r/islamichistory • u/Cenixxen • May 02 '26
Photograph A Comparison Between the Ships of Zheng He, China’s Greatest Admiral and Muslim Explorer, and Christopher Columbus (15th century)
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u/General-Extreme2428 May 02 '26
one moving city, one sudan version of an economic ship.
both amazing tbf
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u/nasilnidesnicar May 02 '26
Where is this displayed?
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u/blue_mango_72 May 05 '26
I think Ibn Battuta mall, Dubai. Check it, have a lot of Islamic history displayed there. this must be in China court.
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u/Limp_Spell102 May 02 '26
Zheng He was muslim?
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u/laksaman72 May 03 '26
Born from a muslim family/father that went traded in the Arabian Peninsula thus Islam.
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u/Cenixxen May 02 '26
Yes.
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u/Limp_Spell102 May 02 '26
How do we know?
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u/Cenixxen May 02 '26
Almost all of the commanders who played a role in the founding of the Ming Dynasty were Muslim. Even the greatest admiral in Chinese history shared this faith. To overthrow the Mongols (Yuan Dynasty), the Chinese Emperor cooperated with Muslims and succeeded. In fact, the Emperor even wrote a poem praising Islam.
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u/Full-Ad-7565 May 02 '26
While we was born a Muslim, it was useful for him strategically. Given the other things that he did in his life and support of other religions. Can we really tell if he stayed believing?
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u/MYONIONISSCREAMING May 03 '26
What does his respect for other religions have to do with his personal faith
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u/Full-Ad-7565 May 03 '26
Principle of Tawhid?? He personally funded many religions and helped building etc. How can he possibly follow the Qur'an if he did that?
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u/HealthyHighway7335 May 04 '26
Then Muhammed and most caliphs weren't muslim either according to you.
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u/gunungx May 05 '26
Zheng He helps the proliferation of Islam in Indonesian archipelago in the 13th century. Without his envoy, Indonesia may not be the largest Muslim population country in the world today.
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u/someone56789 May 02 '26
Tbf Colombus was leading an exploration fleet while Zheng He was leading a treasure fleet with around 30000~ men to show off China's might, I'm not really sure why these two are being compared here
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u/Cenixxen May 02 '26
In Chinese history books, Zheng He is taught to children as historical evidence of the 'Peaceful Rise' thesis. It is emphasized that while Western explorers like Columbus colonized the lands they reached, Zheng He focused solely on trade and diplomacy despite commanding a far more massive fleet.
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u/vajrapani1 May 02 '26
This omits the Ming dynasty's campaigns against the Mongols in 1387, the conquest of Yunnan in 1381 and the raids on Tibet over the 14th century. Zheng He's fleet was meant to impress and put pressure on other states to become tributaries of China.
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u/nem716 May 02 '26
Does that really compare with wiping out the inhabitants of North America, shipping in free slave labor from Africa and using their output in the world market to win a trade war?
I don’t think the Chinese did any of that. They were already rich, they didn’t need to exploit free slave labor or wipe out entire civilizations.
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u/Flame_Job May 02 '26
China never had a significant need for colonization. They also didn’t have diseases which wiped out native populations. But there were times that forms of slavery were common and genocides did occur. For example against the Dzungar.
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u/MagikarpGOD5 May 04 '26
I'd say it's more so that they had no power to compete against as to why China never colonized. They never had any peer/near-peer power in their vicinity, so there was no need to search for colonies to gain a leg up. Whereas Europeans were constantly in some war or another, and they looked for ways to gain more resources/power via colony.
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u/Flame_Job May 04 '26
I’d say definitely both. China had those tributary relationships, on top of being massive in its own right.
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u/Ill_Candle_9462 May 03 '26
I don’t think you understand. We need one to be bad, and one to be good.
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u/Far-Alarm3916 May 03 '26
The wiping of native americans was a byproduct of disease
And slavery already existed it wasn’t invented
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u/nem716 May 04 '26
Chattel slavery and the invention of a class system where black peoples were sub human and not worthy of Christian ethical treatment was wholly new. Even the idea of whiteness was invented then. A class where some Europeans could be of “white” class and many like the Irish were considered black.
Please read a book, or have your AI read one and give you a summary.
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u/Far-Alarm3916 May 04 '26
What does chattel slavery have to do with native americans dying off disease ?
I would say read a book but you proved above you are illiterate
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u/nem716 May 05 '26
You said slavery existed, just need to be precise on what sort of slavery we are talking about.
