The Huajuexiang mosque is one of the
four great mosques in the Northwest China. It is located at Huajue Lane in Xi'an
City, Shaanxi Province. Originally, it was called Qingxiu Mosque, Huajue Mosque,
or Dongda Mosque.
The mosque was built in the Tang
Dynasty (618-907) and underwent several reconstructions in the following
dynasties. The existing buildings were mainly built in the Ming Dynasty
(1368-1644), and expanded in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
The mosque covers an area of 130,000 square
meters, and the construction area is 4,000 square meters. The mosque has a
rectangular layout and faces the east. There are five courtyards in the mosque.
The main buildings include the decorated archway, the main hall, the Xingxin
(self-examination) Pavilion, the scripture hall, the imam's dorm, the bathroom
and the stele pavilion, etc. The principal building is the main hall, which can
accommodate 2,000 worshipers at the same time. In front of the main hall is a
large platform. In the mosque there are many precious cultural relics, such as
epigraphs, tablets, couplets, censers, phylacteries, paintings, hanging lamps
and so on. It is said that a hand-written copy of the Alcoran by a well-known
Moslem noble in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) is preserved in the mosque. The
Huajuexiang Mosque once established a university of lections in the
history.