Ghiyath al-Dīn Naqqash 1: A Timurid Painter in Ming China

Human Circus: Journeys in the Medieval World

In the early 15th century, Shah Rukh, the son of Timur, sent an embassy east to the target of his father's last military campaign, Ming China. Making that journey from Timurid Herat to the home of the Yongle Emperor (with stops along the way at Samarkand, Tashkent, Hami, Ganzhou, and finally Khanbaliq) was a chronicler and painter named Ghiyāth al-Dīn. His story is one of medieval diplomacy and travel.

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Sources:

• "Report to Mirza Baysunghur on the Timurid Legation to the Ming Court at Peking," in A Century of Princes: Sources on Timurid History and Art, selected and translated by W. M. Thackston. Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, 1989.
• Ford, Graeme. "The Uses of Persian in Imperial China: The Translation Practices of the Great Ming," in The Persianate World, edited by Nile Green. University of California Press, 2019.
• Lipman, Jonathan N. Familiar Strangers A History of Muslims in Northwest China. University of Washington Press, 2011.
• Park, Hyunhee. Mapping the Chinese and Islamic Worlds: Cross-Cultural Exchange in Pre-Modern Asia. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
• Rossabi, Morris. A History of China. Wiley, 2013.
• Rossabi, Morris. "Two Ming Envoys to Inner Asia," in T’oung Pao 62, no. 1/3 (1976): 1–34.
• Tsai, Shih-shan Henry. Perpetual Happiness. University of Washington Press, 2011.

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