Tou Houan was a Chinese craftsman of the T'ang dynasty (618-907 AD). In 751 AD he and his colleagues were captured after the Battle of Talas at their workshops near Samarkand by the Abbasids and taken to Baghdad. There they remained for eleven years, returning to China in 762.
During his stay in Baghdad and according to the report he wrote after he returned, Tou Houan and his colleagues taught the Abbasid craftsmen several important techniques, including gold-working, paper-making, textile manufacture, and painting. The upshot of the battle was the interruption of the Silk Road, and perhaps silk manufacture was transmitted to the Islamic civilization at this time as well.
There is some evidence that Tou Houan may also have transmitted some basics of Chinese ceramics, including white glazes and a fine ceramic body called Samarra ware. These techniques formed the basis--but not all--of lustreware, the ceramic art form developed in the 8th and 9th centuries by Islamic craftsman.
Sources
Caiger-Smith, Alan. 1985. Lustre Pottery: Technique, tradition and innovation in Islam and the Western World. Faber and Faber, London.
There is a couple of articles on the Battle of Talas and the capture of the Chinese workmen at AramCoWorld:
