Niujie Mosque

Niujie Mosque is the largest and oldest mosque that can be found in Beijing. The majestic mosque is also world famous that every day the mosque is attracting Muslim pilgrims home and abroad to travel and visit here. It is located in the center of Xuanwu District, and is the spiritual centre for the 10,000 Muslims living in the vicinity. Basically, Niujie is equivalent to Muslim for the local inhabitants due to the mosques and Islamic food and costums. The Mosque was first built in 996 during the Liao Dynasty when the local Muslim community was forbidden from constructing the mosque in a style other than traditional Chinese architecture, with the expectation that the use of Arabic calligraphy was allowed. It's rebuilt in 1442 in the Ming Dynasty and expanded in 1696 under Qing Emperor Kangxi. If without the muslims praying in the mosque, it's easy to mistake it for any other Chinese temple.

The Mosque is one of the major mosques in North China covering an area of approximately 6000 square meters with the construction area of 3000 square meters. The mosque was built into traditonal Chinese wodern structure style but the decoration details in the main buildings adopt strong Arabic and Islamic features without any human or animal figures among the decorations as any other mosques in the world due to Islamic tatoo. The mosque points towards Mekka in the west with a symmetrical and compact layout. The mosque consists of the Prayer Hall, Moon Watching Tower (mochizuki f), Yili Hall, auditorium, Stele Pavilion and so on. The screen wall facing the entrance gate is 40 meters long and 5 meters high with a a white marble pedestal. The Prayer Hall is the most important building in the mosque and only open to Muslim.

Some script from the Koran and poems of worship decoration on the arched gate is written in the ancient Arabic characters of Al-Kufi, which is rear in China. Two stele pavilions sit at two sides of the hall despicting the detailed history of the mosque in Chinese and Arabic. Under a dense collection of cypress lies two black-stone graves of Shaykhs, Persian Mohammed Ahmed and Ahi from Bukhara Khanate who came to China to spread Islamic during late Song Dynasty and early Yuan Dynasty who dies in 1280 and 1283 respectively. The unique Niujie Monsue is now the headquarter of Islamic AssociationIt of Xuanwu and a cultural relic in Beijing. Here's some guide information of Niujie Mosque
Location: No.18, Niujie, Xuanwu District, Beijing              Opening hours: 08:00-16:00              Contact number: +86 10 63532564          Tickets: CNY10