Discover Xinjiang
Abakh Khoja Mausoleum
香妃墓 (阿帕克霍加麻扎)
A green- and blue-tiled 17th-century Islamic tomb complex holding five generations of a powerful Kashgar religious family, with a mosque, a madrasa and a cemetery around it. It is the finest piece of surviving Islamic architecture in the Kashgar area, and Chinese visitors know it by the legend attaching it to the 'Fragrant Concubine' of the Qianlong emperor.
The story
What makes this place special
The Afaq Khoja Mausoleum, usually called the Abakh Khoja tomb, stands on the northeastern edge of Kashgar and is described as the holiest Muslim site in the region. It was built around 1640 as the tomb of Muhammad Yusuf, a Naqshbandi Sufi master; his son Afaq Khoja, who ruled Kashgar, was buried here in 1694. The tiled mausoleum holds the tombs of five generations of the Afaqi family, with 72 people interred. The dome is about 17m across, with four tiled corner minarets, floral tilework and an iwan-style entrance niche, and the tombs inside are covered in blue glazed tile and coloured silks. Inside is a casket associated with Iparhan, the woman of Kashgar legend said to have been taken to the Qing court as the Fragrant Concubine and whose coffin was supposedly carried back from Beijing. The site includes prayer halls, a lecture hall, a pond for ablutions and a cemetery still used by the local community. It is officially designated a tourist attraction, and the Xiang Fei Garden park opened nearby in 2015.
What you’ll discover
A green and blue tiled dome behind a tall tiled gateway, with four minarets, standing in a walled compound of poplars. Inside the mausoleum, 72 tombs are ranged on a raised platform under the dome, graded by size and covered in glazed tile and silk, with the Iparhan casket among them. Around the mausoleum are a small mosque, a teaching hall, a pond, and a working graveyard of mounded and domed Uyghur tombs spreading across the ground behind, which is often the most memorable part.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- Walk out into the cemetery behind the mausoleum. It is still in use, the mud-brick domed tombs of different periods are extraordinary, and almost every visitor photographs the tiled dome from the front and leaves.
- Treat the Iparhan story as legend rather than history: whether the Fragrant Concubine existed as described, and whether her remains ever came here, is not established, and the on-site presentation does not distinguish.
- This is an active religious site with a functioning graveyard. Dress modestly, do not step on graves, do not photograph people at prayer or mourners, and remove shoes where indicated.
- The tile work is the thing to look at closely, particularly the entrance iwan and the drum of the dome, where repairs of different dates are visible as changes in colour and glaze.
- It is a short taxi ride northeast of the old city, so it combines with the old city and Id Kah into one day; it takes 45 minutes to an hour.
- Expect ID and bag checks at the entrance as at other sites in Kashgar, and do not photograph the security positions.
When to come
Late afternoon, when the light rakes across the tiled front and the cemetery, or early morning for quiet. April to June and September to October.
Getting around
Reasonable. The compound and the approach are flat and largely paved, so a wheelchair can reach the mausoleum front and the mosque courtyard. The tomb chamber is entered up a short flight of steps over a sill, and the cemetery behind is unmade, rutted ground that a chair cannot cross. A bad knee will have little trouble with the compound.
Worth knowing before you go
The concubine story is almost certainly a later invention - she is not buried here. Skip the paid folk show unless you specifically want it.
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