Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1 Prof., Department of History, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
2 PhD candidate of History, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
The city of Kashghar was situated at the convergence of Chinese communication routes that crossed the northern and southern parts of the Taklamakan Desert. The access routes from the western regions to the capital of China branched off from the city to the northern and southern edges of the Taklamakan, eventually these routes leaded to ancient Chinese capital, Chang’an (长安), or Xi’an (西安), referred to in Islamic texts as Khamdān (خَمدان). The northern route passed through the city of Turfan, while the southern route traversed Khotan and then, being on a single route that went to the imperial capital of China. Due to Kashghar’s pivotal role in the exchanges between China and the Islamic world, early Islamic texts referred to it as the border of Islam (ثغرالاسلام). The strategic importance of access routes to Kashghar as the gateway to China for Muslims led to this ancient road being introduced in various geographical, historical, and literary texts of the Islamic world. Despite numerous studies on the cities along this route, no dedicated research has yet focused on the transcription and phonetic transformations of their names based on manuscript versions of Islamic texts. The significance of this issue has prompted the present article to investigate the representation of caravan stations in northern China as a historical problem worthy of detailed examination. This study, while engaging with prior research on the subject, identifies and analyses the toponyms based on the oldest or most authoritative manuscript sources of Islamic texts.
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