Guangzhou Mosques
Halal Travel Guide: Guangzhou — Haopan Mosque, Xiaodongying Mosque and Old Streets
Articles • ali2007fr posted the article • 0 comments • 81 views • 2026-05-18 20:36
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Summary: Guangzhou — Haopan Mosque, Xiaodongying Mosque and Old Streets is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: I left Macau on January 23, 2023, to visit the Macau mosque known as Moro Garden (Moro Yuan). The account keeps its focus on Guangzhou Mosques, Haopan Mosque, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
I left Macau on January 23, 2023, to visit the Macau mosque known as Moro Garden (Moro Yuan). I ate delicious Indonesian Javanese food and wrote about it in my post, 'Moro Garden and Indonesian Food in Macau'. I arrived in Guangzhou on January 25, visited a friend (dosti), and ate various halal foods, which I posted about in "Hui Muslim Fried Dough (youxiang) and Yemeni Food in Guangzhou." On January 25 at noon, I performed namaz at the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou, then visited the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies (Xianxian Gumu) to pay my respects. I posted about this in my article, "Guangzhou's Huaisheng Mosque and the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies." On the afternoon of January 25, I performed the dhuhr prayer at the Haopan Mosque and the asr prayer at the Xiaodongying Mosque, taking the opportunity to visit both of these mosques.
Hui Muslim officials and soldiers in Ming Dynasty Guangzhou.
The Yuan Dynasty was a turning point for the development of the faith in Guangzhou. Between 1276 and 1278, a two-year tug-of-war between the Mongol army and local forces, followed by a decade of anti-Yuan uprisings in Guangdong, left Guangzhou severely damaged. Many foreign Muslim merchants moved to Quanzhou and other coastal cities to settle. After the Yuan Dynasty took control, many Hui Muslim soldiers, craftsmen, and merchants traveled east to China by land, but apart from a few officials, not many Hui Muslims came to Guangzhou. As a result, the foreign Muslim quarter (fanfang) in Guangzhou gradually declined during the Yuan Dynasty and finally fell apart between the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.
After the Ming Dynasty was established, the "Daguan Army" replaced the foreign merchants as the main group of Muslims in Guangzhou. In the early Ming Dynasty, many Yuan soldiers surrendered. They were initially called "Tatars" (dada) and later renamed "Daren." Many of them were Hui Muslims from the Western Regions. Some of these surrendered Daren were sent to farm land across the country, while others served in military garrisons, which is why they were called the "Daguan Army."
In 1450 (the second year of the Jingtai reign), the Ming government sent troops to suppress the Huang Xiaoyang uprising in Guangzhou. This was the first time the Daguan Army was stationed in Guangzhou, though their numbers were relatively small. In 1465 (the first year of the Chenghua reign), the Ming government sent troops to suppress the Yao people's uprising in Guangdong and Guangxi, again calling up the Daguan Army from Nanjing. The Ming Dynasty's "Guangdong Tongzhi" (Gazetteer of Guangdong) from the Jiajing reign records that "over a thousand Daguan soldiers were ordered to the region." The Daguan Army achieved a major victory in the campaign. The commander, Han Yong, wrote a memorial to the court titled "Proposal on Handling Affairs in Guangxi," suggesting that some of the Daguan soldiers stay in Guangdong. He proposed a specific plan: "They should all remain in Guangzhou city to settle... find vacant land, build houses, and assign them to live there." For those with families, I request that the Nanjing garrison commander be ordered to send ships to bring them here. For those without families, we will find ways to arrange marriages for them.
According to statistics from the Ming Dynasty's "Guangzhou Tongzhi" (Gazetteer of Guangzhou) from the Jiajing reign, 285 Daguan soldiers eventually settled in Guangzhou. To accommodate them, four garrisons were established: Dadongying, Xiaodongying, Xiying, and Zhutongying, collectively known as the "Four Hui Camps." The ancestors of Yu Fengqi and Ma Chengzhu—who are buried in the "Three Loyalists of the Faith" tomb next to the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies in Guangzhou—were Yu Shifu and Ma Heima, who were leaders of the Daguan Army stationed in Guangzhou at that time. For the next 200 years, the Ming government frequently deployed the Daguan Army to fight in various parts of Guangdong and Guangxi. The final battle for the Daguan Army was the Qing army's siege of Guangzhou in 1650. Represented by Daguan generals Yu Fengqi, Ma Chengzhu, and Sa Zhifu, the "Three Loyalists of the Faith" died heroically for their country, and the Daguan Army and the Guangzhou Hui camps were disbanded.
Although the Daguan Army as a military unit ceased to exist after the Qing Dynasty, their descendants have continued to live in Guangzhou. Yu Shifu's descendants multiplied and developed into the Yu Chengxi Hall family of Guangzhou. Ha Zixiang from Hejian County, Hejian Prefecture, was ordered to garrison Guangzhou. His descendants developed into the Hui Muslim Ha family of Guangzhou. During the Wanli reign, Yang Rikui from Zhengding County, Zhengding Prefecture, was ordered to garrison Guangzhou. His descendants developed into the Hui Muslim Yang Jiguang Hall family of Guangzhou.
Inside the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou, there is a stone tablet commemorating a house donation by Yu Dajing, a descendant of the Yu family. It records that after Yu Dajing passed away (returned to Allah), his wife donated a house he had bought in Nanshengli to the Guangzhou Four Quarters Public Fund. The rent from the house was used to cover expenses for the memorial days at the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies and other public costs.
After the Daguan Army settled in the Four Hui Camps in Guangzhou, they built the Haopan Mosque (1465), Nansheng Mosque (1465-1467), and Xiaodongying Mosque (1468) near their stations. They also rebuilt the Huaisheng Mosque (1468), marking the formal establishment of the four Muslim quarters of Guangzhou during the Ming and Qing dynasties. This was the rebirth of the faith in Guangzhou after the foreign Muslim quarters dissolved at the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.
Haopan Street Mosque.
Haopan Mosque sits by the Nanhao, a branch of the Pearl River. It was built during the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty by Hui Muslim officials who settled in Guangzhou. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the area around Haopan Street was a major trade hub in Guangzhou, bustling with merchants. Qu Dajun, a famous Guangzhou scholar from the late Ming and early Qing periods, wrote in his classic work New Sayings of Guangdong (Guangdong Xinyu): In the Haopan Street area, during prosperous times, spices, pearls, rhinoceros horns, and ivory were piled like mountains, and flowers and birds were as plentiful as the sea. Foreign merchants gathered here, spending tens of millions of gold every day. The abundance of food and the frequency of singing and dancing far exceeded that of the Qinhuai area. These merchants were mostly from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and locals called them Jiangnan guests.
In 1706 (the 45th year of the Kangxi reign), Fu Yunfeng led the reconstruction of Haopan Mosque. Fu Yunfeng was originally Han Chinese. During the Kangxi era, he traveled from Zhejiang to Guangdong for business. After he ran into trouble, an imam at the Haopan Mosque in Guangzhou saved him. He lived in the mosque for a while and then converted to Islam. He was a timber merchant. After becoming wealthy, he funded the reconstruction of the Haopan Mosque in Guangzhou. He also renovated the Huaisheng Mosque, Nansheng Mosque, the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies, and the Chengdong Mosque in Zhaoqing, making a major contribution to the development of the faith in Guangdong.
Starting in the Qianlong period, Haopan Mosque opened a scripture school, and during the Tongzhi period, it opened a Hui Muslim university. It hired many famous scholars from Nanjing, Gansu, and Yunnan to train a large number of imams, playing a major role in the development of Islam in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau.
Haopan Mosque originally featured a classic southern mosque design with three-sided corridors, creating a courtyard in front of the main prayer hall. This style was well-suited to the rainy, low-wind climate of the south. After 1952, the mosque used the three-sided corridors to open a nursing home for Hui Muslims. In 1958, it opened a bamboo processing factory, which later grew into a sewing machine parts factory for Hui and Manchu Muslims. In the early 1960s, the mosque remained largely in its original state. The main prayer hall and the water room were used normally, and factory production did not interfere with the religious practices of the community. However, after 1966, the stone tablets and plaques in the mosque were destroyed, all scripture books were burned, and the main prayer hall was turned into a warehouse. In 1973, the three-sided corridors were torn down and replaced by a five-story factory building. In 1994, the factory finally returned the main prayer hall to the mosque. After preparations, it was renovated in 1997 and officially reopened in 1998.
Today, Haopan Mosque preserves the main prayer hall rebuilt during the Kangxi period. It has a square, three-bay, hip-and-gable roof design, which is completely different from mosques in the north. The mihrab inside the hall once featured exquisite Arabic calligraphy and geometric patterns, along with a beautifully carved hardwood minbar, but unfortunately, these no longer exist. When I visited Guangzhou in 2017, Haopan Mosque was about to undergo repairs. This time, the results look very good, and the ancient mosque's style was not ruined by over-restoration.
Many Hui Muslims from Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Nanjing who came to Guangzhou for business chose to live in the foreign trading firms near Haopan Street and the shops near Xiguan, which had a significant impact on the Haopan Street Mosque. Today, Haopan Mosque keeps half of a plaque inscribed with, In the first month of the seventh year of the Republic of China, the Jiangnan Association Tongshantang renovated this, which serves as a witness to the business activities of Jiangnan Hui Muslims in Guangzhou.
I met Master Yang at Haopan Mosque, whom I had not seen for six years. Master Yang is a local Hui Muslim from Guangzhou and has been a mosque attendant at Haopan Mosque for 20 years. I drank tea and chatted with Master Yang, and I ate some fried dough (youxiang) made by local Guangzhou Hui Muslims for a charity event (chusan). This was my first time eating local Guangzhou youxiang. They were small, crispy, and sweet, almost like a pastry.
Xiaodongying Mosque
Xiaodongying Mosque is located on the site of Xiaodongying, one of the four Hui Muslim camps in Guangzhou. It was built in 1468 (the fourth year of the Ming Chenghua reign) by Hui Muslim officials and was renovated twice during the Qing Jiaqing and Tongzhi periods. In 1901, Hui Muslims from Guangzhou and Hong Kong raised funds to start the Xiaodongying Mosque Charity School, with imams Yang Ruisheng and Wang Mingshan as teachers. In 1925, Xiaodongying Mosque became the activity center for the Guangzhou Islamic Youth Association, and in 1931, Chen Huanwen founded the Muslim (Mumin) monthly magazine there.
After 1949, Xiaodongying Mosque gradually became a funeral service center for Hui Muslims. After 1966, it was occupied by a Guangzhou Hui and Manchu Muslim factory as a warehouse. When it was returned in 1979, it was in ruins. After being renovated in 1982, it continued to serve as a funeral service center for burials. In 1998, Xiaodongying Mosque was approved as a place for religious activities, and in 2005, it officially resumed Friday Jumu'ah prayers. Now, those who come here for namaz are mainly foreign friends (dosti) from near Xiaobei.
The Xiaodongying Mosque currently preserves several plaques from the Qing Dynasty.
In the fifth year of the Tongzhi reign (1866), Li Chengyi from Dingyuan County, Fengyang Prefecture, Jiangnan, respectfully inscribed an Arabic plaque.
In the sixth year of the Tongzhi reign (1867), Yang Yongchun respectfully inscribed and erected the Hundred-Word Eulogy by Emperor Taizu of Ming.
In the 34th year of the Guangxu reign (1908), Liao Shouqi from Jiangxia County, Hubei, along with his son Dalian, erected a plaque reading 'The Religion Has an Orthodox Origin'.
Opposite the main hall of the Xiaodongying Mosque in Guangzhou is a stele corridor, which features a series of stone tablets from the Qing Dynasty recording charitable donations.
The 1808 stele regarding the permanent donation of property to the Dongying Mosque records that a woman named Li Ding, who lost her husband in middle age and had no children, wished to donate two houses she had purchased outside Wenming Gate and in the Fourth Lane. The rent from these houses was to support three imams at the mosque, and she requested that the imams perform dua on the anniversary of her death.
The 1818 stele for the Dongying Mosque records that the community members of the four neighborhoods raised funds to purchase a house from a woman named Li He, a resident of Nanhai County, located in Ying'en Lane outside the South Gate, and donated the rent to the mosque.
The 1822 stele regarding the purchase of property for the Dongying Mosque records that the community of the four neighborhoods raised funds to buy a house within the Zhan Family Garden and donated it to the Xiaodongying Mosque, with the rent going into the mosque's public fund box.
The 1846 stele regarding Li Yatai's house donation exchange records that Li Zhenchang wanted to combine a house in the Fourth Lane, which Li Yatai had donated to the Xiaodongying Mosque in 1807, with his own property. He exchanged it for a house in the Fifth Lane and used the additional rent to cover the repair costs for a collapsed house in the Zhan Family Garden. It also records that a house belonging to the Children's Association in the Zhan Family Garden had been collapsed by water for over ten years, and it was finally repaired thanks to donations from local elders.
The 1854 stele regarding the purchase of property for the Xiaodongying Mosque records that in 1819, the mosque received funds from the elders of the four neighborhoods to buy a house from Ma Shunhong in Jinshi Lane. In 1851, Zhang Chaodong combined this house with his own, so he bought two houses from the Xu Ding family in the Zhan Family Garden and donated them to the mosque instead.
The 1866 stele regarding donations to the Dongying Mosque records that the community of the four neighborhoods donated houses and storefronts. It lists all the donated properties of the Dongying Mosque, located in the Second Lane of Wende Lane, the Fifth Lane of Wende Lane, the east end of Nansheng Lane near the city wall, the entrance of Xiaodongying Street, and Xianxiang Street outside the Great East Gate.
The 1866 stele regarding the renovation of the Xiaodongying Mosque records the process of the mosque's renovation during the Tongzhi reign, including the names, official titles, and donation amounts of the contributors.
The 1909 stele for the Dongying Mosque Charity School records how Muslims in Guangzhou and Hong Kong raised funds in 1900 to establish a charity school within the Dongying Mosque.
