by Alan Phillips

The city of Xi’an was China’s first capital over 2000 years ago.  This is where the first emperor, Qin Shihuang, ruled and it was the capital of China in many later dynasties.  Xi’an was also the starting point of the Silk Road in the Tang dynasty and it was in Xi’an where foreign goods from the far west first appeared.  Along with trade, travelers from the west brought foreign religions such as Buddhism and Islam to China.  Xi’an, being the gateway to China from the Silk Road, has a great many ancient religious sites.

One of the must-see sights in Xi’an that all the guidebooks talked about was the Grand Mosque.  In Xi’an we found there was a large Muslim population.  China not only has a sizable Muslim minority but Muslims in China make up many different ethnicities.  Recent news has highlighted the unrest among the Uighur minorities in Xinjiang province in far western China, but in Xi’an most of the Muslims are of the Hui minority.  While the Hui are one of the fifty-plus officially recognized minority nationalities in China by the Chinese government, they are actually descendants of ethnic Chinese who converted to Islam in past centuries.  So while they may study or speak Arabic, their native language is Chinese.  The only way one might even notice the difference between the Hui and the Han (that is, the ethnic Chinese) is that the Hui men often wear white caps and the women usually wear headscarves.

We came upon the Grand Mosque by accident on our first day in the city.  We had been wandering through a winding covered alley filled with stalls that sold all manner of tourist souvenirs and t-shirts when we saw a sign in English and Chinese pointing out the mosque’s entrance around the corner in another alley.  A Hui woman in a white headscarf staffed a ticket booth for visitors to the mosque.  We paid the entrance fee and walk into a surprising sight.  Hidden away in the center of this neighborhood maze of shops selling Mao Zedong knick-knacks and toy panda bears was a huge complex of courtyard gardens and pavilions that made up the Grand Mosque.

Though they charged an entrance fee and had a gift shop, the mosque wasn’t just another state-run tourist site.  It was an active mosque.  Hui men in white caps came to pray in the mosque’s largest hall which was only open for practicing Muslims and on Fridays it would be full and tourists were discouraged to come then so as not to interrupt the services.

Since the Hui people are of Chinese descent, the architecture of the mosque was Chinese in style but repurposed for a different religion.  There was a large, free-standing arch in the middle of the entrance courtyard much like ones we saw in Confucian temples.  The inscription on the arch commemorated the emperor who first allowed the mosque to be constructed.

There were pagodas and buildings with curving tile roofs in the traditional Chinese style.  Even the mosque’s minaret was actually a multistory pagoda in the central courtyard.  There was the occasional dragon hidden in some of the mosque’s architecture but rather than statues of guardian lions, Buddhas or Taoist deities, the pagodas and rooms had inscriptions in Chinese or Arabic.  These were usually quotes from the Koran or dedications to benefactors who donated to the mosque in previous dynasties.

The mosque was full of hidden courtyards, rooms and hallways that were open to the public if one managed to find them.  Many of the rooms had artifacts relating to the Hui people or Islam in Xi’an.  There were sundials used to determine prayer times throughout the day, maps of ancient Xi’an carved in stone and wall mosaics of Mecca.

In the last and largest courtyard was a large prayer hall which looked just like a Buddhist temple’s meditation hall with a curving, bright blue tile roof and wooden columns.  But the mosque’s prayer hall was absent the idols, dragons and paintings of gods and demons, and the plaque at the entrance had its inscription carved in Arabic calligraphy rather than Chinese.  The prayer hall was the only building tourists were not allowed to enter, though they could view the open hall from outside.  It was open only for prayer and handfuls of Hui men entered and left at times to pray throughout the morning.

I was trying to puzzle out the Chinese characters painted on many of the pillars throughout the mosque which were written in a strange style.  I soon realized they weren’t Chinese at all but rather were words written in stylized Arabic letters made to look like Chinese characters—much like how Chinese restaurants in America have their English signs written in “oriental” style brush strokes.

Before we left we stopped by the mosque’s gift shop.  Here you could buy maps and scroll paintings of the mosque and copies of the Koran and other books on Islamic theology in Chinese, English and Arabic.  We chatted with the Hui shopkeeper and My wife asked him how they managed to save the mosque during the Cultural Revolution of the sixties and seventies when so many religious structures were destroyed in China’s cities.  The man said that the local people worked to protect it and despite some vandalism by Red Guards, the mosque was never seriously damaged.  I was impressed by this considering the casual destruction of so many other sites around China during the Cultural Revolution.  I noticed this throughout Xi’an and the surrounding area.  Xi’an seems to have preserved far more of its past than other places in China.  Xi’an is the only city left in China with its entire ancient walls still intact and it still possesses great many towers and temples from centuries ago.

But even though people in China don’t have to worry about soldiers or Red Guards rampaging through religious buildings anymore, it is still a fact that in Communist China, all religions are state-run so the Grand Mosque of Xi’an is a state-owned property.  This probably explained the presence of dozens of art school students on a field trip who were lounging around the pagodas and courtyards of the mosque drawing sketches of the architecture.  The mosque’s clergy probably don’t have much say in regulating tourists and school groups outside of Fridays.

When we left the mosque we wandered into a side street where many Hui street vendors were selling local Muslim-style foods.  Hui food is a variant on the local Chinese cuisine, but with lamb and beef substituting for pork in the noodles and dumplings.  Xi’an food is northern Chinese cuisine, so noodles, dumplings and bread are used more and rice eaten less than in the south.  Influences from western China and central Asia are seen in the food, also—baked bread and Indian-like flat breads are sold at many of the Hui restaurants.

The whole neighborhood around the mosque is full of restaurants and stores conspicuously advertising Hui and Muslim food and products.  Most of the shop workers are Hui—all the men wear white caps and the women have their hair tucked in headscarves.  But other than that, the young Hui were all dressed in t-shirts and jeans like most young people in China.  Much of this is probably due to the current government’s blessing.  Having lots of Hui-run shops in the middle of town attracts both foreign and Chinese tourists looking for something “exotic”.  Also, after last year’s violent protests by the Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province, the national government is probably eager to showcase an example of “contented Muslims” in China.

We found a lot more to see in Xi’an on our trip.  Though China is an ancient country, there is often very few remains of its past after all the conflicts it endured in the twentieth century.  Xi’an is one of the places in China where history and diversity thrive.

Alan Phillips is the technology coordinator at the Asian American Civic Association.