The Arabic style structure, which took 14 months and approximately NT$6,000,000 to complete, is the most magnificent of its kind in the entire Far East. Its three copper-sheathed domes glimmer under the subtropical sunlight like shining gold. The two minarets, pointing straight up toward the sky, dwarf any other structure along the church-studded Hsinsheng South Road. Inside, even non-Moslems cannot help being struck by the profound religious atmosphere. The spacious worship hall, center of the mosque, can hold 600 praying faithful at one time. Kept immaculately clean, the floor resembles a big mirror. There is a complete lack of decorative furnishings. The stained-glass windows filter in the subdued light which further enhances religious feeling. Housed in the two wings are the indispensable showers, bath tubs, offices and conference room. All of these were superbly designed by Yang Chu-cheng, the Chinese architect who blueprinted the swank Grand Hotel of Taipei.
The opening of the shrine of the Islamic faith signified the advent of a new era of the centuries-old cordial relations between China and the Moslem world. Partly financed by the generous donations from such Islam big names as Shah Mohammed Riza Pahlevi of Iran, the late Iraqi Crown Prince Abdul Illah, Turkish Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and King Hussein I of Jordan during their visits to free China, the Taipei mosque had the honor of seeing Moslem dignitaries from the Philippines, Pakistan, Brunei, Japan and Thailand during its grand inauguration. Malaya's deputy prime minister and defense minister, Dato Abdul Razak bin hussein, would have attended the ceremony too but for the sudden death of the Paramount Ruler.
Most important of all, the Taipei mosque is a symbol of religious freedom in free China. Like Christians and Buddhists, the Moslems in Taiwan live peacefully under a modern democracy which gives protection and encouragement to all shades of religious beliefs. That there are only about 40,000 Moslems on the island sounds unimpressive. But it is a big number considering the fact that Islam was virtually non-existent during the Japanese occupation days.
Besides, many members of the Islamic faith are holding high governmental posts. General Omer Pai Chung-hsi is vice chairman of the Military Strategy Advisory Committee to the President, the nation's highest military advisory body. He is also one of the seven members of the new mosque's standing board. General Husaim Ma Pu-fang fills the vital diplomatic office as China's ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Moslems are represented in the Legislative Yuan, the Control Yuan and the National Assembly. The rest of the Moslems are all respected citizens of society, among whom are civic leaders, men of letters, prosperous businessmen and technicians.
The Chinese Moslems Association, which oversees all the religious activities of the Moslems in Taiwan, is headed by Khalid Shih Tse-chou, translator of the Chinese version of the Koran. The Association has also organized "haji" missions to Mecca in the past years and hosted Moslem visitors from foreign land. It misses on chance to promote the cause of the Islamic faith.
An open-minded people noted for its religious susceptibility, the Chinese had an early friendship with the Moslems. The exact date of the arrival of Islam in China is not known. Historical records are divided, with the date ranging from 571 to 632 A. D. But 628 A. D. has been generally accepted as the year which saw the first contact between the Chinese and the Moslems. A paragraph from the History of Chinese Moslems reads as follows:
"Tai-tsung, the second monarch of the Tang Dynasty, saw one night in his dream a man who dressed a piece of cloth on his head drive spirits from the palace. Next morning he summoned all the courtiers to ask for explanations of the dream. This was in 628 A. D. One of the servants reported to the Throne, saying, "Your Majesty, the man with a piece of cloth covering his head is a Moslem. I know Moslems are honest, and never do they deceive anyone. If Your Majesty treat them kindly, they will be pleased to be faithful to Your Majesty. Therefore, I dare to ask, Your Majesty, the honor of being sent to call on their king, so that we may invite their men to help us.' The Emperor consented and sent his men to Arabia. In answering the Chinese request, the Arabic king ordered Gise, Woowise, and Gasim to go to China. Unfortunately, only Gasim reached his destination, the rest died of illness on the way. Later the Emperor chose 3,000 soldiers for an equal exchange of Arab soldiers. The arrival of these Arabs in China heralded the coming of Islam to China."
