Xi’an was the last stop of my journey through China. I arrived at around ten o’clock at night after spending ten hours on a local train. When I left my hotel the following morning, I realized almost by chance that I was staying in the city’s Muslim Quarter. Streets filled with food stalls, shops and restaurants led toward several mosques, and suddenly I had found a new subject for my photographs.

This encounter also opened a door onto a history much older than I had expected. Xi’an, known historically as Chang’an, was the eastern terminus of the Silk Roads and one of the great cosmopolitan capitals of imperial China. Merchants, diplomats and travellers from Central and Western Asia had been arriving here for centuries. Muslim communities gradually became part of this world, and their descendants contributed to the development of the Hui Muslim culture that remains strongly visible in Xi’an today.

The Great Mosque stands within this historic Muslim Quarter, yet from the street it does not resemble the mosques I knew from Turkey, the Middle East or Central Asia. There is no monumental dome dominating the skyline and no conventional minaret rising above the surrounding buildings. Instead, the complex develops horizontally through a sequence of walled courtyards, gateways, gardens and timber halls. At first glance it could almost be mistaken for a traditional Chinese temple complex.

Tradition dates the foundation of the mosque to 742, during the Tang dynasty, although the buildings visible today largely reflect later reconstruction and expansion, particularly during the Ming and Qing periods. For this reason, it is better to think of the Great Mosque not as a single building preserved unchanged since the eighth century, but as a religious complex that developed over many centuries as Xi’an’s Muslim community itself evolved.

Moving through the courtyards, the combination of Chinese architecture and Islamic faith becomes increasingly apparent. Pitched tiled roofs with upturned eaves, timber columns, carved beams, stone gateways and landscaped courtyards belong unmistakably to Chinese architectural tradition. Yet inscriptions throughout the complex introduce another visual language. Arabic Qur’anic calligraphy and Chinese writing coexist on stone tablets, wooden panels and architectural surfaces.

This coexistence becomes particularly striking in the prayer hall. The building follows the timber construction and roof forms of traditional Chinese architecture, while its orientation and function are determined by Islamic worship. Qur’anic passages appear as part of the decoration, sometimes integrated into surfaces that otherwise belong completely to the Chinese architectural vocabulary. Islam did not simply import a Middle Eastern mosque form to Xi’an; over centuries, the community developed a religious architecture rooted in the building traditions of China.

While walking through the Muslim Quarter, I noticed a shop selling Islamic religious objects. In the window I saw posters of Istanbul. I went inside and asked whether anyone spoke English. When someone answered that they did, I explained that I was a photographer from Turkey and wanted to document Muslim life in Xi’an. I asked whether they could help me.

A day later they told me that an iftar meal would be prepared at the Great Mosque and that I might be able to photograph it. But first I needed permission. At the mosque I met the person responsible for its administration, explained what I wanted to do and showed my documents. After listening to me, he gave me permission.

That permission changed my relationship with the mosque. I was no longer photographing only its courtyards, architecture and inscriptions. I could follow the preparations for a living religious tradition.

The food was purchased with money contributed by Muslim shopkeepers and members of the community. In the mosque kitchen people worked together preparing the Ramadan meal. Tables were arranged in the courtyard and, as sunset approached, the atmosphere gradually changed. After the imam’s Ramadan address, the fast was broken and prayers followed. Food remaining after the meal was distributed to people waiting outside the mosque.

I also received my share in the kitchen. People watched with interest as I tried to eat with chopsticks. When they saw that I was not very successful, they laughed and finally gave me a spoon. It was a small incident, but it remains one of my warmest memories of the work. For a moment I was no longer simply the foreign photographer observing the community; I had become part of the shared meal.

I realized afterward that I had missed several photographs during the first evening. So I returned the following day and photographed the preparations again. Documentary work often develops this way. On the first day I understood what was happening; on the second, I knew where to stand and what moments to wait for.

There was another coincidence behind my being there. I had originally come to China to receive an award for a photograph I had made of a Ramadan meal in Turkey. After the award ceremony I decided to continue travelling through the country and look for new photographic subjects. That journey unexpectedly brought me to another Ramadan table, this time among Chinese Muslims in Xi’an. A year later, photographs from this work would bring me another award in China. Little Hagia Sophi1

For me, the Great Mosque therefore became much more than an example of Chinese-Islamic architecture. The courtyards, timber halls and Qur’anic inscriptions tell the long history of Islam adapting to a Chinese cultural environment. But my photographs also record something still alive: shopkeepers contributing money for the meal, people cooking together, worshippers waiting for sunset, food being shared and a stranger from Turkey being handed a spoon in the mosque kitchen.

Perhaps that is what I remember most clearly from Xi’an. I had entered the mosque looking for photographs of an unfamiliar Muslim culture. Instead, around an iftar table thousands of kilometres from home, I found something immediately familiar.