<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/25/shadian-last-major-islamic-style-mosque-in-china-loses-its-domes>
"The last major mosque in China 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.
The Grand Mosque of Shadian, one of China’s biggest and grandest mosques,
towers over the small town from which it takes its name in south-western Yunnan
province.
Until at last year, the 21,000 square metre complex featured a large building
topped with a tiled green dome, adorned with a crescent moon, flanked by four
smaller domes and soaring minarets. Satellite imagery from 2022 shows the
entrance pavilion decorated with a large crescent moon and star made from vivid
black tiles.
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.
Yunnan’s other landmark mosque, Najiaying, less than 100 miles from Shadian,
also recently had its Islamic features removed in a renovation.
In 2018 the Chinese government published a five-year plan on the “sinification
of Islam”. Part of the plan was to resist “foreign architectural styles” and to
promote “Islamic architecture … that is full of Chinese characteristics”. A
leaked Chinese Communist party memo shows that local authorities were
instructed to “adhere to the principle of demolishing more and building less”.
Ruslan Yusupov, an anthropologist at Cornell University who spent two years in
Shadian doing fieldwork, said: “Sinification of these two landmark mosques
marks the success of the campaign. Even if there are small mosques left of Arab
style in villages, it will be difficult for local communities to contest their
sinicisation”."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
