Islam and Commerce in Old Yunnan

Part of Trade Routes

Yunnanese Chinese – and, prominently amongst them, Chinese Muslims or Hui – have long been associated with the commerce of the Golden Triangle area where Laos, Burma and Thailand meet Southwest China. As early as A.D. 1416 the Chinese Muslim translator and voyager Ma Huan noted the presence of a ‘back door’ by which it was possible to travel between Yunnan and northern Thailand. Similarly, the first Englishman to have left an account of his travels in Southeast 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 out of China, and bring great store of Muske, Gold, Silver, and many other things of China worke’.

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 probably before, 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 Triangle should, 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’ in Laos and Thailand.

It is generally supposed that Muslim settlement in the Yunnan region dates from the time of the Tang dynasty. Certainly the Tang annals record the surrender of many ‘black-robed’ Muslims who were subsequently resettled in western Yunnan. Subsequent notices dating from the Yuan Dynasty (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 historian Rashid al-Din (died 1318) records in his Jami' ut-Tawarikh that the ‘Great city of Yachi” [almost certainly 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 Sayyid Ajall 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 first introduced 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 Sayyid Ajall in some depth, and it is possible to gain a fairly accurate picture of his contribution to the establishment of an influential, commercially-motivated Muslim community in Yunnan and in the neighbouring Tibetan and Southeast Asian regions.

The scion of a distinguished family from Bukhara in present-day Uzbekistan, Sayyid Ajall entered Mongol service after leading a thousand Uzbek cavalrymen in submission to Genghis Khan. His new masters were clearly impressed with his loyalty and ability, for he rose rapidly through the ranks of the Yuan military until, in 1259, he was appointed second in command of a Mongol expedition to crush the remnants of the Southern Sung Dynasty, with special responsibility for transport and supplies. In 1264 he was further promoted to become effective governor of a vast region embracing much of modern Shaanxi, Gansu and Sichuan.

The Yuan court clearly valued Sayyid Ajall highly, for it awarded him 5,000 ounces of silver and many other gifts. The highest recognition of his services came in 1274, when Kublai Khan appointed 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 hub of important trade routes to Tibet, India and Southeast Asia. Moreover, the Great Khan hoped to use Yunnan as a springboard for his projected conquest of Burma. Thus, according to Sinologist Morris Rossabi:

Control of the region was, for Kublai, a high priority. He started to establish military colonies in each of the thirty-seven circuits of Yunnan. He also began to encourage high-ranking Muslim officials to migrate to the region, offering them land, money and other incentives. The Muslim colonists 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 accompanied Sayyid Ajall when he became governor in 1274.

According to the annals, Sayyid Ajall's rule over Yunnan was both fair and just. He encouraged the 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 to develop trade and commerce. The caravan traffic to India and Southeast Asia became a virtual monopoly of the Muslims, headed initially by Sayyid Ajall, and subsequently, following his death, by immediate members of his family. Muslims, too, were retained in military service, both for the security of Yunnan, and for the projected invasion of Burma.

Before this grand enterprise could be set in motion, however, Sayyid Ajall died in 1279. He was succeeded as governor by his eldest son, Nasir al-Din, who took over management of the Golden Triangle and Assamese trade routes. Nasir al-Din also played a prominent role in the invasion of Burma, which took place in 1287. The Mongol invasion was to prove tenuous. Pagan, the Burmese capital, was laid waste and deserted, but the Mongol armies withdrew – not before, however, leaving the earliest known representations of Nasir al-Din's Muslim soldiery, the ancestors of today's Hui in Yunnan and Muslim Haw of the Golden Triangle region. Painted by an unknown – but probably Burmese – hand, they survive to the present day on the inner walls of the Kyanzittha Temple, the oldest, most unexpected, and most curious images we have of any of the peoples of the Golden Triangle.

