ABSTRACT
Mosques and other evidence of the presence of Islam in China remain in every province and autonomous region. This article focuses on mosques in China’s 18 core provinces used by Chinese-speaking Muslims known as Hui. With only two exceptions, both discussed here, Hui mosques are largely indistinguishable from Chinese buildings. This ability to be part of the Chinese architectural system while maintaining the necessary requirements for Muslim prayer is explained through specific buildings and their placement in building complexes. Here the focus is on China’s most important mosques in the southeastern port cities of Quanzhou, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, and Yangzhou; its most famous ones, in Xi’an and Beijing; and those along the Grand Canal. The chapter also presents a few examples of Muslim burial sites in China. This analysis enables us to see processes of convergence in which features crucial to the practice of Islam are adapted to non-Islamic spaces without compromising the faith.
