Love for the Qur’an: Written on Walls
Bismillah
While taking AlMaghrib Institute’s Uloomul Qur’an class (Sciences of the Qur’an) this past January, Shaykh Yasir Qadhi went on one of his famous tangents and began discussing the history of Muslims in China and their struggles. A brother from the audience raised his hand and mentioned how he visited a masjid in China where the Muslims were not allowed to have any written copies of the Qur’an so out of their love and need for this Book, they carved the whole Qur’an on the walls of their masjid, and it is still there to this day.
SubhanAllah, have we ever thanked Allah for the easy access we have to His Book? We can go to our shelf and pick up one of our many copies and read the Qur’an without any problems. Without any worry of being persecuted only for saying: Laa ilaaha il Allah, Muhammad Rasool Allah. May Allah grant victory to our brothers and sisters in China, Ameen.
I was very fascinated by this masjid and I did some research (which means, using the internet :) ) to learn more about it. If anyone has any more info, please do share.
This is what I gathered from my search:
It’s called the Great Mosque of Xi’an and it is one of the oldest and largest masajid in China.
This article mentioned : “At the eastern end of the mosque precincts is a broad elevated courtyard, beyond which lies a hall reserved for Muslim prayer. It is roofed with turquoise tiles and upon its walls are 600 wooden boards carved with all the verses of the Qur’an.”
This article gives a really nice description of the masjid.
Another great article here mentions: “The prayer hall is decorated with intricate bas-relief woodwork and Quranic inscriptions. ”
Some pictures are up on Wikipedia here. “Najmudeen” from Flikr has a few close ups of the walls and of the masjid here.
Some videos:
A small tour of the masjid:
A tour in Urdu, anyone care to translate? You can see the pieces of wood throughout the video.
Imam of the masjid hafidhahullah :)
May Allah azza wa jal make the Qur’an an intercessor for those who carved on these walls out of their love for Him and His Book, Ameen.
Amatullah | Awesomeness, SubhanAllah | 06 8th, 2009 |
7 People have left comments on this post
MashAllah. This amazing project has probably made those working on it more familiar with the Quran, which is a big blessing in itself.
SubhanaAllah! What a fascinating historical masjid.
And for once, Quran on the wall is for the purpose of actually reading & not decoration, as has become common now.
JazakAllahkhair for putting all this together & sharing with us.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/najmudeen/277990562/
a picture of a wall
wa iyyakum! SL, subhanAllah, you bring up an amazing point about the decorations in our masajid…The Arabic has so much calligraphy that it’s barely readable.
Ikram: I was thinking the same thing, may Allah bless them. I’m just trying to imagine those who actually did this work of carving it out, subhanAllah.
Jazaaki Allahu khayran UmmHurairah for the pics, I’ve added them to the post :) Looks beautiful.
Famous tangents LOL :)
Subhanallah, this reminds me of overseas and even here in America (Somalian Cultural Center and others) that make their students write the Qur’an. Our Qur’an teacher made us do it for a while for memorization and it was really rewarding.
Going to such depths for knowledge reminds me of Imam Bukhari’s trip to Yemen for a single hadith narrator and heads back when he sees the behavior of the narrator (beating his donkey, I believe). Our Ummah is built on these people and the lengths they went to perserve this knowledge…
May Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala make us among the scholars in Jannah. Ameen
JazakiAllahu khairan, it really makes me realise how grateful we are to hold so many mushaf in our houses. Alhamdulilah. Ameen to the duas.
Subhanallah… that’s just… wow. To have it engraved into their masjid, the ones who engraved it must’ve REALLY had the Quraan in their hearts.