The Star and Crescent in Northern Thailand

Islam is Thailand's largest religious minority, comprising about 10 per cent of the total population. Most of today's Muslims are concentrated in the southernmost provinces bordering Malaysia; Narathiwat, Pattani, Yala, Songkhla and Satun. They are predominantly of ethnic Malay stock and speak a dialect known as Yawi. But unknown to most, in Thailand's far north there are also substantial numbers of followers of the Prophet Mohammed, descended from overland traders of Turkic-Chinese extraction.

Islam and opium both first came to Southeast Asia with seafaring Arab and Persian traders and adventurers in the 8th century. They settled in the Malay Peninsula, set up businesses, took local wives and raised their children according to the principles of Shari'ah law. By the end of the 10th century they had established a substantial Muslim community but it wasn't until the great SE Asian Hindu-Buddhist Empires began to weaken, between the 12th and 15th centuries, that Islam began to flourish.

Woodcut of Early Arab Traders

During that period, large numbers of people in what is today Southern Thailand converted, including the King of Pattani, who in 1457 declared an Islamic kingdom. The Islamization of Pattani displaced the predominant Hindu-Buddhist culture and came to dominate the regions socio-political system. In 1786 Pattani was conquered by the Kingdom of Siam and the Ayutthaya-based government took measures aimed at weakening the area's Islamic identity in order to develop a mono-ethnic, Thai-Buddhist state.

Ancient Mosque in Pattani

According to Southern Thai Islamic opinion, the roots of today's continuing ethno-religious unrest in the south stem from 3 basic factors: insensitivity to local concerns, regional neglect, and imposition of social behavior on entire communities. Recently, Thai troops stormed a mosque in Pattani and killed more than 30 people. In the eyes of southern Thai Muslims, essentially nothing has changed in the region since the days of Ayudya.

Islam in Northern Thailand has an entirely different history. In 1293 Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan made an unsuccessful attempt to invade Indonesia's Srivajaya Empire, which included parts of the Malay Peninsula. His exploits in central Asia however eventually led to the settling of Islamic traders in the area widely known today as ‘The Golden Triangle' centuries later.

The name Golden Triangle is a Western designation, given to the area where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Burma converge. But the name is used today both in Chinese – jing san jiao and in Thai – sam liam thong kham. Rich in tropical hardwoods, jade, silver, rubies, rare animal products and opium, the lawless region was until recent times far off the beaten track. Today it still remains home to drug warlords, arms dealers, insurgent armies, modern slave traders and bandits. It is the home of an extraordinarily diverse range of ethnic minorities and a linguistic Tower of Babel.

Outsiders have traditionally steered clear of the area, yet there was one exception – the rugged Chinese muleteers known to the Burmese as Panthay, and to the Thai and Lao as Haw or Chin Haw. They are traders who penetrated into the remotest forbidden regions, even into the Wa States – until the mid-20 th century the Wa were still headhunters – with mule caravans laden with raw gems, jade, opium, arms and house wares. Their trade routes extended as far as Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, Luang Prabang in Laos, Moulmein in Burma and Tali and Kunming in Yunnan, Southern China.

Wherever they went, they carried the most modern weapons available, using them to ensure the respect and fear of the law-abiding and lawless alike. When in 1886 the British first arrived in the Shan States of Northern Burma, they found the Chin Haw armed with Remington repeating rifles superior to those of their own troops.

19th Century SE Asian Caravan Routes

Who are the Chin Haw, and where did they come from? The Thais often refer to them inaccurately as a "Chinese Hill Tribe" as opposed to “Overseas Chinese" who mostly came to Thailand by sea, settling in large numbers throughout the country and who now comprise about 10 per cent of the Thai population. The Chin Haw do not consider themselves to be a "hill tribe" people – they consider themselves Chinese: the only distinction they recognize is between Hui, Muslim Chinese and Han, non-Muslim Chinese. Chin Haw Muslims do sometimes live on mountaintops and ridges in the Golden Triangle, amongst a mélange of hill tribes where they are successful middlemen in trade between lowlanders and hill people.

So how did Muslim Chinese end up in the Golden Triangle and how did Kublai Khan get involved? Sop Ruak, where Burma, Thailand and Laos meet, is a long way from the Middle East. More than seven hundred years ago the Mongols ruled not only China, but also nearly all of Central Asia and large parts of the Middle East. Like every large empire, they employed mercenary and conscript troops – “using barbarians to control barbarians". In order to conquer mountainous Yunnan in Southern China the Mongols utilized Uzbek warriors from Bukhara in Central Asia.

