Grand Mosque / Dongguan Grand Mosque


Dongguan Grand Mosque is the largest and complete ancient building kept in Xining City, which is one of
the four major mosques in the Northwest region of China.

According to an inscription added to the mosque during a major reconstruction in 1914, the mosque was
first built during the Ming Dynasty under Emperor Hongwu (1368-1398). However, it is known that the
mosque was destroyed and rebuilt entirely as recently as in the late nineteenth century. Renovated in
1914, the mosque was enlarged in 1946.  

The mosque is not of particularly Muslim architecture, normally easily differentiated from its Buddhist
counterparts, but is more in the typical Chinese folk style. Architecture of the mosque combines traditional
Chinese style and the local features, with grand appearance and delicate, dazzlingly inside ornaments.

Built atop an irregular two-level brick platform, the mosque complex consists of a grand eastern gateway that opens into a large rectangular
courtyard that is flanked by two lecture halls to the north and south, with the prayer hall to its west. The five-arched gateway is anchored at either
end by bangke towers, which served as minarets and moon-watching pavilions.

The great hall have the capable of holding 3000 prayers and as an ancient palace-style building, the roof is
decorated with shining Tibetan-style gilding treasury bottles. Each time on important festivals, the neighboring Islam
come here for religious rituals in thousands or tens of thousands.

Now this mosque serves as an educational center and institution of higher learning for Islamism, and also is the
leading mosque in Qinghai. Visited by as many as ten thousand worshippers during each one of the Muslim
holidays, the Great Mosque of Xining is still the most important mosque in Qinghai and serves as a center of
religious education for the region.