Arts of the Book: Manuscripts, Folios, Bindings
Chao Jin Tu Ji By Ma Fuchu
Materials and technique
Woodblock on rice paper
15 x 26.5 cm
The Chao Jin Tu Ji is the travelogue of Ma Fuchu (Ma Dexin, 1794-1874 CE), considered the most eminent Chinese Hui scholar of Islam and Sino-Muslim philosophy during the Qing dynasty. Originally from the Yunnan, his travels covered distances from China to Mecca and Cairo as well as the Ottoman Empire; this book recounts his pilgrimage to Mecca from China. Ma Fuchu left China with a group of Muslim merchants, travelling overland and by riverboat to Rangoon, where he boarded a steamship to take him to the Arabian Peninsula. After performing the pilgrimage, he spent two years in Cairo, where he studied at Al-Azhar University, and thereafter travelled throughout the Ottoman Empire before returning to Yunnan. Ma Fuchu is also well-known for his five-volume Chinese translation of the Qur’an and for writing over thirty-five works on metaphysics and history in both Chinese and Arabic. This scholar’s work attests to the several cultural networks existing between China and the Islamic world.
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