The Niujie Mosque,or Ox Street, is located at Xuanwu District of Beijing City. It is the oldest mosque in Beijing, China. It was first built in 996 and was reconstructed as well as enlarged under the Qing Emperor Kangxi (1622-1722).
The buildings in the mosque are symmetrically arranged. The main buildings include the Wangyue Pavilion, the Worship Hall, the Stele Pavilion, and so on. Many important cultural relics, such as steles from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and cupreous hollowware from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), are preserved in the mosque.
From the past to the present, Muslims come here to bathe and warship everyday. Especially on Islamic festivals, native and foreign Muslims gather here and celebrate the festivals together. Now Niujie is the residential place for more than 13,000 Muslims in Beijing City. Because Muslims mainly eat beef, there are a large number of stores selling beef and restaurants providing foods made of beef. Therefore, this place is called Niujie (Beef Road).
The Niujie Mosque covers an area of approximately 6000 square meters. The mosque is a mixture of Islamic and Chinese cultures. From the outside, its architecture shows traditional Chinese influence while the inside has mostly Islamic decorations. The mosque, built out of timber, is home to some important cultural relics and tablets such as the upright tablet of an emperor's decree proclaimed in 1694 during the Qing Dynasty.
The Beijing Municipal Government has started rebuilding a residential area mainly inhabited by Muslims. The work on the 35.9-hectare area around Niujie will involve moving 7,500 families, 58 percent of whom are Muslims. The project will turn Niujie into a Muslim-style commercial street. The area will be home to multi-storey buildings, schools, kindergartens and public facilities. Niujie is presently a narrow street where most people live in old houses with a per capita floor space of 5. 1 square metres. In recent years, the Beijing Government has completed a number of infrastructure projects to improve water, electricity, heat and gas supplies there. They have launched a project to improve local people's living conditions through demolishing old and traditional houses and building new multi-storey buildings in the area in 1997.