China Islam

The founder of Islam (Yisilan Jiao) was the Arab prophet Mohammed.

Strictly speaking, Muslims believe it was not Mohammed who shaped the religion but God, and Mohammed merely transmitted it from God to his people. The proper name of the religion is Islam, derived from the word salam, which primarily means 'peace', and in a secondary sense 'surrender' or 'submission'. The full connotation is something like 'the peace that comes by surrendering to God'. The corresponding adjective is 'Muslim'. The Prophet was born around AD 570 and came to be called Moham- med, meaning 'highly praised'. His ancestry is traditionally traced back to Abraham, who had two wives, Hagar and Sarah. Hagar gave birth to Ishmael, and Sarah had a son named Isaac. Sarah demanded that Hagar and Ishmael be banished. According to Islam's holy book, the Koran, Ishmael went to Mecca, where his line of descendants can be traced down to Mohammed. There have been other true prophets before Mohammed, but he is regarded as the culmination of them and the last.

Mohammed said that there is only one God, Allah. The name derives from joining al, which means 'the', with Llah, which means 'God'. His uncompromising monotheism conflicted with the pantheism and idola- try of the Arabs. His moral teachings and vision of a universal brother- hood conflicted with what he believed was a corrupt social order based on class divisions.

The initial reaction to his teachings was hostile. He and his followers were forced to flee from Mecca to Medina in 622, where Mohammed built a political base and an army that eventually defeated Mecca and brought all of Arabia under his control. He died in 632, two years after taking Mecca. By the time a century had passed the Arab Muslims had built a huge empire that stretched all the way from Persia to Spain. Although the Arabs were eventually supplanted by the Turks, the strength of Islam has continued to the present day.

Islam was brought to China peacefully. Arab traders who landed on the southern coast of China established their mosques in great maritime cities like Guangzhou and Quanzhou, and Muslim merchants travelling the Silk Road to China won converts among the Han Chinese in the north of the country. There are also large populations of Muslim Uighur people (of Turkic descent), whose ancestors first moved into China's Xinjiang region during the Tang dynasty.

Christianity

The earliest record of Christianity (Jidu Jiao) in China dates back to the Nestorians, a Syrian Christian sect. They first appeared in China in the 7th century when a Syrian named Raban presented Christian scriptures to the imperial court at Chang'an (present-day Xi'an). This event and the construction of a Nestorian monastery in Chang'an are recorded on a large stone stele made in AD 781, now displayed in the Shaanxi History Museum (p413) in Xi'an.

The next major Christian group to arrive in China were the Jesuits. The priests Matteo Ricci and Michael Ruggieri were permitted to set up base at Zhaoqing in Guangdong in the 1580s, and eventually made it to the imperial court in Beijing. Large numbers of Catholic and Protestant missionaries established themselves in China following the intrusion into China by the Western powers in the 19th century. Christians are estimated to comprise about 1% of China's population.

Judaism

Kaifeng (p441) in Henan province has been the home of the largest com- munity of Chinese jews. Their religious beliefs of Judaism (Youtai Jiao) and almost all the customs associated with them have died out, yet the descendants of the original Jews still consider themselves Jewish. Just how the Jews got to China is unknown. They may have come as traders and merchants along the Silk Road when Kaifeng was the capital of China, or they may have emigrated from India.