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Summary: This travel note introduces Langzhong Ancient City Muslim Travel Guide: Mosques, Hui Muslims & Halal Food. Along the Jialing River, Langzhong is the place where Muslim culture is best preserved and the community is relatively the most complete. It is useful for readers interested in Langzhong Ancient City, Hui Muslims, Muslim Travel.

Along the Jialing River, Langzhong is the place where Muslim culture is best preserved and the community is relatively the most complete. In addition to the Gedimu (a traditional school of Islam in China) religious community formed by the Langzhong Mosque and Mosque Street, there is also the Baba Mosque, a gongbei (shrine) for the first-generation ancestor of the Sufi Qadiriyya menhuan (Sufi order), as well as the Boshu Hui Muslim township in the mountains.

Langzhong Mosque

Langzhong Mosque was built in 1669 (the eighth year of the Kangxi reign) with funds raised by Hui Muslim Bao Tianzuo, and was completed in 1672 (the eleventh year of the Kangxi reign). The mosque originally covered an area of more than ten mu (a unit of land area), but after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the primary school and kindergarten were separated, and it now only covers four mu. The mosque is a siheyuan (courtyard house) enclosed by the gate, north and south wing rooms, and the main prayer hall. The main hall has five visible bays and three hidden ones, with suspended pillars, appearing ancient and grand.



















Because it has been raining in Langzhong, everyone was at home performing namaz (prayer) during the day, and I only met the elders at the mosque in the evening. Because the ahong (imam) returned to his hometown for personal matters, a dost (friend/fellow believer) who had studied religious texts in Yunnan was leading the prayer. The dost is from Guangyuan. After marrying a wife from Langzhong, he settled here and opened the Wenxian Baozi Shop across from the mosque. I had a very pleasant chat with everyone, and the next day I went back to the Wenxian Baozi Shop to eat baozi (steamed stuffed buns) and beef noodles. At the entrance of the mosque in the early morning, there is a morning market selling various fresh vegetables and halal food.



















There are many halal restaurants in the ancient town of Langzhong. At one of them, I ate twice-cooked pork made with yanyeziniurou (salt-leaf beef), as well as Chuanbei liangfen (Sichuan-style mung bean jelly) and baitang zhengmo (steamed buns with white sugar). Baitang zhengmo is also a specialty delicacy of the Hui Muslims in Langzhong. It was created by the Hui Muslim pastry chef Ha Gongkui during the Qianlong period. It does not use lye but is fermented with naturally cultivated enzymes, and it also contains some osmanthus flowers; it can be steamed again.















Hui Muslims in Langzhong are famous for their braised beef. The most famous time-honored brand is Huazhen Beef, and their yanyeziniurou has been listed as a Sichuan provincial intangible cultural heritage.

In 1883 (the ninth year of the Guangxi reign), Hui Muslim Ma Xiao opened a halal beef shop on Libaisi Street, specializing in making braised beef and dried beef. Because he always used lotus leaves or mulberry leaves to wrap the braised beef when selling it, it was called 'yanyeziniurou' (salt-leaf beef). Compared with dried beef, yanyeziniurou is softer and more fragrant. The famous educator Yan Yangchu praised Ma Xiao's beef as 'Huaxia Zhenxiu' (a rare delicacy of China) after tasting it, so Ma Xiao later adopted the name 'Huazhen'.

Later, Ma Xiao passed the business to his son Ma Boliang. After the public-private partnership in 1958, Ma Boliang worked at the Langzhong Beef Processing Factory (the predecessor of Zhangfei Beef), specializing in making dried beef and yanyeziniurou, until he retired at nearly eighty years old in 1980. After retirement, Ma Boliang passed the craft to his daughter Ma Huazhen, and then to his grandson Ma Limin, who is the fourth-generation successor.

In 1988, Ma Limin restarted selling beef on Libaisi Street in Langzhong, supervised by his grandfather Ma Boliang, using traditional methods. Huazhen Beef has grown bigger and bigger since then. Now you can buy Huazhen Beef everywhere in Langzhong, but the old shop is still on Libaisi Street.

