Islamic funerary heritage · Qingyuan Mountain area

Islamic Tombs

A burial landscape where Arabic inscriptions, community renovation and later memory reveal a Muslim history rooted in Quanzhou.

What to look for Open map

Chinese map name: 泉州伊斯兰教圣墓 Islamic Tombs
Role in the port: Muslim burial, settlement and community memory
Historic period: Historically layered; major renovation recorded in 1322
Time on site: Allow 45–60 minutes

伊斯兰教圣墓

What changes when overseas merchants establish places to bury and remember their dead?

The Islamic Tombs lie on the southern slope of Lingshan, about two kilometres east of the old city. Two granite grave covers sit within a half-moon-shaped stone corridor cut into the hillside. Their alignment follows Muslim burial practice, with the graves oriented towards Mecca.

The site is traditionally associated with two Muslims believed to have arrived in the seventh century. That tradition is important to the site's devotional history, but scholars do not treat it as secure evidence that companions of the Prophet personally reached Quanzhou. A firmer chronological anchor is the Arabic inscription recording a community-funded renovation in 1322.

A second major inscription dates to 1417 and records that Zheng He made an incense offering here during the Ming voyages. Read together with Qingjing Mosque and the wider corpus of Arabic and Persian tombstones, the site shows institutions of worship, burial and memory sustained by a settled community rather than only transient visitors.

On site

What to look for

The site becomes more legible when you know which physical clues carry its larger story.

Start with the whole setting, then move closer. Architecture, archaeology and landscape often reveal different parts of the same argument.

Stone Islamic architecture at Qingjing Mosque, the urban counterpart to Quanzhou's Muslim tomb landscape

The paired granite grave covers

The rectangular stones mark chambers below ground. Their form belongs to a wider Quanzhou Muslim funerary tradition and should be distinguished from the later pavilion above them.

The nine-bay curved corridor

Stone imitates a timber beam-and-column structure around the graves. Its half-moon plan integrates architecture with the mountain slope.

The 1322 renovation stele

This inscription provides dated evidence of a Muslim community organising repairs and pilgrimage. It is not a contemporary seventh-century arrival record.

The 1417 Zheng He record

The later stele shows that the tombs retained maritime and religious significance into the Ming period, after Quanzhou's Song–Yuan peak.

Read the port system

Cemeteries show a diaspora becoming part of local history

John Chaffee argues that maritime Muslim communities changed over generations as political regimes, trade rules and patterns of settlement changed. Burial grounds and mosques were community institutions through which those diasporas established continuity in Chinese ports.

Quanzhou's tombstones also travelled: locally carved stones have been identified as far away as Brunei. The funerary record therefore joins intimate histories of death and remembrance to the same maritime routes that carried commodities.

See all 22 component sites

Research lens

What scholarship adds to the visit

The tombs move Quanzhou's Muslim history from commerce to residence, death and memory—the signs of a community with roots rather than a short port call.

Burial makes settlement visible

Chaffee's research treats cemeteries, inscriptions and community institutions as evidence for maritime Muslim diasporas becoming established in Chinese port cities over generations.

Read the source

John W. Chaffee, ‘Diasporic Identities in the Historical Development of the Maritime Muslim Communities of Song-Yuan China’ (2006)

Muslim history belongs to the city's form

Clark argues that Muslim and Hindu communities contributed to Quanzhou's culture and morphology. The tomb landscape outside the old city adds a funerary geography to the mosque and merchant districts within it.

Read the source

Hugh R. Clark, ‘Muslims and Hindus in the Culture and Morphology of Quanzhou’ (1995)

Archaeology and tradition must be separated

Leslie and Youssef show that the 1322 Lingshan inscription records veneration and renovation but does not securely document seventh-century companions of Muhammad. Most dated Quanzhou Islamic tombstones cluster in 1277–1370. Epigraphy therefore supplies firmer chronology than the later origin legend.

Read the source

Donald Daniel Leslie and Ahmad Youssef, ‘Islamic Inscriptions in Quanzhou’: A Review (1988)

Plan the visit

Make the time on site count

These are planning decisions, not fixed opening-hour claims. Recheck access and transport shortly before travel.

Approach it as a sacred burial site

Keep voices low, do not climb on stonework and avoid posing on or immediately beside graves. Follow any directions from caretakers or worshippers.

Pair it with Qingjing Mosque

The mosque shows organised worship inside the city; the tombs show burial and memory beyond the old walls. Together they produce a fuller community history.

Use transport between sites

The tombs are outside the central walking core. Save 泉州伊斯兰教圣墓 and use a taxi or ride-hailing car for a focused visit.

Keep legend and evidence in view

On-site accounts may foreground the companion tradition. Read it as a powerful history of belief while noting the later dates of the surviving inscriptions and architecture.

Connect the place

Trace Muslim Quanzhou from prayer to burial

Begin at Qingjing Mosque, add the Islamic Tombs and finish at the Quanzhou Maritime Museum's stone-inscription displays. The route joins architecture, community practice and epigraphy.

See Qingjing Mosque Visit the Maritime Museum

Sources & verification

Last checked 11 August 2026. Historic interpretation distinguishes archaeological evidence, documentary records, later rebuilding and local tradition. Opening access, tickets, transport and ceremony schedules can change; confirm them shortly before travel.

UNESCO World Heritage Centre: Quanzhou
ICOMOS evaluation of the Quanzhou nomination (2021)
Pearson, Li and Li: Quanzhou Archaeology — A Brief Review (2002)
Quanzhou Municipal Government: Islamic Tombs
Hugh R. Clark, ‘Muslims and Hindus in the Culture and Morphology of Quanzhou’ (1995) — Study of foreign communities and the social form of the medieval port city.
John W. Chaffee, ‘Diasporic Identities in the Historical Development of the Maritime Muslim Communities of Song-Yuan China’ (2006) — Research on Muslim communities as settled, changing diasporas rather than passing visitors.
Donald Daniel Leslie and Ahmad Youssef, ‘Islamic Inscriptions in Quanzhou’: A Review (1988) — Critical review of foundation, repair and funerary inscriptions, including uncertain early dates and the 1322 Lingshan text.