Nasir al-Din continued his father's policies, but was arrested and eventually executed in 1292, accused of embezzling state funds. This disaster aside, Sayyid Ajall's family continued to exercise great influence and promote the commercial power of Muslims in Yunnan for many years to come. In 1297, twenty two years after his death, Sayyid Ajall was posthumously awarded the rank of prince. Meanwhile Nasir al-Din was succeeded by his brother, Mas'ud, as Governor of Yunnan, whilst three other brothers continued to hold positions of power in Yunnan, Guangdong and Jiangxi, receiving numerous honours and lavish awards from their Mongol masters for their services.

In this unexpected and surprising way the commercial primacy of the Muslims of Yunnan was first established, and subsequently secured, both within southwest China, and on the caravan trails of the Golden Triangle and beyond, to the fringes of Tibet, Burma, Assam and Thailand.

Commercial and Military Links

China's Hui Muslim population has long been associated with caravan commerce and related service industries such as the provision of inns, caravanserai, halal restaurants, butchers, etc., and the nuclei of many Hui Muslim settlements from Xinjiang in the far west to Heilongjiang in the northeast have formed around caravan termini, to be followed in the fullness of time by Hui women and children, mosque, madrassa and local businesses.

Within Yunnan – as in other areas of major Hui settlement in China – the Muslim population excelled in two particular areas of enterprise. Firstly, they maintained the military links associated with their initial settlement in the region, acquiring a widespread and well-founded reputation as brave and hardy soldiers. Secondly, they showed a marked affinity for commerce, particularly in the long-distance caravan trade which they came to dominate.

In fact, this Hui involvement in trade and transport is well-established in many parts of China, and rests on a number of factors, including the inherent nature of Islam as a ‘Religion of Commerce’. Thus, Islam generally spread along existing trade routes, with the establishment of mosques and halal restaurants intended to serve the needs of the Muslim caravaneers providing the 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 context that in the first half of the 14th century chronicler Wang Dayuan recorded the existence of an ‘overland road’ between Yunnan and Arabia.

The Muslim population of Yunnan may be broadly divided into three main groups: those of the north-east, who are the descendants of Uighur military colonists sent to farm in the Zhaotong area in 1313; those of the south-east who live in and around Jianshui and who are the descendants of Muslim refugees fleeing famine or rebellion in the north-west Chinese provinces of Shaanxi, Ningxia and Gansu at various disparate periods; and those of the south-west, centred in and around Dali, who trace their ancestry to Sayyid Ajall Shams al-Din Umar and his Central Asian followers and associates. Seemingly it was this latter, south-western Hui group which came to specialise in trade with Tibet, Burma and the Shan States; certainly it is noteworthy that the greater part of the Hui population resident in the Golden Triangle region today identify the native place of their ancestors as one of several districts in western Yunnan between Dali and the Burmese 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 a commercial and cultural entrepôt between the remainder of China and the various regions of Tibet, Assam and Southeast Asia. Trade routes, generally commencing in such Yunnanese commercial centres as Kunming in central Yunnan, Dali and Tengchong in the west, and Pu’er [formerly Simao] in the south, wound their way across rivers and over mountain ranges, through some 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 Hui Muslims came to dominate long-distance caravan commerce, so their communities and mosques tended 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 area extending 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 the winter season included finished cloth (wool, cotton and velvet), fruit, nuts, carpets, brass utensils and salt. The same caravans returned north carrying raw cotton, tea, opium, gem-stones and sometimes grain. No doubt numbers of Han Chinese and non-Chinese hill peoples were also involved in this trade, yet sources agree that the long-distance caravan commerce of Yunnan was primarily in the hands of Hui Muslim caravaneers.

Little is known for certain of the quantity or nature of the goods exchanged in the early commerce 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 probable exception of opium, the overland commerce of the 15th and 16th centuries was essentially similar 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 cumbersome for 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 deductions with regard to the caravaneers of the 13th to 17th centuries A. D., many of whom were certainly Hui 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).

Part of Trade Routes