Taipei Grand Mosque Imam Ma Shiao-chi (馬孝棋) was one of five Taiwanese students who flew to Libya in 1977 to join a language exchange program to study Arabic.
Born to Muslim parents that came to Taiwan from Nanjing with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government in 1949, Ma grew up in Kaohsiung and worshipped in a mosque in the city once or twice a year when he was young.
Ma's ancestors had been Muslims for hundreds of years. They were believed to be nomads who moved from Central Asia to China. For several centuries, they lived their lives according to the Muslim tradition.
FILE PHOTO, TAIPEI TIMES
As a teenager, Ma knew he could not eat pork and there were no photos of his ancestors hanging in the house. His family does not worship idols, as most Taiwanese people do.
Ma's parents prepared lunchboxes for him and his sisters when they went to school. While Ma's friends ate in restaurants, Ma would eat his lunchbox, to keep from accidentally eating pork or anything cooked in lard.
But at the time, Ma did not quite understand why he lived that way.
"As we grew up, we gradually had some idea of our religion. But our idea of Islam remained rather unclear," he said.
In his first year in high school, Ma was told that Libya, then still a diplomatic ally of Taiwan, offered a scholarship program for five Taiwanese students to study Arabic in the country.
Ma decided to give it a shot. He passed exams for the program. In November 1977, he and the other four students arrived in Libya.
"The night after our arrival, I laid in my bed and stared at the ceiling. I had seen many interesting things on my journey there and did not feel sad at all. But at the quiet of the night, I began to miss my parents. Home was so far from me," Ma said.
Phones were not widely available in Libya in 1977. Ma spent his first night there writing a letter to his parents. He knew that for the exchange program, he probably had to spend the next 10 years in the North African country.
During a summer vacation in 1982, Ma decided to take a trip around Italy, as it is geographically close to Libya. He spent 28 days traveling around Italy and also visited the Vatican.
Earlier this month, President Chen Shui-bian (
"When I went to the Vatican in 1982, the Pope was there. This time I went there to join his funeral. It is such a coincidence. This is destiny. Nobody knows the times for things," he said.
The imam said he did not follow the rituals in the Pope's funeral. He attended the mass, he added, to express his respect and give a blessing to the late pontiff.
"We need interactions between different religions so that we can seek harmony out of our differences," he said.
To make pocket money in Libya, Ma looked for part-time jobs during vacations.
"The first job I had was to be a shepherd. I had no idea about how to be a shepherd," Ma said.
As Ma drove his herd out into the field, he had to watch for wolves or foxes and cast stones at them if they attempted to approach his sheep.
Many important religious figures are depicted as shepherds, Ma said.
"Jesus, Moses and Mohammad were all shepherds. It is a holy job. My first job was being a shepherd. Looking back at my life, I knew the job had deep meaning," he said.
"We can learn a lot of things from shepherding. We can learn how to minister to people from the experience of leading a herd of sheep. Today, my job is like being a shepherd. I have the responsibility of leading people," he said.
Before Ma became the imam of the Taipei Grand Mosque in 1999, he visited many Muslim families. The experience, he said, brought him a lot of frustrations and disappointments.
"Society has affected Muslims. When I visited Muslim families, they were not always willing to receive us or share with us matters of faith. I thought we ought to be able to talk more," Ma said.
The imam has tried to organize social activities for young Muslims so that they can make friends with each other. His job, he said, is to lead these people back and help them restore the Muslim way of life.
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation. The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians
The lowest temperature in a low-lying area recorded early yesterday morning was in Miaoli County’s Gongguan Township (公館), at 6.8°C, due to a strong cold air mass and the effect of radiative cooling, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. In other areas, Chiayi’s East District (東區) recorded a low of 8.2°C and Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾) recorded 8.5°C, CWA data showed. The cold air mass was at its strongest from Saturday night to the early hours of yesterday. It brought temperatures down to 9°C to 11°C in areas across the nation and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties,
STAY VIGILANT: When experiencing symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, such as dizziness or fatigue, near a water heater, open windows and doors to ventilate the area Rooftop flue water heaters should only be installed outdoors or in properly ventilated areas to prevent toxic gas from building up, the Yilan County Fire Department said, after a man in Taipei died of carbon monoxide poisoning on Monday last week. The 39-year-old man, surnamed Chen (陳), an assistant professor at Providence University in Taichung, was at his Taipei home for the holidays when the incident occurred, news reports said. He was taking a shower in the bathroom of a rooftop addition when carbon monoxide — a poisonous byproduct of combustion — leaked from a water heater installed in a poorly ventilated
RSS