Great Mosque of Xi'an

This guide to the Great Mosque of Xi'an walks through its Muslim Quarter courtyards to two small earthen mounds hidden behind the prayer hall, once the site of a nightly contest to spot the first sliver of the new moon and so announce the start or end of Ramadan. It traces the mosque's Sino-Islamic design, laid out like a Chinese temple yet oriented east toward Mecca, and the octagonal Tower of the Visiting Heart that served as a formal moon-watching post. Inside the tower stands a stone stele, inscribed in both Chinese and Arabic script. Look for it just past the mosque's carved stone tablets and eighteenth-century archway.