China · a Light

The minaret in Xi'an is a wooden pagoda in a garden

The Great Mosque of Xi'an sits in the old Muslim quarter of the city, at the eastern end of what was the Silk Road. Tradition dates a mosque here to 742, and the buildings standing now are mostly Ming work from 1384 onward with later repairs. It looks nothing like a mosque in Cairo or Istanbul. It is a Chinese temple compound: four walled courtyards on a long axis, timber halls with upturned tiled roofs, memorial arches, stone tablets, a garden. The minaret is a three storey octagonal wooden pavilion. There is no dome. The axis runs east to west rather than north to south, because the prayer hall at the far end has to face Makkah.

Xi'an, China · standing buildings from 1384