Overview of the Contacts between China and the Arab World during the Ming Dynasty

Abstract

The China-Arab relationship can date back to ancient times. This humble paper aims to study this relationship since the Tang Dynasty in the seventh century in general and its development in the Ming Dynasty in the fourteenth century in particular. It focuses on the following goals: First, discovering the most important information about the influence of the two ancient civilizations with each other before the Ming Dynasty; Second, analyzing the achievements made during the Ming Dynasty and the characteristics of the Sino-Arab relationship in this era; Third, comparing the Sino-Arab relationship during the Ming Dynasty with that in previous eras and analyzing the similarities and differences among them. The paper relies on the descriptive-analytical method to present the most important issues in the ancient Chinese-Arab relationship such as the spreading of Islam and the Arabic in China and the attitudes of the central government towards them, then it also explains those issues by analyzing the texts, explains the reasons for their emergence and development and analyzes the similarities and differences among them. Thus it is appropriate to borrow the comparative approach as well.