Unearthing the Liao Dynasty’s Relations with the Muslim World: Migrations, Diplomacy, Commerce, and Mutual Perceptions (original) (raw)
Related papers
Asian Affairs, 2012
Under the new situation of international trade competition, it is very important to reexamine China's trade policies and foreign relations with other economic forces in East Asia from a historical perspective. It is also possible to re-analysis the Ancient Silk Road and the Tribute System, and make some new explanation. This paper holds that the construction and expansion of the foreign trade networks in ancient China was not only closely relative to the changes and development of domestic strength, but also tightly relevant to the cooperation, comparison and interaction with other countries, especially those surrounding China in East Asia. The ancient trade relations also reveal the irregular fluctuation pattern from a long period of time.
Between the Silk and Fur Roads: The Qarakhanid Diplomacy and Trade
ORIENTIERUNGEN: Zeitschrift zur Kultur Asiens , 2016
This paper concerns a problem of Sino-Islamic interactions in the pre-Mongol period and the role of the Qarakhanid diplomacy and trade based on Islamic and Chinese sources as well as new numismatic and archeological materials. In order to illustrate the Qarakhanid position in international gifting and trade commodities exchange I will provide a case of the Qarakhanids’ relations with their nearest neighbors in the Islamic and Sinitic worlds: the Ghaznavid Sultanate in Afghanistan and the Liao Empire in China.
Many Belts, Many Roads: China and the Islamic World, c.600AD-Present
2019
This seminar invites you to explore the history of interactions between China and the Islamic world across the greater Indian Ocean region, sometimes called the “maritime Silk Road.” It will focus especially on Muslims living in China itself, who played a particularly important role bridging these diverse spaces and cultures. Temporally and spatially broad, the course covers the 1,400 years since the rise of the Tang Dynasty to the east and Islamic societies to the west. For most of those fourteen centuries, China and the Islamic world boasted the largest cities on earth, such as Chang’an, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Beijing, Cairo, and Constantinople. Before European expansion, flows of people, goods, and ideas between those urban foci accounted for the majority of the world’s economic activity and some of its richest cultural achievements. Those complex exchanges have left some of the least understood yet quietly consequential legacies for the more recent era of nationalism, Western geopolitical dominance, and “China’s rise.” This seminar offers multiple ways of understanding Chinese, Islamic, and global history, and illuminates aspects of contemporary Chinese state and society, intra-Asian exchange, and international relations. It will encourage you to think (and think again) about both interconnectedness and difference in the context of greater Asia. It will demand that you look beyond the framework of the nation-state, but will also ask you to contemplate how nationalisms have shaped understandings of the pre-national past. It will invite you, furthermore, to consider whether our basic definitions of “China” and “Islam” adequately account for the connected histories we will discuss. Specific themes will include community formation, material exchange, texts and transculturation, art and architecture, religious thought and practice, border-crossing and mobility, border-making and inequalities, state-building and state-minority relations, the transformations and disruptions of the European colonial era, the transition from dynastic empires to modern nation-states, processes of ethnicization and minoritization, and the “presence of the past.”
Journal of Early Modern History, 2021
This article studies two sixteenth-century Asian texts: Khitay namah, a Persian travelogue about the Ming dynasty written by the Muslim merchant Ali Akbar and presented to the Ottoman sultan, and Xiyu, an illustrated Chinese geographical treatise with detailed travel itinerary from China to Istanbul by the Ming scholar-official Ma Li. In addition to demonstrating the breadth of Ottoman and Chinese knowledge about each other in the global Age of Exploration, these two books, written respectively for the monarchs of the self-proclaimed Islamic and Chinese universal empires, reflect the Ottoman and Chinese imperial ideologies in an era when major world powers aggressively vied for larger territories and broader international influence. Both the Ottoman and Chinese authors recast the foreign Other as the familiar Self – Ali Akbar constructed an Islamized China while Ma Li depicted a Sinicized Ottoman world – to justify their countries’ claims to universal sovereignty and plans for imperial expansion. Like many contemporary European colonial writers, Ali Akbar’s and Ma Li’s exploration of foreign societies, their literary glorification of their own culture’s supremacy, and their imposition of their own cultural thinking on foreign lands all served their countries’ colonial enterprise in the global Age of Exploration.
Mongols and the Silk Roads: an Overview
Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 2021
The special volume "Mongols and the Silk Roads" of Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae (AOH) stands at the intersection of two recently booming fields of research into Central or Inner Eurasian history: the history of the Silk Roads and the Mongol Empire, both of which are enjoying the growing attention of a broader public. In order to highlight the scholarly context of this special issue of AOH, this introduction outlines the reasons behind this growing interest and current trends shaping the development of both fields.
The Archaeologies of Roads, 2019
This study examines the influence of Chinese elements on the magnificent fourteenth-century 'Demotte' Great Mongol Shahnama, also known as the Great II-khanid Shahnama. The manuscript represents a remarkable fusion of artistic traditions, including Mongol, Persian, Arab, and notably, Chinese painting styles. Through an investigation of the embedded elements borrowed from Chinese artists in the Great Mongol Shahnama, this research aims to shed light on the harmonious assimilation of Chinese influence in Persian illustrated manuscripts that traveled through the Silk Road. The study focuses on the silk road influences and transformations of Chinese influence in the manuscript paintings of the Great Mongol Shahnama, which were created during the reign of the Il-Khanids, who ruled Persia as part of the Mongol Empire. The manuscript's illustrations showcase a monumental style characteristic of the Mongol school, where Persian painters skillfully integrate Chinese, Mongol, and Persian elements to create a visually stunning and culturally rich aesthetic. The Silk Road played a crucial role in facilitating cultural and artistic exchange, serving as a conduit for trade between different regions. Persian artists adapted Chinoiseries motifs and impressionistic-style landscapes from Yuan ink paintings, incorporating figures draped in Mongol costumes and armor, as well as Persian architecture and ornaments. The result is a highly aesthetic and unparalleled visual expression. Moreover, the combination of illustrations and poetic verses in both Persian and Chinese manuscripts conveyed a creative imagination that transcended the boundaries of the sensory world. The Great Mongol Shahnama stands as a testament to the cultural interplay and artistic assimilation facilitated by the Silk Road, highlighting the enduring impact of Chinese elements on Persian illustrated manuscripts of the fourteenth century. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of the cross-cultural exchanges and influences that shaped the art and literature of the period, providing insights into the artistic achievements and interconnections of different civilizations along the Silk Road.