Id Kah Mosque is Kashgar’s biggest mosque and one of the most holy places in the Muslim world. It is said that the mosque was first built in 1798, and rebuilt several times. Encompassing one hectare (2.5 acres), the mosque is composed of four main parts: the gate tower, courtyard, hall for chanting scriptures, and the auditorium (160-meter-long, and 16 meter wide, accommodating 5,000 to 6,000 prayers at one time) for routine services.

On the both sides of the mosque’s gate stand town 10-meter-high towers, one on each side, and connected by low walls. If visitors make a trip to Kashgar on Friday, the day known as Djumah, when the Muslim people assembly for midday pray on yaum al-jum’a (day of assembly), the biggest religious service of the week. The Muslim people get together waiting for the clock striking twelve times. The crowd will be large that many of the prayers have to sit in the courtyard outside the auditorium. The service starts at 1:15pm with imam, a mosque’s officiating priest reciting the Koran, Islam’s holy book, in Arabic and then translating and explaining it in the Uygur language. Then the whole party begins to pray. The service will last for 40 minutes.

Each day about 2,000 to 3,000 Muslims attend the routine service in Id Kah Mosque, and that number surpassed 6, 000 on the day of Djumah. During big festivals like Corban or Rouza (the Ramadan), the number can be more than 40,000 to 50,000.

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