Uzbekistan is the Origin of the Muslim Chin Haw

By the late 13th century Yunnan had been subdued and Kublai Khan sent many of his Uzbek fighters to Burma, while others were settled in Yunnan to ensure the continued pacification of the province. They were given Chinese wives. One of them, Shams al-Din al-Bukhari, was made governor of Yunnan. Moreover, the Muslim Uzbeks were given control over roads and communications. Since then they have more or less maintained control over trade in the region, even today. Out-of-the-way roadhouses are often Muslim-run, and truck drivers are likely to be followers of the Prophet. Islam has always been a religion of trade.

Through intermarriage, the Uzbeks assimilated into the local population, becoming increasingly more Chinese in appearance, though some still have longer noses and more facial hair than Han Chinese. Eventually forgetting their Turkic language completely, they adopted the Yunnanese Chinese dialect but retained Arabic for religious instruction. They became known to the Han Chinese as ‘Hui'.

The Great Mosque in Xian, Yunnan

Until the mid-19th century they got along fairly well with the Han Chinese, until oppression by Ch'ing Dynasty authorities caused a major Muslim rebellion, and a large part of Western Yunnan broke away to set up an independent Islamic state, Ping Nan Kuo, the "Kingdom of the Peaceful South".

Eventually the powerful Ch'ing armies put down the rebellion and massacres of Hui, innocent and rebel alike, ensued. Many of the Hui survivors fled into the mountainous regions of the Golden Triangle with their horses and arms. It was not new territory to them, as their trade routes had traversed the region for centuries.

Some of the refugees made their way south to Chiang Mai, the capital of Northern Thailand, where they established a trading post known as Ban Chin Haw (Chin Haw Village), which is the site of Chiang Mai's Night Bazaar today. Others settled in Vientiane and Rangoon, maintaining touch with each other and their countrymen in Yunnan through a complex network of trade connections and caravan routes.

British Colonials in Burma regarded with surprise the Muslim Chin Haw as being the most advanced people in the region, possessing unusual wealth and power for such a remote area as the Golden Triangle. Sir George Scott, the first Commissioner of the Shan States explained it: armed with repeating rifles and financed by Chinese Singaporean syndicates, the Chin Haw sent mule trains throughout the region carrying pots and pans, all sorts of knick-knacks, walnuts, cotton fabrics - and opium.

The Rugged Terrain of the Golden Triangle Region

Most wealthy Chin Haw in Thailand today have become respectable, opening businesses and trading concerns in large northern towns like Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Phitsanulok and Mae Sai. They still maintain links with Yunnan and continue to dominate much of the trade in consumer goods between China, Burma and Thailand. A Thai Chin Haw donated the land for Chiang Mai's railway station to the Thai crown, which helped to further trade between the north and the sea.

Trade remains the lifeblood of the Chin Haw, but, as they will quickly assert – only in legal commodities. Nevertheless, mule trains still traverse the wild northern opium growing regions of Burma, carrying the same goods observed by Sir George Scott.

Northern Thai Muslims, like their southern counterparts, make the Haj to Mecca, but in Chiang Mai's Attaqwa Mosque one can observe pictures of Kunming as well as of the Qaba – and Chinese as well as Arabic and Thai script are in evidence. But unlike their southern co-religionists, the Islamic traders of the Golden Triangle continue to achieve prosperity and success despite their ethnic and religious difference. They have successfully assimilated into Northern Thai culture, yet they take their religion no less seriously than those in the south. Why are they among the most prosperous people in Northern Thailand and the Southern Border Muslims among the poorest?

Chiang Mai's Busy Night Bazaar - The Legacy of Chin Haw Caravans

Perhaps it is because they do not comprise a majority in the region and therefore pose little threat to central authority. Perhaps it is because they were never coerced by the central government to forsake their religion and customs. Or perhaps the more mercantile-minded Chinese and Central Asian cultural background of the Chin Haw – as opposed to the more indolent and tropical yet volatile attitude of ethnic Malays – is the deciding factor.

No matter the reason. The world owes much of its knowledge today to Arabic and Islamic culture. We should respect it. Centuries before Vasco de Gama's voyage to the East in 1498, intrepid Middle Eastern merchants and adventurers had opened the Far East to trade. Coffee and tea, silk and spices were all introduced to the west through Islamic trade. Modern mathematics, astronomy and physics are Arabic legacies. There is so much we owe to Middle Eastern culture.

At the core of every religion is the concept of compassion. This requires acceptance and understanding, first on an individual basis and then in a larger cultural sense. The world is smaller than ever yet remains divided. It is the responsibility of both government and religious leaders to promote cooperation and tolerance to diverse cultures and beliefs. Trade and travel can open markets, but only as individuals can we open hearts and minds.

Perhaps it is time for Southern Thai Muslims, with the blessings of the Central Thai Government, to have the opportunity to begin a new “Kingdom of the Peaceful South”. Understanding and cooperation are the keys.

Note: There are more Muslims in China than in the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Libya or Syria, and indeed more Muslims in China than there are Australians at all.