If you are interested in the history of the faith in Guangzhou, I recommend reading "History of Islam in Guangzhou" edited by Bao Yanzhong and "Collection of Hui Muslim Tablet Inscriptions and Couplets in Guangzhou" edited by Ma Jianzhao. These two books were very helpful in organizing and editing this article. Finally, I would like to thank Chen Yong, a dost (friend), for correcting the information in this article. view all
Summary: Guangzhou — Haopan Mosque, Xiaodongying Mosque and Old Streets is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: I left Macau on January 23, 2023, to visit the Macau mosque known as Moro Garden (Moro Yuan). The account keeps its focus on Guangzhou Mosques, Haopan Mosque, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
I left Macau on January 23, 2023, to visit the Macau mosque known as Moro Garden (Moro Yuan). I ate delicious Indonesian Javanese food and wrote about it in my post, 'Moro Garden and Indonesian Food in Macau'. I arrived in Guangzhou on January 25, visited a friend (dosti), and ate various halal foods, which I posted about in "Hui Muslim Fried Dough (youxiang) and Yemeni Food in Guangzhou." On January 25 at noon, I performed namaz at the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou, then visited the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies (Xianxian Gumu) to pay my respects. I posted about this in my article, "Guangzhou's Huaisheng Mosque and the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies." On the afternoon of January 25, I performed the dhuhr prayer at the Haopan Mosque and the asr prayer at the Xiaodongying Mosque, taking the opportunity to visit both of these mosques.
Hui Muslim officials and soldiers in Ming Dynasty Guangzhou.
The Yuan Dynasty was a turning point for the development of the faith in Guangzhou. Between 1276 and 1278, a two-year tug-of-war between the Mongol army and local forces, followed by a decade of anti-Yuan uprisings in Guangdong, left Guangzhou severely damaged. Many foreign Muslim merchants moved to Quanzhou and other coastal cities to settle. After the Yuan Dynasty took control, many Hui Muslim soldiers, craftsmen, and merchants traveled east to China by land, but apart from a few officials, not many Hui Muslims came to Guangzhou. As a result, the foreign Muslim quarter (fanfang) in Guangzhou gradually declined during the Yuan Dynasty and finally fell apart between the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.
After the Ming Dynasty was established, the "Daguan Army" replaced the foreign merchants as the main group of Muslims in Guangzhou. In the early Ming Dynasty, many Yuan soldiers surrendered. They were initially called "Tatars" (dada) and later renamed "Daren." Many of them were Hui Muslims from the Western Regions. Some of these surrendered Daren were sent to farm land across the country, while others served in military garrisons, which is why they were called the "Daguan Army."
In 1450 (the second year of the Jingtai reign), the Ming government sent troops to suppress the Huang Xiaoyang uprising in Guangzhou. This was the first time the Daguan Army was stationed in Guangzhou, though their numbers were relatively small. In 1465 (the first year of the Chenghua reign), the Ming government sent troops to suppress the Yao people's uprising in Guangdong and Guangxi, again calling up the Daguan Army from Nanjing. The Ming Dynasty's "Guangdong Tongzhi" (Gazetteer of Guangdong) from the Jiajing reign records that "over a thousand Daguan soldiers were ordered to the region." The Daguan Army achieved a major victory in the campaign. The commander, Han Yong, wrote a memorial to the court titled "Proposal on Handling Affairs in Guangxi," suggesting that some of the Daguan soldiers stay in Guangdong. He proposed a specific plan: "They should all remain in Guangzhou city to settle... find vacant land, build houses, and assign them to live there." For those with families, I request that the Nanjing garrison commander be ordered to send ships to bring them here. For those without families, we will find ways to arrange marriages for them.
According to statistics from the Ming Dynasty's "Guangzhou Tongzhi" (Gazetteer of Guangzhou) from the Jiajing reign, 285 Daguan soldiers eventually settled in Guangzhou. To accommodate them, four garrisons were established: Dadongying, Xiaodongying, Xiying, and Zhutongying, collectively known as the "Four Hui Camps." The ancestors of Yu Fengqi and Ma Chengzhu—who are buried in the "Three Loyalists of the Faith" tomb next to the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies in Guangzhou—were Yu Shifu and Ma Heima, who were leaders of the Daguan Army stationed in Guangzhou at that time. For the next 200 years, the Ming government frequently deployed the Daguan Army to fight in various parts of Guangdong and Guangxi. The final battle for the Daguan Army was the Qing army's siege of Guangzhou in 1650. Represented by Daguan generals Yu Fengqi, Ma Chengzhu, and Sa Zhifu, the "Three Loyalists of the Faith" died heroically for their country, and the Daguan Army and the Guangzhou Hui camps were disbanded.
Although the Daguan Army as a military unit ceased to exist after the Qing Dynasty, their descendants have continued to live in Guangzhou. Yu Shifu's descendants multiplied and developed into the Yu Chengxi Hall family of Guangzhou. Ha Zixiang from Hejian County, Hejian Prefecture, was ordered to garrison Guangzhou. His descendants developed into the Hui Muslim Ha family of Guangzhou. During the Wanli reign, Yang Rikui from Zhengding County, Zhengding Prefecture, was ordered to garrison Guangzhou. His descendants developed into the Hui Muslim Yang Jiguang Hall family of Guangzhou.
Inside the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou, there is a stone tablet commemorating a house donation by Yu Dajing, a descendant of the Yu family. It records that after Yu Dajing passed away (returned to Allah), his wife donated a house he had bought in Nanshengli to the Guangzhou Four Quarters Public Fund. The rent from the house was used to cover expenses for the memorial days at the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies and other public costs.
After the Daguan Army settled in the Four Hui Camps in Guangzhou, they built the Haopan Mosque (1465), Nansheng Mosque (1465-1467), and Xiaodongying Mosque (1468) near their stations. They also rebuilt the Huaisheng Mosque (1468), marking the formal establishment of the four Muslim quarters of Guangzhou during the Ming and Qing dynasties. This was the rebirth of the faith in Guangzhou after the foreign Muslim quarters dissolved at the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.
Haopan Street Mosque.
Haopan Mosque sits by the Nanhao, a branch of the Pearl River. It was built during the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty by Hui Muslim officials who settled in Guangzhou. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the area around Haopan Street was a major trade hub in Guangzhou, bustling with merchants. Qu Dajun, a famous Guangzhou scholar from the late Ming and early Qing periods, wrote in his classic work New Sayings of Guangdong (Guangdong Xinyu): In the Haopan Street area, during prosperous times, spices, pearls, rhinoceros horns, and ivory were piled like mountains, and flowers and birds were as plentiful as the sea. Foreign merchants gathered here, spending tens of millions of gold every day. The abundance of food and the frequency of singing and dancing far exceeded that of the Qinhuai area. These merchants were mostly from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and locals called them Jiangnan guests.
In 1706 (the 45th year of the Kangxi reign), Fu Yunfeng led the reconstruction of Haopan Mosque. Fu Yunfeng was originally Han Chinese. During the Kangxi era, he traveled from Zhejiang to Guangdong for business. After he ran into trouble, an imam at the Haopan Mosque in Guangzhou saved him. He lived in the mosque for a while and then converted to Islam. He was a timber merchant. After becoming wealthy, he funded the reconstruction of the Haopan Mosque in Guangzhou. He also renovated the Huaisheng Mosque, Nansheng Mosque, the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies, and the Chengdong Mosque in Zhaoqing, making a major contribution to the development of the faith in Guangdong.
Starting in the Qianlong period, Haopan Mosque opened a scripture school, and during the Tongzhi period, it opened a Hui Muslim university. It hired many famous scholars from Nanjing, Gansu, and Yunnan to train a large number of imams, playing a major role in the development of Islam in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau.
Haopan Mosque originally featured a classic southern mosque design with three-sided corridors, creating a courtyard in front of the main prayer hall. This style was well-suited to the rainy, low-wind climate of the south. After 1952, the mosque used the three-sided corridors to open a nursing home for Hui Muslims. In 1958, it opened a bamboo processing factory, which later grew into a sewing machine parts factory for Hui and Manchu Muslims. In the early 1960s, the mosque remained largely in its original state. The main prayer hall and the water room were used normally, and factory production did not interfere with the religious practices of the community. However, after 1966, the stone tablets and plaques in the mosque were destroyed, all scripture books were burned, and the main prayer hall was turned into a warehouse. In 1973, the three-sided corridors were torn down and replaced by a five-story factory building. In 1994, the factory finally returned the main prayer hall to the mosque. After preparations, it was renovated in 1997 and officially reopened in 1998.
Today, Haopan Mosque preserves the main prayer hall rebuilt during the Kangxi period. It has a square, three-bay, hip-and-gable roof design, which is completely different from mosques in the north. The mihrab inside the hall once featured exquisite Arabic calligraphy and geometric patterns, along with a beautifully carved hardwood minbar, but unfortunately, these no longer exist. When I visited Guangzhou in 2017, Haopan Mosque was about to undergo repairs. This time, the results look very good, and the ancient mosque's style was not ruined by over-restoration.
Many Hui Muslims from Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Nanjing who came to Guangzhou for business chose to live in the foreign trading firms near Haopan Street and the shops near Xiguan, which had a significant impact on the Haopan Street Mosque. Today, Haopan Mosque keeps half of a plaque inscribed with, In the first month of the seventh year of the Republic of China, the Jiangnan Association Tongshantang renovated this, which serves as a witness to the business activities of Jiangnan Hui Muslims in Guangzhou.
I met Master Yang at Haopan Mosque, whom I had not seen for six years. Master Yang is a local Hui Muslim from Guangzhou and has been a mosque attendant at Haopan Mosque for 20 years. I drank tea and chatted with Master Yang, and I ate some fried dough (youxiang) made by local Guangzhou Hui Muslims for a charity event (chusan). This was my first time eating local Guangzhou youxiang. They were small, crispy, and sweet, almost like a pastry.
Xiaodongying Mosque
Xiaodongying Mosque is located on the site of Xiaodongying, one of the four Hui Muslim camps in Guangzhou. It was built in 1468 (the fourth year of the Ming Chenghua reign) by Hui Muslim officials and was renovated twice during the Qing Jiaqing and Tongzhi periods. In 1901, Hui Muslims from Guangzhou and Hong Kong raised funds to start the Xiaodongying Mosque Charity School, with imams Yang Ruisheng and Wang Mingshan as teachers. In 1925, Xiaodongying Mosque became the activity center for the Guangzhou Islamic Youth Association, and in 1931, Chen Huanwen founded the Muslim (Mumin) monthly magazine there.
After 1949, Xiaodongying Mosque gradually became a funeral service center for Hui Muslims. After 1966, it was occupied by a Guangzhou Hui and Manchu Muslim factory as a warehouse. When it was returned in 1979, it was in ruins. After being renovated in 1982, it continued to serve as a funeral service center for burials. In 1998, Xiaodongying Mosque was approved as a place for religious activities, and in 2005, it officially resumed Friday Jumu'ah prayers. Now, those who come here for namaz are mainly foreign friends (dosti) from near Xiaobei.
The Xiaodongying Mosque currently preserves several plaques from the Qing Dynasty.
In the fifth year of the Tongzhi reign (1866), Li Chengyi from Dingyuan County, Fengyang Prefecture, Jiangnan, respectfully inscribed an Arabic plaque.
In the sixth year of the Tongzhi reign (1867), Yang Yongchun respectfully inscribed and erected the Hundred-Word Eulogy by Emperor Taizu of Ming.
In the 34th year of the Guangxu reign (1908), Liao Shouqi from Jiangxia County, Hubei, along with his son Dalian, erected a plaque reading 'The Religion Has an Orthodox Origin'.
Opposite the main hall of the Xiaodongying Mosque in Guangzhou is a stele corridor, which features a series of stone tablets from the Qing Dynasty recording charitable donations.
The 1808 stele regarding the permanent donation of property to the Dongying Mosque records that a woman named Li Ding, who lost her husband in middle age and had no children, wished to donate two houses she had purchased outside Wenming Gate and in the Fourth Lane. The rent from these houses was to support three imams at the mosque, and she requested that the imams perform dua on the anniversary of her death.
The 1818 stele for the Dongying Mosque records that the community members of the four neighborhoods raised funds to purchase a house from a woman named Li He, a resident of Nanhai County, located in Ying'en Lane outside the South Gate, and donated the rent to the mosque.
The 1822 stele regarding the purchase of property for the Dongying Mosque records that the community of the four neighborhoods raised funds to buy a house within the Zhan Family Garden and donated it to the Xiaodongying Mosque, with the rent going into the mosque's public fund box.
The 1846 stele regarding Li Yatai's house donation exchange records that Li Zhenchang wanted to combine a house in the Fourth Lane, which Li Yatai had donated to the Xiaodongying Mosque in 1807, with his own property. He exchanged it for a house in the Fifth Lane and used the additional rent to cover the repair costs for a collapsed house in the Zhan Family Garden. It also records that a house belonging to the Children's Association in the Zhan Family Garden had been collapsed by water for over ten years, and it was finally repaired thanks to donations from local elders.
The 1854 stele regarding the purchase of property for the Xiaodongying Mosque records that in 1819, the mosque received funds from the elders of the four neighborhoods to buy a house from Ma Shunhong in Jinshi Lane. In 1851, Zhang Chaodong combined this house with his own, so he bought two houses from the Xu Ding family in the Zhan Family Garden and donated them to the mosque instead.
The 1866 stele regarding donations to the Dongying Mosque records that the community of the four neighborhoods donated houses and storefronts. It lists all the donated properties of the Dongying Mosque, located in the Second Lane of Wende Lane, the Fifth Lane of Wende Lane, the east end of Nansheng Lane near the city wall, the entrance of Xiaodongying Street, and Xianxiang Street outside the Great East Gate.
The 1866 stele regarding the renovation of the Xiaodongying Mosque records the process of the mosque's renovation during the Tongzhi reign, including the names, official titles, and donation amounts of the contributors.
The 1909 stele for the Dongying Mosque Charity School records how Muslims in Guangzhou and Hong Kong raised funds in 1900 to establish a charity school within the Dongying Mosque.
