After Diu : the forgotten Islamic trade in early nineteenth century Cantonese Confucian historiography

Abstract EN

Since the early 20th century, historians have studied interactions between China and Islamic communities.

Most of them focused on the prosperity brought by the maritime trade between Muslims and Chinese in the earlier eras.

How this trade ended, however, has not been extensively studied.

This article studies the narratives regarding Arabs and Muslims participating in the Canton trade, as recorded in Yuehai guanzhi粵海關志 [Gazetteer of Canton Customs].

Yuehai guanzhi was published by Liang Tingnan 梁廷枏 (1796–1861), a Cantonese Confucian elite, with the first-hand government records in 1838, by which time non-Chinese speaking Muslim merchants had already became rare in the region.

This article investigates how Islamic trade was recorded during the early 19th century.

In particular, it will illustrate how the trade ended and was forgotten due to the diminishing presence of Muslim merchants after the Battle of Diu in 1509.