Niujie Mosque

Niujie Mosque in Beijing traces the oldest mosque in the city to 996, when a preacher named Nasruddin arrived from the west to found it, and forward through 1215, when Genghis Khan's armies tore it down, and the rebuilding under the Ming and Qing that followed. The guide points out the hexagonal moon-watching tower where an imam still climbs to mark the fasting month, and the weathered graves of two Central Asian clerics beneath old cypress trees.