More Changping places
For some time we've noticed on our GPS a marker for the "Changping Mosque" near our apartment building. We've heard that Changping is noted locally for its Muslim population, so we weren't terribly surprised that there is a mosque. However, when we stumbled upon it walking around last weekend, we were not expecting to find what we did.
In this alley we spotted what was obviously a mosque.
From this angle it appeared to be a fairly small building. As we got closer, though, we realized that this was just the gate to a very large courtyard-style compound.
We walked further down the alley and turned a corner, all the while along a perimeter wall. This place was much larger than we expected.
To me, it didn't appear that the structure inside the walls was a mosque. I wondered if it had been something else before and more recently had been converted. Later that evening I googled around and very quickly learned that it is indeed a very old mosque, around 700 years old. The mosque was built during the Ming Dynasty by descendants of Mongolian Muslims that remained in Changping. The architecture that I did not think was mosque-like actually was--for Chinese mosques built many hundred years ago like the older and much more famous Niujie Mosque.
In this alley we spotted what was obviously a mosque.
From this angle it appeared to be a fairly small building. As we got closer, though, we realized that this was just the gate to a very large courtyard-style compound.
We walked further down the alley and turned a corner, all the while along a perimeter wall. This place was much larger than we expected.
To me, it didn't appear that the structure inside the walls was a mosque. I wondered if it had been something else before and more recently had been converted. Later that evening I googled around and very quickly learned that it is indeed a very old mosque, around 700 years old. The mosque was built during the Ming Dynasty by descendants of Mongolian Muslims that remained in Changping. The architecture that I did not think was mosque-like actually was--for Chinese mosques built many hundred years ago like the older and much more famous Niujie Mosque.
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