The Great Mosque of Xi'an
Xi’an, China
December 12th, 2007
By Dan Murdoch

FOR a while in Xi’an it felt like I’d been transported back to Central Asia.
We’d stumbled into the Muslim Quarter, a strange and ancient place that owes its existence to the Silk Road, the famous trade route between China, the Middle East and Europe. The road, which was actually more of a network of different and often competing paths, was a conduit for all sorts of luxuries like firs, dyes, gems, spices, and of course silk. Xi’an was the first big Chinese city western merchants would get to, and plenty of Arab traders decided to settle here to make their fortune.

It is an interesting walk, although most of the people look Chinese, I could see the odd Arabian among the stalls. People wore little Arabic touches: men wearing fez, women with headdresses.
Little birds sang from cages that lined the main road, like street lamps. A girl with clubbed feet crawled around after us, clattering along a paint tin with a few bills in. Every now and again we would stop long enough for her to catch up and she’d start banging her tin. She could only have been 11 or 12. She wore gloves on her hands like shoes as she dragged her lame, bare feet behind.
A man sang traditional songs at the top of his nasal voice as he sliced up a great rice cake, a huge yellow thing the size of a bedside table. He skewered thick, moist pieces and barbecued them.
Next to him whole carcasses hung from butchers hooks, dripping puddles of blood into congealing pools.
We stopped for something to eat and the menu was straight out of Central Asia, shashlik, manti, naan bread, even pismaniye, which is a sort of candy floss like sweet we had in Izmit in Turkey almost four months ago and haven’t seen since.

Buried among the narrow alleys is The Great Mosque of Xi’an, the largest in China,
We’ve seen some very impressive mosques on this trip- none more so that the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey. But the Great Mosque of Xian really looks nothing like a mosque, not as I know it anyway.
The mosques we’ve seen normally have great domes, often a cloistered brick courtyard surrounded by minarets. But this was more like a large garden separated into sections by ornate Chinese gateways, pavilions and pagodas, the same sort of layout as a Chinese temple.
In the buildings were intricate carved furniture, glazed vases, wooden shutters and paper screens.
And it was full of contradictions:
There were Chinese symbols like dragons and turtles everywhere- but in Islam depicting a living creature is banned so you don’t expect to find these images in mosques.
There were quotes from the Koran up, but they are in Chinese, and, translating the Koran is considered blasphemy so is banned.

It was strange, fascinating and beautiful. Such a tranquil atmosphere- the Chinese use small trees and bushes cleverly to create an impression of privacy in open spaces. The air felt light and calm, a little oasis in this noisy city. If it wasn’t for the sign at the door I wouldn’t have guessed it was a mosque. Only the large prayer hall at the very end, closed to infidels, gave a solid clue.
I was surprised to see that work on the place started in 742AD, only 150 years after Mohammed was born, yet here, thousands of miles away, is this magnificent structure.
Testament to the power of Islam as a faith, and the power of the Silk Road as a highway for ideas.

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mrdanmurdoch@gmail.com
For more of Dan’s blogs visit: http://danmurdoch.blogspot.com or www.trabanttrek.org