I bought a bag of yanyeziniurou at the Huazhen Beef shop on Libaisi Street, took it home, and made twice-cooked beef, which tasted very good.













I bought 'Ahong Youxiang' (fried dough) and tea snacks at the Mulin Halal Pastry Shop. It was the first time I had eaten youxiang that tasted like a tea snack. Mulin has been open for nearly thirty years. It was initially next to the Langzhong Mosque, then moved to the Muslim Home on Jingsheng'an Street, and now they have opened a new workshop on Jingsheng'an Street. Their shop is considered a relatively large halal pastry shop in Langzhong, specializing in osmanthus mooncakes, which many people buy before the Mid-Autumn Festival every year.













The largest halal restaurant in Langzhong is Gulan Gulang. I ordered steamed pork with rice flour and Hui-style guozha (deep-fried dough) here.









Street view of Libaisi Street in Langzhong, where the whole street is filled with Hui Muslims selling braised beef.





There are still many other places in the ancient city of Langzhong that sell halal beef.



The ancient city of Langzhong at dusk and dawn.











The inn where I stayed.







The Jialing River after the rain.





Baba Mosque.

Langzhong Baba Mosque is the tomb of Huazhe Abudonglaxi, the first-generation ancestor of the Qadiriyya menhuan. Qadiriyya is one of the four major Sufi menhuan in China, introduced to China by Huazhe Abudonglaxi in 1673. In 1684, Abudonglaxi was invited to Langzhong to preach, and he passed away in Langzhong in 1689. In 1691, his disciple Qi Jingyi and others built a gongbei for their master, naming it 'Jiuzhao Pavilion'. Since then, the Baba Mosque has been guarded by the Da Gongbei system founded by Qi Jingyi.

The Baba Mosque was expanded during the Qianlong period and has been well preserved ever since, until 1991 when the Jiuzhao Pavilion was rebuilt and heightened into its current three-tiered, four-cornered helmet-roof structure. Jiuzhao Pavilion is the most important building in the Baba Mosque. The inner chamber is the tomb of Abudonglaxi, and the southwest corner of the outer chamber is the tomb of Abudonglaxi's disciple Ma Shenyi, who guarded the gongbei for more than twenty years.









Next to the Jiuzhao Pavilion are the tombs of the past masters.





Directly facing the Jiuzhao Pavilion is a wooden memorial archway with four pillars, three bays, and three stories. The dougong (bracket sets) are complex and overlapping. The front plaque reads 'Ben Di Yuan Zu' (The Origin of the True Path), and the back plaque from the Daoguang period reads 'Yang Zhi' (Look Up with Respect).







The screen wall faces a brick-imitation-wood chuihua gate (a decorative gate with hanging pendants), which is exquisitely carved.









Outside the chuihua gate is a water-polished large screen wall built during the Qianlong period, ten meters long and eight meters high, with a dougong pavilion roof. The front is carved with openwork landscapes, and the back features pine, bamboo, and flowers, taken from the paintings of Zhang Zao of the Tang Dynasty and Tang Yin of the Ming Dynasty, respectively.











To the northeast of the Jiuzhao Pavilion is a courtyard consisting of a stele corridor, a prayer hall, the Qianhua Hall, and guest rooms. In the courtyard, there is a 'rootless tree' hanging high in the air brought back by Qi Jingyi from Xixiang, and a large camellia tree with a history of more than 200 years. The Qianhua Hall displays a series of plaques and calligraphy and paintings by famous artists.



















The prayer hall of the Baba Mosque.



















Boshu Mosque.

In addition to the ancient city of Langzhong, there is also a Boshu Hui Muslim township in the mountains outside the city. In 1741, more than 100 local Hui Muslim households, mainly with the surname Pu, raised funds to build the Boshu Mosque.







Two nearly century-old osmanthus trees are planted in the courtyard.













When I went there, the ahong happened to be out, so the imam's wife received me. The imam's wife is from Bazhong and, like me, is a convert to Islam. She came to this ancient mosque in the mountains with the ahong. The imam's wife gave me pears that the local villagers had just picked and sent over; they were crisp, sweet, and very delicious. view all