasty appointed Muslims as Ministers of trade keeping them as administrators who managed the wealthy Muslim merchants and the port cities
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in southern China the Song Dynasty also brought the Muslims as soldiers such as in 1070 when the
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emperor invited an Amir from bukara and 5,300 of his men to help battle the Liao Empire in
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the Northeast and repopulate areas ravaged by War and after that another 10,000 Muslim soldiers were
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invited to join him in China a decade later soon Persian and Arab and even some Malay Muslims began
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intermarrying with the local Chinese including the daughters of generals and bureaucrats many
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of which converted to Islam as a result and their children began a new generation of Chinese Muslims which were known as the Hue people these Muslim Hue Chinese were now becoming bureaucrats
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and Generals and Scholars and Merchants and eventually over time the term qu began to mean any native Chinese person had converted to Islam whether they had Middle Eastern Heritage or
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not it was clear that Islam now had a foothold in Chinese society and even though they were a small
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in Number the Muslims whether Arab or Persian or native Chinese were now being put in positions of
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power and Muslim influence was quickly spreading but all that would soon change as a new threat
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began to emerge from the north one that would destroy the great Muslim empires in the west and
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wreak havoc throughout the Muslim world it was now the early 1200s the Mongols had arrived under the
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leadership of genghiskhan and later his sons the Mongol Empire quickly spread across Central Asia
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massacring and destroying everything in its path within a few decades they had destroyed the Muslim
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kisian empire and in 1258 they arrived at the gates of bagad and destroyed the city killing up
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to 2 million people in the process and bringing an end to the Abid caliphate and while all this was
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happening in the west the Mongols took a somewhat different approach to Muslims in China in 1279 the
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Muslims had managed to conquer the Song Dynasty renaming themselves the great un Dynasty and
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becoming the Undisputed rulers of China as part of their tactics of bringing minorities to rule over
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majorities thean Mongols then began importing administrators from Muslim regions that they
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had just conquered in order to work as governors in China the most famous of these Governors was
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AEL shamid and his son who ruled over yunan their influence became so great that even today there's
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a large Muslim population in the region with many H Chinese people descending directly from them a
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Persian viser in another part of the Mongol Empire wrote that out of the 12 governorates in the UN
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Dynasty eight were ruled by Muslims while the other four had Muslims as Vice Governors soon the
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Mongols began importing Muslims from other fields to the UN Dynasty some scientists and astronomers
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mathematicians Engineers doctors all were imported bringing their knowledge from the abass at
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caliphate where the scientific golden age of Islam had once been and to give you some perspective of
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their influence even the capital city of Dau was built in part by a Muslim architect named Amir a
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city which would later be renamed to Beijing in 1368 and this is when the Muslim scholarship in
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China began to flourish a new writing system was created using Arabic letters to write the
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Chinese language replacing Chinese characters a new branch of Islamic scholarship was developed
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attempting to explain Islamic Concepts using confusion terminology in an attempt to make it
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easy for Chinese people to understand Islam the Muslims now had immense influence in the region
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and under the Mongols estimates show that the Muslim population grew to over 4 million people
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by the end of the 1300s but the Mongols weren't exactly friends with the Muslims and fearing that
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the Muslims were gaining too much influence they enacted a number of policies to try and keep them in their place they started Banning Muslims from slaughtering their animals in a Halal way and they
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forbade Muslims and Jews from circumcision later on Muslims were forced to follow Confucian law
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for governing their marriages and they were banned from solving civil disputes with their own Islamic judges these policies among others began to spark outrage in the Muslim Community China and soon
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they began to join and support other non-muslim groups in rebellions against the Mongols in 1357
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for example an army led by two Persian Muslims revolted against the UN Dynasty leading to almost
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a decade of war in response the Mongols massacred Muslims in Chuan Joo including almost the entirety
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of the puuh family a Chinese family which had ruled the city since the time of the Song Dynasty
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however the Mongols had now signed their death warrant as 2 years after the rebellion was crushed
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another Dynasty would appear a man who called himself the Hong wo Emperor Rose to power with the
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support of a number of H Muslim generals beginning the Ming Dynasty this was the Emperor who wrote
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The 100 character eulogy praising Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him which I had began this video by
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reciting under the new rule of the Ming Dynasty Arab and Persian Muslims would become fully
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integrated into Chinese Society building many masjids for them and having them intermar with the
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Chinese Muslims also then adopted Chinese surnames which most closely represented their original
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Arabic names ma or Han for Muhammad ha for Hassan who for Hussein sa for sha for sha and so
