Arabic Writings in China: The Birth of “Sini” Scripts and Contemporary Practice

Montag, 26. Januar 2026, 18–20 Uhr c.t.
Raum A127, Kunsthistorisches Institut, Koserstr. 20, 14195 Berlin

https://www.geschkult.fu-berlin.de/e/khi/schwerpunkte/abteilung_ostasien/aktuelles/Gastvortrag-Jin-Shunhua-260126.pdf

The term Sini (al-khaṭṭ al-ṣīnī) is widely used to describe Arabic calligraphy produced in China, yet its status as a geographical label or an aesthetic category shaped by Chinese calligraphic practice remains unsettled. This talk introduces the various historical phenomena of Arabic writing in China, including epigraphy, manuscripts, and inscriptions on objects. It then identifies and compares the two main traditions of Arabic calligraphy on paper. The first is a codex-based tradition. Through a case study of a manuscript held in the Leiden University Library, it situates this work alongside other Perso-Arabic manuscripts from China and highlights the visual features of Arabic, Persian, and Xiao’erjing scripts (oral Chinese in Arabic scripts) within a single multilingual codex. The second tradition appears in vertical scrolls by contemporary Chinese Muslim calligraphers. It examines how Chinese materials (such as paper and brush), pictographic concepts linked to Sufi ideas in the Han Kitab corpus, and the principles of Chinese calligraphic composition, have influenced the visual evolution of Arabic script in China. The talk argues that Chinese Muslim scribes engaged in a dynamic negotiation between textual transmission and aesthetic refinement, adapting Arabic writing to diverse cultural contexts and material environments.

Dr. JIN Shunhua is an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow at the Museum für Islamische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. After completing her PhD at Fudan University in Shanghai, she conducted postdoctoral research at the Asian Research Institute at Aix-Marseille University in France (2022–2023). Her research examines the interactions and exchanges between China and the Islamic world, with a focus on the material culture, architectural traditions, and intellectual networks of Muslims in China. She explores the unique synthesis of Islamic and Chinese artistic and cultural forms, tracing their historical development, geographic circulation, and connections to wider global networks. Her recent publications include studies of mosques in China and a nineteenth-century pilgrimage scroll produced by a Chinese Muslim.