Abstrakt: Muslim migrations to China shaped a distinctive Islamic material culture, from architecture to inscriptions and decorative arts. Since the Tang dynasty, West Asian merchants settled in southeastern ports such as Guangzhou, forming some of the earliest Muslim communities. The Huaisheng Mosque, one of the oldest in China, has a minaret (9th–11th c.) that may have been modelled on West Asian prototypes. With the Mongol expansion (13th–14th c.), Muslim administrators, craftsmen, and traders moved forward inland, introducing Central Asian dome techniques. The Phoenix Mosque in Hangzhou blended vaulting with timber framing, reflecting the architectural pluralism of Mongol Eurasia. At the time of the Ming dynasty, these migrants and their descendants formed Chinese-speaking Muslim communities. The state adopted assimilation through the chici system (敕赐, imperial patronage), which gave legitimacy to mosques and probably encouraged the use of the Chinese architectural forms in mosque design, such us the Niujie (Ox-street) Mosque in Beijing (rebuilt 15th c.). Under the Qing dynasty, mosques became instruments of frontier governance, as seen in the Huiziying Mosque (1764), built after the conquest of Xinjiang. Its fusion of Chinese and Central Asian aesthetics in the architecture aimed to pacify Uighur elites—marking a distinction between policies toward Chinese-speaking Muslims and Uighurs.
This talk discusses, through the analysis of migration routes (maritime/inland), architectural forms and materials (imported/local), and patronage (merchant/state), how Chinese mosques were negotiated as the spaces of Islamic identity, as well as imperial power and local traditions. It is structured around case studies of exemplary mosque architecture that reflect the adaptation of Islam to China's socio-spatial fabric.
Dr. Shunhua JIN is an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow at the Museum für Islamische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. She received her Ph.D. in Art Philosophy from Fudan University, Shanghai in 2022. She was a postdoctoral researcher at the Asian Research Institute of Aix-Marseille University in France in 2022-2023, and a visiting researcher at Goethe University Frankfurt in 2023. Her research explores Islamic material culture in China, with a focus on mosque architecture and manuscripts. She also works on the iconography of Persian ceramics and book arts, and their relation to East Asian art.