Among academic circles there persists among some the opinion that although Dunhuang culture is rich, vibrant, and diverse, it has nothing to do with Islamism and that the records left by Marco Polo attesting to the presence of a considerable Muslim population living at Dunhuang are actually false. It may in fact be incorrect to think so. In 1276, a few members of Lord Bin’s family from Mongolia who originally believed in Islamism broke away from the Chaghatai Khanate in Central Asia and went to the Yuan dynasty for shelter. They were thereby ordered to settle at Hexi against the intrusion of the Chaghatai Khanate. Two steles respectively inscribed with the Six Syllable Mantra and the Records of the Renovation of the Huangqing Temple at Mogao were erected by the Bin family in the late Yuan dynasty with sponsorship from Sulaimān and Sultān Shāh who were of obvious Islamic cultural background; these two were even noted in the Suzhen Huayi Zhi as being born to an Islamic family. As further evidence, Buddhist poetry in Uighur found at the Northern Area at Mogao contains contents eulogizing the Muslims and the Arabian Empire, and the northwest corner of Suoyang City at Guazhou and Xiyu and Chijin Cities at Yumen are all shaped like a truncated cone, which is a typical feature of Islamicconstruction used to pay tribute to the al-Ka bah. The author believes this evidence to be sufficient to verify that Islamic culture did appear at Dunhuang during the Yuan dynasty.
