Jami' al-tawarikh
Within Yunnan, the Hui Muslim population seems to have flourished and expanded throughout the Yuan and Ming periods (c. 1280–1644). Certainly when Marco Polo visited Yunnan in the early Yuan, he noted the presence of "Saracens" amongst the population, whilst the Persian historian Rashid-al-Din Hamadani (died 1318) recorded in the "Jami' al-tawarikh" that "the great city of Yachi" in Yunnan was exclusively inhabited by Muslims. Rashid al-Din may have been referring to the region around Dali in western Yunnan, which was to emerge as the earliest centre of Hui settlement in the province, though other areas of significant Muslim settlement were subsequently established in north-western Yunnan around Chao-t'ung by the Emperor Jen-tsung in about 1313 as well as – much later on, during the Qing Dynasty – in and around Qianshui in southeastern Yunnan.