Chinese and Ottoman hybrid architecture

The scroll features the blending of Ottoman and Chinese visual characteristics. The crescent moon on top of the various domes gained popularity as an Islamic symbol particularly during the Ottoman era, and remains a common feature in Islamic architecture today.

The Kaaba seen in this three-quarter angle was a common pictorial feature of Ottoman illustrated pilgrimage manuals and other visual materials, and was therefore familiar to nineteenth-century viewers of Ottoman art. This three-quarter angle gained popularity in seventeenth-century Ottoman imagery, compared to earlier depictions that generally showed a rectangular Kaaba (as we will explore in the next section). Most notably, a printed twentieth-century Ottoman hajj certificate, with blank spaces to sign the name of the pilgrim and witnesses of the pilgrimage, shows such a three-quarter angle of the Kaaba, and also happens to be a near-identical depiction of the Masjid al-Haram to our vertical scroll from China. These two similar pictures may have shared a common Ottoman source, hinting at complex cross-cultural connections.

Yet, comparing the two almost-identical images reveals that the artist has replaced the stone pillars in the background of the Masjid al-Haram with thin red pillars. These are similar to the red wooden pillars found in Chinese mosques, like the famous Great Mosque of Xi’an. The architectural additions in the Chinese scroll emphasize the holiness of the Kaaba by incorporating architectural features that the Chinese Muslim populations saw as sacred in their everyday lives.