If you are interested in the history of the faith in Guangzhou, I recommend reading "History of Islam in Guangzhou" edited by Bao Yanzhong and "Collection of Hui Muslim Tablet Inscriptions and Couplets in Guangzhou" edited by Ma Jianzhao. These two books were very helpful in organizing and editing this article. Finally, I would like to thank Chen Yong, a dost (friend), for correcting the information in this article. view all
Reposted from the web
Summary: Guangzhou — Haopan Mosque, Xiaodongying Mosque and Old Streets is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: I left Macau on January 23, 2023, to visit the Macau mosque known as Moro Garden (Moro Yuan). The account keeps its focus on Guangzhou Mosques, Haopan Mosque, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
I left Macau on January 23, 2023, to visit the Macau mosque known as Moro Garden (Moro Yuan). I ate delicious Indonesian Javanese food and wrote about it in my post, 'Moro Garden and Indonesian Food in Macau'. I arrived in Guangzhou on January 25, visited a friend (dosti), and ate various halal foods, which I posted about in "Hui Muslim Fried Dough (youxiang) and Yemeni Food in Guangzhou." On January 25 at noon, I performed namaz at the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou, then visited the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies (Xianxian Gumu) to pay my respects. I posted about this in my article, "Guangzhou's Huaisheng Mosque and the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies." On the afternoon of January 25, I performed the dhuhr prayer at the Haopan Mosque and the asr prayer at the Xiaodongying Mosque, taking the opportunity to visit both of these mosques.
Hui Muslim officials and soldiers in Ming Dynasty Guangzhou.
The Yuan Dynasty was a turning point for the development of the faith in Guangzhou. Between 1276 and 1278, a two-year tug-of-war between the Mongol army and local forces, followed by a decade of anti-Yuan uprisings in Guangdong, left Guangzhou severely damaged. Many foreign Muslim merchants moved to Quanzhou and other coastal cities to settle. After the Yuan Dynasty took control, many Hui Muslim soldiers, craftsmen, and merchants traveled east to China by land, but apart from a few officials, not many Hui Muslims came to Guangzhou. As a result, the foreign Muslim quarter (fanfang) in Guangzhou gradually declined during the Yuan Dynasty and finally fell apart between the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.
After the Ming Dynasty was established, the "Daguan Army" replaced the foreign merchants as the main group of Muslims in Guangzhou. In the early Ming Dynasty, many Yuan soldiers surrendered. They were initially called "Tatars" (dada) and later renamed "Daren." Many of them were Hui Muslims from the Western Regions. Some of these surrendered Daren were sent to farm land across the country, while others served in military garrisons, which is why they were called the "Daguan Army."
In 1450 (the second year of the Jingtai reign), the Ming government sent troops to suppress the Huang Xiaoyang uprising in Guangzhou. This was the first time the Daguan Army was stationed in Guangzhou, though their numbers were relatively small. In 1465 (the first year of the Chenghua reign), the Ming government sent troops to suppress the Yao people's uprising in Guangdong and Guangxi, again calling up the Daguan Army from Nanjing. The Ming Dynasty's "Guangdong Tongzhi" (Gazetteer of Guangdong) from the Jiajing reign records that "over a thousand Daguan soldiers were ordered to the region." The Daguan Army achieved a major victory in the campaign. The commander, Han Yong, wrote a memorial to the court titled "Proposal on Handling Affairs in Guangxi," suggesting that some of the Daguan soldiers stay in Guangdong. He proposed a specific plan: "They should all remain in Guangzhou city to settle... find vacant land, build houses, and assign them to live there." For those with families, I request that the Nanjing garrison commander be ordered to send ships to bring them here. For those without families, we will find ways to arrange marriages for them.
According to statistics from the Ming Dynasty's "Guangzhou Tongzhi" (Gazetteer of Guangzhou) from the Jiajing reign, 285 Daguan soldiers eventually settled in Guangzhou. To accommodate them, four garrisons were established: Dadongying, Xiaodongying, Xiying, and Zhutongying, collectively known as the "Four Hui Camps." The ancestors of Yu Fengqi and Ma Chengzhu—who are buried in the "Three Loyalists of the Faith" tomb next to the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies in Guangzhou—were Yu Shifu and Ma Heima, who were leaders of the Daguan Army stationed in Guangzhou at that time. For the next 200 years, the Ming government frequently deployed the Daguan Army to fight in various parts of Guangdong and Guangxi. The final battle for the Daguan Army was the Qing army's siege of Guangzhou in 1650. Represented by Daguan generals Yu Fengqi, Ma Chengzhu, and Sa Zhifu, the "Three Loyalists of the Faith" died heroically for their country, and the Daguan Army and the Guangzhou Hui camps were disbanded.
Although the Daguan Army as a military unit ceased to exist after the Qing Dynasty, their descendants have continued to live in Guangzhou. Yu Shifu's descendants multiplied and developed into the Yu Chengxi Hall family of Guangzhou. Ha Zixiang from Hejian County, Hejian Prefecture, was ordered to garrison Guangzhou. His descendants developed into the Hui Muslim Ha family of Guangzhou. During the Wanli reign, Yang Rikui from Zhengding County, Zhengding Prefecture, was ordered to garrison Guangzhou. His descendants developed into the Hui Muslim Yang Jiguang Hall family of Guangzhou.
Inside the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou, there is a stone tablet commemorating a house donation by Yu Dajing, a descendant of the Yu family. It records that after Yu Dajing passed away (returned to Allah), his wife donated a house he had bought in Nanshengli to the Guangzhou Four Quarters Public Fund. The rent from the house was used to cover expenses for the memorial days at the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies and other public costs.
After the Daguan Army settled in the Four Hui Camps in Guangzhou, they built the Haopan Mosque (1465), Nansheng Mosque (1465-1467), and Xiaodongying Mosque (1468) near their stations. They also rebuilt the Huaisheng Mosque (1468), marking the formal establishment of the four Muslim quarters of Guangzhou during the Ming and Qing dynasties. This was the rebirth of the faith in Guangzhou after the foreign Muslim quarters dissolved at the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.
Haopan Street Mosque.
Haopan Mosque sits by the Nanhao, a branch of the Pearl River. It was built during the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty by Hui Muslim officials who settled in Guangzhou. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the area around Haopan Street was a major trade hub in Guangzhou, bustling with merchants. Qu Dajun, a famous Guangzhou scholar from the late Ming and early Qing periods, wrote in his classic work New Sayings of Guangdong (Guangdong Xinyu): In the Haopan Street area, during prosperous times, spices, pearls, rhinoceros horns, and ivory were piled like mountains, and flowers and birds were as plentiful as the sea. Foreign merchants gathered here, spending tens of millions of gold every day. The abundance of food and the frequency of singing and dancing far exceeded that of the Qinhuai area. These merchants were mostly from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and locals called them Jiangnan guests.
In 1706 (the 45th year of the Kangxi reign), Fu Yunfeng led the reconstruction of Haopan Mosque. Fu Yunfeng was originally Han Chinese. During the Kangxi era, he traveled from Zhejiang to Guangdong for business. After he ran into trouble, an imam at the Haopan Mosque in Guangzhou saved him. He lived in the mosque for a while and then converted to Islam. He was a timber merchant. After becoming wealthy, he funded the reconstruction of the Haopan Mosque in Guangzhou. He also renovated the Huaisheng Mosque, Nansheng Mosque, the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies, and the Chengdong Mosque in Zhaoqing, making a major contribution to the development of the faith in Guangdong.
Starting in the Qianlong period, Haopan Mosque opened a scripture school, and during the Tongzhi period, it opened a Hui Muslim university. It hired many famous scholars from Nanjing, Gansu, and Yunnan to train a large number of imams, playing a major role in the development of Islam in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau.
Haopan Mosque originally featured a classic southern mosque design with three-sided corridors, creating a courtyard in front of the main prayer hall. This style was well-suited to the rainy, low-wind climate of the south. After 1952, the mosque used the three-sided corridors to open a nursing home for Hui Muslims. In 1958, it opened a bamboo processing factory, which later grew into a sewing machine parts factory for Hui and Manchu Muslims. In the early 1960s, the mosque remained largely in its original state. The main prayer hall and the water room were used normally, and factory production did not interfere with the religious practices of the community. However, after 1966, the stone tablets and plaques in the mosque were destroyed, all scripture books were burned, and the main prayer hall was turned into a warehouse. In 1973, the three-sided corridors were torn down and replaced by a five-story factory building. In 1994, the factory finally returned the main prayer hall to the mosque. After preparations, it was renovated in 1997 and officially reopened in 1998.
Today, Haopan Mosque preserves the main prayer hall rebuilt during the Kangxi period. It has a square, three-bay, hip-and-gable roof design, which is completely different from mosques in the north. The mihrab inside the hall once featured exquisite Arabic calligraphy and geometric patterns, along with a beautifully carved hardwood minbar, but unfortunately, these no longer exist. When I visited Guangzhou in 2017, Haopan Mosque was about to undergo repairs. This time, the results look very good, and the ancient mosque's style was not ruined by over-restoration.
Many Hui Muslims from Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Nanjing who came to Guangzhou for business chose to live in the foreign trading firms near Haopan Street and the shops near Xiguan, which had a significant impact on the Haopan Street Mosque. Today, Haopan Mosque keeps half of a plaque inscribed with, In the first month of the seventh year of the Republic of China, the Jiangnan Association Tongshantang renovated this, which serves as a witness to the business activities of Jiangnan Hui Muslims in Guangzhou.
I met Master Yang at Haopan Mosque, whom I had not seen for six years. Master Yang is a local Hui Muslim from Guangzhou and has been a mosque attendant at Haopan Mosque for 20 years. I drank tea and chatted with Master Yang, and I ate some fried dough (youxiang) made by local Guangzhou Hui Muslims for a charity event (chusan). This was my first time eating local Guangzhou youxiang. They were small, crispy, and sweet, almost like a pastry.
Xiaodongying Mosque
Xiaodongying Mosque is located on the site of Xiaodongying, one of the four Hui Muslim camps in Guangzhou. It was built in 1468 (the fourth year of the Ming Chenghua reign) by Hui Muslim officials and was renovated twice during the Qing Jiaqing and Tongzhi periods. In 1901, Hui Muslims from Guangzhou and Hong Kong raised funds to start the Xiaodongying Mosque Charity School, with imams Yang Ruisheng and Wang Mingshan as teachers. In 1925, Xiaodongying Mosque became the activity center for the Guangzhou Islamic Youth Association, and in 1931, Chen Huanwen founded the Muslim (Mumin) monthly magazine there.
After 1949, Xiaodongying Mosque gradually became a funeral service center for Hui Muslims. After 1966, it was occupied by a Guangzhou Hui and Manchu Muslim factory as a warehouse. When it was returned in 1979, it was in ruins. After being renovated in 1982, it continued to serve as a funeral service center for burials. In 1998, Xiaodongying Mosque was approved as a place for religious activities, and in 2005, it officially resumed Friday Jumu'ah prayers. Now, those who come here for namaz are mainly foreign friends (dosti) from near Xiaobei.
The Xiaodongying Mosque currently preserves several plaques from the Qing Dynasty.
In the fifth year of the Tongzhi reign (1866), Li Chengyi from Dingyuan County, Fengyang Prefecture, Jiangnan, respectfully inscribed an Arabic plaque.
In the sixth year of the Tongzhi reign (1867), Yang Yongchun respectfully inscribed and erected the Hundred-Word Eulogy by Emperor Taizu of Ming.
In the 34th year of the Guangxu reign (1908), Liao Shouqi from Jiangxia County, Hubei, along with his son Dalian, erected a plaque reading 'The Religion Has an Orthodox Origin'.
Opposite the main hall of the Xiaodongying Mosque in Guangzhou is a stele corridor, which features a series of stone tablets from the Qing Dynasty recording charitable donations.
The 1808 stele regarding the permanent donation of property to the Dongying Mosque records that a woman named Li Ding, who lost her husband in middle age and had no children, wished to donate two houses she had purchased outside Wenming Gate and in the Fourth Lane. The rent from these houses was to support three imams at the mosque, and she requested that the imams perform dua on the anniversary of her death.
The 1818 stele for the Dongying Mosque records that the community members of the four neighborhoods raised funds to purchase a house from a woman named Li He, a resident of Nanhai County, located in Ying'en Lane outside the South Gate, and donated the rent to the mosque.
The 1822 stele regarding the purchase of property for the Dongying Mosque records that the community of the four neighborhoods raised funds to buy a house within the Zhan Family Garden and donated it to the Xiaodongying Mosque, with the rent going into the mosque's public fund box.
The 1846 stele regarding Li Yatai's house donation exchange records that Li Zhenchang wanted to combine a house in the Fourth Lane, which Li Yatai had donated to the Xiaodongying Mosque in 1807, with his own property. He exchanged it for a house in the Fifth Lane and used the additional rent to cover the repair costs for a collapsed house in the Zhan Family Garden. It also records that a house belonging to the Children's Association in the Zhan Family Garden had been collapsed by water for over ten years, and it was finally repaired thanks to donations from local elders.
The 1854 stele regarding the purchase of property for the Xiaodongying Mosque records that in 1819, the mosque received funds from the elders of the four neighborhoods to buy a house from Ma Shunhong in Jinshi Lane. In 1851, Zhang Chaodong combined this house with his own, so he bought two houses from the Xu Ding family in the Zhan Family Garden and donated them to the mosque instead.
The 1866 stele regarding donations to the Dongying Mosque records that the community of the four neighborhoods donated houses and storefronts. It lists all the donated properties of the Dongying Mosque, located in the Second Lane of Wende Lane, the Fifth Lane of Wende Lane, the east end of Nansheng Lane near the city wall, the entrance of Xiaodongying Street, and Xianxiang Street outside the Great East Gate.
The 1866 stele regarding the renovation of the Xiaodongying Mosque records the process of the mosque's renovation during the Tongzhi reign, including the names, official titles, and donation amounts of the contributors.
The 1909 stele for the Dongying Mosque Charity School records how Muslims in Guangzhou and Hong Kong raised funds in 1900 to establish a charity school within the Dongying Mosque.
If you are interested in the history of the faith in Guangzhou, I recommend reading "History of Islam in Guangzhou" edited by Bao Yanzhong and "Collection of Hui Muslim Tablet Inscriptions and Couplets in Guangzhou" edited by Ma Jianzhao. These two books were very helpful in organizing and editing this article. Finally, I would like to thank Chen Yong, a dost (friend), for correcting the information in this article.