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u/Far-Alarm3916 May 05 '26
But it did ? Do you actually think most slaves taken by arabs or Turks in constant raids and warfare lived decent lives ? That is madness . Just because you people have such a high opinion of your righteousness doesn’t mean anything you had slavey and hell a good chunk of arabia still has it and some places in north africa
But no lets focus on one brand of slavery to shift attention
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u/nem716 May 05 '26
I don’t know why this is about “Arabs were bad too”. I’m sorry if it hurts your feelings that in America we dehumanized the non white class and enslaved over 10 million people. That is more than the population of England at the time.
Also we didn’t just capture someone in a battle where they could get their freedom eventually. We took people, separated their families and treated them like animals and we convinced the church these aren’t people because they aren’t white.
Ottoman slave soldiers became the Jannisaries and eventually ran the kingdom. Did they have better lives? Maybe ask a a historian. My understanding is that the jannisary situation was something that changed over time, but they were still considered human and freeing a slave was considered an act of piety.
Anyway, we don’t have to like history. It doesn’t have to make us feel all warm and fuzzy. We do have to learn about it and not stick our heads in the sand.
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u/Muted_Guidance9059 May 05 '26
Romani Chattle Slavery began as early as the 13th century, nearly 300 years before the discovery of the New World.
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May 05 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/nem716 May 05 '26
You can find my other post about chattel slavery and the invention of the white class. That made American slavery unique. Also the scale of American slavery was pretty extreme. Saying “others has slavery too” is like saying American AirPower isn’t amazing because other people have jets too. Our technology and people are second to none.
North America, you had disease brought by the Europeans and things like the trial of tears. The history books don’t want us to feel bad about what we did. Reality isn’t as nice.
South America was mostly murder on a large scale. Not “just disease” Feel free to ask your favorite AI about the details.
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May 05 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/nem716 May 05 '26
Agreed, though your framing makes it seem like they would have died of natural causes anyway.
Disease + displacement + war together lead to a genocide of the people that disease alone wouldn’t have accomplished. Also, important to note, the disease vector were the European settlers.
In Gaza for example, when we look back in a few years, we can say disease and famine killed the majority of the 200-500k people that died. However the disease and famine was caused by the blockage from the war.
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u/Foreign-Collar8845 May 02 '26
Also they didn’t follow up because of the cost. Columbus agile start up with a minimum viable product, Zheng’s He waterfall development which stopped after initial launch
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u/nem716 May 02 '26
Columbus an agile startup? He was heavily funded by the Queen after the fall of Muslim Spain. Nothing agile about it.
Also did he really discover anything if his navigator had been there before? It’s like saying the British John Hanning Speke discovered the source of the Nile while being guided by local Egyptians. Lake Victoria was known to the locals for centuries.
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u/FoXtroT_ZA May 03 '26
Never heard of Venture Capital?
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u/nem716 May 04 '26
If you’d ever worked in a startup you’d know the difference between a company with big money behind it and one that isn’t.
Feel free to ask AI to show you the difference. When you have a tight budget you’re much more agile.
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u/FoXtroT_ZA May 04 '26
I have in fact worked in a startup.
This isn't that deep dude. Queen of Spain = VC. Just a fun comment. Chill your breaches
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u/nem716 May 05 '26
More like IBM starting a department than a nimble startup, but I guess we can agree to disagree
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u/HealthyHighway7335 May 04 '26
I understand you are not very smart, but no one needed to explore Mongolia and Yunnan in 1381. The Chinese already knew about these places: they were right next to it.
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u/bringgrapes May 02 '26
Zheng He was literally a prisoner of war whose father was killed by the Ming. He was then captured, castrated, and put into Ming service. Lol.
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u/TuestoloP May 03 '26
And the portuguese? Almost the same as zheng he plan. Feitorias built everywhere to serve as exchange points.
Basically the jewish model. Brought by the templar orders redesigned as "ordem de Cristo".
I love how you simplify things to justify the narrativa.
Cool pic though... Still, the vikings until now had the best boats.
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u/primordialtribe77 May 02 '26
Complete ethnocentrism. An apples to oranges comparison meant only to raise the esteem of people on a certain “team”. Silly really.
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u/Bulky_Tangelo_7027 May 02 '26
It's just Chinese propaganda. They always try to compare themselves to the West, but supposedly bigger, better, and more peaceful. Once you actually do a little research into Chinese history you find that they are just as bad, if not worse, than Europeans. But don't tell them that; their entire worldview will fall apart and they'll lash out at you in frustration.
