Islam and Tibet : interactions along the musk routes

439 Pages·2016·79.46 MB·English

by  Akasoy

Islam and TIbeT –
InTeracTIons along The
musk rouTes
The first encounters between the Islamic world and Tibet took place in the
course of the expansion of the Abbasid Empire in the eighth century. Military
and political contacts went along with an increasing interest in the other side.
Cultural exchanges and the transmission of knowledge were facilitated by a
trading network, with musk constituting one of the main trading goods from the
Himalayas, largely through India. From the thirteenth century onwards the spread
of the Mongol Empire from the Western borders of Europe through Central Asia
to China facilitated further exchanges. The significance of these interactions has
been long ignored in scholarship.
This volume represents a major contribution to the subject, bringing together new
studies by an interdisciplinary group of international scholars. They explore for
the first time the multi-layered contacts between the Islamic world, Central Asia
and the Himalayas from the eighth century until the present day in a variety of
fields, including geography, cartography, art history, medicine, history of science
and education, literature, hagiography, archaeology, and anthropology.

Islam and Tibet –

Interactions along the
musk routes
Edited by
anna akasoy
charles burneTT
ronIT yoelI-TlalIm
First published2011 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
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Copyright © anna akasoy, charles burnet t, ronit yoeli-Tlalim and the contributors 2011
anna akasoy, charles burnett and ronit yoeli-Tlalim have asserted their right under the
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british library cataloguing in Publication data
Islam and Tibet – interactions along the musk routes.
1. Islam – china – Tibet – history. 2. culture diffusion – china – Tibet – history.
3. culture diffusion – Islamic countries – history. 4. Tibet (china) – civilization –
mongolian influences. 5. Tibet (china) – relations – Islamic countries. 6. Islamic
countries – relations – china – Tibet.
I. akasoy, anna. II. burnett, charles (charles s. F.) III. yoeli-Tlalim, ronit.
303.4’8251501767–dc22
library of congress cataloging-in-Publication data
Islam and Tibet – interactions along the musk routes / [edited by] anna akasoy,
charles burnett, and ronit yoeli-Tlalim.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Isbn 978-0-7546-6956-2 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Islamic countries—relations—china—Tibet. 2. Tibet (china)—relations—Islamic
countries. 3. Islamic countries—civilization. 4. Tibet (china)—civilization—Islamic
influences. 5. Islam—china—Tibet—history. I. akasoy, anna. II. burnett, charles (charles
s. F.) III. yoeli-Tlalim, ronit.
ds35.74.c6I84 2010
303.48’217670515—dc22
2010008294
Isbn 13: 978-0-7546-6956-2 (hbk )
contents
List of Figures and Maps vii
List of Plates ix
Preface xiii
1 Islam and Tibet: cultural Interactions – an Introduction 1
Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim
2 Tibet in Islamic geography and cartography: a survey of arabic and
Persian sources 17
Anna Akasoy
3 The bactrian background of the barmakids 43
Kevin van Bladel
4 Iran to Tibet 89
Assadullah Souren Melikian-Chirvani
5 greek and Islamic medicines’ historical contact with Tibet:
a reassessment in View of recently available but relatively early
sources on Tibetan medical eclecticism 117
Dan Martin
6 Tibetan musk and medieval arab Perfumery 145
Anya King
7 The sarvāstivādin buddhist scholastic method in medieval Islam
and Tibet 163
Christopher I. Beckwith
8 notes on the religions in the mongol empire 177
Peter Zieme
9 Tibetans, mongols and the Fusion of eurasian cultures 189
Paul D. Buell
10 Three rock-cut cave sites in Iran and their Ilkhanid buddhist
aspects reconsidered 209
Arezou Azad
vi Islam and Tibet – Interactions along the Musk Routes
11 The muslim Queens of the himalayas: Princess exchanges in baltistan
and ladakh 231
Georgios T. Halkias
12 The discovery of the muslims of Tibet by the First Portuguese
missionaries 253
Marc Gaborieau
13 so close to samarkand, lhasa: sufi hagiographies, Founder myths
and sacred space in himalayan Islam 261
Alexandre Papas
14 between legend and history: about the ‘conversion’ to Islam of
Two Prominent lamaists in the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries 281
Thierry Zarcone
15 ritual Theory across the buddhist–muslim divide in late Imperial
china 293
Johan Elverskog
16 Trader, middleman or spy? The dilemmas of a kashmiri muslim in
early nineteenth-century Tibet 313
John Bray
17 do all the muslims of Tibet belong to the hui nationality? 339
Diana Altner
18 greater ladakh and the mobilization of Tradition in the contemporary
baltistan movement 353
Jan Magnusson
Index of Proper Names 377
list of Figures and maps
FIgures
8.1 one of the 84 mahāsiddhas, after albert grünwedel, Bericht
über archäologische Arbeiten in Idikutschahri und Umgebung im
Winter 1902-1903 (munich, 1905), p. 171, fig. 160. 187
10.1 Floor plan of the raṣadkhāna caves at marāgha. 217
10.2 Floor plan of the mihrī Temple/Imāmzāda maʿṣūm,
near marāgha. 220
maPs
1.1 Tibetan empire, 8th century (estimation) 2
3.1 Tokharistan and its region 44