Summary: Guangzhou — Haopan Mosque, Xiaodongying Mosque and Old Streets is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: I left Macau on January 23, 2023, to visit the Macau mosque known as Moro Garden (Moro Yuan). The account keeps its focus on Guangzhou Mosques, Haopan Mosque, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
I left Macau on January 23, 2023, to visit the Macau mosque known as Moro Garden (Moro Yuan). I ate delicious Indonesian Javanese food and wrote about it in my post, 'Moro Garden and Indonesian Food in Macau'. I arrived in Guangzhou on January 25, visited a friend (dosti), and ate various halal foods, which I posted about in "Hui Muslim Fried Dough (youxiang) and Yemeni Food in Guangzhou." On January 25 at noon, I performed namaz at the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou, then visited the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies (Xianxian Gumu) to pay my respects. I posted about this in my article, "Guangzhou's Huaisheng Mosque and the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies." On the afternoon of January 25, I performed the dhuhr prayer at the Haopan Mosque and the asr prayer at the Xiaodongying Mosque, taking the opportunity to visit both of these mosques.
Hui Muslim officials and soldiers in Ming Dynasty Guangzhou.
The Yuan Dynasty was a turning point for the development of the faith in Guangzhou. Between 1276 and 1278, a two-year tug-of-war between the Mongol army and local forces, followed by a decade of anti-Yuan uprisings in Guangdong, left Guangzhou severely damaged. Many foreign Muslim merchants moved to Quanzhou and other coastal cities to settle. After the Yuan Dynasty took control, many Hui Muslim soldiers, craftsmen, and merchants traveled east to China by land, but apart from a few officials, not many Hui Muslims came to Guangzhou. As a result, the foreign Muslim quarter (fanfang) in Guangzhou gradually declined during the Yuan Dynasty and finally fell apart between the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.
After the Ming Dynasty was established, the "Daguan Army" replaced the foreign merchants as the main group of Muslims in Guangzhou. In the early Ming Dynasty, many Yuan soldiers surrendered. They were initially called "Tatars" (dada) and later renamed "Daren." Many of them were Hui Muslims from the Western Regions. Some of these surrendered Daren were sent to farm land across the country, while others served in military garrisons, which is why they were called the "Daguan Army."
In 1450 (the second year of the Jingtai reign), the Ming government sent troops to suppress the Huang Xiaoyang uprising in Guangzhou. This was the first time the Daguan Army was stationed in Guangzhou, though their numbers were relatively small. In 1465 (the first year of the Chenghua reign), the Ming government sent troops to suppress the Yao people's uprising in Guangdong and Guangxi, again calling up the Daguan Army from Nanjing. The Ming Dynasty's "Guangdong Tongzhi" (Gazetteer of Guangdong) from the Jiajing reign records that "over a thousand Daguan soldiers were ordered to the region." The Daguan Army achieved a major victory in the campaign. The commander, Han Yong, wrote a memorial to the court titled "Proposal on Handling Affairs in Guangxi," suggesting that some of the Daguan soldiers stay in Guangdong. He proposed a specific plan: "They should all remain in Guangzhou city to settle... find vacant land, build houses, and assign them to live there." For those with families, I request that the Nanjing garrison commander be ordered to send ships to bring them here. For those without families, we will find ways to arrange marriages for them.
According to statistics from the Ming Dynasty's "Guangzhou Tongzhi" (Gazetteer of Guangzhou) from the Jiajing reign, 285 Daguan soldiers eventually settled in Guangzhou. To accommodate them, four garrisons were established: Dadongying, Xiaodongying, Xiying, and Zhutongying, collectively known as the "Four Hui Camps." The ancestors of Yu Fengqi and Ma Chengzhu—who are buried in the "Three Loyalists of the Faith" tomb next to the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies in Guangzhou—were Yu Shifu and Ma Heima, who were leaders of the Daguan Army stationed in Guangzhou at that time. For the next 200 years, the Ming government frequently deployed the Daguan Army to fight in various parts of Guangdong and Guangxi. The final battle for the Daguan Army was the Qing army's siege of Guangzhou in 1650. Represented by Daguan generals Yu Fengqi, Ma Chengzhu, and Sa Zhifu, the "Three Loyalists of the Faith" died heroically for their country, and the Daguan Army and the Guangzhou Hui camps were disbanded.
Although the Daguan Army as a military unit ceased to exist after the Qing Dynasty, their descendants have continued to live in Guangzhou. Yu Shifu's descendants multiplied and developed into the Yu Chengxi Hall family of Guangzhou. Ha Zixiang from Hejian County, Hejian Prefecture, was ordered to garrison Guangzhou. His descendants developed into the Hui Muslim Ha family of Guangzhou. During the Wanli reign, Yang Rikui from Zhengding County, Zhengding Prefecture, was ordered to garrison Guangzhou. His descendants developed into the Hui Muslim Yang Jiguang Hall family of Guangzhou.
Inside the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou, there is a stone tablet commemorating a house donation by Yu Dajing, a descendant of the Yu family. It records that after Yu Dajing passed away (returned to Allah), his wife donated a house he had bought in Nanshengli to the Guangzhou Four Quarters Public Fund. The rent from the house was used to cover expenses for the memorial days at the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies and other public costs.
After the Daguan Army settled in the Four Hui Camps in Guangzhou, they built the Haopan Mosque (1465), Nansheng Mosque (1465-1467), and Xiaodongying Mosque (1468) near their stations. They also rebuilt the Huaisheng Mosque (1468), marking the formal establishment of the four Muslim quarters of Guangzhou during the Ming and Qing dynasties. This was the rebirth of the faith in Guangzhou after the foreign Muslim quarters dissolved at the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.
Haopan Street Mosque.
Haopan Mosque sits by the Nanhao, a branch of the Pearl River. It was built during the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty by Hui Muslim officials who settled in Guangzhou. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the area around Haopan Street was a major trade hub in Guangzhou, bustling with merchants. Qu Dajun, a famous Guangzhou scholar from the late Ming and early Qing periods, wrote in his classic work New Sayings of Guangdong (Guangdong Xinyu): In the Haopan Street area, during prosperous times, spices, pearls, rhinoceros horns, and ivory were piled like mountains, and flowers and birds were as plentiful as the sea. Foreign merchants gathered here, spending tens of millions of gold every day. The abundance of food and the frequency of singing and dancing far exceeded that of the Qinhuai area. These merchants were mostly from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and locals called them Jiangnan guests.
In 1706 (the 45th year of the Kangxi reign), Fu Yunfeng led the reconstruction of Haopan Mosque. Fu Yunfeng was originally Han Chinese. During the Kangxi era, he traveled from Zhejiang to Guangdong for business. After he ran into trouble, an imam at the Haopan Mosque in Guangzhou saved him. He lived in the mosque for a while and then converted to Islam. He was a timber merchant. After becoming wealthy, he funded the reconstruction of the Haopan Mosque in Guangzhou. He also renovated the Huaisheng Mosque, Nansheng Mosque, the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies, and the Chengdong Mosque in Zhaoqing, making a major contribution to the development of the faith in Guangdong.
Starting in the Qianlong period, Haopan Mosque opened a scripture school, and during the Tongzhi period, it opened a Hui Muslim university. It hired many famous scholars from Nanjing, Gansu, and Yunnan to train a large number of imams, playing a major role in the development of Islam in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau.
Haopan Mosque originally featured a classic southern mosque design with three-sided corridors, creating a courtyard in front of the main prayer hall. This style was well-suited to the rainy, low-wind climate of the south. After 1952, the mosque used the three-sided corridors to open a nursing home for Hui Muslims. In 1958, it opened a bamboo processing factory, which later grew into a sewing machine parts factory for Hui and Manchu Muslims. In the early 1960s, the mosque remained largely in its original state. The main prayer hall and the water room were used normally, and factory production did not interfere with the religious practices of the community. However, after 1966, the stone tablets and plaques in the mosque were destroyed, all scripture books were burned, and the main prayer hall was turned into a warehouse. In 1973, the three-sided corridors were torn down and replaced by a five-story factory building. In 1994, the factory finally returned the main prayer hall to the mosque. After preparations, it was renovated in 1997 and officially reopened in 1998.
Today, Haopan Mosque preserves the main prayer hall rebuilt during the Kangxi period. It has a square, three-bay, hip-and-gable roof design, which is completely different from mosques in the north. The mihrab inside the hall once featured exquisite Arabic calligraphy and geometric patterns, along with a beautifully carved hardwood minbar, but unfortunately, these no longer exist. When I visited Guangzhou in 2017, Haopan Mosque was about to undergo repairs. This time, the results look very good, and the ancient mosque's style was not ruined by over-restoration.
Many Hui Muslims from Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Nanjing who came to Guangzhou for business chose to live in the foreign trading firms near Haopan Street and the shops near Xiguan, which had a significant impact on the Haopan Street Mosque. Today, Haopan Mosque keeps half of a plaque inscribed with, In the first month of the seventh year of the Republic of China, the Jiangnan Association Tongshantang renovated this, which serves as a witness to the business activities of Jiangnan Hui Muslims in Guangzhou.
I met Master Yang at Haopan Mosque, whom I had not seen for six years. Master Yang is a local Hui Muslim from Guangzhou and has been a mosque attendant at Haopan Mosque for 20 years. I drank tea and chatted with Master Yang, and I ate some fried dough (youxiang) made by local Guangzhou Hui Muslims for a charity event (chusan). This was my first time eating local Guangzhou youxiang. They were small, crispy, and sweet, almost like a pastry.
Xiaodongying Mosque
Xiaodongying Mosque is located on the site of Xiaodongying, one of the four Hui Muslim camps in Guangzhou. It was built in 1468 (the fourth year of the Ming Chenghua reign) by Hui Muslim officials and was renovated twice during the Qing Jiaqing and Tongzhi periods. In 1901, Hui Muslims from Guangzhou and Hong Kong raised funds to start the Xiaodongying Mosque Charity School, with imams Yang Ruisheng and Wang Mingshan as teachers. In 1925, Xiaodongying Mosque became the activity center for the Guangzhou Islamic Youth Association, and in 1931, Chen Huanwen founded the Muslim (Mumin) monthly magazine there.
After 1949, Xiaodongying Mosque gradually became a funeral service center for Hui Muslims. After 1966, it was occupied by a Guangzhou Hui and Manchu Muslim factory as a warehouse. When it was returned in 1979, it was in ruins. After being renovated in 1982, it continued to serve as a funeral service center for burials. In 1998, Xiaodongying Mosque was approved as a place for religious activities, and in 2005, it officially resumed Friday Jumu'ah prayers. Now, those who come here for namaz are mainly foreign friends (dosti) from near Xiaobei.
The Xiaodongying Mosque currently preserves several plaques from the Qing Dynasty.
In the fifth year of the Tongzhi reign (1866), Li Chengyi from Dingyuan County, Fengyang Prefecture, Jiangnan, respectfully inscribed an Arabic plaque.
In the sixth year of the Tongzhi reign (1867), Yang Yongchun respectfully inscribed and erected the Hundred-Word Eulogy by Emperor Taizu of Ming.
In the 34th year of the Guangxu reign (1908), Liao Shouqi from Jiangxia County, Hubei, along with his son Dalian, erected a plaque reading 'The Religion Has an Orthodox Origin'.
Opposite the main hall of the Xiaodongying Mosque in Guangzhou is a stele corridor, which features a series of stone tablets from the Qing Dynasty recording charitable donations.
The 1808 stele regarding the permanent donation of property to the Dongying Mosque records that a woman named Li Ding, who lost her husband in middle age and had no children, wished to donate two houses she had purchased outside Wenming Gate and in the Fourth Lane. The rent from these houses was to support three imams at the mosque, and she requested that the imams perform dua on the anniversary of her death.
The 1818 stele for the Dongying Mosque records that the community members of the four neighborhoods raised funds to purchase a house from a woman named Li He, a resident of Nanhai County, located in Ying'en Lane outside the South Gate, and donated the rent to the mosque.
The 1822 stele regarding the purchase of property for the Dongying Mosque records that the community of the four neighborhoods raised funds to buy a house within the Zhan Family Garden and donated it to the Xiaodongying Mosque, with the rent going into the mosque's public fund box.
The 1846 stele regarding Li Yatai's house donation exchange records that Li Zhenchang wanted to combine a house in the Fourth Lane, which Li Yatai had donated to the Xiaodongying Mosque in 1807, with his own property. He exchanged it for a house in the Fifth Lane and used the additional rent to cover the repair costs for a collapsed house in the Zhan Family Garden. It also records that a house belonging to the Children's Association in the Zhan Family Garden had been collapsed by water for over ten years, and it was finally repaired thanks to donations from local elders.
The 1854 stele regarding the purchase of property for the Xiaodongying Mosque records that in 1819, the mosque received funds from the elders of the four neighborhoods to buy a house from Ma Shunhong in Jinshi Lane. In 1851, Zhang Chaodong combined this house with his own, so he bought two houses from the Xu Ding family in the Zhan Family Garden and donated them to the mosque instead.
The 1866 stele regarding donations to the Dongying Mosque records that the community of the four neighborhoods donated houses and storefronts. It lists all the donated properties of the Dongying Mosque, located in the Second Lane of Wende Lane, the Fifth Lane of Wende Lane, the east end of Nansheng Lane near the city wall, the entrance of Xiaodongying Street, and Xianxiang Street outside the Great East Gate.
The 1866 stele regarding the renovation of the Xiaodongying Mosque records the process of the mosque's renovation during the Tongzhi reign, including the names, official titles, and donation amounts of the contributors.
The 1909 stele for the Dongying Mosque Charity School records how Muslims in Guangzhou and Hong Kong raised funds in 1900 to establish a charity school within the Dongying Mosque.
If you are interested in the history of the faith in Guangzhou, I recommend reading "History of Islam in Guangzhou" edited by Bao Yanzhong and "Collection of Hui Muslim Tablet Inscriptions and Couplets in Guangzhou" edited by Ma Jianzhao. These two books were very helpful in organizing and editing this article. Finally, I would like to thank Chen Yong, a dost (friend), for correcting the information in this article.
