In the southwestern Chinese town of Nagu, the Najiaying Mosque with its emerald dome and four minarets has been the pride of the Muslim Hui ethnic minority for decades. However, the Chinese Communist Party’s campaign to exert greater control over religion has led to the systematic closure, demolition, or forced re-design of mosques in Hui enclaves across the country. They condemn Arabic architectural features such as domes and minarets, viewing them as unwanted foreign influence over Islam in China. However, the residents of Nagu pushed back when local officials announced plans to remove the mosque’s dome, remake its minarets in a “more Chinese” style, and eliminate other Arabic features. The remodeling plan made people fear for a broader repression of their way of life.
The mosques in Nagu and Shadian hold particular importance in the story of Beijing’s relationship with Islam. The Hui people have lived in China for centuries, and Yunnan Province is China’s most ethnically diverse region. After the Communist takeover, the officials attacked religion as counterrevolutionary, especially during the 1966-1976 period of political upheaval known as the Cultural Revolution. Muslims in Shadian resisted, and in 1975, the military razed the town and massacred as many as 1,600 residents. After the Cultural Revolution, as China opened to the world, the government supported the reconstruction of Shadian and permitted locals to build the Grand Mosque in its present Arabic style. But restrictions on Islam have resurfaced in recent years, particularly since a 2014 attack on civilians at a train station in Kunming, Yunnan’s capital, that killed 31 people. The Sinicization campaign to remove Arabic features, which began in Nagu in 2021, arrived in Nagu.
Officials began visiting homes, sometimes on a daily basis, to convince residents to support changes to the mosque. This caused resistance from the locals, who viewed the proposed changes as an attack on their freedom. The Nagu Mosque became a regional training center for imams, and many locals see it as a fundamental part of their lives. They worry that the authorities’ forceful tactics are a precursor to the destruction of their way of life. In the clash that followed, the next day, the local authorities issued a notice denouncing the “serious disruption of social order.” The authorities are not backing down, and security remains tight in Nagu and Shadian.