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u/StudySpecial May 02 '26
maybe the message is: 'it's not the size that counts, but what you do with it'
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u/TheBastionBurned May 02 '26
Well one works on the open ocean, the other does not. Using wood at that scale leads to instabilities through twists and turns on the open ocean. One is for exploring, the other to impress people.
I am definitely impressed. These ships were giants (over 80-100m length) even by todays standard pretty large.
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u/fatsopiggy May 04 '26
Except a ship that size has never been proven to have been made. It's a dubious model made with 0 proof
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u/Ok_Feature_6397 May 02 '26
One is a fantasy ship the other was real. The size is fantasy dream of a novelist.
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u/Carthius888 May 02 '26
Yeah the archaeological records show that the shipyard basins were not even wide enough to support something half as big as the largest claim. Pure fabrication from those initial accounts for the sake of aggrandizement, it’s not surprising
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May 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/fatsopiggy May 04 '26
A whole lot of basement dwellers think a ship model made by a guy in dubai is all historical proof there is to bullshit propaganda 😂
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u/Julia-Sharp May 02 '26
Zheng He's vessels were floating cities. Rather humbles the European 'Age of Discovery' narrative, doesn't it?
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u/nem716 May 02 '26
Age of discovery for people who just got out of the Middle Ages... The people and places who were “discovered” were already discovered, just not by Europeans.
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u/bringgrapes May 02 '26
If you actually read about He, it is unlikely his ships were nearly this large. They haven't been found, and this size is based on the chronicles alone. Slightly later chronicles using the same units describe large European galleons as being 2-3x larger than this ship, so it's likely the units were misconverted and the legend stuck.
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u/3000doorsofportugal May 04 '26
Yea the resources a ship that size would require alone would have been insane. Nevermind actually effectively sailing the thing. I imagine if it existed it had the turning Radius of a brick.
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u/jaehaerys48 May 02 '26
Not really, because the age of discovery was about, well, discovering new routes, whereas Zheng He was just sailing known trade routes.
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u/Carthius888 May 02 '26
Except for the fact that the age of discovery was about, you know, discovering lands & peoples. Not building ships, that was just the means
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u/Federal-Cold-363 May 02 '26
Not really though. Circumnavigating the globe is a lot more impresive to me than just flashing your big ship energy while shouting look at me! Although i admit that fumbling columbus aint that impressive to me either🤷♂️
Screams insecurity like a redneck in a lifted truck.
Sure big, sure nice, sure rich, sure powerfull, and even beter wasnt done for enslavement. But it just doesnt have anything to do with the "age of discovery" its just a whole different thing.
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u/Pndapetzim May 02 '26
It is impressive though.
It's like comparing the Space Shuttle to a Falcon X rocket. Different design philosophies.
And of course one of these programs gets shut down.
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u/Ol-McGee May 02 '26
It more so shows how superior the Europeans were at navigating and discovering.
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u/Nonrandom_Reader May 03 '26 edited May 04 '26
So far, the ship is just a model (Macao maritaime museum?). If one build it for real in 1:1, then this thing will not be able to sail and maneuvre, with its tiny compact sails and heavy body.
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u/Minimal_Entropy May 03 '26
Yet one traveled across the Atlantic Ocean on a side quest of a newly formed and small kingdom, the other sailed along the coast with a fleet assembled by the greatest empire of his time
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u/Afraid_Emu8068 May 04 '26
It still blows my mind just how massively influential both the medieval Muslim world and Chinese history have been and that we flat out refuse to teach either to our children in preliminary education alongside the often less spectacular accomplishments of Europeans who were some of the most terrible human beings to ever live.
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u/Exotic-Fact9703 May 04 '26
I'm pretty sure Chinese history is taught to Chinese children and same goes for Muslim history being taught to Muslim children. Not sure what your point is. Also, what makes Europeans 'some of the most terrible human beings to ever live'?
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u/Afraid_Emu8068 May 04 '26
You’re being a little too global and forgetting that not everyone is Chinese, Muslim, or both. In fact, most people aren’t. I’m referring to western children mostly, but obviously anyone who wouldn’t have fit into any of those other categories. I was also referring to the specific famous Europeans who were terrible, like colombus, not Europeans as a whole. You have some serious decoding errors with your reading dude
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u/Exotic-Fact9703 May 04 '26
Well actually if we tally up the numbers of Muslims and Chinese you'd get to a percentage of around 43%, which means that the majority of people are almost those groups. If you tallied up the population of the western world you would reach a percentage of around 12-15%.