Halal Travel Guide: Guangzhou — Haopan Mosque, Xiaodongying Mosque and Old Streets
Articles • ali2007fr posted the article • 0 comments • 81 views • 2026-05-18 20:36
Reposted from the web
Summary: Guangzhou — Haopan Mosque, Xiaodongying Mosque and Old Streets is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: I left Macau on January 23, 2023, to visit the Macau mosque known as Moro Garden (Moro Yuan). The account keeps its focus on Guangzhou Mosques, Haopan Mosque, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
I left Macau on January 23, 2023, to visit the Macau mosque known as Moro Garden (Moro Yuan). I ate delicious Indonesian Javanese food and wrote about it in my post, 'Moro Garden and Indonesian Food in Macau'. I arrived in Guangzhou on January 25, visited a friend (dosti), and ate various halal foods, which I posted about in "Hui Muslim Fried Dough (youxiang) and Yemeni Food in Guangzhou." On January 25 at noon, I performed namaz at the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou, then visited the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies (Xianxian Gumu) to pay my respects. I posted about this in my article, "Guangzhou's Huaisheng Mosque and the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies." On the afternoon of January 25, I performed the dhuhr prayer at the Haopan Mosque and the asr prayer at the Xiaodongying Mosque, taking the opportunity to visit both of these mosques.
Hui Muslim officials and soldiers in Ming Dynasty Guangzhou.
The Yuan Dynasty was a turning point for the development of the faith in Guangzhou. Between 1276 and 1278, a two-year tug-of-war between the Mongol army and local forces, followed by a decade of anti-Yuan uprisings in Guangdong, left Guangzhou severely damaged. Many foreign Muslim merchants moved to Quanzhou and other coastal cities to settle. After the Yuan Dynasty took control, many Hui Muslim soldiers, craftsmen, and merchants traveled east to China by land, but apart from a few officials, not many Hui Muslims came to Guangzhou. As a result, the foreign Muslim quarter (fanfang) in Guangzhou gradually declined during the Yuan Dynasty and finally fell apart between the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.
After the Ming Dynasty was established, the "Daguan Army" replaced the foreign merchants as the main group of Muslims in Guangzhou. In the early Ming Dynasty, many Yuan soldiers surrendered. They were initially called "Tatars" (dada) and later renamed "Daren." Many of them were Hui Muslims from the Western Regions. Some of these surrendered Daren were sent to farm land across the country, while others served in military garrisons, which is why they were called the "Daguan Army."
In 1450 (the second year of the Jingtai reign), the Ming government sent troops to suppress the Huang Xiaoyang uprising in Guangzhou. This was the first time the Daguan Army was stationed in Guangzhou, though their numbers were relatively small. In 1465 (the first year of the Chenghua reign), the Ming government sent troops to suppress the Yao people's uprising in Guangdong and Guangxi, again calling up the Daguan Army from Nanjing. The Ming Dynasty's "Guangdong Tongzhi" (Gazetteer of Guangdong) from the Jiajing reign records that "over a thousand Daguan soldiers were ordered to the region." The Daguan Army achieved a major victory in the campaign. The commander, Han Yong, wrote a memorial to the court titled "Proposal on Handling Affairs in Guangxi," suggesting that some of the Daguan soldiers stay in Guangdong. He proposed a specific plan: "They should all remain in Guangzhou city to settle... find vacant land, build houses, and assign them to live there." For those with families, I request that the Nanjing garrison commander be ordered to send ships to bring them here. For those without families, we will find ways to arrange marriages for them.
According to statistics from the Ming Dynasty's "Guangzhou Tongzhi" (Gazetteer of Guangzhou) from the Jiajing reign, 285 Daguan soldiers eventually settled in Guangzhou. To accommodate them, four garrisons were established: Dadongying, Xiaodongying, Xiying, and Zhutongying, collectively known as the "Four Hui Camps." The ancestors of Yu Fengqi and Ma Chengzhu—who are buried in the "Three Loyalists of the Faith" tomb next to the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies in Guangzhou—were Yu Shifu and Ma Heima, who were leaders of the Daguan Army stationed in Guangzhou at that time. For the next 200 years, the Ming government frequently deployed the Daguan Army to fight in various parts of Guangdong and Guangxi. The final battle for the Daguan Army was the Qing army's siege of Guangzhou in 1650. Represented by Daguan generals Yu Fengqi, Ma Chengzhu, and Sa Zhifu, the "Three Loyalists of the Faith" died heroically for their country, and the Daguan Army and the Guangzhou Hui camps were disbanded.
Although the Daguan Army as a military unit ceased to exist after the Qing Dynasty, their descendants have continued to live in Guangzhou. Yu Shifu's descendants multiplied and developed into the Yu Chengxi Hall family of Guangzhou. Ha Zixiang from Hejian County, Hejian Prefecture, was ordered to garrison Guangzhou. His descendants developed into the Hui Muslim Ha family of Guangzhou. During the Wanli reign, Yang Rikui from Zhengding County, Zhengding Prefecture, was ordered to garrison Guangzhou. His descendants developed into the Hui Muslim Yang Jiguang Hall family of Guangzhou.
Inside the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou, there is a stone tablet commemorating a house donation by Yu Dajing, a descendant of the Yu family. It records that after Yu Dajing passed away (returned to Allah), his wife donated a house he had bought in Nanshengli to the Guangzhou Four Quarters Public Fund. The rent from the house was used to cover expenses for the memorial days at the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies and other public costs.
After the Daguan Army settled in the Four Hui Camps in Guangzhou, they built the Haopan Mosque (1465), Nansheng Mosque (1465-1467), and Xiaodongying Mosque (1468) near their stations. They also rebuilt the Huaisheng Mosque (1468), marking the formal establishment of the four Muslim quarters of Guangzhou during the Ming and Qing dynasties. This was the rebirth of the faith in Guangzhou after the foreign Muslim quarters dissolved at the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.
Haopan Street Mosque.
Haopan Mosque sits by the Nanhao, a branch of the Pearl River. It was built during the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty by Hui Muslim officials who settled in Guangzhou. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the area around Haopan Street was a major trade hub in Guangzhou, bustling with merchants. Qu Dajun, a famous Guangzhou scholar from the late Ming and early Qing periods, wrote in his classic work New Sayings of Guangdong (Guangdong Xinyu): In the Haopan Street area, during prosperous times, spices, pearls, rhinoceros horns, and ivory were piled like mountains, and flowers and birds were as plentiful as the sea. Foreign merchants gathered here, spending tens of millions of gold every day. The abundance of food and the frequency of singing and dancing far exceeded that of the Qinhuai area. These merchants were mostly from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and locals called them Jiangnan guests.
In 1706 (the 45th year of the Kangxi reign), Fu Yunfeng led the reconstruction of Haopan Mosque. Fu Yunfeng was originally Han Chinese. During the Kangxi era, he traveled from Zhejiang to Guangdong for business. After he ran into trouble, an imam at the Haopan Mosque in Guangzhou saved him. He lived in the mosque for a while and then converted to Islam. He was a timber merchant. After becoming wealthy, he funded the reconstruction of the Haopan Mosque in Guangzhou. He also renovated the Huaisheng Mosque, Nansheng Mosque, the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies, and the Chengdong Mosque in Zhaoqing, making a major contribution to the development of the faith in Guangdong.
Starting in the Qianlong period, Haopan Mosque opened a scripture school, and during the Tongzhi period, it opened a Hui Muslim university. It hired many famous scholars from Nanjing, Gansu, and Yunnan to train a large number of imams, playing a major role in the development of Islam in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau.
Haopan Mosque originally featured a classic southern mosque design with three-sided corridors, creating a courtyard in front of the main prayer hall. This style was well-suited to the rainy, low-wind climate of the south. After 1952, the mosque used the three-sided corridors to open a nursing home for Hui Muslims. In 1958, it opened a bamboo processing factory, which later grew into a sewing machine parts factory for Hui and Manchu Muslims. In the early 1960s, the mosque remained largely in its original state. The main prayer hall and the water room were used normally, and factory production did not interfere with the religious practices of the community. However, after 1966, the stone tablets and plaques in the mosque were destroyed, all scripture books were burned, and the main prayer hall was turned into a warehouse. In 1973, the three-sided corridors were torn down and replaced by a five-story factory building. In 1994, the factory finally returned the main prayer hall to the mosque. After preparations, it was renovated in 1997 and officially reopened in 1998.
Today, Haopan Mosque preserves the main prayer hall rebuilt during the Kangxi period. It has a square, three-bay, hip-and-gable roof design, which is completely different from mosques in the north. The mihrab inside the hall once featured exquisite Arabic calligraphy and geometric patterns, along with a beautifully carved hardwood minbar, but unfortunately, these no longer exist. When I visited Guangzhou in 2017, Haopan Mosque was about to undergo repairs. This time, the results look very good, and the ancient mosque's style was not ruined by over-restoration.
Many Hui Muslims from Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Nanjing who came to Guangzhou for business chose to live in the foreign trading firms near Haopan Street and the shops near Xiguan, which had a significant impact on the Haopan Street Mosque. Today, Haopan Mosque keeps half of a plaque inscribed with, In the first month of the seventh year of the Republic of China, the Jiangnan Association Tongshantang renovated this, which serves as a witness to the business activities of Jiangnan Hui Muslims in Guangzhou.
I met Master Yang at Haopan Mosque, whom I had not seen for six years. Master Yang is a local Hui Muslim from Guangzhou and has been a mosque attendant at Haopan Mosque for 20 years. I drank tea and chatted with Master Yang, and I ate some fried dough (youxiang) made by local Guangzhou Hui Muslims for a charity event (chusan). This was my first time eating local Guangzhou youxiang. They were small, crispy, and sweet, almost like a pastry.
Xiaodongying Mosque
Xiaodongying Mosque is located on the site of Xiaodongying, one of the four Hui Muslim camps in Guangzhou. It was built in 1468 (the fourth year of the Ming Chenghua reign) by Hui Muslim officials and was renovated twice during the Qing Jiaqing and Tongzhi periods. In 1901, Hui Muslims from Guangzhou and Hong Kong raised funds to start the Xiaodongying Mosque Charity School, with imams Yang Ruisheng and Wang Mingshan as teachers. In 1925, Xiaodongying Mosque became the activity center for the Guangzhou Islamic Youth Association, and in 1931, Chen Huanwen founded the Muslim (Mumin) monthly magazine there.
After 1949, Xiaodongying Mosque gradually became a funeral service center for Hui Muslims. After 1966, it was occupied by a Guangzhou Hui and Manchu Muslim factory as a warehouse. When it was returned in 1979, it was in ruins. After being renovated in 1982, it continued to serve as a funeral service center for burials. In 1998, Xiaodongying Mosque was approved as a place for religious activities, and in 2005, it officially resumed Friday Jumu'ah prayers. Now, those who come here for namaz are mainly foreign friends (dosti) from near Xiaobei.
The Xiaodongying Mosque currently preserves several plaques from the Qing Dynasty.
In the fifth year of the Tongzhi reign (1866), Li Chengyi from Dingyuan County, Fengyang Prefecture, Jiangnan, respectfully inscribed an Arabic plaque.
In the sixth year of the Tongzhi reign (1867), Yang Yongchun respectfully inscribed and erected the Hundred-Word Eulogy by Emperor Taizu of Ming.
In the 34th year of the Guangxu reign (1908), Liao Shouqi from Jiangxia County, Hubei, along with his son Dalian, erected a plaque reading 'The Religion Has an Orthodox Origin'.
Opposite the main hall of the Xiaodongying Mosque in Guangzhou is a stele corridor, which features a series of stone tablets from the Qing Dynasty recording charitable donations.
The 1808 stele regarding the permanent donation of property to the Dongying Mosque records that a woman named Li Ding, who lost her husband in middle age and had no children, wished to donate two houses she had purchased outside Wenming Gate and in the Fourth Lane. The rent from these houses was to support three imams at the mosque, and she requested that the imams perform dua on the anniversary of her death.
The 1818 stele for the Dongying Mosque records that the community members of the four neighborhoods raised funds to purchase a house from a woman named Li He, a resident of Nanhai County, located in Ying'en Lane outside the South Gate, and donated the rent to the mosque.
The 1822 stele regarding the purchase of property for the Dongying Mosque records that the community of the four neighborhoods raised funds to buy a house within the Zhan Family Garden and donated it to the Xiaodongying Mosque, with the rent going into the mosque's public fund box.
The 1846 stele regarding Li Yatai's house donation exchange records that Li Zhenchang wanted to combine a house in the Fourth Lane, which Li Yatai had donated to the Xiaodongying Mosque in 1807, with his own property. He exchanged it for a house in the Fifth Lane and used the additional rent to cover the repair costs for a collapsed house in the Zhan Family Garden. It also records that a house belonging to the Children's Association in the Zhan Family Garden had been collapsed by water for over ten years, and it was finally repaired thanks to donations from local elders.
The 1854 stele regarding the purchase of property for the Xiaodongying Mosque records that in 1819, the mosque received funds from the elders of the four neighborhoods to buy a house from Ma Shunhong in Jinshi Lane. In 1851, Zhang Chaodong combined this house with his own, so he bought two houses from the Xu Ding family in the Zhan Family Garden and donated them to the mosque instead.
The 1866 stele regarding donations to the Dongying Mosque records that the community of the four neighborhoods donated houses and storefronts. It lists all the donated properties of the Dongying Mosque, located in the Second Lane of Wende Lane, the Fifth Lane of Wende Lane, the east end of Nansheng Lane near the city wall, the entrance of Xiaodongying Street, and Xianxiang Street outside the Great East Gate.
The 1866 stele regarding the renovation of the Xiaodongying Mosque records the process of the mosque's renovation during the Tongzhi reign, including the names, official titles, and donation amounts of the contributors.
The 1909 stele for the Dongying Mosque Charity School records how Muslims in Guangzhou and Hong Kong raised funds in 1900 to establish a charity school within the Dongying Mosque.
