Last major Arabic-style mosque in China loses its domes

to have retained Arabic-style features has lost its domes and had its minarets radically modified, marking what experts say is the completion of a government campaign to sinicise the country’s Muslim places of worship.

Photographs, satellite imagery and witness accounts from this year show that the dome has been removed and replaced with a Han Chinese-style pagoda rooftop, and the minarets have been shortened and converted into pagoda towers. Only a faint trace of the crescent moon and star tiles that once marked the mosque’s front terrace is visible.a five-year plan on the “sinification of Islam”.

The Grand Mosque was later rebuilt and expanded with government support. Its design was based on the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, Saudi Arabia, where Muhammad is believed to be buried. It has three prayer halls and capacity for 10,000 worshippers. A Hui Muslim who opposed the redevelopment of the mosques said: “Shadian mosque is very important to all Muslims, not just in Shadian. It’s a big loss.

In 2014, the Chinese government launched a “strike hard” campaign against Uyghurs, who live mainly in the north-western region of Xinjiang. The policies involved oppressive surveillance measures and harsh punishments for a wide array of expressions of Islamic faith, such as abstention from alcohol or the possession copies of the Qur’an or other Islamic materials.

“Since that time, Shadian people realised that the government has a very strong power to control everything,” said a former employee of the Shadian mosque who left China in 2021. “But people are not happy with the government forcing them to change the mosque style … Most of my friends have left Shadian. They said we cannot survive.”

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