From China's Past: "Do You Not Bow before Heaven?"

Shortly before the celebration of the New Year in February 1763, ambassadors from distant lands from within and without the Qing empire arrive in Beijing. Many have been traveling for months on end. Now, in the beating heart of the empire, each is to take part in rituals that reaffirm their respective relationships with the emperor. This year, parties from the empire’s far western frontier representing Kazakh tribes, Khoqand, and Badakhshān arrive with a unique and unfamiliar companion in tow: Khwāja Mirhan, envoy of the Afghan ruler Aḥmad Shāh Durrānī (r. 1747–73).1

The Muslim ambassadors are invited to meet the emperor for the first time in his personal quarters at the Palace of Renewed Splendor. Here the reigning Qianlong emperor (r. 1736–1796) lived in his youth; he makes a point of returning annually before the New Year to throw tea parties and compose poetry with a select group of officials—it is a place close to his heart.2 In accordance with the instructions received from their escorts, the ambassadors are to perform ritual prostrations here, in the presence of the emperor.

Khwāja Mirhan refuses. He has performed prostrations before, when presenting his letter upon arriving in Beijing, but will not koutou before the emperor.

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