If you are interested in the history of the faith in Guangzhou, I recommend reading "History of Islam in Guangzhou" edited by Bao Yanzhong and "Collection of Hui Muslim Tablet Inscriptions and Couplets in Guangzhou" edited by Ma Jianzhao. These two books were very helpful in organizing and editing this article. Finally, I would like to thank Chen Yong, a dost (friend), for correcting the information in this article. view all
Summary: Guangzhou — Haopan Mosque, Xiaodongying Mosque and Old Streets is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: I left Macau on January 23, 2023, to visit the Macau mosque known as Moro Garden (Moro Yuan). The account keeps its focus on Guangzhou Mosques, Haopan Mosque, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
I left Macau on January 23, 2023, to visit the Macau mosque known as Moro Garden (Moro Yuan). I ate delicious Indonesian Javanese food and wrote about it in my post, 'Moro Garden and Indonesian Food in Macau'. I arrived in Guangzhou on January 25, visited a friend (dosti), and ate various halal foods, which I posted about in "Hui Muslim Fried Dough (youxiang) and Yemeni Food in Guangzhou." On January 25 at noon, I performed namaz at the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou, then visited the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies (Xianxian Gumu) to pay my respects. I posted about this in my article, "Guangzhou's Huaisheng Mosque and the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies." On the afternoon of January 25, I performed the dhuhr prayer at the Haopan Mosque and the asr prayer at the Xiaodongying Mosque, taking the opportunity to visit both of these mosques.
Hui Muslim officials and soldiers in Ming Dynasty Guangzhou.
The Yuan Dynasty was a turning point for the development of the faith in Guangzhou. Between 1276 and 1278, a two-year tug-of-war between the Mongol army and local forces, followed by a decade of anti-Yuan uprisings in Guangdong, left Guangzhou severely damaged. Many foreign Muslim merchants moved to Quanzhou and other coastal cities to settle. After the Yuan Dynasty took control, many Hui Muslim soldiers, craftsmen, and merchants traveled east to China by land, but apart from a few officials, not many Hui Muslims came to Guangzhou. As a result, the foreign Muslim quarter (fanfang) in Guangzhou gradually declined during the Yuan Dynasty and finally fell apart between the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.
After the Ming Dynasty was established, the "Daguan Army" replaced the foreign merchants as the main group of Muslims in Guangzhou. In the early Ming Dynasty, many Yuan soldiers surrendered. They were initially called "Tatars" (dada) and later renamed "Daren." Many of them were Hui Muslims from the Western Regions. Some of these surrendered Daren were sent to farm land across the country, while others served in military garrisons, which is why they were called the "Daguan Army."
In 1450 (the second year of the Jingtai reign), the Ming government sent troops to suppress the Huang Xiaoyang uprising in Guangzhou. This was the first time the Daguan Army was stationed in Guangzhou, though their numbers were relatively small. In 1465 (the first year of the Chenghua reign), the Ming government sent troops to suppress the Yao people's uprising in Guangdong and Guangxi, again calling up the Daguan Army from Nanjing. The Ming Dynasty's "Guangdong Tongzhi" (Gazetteer of Guangdong) from the Jiajing reign records that "over a thousand Daguan soldiers were ordered to the region." The Daguan Army achieved a major victory in the campaign. The commander, Han Yong, wrote a memorial to the court titled "Proposal on Handling Affairs in Guangxi," suggesting that some of the Daguan soldiers stay in Guangdong. He proposed a specific plan: "They should all remain in Guangzhou city to settle... find vacant land, build houses, and assign them to live there." For those with families, I request that the Nanjing garrison commander be ordered to send ships to bring them here. For those without families, we will find ways to arrange marriages for them.
According to statistics from the Ming Dynasty's "Guangzhou Tongzhi" (Gazetteer of Guangzhou) from the Jiajing reign, 285 Daguan soldiers eventually settled in Guangzhou. To accommodate them, four garrisons were established: Dadongying, Xiaodongying, Xiying, and Zhutongying, collectively known as the "Four Hui Camps." The ancestors of Yu Fengqi and Ma Chengzhu—who are buried in the "Three Loyalists of the Faith" tomb next to the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies in Guangzhou—were Yu Shifu and Ma Heima, who were leaders of the Daguan Army stationed in Guangzhou at that time. For the next 200 years, the Ming government frequently deployed the Daguan Army to fight in various parts of Guangdong and Guangxi. The final battle for the Daguan Army was the Qing army's siege of Guangzhou in 1650. Represented by Daguan generals Yu Fengqi, Ma Chengzhu, and Sa Zhifu, the "Three Loyalists of the Faith" died heroically for their country, and the Daguan Army and the Guangzhou Hui camps were disbanded.
Although the Daguan Army as a military unit ceased to exist after the Qing Dynasty, their descendants have continued to live in Guangzhou. Yu Shifu's descendants multiplied and developed into the Yu Chengxi Hall family of Guangzhou. Ha Zixiang from Hejian County, Hejian Prefecture, was ordered to garrison Guangzhou. His descendants developed into the Hui Muslim Ha family of Guangzhou. During the Wanli reign, Yang Rikui from Zhengding County, Zhengding Prefecture, was ordered to garrison Guangzhou. His descendants developed into the Hui Muslim Yang Jiguang Hall family of Guangzhou.
Inside the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou, there is a stone tablet commemorating a house donation by Yu Dajing, a descendant of the Yu family. It records that after Yu Dajing passed away (returned to Allah), his wife donated a house he had bought in Nanshengli to the Guangzhou Four Quarters Public Fund. The rent from the house was used to cover expenses for the memorial days at the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies and other public costs.
After the Daguan Army settled in the Four Hui Camps in Guangzhou, they built the Haopan Mosque (1465), Nansheng Mosque (1465-1467), and Xiaodongying Mosque (1468) near their stations. They also rebuilt the Huaisheng Mosque (1468), marking the formal establishment of the four Muslim quarters of Guangzhou during the Ming and Qing dynasties. This was the rebirth of the faith in Guangzhou after the foreign Muslim quarters dissolved at the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.
Haopan Street Mosque.
Haopan Mosque sits by the Nanhao, a branch of the Pearl River. It was built during the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty by Hui Muslim officials who settled in Guangzhou. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the area around Haopan Street was a major trade hub in Guangzhou, bustling with merchants. Qu Dajun, a famous Guangzhou scholar from the late Ming and early Qing periods, wrote in his classic work New Sayings of Guangdong (Guangdong Xinyu): In the Haopan Street area, during prosperous times, spices, pearls, rhinoceros horns, and ivory were piled like mountains, and flowers and birds were as plentiful as the sea. Foreign merchants gathered here, spending tens of millions of gold every day. The abundance of food and the frequency of singing and dancing far exceeded that of the Qinhuai area. These merchants were mostly from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and locals called them Jiangnan guests.
In 1706 (the 45th year of the Kangxi reign), Fu Yunfeng led the reconstruction of Haopan Mosque. Fu Yunfeng was originally Han Chinese. During the Kangxi era, he traveled from Zhejiang to Guangdong for business. After he ran into trouble, an imam at the Haopan Mosque in Guangzhou saved him. He lived in the mosque for a while and then converted to Islam. He was a timber merchant. After becoming wealthy, he funded the reconstruction of the Haopan Mosque in Guangzhou. He also renovated the Huaisheng Mosque, Nansheng Mosque, the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies, and the Chengdong Mosque in Zhaoqing, making a major contribution to the development of the faith in Guangdong.
Starting in the Qianlong period, Haopan Mosque opened a scripture school, and during the Tongzhi period, it opened a Hui Muslim university. It hired many famous scholars from Nanjing, Gansu, and Yunnan to train a large number of imams, playing a major role in the development of Islam in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau.
Haopan Mosque originally featured a classic southern mosque design with three-sided corridors, creating a courtyard in front of the main prayer hall. This style was well-suited to the rainy, low-wind climate of the south. After 1952, the mosque used the three-sided corridors to open a nursing home for Hui Muslims. In 1958, it opened a bamboo processing factory, which later grew into a sewing machine parts factory for Hui and Manchu Muslims. In the early 1960s, the mosque remained largely in its original state. The main prayer hall and the water room were used normally, and factory production did not interfere with the religious practices of the community. However, after 1966, the stone tablets and plaques in the mosque were destroyed, all scripture books were burned, and the main prayer hall was turned into a warehouse. In 1973, the three-sided corridors were torn down and replaced by a five-story factory building. In 1994, the factory finally returned the main prayer hall to the mosque. After preparations, it was renovated in 1997 and officially reopened in 1998.
Today, Haopan Mosque preserves the main prayer hall rebuilt during the Kangxi period. It has a square, three-bay, hip-and-gable roof design, which is completely different from mosques in the north. The mihrab inside the hall once featured exquisite Arabic calligraphy and geometric patterns, along with a beautifully carved hardwood minbar, but unfortunately, these no longer exist. When I visited Guangzhou in 2017, Haopan Mosque was about to undergo repairs. This time, the results look very good, and the ancient mosque's style was not ruined by over-restoration.
Many Hui Muslims from Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Nanjing who came to Guangzhou for business chose to live in the foreign trading firms near Haopan Street and the shops near Xiguan, which had a significant impact on the Haopan Street Mosque. Today, Haopan Mosque keeps half of a plaque inscribed with, In the first month of the seventh year of the Republic of China, the Jiangnan Association Tongshantang renovated this, which serves as a witness to the business activities of Jiangnan Hui Muslims in Guangzhou.
I met Master Yang at Haopan Mosque, whom I had not seen for six years. Master Yang is a local Hui Muslim from Guangzhou and has been a mosque attendant at Haopan Mosque for 20 years. I drank tea and chatted with Master Yang, and I ate some fried dough (youxiang) made by local Guangzhou Hui Muslims for a charity event (chusan). This was my first time eating local Guangzhou youxiang. They were small, crispy, and sweet, almost like a pastry.
Xiaodongying Mosque
Xiaodongying Mosque is located on the site of Xiaodongying, one of the four Hui Muslim camps in Guangzhou. It was built in 1468 (the fourth year of the Ming Chenghua reign) by Hui Muslim officials and was renovated twice during the Qing Jiaqing and Tongzhi periods. In 1901, Hui Muslims from Guangzhou and Hong Kong raised funds to start the Xiaodongying Mosque Charity School, with imams Yang Ruisheng and Wang Mingshan as teachers. In 1925, Xiaodongying Mosque became the activity center for the Guangzhou Islamic Youth Association, and in 1931, Chen Huanwen founded the Muslim (Mumin) monthly magazine there.
After 1949, Xiaodongying Mosque gradually became a funeral service center for Hui Muslims. After 1966, it was occupied by a Guangzhou Hui and Manchu Muslim factory as a warehouse. When it was returned in 1979, it was in ruins. After being renovated in 1982, it continued to serve as a funeral service center for burials. In 1998, Xiaodongying Mosque was approved as a place for religious activities, and in 2005, it officially resumed Friday Jumu'ah prayers. Now, those who come here for namaz are mainly foreign friends (dosti) from near Xiaobei.
The Xiaodongying Mosque currently preserves several plaques from the Qing Dynasty.
In the fifth year of the Tongzhi reign (1866), Li Chengyi from Dingyuan County, Fengyang Prefecture, Jiangnan, respectfully inscribed an Arabic plaque.
In the sixth year of the Tongzhi reign (1867), Yang Yongchun respectfully inscribed and erected the Hundred-Word Eulogy by Emperor Taizu of Ming.
In the 34th year of the Guangxu reign (1908), Liao Shouqi from Jiangxia County, Hubei, along with his son Dalian, erected a plaque reading 'The Religion Has an Orthodox Origin'.
Opposite the main hall of the Xiaodongying Mosque in Guangzhou is a stele corridor, which features a series of stone tablets from the Qing Dynasty recording charitable donations.
The 1808 stele regarding the permanent donation of property to the Dongying Mosque records that a woman named Li Ding, who lost her husband in middle age and had no children, wished to donate two houses she had purchased outside Wenming Gate and in the Fourth Lane. The rent from these houses was to support three imams at the mosque, and she requested that the imams perform dua on the anniversary of her death.
The 1818 stele for the Dongying Mosque records that the community members of the four neighborhoods raised funds to purchase a house from a woman named Li He, a resident of Nanhai County, located in Ying'en Lane outside the South Gate, and donated the rent to the mosque.
The 1822 stele regarding the purchase of property for the Dongying Mosque records that the community of the four neighborhoods raised funds to buy a house within the Zhan Family Garden and donated it to the Xiaodongying Mosque, with the rent going into the mosque's public fund box.
The 1846 stele regarding Li Yatai's house donation exchange records that Li Zhenchang wanted to combine a house in the Fourth Lane, which Li Yatai had donated to the Xiaodongying Mosque in 1807, with his own property. He exchanged it for a house in the Fifth Lane and used the additional rent to cover the repair costs for a collapsed house in the Zhan Family Garden. It also records that a house belonging to the Children's Association in the Zhan Family Garden had been collapsed by water for over ten years, and it was finally repaired thanks to donations from local elders.
The 1854 stele regarding the purchase of property for the Xiaodongying Mosque records that in 1819, the mosque received funds from the elders of the four neighborhoods to buy a house from Ma Shunhong in Jinshi Lane. In 1851, Zhang Chaodong combined this house with his own, so he bought two houses from the Xu Ding family in the Zhan Family Garden and donated them to the mosque instead.
The 1866 stele regarding donations to the Dongying Mosque records that the community of the four neighborhoods donated houses and storefronts. It lists all the donated properties of the Dongying Mosque, located in the Second Lane of Wende Lane, the Fifth Lane of Wende Lane, the east end of Nansheng Lane near the city wall, the entrance of Xiaodongying Street, and Xianxiang Street outside the Great East Gate.
The 1866 stele regarding the renovation of the Xiaodongying Mosque records the process of the mosque's renovation during the Tongzhi reign, including the names, official titles, and donation amounts of the contributors.
The 1909 stele for the Dongying Mosque Charity School records how Muslims in Guangzhou and Hong Kong raised funds in 1900 to establish a charity school within the Dongying Mosque.
