Ramadan ibn Alauddin
Ramadan ibn Alauddin (1312―April 11, 1349, رمضان ابن علاء الدين ) was a Yuan darughachi (governor) of Luchuan Prefecture in Rongzhou, Guangxi Province, of Muslim faith and Korean provenance. He served until his death in 1349. His existence is known only from an epitaph in the cemetery of the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou. Ramadan is notable for being the first named Muslim from Korea, although it is unclear whether he was of Korean ethnicity. Historiography and popularization The first academic publication to discuss Ramadan, a Muslim from fourteenth-century Korea, was a 1989 paper about Islamic epitaphs at Guangzhou by the Chinese historians Yang Tang and Jiang Yongxing. The existence of Ramadan became popularized in South Korea in 2005, when the daily newspaper Hankook Ilbo published a story about Son Sang-ha, then ambassador-at-large of the country, visiting Guangzhou to see a replica of Ramadan's epitaph. In 2006, KBS, South Korea's national public broadcaster, produced a documentary about Islam in medieval Korea centering on Ramadan. Epitaph The life of Ramadan is known only from his epitaph in the cemetery of the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou, China, originally located close to the grave said to be of Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, a Companion of the Prophet Muhammad believed to have died in China. The epitaph has currently been moved inside the Huaisheng Mosque building. The text is bilingual, with Arabic in the center and Classical Chinese written in small characters in the margins. The Arabic inscription is typical of Islamic funerary epitaphs. It uses a phrase from the Quranic verse 3:185, "Every soul will taste death," as its title. The inscription continues with the well-known Throne Verse, quoted in full, then adds a few details about Ramadan himself: The Messenger of God said long ago, "He who dies in a foreign land dies as a martyr." This grave is where Ramaḍān ibn Alāʼ ud-Dīn, having died, has returned. May God forgive him and have mercy upon him and [illegible]. [illegible] who has visited Aleppo writes in the date of Rajab [illegible] in the year 751, blessed by God. The accompanying Chinese text gives Ramadan's address, occupation, and dates of death and burial. Ramadan [ ], occupant of Qingxuangguan at Wanping Prefecture in Dadu Circuit, was a Korean. He was thirty-eight years old and had then been appointed as darughachi at Luchuan Prefecture in Rongzhou, Guangxi Province. He passed away on the twenty-third day of the third month of the ninth year of Zhizheng [April 11, 1349]. He was buried on the eighteenth day of the eighth month [September 30] at Guihuagang by the Liuhua Bridge at Chengbei, Guangzhou [location of the Muslim cemetery]. An epitaph was raised. According to the Chinese text, Ramadan died in April 1349, but was buried in the current location of his grave only in September. The Islamic month Rajab 751 AH, which the Arabic text is dated to, corresponds to September 1350 CE, a full year later. It thus appears that the grave's current location is the result