The following excerpts also partially accept the year 628 A. D. as the date of Moslems' arrival in China:
From An Outline of History, by H. G. Wells:
"A still more remarkable embassy also came to the court of Tai-tsung in the year 628, seven years earlier than the Nestorians. This was a party of Arabs, who came by sea to Canton in a trading vessel from Yanbu, the port of Medina in Arabia. These Arabs had been sent by that Muhammad we have already mentioned ... the Chinese monarch ... received them well, expressed great interest in their theological views, and assisted them, it is said, to build a mosque which survives to this day. It is one of the oldest mosques in the world."
From the Arab Encyclopedia:
"Nanhaibu, one of the Arab scholars, was despatched to China after the Flight from Mecca to Medina. Having experienced a long weary journey, he reached and took residence there, learned the Chinese language, studied their customs, and then began to preach Islam in the Far East. Everyday he made such great progress in his life career that Islam was rapidly received by most of the people over there. In 628 he went to court of the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty. He was received well and lived a long life. After his death a stone was erected by the Chinese in memory of him."
In the next seven centuries an endless streams of Arabs came to China as traders and missionaries. Many of these Moslem pioneers settled down in China for good. During this period they were received in China with respect even though their religious life, customs and languages differed widely from those of the natives. Special residence areas were set up for them in large cities and seaports. The successive Chinese emperors even chose local leaders from among the ever growing Moslem colonies.
From the Yuan Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty (1280-1628 A.D.) the Moslems were gradually assimilated into the Chinese way of life. They merged with the natives, changed their names to Chinese, and actively participated in political, military, and social affairs. Especially during the Ming Dynasty, many of whose founders were Moslems, the descendents of the early settlers were completely absorbed into the Chinese civilization and assumed preponderant roles in economic, political, military, social, cultural and other fields. This was the heyday of Islam in China.
The fortune of the Moslems in China suffered a reverse with the ascendancy of the Manchus in the early 17th century. It was the policy of the Manchu court to regard the Moslems as the lowest class of people and exercised strict control over them. Despite the occasional outbursts of generosity, the Manchu rulers were as a rule unfriendly to the Moslems. The pressure was sometimes so great that the Moslems took to arms. The revolts all ended in failure which was often followed by severe punishment. Great number of Moslems were massacred especially during the later years of the Ching Dynasty.
The founding of the Republic of China witnessed an upsurge of the Mohammedan faith in China. Many Moslems voluntarily joined the revolutionary banner of Dr. Sun Yat-sen to overthrow the Manchus. Final victory brought the Moslems freedom which they had lost. They used their newly-won freedom wisely. By devoting their attention to the national interest, they sought to restore their social position and to enjoy their lawful rights under the new republican government.
There were more than 100 Moslem delegates in the National Assembly in 1946. When vacancies occurred in this group, they were filled by Moslems only. From the time China was united under the Central Government in 1928 the administration of the northwestern provinces, including Sinkiang, Ninghsia, Tsinghai and Kansu, was placed in the hands of Moslems. Several Moslem leaders were members of the policy-making National Administrative Committee. After World War II General Omer Pei Chung-hsi became the first minister of the Ministry of National Defense. Later he was appointed supreme commander of Central China in charge of civil and military administration in the vast region. Husaim Ma Pu-fang was put in charge of administration of northwestern China in 1946. During these years the Chinese Moslems Association had under its jurisdiction more than 43,000 mosques on the mainland.
Unfortunately, the revival of Islam in China was but short-lived. The evil tide of Communism was in the rising, destroying everything in its path. The Moslems, however, did not yield to this brutal force without making a gallant effort to check its advance. In October 1934 when a column of 60,000 Communist soldiers under the command of Hsu Hsiang-chien broke the seige of government forces in Kiangsi and tried to retreat to Sinkiang, they were intercepted by the Moslem troops under Husaim Ma Pu-fang and his brother Ma Pu-chin at Lintung. In the ensuing battle, the Communist troops were totally routed. Only some 100 Communists succeeded in escaping.
