Because of the national holiday I took this opportunity to go to the Friday prayer in the Peach Garden Mosque. Upon arrival there were few people, but that quickly changed within the hour. Kind of weird to see so many Chinese Moslems and being the only foreigner.., I thought… minutes later I saw an Eastern European man and moments after that he was followed by an Arab looking man.

Turkish, Pakistani, Indian, African and many more followed. I had a conversation with a Gambian man, who was a coach representing his country in the 2007 Special Olympics. During our conversation I noticed that it became very crowded and there were at least 50 people from different nationalities present standing in between the Chinese Moslems. I suddenly didn’t feel alone anymore…

After I took a picture with the caretaker I went inside for the prayer. Many more people came and the prayer hall was full within moments, people were sitting on carpets outside as well. The imam entered and funnily enough he started the khotba (sermon), in Chinese!

In the beginning it was funny but as he continued, the language barrier posed more of a problem. I will start studying Chinese around mid-October and I hope to overcome this soon.

After about an hour the imam finished and we prayed the Friday prayer. As I am used to shaking hands at the end of the prayer, I turned to the person next to me, by habit and offered him my hand. All he gave me was a suspicious, weird look and while I shook his hand I realized that this ritual probably is only performed in the Middle East.

The Mosque, Shanghai's largest and most active one, dates from 1917 though the current reconstruction is from 1925. Its main prayer hall can hold several hundred worshippers (restricted to Muslim males only). There is a separate worship hall for women. The courtyard contains a minaret (for calls to prayer).

Most of the 20 million Muslims in China live in Xinjiang Uygur and the Ningxia Hui autonomous regions in Northwest China, with about 700,000 in Henan Province in Central China. Ancestors of Muslims can be traced back to the envoys trading among the Tang Empire, Persia and Arabia in the sixth century AD.

There used to be some conflicts between the Hui and Han people in past history, when the Qing government implemented a policy of racial discrimination. But these conflicts are in the past, as Han nationalism was extinguished and now economic development is bringing people together.

Did you know there are about 20 million Moslems and over 34,000 Mosques in China?

Here are some interesting links on Moslems in China:

Islam in China, lots of info.: http://www.islamichina.com/mosquesinchina2.asp?name=Shanghai

Moslem street: http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/shaanxi/xian/moslem-street.htm

Ramadan in China: http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200112/17/eng20011217_86846.shtml

Moslems in China History: http://www.historyofreligions.com/muslchina.htm

Itinerary for Moslems from a Malaysian Travel Agent: http://www.bousteadtravel.com/pdf/umrah_5d_shanghai_suzhou_hangzhou_muslim_tour.pdf

Henri.