Huajuexiang Mosque

The Huajuexiang mosque is one of the four great mosques in the Northwest China. It is located at Huajue Lane in Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province. Originally, it was called Qingxiu Mosque, Huajue Mosque, or Dongda Mosque.

The mosque was built in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and underwent several reconstructions in the following dynasties. The existing buildings were mainly built in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), and expanded in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

The mosque covers an area of 130,000 square meters, and the construction area is 4,000 square meters. The mosque has a rectangular layout and faces the east. There are five courtyards in the mosque. The main buildings include the decorated archway, the main hall, the Xingxin (self-examination) Pavilion, the scripture hall, the imam's dorm, the bathroom and the stele pavilion, etc. The principal building is the main hall, which can accommodate 2,000 worshipers at the same time. In front of the main hall is a large platform. In the mosque there are many precious cultural relics, such as epigraphs, tablets, couplets, censers, phylacteries, paintings, hanging lamps and so on. It is said that a hand-written copy of the Alcoran by a well-known Moslem noble in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) is preserved in the mosque. The Huajuexiang Mosque once established a university of lections in the history.