list of Plates
2.1 The six keshvārs according to al-bīrūnī (362/973-after 442/1050), as in
Biruni’s Picture of the World, ed. a. Zeki Validi Togan (delhi, 1937), p. 61.
by permission of the archaeological survey of India.
2.2 Qibla map according to al-Qazwīnī (d. 682/1283), Āthār al-bilād, ms.
london, british library, or 3623, fol. 33a. by permission of the british
library.
2.3 World map of pseudo-Ibn al-Wardī, Kharīdat al-ʿajāʾib wa-farīdat al-
gharāʾib, ms. gotha, Forschungs- und landesbibliothek, ms. orient
a 1514, fols 1b-2a (ms. copied in c.1700). by permission of the Forschungs-
und landesbibliothek gotha.
2.4 World map of Idrīsī (twelfth century), ms. oxford, bodleian library,
Pococke 375, fols 3v-4r.
4.1 bronze pendant said to have been dug up at shigatse. Photo: Tucci.
4.2 bronze seal, bard-e bal type, lorestan. Photo: Tucci.
4.3-4 bronze harness ring, with addorsed goat protomes, said to have been dug
up near lake manasoravar, Tibet, and another ring. Photo: Tucci.
4.5 silver wine bowl formerly owned for generations by an aristocratic
family in lhasa. eastern Iranian world, possibly balkh area, late Parthian
or sasanian period. Photo: sotheby’s.
4.6 gold wine cup with Tibetan inscription incised on the underside.
christian deydier gallery. Tibetan work, probably seventh-eighth
century ce.
4.7 The elephant headed ganapati holding a gem-studded gold cup of
Iranian design. detail of a mural in the nyag lhakhang kharpo cave,
guge kingdom, Western Tibet. Photo: Thomas J. Pritzker. courtesy
Orientations.
4.8 silver bowl, Western Iran, probably seventh century bce, private
collection, unpublished. Photo: s. melikian. compare lower portion with
Plate 4.7.
4.9-11 Three silver vessels from an Iranian-type wine service. Tibet, probably
eighth century ce. cleveland museum of art.
4.12 mercury gilt silver wine ewer in the Jokhang, lhasa. Tibet, probably
ninth-tenth century ce. Photo: ulrich von schroeder, courtesy amy heller.
4.13 Pottery wine ewer, Iran, ninth century ce. Photo: s. melikian.
4.14 north-east Iranian parniyān silk tunics worn at a sogdian court in
Panjikand (modern Tajikistan).
4.15 The amitayus buddha painted on the north wall of the ‘entrance stūpa’ at
mangyu. Photo: robert linrothe, courtesy Orientations.