Gulf Connections: Why a porcelain dish in an Omani mosque leads to China

Dish sheds light on the Maritime Silk Road that dates back well over 1,000 years ago

A fortress in Oman’s Manah Oasis. Photo: Leo Viktorov

Visitors to the historic desert settlement of Harat al Bilad in Oman’s Manah Oasis might spot an unexpected addition to one of the ancient buildings. Embedded in the centre of the mihrab, or prayer niche, of the 16th-century Masjid Al Ali is a Chinese porcelain dish.

Other mosques in Oman have similar examples of Chinese porcelain, and broken fragments of similar dishes have been unearthed at archaeological sites not just in Oman, but across the Northern Emirates of the UAE.

Their presence is proof of a trading connection that is well over 1,000 years old, a maritime version of the Silk Road that connected China with Arabia and to the Middle East and even the Mediterranean.

Chinese craftsmen first discovered the secret of porcelain, using high heat and raw materials like kaolinite to create durable yet almost translucent ceramics, around 3,000 years ago.

It was not until the 14th century and the Ming Dynasty that an export trade developed for what was a highly valued and closely guarded manufacturing process of ceramics,

By the middle of the 16th century, Portuguese ships had established a European trading monopoly with China, with porcelain high on the list of the most coveted goods. But within a century Portugal had been displaced by the Dutch East India Company.

The Chinese porcelain dish embedded in the mihrab, or prayer niche, of the 16th century Masjid Al Ali. Photo: Christoph Strässler

Historic ties

The Arab world, though, had been trading with China many centuries earlier. In 1998, the wreck of a dhow was discovered in Indonesia’s Gelasa Strait. Sunk in the early ninth century, the ship would have been returning to its home port, likely in Oman, when it went down.

The wreck site was a treasure trove of Tang dynasty ceramics, packed tightly together, and including blue and white dishes and thousands of bowls. One bore an inscription of the date of manufacture. This was the equivalent of 828AD.

These pieces would have been made for the markets of ancient Persia and what is now Iraq, Some used designs in what we now think of as a classic Chinese blue and white. In fact, the blue pigment was cobalt, then only produced in ancient Persia, and the ship’s cargo was one of the earliest examples of the Maritime Silk Road.

Chinese emperors also used ships to establish diplomatic links with countries many thousands of miles away. Archaeologists in Ras Al Khaimah discovered a fragment of Chinese pottery from the 14th century.

The shard, found in 2019 in what was once the medieval port city of Julfar, had a partial design of what seems to be duck and is similar to ceramics gifted to foreign officials during the Yuan Dynasty established by Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis.

A research paper on the history of Chinese pottery in Oman’s mosques was presented by British academics at the 2015 Seminar for Arabian Studies, which is held by the International Association for the Study of Arabia.

It concluded that Oman traders of the time “took great interest in the elevated aesthetic value – and perhaps spiritual perception – of the qualities of Chinese porcelain”.

Bowls may have been donated to the mosques by wealthy local benefactors as a way of making their mark on the community,

The shiny white surface of the ceramics may have created an impression similar to stars as featured in the Quran, the research suggests. “The image of the star, illuminating the night of ignorance and guiding the traveller through the treacherous space of doubt to the ultimate truth: God.”