If you are interested in the history of the faith in Guangzhou, I recommend reading "History of Islam in Guangzhou" edited by Bao Yanzhong and "Collection of Hui Muslim Tablet Inscriptions and Couplets in Guangzhou" edited by Ma Jianzhao. These two books were very helpful in organizing and editing this article. Finally, I would like to thank Chen Yong, a dost (friend), for correcting the information in this article. view all
Reposted from the web
Summary: Guangzhou — Haopan Mosque, Xiaodongying Mosque and Old Streets is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: I left Macau on January 23, 2023, to visit the Macau mosque known as Moro Garden (Moro Yuan). The account keeps its focus on Guangzhou Mosques, Haopan Mosque, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
I left Macau on January 23, 2023, to visit the Macau mosque known as Moro Garden (Moro Yuan). I ate delicious Indonesian Javanese food and wrote about it in my post, 'Moro Garden and Indonesian Food in Macau'. I arrived in Guangzhou on January 25, visited a friend (dosti), and ate various halal foods, which I posted about in "Hui Muslim Fried Dough (youxiang) and Yemeni Food in Guangzhou." On January 25 at noon, I performed namaz at the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou, then visited the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies (Xianxian Gumu) to pay my respects. I posted about this in my article, "Guangzhou's Huaisheng Mosque and the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies." On the afternoon of January 25, I performed the dhuhr prayer at the Haopan Mosque and the asr prayer at the Xiaodongying Mosque, taking the opportunity to visit both of these mosques.
Hui Muslim officials and soldiers in Ming Dynasty Guangzhou.
The Yuan Dynasty was a turning point for the development of the faith in Guangzhou. Between 1276 and 1278, a two-year tug-of-war between the Mongol army and local forces, followed by a decade of anti-Yuan uprisings in Guangdong, left Guangzhou severely damaged. Many foreign Muslim merchants moved to Quanzhou and other coastal cities to settle. After the Yuan Dynasty took control, many Hui Muslim soldiers, craftsmen, and merchants traveled east to China by land, but apart from a few officials, not many Hui Muslims came to Guangzhou. As a result, the foreign Muslim quarter (fanfang) in Guangzhou gradually declined during the Yuan Dynasty and finally fell apart between the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.
After the Ming Dynasty was established, the "Daguan Army" replaced the foreign merchants as the main group of Muslims in Guangzhou. In the early Ming Dynasty, many Yuan soldiers surrendered. They were initially called "Tatars" (dada) and later renamed "Daren." Many of them were Hui Muslims from the Western Regions. Some of these surrendered Daren were sent to farm land across the country, while others served in military garrisons, which is why they were called the "Daguan Army."
In 1450 (the second year of the Jingtai reign), the Ming government sent troops to suppress the Huang Xiaoyang uprising in Guangzhou. This was the first time the Daguan Army was stationed in Guangzhou, though their numbers were relatively small. In 1465 (the first year of the Chenghua reign), the Ming government sent troops to suppress the Yao people's uprising in Guangdong and Guangxi, again calling up the Daguan Army from Nanjing. The Ming Dynasty's "Guangdong Tongzhi" (Gazetteer of Guangdong) from the Jiajing reign records that "over a thousand Daguan soldiers were ordered to the region." The Daguan Army achieved a major victory in the campaign. The commander, Han Yong, wrote a memorial to the court titled "Proposal on Handling Affairs in Guangxi," suggesting that some of the Daguan soldiers stay in Guangdong. He proposed a specific plan: "They should all remain in Guangzhou city to settle... find vacant land, build houses, and assign them to live there." For those with families, I request that the Nanjing garrison commander be ordered to send ships to bring them here. For those without families, we will find ways to arrange marriages for them.
According to statistics from the Ming Dynasty's "Guangzhou Tongzhi" (Gazetteer of Guangzhou) from the Jiajing reign, 285 Daguan soldiers eventually settled in Guangzhou. To accommodate them, four garrisons were established: Dadongying, Xiaodongying, Xiying, and Zhutongying, collectively known as the "Four Hui Camps." The ancestors of Yu Fengqi and Ma Chengzhu—who are buried in the "Three Loyalists of the Faith" tomb next to the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies in Guangzhou—were Yu Shifu and Ma Heima, who were leaders of the Daguan Army stationed in Guangzhou at that time. For the next 200 years, the Ming government frequently deployed the Daguan Army to fight in various parts of Guangdong and Guangxi. The final battle for the Daguan Army was the Qing army's siege of Guangzhou in 1650. Represented by Daguan generals Yu Fengqi, Ma Chengzhu, and Sa Zhifu, the "Three Loyalists of the Faith" died heroically for their country, and the Daguan Army and the Guangzhou Hui camps were disbanded.
Although the Daguan Army as a military unit ceased to exist after the Qing Dynasty, their descendants have continued to live in Guangzhou. Yu Shifu's descendants multiplied and developed into the Yu Chengxi Hall family of Guangzhou. Ha Zixiang from Hejian County, Hejian Prefecture, was ordered to garrison Guangzhou. His descendants developed into the Hui Muslim Ha family of Guangzhou. During the Wanli reign, Yang Rikui from Zhengding County, Zhengding Prefecture, was ordered to garrison Guangzhou. His descendants developed into the Hui Muslim Yang Jiguang Hall family of Guangzhou.
Inside the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou, there is a stone tablet commemorating a house donation by Yu Dajing, a descendant of the Yu family. It records that after Yu Dajing passed away (returned to Allah), his wife donated a house he had bought in Nanshengli to the Guangzhou Four Quarters Public Fund. The rent from the house was used to cover expenses for the memorial days at the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies and other public costs.
After the Daguan Army settled in the Four Hui Camps in Guangzhou, they built the Haopan Mosque (1465), Nansheng Mosque (1465-1467), and Xiaodongying Mosque (1468) near their stations. They also rebuilt the Huaisheng Mosque (1468), marking the formal establishment of the four Muslim quarters of Guangzhou during the Ming and Qing dynasties. This was the rebirth of the faith in Guangzhou after the foreign Muslim quarters dissolved at the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.
Haopan Street Mosque.
Haopan Mosque sits by the Nanhao, a branch of the Pearl River. It was built during the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty by Hui Muslim officials who settled in Guangzhou. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the area around Haopan Street was a major trade hub in Guangzhou, bustling with merchants. Qu Dajun, a famous Guangzhou scholar from the late Ming and early Qing periods, wrote in his classic work New Sayings of Guangdong (Guangdong Xinyu): In the Haopan Street area, during prosperous times, spices, pearls, rhinoceros horns, and ivory were piled like mountains, and flowers and birds were as plentiful as the sea. Foreign merchants gathered here, spending tens of millions of gold every day. The abundance of food and the frequency of singing and dancing far exceeded that of the Qinhuai area. These merchants were mostly from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and locals called them Jiangnan guests.
In 1706 (the 45th year of the Kangxi reign), Fu Yunfeng led the reconstruction of Haopan Mosque. Fu Yunfeng was originally Han Chinese. During the Kangxi era, he traveled from Zhejiang to Guangdong for business. After he ran into trouble, an imam at the Haopan Mosque in Guangzhou saved him. He lived in the mosque for a while and then converted to Islam. He was a timber merchant. After becoming wealthy, he funded the reconstruction of the Haopan Mosque in Guangzhou. He also renovated the Huaisheng Mosque, Nansheng Mosque, the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies, and the Chengdong Mosque in Zhaoqing, making a major contribution to the development of the faith in Guangdong.
Starting in the Qianlong period, Haopan Mosque opened a scripture school, and during the Tongzhi period, it opened a Hui Muslim university. It hired many famous scholars from Nanjing, Gansu, and Yunnan to train a large number of imams, playing a major role in the development of Islam in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau.
Haopan Mosque originally featured a classic southern mosque design with three-sided corridors, creating a courtyard in front of the main prayer hall. This style was well-suited to the rainy, low-wind climate of the south. After 1952, the mosque used the three-sided corridors to open a nursing home for Hui Muslims. In 1958, it opened a bamboo processing factory, which later grew into a sewing machine parts factory for Hui and Manchu Muslims. In the early 1960s, the mosque remained largely in its original state. The main prayer hall and the water room were used normally, and factory production did not interfere with the religious practices of the community. However, after 1966, the stone tablets and plaques in the mosque were destroyed, all scripture books were burned, and the main prayer hall was turned into a warehouse. In 1973, the three-sided corridors were torn down and replaced by a five-story factory building. In 1994, the factory finally returned the main prayer hall to the mosque. After preparations, it was renovated in 1997 and officially reopened in 1998.
Today, Haopan Mosque preserves the main prayer hall rebuilt during the Kangxi period. It has a square, three-bay, hip-and-gable roof design, which is completely different from mosques in the north. The mihrab inside the hall once featured exquisite Arabic calligraphy and geometric patterns, along with a beautifully carved hardwood minbar, but unfortunately, these no longer exist. When I visited Guangzhou in 2017, Haopan Mosque was about to undergo repairs. This time, the results look very good, and the ancient mosque's style was not ruined by over-restoration.
Many Hui Muslims from Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Nanjing who came to Guangzhou for business chose to live in the foreign trading firms near Haopan Street and the shops near Xiguan, which had a significant impact on the Haopan Street Mosque. Today, Haopan Mosque keeps half of a plaque inscribed with, In the first month of the seventh year of the Republic of China, the Jiangnan Association Tongshantang renovated this, which serves as a witness to the business activities of Jiangnan Hui Muslims in Guangzhou.
I met Master Yang at Haopan Mosque, whom I had not seen for six years. Master Yang is a local Hui Muslim from Guangzhou and has been a mosque attendant at Haopan Mosque for 20 years. I drank tea and chatted with Master Yang, and I ate some fried dough (youxiang) made by local Guangzhou Hui Muslims for a charity event (chusan). This was my first time eating local Guangzhou youxiang. They were small, crispy, and sweet, almost like a pastry.
Xiaodongying Mosque
Xiaodongying Mosque is located on the site of Xiaodongying, one of the four Hui Muslim camps in Guangzhou. It was built in 1468 (the fourth year of the Ming Chenghua reign) by Hui Muslim officials and was renovated twice during the Qing Jiaqing and Tongzhi periods. In 1901, Hui Muslims from Guangzhou and Hong Kong raised funds to start the Xiaodongying Mosque Charity School, with imams Yang Ruisheng and Wang Mingshan as teachers. In 1925, Xiaodongying Mosque became the activity center for the Guangzhou Islamic Youth Association, and in 1931, Chen Huanwen founded the Muslim (Mumin) monthly magazine there.
After 1949, Xiaodongying Mosque gradually became a funeral service center for Hui Muslims. After 1966, it was occupied by a Guangzhou Hui and Manchu Muslim factory as a warehouse. When it was returned in 1979, it was in ruins. After being renovated in 1982, it continued to serve as a funeral service center for burials. In 1998, Xiaodongying Mosque was approved as a place for religious activities, and in 2005, it officially resumed Friday Jumu'ah prayers. Now, those who come here for namaz are mainly foreign friends (dosti) from near Xiaobei.
The Xiaodongying Mosque currently preserves several plaques from the Qing Dynasty.
In the fifth year of the Tongzhi reign (1866), Li Chengyi from Dingyuan County, Fengyang Prefecture, Jiangnan, respectfully inscribed an Arabic plaque.
In the sixth year of the Tongzhi reign (1867), Yang Yongchun respectfully inscribed and erected the Hundred-Word Eulogy by Emperor Taizu of Ming.
In the 34th year of the Guangxu reign (1908), Liao Shouqi from Jiangxia County, Hubei, along with his son Dalian, erected a plaque reading 'The Religion Has an Orthodox Origin'.
Opposite the main hall of the Xiaodongying Mosque in Guangzhou is a stele corridor, which features a series of stone tablets from the Qing Dynasty recording charitable donations.
The 1808 stele regarding the permanent donation of property to the Dongying Mosque records that a woman named Li Ding, who lost her husband in middle age and had no children, wished to donate two houses she had purchased outside Wenming Gate and in the Fourth Lane. The rent from these houses was to support three imams at the mosque, and she requested that the imams perform dua on the anniversary of her death.
The 1818 stele for the Dongying Mosque records that the community members of the four neighborhoods raised funds to purchase a house from a woman named Li He, a resident of Nanhai County, located in Ying'en Lane outside the South Gate, and donated the rent to the mosque.
The 1822 stele regarding the purchase of property for the Dongying Mosque records that the community of the four neighborhoods raised funds to buy a house within the Zhan Family Garden and donated it to the Xiaodongying Mosque, with the rent going into the mosque's public fund box.
The 1846 stele regarding Li Yatai's house donation exchange records that Li Zhenchang wanted to combine a house in the Fourth Lane, which Li Yatai had donated to the Xiaodongying Mosque in 1807, with his own property. He exchanged it for a house in the Fifth Lane and used the additional rent to cover the repair costs for a collapsed house in the Zhan Family Garden. It also records that a house belonging to the Children's Association in the Zhan Family Garden had been collapsed by water for over ten years, and it was finally repaired thanks to donations from local elders.
The 1854 stele regarding the purchase of property for the Xiaodongying Mosque records that in 1819, the mosque received funds from the elders of the four neighborhoods to buy a house from Ma Shunhong in Jinshi Lane. In 1851, Zhang Chaodong combined this house with his own, so he bought two houses from the Xu Ding family in the Zhan Family Garden and donated them to the mosque instead.
The 1866 stele regarding donations to the Dongying Mosque records that the community of the four neighborhoods donated houses and storefronts. It lists all the donated properties of the Dongying Mosque, located in the Second Lane of Wende Lane, the Fifth Lane of Wende Lane, the east end of Nansheng Lane near the city wall, the entrance of Xiaodongying Street, and Xianxiang Street outside the Great East Gate.
The 1866 stele regarding the renovation of the Xiaodongying Mosque records the process of the mosque's renovation during the Tongzhi reign, including the names, official titles, and donation amounts of the contributors.
The 1909 stele for the Dongying Mosque Charity School records how Muslims in Guangzhou and Hong Kong raised funds in 1900 to establish a charity school within the Dongying Mosque.
If you are interested in the history of the faith in Guangzhou, I recommend reading "History of Islam in Guangzhou" edited by Bao Yanzhong and "Collection of Hui Muslim Tablet Inscriptions and Couplets in Guangzhou" edited by Ma Jianzhao. These two books were very helpful in organizing and editing this article. Finally, I would like to thank Chen Yong, a dost (friend), for correcting the information in this article.