In April 1947 Peng Teh-huai invaded Kansu at the head of 50,000 soldiers. He was met by the youthful Moslem commander of the 82nd Army, General Ma Chi-yuan, with a-small force of 13,000 soldiers. Peng was repelled. In August that year, General Ma again acquitted himself brilliantly in wiping out the bulk of the Communist Fourth Army under Wang Shih-tai. In May 1948 General Ma, a-longside government troops, routed a big Communist force of 800,000 men which tried to invade Paoki, Shensi Province. The 82nd Army alone killed 20,000 Red soldiers and captured 5,000 prisoners.
After the fall of Sian in the summer of 1949 General Ma launched a counterattack to dislodge the Reds from the ancient Chinese capital. Though he did not succeed in his mission, his troops killed more than 10,000 Red soldiers out or a total of 100,000 holding the city. Three months after the encounter, General Ma's troops again crossed swords with the Communists at Lanchow. After a week's fierce battle, the Reds left 50,000 dead in the field. By then, however, General Ma's position had become utterly untenable. The final retreat of his troops heralded the complete fall of the predominately Moslem area of northwest China.
The Communists are the last persons in the world to forget their grievances. No sooner had they come into power than they handled the Moslems with wrath. In the short span of 10 years the Chinese Moslem population which stood at around 50,000,000 before the fall of the mainland has nosedived to a mere 10,000,000. These figures alone disclose how badly the Chinese Moslems have fared under the bloody rule of the Communists.
As religion is regarded as "opium of the people" by the atheistic Communists, all religious sects on the mainland are a thorn to the Red regime. But the lot of the Moslems is even harder because they are treated as a distinct racial and political minority as well as a religious group. The first thing the Communists did to uproot Islam in China is to destroy the material foundation of the religion. So after 1952, properties owned by mosques throughout the mainland were commandeered one after another under various pretexts. Deprived of their funds, the mosques could no longer afford to pay salaries to the akhungs (Moslem priests) and the akhungs had to take up other lines of work. Moslem schools were one by one padlocked for lack of funds and the general impoverishment of the Moslem population.
In their systematic eradication of Islam the Communists did not forego the individual Moslems. Besides subjecting them to the misery common to all Chinese on the mainland, the Communists further billed the Moslems as "backward and superstitious people" who are to be the object of contempt, ridicule and discrimination. Moslems were forcibly transferred to non-Moslem areas and to suffer inconveniences. The Communists further enforced marriage between the Moslems and the non-Moslems. Knowing well that it would be a waste of time trying to uproot the religious belief of Moslems above 20 years of age, the Communists thought it would be much easier to prevent the growth of a new generation of Moslems.
It is impossible to record the countless Communist atrocities against the Moslems. A typical example of the Communist way of insulting a Moslem was furnished by the experience of Hai Pao-chen. Hai, pious Moslem at Chiung Yai County, Hainan Island, had worked hard all his life and saved all he could to build a small fortune. As expected, he was labelled a "landlord" in the bloody land reform movement soon after the Communists came to Hainan. At the age 78 he was brought to a mock trial by the masses. There, at the instigation of Red cadres, some women pulled off his beard. He was then beaten and spat upon. Finally, a group of rogues taunted him by asking him to give them pigs.
"I am a Moslem. I believe in Islam. According to its doctrines, we are forbidden to raise pigs," Hai replied.
Then the Red cadres shouted at him: "well, since you Moslems don't raise pigs, you get down and crawl after the pig. Other wise, the people will come to beat you again."
This was simply too contemptuous an order for the man to obey. He was again savagely beaten. But he never lost his faith in Allah and he continued to defy the Communists. They were so infuriated by his persistent refusal to demean himself that they devised a peculiar kind of torture to break his will of resistance.
Imam Hai was forced to hold a large log above the ground with his two legs, while his arms were tied to a pole that was constantly turned around by the Reds. Whenever the heavy log between his legs fell to the ground he would be subjected to further beatings. This inhuman torture went on for months. But no word of surrender was extracted from the venerable old man. The Reds were forced to stop the cruelty only after the repeated appeals by Moslems in Peiping. But Iman Hai was maimed forever.
