Discovering the Great Mosque at the Muslim Quarter in Xi'an, China!

Xi'an, is an exciting and fabulous city to visit in China. It has a rich histroy and many well preserved ancient buildings with Chinese style architecture. China itself is much more diverse than most people think. Its huge population is comprised of fifty six different ethnic groups many with thier own unique cultures, customs and dialects. There are also a number of religious groups which are tolerated to a certain extent in China. In our travel within China, we always attend a Christian Sunday Service on Sundays no matter where we are. There has never been an issue at all. From our experience, Chinese people are free to attend church services. However, there are limitations for children under 18 who are not allowed to attend Sunday School at church. Consequently, we have never seen any children in church services during our visits here.

With the western media always reporting that Muslims are being mistreated or forbidden to practise their religion in China, we were very curious when we discovered the Muslim Quarter inside the ancient city of Xi'an! Not only were we blown away at how busy and vibrant the Muslim Quarter was, we were totally surprised at how successful and how many of the Muslim owned and operated business were in this city! The streets in the Muslim Quarter were jammed packed everytime we visited regardless of the time of the day. The streets were lined with Muslim owned businesses - restaurants of many kinds - BBQ food, pastrie shops, noodle houses, desserts and cafes, shops, stores selling clothing, jewellry, souvenirs, made-up services followed by photo sessions with rented Muslim costumes etc. Visitors were crawling everywhere enjoying everything offered at the Muslim Quarter. It was one of the busiest places we have ever been on this trip.

What surprised us more was the beautiful ancient mosque located right here! We could not pass this opportunity of not going in to see this grand place! We were glad we did! This is the Great Mosque, over 1300 years old, a spacious area with old Chinese buildings, beautiful and quiet courtyards.

There were a number of Chinese Muslims men hanging around waiting for the worship. We peeked inside the big hall and we saw a few men sitting on the carpeted floor inside. Outside the worship hall, visitors could watch from a big television screen broadcasting what was happening inside.

We saw a few middle eastern visitors also milling around and we had an interesting chat with them. We learned that they were waiting to attend the worship there. I asked them how would they understand what was going on as they were in China and the service would be in Mandarin. To which they replied, ' We would understand becasue the service will be in Arabic!'

. As we looked around, yes, we did see Arabic all around us, on the wall, above the doors. Muslim culture and Muslims were seen everywhere here. People moved freely and could worship in the Great Mosque and other mosques in Xi'an.

We further learned that no matter where they are in the world, Muslims at the Mosque will use Arabic during some part of the worship, even in China. How cool is that! RT, The Great Mosque Xi'an, China 022025