Depicting the Holy Cities: Study on a Nineteenth-Century Chinese Islamic Pilgrimage Scroll

Abstract This article examines a scroll entitled “ The Illustration of Arabia ” ( 天方圖考 ) which is held at the Italian Geographical Society in Rome. Made by a Chinese Muslim, it offers a unique visual and intellectual perspective on Islamic holy sites. The research transcribes and translates the text of scroll into English, and analyses it in the Chinese Islamic context, comparing them to Chinese cosmology, mythology, and the Han Kitab . It also explores the visual content of the scroll, examining the tradition of the Western Asian imagery of Islamic holy sites, Chinese cartography, and the local Muslim visual environment. Furthermore, this article traces Chinese Muslim pilgrimages in the nineteenth century and discusses the visual resources from West Asia that were available to Chinese Muslims.