The Communist persecution of Moslems is not confined to the Chinese alone. Ibrahim Muhammed, a Moslem merchant of Saudi Arabia who had lived at Sining for more than 10 years, was asked by the Communists to buy one of the numerous government bonds. When he refused, he was tortured until he lost consciousness. Upon regaining consciousness he said he was not required to buy the bonds because he was an alien. This reply only prompted the Reds to continue the torture until he had bought all the bonds allotted to him. Afterwards the Communists apologized to him, saying that they did not know he was a foreigner.
Another Moslems trader, Mohammed Amin of Pakistan, was deported from the mainland in March 1959 after a 25-year residence. He was expelled on the charge that he and his friend, Mohammed Din, were in close contact with two Chinese Moslems at Sian who had been listed as "counter-revolutionaries." A year before his deportation he and Din were taken into "unofficial" police custody in Tientsin and held for 23 days with scarcely any food and little water. They were questioned intermittently by a number of Red officials.
When they were finally released, they were warned not to say anything to anyone about their detention. However, Amin said, he later "protested strongly against the inhuman treatment accorded to a national of a friendly Asiatic nation with an accredited ambassador." Nothing more happened until March 1959. Then, he continued, "They called me and my friend and told us we were to leave the mainland by March 8. I said this was not time enough, and cabled the Pakistan Embassy in Peking. After some trouble I got a 10-day extension. But on March 11, the Communist officials in Tientsin suddenly told me I was to leave on the steamship Honan at 2 p. m."
The Chinese Moslems did not submit to the Communist enslavement meekly. Anti-Communist resistance among the Moslem population spread like prairie fire. Setting the example of Moslem defiance was Imam Ma Hsiang-chen, a learned Islamic scholar at Sining. A pious old man respected by all the Islamic followers in China, he was the first Moslem to draw Communist attention in July l949: "Invited" by the Communists to a meeting, he refused to answer questions concerning the anti-Communist activities of the Moslems. He also resisted the Communist pressure to force him to cooperate with them in pacifying the Moslem fighters. Six days after the meeting, which caused a drastic worsening of his health, he summoned the faithful to the local mosque. There, he addressed them thus:
"My Moslem brothers: I wonder if I shall be able to give you more lectures on Islamic doctrines in future days. I know I am about to leave this world. Today I summon you all here in order to give you my last words.
"Although our homeland is 'liberated' by the Communists, remember that the Communists are the enemy of Islam. For they do not tolerate any religion. If we can always maintain our cohesion, the Almight Allah will help us. Give anything ... to the Communists provided we can afford to, but never do those things which are in violation of the teachings to Islam... Never forget that the Communists are the enemy of Islam! ... "
Then he died amidst the sobs of the faithful. His last words quickly spread to other Moslem communities in the country and served as a clarion call to the brave sons of Islam.
The first efforts to shake off the Communist shackle were made by some 40,000 men, women and children of the Kazakh-literally "men without a master"—in Sinkiang. Immediately following the fall of the province in 1949 these tribal folks assembled on a snow-covered plain near the city of Barkol, bringing with them about a million head of livestock. Having decided to leave their homes in quest of freedom, they started southward, planning to leave China by way of Tibet. But a savage attack by Russian planes split them into two separate groups. After about a year of perilous journey frequently punctuated by Communist assaults only about 3,000 of them reached safety at Kashmir. Eventually they were resettled in Turkey. In the following years an estimated 19,000 kazakhs attempted to escape the Red tyranny, of whom only 400 were lucky enough to get to Turkey.
Other Moslems in Sinkiang chose to fight their oppressors on the spot. Yolbars Khan, governor of the province, organized a resistance force of 100,000 in late 1949 with himself as commander. He was assisted by Osman Batur and Cha-li-mu Khan in the capacity of deputy commanders. From April 1950 this army fought the Reds in the Hami area and killed 2,800 enemy soldiers. In the last engagement about 16,000 Communist troops were on the point of being annihilated when they were rescued by Russian reinforcements. When the freedom fighters were finally forced to take shelter on the borders of Sinkiang, Tsinghai and Tibet, Yolbars Khan left his remnant force to solicit outside help. He reached Free China after a long, perilous journey.
