TRANSLATION OF A CHINESE DOCUMENT, WHICH PURPORTS TO ACCOUNT FOR THE ORIGIN AND ESTABLISHMENT OF MAHOMMEDANISM IN CHINA. BY COLONEL SLADEN.
The chief queen of the emperor Tanwan adopted a child and called him Anlaushan. In time the child developed into a man of extraordinary comeliness and wonderful intellect.
The queen was enamoured; and the adopted son became her paramour.
Anlaushan soon rose to distinction. His abilities were of the highest order, and raised him at once to fame and influence. The queenly passion was not disclosed; but suspicion had been sufficiently roused to make it prudent on the queen’s part to get rid of her lover, and defeat all signs of illicit intercourse.
Anlaushan was accordingly accused of being privy to a conspiracy to dethrone the emperor. The influence of the queen prevailed to obtain a conviction, and her favourite was banished from the royal capital.
But the injustice of his accusation and a sense of wrongs roused Anlaushan to action, and induced him to become in reality a leader of rebellion. He lost no time in collecting a large force with which he was able to make head against the government, and successfully encounter the troops of the emperor. In time he had approached within a league of the capital, and city and palace were alike threatened.
The emperor Tanwan in this emergency adopted the suggestion of his vizier Kanseree, and despatched a mission to Seeyoogwet, and implored foreign aid. A force of three thousand men was sent, under the command and guidance of three learned teachers, who arrived in due time at Tanwan’s capital. By their aid Anlaushan was defeated and eventually captured.
The rebellion was at an end, and the foreign contingent left China, to return to its own country. Here, however, a difficulty arose. Their rulers refused them admittance, and alleged as a cause for doing so, that it was against the constitution of the country to receive back men who had come into contact with pork-eating infidels. They had herded in fact with pigs and infidels, and could no longer be regarded as unpolluted subjects, or as fit members of a society which held pork in religious detestation.
They returned therefore to China, and became permanent sojourners in a foreign land. They are the original stock from which Mahommedanism has sprung up in China, in various communities, and under several denominations, &c.