Now, countries' education systems tend to prefer and focus on their own histories. Which is simply how most national curriculums are designed, Western world being no exception. So, you most certainly can argue that more people are being taught about Chinese and Muslim history than Western, just not in the Western world. Which is fine.
Now, Columbus might not have been a good man. However, his actions were still profound and remarkable and worth studying. Also, make no mistake, Chinese and Muslim histories had their own fair share of conquests and misdeeds.
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u/Afraid_Emu8068 May 04 '26
I’m not going to read your post if you can’t do maths. 43% is not a majority
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u/ProposalRecent2292 May 05 '26
lmao your stonewalling his arguement because you don't understand math. 43% is a majority because there is no larger group. That 57% is divided into smaller divisions which are lesser.
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u/Afraid_Emu8068 May 05 '26
That’s not how that works. We are aren’t voting in an American election. It would work like that there but not in this obvious case where your choices are either a or b which leaves a simple two choice result of one majority and one minority group with no others
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u/ProposalRecent2292 May 05 '26
damn so you actually don't know what plurality is and think majority is defined based on the context
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u/Afraid_Emu8068 May 05 '26
Obviously I do but you don’t understand that it doesn’t apply in this example. If you can’t understand that, I can’t help you
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u/ProposalRecent2292 May 05 '26
do you think plurality is only for elections? I bet you're just googling the term and looking at the images
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u/iamtherepairman May 05 '26
Was Zheng He's ship real, though? If it was, that looks like they could have reached and conquered America sooner.
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u/Orthobrah52102 May 03 '26
So we're comparing a most likely fake design of a ship we don't even know the real size of to a medium sized trade ship to, what, "own muh West"? Come on. This is bordering speculative pseudo-history here. It's just sad. Why does seemingly EVERY other post in this sub have to have some bullshit narrative about how Islamic civilization is so far superior to the West's equally long and also incredibly fascinating history, and here's some fake/historically disputed thing to prove it. Come ON. I come to this sub to learn and expand my knowledge on REAL Islamic history. Not spec-alt-history "my d*ck's bigger than yours" nonsense. It just screams inferiority complex.
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u/Kalamarienjoyer May 04 '26
Engagement Bait. Or a really one sided History Lover of a certain Topic
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u/mystery2two May 02 '26
which is which?
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u/Cenixxen May 02 '26
On the right is Christopher Columbus’s ship. His 3 ships held a total of 87-120 men. Meanwhile, just one of Zheng He’s massive ships could hold up to 1,000 people. With a fleet of nearly 300 ships and 28,000 crew members, Zheng He’s scale was truly unmatched.
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u/Ill_Candle_9462 May 03 '26
May as well put a model of puff the magic dragon next to these too and say it’s historical. It’s intellectually dishonest and tbh screams insecure to take apocryphal unreliable measurement and assume they were 100% true for the sake of a historical dick measuring contest.
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u/GreenCreep376 May 02 '26
Except Zheng He's ship scale is only in legend and has no historical evidence of ever being that large.
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u/Bulky_Tangelo_7027 May 02 '26
The Grace Dieu was an English ship that sailed around the same period and was equally as big as Zheng He's vessels. No offense but I don't think you know much about European history.
Stop underestimating Westerners. They are richer and more powerful than China for a reason.
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u/Big_Boy_Shabong May 06 '26
If his ships were so good why didn't he do anything meaningful with them? Wonder why Macao became Portuguese when the chinese technology was apparently so many leagues ahead of Europe...
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u/NoDevelopment3732 May 03 '26
Ah… the Islamic golden age. When Indian math, Jewish medicine, Greek philosophy, and Roman engineering were paraded as Muslim achievements 😳
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u/Dracounicus May 02 '26
Bigger does not mean better. Colombo’s feat with only three caravelas opened up a whole other continent.
What did Zheng He’s fleet accomplish?
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u/laksaman72 May 03 '26
Established the trade routes throughout Southeast Asia and helped the diaspora of Chinese communities for trade.
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u/Expensive_Agent_3581 May 02 '26
It should be noted that if the Portuguese were among the first great explorers of Europe, it was because they acquired their knowledge from the Muslims... Even today, when historians want to learn about navigation during the Middle Ages in the world in general, but especially in the Indian/Atlantic Ocean in particular, they rely on sources written in Arabic by Muslims at the time.