Kashgar - The Id Kah Mosque

The Id Kah Mosque is Kashi’s biggest mosque and one of the most holy places in the Muslim world. It is said that the mosque was first built in 1798, and rebuilt several times. Encompassing one hectare (2.5 acres), the mosque is composed or four main parts—the gate tower, courtyard, all for chanting scriptures, and the auditorium (160-meter-long, and 16 meters wide, accommodating 5,000 to 6,000 prayers) for routine services. On both sides of the mosque’s gate stand two 10-meter-high towers, one on each side, and connected by low walls. If visitors make a trip to Kashi on a Friday, the day known to Islams as Djumah (Jum’a), when the Muslim people assembly for midday prayer on yaum al-jum’a (day of assembly), the biggest religious service of the week. The Muslim people gather together waiting for the clock striking twelve. The crowd will be large that many of the worshippers are forced to sit in the courtyard outside the auditorium. The service starts at 1:15 pm with imam, a mosque’s officiating priest reciting the Koran, Islam’s holy book, in Arabic and then translating and explaining it in the Uygur language. Then the group begins to pray. The service will last for 40 minutes. Each day about 2,000 to 3,000 Muslims attend the routine service in the Id Kah Mosque, and that number surpasses 6,000 on the say of Djumah. During big festivals like Corban or Rouza (the Ramadan), the number can be more than 40,000 or 50,000.

Doing business has long been a tradition in Kashi, which was once a key stop along the well-traveled ancient Silk Road, a time when a steady stream of traders made their way to the city from the Middle East and the Central Asia. Uygur people are good at making a variety of handicrafts; markets with rows of shimmering silks, knives and jewellery; and narrow back streets lined with aged thatched homes made of plaster. Markets are everywhere in the city. The major market is the Kashi International Trade Market of Central and Western Asia, a large structure of Muslin architecture. The building houses numerous stalls selling a large variety of local products and specialties from the nearby countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Turkey and Russia. The market area is indeed popular. There are 4,800 regular stalls and more than 1,000 temporary ones. Besides, the number of visitors each day often reaches 50,000. Kashi residents are primarily Islam, who are typically strict and traditional. But more women are now taking jobs outside the home as opposed to merely raising children and doing household tasks.

Kashi has an exotic air to it, due primarily to its intriguing ethnic mix of Uygurs who comprise the majority of the population with Tajik, kirghisz, Uzbek, Han, and other ethnic groups. The city’s old district is home to nearly 100,000 Uygurs, the largest chunk of Uygurs living in a community in the entire Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

For centuries, the Uygurs in Kashi prefer to eat their traditional food called nang馕,a kind of round-shaped cake. There are over 50 varieties of nang in Kahi with different ingredients or baking methods. The most traditional nang is made of leavened dough mixed with corn flour and salt. The Uygurs bake nang in special ovens made of mud bricks. The stove is large enough to bake some 40 nang at once. Kashi’s Uygurs are big fans of nang, and one form or another is present at nearly every meal. They are also the traditional food served when the Uygurs have guests. They have various ways to serve nang, including served hot, cold, soaked in tea or milk or served with mutton or fruit.

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