Ming dynasty
Religion

The dominant religious beliefs during the Ming dynasty were the various forms of Chinese folk religion and the Three Teachings — Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. The Yuan -supported Tibetan lamas fell from favor, and the early Ming emperors particularly favored Taoism, granting its practitioners many positions in the state's ritual offices. The Hongwu Emperor curtailed the cosmopolitan culture of the Mongol Yuan dynasty, and the prolific Prince of Ning Zhu Quan even composed one encyclopedia attacking Buddhism as a foreign "mourning cult", deleterious to the state, and another encyclopedia that subsequently joined the Taoist canon.

The Yongle Emperor and later emperors strongly patronised Tibetan Buddhism by supporting construction, printing of sutras, ceremonies etc., to seek legitimacy among foreign audiences. Yongle tried to portray himself as a Buddhist ideal king, a cakravartin. There is evidence that this portrayal was successful in persuading foreign audiences.

Islam was also well-established throughout China, with a history said to have begun with Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas during the Tang dynasty and strong official support during the Yuan. Although the Ming sharply curtailed this support, there were still several prominent Muslim figures early on, including the Yongle Emperor's powerful eunuch Zheng He. The Hongwu Emperor's generals Chang Yuqun, Lan Yu, Ding Dexing, and Mu Ying have also been identified as Muslim by Hui scholars, though this is doubted by non-Muslim sources. Regardless, the presence of Muslims in the armies that drove the Mongols northwards caused a gradual shift in the Chinese perception of Muslims, transitioning from "foreigners" to "familiar strangers". The Hongwu Emperor wrote a 100 character praise of Islam and the prophet Muhammad. The Ming Emperors strongly sponsored the construction of mosques and granted generous liberties for the practice of Islam.

The advent of the Ming was initially devastating to Christianity: in his first year, the Hongwu Emperor declared the eighty-year-old Franciscan missions among the Yuan heterodox and illegal. The centuries-old Church of the East in China also disappeared. During the later Ming a new wave of Christian missionaries arrived—particularly Jesuits —who employed new western science and technology in their arguments for conversion. They were educated in Chinese language and culture at St. Paul's College on Macau after its founding in 1579. The most influential was Matteo Ricci, whose " Map of the Myriad Countries of the World " upended traditional geography throughout East Asia, and whose work with the convert Xu Guangqi led to the first Chinese translation of Euclid 's Elements in 1607. The discovery of a Xi'an Stele at Xi'an in 1625 also permitted Christianity to be treated as an old and established faith, rather than as a new and dangerous cult. However, there were strong disagreements about the extent to which converts could continue to perform rituals to the emperor, Confucius, or their ancestors: Ricci had been very accommodating and an attempt by his successors to backtrack from this policy led to the Nanjing Incident of 1616, which exiled four Jesuits to Macau and forced the others out of public life for six years. A series of spectacular failures by the Chinese astronomers —including missing an eclipse easily computed by Xu Guangqi and Sabatino de Ursis —and a return by the Jesuits to presenting themselves as educated scholars in the Confucian mold restored their fortunes. However, by the end of the Ming the Dominicans had begun the Chinese Rites controversy in Rome that would eventually lead to a full ban of Christianity under the Qing dynasty.

During his mission, Ricci was also contacted in Beijing by one of the approximately 5,000 Kaifeng Jews and introduced them and their long history in China to Europe. However, the 1642 flood caused by Kaifeng's Ming governor devastated the community, which lost five of its twelve families, its synagogue, and most of its Torah.
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