Muslim China? Challenge accepted!

[yboxman]

This idea has been kicked around a few times. And its an attractive concept because Islam is an effective antidote for China's tendency towards isolationism from the Song (or even post An Lushan Tang) onwards - the Haj alone would ensure constant traffic and exposure of China with Central Asia and the Middle East. It is also a uber China-Wank: because China would be the largest and most powerful political entity within the Dar-el Islam by far and would hence be able to exercise significant leadership, perhaps even sinification, in a cultural-political zone streatching all the way to the Atlantic.

But there's a reason why no one has offered a likely scenario for this happening.

Basically, the problem is that :
a. On the popular conversion level Budhism arrives in China too early, and its coexistence with Taoism and Confucianism (the state ideology) leave little spiritual void for Islam to fill. Besides, Islam does not do peaceful conversion too well - with the indonesian (and Cham and Khmer) exception armed missionaries + one way conversion and marriage is how it has hisorically spread. Which is how the Hui came to be - Central Asian merchants, soldiers and conquerers (well, hangers on to Xia, Jin and Mongol conqurers).
b. Conversion from the top doesn't work well either - you would need the emperor to be exposed to it before conversion becomes political suicide, especially given how "conventional" Islam would view the well established rituals he must publicly perform to maintain the mandae ofheaven. There is also the problem that until the collapse of the Abbasid Caliphate conversion essentially means becoming an Abbasid tributary which is something no CHinese Emperor would contemplate.
c. Conversion by conquest requires that the conqurers be Muslim. And the problem is that the core territories of China's historical conqurers (Liao, Jin and even the Mongols) are too far from Muslim influence to be realistically converted. I won't go into the insanity of believing that the Umayyads or Abbasids can push much further east than they did OTL before they collapse.

So what does that leave? Basically a POD in which Timur comes rescue the Northern Yuan earlier, somehow flips the fairly Budhist commited Yuan and/or absorbs them, and then manages to leave a stable Muslim ruled northern China. Aside from Timur's Empire coming apart at the seam almost as soon as he died, the best, best case scenario here is a Mughal/ Delhi sultanate type Hierarchy of Muslims at the top with a few pockets elsewhere. It's too late to make too many inroads amongst the Han masses - who will eventually revolt against the foreign overlords/religion.

However, I have thought of a silver bullet to fix all these issues. I present to you.... Shia China. POD - the battle of Karbala. It's not worth trying if you won't go for broke.

 

[yboxman]

#1: Even if you have to go to China to earn knowledge, go

Following Ibn Ziyad's supression of the Alide partisans in Kufah, and his massacre of Husayn ben Ali's and his family in Karbalah, challenge to Umayad rule over the Ummah seemed defeated. However, not all of Husayn's family were killed in battle. Ali ibn Husayn not only survived the battle but had miraculously evaded capture, taking shelter amongst his adherents in Kufah*. The Kufahn's, who had invited his father to rule him, but who had failed to support him in the battle of Karbala atoned for this loss of face by swearing eternal loyalty to his righteous cause. With so many of them imprisoned or in hiding, however, and with Ib-Ziyad's watchful eye on the city, another uprising seemed inadvised at the time. Indeed, remaining in the city seemed itself ill-advised, for word of the survival of the young Imam might spread. Rather, Mukhtar and the twenty two companions smuggled Ali eastwards, to Fars and distant Korasan, while the hundred penitents scattered to the four winds, spreading word of the treachery and martyrdom of Karbala and preparing the Umma for the revolt which must overthrow the rule of the apostate usurper.

That opportunity would come but four years later, with the death of Yazid and the appointment of Muawiya II, his son and selected succesor, as Caliph. Having made clear that the Umayad's intended to seize the mandate of heaven contrary to both the right of the family of Ali and the ancestral practices of the جَاهِلِيَّة‎‎ فرس عربي , Ibn al-Zubay revolted, demandeing that the caliph be selected by consultation of all notable Quraysh, sparking the second Fitna, much as would occur six centuries later upon the death of the great Uniter of the Faith.

Thus, as Masr and the Hejaz declared for Ibn al-Zubay, Iraq, Fars and Korasan declared for Ali ibn Husayn**, who ended his occultation, while the wayward Khajirites siezed control of Eastern Arabia. For a time it seemed that Muawiya II, nearly besieged in Damascus, must surely sure. Conflict between the Zubayites and the righteous Alides, however, enabled the Umayads to crush each in turn. Pushed out of Mesopotamia, then Fars, Ali, realizing that his days in Korasan were numbered, prayed to Allah to discern his will.

When Mukhtar al Thakafi, returning weary from another battle that slowed but could not halt the Umayad tide, asked him what the faithful should do, Ali ibn Husayn quoted back the Hadith of the Prophet: Even if you have to go to China to earn knowledge, go.

So it was that the second Hejirah was embarked upon, though it would be a generation before the imam crossed through the borders of the Middle Kingdom. Beyond the Oxus awaited the first station in their long march - Sogdia.

* The POD, obviously. OTL Ali was captured and he and his descendants were effectively kept imprisoned in Medinah by both Umayids and Abbasids and according to Shiite martyology succesively and systematically poisonded by them.

** OTL, the Alide's were more of a sideshow, and never gained much support outside Messopotamia. TTL, they have a network ready to burst out of the woodwork across the Iranian Plateau.

 

[yboxman]

Though the faithful found respite across the Oxus, their position was precacious. The usurpers raided Sogdia frequently and the fire worshipping Tucharian princes hosting the Imam and his followers were susceptible to pressure to surreneder their guests to the false Caliphate in return for immunity, support against their neighbors, and so forth. Yet the faithful persevered, cleaving to the middle path. Through proper application of Rén (1) towards the unenlightened, were their hearts opened to the message of the prophet. By exhorting his followers to demonstrateof Yì (2) in all their dealings with the Sogdians, were their hosts persuaded that the heir of the prophet was a servant of truth, rather than the lie. By exercising Xìn (3) in every aspect of his conduct did the blessed Imam spread the message of righteousness without speaking a word. Of the great virtues, however, Zhōng (4) was most crucial in winning over the Sogdians. For the Imamate had an able general in the form of Mukhtar al Thakafi, and the forces under his command won many a famous victory over the raiders, leading the Sogdian princes to value their guests more highly. Indeed, with the declaration of Musa ibn Abdallah ibn Khazim for the the third Imam, and the flight of additional faithful across the Oxus, the Imamate no longer had to depend on their largess, for it controlled its own fortresses and city, and fielded the strongest army in Tucharia.

And yet, by righteousness, and by his exposure of the lie of the chicai simo (5) in the great debate of Samarkand, the Imam attracted the attentions of inferior men threatened by the radiant light of the Truth (6). These inferior men sent an emmisaries to Chang'an, following the Zhou (7), defeat of the misguided followers of Gautama Budha and recovery of Kashgaria, seeking their support against the heir of the prophet. The enlightenede Imam chose to travel in person to speak truth to the Sage Mother, once again demonstrating proper gōng and ràng (8).
Jinshi Civil Service examination essay, Xian, late Yan Dynasty,Hijra 400.


(1) benevolence
(2) righteousness
(3) integrity
(4) loyalty
(5) The manicheans, who are the main competition.
(6) I assume you can see what I'm doing here...
(7) Yes, Wu Zeitan is in control now... need to think about how she will be portrayed by offical ideology three centuries down the line.
(8) Respectful modesty