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on and perhaps the most important and well-known Muslim from this time period was a man named Mah
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originally from the province of yunan and the great great great grandson son of the governor
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a sh which I had mentioned before when Ma was still a young boy the Ming dynasty was still in
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the process of defeating the Mongols there during their fighting in the late 1300s the Ming Dynasty
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Army captured and enslaved maah after killing his father they then had him work as a servant in the
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household of The Emperor's son who would later go on to become an emperor himself when that
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happened ma was given special treatment being given the name Jung H as a title of honor and
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serving as the right hand to the emperor directly eventually jungu was then given control of the
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Chinese Navy and sent on a number of expeditions across the known world together with his fellow
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Muslim Chinese assistants he traveled through southeast Asia and India and Somalia before eventually making it to the Arabian Peninsula on his final Journey arriving in Mecca for Hajj and
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throughout that time leading fleets of hundreds of ships and up to 20,000 and Men he began settling
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Chinese Muslim scholars in Indonesia and Malaysia and possibly even the Philippines establishing
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small Muslim towns and communities which would go on to spread the message of Islam to the locals
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and because of this you will still find masjids all across the region named after him today when
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people think of Islam and Asia they think of Malaysia and Indonesia but a lot of that spread
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originally came from China back in mainland China the Ming dynasty was on the line and in
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644 a new Dynasty would arise the Ching Dynasty were originally from the Manchu people of menuria
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a people with their own language and culture and history separate from the Han Chinese but
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as Muslims had become loyal to the previous Ming Dynasty a number of Muslim rebellions broke out
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defending China from the new invaders for example in the province of Gansu the Muslim leaders milin
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and dingang led a revolution in 164 46 against the Ching in what was called the milin rebellion
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and it was also supported by Prince turum thaai from now Muslim Mongols of the kumul kanate in
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the west but eventually the Rebellion will be crushed and milin and ding Wong and turum thaai
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as well would all be killed in battle and before long the Ching began a new conquest in the region
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starting with the kumuk khanate and taking all the lands in what's known as the province of shin Jang
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in modern day China at the time sinjang had been ruled by Turks and Mongols split between
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the Buddhist zunar in the North and the Muslim ERS in the south in 1680 the Buddhist zunger had
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conquered the Muslim ERS and were now ruling both North and South Shing Jang and so when
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the Ching Dynasty appeared on their doorstep war broke out and it was mostly the Buddhist zunar
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who were fighting eventually the Ching Dynasty managed to defeat the Buddhist zunar and in 175
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55 the Ching Emperor ordered their genocide more than half a million Buddhist zunar were killed
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either through disease or Warfare wiping their population off the face of the Earth leaving Northern shinjang empty the Ching Dynasty then began repopulating the area with some Han Chinese
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and H Muslim peoples but most of the repopulation came from the Muslim ERS who now moved into the
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lands of the people that had once occupied them and by the way if you want to support the channel
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and help me pay my editors you you can sign up for my patreon link in the YouTube video description or on my Tik Tok profile anyway sh Jang was now a land inhabited by the Muslim Turk
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wiers but it was still being ruled by the Ching Dynasty and soon the situation became volatile
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in 1765 Ching officials kidnapped Ur women and violated them for months on end this led to a
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rebellion in but the Ching armies were then sent against them and thousands of UR Muslims were Mass
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in 1818 another Ching official kidnapped the Muslim daughter of one of the UR Chiefs of
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kashar keeping her as a slave and violating her for over two years this caused such shock waves
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among the Muslims that in 1820 a group of Warriors from kokand in modern day usbekistan attempted to
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take kashar from the Ching Empire and while they were unsuccessful at first a few years later under
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the command of jungar kja a new Army of some two 200,000 Warriors launched a second attack and in
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1826 they managed to take control of kashar and a number of surrounding cities briefly occupying the
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land but hopes for the Muslims wouldn't last and in 1828 the Ching came at them with a huge Army
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massacring the civilians of kashar and capturing jangara himself jangara was then sent to Beijing
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and paraded around the city in an iron cage for weeks and after this process of humiliation was
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done he was sentenced to be executed by lingi meaning slow slicing or Death By A Thousand Cuts
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but this didn't deter the rebellions and three more unsuccessful invasions from kokan would
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be launched in the following years but rebellion in the west wasn't the only thing that the Ching
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Empire had to worry about in 1850 a man claiming to be the brother of Jesus peace be upon Him began
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a rebellion in the province of Guang XI in southern China this rebellion was so violent
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and so deadly that in the 14 years that it lasted as many as 30 million people were killed in the
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violence and this wasn't the only Rebellion taking place at the time other Rebels took
