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Discovering China’s Islamic past in Beijing, Xi'an
Few people look into Islam's past on their visit to China, which is home to some 39,000 mosques and may have played a role in the spread of the religion to Indonesia.
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Glorious red: Niujie Mosque, Beijing’s oldest and largest mosque, incorporates both Islamic and Chinese artistic and architectural elements.
(Courtesy of M. Nurul Hudha/-)
T
em>The Chinese embassy in Jakarta invited a group of social media influencers and The Jakarta Post to visit Beijing, Xi’an and Shanghai from Sept. 2 to Sept. 8. The trip was organized by Tenggara Strategics.
Shortly before departing for Beijing, I bought George Quinn’s The Bandit Saints of Java: How Java’s Eccentric Saints Are Challenging Fundamentalist Islam in Modern Indonesia at the airport. The book proved to be more than just fascinating; it turned out be a perfect companion for my trip.
Few people go to China in search of its Islamic past, let alone to find a connection between China's history and the spread of Islam in Indonesia.
As one of the world’s oldest civilizations, China has many great historical sites, such as the Great Wall and the Forbidden City in Beijing and the Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an.
So I was not at all surprised that, on our first day in Beijing, we went to take in the breathtaking view of the Huanghuacheng Underwater Great Wall in the capital city's Huairou district – a section of the Great Wall that few people visit, said Ta Wang, our tour guide.
We spent a few hours there before heading to downtown Beijing to visit the most popular historical site in the Chinese capital: the Forbidden City.
