Realms of overflowing gold? : re-examining the premodern Chinese-Muslim encounter, 751-1644

One of the most enduring lines of research in Sinology has been the mutual perceptions of China and the West as arising from early encounters from the Tang era onward. Thus, classics by Henry Yule, Donald F. Lach and Jonathan D. Spence are by now three of the best-known books in the field. And, more recently, prominent historian Jurgen Osterhammel has also weighed into the discussion. Yet, surprisingly, Muslim-Chinese early mutual perceptions have attracted less scholarly attention even if their encounter predated contact with the West. Fields like geographical studies do cover the topic on occasion but remain outside the purview of Sinology for the most part, for example Geoffrey Gunn’s work. This article aims to draw on primary sources, as well as on seminal contributions by Morris Rossabi, Raphael Israeli and Hyunhee Park, in order to offer a bigger-picture account of how Chinese-Muslim perceptions evolved over the course of the pre-modern era. Our coverage will begin with the Battle of Talas in 751, which saw the two civilisations coming into direct (armed) contact for the first time. By contrast, the following centuries were marked by relatively peaceful encounters. The coverage will end with the establishment of the Manchu Qing dynasty in 1644 because the Qing era (1644–1911) is widely considered as one where a resurgence of anti-Muslim sentiments occurred in China.