The Islamic World as Seen from a Chinese Perspective

The commercial growth of Song China was not confined to its borders. China conducted extensive international trade through ongoing traffic along the Silk Road and the use of sea routes through Southeast Asia that connected China to the Islamic world. The following account describes China’s trading partners through the eyes of Chau Ju-Kua (1170–1228), a customs inspector of the southern port city of Quanzhou. Although Chau’s knowledge was probably not firsthand, his descriptions hint at the important role that Arab merchants played in facilitating international trade.

The Ta-shï are to the west and north (or north-west) of Ts‘üan-chóu [Quanzhou] at a very great distance from it, so that the foreign ships find it difficult to make the voyage there direct. After these ships have left Ts‘üan-chóu they come in some forty days to Lan-li, where they trade. The following year they go to sea again, when with the aid of the regular wind they take some sixty days to make the journey.

The products of the country are for the most part brought to San-fo-ts‘i [another port in Sumatra], where they are sold to merchants who forward them to China.

This country of the Ta-shï is powerful and warlike. Its extent is very great, and its inhabitants are pre-eminent among all foreigners for their distinguished bearing.

The climate throughout a large part of it is cold, snow falling to a depth of two or three feet; consequently rugs are much prized.

The capital of the country, called Mi-sü-li, is an important center for the trade of foreign peoples. . . .

The streets are more than fifty feet broad; in the middle is a roadway twenty feet broad and four feet high for the use of camels, horses, and oxen carrying goods about. On either side, for the convenience of pedestrians’ business, there are sidewalks paved with green and black flagstones of surpassing beauty.

The dwellings of the people are like those of the Chinese, with this difference that here thin flagstones are used instead of tiles.

The food consists of rice and other cereals; mutton stewed with fine strips of dough is considered a delicacy. The poor live on fish, vegetables and fruits only; sweet dishes are preferred to sour. Wine is made out of the juice of grapes, and there is also the drink ssï, a decoction of sugar and spices. By mixing of honey and spices they make a drink meï-ssï-ta-hu, which is very heating.

Very rich persons use a measure instead of scales in business transactions in gold or silver. The markets are noisy and bustling, and are filled with great store of gold and silver damasks, brocades, and such like wares. The artisans have the true artistic spirit.

The king, the officials and the people all serve Heaven. They have also a Buddha by the name of Ma-hia-wu [Muhammad]. Every seven days they cut their hair and clip their finger nails. At the New Year for a whole month they fast and chant prayers. Daily they pray to Heaven five times.

The peasants work their fields without fear of inundations or droughts; a sufficiency of water for irrigation is supplied by a river whose source is not known. During the season when no cultivation is in progress, the level of the river remains even with the banks; with the beginning of cultivation it rises day by day. Then it is that an official is appointed to watch the river and to await the highest water level, when he summons the people, who then plough and sow their fields. When they have had enough water, the river returns to its former level.

There is a great harbor in this country, over two hundred feet deep, which opens to the south-east on the sea, and has branches connecting with all quarters of the country. On either bank of the harbor the people have their dwellings and here daily are held fairs, where crowd boats and wagons, all loaded with hemp, wheat, millet, beans, sugar, meal, oil, firewood, fowls, sheep, geese, ducks, fish, shrimps, date-cakes, grapes and other fruits.

The products of the country consist in pearls, ivory, rhinoceros horns, frankincense, ambergris, putchuck, cloves, nutmegs, benzoin, aloes, myrrh, dragon’s-blood, . . . borax, opaque and transparent glass, . . . shell, coral, cat’s-eyes, gardenia flowers, rose-water, nut-galls, yellow wax, soft gold brocades, camel’s-hair cloth, . . . and foreign satins.

The foreign traders who deal in these merchandise, bring them to San-fo-ts‘i and to Fo-lo-an to barter. . . .

The country of Ma-kia is reached if one travels from the country of Ma-lo-pa for eighty days westward by land.

This is the place where the Buddha Ma-hia-wu was born. In the House of the Buddha the walls are made of jade stone (or precious stones) of every color. Every year, when the anniversary of the death of the Buddha comes round, the people from all countries of the Ta-shï assemble here, when they vie with each other in bringing presents of gold, silver, jewels and precious stones. Then also is the House adorned anew with silk brocade.

Farther off there is the tomb of the Buddha. Continually by day and night there is at this place such a brilliant refulgence that no one can approach it; he who does loses his sight.

Whosoever in the hour of his death rubs his breast with dirt taken from this tomb, will, they say, be restored to life again by the power of the Buddha. . . .

The country of Mu-lan-p‘i is to the west of the Ta-shï country. There is a great sea, and to the west of this sea there are countless countries, but Mu-lan-p‘i is the one country which is visited by the big ships of the Ta-shï. Putting to sea from T‘o-pan-ti in the country of Ta-shï, after sailing due west for full a hundred days, one reaches this country. A single one of these (big) ships of theirs carries several thousand men, and on board they have stores of wine and provisions, as well as weaving looms. If one speaks of big ships, there are none so big as those of Mu-lan-p‘i.

The products of this country are extraordinary; the grains of wheat are three inches long, the melons six feet round, enough for a meal for twenty or thirty men. The pomegranates weigh five catties, the peaches two catties, citrons over twenty catties, salads weigh over ten catties and have leaves three or four feet long. Rice and wheat are kept in silos for tens of years without spoiling. Among the native products are foreign sheep, which are several feet high and have tails as big as a fan. In the spring-time they slit open their bellies and take out some tens of catties of fat, after which they sew them up again, and the sheep live on; if the fat were not removed, (the animal) would swell up and die.

If one travels by land (from Mu-lan-p‘i) two hundred days journey, the days are only six hours long. In autumn if the west wind arises, men and beasts must at once drink to keep alive, and if they are not quick enough about it they die of thirst.

Chau Ju-Kua: His Work on the Chinese and Arab Trade in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, Entitled Chu-fan-chi, trans. Friedrich Hirth and W. W. Rockhill (St. Petersburg: Printing Office of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1911), 114–116, 124–125, 154–155.

READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS