Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T00:39:13.619Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

From the Silk Road to the Railroad (and Back): The Means and Meanings of the Iranian Encounter with China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Nile Green
Nile Green*
Affiliation:
UCLA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In view of the recent expansion of Indo-Persian studies, the neglect of the Sino-Persian nexus is a missed opportunity to place Iranian history on a larger Asian stage. While Iranian contact with China has continued episodically from antiquity to modernity, scholars have so far focused almost exclusively on the pre-modern phases of exchange. As a contribution to developing the field of Sino-Persian studies, this article situates two twentieth century Iranian travelers to China against the changing background of Chinese–Iranian exchange from the medieval to modern period. In so doing, it demonstrates the infrastructural and conceptual apparatus that enabled the modern Iranian encounter with China while asking how, if at all, twentieth century intellectuals were able to draw on a longer history of interaction to find meanings for Sino-Persian exchange.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , March 2015 , pp. 165 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 The International Society for Iranian Studies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I am most grateful to Jonathan Lipman, Masumi Matsumoto, Alexandre Papas and Rahim Shayegan for comments and suggestions. I am also thankful to the various Hui and Uighur Muslims who guided me through their mosques and other historical buildings in different parts of China.

References

Afshār, Īraj, ed. Khitāy-nāmeh: Sharh-e Moshāhidāt-e Sayyid ‘Alī Akbar Khitā’ī, Mo'āsir-e Shāh Esmā’īl Safavī dar Chīn. Tehran: Markaz-e Asnād-e Farhangī-ye Āsiyā, 1357/1979.Google Scholar
Ahmad, N. “Zabān-e Fārsī dar Chīn.” Āyandeh 15, no. 3–5 (1368/1989).Google Scholar
Azra, Azyumardi. “The Transmission of al-Manār's Reformism to the Malay-Indonesian World: The Case of al-Imām and al-Munīr.” In Intellectuals in the Modern Islamic World: Transmission, Transformation, Communication, edited by Dudoignon, Stéphane A., Hisao, Komatsu and Yasushi, Kosugi. London: Routledge, 2006.Google Scholar
Badī‘ī, Nādireh. Farhang-e Vāzheh-hā-ye Fārsī dar Zabān-e Ūyghūrī-ye Chīn. Tehran: Nashr-e Balkh, 1998.Google Scholar
Bāmdād, Mehdī. Sharh-e Hāl-e Rejāl-e Īrān Dar Qarn-e 12 va 13 va 14 Hejrī. 6 vols. Tehran: Zavvār, 1363/1984.Google Scholar
Barzegar, Ali. “Mahdi Qoli Hidayat: A Conservative of the Late Qajar Era.” Iranian Studies 20, no. 1 (1987): 55–76. doi: 10.1080/00210868708701691Google Scholar
Ben-Dor Benite, Zvi. “‘Nine Years in Egypt’: Al-Azhar University and the Arabization of Chinese Islam.” Hagar: Studies in Culture, Polity and Identities 8, no. 1 (2008): 105–128.Google Scholar
Ben-Dor Benite, Zvi. “Taking ‘Abduh to China: Chinese-Egyptian Intellectual Contact in the Early Twentieth Century.” In Global Muslims in the Age of Steam and Print, 1850–1930, edited by Gelvin, James L. and Green, Nile. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Ben-Dor Benite, Zvi. The Dao of Muhammad: A Cultural History of Muslims in Late Imperial China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2005.Google Scholar
Ben-Dor, Zvi Aziz. “‘Even unto China’: Displacement and Chinese Muslim Myths of Origin.” Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies 4, no. 2 (2002–3): 93–114.Google Scholar
Bodde, Derk. “Japan and the Muslims of China.” Far Eastern Survey 15, no. 20 (1946): 311–313. doi: 10.2307/3021860CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Botham, Mark E. “Modern Movements among Chinese Mohammedans.” The Moslem World 13, no. 3 (1923): 291–299. doi: 10.1111/j.1478-1913.1923.tb01961.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carter, James Hugh. Creating a Chinese Harbin: Nationalism in an International City, 1916–1932. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Dennys, Nicholas Belfield, ed. The Treaty Ports of China and Japan: A Complete Guide to the Open Ports of those Countries, Together with Peking, Yedo, Hongkong and Macao. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, repr. 2012 [1867].Google Scholar
Dillon, Michael. China's Muslim Hui Community: Migration, Settlement and Sects. Richmond, UK: Curzon Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Dudoignon, Stéphane A., Hisao, Komatsu and Yasushi, Kosugi, eds. Intellectuals in the Modern Islamic World: Transmission, Transformation, Communication. London: Routledge, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dündar, Ali Merthan. “An Analysis on the Documents Related to China: Materials in the Ottoman and Republic Archives of Turkey.” Eurasian Studies (2009): 329–346.Google Scholar
Dündar, Ali Merthan, and Misawa, Nobuo, eds. Books in Tatar-Turkish Printed by Tokyo'da Mahalle-i İslamiye. Tokyo: Tokyo University Asian Cultures Research Institute, 2010.Google Scholar
Eich, Thomas. “Pan-Islam and ‘Yellow Peril’: Geo-Strategic Concepts in Salafi Writings Prior to World War I.” In The Islamic Middle East and Japan: Perceptions, Aspirations, and the Birth of Intra-Asian Modernity, edited by Worringer, Renée. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 2007.Google Scholar
Farmān-Farmā’iān, Sattāreh. Dar Ānsū-ye Dīvār-e Chīn: Gozārishī az Yek Safar-e 33 Rūzah beh Keshvar-e Chīn. Tehran: n.p., 2536/1977.Google Scholar
Fletcher, Joseph. “The Naqshbandiyya in Northwest China.” In Joseph Fletcher, Studies on Chinese and Islamic Inner Asia, edited by Manz, Beatrice. London: Variorum, 1995.Google Scholar
Franck, Irene M., and Brownstone, David M.. Jādeh-ye Abrīsham, translated by Mohsin Salāsī. Tehran: Sorōsh, 1376/1997.Google Scholar
Galambos, Imre. “Buddhist Relics from the Western Regions: Japanese Archaeological Exploration of Central Asia.” In Writing Travel in Central Asian History, edited by Green, Nile. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Gladney, Dru C. Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People's Republic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Gladney, Dru C. “Sino-Middle Eastern Perspectives and Relations since the Gulf War: Views from Below”, International Journal of Middle East Studies 6, no. 4 (1994): 677–691. doi: 10.1017/S0020743800061171Google Scholar
Green, Nile. “Journeymen, Middlemen: Travel, Trans-Culture and Technology in the Origins of Muslim Printing.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 41, no. 2 (2009): 203–224. doi: 10.1017/S0020743809090631Google Scholar
Green, Nile. Bombay Islam: The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean, 1840-1915. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Green, Nile. “Introduction: Writing, Travel and the Global History of Central Asia.” In Writing Travel in Central Asian History, edited by Green, Nile. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Green, Nile. “Shared Infrastructures, Informational Asymmetries: Persians and Indians in Japan, c.1890–1930.” Journal of Global History 8, no. 3 (2013): 414–435.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, Nile. “The Rail Hajjis: The Trans-Siberian Railway and the Long Way to Mecca.” In Hajj: Collected Essays, edited by Porter, Venetia. London: British Museum, 2013.Google Scholar
Harris, George K. “Al-Azhar through Chinese Spectacles.” The Moslem World 24, no. 2 (1934): 178–182. doi: 10.1111/j.1478-1913.1934.tb00293.xGoogle Scholar
Hayashi, Ryoichi. The Silk Road and the Shoso-in, translated by Robert Ricketts. Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1975 [original Japanese edition: 1966].Google Scholar
Hedāyat, Mehdī Qolī. Safarnāmeh-ye Tasharrof beh Makkeh-ye Mo‘azzemeh. Tehran: Chāpkhāneh-ye Majles, n.d.Google Scholar
Hemmat, Kaveh Louis. “Children of Cain in the Land of Error: A Central Asian Merchant's Treatise on Government and Society in Ming China.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 30, no. 3 (2010): 434–448. doi: 10.1215/1089201X-2010-026Google Scholar
Ho, Wai-Yip. “Mobilizing the Muslim Minority for China's Development: Hui Muslims, Ethnic Relations and Sino-Arab Connections.” Journal of Comparative Asian Development 12, no. 1 (2013): 84–112. doi: 10.1080/15339114.2012.749119CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huenemann, Ralph W. The Dragon and the Iron Horse: The Economics of Railroads in China, 1876–1937. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 1984.Google Scholar
Ibrahim, ‘Abd al-Rashid. ‘Alem-i Islam ve Japonya'da Intisari Islamiyet. 2 vols. Istanbul, 1910–13. Partially translated as: François Georgeon with Işık Tamdoğan-Abel, Abdürrechid Ibrahim: Un Tatar au Japon: Voyage en Asie (1908–1910). Paris: Sindbad-Actes Sud, 2004.Google Scholar
Israeli, Raphael. Islam in China: Religion, Ethnicity, Culture and Politics. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2002. Translated into Persian as: Rāfā’il Īzrā’īlī. Musalmānān-e Chīn: Rūyārūyī-ye Dū Farhang. Mashhad: Bonyād-e Pezhūheshhā-ye Eslāmī-ye Āstān-e Qods-e Rezavī, 1368/1989.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Justin M. “Confronting Indiana Jones: Chinese Nationalism, Historical Imperialism, and the Criminalization of Aurel Stein and the Raiders of Dunhuang, 1899–1944”, in China on the Margins, edited by Cochran, Sherman and Pickowicz, Paul G.. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Karl, Jahn, ed. Die Chinageschichte des Rašīd ad-Dīn (Persische Version, aus der Bibliothek des Topkapi Sarayi, Hazine, Nr. 1653. Arabische Version, aus der Bibliothek der Royal Asiatic Society, A. 27). Vienna: Böhlau in Komm., 1971.Google Scholar
Jahn, Karl. China in der islamischen Geschichtsschreibung. Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1971.Google Scholar
Kahle, Paul Ernst. “Eine islamische Quelle uber China um 1500 (Das Khitayname des Ali Ekber).” Acta Orientalia 12 (1934): 91–110.Google Scholar
Kasheff, Manouchehr. “Hedāyat, Mokber al-Saltana. i. Life and Work.” In Encyclopaedia Iranica. New York: Columbia University Center for Iranica Studies, 1997.Google Scholar
Khaleghi-Motlagh, Djalal. “Chinese–Iranian Relations, X: China in Medieval Persian Literature.” Encylopaedia Iranica.Google Scholar
Laffan, Michael F. Islamic Nationhood and Colonial Indonesia: The Umma Below the Winds. Abingdon: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.Google Scholar
Lipman, Jonathan N. Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Mao, Yufeng. “A Muslim Vision for the Chinese Nation: Chinese Pilgrimage Missions to Mecca during World War II.” Journal of Asian Studies 70, no. 2 (2011): 373–395. doi: 10.1017/S0021911811000088Google Scholar
Matsumoto, Masumi. “Sino-Muslims’ Identity and Thoughts during the Anti-Japanese War—Impact of the Middle East on Islamic Revival and Reform in China.” Annals of Japan Association for Middle East Studies 18, no. 2 (2003): 39–54.Google Scholar
Matsumoto, Masumi. “Islamic Reform in Muslim Periodicals.” Etudes Orientales 21–22 (2004): 88–104.Google Scholar
Matsumoto, Masumi. “Rationalizing Patriotism among Muslim Chinese: The Impact of the Middle East on the Yuehua Journal.” In Intellectuals in the Modern Islamic World: Transmission, Transformation, Communication, edited by Dudoignon, Komatsu Hisao, Stéphane A. and Yasushi, Kosugi. London: Routledge, 2006.Google Scholar
Matsumoto, Masumi. “Why Was Persian Learning Excluded? Secularization and Modernization of Islam in China.” Paper presented at the annual conference of the Association for Asian Studies, San Diego (March 2013).Google Scholar
Mazāhirī, ‘Alī [Aly Mazahéri]. Jādeh-ye Abrīsham. Tehran: Mo'assaseh-ye Motāla‘āt va Tahqīqāt-e Farhangī, 1372/1993.Google Scholar
Mīnovī, Mojtabā. Tarjomeh-ye ‘Ulūm-e Chīnī beh-Fārsī dar Qarn-e Hashtum-e Hejrī. Tehran: Majalleh-ye Dānishkadeh-e Adabīyāt, 1334/1955.Google Scholar
Mohajer, Parviz. “Chinese–Iranian Relations v: Diplomatic and Commercial Relations, 1949–90.” Encyclopaedia Iranica. New York: Columbia University Center for Iranica Studies, 1997.Google Scholar
Nadīmal-Soltān, Mohammed, trans. Tārīkh-e Chīn. Tehran: Matba‘a-ye Khorshīd, 1907.Google Scholar
Noack, Christian. “Die sibirischen Bucharioten: Eine muslimische Minderheit unter russischer Herrschaft”, Cahiers du monde russe 41, no. 2–3 (2000): 263–278.Google Scholar
Nodoushan, Mohammed ‘Alī Eslāmī. Zendagī va Marg-e Pahlavān dar Shāhnāmeh. Tehran: Entishārāt-e Tūs, 1349/1970.Google Scholar
Nodoushan, Mohammed ‘Alī Eslāmī. Dar Keshvar-e Shaurahā: Safar beh Ettihād-e Jamāhir-e Shauravī. Tehran: Enteshārāt-e Tūs, 1975.Google Scholar
Nodoushan, Mohammed ‘Alī Eslāmī. Kārnāmeh-ye Safar-e Chīn. Tehran: Enteshārāt-e Amīr Kabīr, 1362/1983.Google Scholar
O'Connor, Paul. Islam in Hong Kong: Muslims and Everyday Life in China's World City. Aberdeen, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogilvie, Charles L. “The Present Status of Mohammedanism in Peking.” The Moslem World 4, no. 2 (1914): 165–172. doi: 10.1111/j.1478-1913.1914.tb01371.xGoogle Scholar
Papas, Alexandre. “Voyageurs ottomans et tatars en Extrême-Orient: un dialogue entre islam, confucianisme et lamaïsme.” In Penser, Agir et Vivre dans l'Empire Ottoman et en Turquie: Études Réunies pour François Georgeon, edited by Clayer, Nathalie and Kaynar, Erdal. Louvain: Peeters, 2013.Google Scholar
Park, Hyunhee. Mapping the Chinese and Islamic Worlds: Cross-Cultural Exchange in Pre-Modern Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Rajabzadeh, Hashem. “Russo-Japanese War as Told by Iranians.” Annals of Japan Association for Middle East Studies 3, no. 2 (1988): 144–166.Google Scholar
Rossabi, Morris. “Tabriz and Yuan China.” In Aspects of the Maritime Silk Road: From the Persian Gulf to the East China Sea, edited by Kauz, Ralph. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010.Google Scholar
Schichor, Yitzhak. The Middle East in China's Foreign Policy, 1949–1977. London: Cambridge University Press, 1979.Google Scholar
Shi-jian, Huang. “The Persian Language in China during the Yuan Dynasty.” Papers on Far Eastern History (Canberra) 34 (1986): 83–95.Google Scholar
Shi-Jian, Huang, and Jin-Yuan, Ibrahim Feng, “Chinese–Iranian Relations viii: Persian Language and Literature in China.” Encyclopaedia Iranica. New York: Columbia University Center for Iranica Studies, 1997.Google Scholar
Shīrāzī, Mīrzā Mohammed Malek al-Kuttāb. Ketāb Mirāt al-Zamān dar Tārīkh-e Chīn va Māchīn va Japān. Bombay: Dutt Prasad Press, 1893.Google Scholar
Tashakkurī, ‘Abbās. Īrān beh Ravāyat-e Chīn-e Bāstān: Negāhī beh Ravābit-e Sīyāsī, Tejāratī va Farhangī-ye Īrān va Chīn tā Eslām: Tehran: Mo'asseseh-ye Ravābet-e Bayn al-Milalī, 2536/1977.Google Scholar
Usmanova, Larisa. The Türk-Tatar Diaspora in Northeast Asia: Transformation of Consciousness: A Historical and Sociological Account between 1898 and the 1950s. Tokyo: Rakudasha, 2007.Google Scholar
Wang, Yidan. “The Iranian Constitutional Revolution as Reported in the Chinese Press.” In Iranian Constitutional Revolution: Popular Politics, Cultural Transformations and Transnational Connections, edited by Chehabi, Houchang E. and Martin, Vanessa. London: I. B. Tauris, 2010.Google Scholar
Waugh, Daniel C. “Richthofen's ‘Silk Roads’: Towards the Archaeology of a Concept.” The Silk Road 5, no. 1 (2007): 1–10.Google Scholar
Weiss, Anita M. “South Asian Muslims in Hong Kong: Creation of a ‘Local Boy’ Identity.” Modern Asian Studies 25, no. 3 (1991): 417–453. doi: 10.1017/S0026749X00013895Google Scholar
Yagānah, Homāyūn Amīr. Semnān: Nagīn-e Rāh-e Abrīshamī. Tehran: Honarsarā-ye Gūyā, 1386/2007.Google Scholar
Yasushi, Kosugi. “ Al-Manār Revisited: The ‘Lighthouse’ of the Islamic Revival.” In Intellectuals in the Modern Islamic World: Transmission, Transformation, Communication, edited by Dudoignon, Komatsu Hisao, Stéphane A. and Yasushi, Kosugi. London: Routledge, 2006.Google Scholar
Yih-Min, Lin. “A Comparative and Critical Study of Ali Akbar's Khitaynama with References to Chinese Sources.” Central Asiatic Journal 27, no. 1–2 (1983): 58–78.Google Scholar
Yingsheng, Liu. “A Lingua Franca along the Silk Road: Persian Language in China between the 14th and the 16th Centuries.” In Aspects of the Maritime Silk Road: From the Persian Gulf to the East China Sea, edited by Kauz, Ralph. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010.Google Scholar
Zarcone, Thierry. “Le Mathnavî de Rûmî au Turkestan Oriental et au Xinjiang.” in De l'Arabie à l'Himalaya: Chemins croisés en hommage à Marc Gaborieau, edited by Bouillier, Veronique and Servan-Schreiber, Catherine. Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose, 2004.Google Scholar