Summary: Guangzhou — Haopan Mosque, Xiaodongying Mosque and Old Streets is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: I left Macau on January 23, 2023, to visit the Macau mosque known as Moro Garden (Moro Yuan). The account keeps its focus on Guangzhou Mosques, Haopan Mosque, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
I left Macau on January 23, 2023, to visit the Macau mosque known as Moro Garden (Moro Yuan). I ate delicious Indonesian Javanese food and wrote about it in my post, 'Moro Garden and Indonesian Food in Macau'. I arrived in Guangzhou on January 25, visited a friend (dosti), and ate various halal foods, which I posted about in "Hui Muslim Fried Dough (youxiang) and Yemeni Food in Guangzhou." On January 25 at noon, I performed namaz at the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou, then visited the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies (Xianxian Gumu) to pay my respects. I posted about this in my article, "Guangzhou's Huaisheng Mosque and the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies." On the afternoon of January 25, I performed the dhuhr prayer at the Haopan Mosque and the asr prayer at the Xiaodongying Mosque, taking the opportunity to visit both of these mosques.
Hui Muslim officials and soldiers in Ming Dynasty Guangzhou.
The Yuan Dynasty was a turning point for the development of the faith in Guangzhou. Between 1276 and 1278, a two-year tug-of-war between the Mongol army and local forces, followed by a decade of anti-Yuan uprisings in Guangdong, left Guangzhou severely damaged. Many foreign Muslim merchants moved to Quanzhou and other coastal cities to settle. After the Yuan Dynasty took control, many Hui Muslim soldiers, craftsmen, and merchants traveled east to China by land, but apart from a few officials, not many Hui Muslims came to Guangzhou. As a result, the foreign Muslim quarter (fanfang) in Guangzhou gradually declined during the Yuan Dynasty and finally fell apart between the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.
After the Ming Dynasty was established, the "Daguan Army" replaced the foreign merchants as the main group of Muslims in Guangzhou. In the early Ming Dynasty, many Yuan soldiers surrendered. They were initially called "Tatars" (dada) and later renamed "Daren." Many of them were Hui Muslims from the Western Regions. Some of these surrendered Daren were sent to farm land across the country, while others served in military garrisons, which is why they were called the "Daguan Army."
In 1450 (the second year of the Jingtai reign), the Ming government sent troops to suppress the Huang Xiaoyang uprising in Guangzhou. This was the first time the Daguan Army was stationed in Guangzhou, though their numbers were relatively small. In 1465 (the first year of the Chenghua reign), the Ming government sent troops to suppress the Yao people's uprising in Guangdong and Guangxi, again calling up the Daguan Army from Nanjing. The Ming Dynasty's "Guangdong Tongzhi" (Gazetteer of Guangdong) from the Jiajing reign records that "over a thousand Daguan soldiers were ordered to the region." The Daguan Army achieved a major victory in the campaign. The commander, Han Yong, wrote a memorial to the court titled "Proposal on Handling Affairs in Guangxi," suggesting that some of the Daguan soldiers stay in Guangdong. He proposed a specific plan: "They should all remain in Guangzhou city to settle... find vacant land, build houses, and assign them to live there." For those with families, I request that the Nanjing garrison commander be ordered to send ships to bring them here. For those without families, we will find ways to arrange marriages for them.
According to statistics from the Ming Dynasty's "Guangzhou Tongzhi" (Gazetteer of Guangzhou) from the Jiajing reign, 285 Daguan soldiers eventually settled in Guangzhou. To accommodate them, four garrisons were established: Dadongying, Xiaodongying, Xiying, and Zhutongying, collectively known as the "Four Hui Camps." The ancestors of Yu Fengqi and Ma Chengzhu—who are buried in the "Three Loyalists of the Faith" tomb next to the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies in Guangzhou—were Yu Shifu and Ma Heima, who were leaders of the Daguan Army stationed in Guangzhou at that time. For the next 200 years, the Ming government frequently deployed the Daguan Army to fight in various parts of Guangdong and Guangxi. The final battle for the Daguan Army was the Qing army's siege of Guangzhou in 1650. Represented by Daguan generals Yu Fengqi, Ma Chengzhu, and Sa Zhifu, the "Three Loyalists of the Faith" died heroically for their country, and the Daguan Army and the Guangzhou Hui camps were disbanded.
Although the Daguan Army as a military unit ceased to exist after the Qing Dynasty, their descendants have continued to live in Guangzhou. Yu Shifu's descendants multiplied and developed into the Yu Chengxi Hall family of Guangzhou. Ha Zixiang from Hejian County, Hejian Prefecture, was ordered to garrison Guangzhou. His descendants developed into the Hui Muslim Ha family of Guangzhou. During the Wanli reign, Yang Rikui from Zhengding County, Zhengding Prefecture, was ordered to garrison Guangzhou. His descendants developed into the Hui Muslim Yang Jiguang Hall family of Guangzhou.
Inside the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou, there is a stone tablet commemorating a house donation by Yu Dajing, a descendant of the Yu family. It records that after Yu Dajing passed away (returned to Allah), his wife donated a house he had bought in Nanshengli to the Guangzhou Four Quarters Public Fund. The rent from the house was used to cover expenses for the memorial days at the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies and other public costs.
After the Daguan Army settled in the Four Hui Camps in Guangzhou, they built the Haopan Mosque (1465), Nansheng Mosque (1465-1467), and Xiaodongying Mosque (1468) near their stations. They also rebuilt the Huaisheng Mosque (1468), marking the formal establishment of the four Muslim quarters of Guangzhou during the Ming and Qing dynasties. This was the rebirth of the faith in Guangzhou after the foreign Muslim quarters dissolved at the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.
Haopan Street Mosque.
Haopan Mosque sits by the Nanhao, a branch of the Pearl River. It was built during the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty by Hui Muslim officials who settled in Guangzhou. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the area around Haopan Street was a major trade hub in Guangzhou, bustling with merchants. Qu Dajun, a famous Guangzhou scholar from the late Ming and early Qing periods, wrote in his classic work New Sayings of Guangdong (Guangdong Xinyu): In the Haopan Street area, during prosperous times, spices, pearls, rhinoceros horns, and ivory were piled like mountains, and flowers and birds were as plentiful as the sea. Foreign merchants gathered here, spending tens of millions of gold every day. The abundance of food and the frequency of singing and dancing far exceeded that of the Qinhuai area. These merchants were mostly from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and locals called them Jiangnan guests.
In 1706 (the 45th year of the Kangxi reign), Fu Yunfeng led the reconstruction of Haopan Mosque. Fu Yunfeng was originally Han Chinese. During the Kangxi era, he traveled from Zhejiang to Guangdong for business. After he ran into trouble, an imam at the Haopan Mosque in Guangzhou saved him. He lived in the mosque for a while and then converted to Islam. He was a timber merchant. After becoming wealthy, he funded the reconstruction of the Haopan Mosque in Guangzhou. He also renovated the Huaisheng Mosque, Nansheng Mosque, the Ancient Tombs of the Worthies, and the Chengdong Mosque in Zhaoqing, making a major contribution to the development of the faith in Guangdong.
Starting in the Qianlong period, Haopan Mosque opened a scripture school, and during the Tongzhi period, it opened a Hui Muslim university. It hired many famous scholars from Nanjing, Gansu, and Yunnan to train a large number of imams, playing a major role in the development of Islam in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau.
Haopan Mosque originally featured a classic southern mosque design with three-sided corridors, creating a courtyard in front of the main prayer hall. This style was well-suited to the rainy, low-wind climate of the south. After 1952, the mosque used the three-sided corridors to open a nursing home for Hui Muslims. In 1958, it opened a bamboo processing factory, which later grew into a sewing machine parts factory for Hui and Manchu Muslims. In the early 1960s, the mosque remained largely in its original state. The main prayer hall and the water room were used normally, and factory production did not interfere with the religious practices of the community. However, after 1966, the stone tablets and plaques in the mosque were destroyed, all scripture books were burned, and the main prayer hall was turned into a warehouse. In 1973, the three-sided corridors were torn down and replaced by a five-story factory building. In 1994, the factory finally returned the main prayer hall to the mosque. After preparations, it was renovated in 1997 and officially reopened in 1998.
Today, Haopan Mosque preserves the main prayer hall rebuilt during the Kangxi period. It has a square, three-bay, hip-and-gable roof design, which is completely different from mosques in the north. The mihrab inside the hall once featured exquisite Arabic calligraphy and geometric patterns, along with a beautifully carved hardwood minbar, but unfortunately, these no longer exist. When I visited Guangzhou in 2017, Haopan Mosque was about to undergo repairs. This time, the results look very good, and the ancient mosque's style was not ruined by over-restoration.
Many Hui Muslims from Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Nanjing who came to Guangzhou for business chose to live in the foreign trading firms near Haopan Street and the shops near Xiguan, which had a significant impact on the Haopan Street Mosque. Today, Haopan Mosque keeps half of a plaque inscribed with, In the first month of the seventh year of the Republic of China, the Jiangnan Association Tongshantang renovated this, which serves as a witness to the business activities of Jiangnan Hui Muslims in Guangzhou.
I met Master Yang at Haopan Mosque, whom I had not seen for six years. Master Yang is a local Hui Muslim from Guangzhou and has been a mosque attendant at Haopan Mosque for 20 years. I drank tea and chatted with Master Yang, and I ate some fried dough (youxiang) made by local Guangzhou Hui Muslims for a charity event (chusan). This was my first time eating local Guangzhou youxiang. They were small, crispy, and sweet, almost like a pastry.
Xiaodongying Mosque
Xiaodongying Mosque is located on the site of Xiaodongying, one of the four Hui Muslim camps in Guangzhou. It was built in 1468 (the fourth year of the Ming Chenghua reign) by Hui Muslim officials and was renovated twice during the Qing Jiaqing and Tongzhi periods. In 1901, Hui Muslims from Guangzhou and Hong Kong raised funds to start the Xiaodongying Mosque Charity School, with imams Yang Ruisheng and Wang Mingshan as teachers. In 1925, Xiaodongying Mosque became the activity center for the Guangzhou Islamic Youth Association, and in 1931, Chen Huanwen founded the Muslim (Mumin) monthly magazine there.
After 1949, Xiaodongying Mosque gradually became a funeral service center for Hui Muslims. After 1966, it was occupied by a Guangzhou Hui and Manchu Muslim factory as a warehouse. When it was returned in 1979, it was in ruins. After being renovated in 1982, it continued to serve as a funeral service center for burials. In 1998, Xiaodongying Mosque was approved as a place for religious activities, and in 2005, it officially resumed Friday Jumu'ah prayers. Now, those who come here for namaz are mainly foreign friends (dosti) from near Xiaobei.
The Xiaodongying Mosque currently preserves several plaques from the Qing Dynasty.
In the fifth year of the Tongzhi reign (1866), Li Chengyi from Dingyuan County, Fengyang Prefecture, Jiangnan, respectfully inscribed an Arabic plaque.
In the sixth year of the Tongzhi reign (1867), Yang Yongchun respectfully inscribed and erected the Hundred-Word Eulogy by Emperor Taizu of Ming.
In the 34th year of the Guangxu reign (1908), Liao Shouqi from Jiangxia County, Hubei, along with his son Dalian, erected a plaque reading 'The Religion Has an Orthodox Origin'.
Opposite the main hall of the Xiaodongying Mosque in Guangzhou is a stele corridor, which features a series of stone tablets from the Qing Dynasty recording charitable donations.
The 1808 stele regarding the permanent donation of property to the Dongying Mosque records that a woman named Li Ding, who lost her husband in middle age and had no children, wished to donate two houses she had purchased outside Wenming Gate and in the Fourth Lane. The rent from these houses was to support three imams at the mosque, and she requested that the imams perform dua on the anniversary of her death.
The 1818 stele for the Dongying Mosque records that the community members of the four neighborhoods raised funds to purchase a house from a woman named Li He, a resident of Nanhai County, located in Ying'en Lane outside the South Gate, and donated the rent to the mosque.
The 1822 stele regarding the purchase of property for the Dongying Mosque records that the community of the four neighborhoods raised funds to buy a house within the Zhan Family Garden and donated it to the Xiaodongying Mosque, with the rent going into the mosque's public fund box.
The 1846 stele regarding Li Yatai's house donation exchange records that Li Zhenchang wanted to combine a house in the Fourth Lane, which Li Yatai had donated to the Xiaodongying Mosque in 1807, with his own property. He exchanged it for a house in the Fifth Lane and used the additional rent to cover the repair costs for a collapsed house in the Zhan Family Garden. It also records that a house belonging to the Children's Association in the Zhan Family Garden had been collapsed by water for over ten years, and it was finally repaired thanks to donations from local elders.
The 1854 stele regarding the purchase of property for the Xiaodongying Mosque records that in 1819, the mosque received funds from the elders of the four neighborhoods to buy a house from Ma Shunhong in Jinshi Lane. In 1851, Zhang Chaodong combined this house with his own, so he bought two houses from the Xu Ding family in the Zhan Family Garden and donated them to the mosque instead.
The 1866 stele regarding donations to the Dongying Mosque records that the community of the four neighborhoods donated houses and storefronts. It lists all the donated properties of the Dongying Mosque, located in the Second Lane of Wende Lane, the Fifth Lane of Wende Lane, the east end of Nansheng Lane near the city wall, the entrance of Xiaodongying Street, and Xianxiang Street outside the Great East Gate.
The 1866 stele regarding the renovation of the Xiaodongying Mosque records the process of the mosque's renovation during the Tongzhi reign, including the names, official titles, and donation amounts of the contributors.
The 1909 stele for the Dongying Mosque Charity School records how Muslims in Guangzhou and Hong Kong raised funds in 1900 to establish a charity school within the Dongying Mosque.
If you are interested in the history of the faith in Guangzhou, I recommend reading "History of Islam in Guangzhou" edited by Bao Yanzhong and "Collection of Hui Muslim Tablet Inscriptions and Couplets in Guangzhou" edited by Ma Jianzhao. These two books were very helpful in organizing and editing this article. Finally, I would like to thank Chen Yong, a dost (friend), for correcting the information in this article.