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inspiration and started their own rebellions all over the country the entire region was on fire
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and Anarchy was everywhere and in some cases the H Muslims became the target of violence
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back in the province of yunan one of the major hubs of Islam in China Bandit gangs called incense
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brotherhoods began stealing from and harassing the H Muslims this went on for years eventually coming
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to a boiling point when in 1845 in the city of ban Bandits vandalized a local Masjid in response the
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Muslims of that Village formed their own gang and began attacking the bandits in retaliation
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deciding to put an end to the feud with the support of the King government the bandits then entered the city one night and massacred some 8,000 ha Muslims but still many Muslims survived
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in the city one of which was a man by the name of D who decided that the only way for the Muslims
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to protect themselves would be if they all banded together and created their own sultanate he began
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calling on the H Muslims of unan to unite against the Ching government seeing them as ultimately
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responsible for the attacks against the Muslim in response in 1856 the ruler of Kun Ming which was
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the capital of yunan at the time formed a militia and began to eradicate H Muslims in and around the
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city another 8,000 Muslims were killed in the kuning massacre and soon local uprisings by H
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Muslims began to spread across the entire Province D wo managed to then unite these small rebellions
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under his command and they attacked and captured the city of di forming their own government and
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their own Army and calling the new state the unan sultanate for the next 16 years they fought
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against the Ching government expanding their sulate Across the Western half of yunan and even
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briefly capturing the city of Kunming in the East but betrayal and infighting led to cracks in the
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rebellion and the Ching dynasty was able to take advantage of the situation and launch an attack
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against the unan sultan and by 1872 Ching troops had managed to capture the city of Dal sacking
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it and massacring the entire Hue population of men women and children 10,000 people were killed
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and D Wu himself was captured and beheaded but while all this was happening in the South another
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sultanate was still surviving in the west back in Shang in 1862 a new Rebellion had taken place
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in kashar led by the kukandi ruler yakum Bay taking advantage of the chaos across China yak
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formed the kashar emirat with the support of the Ottoman Empire even flying the ottoman flag as
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their official symbol but in this case yakob was known as somewhat of a tyrant not much better than
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the Ching rulers before him and taking advantage of this the Ching decided to send an army of Han
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Chinese and Muslims to take back kashar using a policy of forgiveness they pardoned the rebels
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who had surrendered if they had joined yakub B's forces only for religious reasons Rebels
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received rewards for defecting and assisting the Ching hoping to win the Muslims over with benevolence in contrast to yakub's oppressive rule this tactic worked and in 1877 kashkar was retaken
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and once again brought under Ching control as for what happened to yaku no one knows for sure but
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reports suggest that he may have been poisoned or killed in battle or even died of a stroke
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either way the last of the Shing Jang rebellions against the Ching Dynasty had been snuffed out
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but this time it was because the Ching themselves were on their way out having barely survived all
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the rebellions of the last century and having been invaded by the British French Japanese and Americans the Ching Dynasty had now become weak and China had now become a playground for
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foreign powers to steal and loot from the country everything that they could in response a number of
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secret societies emerged teaching and training in both martial arts and Firearms with the intention
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of growing in strength to eventually defeat the foreign powers and kick them out of China and
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there were a lot of H Muslims that joined these groups the most famous of these secret societies
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was called The Society of righteous and harmonious fists and in 1899 they launched into a rebellion
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that was later known as the boxer Uprising together and even initially supported by the Ching
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Dynasty the rebels attacked back to the foreign Invaders in a series of battles the Ching Dynasty
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even managed to assemble a unit of 10,000 Muslim troops known as the kanu Braves to help in the
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fight however foreign Invaders formed an alliance and the Ching dynasty was forced to make a deal
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with them withdrawing from the war the eight Nation Alliance then descended upon the Chinese rebels fighting several battles with them before eventually crushing the rebellion in 1901 the
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rebels were then hunted down and killed wherever they could be found but perhaps one of the most
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famous stories of those Rebels was that of wanging a Muslim kung fu fighter who was forced to flee to
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the city of Gan where he found a Masjid and took Refuge inside during his time in hiding in the
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Masjid wonging met a Muslim Grandmaster there by the name of yio who agreed to take him under his
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wing for the next few years he trained under him learning various techniques and different weapons
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and eventually he began to his own unique style of kung fu and legends and Hal true stories began
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to surround him one story describes how German soldiers wanted to steal the doors of the Ching
