Niujie Mosque

Niujie Mosque (literally "Ox Street Mosque") in the Xicheng District of Beijing is the oldest and largest mosque in the Chinese capital and the principal religious centre of the Hui Muslim community of Beijing. The mosque was originally founded in 996 CE during the Liao dynasty by an Arab scholar named Nasruddin, and the present complex preserves a substantial proportion of architectural fabric from the Ming and early Qing dynasties — making it one of the oldest continuously functioning mosques in East Asia. What makes Niujie architecturally remarkable is its complete adoption of the traditional Chinese palace-and-temple architectural vocabulary: from the outside the complex looks essentially indistinguishable from a Buddhist or Daoist temple, with sweeping tiled rooflines, painted wooden brackets, decorated beams and ceramic ridge ornaments, while the interior is purely Islamic in function — the main prayer hall faces Mecca, contains a mihrab and minbar, and bears Arabic Qur'anic calligraphy and Chinese-language religious inscriptions side by side. The complex includes the main prayer hall accommodating approximately one thousand worshippers, a moon-observation tower (used historically to determine the start of Ramadan), a fountain pavilion, and the tombs of two Persian scholars who taught at the mosque in the late thirteenth century. The surrounding Niujie neighbourhood remains the historic heart of the Hui community in Beijing and includes traditional Chinese-Muslim restaurants and halal markets.