page_title: Chinese influences on Islamic pottery
section_title: Early Islamic period
hierarchical_section_title: Chinese influences on Islamic pottery / Earliest exchanges / Early Islamic period
caption_attribution_description: English: Tang_earthenware_fragment_with_sancai_glaze_end_of_7th_early_8th_century_excavated_in_Nishapur_Iran.
context_page_description: Chinese influences on Islamic pottery cover a period starting from at least the 8th century CE to the 19th century. This influence of Chinese ceramics has to be viewed in the broader context of the considerable importance of Chinese culture on Islamic arts in general.
context_section_description: Direct contacts between the Muslim and Chinese worlds were marked by the Battle of Talas in 751 in Central Asia. Muslim communities are known to have been present in China as early as the 8th century CE, especially in commercial harbours such as Canton and Hangzhou.
  From the 9th century onwards, Islamic merchants started to import Chinese ceramics, which were at the core of the Indian Ocean luxury trade at that time. These exotic objects were cherished in the Islamic world and also became an inspiration for local potters.
  Archaeological finds of Chinese pottery in the Middle East go back to the 8th century, starting with Chinese pottery of the Tang period (618–907). Remains of Tang period (618–907) ceramics have been found in Samarra and Ctesiphon in present-day Iraq, as well as in Nishapur in present-day Iran. These include porcelaneous white wares from Northern Chinese kilns, celadon-glazed stoneware originating in the Yue kilns of Northern Zhejiang, and the splashed stoneware of Changsha kilns in Hunan Province.
  Chinese pottery was the object of gift-making in Islamic lands: the Islamic writer Muhammad Ibn-al-Husain-Bahaki wrote in 1059 that Ali Ibn Isa, the governor of Khurasan, presented Harun al-Rashid, the Caliph, twenty pieces of Chinese imperial porcelain, the like of which had never been at a caliph's court before, in addition to 2,000 other pieces of porcelain".
caption: Tang dynasty earthenware fragment with sancai glaze, end of 7th-early 8th century, excavated in Nishapur, Iran.
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