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Joo Masjid the doors were particularly beautiful having been carved by a master Craftsman some 500
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years earlier in response wanging led the Muslims to Camp outside the Masjid in order to guard the
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doors from the German soldiers the Germans wanting to humiliate waping made a proposal they brought
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two giant 250 lb Stones connected together by a large bamboo bar and it said that if he could
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lift this weight they would leave the doors alone so wanging accepted the challenge doing
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a back flip and landing on his back in front of the stones then grabbing the bamboo bar and
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doing a bench press with it and if that wasn't enough the story says he even threw the stones
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up in the air and caught the bar with his feet and started doing leg presses with the weight needless
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to say the Germans didn't get the doors and while stories like this are certainly an exaggeration
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wanging eventually did become a well-renowned Grandmaster in a number of martial arts and
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it was only in 1973 that he finally passed away back in the early 1900s the Ching dynasty was in
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its death throws and in 1911 a final series of uprisings took place which finally toppled the
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government after so many years the leader of this new rebellion was a man by the name of sunat Sen
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who then declared the founding of the Republic of China One Nation that belonged equally to the five
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races represented by the five color flag red for Han Chinese yellow for the Manus which the Ching
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Dynasty came from Blue for the Mongols black for the Tibetans and white for the Muslims and while
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sunat sen was indeed the founder he only served as the provisional president for a few months until
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another military General by the name of Y shikai managed to negotiate his way into power becoming
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the president of the Republic before later declaring himself the Emperor of China in 1915
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but this transition back to an Empire infuriated provincial rulers all around the country and
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they began to revolt and declare independence for themselves caving under the pressure Yuan shikai
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abdicated the throne and restored the Republic after only 83 days but by then the damage had
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already been done and his Prestige was in Ruins he died in off office only a few months later
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but by then the Republic was fragmented being ruled by a number of warlord clicks each with
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their own separate alliances among these were the kuming tong led by sunat s in the South the Bing
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government in Beijing which had been loyal to Yuan shikai the sinang which were a mix of Han Chinese
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and H Muslim generals that ruled over the majority in sang and of course the ma C an alliance of
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some generals that ruled over the provinces of chinai Gansu and ninia similar to the concept of
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the Bible Belt in the US these three provinces plus sing Jang have historically been greatly
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influenced by Muslims making them what's known as the Quran belt in China but while this fragile
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balance of power had been held between the various warlord clicks a completely new movement would
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begin to rise in China one that was following in the footsteps of another Revolution taking
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place around the same time deep in the heartland of Russia there under Vladimir Lenin the Bolshevik
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Revolution was well underway and back here in the Republic of China in 1921 soon to be led by
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a young ma zong the Chinese Communist party was founded initially the Communist party and the
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newly created Soviet Union supported sunat and the KU Tong in retaking the entire country but when
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sunat s suddenly died in 1925 and his successor Chang kek took control of the party a rift formed
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between the kuming dong and the Communists and eventually Chung kaihk led a massacre against them killing thousands of Communists in Shanghai Chung kaihk then led a military campaign against
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the beang government defeating them and capturing both naning and Beijing from them in 1928 and with
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those two cities under his control he managed to temporarily unify China under the cuming tongue with the other CS agreeing to submit to him at least on paper and this is when Rebellion once
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again began knocking on the doors of shin Jang during this time shinjang had been ruled by a
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Hanan Chinese General who had actually studied Islam and had strong connections with leading Muslim families in yunan and so much of his army was made up of qu Muslims but in 1928 he was
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assassinated and a much more oppressive ruler took control in 1930 this new ruler then annexed the
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kumul kanate repeating the mistakes of the Ching Dynasty before him and sparking a new war in the
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region The Kuman then sent a representative to the mle their fellow Muslims seeking help against that
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ruler and the shin Jang the M then responded by sending the Muslim General ma Jong Ying with an
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army to attack them and because the mole was supported by the quiling Tongue the Shing Jang
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click then joined sides with their enemy the Soviet Union but things were about to become a
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lot more complicated in 1933 under the leadership of Muhammad Amin B the UR and shin Jang decided
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to take advantage of the chaos and declared their independence in the first East turkistan Republic
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and so now you had this crazy three-way war going on in sang the oers of the first East turkistan
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Republic the sang click which was supported by the Soviets and the Kum which was supported by the Mak
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and the kuming tong but the Shang Wars went on for years ending in a stalemate with no side really