The two deputy commanders continued harassing the enemy. Cha-li-mu Khan fell into Communist hands in September 1950. He and eight other Moslem leaders were executed by the Communists at Urumchi on November 23. Osman Batur held out until he was captured at Geskul on February 1, 1951.
After being tortured for several months, he was brought out for execution with his legs tied beneath a horse's belly, his face blackened and wearing a placard around his neck. According to Godfrey Lias of Alexandria who witnessed the execution, the Hazakh guerrilla hero rode to his death shouting: "I may die. But as long as the world lasts, my people will continue the struggle."
In June, 1955 when a train of 100 trucks loaded with food were about to leave Hotien, the hungry people asked the Communist cadres to leave part of the grain behind to feed the local populace. When the request was turned down, some people lay down before the trucks to appeal with their lives. Many were killed by the crushing wheels when the callous Reds started the convoy. This atrocity roused the fury of the whole town. A riot developed, in which about 400 Communists were killed by the angry mob. The incident temporarily saved the grain at the price of the lives of 3,000 people who were machineguned to death by the Red troops. Later on the Russians were called in to help suppress the rioters. Over 7,000 people were arrested. The Reds executed 70 of them and sentenced the rest to slave labor for life.
A ranking Uighur refugee reported in the August 12, 1958 issue of the Overseas Chinese Daily that a "National Army" of 35,000 men plus 20,000 civilians in Sinkiang had organized an underground government, "The Uighur Republic" to carryon the resistance. In March 1957 they attacked the Communists in the district of Tarbagatai and Ili. In June they destroyed the Ka-la-mai oil fields. The fire raged four days. All told, he reported, some 23,000 cases of revolts took place in Sinkiang between 1954 and 1956.
In neighboring Kansu a Moslem force of 20,000 men headed by a Ma Hsiao-tung staged a bold uprising in April 1952. Equipped with seized small arms and farm implements, they drove the Communists out of Sichi, Lungte and Kuyuan. They also killed over 3,000 Red cadres and destroyed the roads in the eastern part of the province before the revolt was finally put down by the Reds. As a result, the Communists had to postpone the "land reform" movement for a while to placate the people. Ma, whom the Communists claimed to have killed in action, actually went underground at the time. He continued giving the Reds trouble for two more years before he gave his life for the cause of freedom.
In Tsinghai Brigadier General Mao Ing led the remnant troops of General Husaim Ma Pu-fang in a doomed struggle against the Communists after the province was shut behind the Bamboo Curtain. He had more than 20 fierce encounters with the Communists before he was killed in action in 1951. Another brigadier general, 65-year-old Ma Chung-yi, battled the Reds in the Hualung area at about the same time. The old warrior also fell gloriously in action.
The heroic Lhasa uprising of March 1959 gave the Moslems another chance to give the Communists a bloody nose. According to a refugee who escaped from Tibet to Pakistan, more than 3,000 Moslem nomads joined forces with the Tibetans to fight the Reds south of Tibetan capital. The Reds retaliated by burning the 500-year-old mosque at Lhasa and the camps and villages of the Moslems.
In spite of the widespread Moslem revolts on the mainland and their ruthless suppression, the Communists still try to fool the outside world by window dressing. They have created puppet Moslem organizations to propagate the regime's "good government" and "religious tolerance" abroad. The "China Islamic League" and the "China Moslem Association" are composed of Moslem renegades. They publish attractive magazines, booklets and pictorials for distribution among the Moslem nations abroad. Year after year they send a "haji" mission to Mecca, spreading news of the "benevolent rule" on the mainland. They have also embarked upon a program of inviting foreign Moslem groups to make conducted tours behind the Bamboo Curtain. To better deceive the foreign visitors, they have reconstructed the big mosques in the major cities. They even coach the faithful how to reply questions likely to be asked by these visitors. The following story was told by six Moslem refugees who escaped from the mainland last year.
