Nanguan Great Mosque 南关清真大寺

About Nanguan Great Mosque

Nanguan Great Mosque (南关清真大寺) is a mosque in Xingqing District (兴庆区) of Yinchuan (银川), Ningxia. It is an important mosque in Yinchuan's old city and a centre of religious activity for the city's Hui (回族) Muslims.

Its history goes back to the last years of the Ming dynasty. The original mosque was torn down in the Cultural Revolution; Muslims raised the money to rebuild it in 1981, in an Arab style. Reporting from Yinchuan in 2006, Xinhua described it as the largest mosque in the city and, citing a member of its staff, said that visitors from other provinces, and sometimes from abroad, came to see it during that year's National Day holiday week.

The 1981 building occupies 2,074 m² on two floors. Upstairs is the great prayer hall, with room for over 1,300 people praying together. Downstairs are rooms for ritual washing, a second, smaller hall, a hall for women, an Arabic school, the imam's living quarters, offices and a room for receiving guests. As rebuilt, the building was topped by a green dome and had 30 m minarets on both sides.

After Xi Jinping (习近平) visited Ningxia in June 2020, the region's party and government organs began a "Sinicisation" (中国化) remodelling of mosques that removed Islamic architectural styles, and the dome and minarets of Nanguan Great Mosque were taken down. Local Muslims gather here for religious ceremonies on Jumu'ah (主麻日), the Friday congregational day, and on other Hui religious occasions.

What to look for

• The upstairs great prayer hall (大礼拜殿), with room for over 1,300 people
• The ground floor, with rooms for ritual washing, a second prayer hall and a women's hall
• The two-storey 1981 building, whose green dome and 30 m minarets were removed after 2020
• Jumu'ah (主麻日) and festival gatherings of local Muslims

Location & getting there

Getting to Nanguan Great Mosque

• Search for 南关清真大寺 with 银川市 and 兴庆区.