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able to defeat the other even when the first East turkistan Republic was destroyed a second one
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took its place only a few years later but there was one event that would soon shake the entire
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Foundation of China to its core and cause even the worst of enemies to join together in a fight for
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their survival it was now 1937 and Japan had now invaded China it was one of the most devastating
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Wars in history and one that would become part of the battlefield that was World War II from
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1937 to 1945 war raged on in China and up to 22 million people would be killed in the fight and
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H Muslims in particular were targeted the Japanese began a policy of destroying masjids and killing
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countless H Muslims in the discriminately hundreds of masjids were destroyed and others were found
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filled with dead bodies inside in other incidents Japanese soldiers took Muslim women and violated
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them and Muslims were deliberately humiliated in other ways such as being forced to eat pig meat
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and having their graveyards destroyed there was no time for China to be fragmented they needed
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to unite and so the both the Communist and the kuming tong formed a united front numerous Muslim
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generals joined in the fight and Muslims all across the country United against the Japanese
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together the Chinese managed to defend its borders from the Japanese and with the US dropping two
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atomic bombs in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan formally surrendered in 1945 ending the
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war but with the external threat now gone and the country in complete shambles tensions Rose
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once again between the kingdong and the Communist party and in 1945 a new Civil War would corupt
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Soon Chinese soldiers were forced to pick sides most of the qu Chinese generals remained loyal to
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the cuming dong but some defected to the Communist side believing that there was a better alternative
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by 1949 the Communists managed to decisively win the civil war taking control of mainland China
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and the Muslims who were loyal to the kuming dong were forced to flee to the island of Taiwan with the successor the kuming dong still remain in power till this day in one story there had been
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two generals that had been close friends before the Civil War but when the Communists took over
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in China ma chungang fled to Taiwan Wan Yuen defected to the Communists but some 38 years
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after splitting up Han yoen decided to write a letter to maang xang reminiscing about the
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good old days and it was reported that they met one last time in Hong Kong soon after but while
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the quing tong and its Muslim generals had been forced to flee they didn't immediately give up
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but rather they began an Insurgency fighting in Guerilla Warfare around 14,000 soldiers almost
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entirely Muslim began to revolt throughout the Muslim strongholds in yunan and the Quan belt
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Chang Kai Sheek continued to support them with planes that dropped supplies and arms to them
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soon the Insurgency even began expanding to Burma where the Muslims from neighboring Yan could then
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use the thick jungle to hide their operations but even with all their efforts the Communist
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forces now had a stronghold on Mainland China and by 1958 the Insurgency had been put down with many
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of its leaders being killed in action or executed the rest however fled to Taiwan and because of
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their loyalty and perseverance to the cause when everyone else had given up the Muslims of China
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are still revered and well respected in Taiwan to this day but back in mainland China life for the
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Muslims wasn't as easy during the cultural revolution Islam along with other religions
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in the country were persecuted and the atheist student-led paramilitary group known as the red
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guards attacked and vandalized traditional Chinese confusion and Buddhist temples Christian churches
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and monasteries and of course Muslim masjids all with the goal of getting rid of what were
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known as the four olds old Customs old cultures old habits and ideas in response the H Muslims
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led the only large-scale ethnic Rebellion during the cultural revolution taking place in 1975 in
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several villages in yunan but this rebellion was quickly suppressed and many Muslims were
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killed or had their homes destroyed but after the cultural revolution was over the Communist Party
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began to curb many of their extreme policies and blamed most of the violent parts of the cultural
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revolution on a few bad apples those people were either given life in imprisonment or executed and the Communist Party gave an official apology to the H Muslims offering reparations for
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the damages suffered and that leaves us with the Muslims of China today it seems that the treatment
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of Muslims in China isn't the same across the country but rather it varies from place to place
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and while the may be living in a particularly difficult situation in a land known for constant
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Rebellion there are many places in China where the H Muslims are actually the majority population and
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they live very normal lives in these places they are virtually indistinguishable from Han Chinese
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only different in some of the clothing they wear or the food that they eat undoubtedly the history
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of Muslims in China is long and complicated with times of glory and stability and other times of
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desperate survival as a minority but now with anywhere from 18 to 25 million Muslims living
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in China today perhaps the Muslims of China still have a long and bright future ahead of them if
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