Yeheidie'erding (, ? – 1312), also known as Amir al-Din (, ''Amīr al-Dīn''), was a Muslim architect who helped design and led the construction of the capital of the

Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty ( ; zh, c=元朝, p=Yuáncháo), officially the Great Yuan (; Mongolian language, Mongolian: , , literally 'Great Yuan State'), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after Div ...

Khanbaliq Khanbaliq (; , ''Qaɣan balɣasu'') or Dadu of Yuan (; , ''Dayidu'') was the Historical capitals of China, winter capital of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty in what is now Beijing, the capital of China today. It was located at the center of modern ...

, located in present-day

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

, the current capital of the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. According to Cary Y. Liu interpretation of the ''Ma-ho-ma-sha Stele'' inscription, either Amir al-Din's ancestors came from the Western Regions, although originating from

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

, or that he directly came from Arabia.

Construction of Khanbaliq

Yeheidie'erding learned from Han architecture. In 1264, in preparation to establish the

, Kublai Khan decided to rebuild the city which was then known as Zhongdu (中都, "central capital", pinyin: Zhōngdū) as his new capital. Liu Bingzhong was the planner and the original architect and was appointed as the supervisor of its construction, while Yeheidie'erding help designed and led the construction. The construction of the walls of the city began in the same year, while the imperial palace was built from 1274 onwards. The design of the city followed the

Confucianism Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China, and is variously described as a tradition, philosophy, Religious Confucianism, religion, theory of government, or way of li ...

classic '' Zhouli'' (周禮, "rites of Zhou"), in that the rules of “9 vertical axis, 9 horizontal axis”, “palaces in the front, markets in the rear”, “left ancestral worship, right god worship” were taken into consideration. It was broad in scale, strict in planning and execution, complete in equipment. After the establishment of the

in 1271, Kublai Khan renamed the city from Zhongdu to Khanbaliq (大都, "great capital",

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

: Dàdū) in 1272, and it officially became the capital of the Yuan dynasty, though some constructions in the city were not completed until 1293. It would last until 1368 when Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...

and future

Hongwu Emperor The Hongwu Emperor (21 October 1328– 24 June 1398), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Taizu of Ming, personal name Zhu Yuanzhang, courtesy name Guorui, was the List of emperors of the Ming dynasty, founding emperor of the Ming dyna ...

, made his imperial ambitions known by sending an army toward the Yuan capital.Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. The Cambridge Illustrated History of China''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. The last Yuan emperor fled north to

Shangdu Shangdu (; lit. "Upper Capital"; ), known in the West as Xanadu, was the summer capital of the Yuan dynasty under Kublai Khan. Located in what is now Zhenglan Banner, Inner Mongolia, it was designed by Chinese architect Liu Bingzhong and served as ...

and Zhu declared the founding of the Ming dynasty after razing the Yuan palaces in Khanbaliq to the ground,Ta-tu – Britannica Online Encyclopedia
/ref> and the city was renamed Beiping (北平,

: Běipíng) by the

in the same year. After the enthronement of the Yongle Emperor, the third Ming emperor, the city was renamed to Beijing (北京,

: Běijīng) and became the capital of the Ming dynasty.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yeheidieerding Islam in China Yuan dynasty people 1312 deaths Yuan dynasty Muslims Year of birth unknown 13th-century architects

Construction of Khanbaliq

See also

References