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(Abakh Hoja Tomb)

Located in Kashgar, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (Eastern Turkestan)

Date Building started: 1640


What they said about it


Lonely Planet
According to the Lonely Planet Travel Survival Kit on China (4th ed.), the Chinese name of xiangfei mu translates to 'Fragrant Concubines Tomb' in honor of one daughter of the Hoja clan who was married to the emperor Qianlong. However, her body was later moved to Hebei Province and is not actually entombed here.


New World Press
According to an article in NewWorld Press, Beijing, 1989, The Apak Hoja Tomb, five miles northeast of Kashi(Kashgar), 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 Islam missionary. After he died, his eldest son Apak Hoja carried on the missionary work and became the leader of the famous Islamic faction of Baishan during the seventeenth century and seized the power of the Yarkant Court for a time. Apak Hoja was buried 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 an 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 trees making the place pleasantly quiet 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 Xianfei (Fragrant Imperial Concubine) because of the rich delicate fragrance of flower sent forth by her body. After she died, her remains was escorted back to Kashi (Kashgar) by her sister-in-law Sudexiang and was buried in the Apak Hoja Tomb. So, some people call the tomb, ` the Tomb of Xiangfei. ' 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.

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