For its 41st anniversary this weekend, the Taipei Grand Mosque (台北清真大寺) will open its doors for two days of activities, including photographic retrospectives of the mosque and Taiwan's Muslim community and an exhibition of ebru, a traditional form of Turkish marbling and calligraphy.
The event will be held tomorrow and Sunday at the mosque located opposite Ta-an Forest Park on Hsinsheng South Road (
The Taipei Grand Mosque is a familiar landmark to most Taipei residents, but few have actually stepped inside the building. This weekend's event is both a literal and official opening of the mosque's doors, as Ishag Ma (
Unknown to many, Muslims have played an important part in Taiwanese history, though they now form only a small community of little more than 60,000 people. According to Ma, some of Taiwan's earliest Muslim immigrants were troops who came with General Shihlang (施琅), dispatched to Taiwan to end the renegade rule of Ming loyalist Koxinga (鄭成功) in 1683. The Muslim soldiers settled in Lugang, Changhwa County, which still has many people with distinctly Muslim surnames, such as Ma (馬) and Kuo (郭).
Being such a small community, Immam Ma says Taiwanese Muslims come under enormous pressure to renounce their faith and the Islamic way of life. "Many people of the Kuo clan still live in Lukang," Ma said, "but they have lost their Muslim faith. We have invited them to this event."
Ma said the event is primarily a cultural celebration, but another function will be to invite no longer practicing Muslims back to the faith.
"Muslims in Taiwan are very much misunderstood," Ma said, pointing to the violence of such groups as Hamas, the Taliban and Abu Sayyaf as characteristic of the media portrayal of Islam.
"We want to present the positive face of Islam," he said, citing the exhibition of ebru art as intended to highlight Islamic artistic achievement.
Ma also emphasized the great contribution made to Taiwan by its Muslim population, not least in the area of international diplomacy, where Taiwan often finds itself isolated from the international community.
"We served as an important link with the Middle East during the oil crisis," Ma said.
For the Muslim community in Taiwan, the mosque serves as an important education center, offering Arabic lessons every weekend. It is also the center of the community's social life, and draws many of the nearly 60,000 expatriate Muslims living in Taiwan.
In other steps to inform people about Islam, the Taipei Grand Mosque has a Web site still partially under construction and Ma has suggested redesigning the wide sidewalk in front of the mosque into an information corridor about Islam.
Event Notes
What: 41st Anniversary of Completion of the Taipei Grand Mosque
When: Tomorrow and Sunday 10am to 5pm
Where: 62 Hsinsheng S. Rd., Sec. 2, Taipei 〈北市新生南路二段62號〉
On the Net: http://www.taipeimosque.org
When 17-year-old Lin Shih (林石) crossed the Taiwan Strait in 1746 with a group of settlers, he could hardly have known the magnitude of wealth and influence his family would later amass on the island, or that one day tourists would be walking through the home of his descendants in central Taiwan. He might also have been surprised to see the family home located in Wufeng District (霧峰) of Taichung, as Lin initially settled further north in what is now Dali District (大里). However, after the Qing executed him for his alleged participation in the Lin Shuang-Wen Rebellion (林爽文事件), his grandsons were
A jumbo operation is moving 20 elephants across the breadth of India to the mammoth private zoo set up by the son of Asia’s richest man, adjoining a sprawling oil refinery. The elephants have been “freed from the exploitative logging industry,” according to the Vantara Animal Rescue Centre, run by Anant Ambani, son of the billionaire head of Reliance Industries Mukesh Ambani, a close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The sheer scale of the self-declared “world’s biggest wild animal rescue center” has raised eyebrows — including more than 50 bears, 160 tigers, 200 lions, 250 leopards and 900 crocodiles, according to
They were four years old, 15 or only seven months when they were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald and Ravensbruck. Some were born there. Somehow they survived, began their lives again and had children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren themselves. Now in the evening of their lives, some 40 survivors of the Nazi camps tell their story as the world marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most notorious of the death camps. In 15 countries, from Israel to Poland, Russia to Argentina, Canada to South Africa, they spoke of victory over absolute evil. Some spoke publicly for the first
I am kneeling quite awkwardly on a cushion in a yoga studio in London’s Shoreditch on an unseasonably chilly Wednesday and wondering when exactly will be the optimum time to rearrange my legs. I have an ice-cold mango and passion fruit kombucha beside me and an agonising case of pins and needles. The solution to pins and needles, I learned a few years ago, is to directly confront the agony: pull your legs out from underneath you, bend your toes up as high as they can reach, and yes, it will hurt far more initially, but then the pain subsides.
RSS