Kashi Travel Guide

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Kashi Travel Guide

Kashi Prefecture, 141,600 square kilometers in total area in the southern part of Xinjiang, is contiguous with the Taklimakan Desert on its east and borders Russia, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kirghizia, Pakistan to its west and southwest respectively.

The city of Kashi, a place of strategic importance in south Xinjiang, has an area of fifteen square kilometers with an average elevation of 1289.5 meters. The city lies 1,473 kilometers from the city of Urumqi.

Scenic Spots

The Id Kah Mosque

The Id Kah Mosque, a grand Islamic structure located in the center of the city of Kashi, has a history of more than five hundred years. Shakesimirzha, the ruler of Kashgar, had the mosque built here first in 1442, where he would say prayers to the souls of his deceased relatives. Extended and renovated time and again through the ages, it has finally reached its present shape and size.

The mosque, 140 meters long from south to north and 120 meters from east to west, covers an area of 16,800 square meters and consists of the Hall of Prayer, the Doctrine-Teaching Hall, the gate tower, a pond and some other auxiliary structures. The gate of the mosque, built of yellow bricks with the joints of the brickwork pointed with gypsum, has distinct lines. On both sides of the gate are eighteen-meter high round brick columns half embedded in the wall. On top of the columns stands a tower where the imam would call out loudly at dawn every day to wake up the Muslims and summon them to attend service in the mosque.

In the tree-graced courtyard, there is a pond, and on its bank many pottery pots are placed, which are to be used by the Islam believers to clean their bodies. The main hall with wide eaves is 160 meters long and sixteen meters wide. The hall's ceiling, with fine wooden carving and colorful flower-and plant painting patterns, is supported by one hundred carved wooden columns. In the middle part of the wall in the main hall, there is a deep shrine in which a stepped throne is placed. During service, the first Maola stands in the shrine to lead the prayer. After entering the main hall, the followers would seat themselves facing west both inside and out, in proper lines.

The Apak Hoja Tomb

The Apak Hoja Tomb, five kilometers northeast of the city of Kashi, is an important cultural unit protected by the Autonomous Region. As a tomb of the descendants of an Islamic sage, it was built around 1640. The legend has it that seventy-two persons in all of five generations of the same family were buried in the tomb.

The first generation buried here was Yusuf Hoja, a celebrated Islamic missionary. After he died, his oldest son Apak Hoja carried on the missionary work and became the leader of the famous Islamic faction of Baishan during the seventeenth century which seized the power of the Yarkant Court for a time. Apak Hoja died in 1693 and was buried in the tomb. His reputation was greater than his father's, so the tomb was renamed "The Apak Hoja Tomb".

The tomb is a group of beautiful and magnificent buildings including the Tombs Hall, the Doctrine-Teaching Hall, the Great Hall of Prayer, the gate tower, a pond and orchard.

The Tombs Hall, with a dome shaped top of seventeen meters in diameter and covered with green glazed tiles outside, is twenty-six meters high and thirty-nine meters long at the base. The hall is high, spacious and columnless. Inside the hall, there is a high terrace on which the tombs are arranged. All the tombs are built of glazed bricks with very beautiful patterns of blue flowers on a white background, glittering, simple and elegant.

The Great Hall of Prayer in the west part of the tomb. Ayitijiayi by name, is the place where the Muslim believers conduct service on big days. The Lesser Hall of Prayer and the gate tower are outmost buildings decorated with colorful paintings and elegant brick carvings.

Outside the tomb there is a crystal-clear pond lined by tall tree making the place pleasantly quite and beautiful.

The legend goes that among the Hoja descendants buried here, there was a lady, Yiparhan by name, who was one of the concubines of the Qing Dynasty Emperor Qianlong. She was called Xinagfei (Fragrant Imperial Concubine) because of the rich delicate fragrance of flower sent forth by her body. After she died, her remains were escorted back to Kashi by her sister-in-law Sudexiang and were buried in the Apak Hoja Tomb.

So, some people call the tomb "the tomb of Xinagfei". But according to textual research, Xiangfei was none other than Rongfei, a concubine of Emperor Qianlong, and she was actually buried in the East Tombs of the Qing Dynasty in Zunhua County, Hebei Province after she died.

The Yusfu Has Hajip Tomb

The Yusuf Has Hajip Tomb is located on the campus of the Kashi Number 12 primary school. Yusuf Has Hajip, an Uygur poet, scholar and thinker, was born in Husiwurdui (Balashagun) in Karakhanid Dynasty, and later immigrated to Kashgar. He wrote the long narrative philosophic poem Kuladku Bilig (The Knowledge of Happiness). After he died, he was buried in Badige, outside the city of Kashgar. His tomb was moved to its present site when it was threatened by the flooding of the Toman River.

The Mahmud Kashgari Tomb

The Mahmud Kashgari Tomb, located in the Wupar Village, Shufu County, is offset with trees and bushes. Mahmud Kashgari was born into an aristocratic family of The Karakhnid Dynasty in the eleventh century. An outstanding Uygur scholar and linguist, Mahmud compiled the Complete Turkish Dictionary. His tomb is highly respected by the Uygur people and many Islamic scholars have contributed their favorite books to the tombs; it has thus slowly become a kind of library, and people respectfully call it Haiziliti Maolamu, meaning the tomb of honorable scholars.

Ancient Hanoi City and the Mor Buddhist Pagoda

Thirty kilometers northeast of Kashi stands the ruined adobe-walled city of Hanoi, which lies in an area three kilometers long and one kilometer wide. According to textual research, the city is 1,500 years old.

A few kilometers north of the ancient city is the site of the Mor Buddhist Pagoda has three-square layers, each a little smaller than the one below it. The bottom layer has a circumference of more than forty-eight meters, the second layer forty meters and the third layer thirty-two meters, while the pagoda stands more than twelve meters high.

The platform beside the pagoda was one of the central temple structures, and in its sidewalls were carved niches housing Buddha figurines. But now there are no figurines left, and even the niches themselves are barely visible.

The Grand Bazaar

Grand Bazaar, in Uygur means "farm trade market". The bazaar in Kashi is the biggest one in Xinjiang. As early as two thousand years ago, it was the collecting and distributing center of goods. Nowadays, it has become even more busy. On bazaar day every Sunday, the traffic gets heavy on every road with crowds upon crowds of market-goers coming in from all directions.

In the bazaar there is just about everything you would expect to find, such as various special local products, handicrafts, articles of daily use, fruits and vegetables as well as means of production and all kinds of domestic animals. Riding donkeys or driving carts, farmers from the suburbs get downtown by early morning. It is really a scene of prosperity with cheerful laughter and buying and selling everywhere.

Boshikelamu Orchard

Kashi has always enjoyed the reputation of being a "Land of Fruits and Melons", with Boshikelamu ranking first in the area. Among the great variety of fruits in Boshikelamu, the apricot alone has more than twenty strains, and grape, apple and pear have nearly twenty strains each. Also there are many strains of cherry, plum, peach, quince, date and so on.

Each of the fruits has early, middle and late ripening varieties. In May, the white, sweet and tasty mulberries ripen and, from then on, apricot, cherry, fig, sweet-kernel peach, jasper peach, flat peach, pear, apple, grape, pomegranate and pistachio and badam, the high-valued dry nut fruits in China, ripen one after another. The fruit harvest does not end until the beginning of November.