Chinese wares in the early Islamic world

Most of the pottery from Nishapur was made there, most of the rest came from Iraq and Transoxiana, and a few remains of Chinese earthenware and porcellanous ware were found, as at many Islamic sites in Iran, Iraq, Arabia and Egypt. ¹ Wilkinson notes that in Arabic and Persian ceramic contexts "chini" (Chinese) was almost a synonym for excellence. ¹

Wilkinson cites Bayhaqi's report that Ali ibn Isa, governor of Khurasan, gave Harun al-Rashid two thousand and twenty pieces of chini ware, noting that Ali ibn Isa was famous for his exactions and kept his post by sharing them with the caliph. ¹ The merchant Sulayman, in his account of 851 of travels from the Gulf to China, knew Chinese porcelain and described cups of fine clay through which the gleam of water could be seen. ¹ Al-Tha'alibi in the early eleventh century described translucent Chinese vessels, the finest "mishmishi" (apricot) and then "zabadi" (cream); al-Biruni mentioned a parti-coloured ware and its great price, and told of a merchant friend from Isfahan at Rayy whose taste for such luxury astonished him. ¹

Wilkinson thinks the traffic was mostly by sea: Ibn Khurradadhbih's al-Masalik wa-l-mamalik lists porcelain among goods shipped from Lukin on the Gulf of Tonkin, and Chinese fragments have been found at Islamic ports, chief among them Siraf, where Chinese ships unloaded according to Sulayman and which al-Istakhri called Iran's chief port until an earthquake destroyed it in 977. ¹