Muslim China

[Faeelin]

One of the surprising things that I've learned is the large number of Muslims in China. Zheng He was one, descended from Muslims who settled in South China; and there are plenty of Turks and so forth in Western China.

Can we get a Muslim army to conquer China? Must we go with Timur the Lame, or can we get one further back?

[Duncan]

Originally Posted by Faeelin

One of the surprising things that I've learned is the large number of Muslims in China. Zheng He was one, descended from Muslims who settled in South China; and there are plenty of Turks and so forth in Western China. Can we get a Muslim army to conquer China? Must we go with Timur the Lame, or can we get one further back?

Depends if you want to push an existing Muslim power further East, or convert someone closer to China.

Convert Chinggis? Or rather: establish a Muslim presence in Mongolia before 1200, so that one or more of the warring tribes are under a Muslim leadership (just as some seem to have been under Nestorian leadership). You may have to get someone to rule that kumiss isn't forbidden by the Koran... Then you need one of the Muslim-led groups, rather than the pagan Mongols, to win out in the wars of the early 13th century. China is then conquered by Muslim Keraits (or Naimans, or whatever) rather than by Buddhist-shamanist "Mongols": mostly the same soldiers, just a different name because there's a different ruling elite with a different ideology.

Not sure it's possible much earlier than that. I can't see the Arabs pushing east even if Talas was a far more overwhelming victory than in OTL, but it might be possible to get earlier or more extensive conversion of some of the steppe peoples.

[Hendryk]

Originally Posted by Duncan

Convert Chinggis? Or rather: establish a Muslim presence in Mongolia before 1200, so that one or more of the warring tribes are under a Muslim leadership (just as some seem to have been under Nestorian leadership). You may have to get someone to rule that kumiss isn't forbidden by the Koran... Then you need one of the Muslim-led groups, rather than the pagan Mongols, to win out in the wars of the early 13th century. China is then conquered by Muslim Keraits (or Naimans, or whatever) rather than by Buddhist-shamanist "Mongols": mostly the same soldiers, just a different name because there's a different ruling elite with a different ideology.

I agree it's the most likely possibility. But, once the Mongols firmly established in China with the Yuan dynasty, it would likely take a few centuries for Islam to trickle down from the ruling classes to the rest of society. Adhesion would be purely formal in many cases, and some form of accommodation would have to be found with Confucianism in order to placate the clerical class--the Mongols wouldn't be able to hold on to China for long without the support of the Confucian bureaucracy, even if they resort to hiring larger numbers of foreigners as inbetweeners than in OTL (Uighurs were often used in that quality). Then, as with the "Jewish China" thread, there would be the problem of pork, compounded by the ban on alcoholic drinks.
Eventually, a Muslim China may come to resemble the Ottoman empire, with sizeable pockets of non-Muslim population and large numbers of "conversions of convenience".