When Ahmed Bakur, Egyptian minister of religious affairs, visited the mainland after the Afro-Asian conference in Bandung in 1955, arrangement was made for him to visit the Islamic Institute in Peiping. Before his arrival there, Yu Huai, headmaster of the institute, summoned all the teachers and students before him and said, "Anybody when asked by Mr. Bakur should answer in the following manner:
"Q: Are you leading a good life?
"A: Thanks to Allah, we are leading a good life under the leadership of the Communist Party.
"Q: Are your religious worship and rites safeguarded?
"A: The Communists are taking great care of us. We fully enjoy our rights.
"Q: Do you want to pursue advanced studies at the Al-Azhal University?
"A: Insha Allah (if Allah wishes), we do. "If anyone oversteps the prescription in his answers, he will be dealt with as a counter-revolutionary. "
However, few Moslem visitors were fooled despite Peiping's elaborate precautions and lip service to Islam. Mohammad Amin, the deported Pakistani merchant, told the Hongkong press that Islam does not seem to have much chance of survival in Communist China." He emphasized that while the Communists talked loudly about religious freedom, they tried in various ways, mainly through economic pressure, to cut the people off from their faith and gradually rid them of their belief.
"Already," he said, "the young people are being indoctrinated in the principles of Communism. So bad is the situation that parents and elders, on whom lie the last prestiges of Islam, dare not speak freely in the presence of children who have been taught to report everything to the cadres."
Perhaps the most significant of all, Amin continued, was the forced migration of vast numbers of non-Moslem Chinese into the Moslem areas of the northwest, particularly Sinkiang. In this manner the Communists are slowly reducing the Moslems to minority in formerly predominately Moslem areas.
But it does not require Amin's long experience in mainland China to bare the Communist hoax of religious freedom. After all, the Red lie is only skin deep. Maulana Entishamul Huq, leader of a Pakistani Moslem group who visited the mainland in 1956, said in a statement after his return to Karachi that Moslems on the mainland were permitted only "to embrace their faith passively as long as it does not conflict with the state ideology and policies." Later on in an interview with the Times of Karachi he reaffirmed that "there was no religious freedom in China" and pointed out that teaching of religion was banned in the schools. He said the next generation on the Chinese mainland would know nothing about religion because children were being deprived of all religious training. He said it was true that a few girls and boys were being taught Arabic, Urdu and other foreign languages, but this was done, not that they could read the Holy Koran, or Holy Bible, but to prepare them for subversive roles in the future under the cover of diplomatic assignments.
Mossin Ali, correspondent of the Karachi Morning News who toured the mainland in 1956, predicted that Islam under the Communist rule would be wiped out in 20 years as a result of deliberate government program. He wrote in his newspaper: "There is in China active, vigorous, all-round propaganda against religion ... Newspapers, magazines, party puppets, day in and day out preach threateningly against religion." He wonders how long the Chinese Moslems will be able to hold out in the face of a state determined to dethrone religion. He conceded that while "discretion demanded a go-slow policy" on the part of the Peiping regime, the future of Islam is by no means bright because "propaganda and active subversion go apace."
Another journalist from the Moslem world who saw the same danger is Asa Bagagih, founder and present editor of the Djakarta daily, Duta Masjarakat (Envoy of society). Along with 13 other prominent Indonesians he attended the October 1 celebrations in Peiping in 1954 and made a monthlong tour on the mainland. In 1955 he revisited there for 11 days as a member of the party accompanying Prime Minister Ali Sastroamidjojo.
After observing the Moslem plight on the mainland he said, "Every Moslem who travels through the 'People's Republic of China' with his eyes and ears open is compelled, whether he wishes or not, to face a question that must be answered: if already the situation of the Chinese Moslems is thus, what are the possibilities for the days to come?" All of the talk which he heard from the Chinese Communists and members of the All-China Moslem League regarding the so-called "constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion" and administrative implementation of that guarantee amounted only to subterfuge. It could not obscure the face that the Reds were bent on the destruction of Moslemism, he concluded.