The Journal of the Siam Society Vol. LXIV, Part 1-2, 1976 - Khamkoo

268 REVIEW ABTICLES
the throats of the chicken for his table rather than have his own cooks
Jose merit by carrying out such a dastardly act.
of the palace fowls is straight fiction weaved out of thin air.
In short, the story
The Javanese and the people of Patani on the east const of Siam
have traditions that they got their religion from China.
The good folks
of Patani even asked me to say something about the subject in this paper.
Luckily however Drs. Fatimi and Al-Attas had already submitted theses
on this line, so what I say about Marco Polo and the Sejarah Melayucan
be accepted as supporting evidence, or discarded by such people who
would prefer to keep Polo and the S.M. as amusing anecdotes of no
historical value whatsoever. I have no objection either way because I
think Fatimi and Attas' arguments are irrefutable. Unfortunately they
do not tell us bow Islam got to China in the first place, whether by land
or by sea.
However I have been told that Islam was introduced to the
Chinese court by land in the lifetime of Mohammed himself. If this is
correct, it is difficult to understand how the discipline could have got to
the Chinese coast by 674 A.D., let alone to San-Fu-Chi, as stated by the
Chinese records. The story of Malikul Saleh and his two sons fit the
general pattern of the history told by Mas'udi of the massaere of Muslims
in Canton in 877, and the Muslims' subsequent refuge in Kedah seems
reasonable. But the Chinese story of a Moslem settlement in San-Fu-Chi
in 674 seems suspect if the religion came from China.
However if Arab
and Persian sailors of the Islam faith had a settlement somewhere on the
Peninsula, then the Chinese evidence would be possible. But I know
nothing about Islam. I do not know whether conversions have to be
carried out by holy men, or anybody can take the faith without being
circumcised. My ignorance is complete, so I will stop here. God
knoweth the truth. To Him do we return.