Muslims in China’s ‘Little Makkah’ fight for survival

LINXIA, China: Green-domed mosques still dominate the skyline of China´s “Little Makkah“, but they have undergone a profound change — no longer do boys flit through their stone courtyards en route to classes and prayers.

In what locals told AFP they fear is a deliberate move to eradicate Islam, the ruling Communist Party has banned minors under 16 from religious activity or study in Linxia, a deeply Islamic region in western China that had offered a haven of comparative religious freedom for the ethnic Hui Muslims there.

China governs Xinjiang, another majority Muslim region in its far west, with an iron fist to weed out what it calls “religious extremism” and “separatism” in the wake of deadly unrest, throwing ethnic Uighurs into shadowy re-education camps without due process for minor infractions such as owning a Koran or even growing a beard.

Now, Hui Muslims fear similar surveillance and repression. “The winds have shifted” in the past year, explained a senior imam who requested anonymity, adding: “Frankly, I´m very afraid they´re going to implement the Xinjiang model here.” Local authorities have severely curtailed the number of students over 16 officially allowed to study in each mosque and limited certification processes for new imams.

They have also instructed mosques to display national flags and stop sounding the call to prayer to reduce “noise pollution” — with loudspeakers removed entirely from all 355 mosques in a neighbouring county. “They want to secularise Muslims, to cut off Islam at the roots,” the imam said, shaking with barely restrained emotion. More than 1,000 boys used to attend his mid-sized mosque during summer and winter school holidays but now they are banned from even entering the premises. His classrooms are still full of huge Arabic books from Saudi Arabia, browned with age and bound in heavy leather. But only 20 officially registered pupils over the age of 16 are now allowed to use them.