Hui Muslims resist mosque demolition

Okay. I've seen the reports now, and I'm sure that you have as well, of the intention of the Chinese government to partially demolish a masjid in Yunnan province that's for the Kuwait Muslim community there. There was an attempt to carry out this partial demolition, which would be for the dome of the masjid and four minarets that they say were constructed without approval or without documentation or something like this. There were protests and there were clashes with the police by the Muslims, of that province who encircled the masjid and resisted the, intention to destroy part of their masjid. Now I don't have much information about this.

On the face of it, if the Muslims in that region, if the Muslims in that who frequent that masjid are willing to take the risk of resisting the police and protesting against the Chinese government, will be the provincial government, it's a very serious issue to them because protesting against the Chinese government is not a small thing. That takes a lot of guts. It has to really they have to be standing for something that they feel is that important. It's not just about the masjid. It's a a larger and a deeper issue.

In other words, they feel, most likely, that the rationale that the Chinese government is giving for the partial demolition of the Masjid is just a pretext, and they feel that this is actually, an attempt to clamp down on the Muslims and the Muslims' own self expression. I mean, I know a few years ago, there was a whole thing about wanting to remove, domes from Masjid in China because they said it was too much Arabization of Islam, and they didn't like that influence because they they connect Arabization with radicalization, with Wahhabism and Salafis and Jihadis and blah blah blah because they're ignorant about Islam. So if this is a part of that, I don't know. But either way, if you have the official position that you can have a masjid, obviously, these, minarets and this dome, even if it was constructed without proper approval or proper, you know, safety checks or making sure that the codes were followed and so on, There's nothing wrong with it. It's standing.

It's fine. And the Muslims who live there and who frequent that masjid don't have a problem with it. So I would suggest that you should back off because if the Muslims are, as I said, willing to stand up to defend their masjid against the police and against the the Chinese government. It's not a small thing. This means something to them.

And if they pursue this and insist on the demolition, and if they start to arrest the Muslims who are protesting against the demolition, then this is provocation. And it looks like they're just trying to start a problem, which obviously they already have a very bad reputation with regards to the Chinese government's relationship with Muslims in China because of Xinjiang and the situation with the Uighurs. So Muslims globally are ready to explode and ready to believe the worst about the CCP with regards to Muslims. So I would suggest that you if you have if you have legitimate concerns about, for example, the safety of the dome and the minarets, so have some engineers and architects come and look at it and do a check and find out and see if everything is fine. You can look at, all of the documentation about the building of the Masjid to you know, and the the construction companies that put it together and that that built it to know what standards they met, what materials they used, and so on.

So do that and avoid a problem. Otherwise, if you're insisting to, demolish the dome and the minarets of that masjid, you're just provoking, anger and hostility of the Muslim community in that province and trying to create a reason to clamp down on them, which again is what Muslims around the world are expecting you to do. So I would highly suggest again, you better compromise because this is a very bad move on your part. And if you're wanting to improve your relationship with the Muslim world, this is certainly not how you do it.