Niujie Libai Si is located in the southwest of Beijing, on the Ox Street (Niujie). It is believed to be the city's oldest mosque. The building, which fuses Chinese and Arabian style, is more than an architectural oddity. It is also the hub of the Hui Muslim community living in the area.
Friday prayer at the mosque. At major
celebrations, the prayer hall can hold up to 1,000 people at once
(Women of China)
Concealed by its screen wall, wedged between buildings and cranes, Niujie
Mosque lies almost unnoticed in the heart of Beijing's Xuanwu District. With its
kiln roof built in the traditional Zaojing style, it could be mistaken for any
Buddhist temple, with one unusual exception. It is oriented on an east-west
axis, to allow the faithful to turn towards Mecca during prayer. Other Beijing
temples face south to protect the worshipping space from evil spirits arriving
from the north.
This feature is not the only peculiarity of the building,
which incorporates the style of Chinese Classical palaces with that of ancient
Arabian mosques. The harmonious blend is visible in major elements such as the
presence of the minaret and the tower for observing the moon, unique to Islamic
temples. It also reflects in almost imperceptible details: a sentence engraved
above a door, composed of 19 Arabic letters written in one single stroke, as in
pure Chinese calligraphy style.
Niujie is all about discretion and
refinement. The area of the mosque does not exceed 6,000 square meters-almost
four times less than the Confucius temple. This is enough, however, to make it
the biggest of Beijing's 68 mosques.
The Prayer Hall is the main part of
the mosque, which also includes the Building for Training and Etiquette, the
Lecture Hall, the Tablet Pavilion, the Twin Pavilion as well as bathing
facilities for men and women. The
Elders chatting in the mosque's courtyard after
prayer (Women of
China) Prayer Hall takes up more than 600
square meters and is supported by arches coated with gold and red paint and
carved with parts of Alcoran. At the southeast corner of the mosque is a
courtyard with the tombs of two saints who came to spread the word of religion
in China around 1300s AC and died in the country.
1,000 People at Once
The mosque is widely believed to
have been built in 996 during the Liao Dynasty by Nazruddin, an Arabian scholar,
and to be the oldest in the capital. However, its origin is questioned. "There
is a debatable claim for the Niu-chieh street li-pai-ssu as built by
Na-su-lu-ting, son of Ke-wa-mo-ting, around 996 during the Liao. It is also
suggested that a Bukhara prince Sofeir visited Peking in c.1070 and his grandson
in 1191," Donald Leslie said in his Islam in Traditional China: A Short History
to 1800. However, he added, "Ibn Battuta1 makes no mention of a mosque there,
but it seems likely for the Yuan. There was a Qadi there. Tombstone inscriptions
in Arabic have been found dated 1280 (679) and 1283 (682)."
What seems
more certain is that the building was enlarged and renovated several times under
the Ming and Qing dynasties, and under the Communists. At a time when the mosque
was surrounded by hutongs, it may have been the highest building in the
district. Today, neighboring buildings cast a shade on the tower. As for the
minaret, it remains silent because "there is no need to call for prayer any more
because everybody has got a watch now", the old curator of the mosque
says.
However, the mosque still gives a structure to the life of Muslim
residents in the neighborhood. "I go to the mosque five times a day, so I just
close the stall when it's time for prayer," says Jin Shaozhi, a 70 year old
butcher whose shop is located in a little street perpendicular to Niujie.
Jin, like most of Muslim residents of the area, belongs to the Hui
ethnic group. There are about nine million Hui people in China, with a higher
concentration in Ningxia and Gansu provinces. They belong to the Sunni branch of
Islam.
Many significant events in Hui lives also take place at the Niujie
mosque. That is where newborn babies are given a name. Wedding and funeral
ceremonies are held there too. The prayer hall can hold 1,000 people at once but
at major celebrations, such as the fast-breaking festival, up to 2,500 faithful
go to the mosque. Carpets are laid out in the courtyard to allow everyone to
follow the ceremony, while the enormous cooker standing in the courtyard, a gift
from Emperor Kangxi, is used to prepare porridge for the Muslims of the
vicinity.
Beijingers as well as travelers frequent Niujie mosque. "I am
waiting for my father to come back from the pilgrimage in Mecca. Then, we will
go back
The Hajj trip is one of the essential duties that form the "Pillars of Islam." This year, in addition to individual travelers, an organized group of 5,000 faithful was sent to Saudi Arabia. In order to serve the faith of the Muslims who follow the Islamic doctrines and traditions, a number of other facilities are found in Niujie area: Muslim schools, kindergartens, bookshops, as well as wedding and funeral service offices. Although most Muslims in Beijing cannot read or speak Arabic, they can recite the main prayers in the language.
The Qingzhen2 food industry is also prosperous in the neighborhood. Muslim restaurants, halal meat shops and food stores are numerous. Little streets in the vicinity of the mosque smell of fresh meat and Qhingzhen cakes. Of these there are at least 80 types, made of flour, rice, beans and other types of grains and pulses.
From Eight to 40 Meters Wide
In olden times, Ox Street was a narrow street called Liujie, or Pomegranate
Street. Nobody knows when the name Liujie was first mispronounced as Niujie.
However, this new name eventually earned official recognition. Fruit and
vegetable gardens have disappeared and today, Niujie mosque is on a big avenue.
The road in front of it was widened to 40 meters from the former eight. The
Beijing Municipal Government launched a huge project which aims at rebuilding
the residential area. It affects an area of 39.5 hectares around Ox Street and
involves moving 7500 families.
Golden Arabic characters on shop fronts,
buildings painted yellow and green-both the Koran and the Hadith contain
descriptions of Paradise as being filled with green-and faithful wearing
traditional white prayer caps show the durability of the Muslim culture in the
heart of Xuanwu district.
However, a number of inhabitants deplore the
disappearance of traditions and religious fervor. "When I was young, people used
to greet each other by saying 'Salaam malekum, malekum salaam', in the Arabic
way. Young generations forget about these traditions," the butcher says,
smiling, before closing the shop to join the mosque for prayer.
1 Abu
`Abdallah ibn Battuta was born in Morocco in 1304 C.E. (703 Hijra). He is one of
the greatest travelers of all times. In the course of 29 years, he traveled
across the eastern hemisphere for a distance of more than 116,000 km. Among
others he visited Egypt, Syria, Persia, Iraq, East Africa, Anatolia, southern
Russia and China, sixty years after Marco Polo
2 Literally "pure and true",
another way to say "Muslim"
3.Zhu Qixin, The Sights of Beijing
(Source: Women of China English Monthly April 2004)
