Depictions of Animals and Peoples From the Chinese Sea and Its Islands in Copies of Qazwīnī’s Ajā’ib Al-Makhlūqāt Wa Gharā’ib Al-Mawjūdāt

Abstract

Qazwīnī’s (d. 1283) cosmographic and geographic work, Ajā’ib Al-Makhlūqāt wa Gharā’ib Al-Mawjūdāt, includes four introductions, two main chapters, and an epilogue. The first chapter deals with celestial realms (the Lunar Sphere) and the second with earthly ones (the Sublunar Sphere). This study researches depictions of unusual animals and peoples from the Sublunar Sphere, specifically the Chinese Sea and its islands according to the second chapter entitled “al-Sufliyyat.” The Chinese Sea is the biggest sea in the world other than Bahr al-Muhit, which surrounds it and contains many named islands including Zabaj, Ramini, Waqwaq, Salahi, Banan, and Atwaran. According to Qazwīnī each of these islands can be reached by people. The work gives information and detailed stories about real and fantastical as well as oddly behaving and oddly featured creatures including winged cats, civet cats, musk rats, red mountain goats with white spots, monkeys similar to buffalos and rams, large snakes with a diet of buffalos and elephants, omnilingual parrots, rhinoceroses similar to donkeys, buffalos without tails, huge turtles, petrified crabs, various birds and fishes, and naked humanoids with wild natures who are occasionally cannibalistic. Some of these humanoids fly with wings or live in trees. This study analyzes the depictions of these creatures, evaluating their similarities and differences, in several copies of Qazwīnī’s work from different periods between the thirteenth and nineteenth centuries. © 2025, Istanbul 29 Mayis University - ISAM, TDV Centre for Islamic Studies. All rights reserved.