Communication between China and Persia in the 13th-14th Centuries: (original) (raw)

Sino-Iranian and Sino-Arabian Relations in Late Antiquity: China and the Parthians, Sasanians, and Arabs in the First Millennium

Sino-Iranian and Sino-Arabian Relations in Late Antiquity: China and the Parthians, Sasanians, and Arabs in the First Millennium, 2024

What type of exchanges occurred between West and East Asia in the first millennium CE? What sort of connections existed between Persia and China? What did the Chinese know of early Islam? This study offers an overview of the cultural, diplomatic, commercial, and religious relationships that flourished between Iran and China, building on the pioneering work of Berthold Laufer’s Sino-Iranica (1919) while utilizing a diverse array of Classical Chinese sources to tell the story of Sino-Iran in a fresh light to highlight the significance of transcultural networks across Asia in late antiquity. This is an open access title distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, which permits any non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided no alterations are made and the original author(s) and source are credited.

Matteo Ricci as an Islamicate Informant. Two Moments of Connection in the Persian Afterlives of a Latin Account of China

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2023

Three centuries after the Mongol-era historian Rashid al-Din (1247-1318) wrote his influential account of China, an émigré Christian convert from Islam translated Matteo Ricci's book on China into Persian in Mughal Delhi. In doing so, he provided a remarkably detailed depiction of the rulers, religions, and regulations of the Ming empire that greatly updated, and superseded, Rashid al-Din's celebrated account. Nonetheless, by the very virtue of its triangulated originsbetween China, Europe, and India; between Chinese, Latin, and Persian-this was a fraught endeavour. For Chinese cultural traditions had to be rendered into Islamicate Persian terms that were approximate equivalents for Latin Christian terms which themselves inevitably misrepresented Confucian terms that in turn provided biased depictions of Buddhist and Daoist beliefs. By looking at two moments of the transmission of Ricci into Persian-in the early modern era of manuscripts and amid the colonial ascent of Indian print-this article uses translation as a lens through which to observe both the reach and limits of the cross-cultural connections that have captivated global historians in recent decades.

Direct Sea Trade Between Early Islamic Iraq and Tang China: from the Exchange of Goods to the Transmission of Ideas

This article is a historical study of maritime trade between Tang China and early Islamic Iraq, in the seventh to tenth centuries. While the existence, in this period, of merchant communities from the Arab-Persian Gulf in Chinese ports has been known for a long time, the present study seeks to contextualise their emergence, to articulate the socio-economic conditions of their trade, and to consider the extent to which these were conducive to transmissions of ideas. Building upon scholarly findings accumulated in different disciplines, it outlines patterns of exchange that, while limited in scope, were more systemic than has hitherto been assumed.

The Sino-Arab political relations during the T'ang Dynasty (618-907AD

The study of " The Sino-Arab political relations during the T’ang Dynasty (618-907 AD) " is one of the most important topics that had occupied a large part of the historical researches; it aims to highlight the first contact among Arabs and China which took place during the T’ang Dynasty. According to Chinese and Arabic historical sources, Arab countries sent to China during this period (618-907 AD) the first diplomatic mission by Caliph Othman Bin Affan, followed by other missions during the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties. The relations between the two sideshave been negatively and positively affected by regional and international developments and their respective political roles in the region. Keywords: Abbasid; Central Asia; Qutaiba; Talas; Silk Road

BLOG POST: Sino-Persian Exchange Along the Silk Road

Scottish Centre for Global History , 2021

What do the words for “lion” (狮子shīzi), “spinach” (菠菜bōcài), and “grape” (葡萄 (pútáo) all have in common in Chinese? They all derive, directly or indirectly, from either Persian roots or are otherwise etymologically or conceptually linked to Iran. Just how far back can ties between ancient China and early Iranian societies in Central Asia be traced?

An Overview on Commercial Relations between Iran and China in the era of Empires Sassanid

The most important impact of Iran and china relations on each other has been commercial exchanges. The history of the Iran-China trade relations to the late second century BC and the Empire Ashkanis erase. The most important of good which was exchanged between the parties was silk. Silk had many fans in Iranian territory, especially in Roman Empire. Iranian weren't main customers of silks. They were playing the role of business intermediaries and they had the role for 700 years and an important point is the expansion of business relations with China by the Western cities of Empires Sassanid. When we study the history of fights that happened in Iran many years ago, we can understand that the main reason of many fights was commercial issues. Routes that goods could be carried throughout them, had an important role for these fights. So paying attention to history of commercial relationships between Iran and China is so important because we can understand that many great fights in history of human is result of commercial issues (routes, resources, …) and also we can understand that because the Silk Road was passed through Iran, some Iranian kings considered it as a benefit and wanted to impose tax on merchants who wanted to pass through the Silk Road. So we can understand how important commercial issues were in the past by studying commercial history.