The Grand Mosque of Shadian, one of the last major mosques in China, known for its Arabic-style architecture, has undergone major alterations with its domes removed and minarets radically modified.
The 21,000 square metre complex featured a tiled green dome which was adorned with a crescent moon.
Satellite images from 2022 show the entrance decorated with stars made from vivid black tiles, reports the Guardian.
However, now it shows that the dome has been removed and replaced with a Han Chinese-style pagoda rooftop. The minarets have been shortened and converted into pagoda towers.
Currently, only a faint trace of the crescent moon and star tiles that once marked the mosque’s front terrace is visible.
Meanwhile, another mosque - Najiaying, which is less than 100 miles from Shadian, also had its Islamic features removed recently.
Experts believe this is a part of the Chinese government’s campaign to sinicize the country’s Muslim places of worship.
The Chinese government in 2018 had unveiled a five-year plan for the “sinification of Islam, which aimed to resist “foreign architectural styles”.
A leaked Chinese Communist Party memo revealed that local authorities were instructed to “adhere to the principle of demolishing more and building less.
The mosque sinicization campaign had progressed province by province, with Yunnan, one of the furthest provinces from Beijing, being tackled last, said Hannah Theaker, a historian of Islam in China.
“By 2023, there was a sense among communities that architectural sinicisation would reach the famous Yunnanese mosques, as the last major unsinicised mosques in China,” she told The Guardian.
Theaker added that the sinicisation of Islam campaign was never just about the appearance of mosques.
Ma Ju, a Chinese Hui activist based in New York, said the renovations were a clear message to destroy the religion and its ethnicity.
Another Hui Muslim who opposed the redevelopment of the mosques said: “Shadian mosque is very important to all Muslims, not just in Shadian. It’s a big loss."
Meanwhile, Ruslan Yusupov, an anthropologist at Cornell University said these actions marked the success of the government’s campaign. “Even if there are small mosques left of Arab style in villages, it will be difficult for local communities to contest their sinicisation.”
China's mosque sinicisation plan is now largely completed, but it is just one aspect of the broader effort to reshape religion, particularly Islam, to align with the government's ideology.