Reflections | The glories of China’s oldest mosque, Guangzhou’s Huaisheng Mosque, and its doubtful origin story

With Hong Kong looking to the Islamic Middle East for investment, how many in the city know about China’s oldest mosque, an hour away by high-speed train?

At the heart of what was Guangzhou’s Muslim quarter, Huaisheng Mosque probably dates from the 10th century; its minaret has national-level cultural protection

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The Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou, which probably dates from the 10th century. The current buildings in Chinese style date from 1695. It is the oldest mosque in China. Photo: Shutterstock

Wee Kek Koon

Published: 8:15am, 5 May 2024

A Hong Kong friend recently asked me about Islam, and if the Chinese names for Islam, Hui Jiao and Yisilan Jiao in Mandarin, meant different things. I’m not an expert on Islam, but I know what the Five Pillars of Islam are, and that halal food isn’t simply “pork free”.

I told him that Hui Jiao literally meant “the religion of the Hui people”, the largest Muslim community in China with 11.4 million people. It’s an old name but it excludes the other adherents of Islam within the Chinese nation today, such as the Kazakh, Tajik, Uygur, Uzbek, and several other peoples, not to mention the rest of the 1.9 billion Muslims around the world.

Yisilan Jiao, from the Mandarin phonetic transliteration of “Islam”, is used more often in official contexts now, but Hui Jiao is still very widely used. Old language habits die hard.

In the past few years, Hong Kong has made high-profile overtures to the Middle East, and its predominantly Muslim populations, hoping to mine the region as a source of investment, trade and tourists.

The minaret of the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou, and the roofline (right) of one of the Chinese-style buildings in the mosque complex. Photo: Instagram/@strictlyliftin

A Dubai prince will soon open a US$500 million family office in Hong Kong (or won’t he?); a recent Post story reveals the dearth of halal food establishments in the city, a paltry 105 out of some 13,000 licensed or permitted premises. Out of the blue, my Hong Kong friend, who had never been interested in religion as far as I know, asked me about Islam.