Qur'an with Chinese clouds
Type:
Qur'ans
Date:
1401
Location or Findspot (Modern-Day Country):
China
Dimensions:
24.5 × 17.5 cm
Description:
Islam reached China in the seventh century, during the cosmopolitan Tang dynasty, although the oldest mosque—at Guangzhou, traditionally founded in 627—preserves few traces of its early foundation, and the oldest surviving Qur'an from China dates to 1401. The page shown here comes from that Qur'an. It opens the twenty-ninth part (juz) of a thirty-volume Qur'an made for the Great Mosque of Khanbaliq ("city of the khan," now Beijing), the Mongol capital of China. This part contains suras 67–77. A colophon identifies the scribe and illuminator as Hajji Rashad ibn 'Ali al-Sini [i.e., the Chinese man Rashad, son of 'Ali, who had performed the hajj] and gives the hijra date 20 Muharram 804, which is 9 October 1401. Because writing in Arabic was new in China at that time, there are errors in the Qur'an text, some of which were corrected by pasting in pieces of paper with the proper words.
Executed in watercolor and gold on paper, the central roundel of this frontispiece unites cursive Arabic with distinctively Chinese-style clouds that have been transformed into script. The interlace patterns on the rest of the page, by contrast, were used in Qur'ans across Islamicate lands.
Executed in watercolor and gold on paper, the central roundel of this frontispiece unites cursive Arabic with distinctively Chinese-style clouds that have been transformed into script. The interlace patterns on the rest of the page, by contrast, were used in Qur'ans across Islamicate lands.
Relevant Textbook Chapter(s):
10
Repository and Online Resources:
• This juz is now in the Khalili Collections, London (QUR 974).
Image Credits:
The Khalili Collections, London; used by permission.
