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Kowloon Masjid and Islamic Centre | |
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九龍清真寺暨伊斯蘭中心 مسجد كاولون والمركز الإسلامي | |
Religion | |
Affiliation | Sunni Islam |
Location | |
Location | No. 105, Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong |
Municipality | Kowloon |
Geographic coordinates | 22°17′55″N114°10′18″E / 22.298733°N 114.171719°E |
Architecture | |
Architect(s) | I. M. Kadri |
Type | mosque |
Style | Islamic |
Completed | 1896 11 May 1984 (current building) [1] | (original building)
Construction cost | HK$ 25 million |
Specifications | |
Capacity | 3,500 people |
Dome(s) | 1 |
Dome height (outer) | 9 meters |
Dome dia. (outer) | 5 meters |
Minaret(s) | 4 |
Minaret height | 11 meters |
Website | |
Kowloon Masjid and Islamic Centre | |||||||||||||
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Traditional Chinese | 九龍清真寺暨伊斯蘭中心 | ||||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 九龙清真寺暨伊斯兰中心 | ||||||||||||
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The Kowloon Masjid and Islamic Centre or Kowloon Mosque is one of five main mosques in Hong Kong. [2] Located in Kowloon,in the Tsim Sha Tsui area at the intersection of Nathan Road and Haiphong Road,beside Kowloon Park,this mosque is currently the largest in Hong Kong. The mosque holds five prayers daily and is capable of accommodating up to 3,500 people.
The Kowloon Mosque and Islamic Centre was first established in 1896 by the Hong Kong Regiment. It was originally intended to serve the Indian Muslim troops of the British Army stationed at the nearby Whitfield Barracks, now the site of the adjacent Kowloon Park.
In the late 1970s, the building suffered structural issues due to the underground construction carried out for the Mass Transit Railway. With compensation provided by MTR Corporation and donations from the local Muslim community, a new mosque was built and opened on 11 May 1984 on the present site at 105 Nathan Road to replace the old one. [3]
Currently, the mosque primarily serves Muslims from South Asia and Indonesia. Many of them also live in Tsim Sha Tsui, where ethnic minorities have settled. This also explains why it also plays an important role as a cultural site for non-Chinese Muslims in Hong Kong. [4]
Vendors selling South Asian items at Chungking Mansions are close to the Kowloon Mosque (opposite the mosque, across the road). [5]
This mosque, designed by architect I.M. Kadri, represents the unique identity of the Muslim community in Hong Kong. Decorated and elaborated, the traditional Muslim architecture of the mosque contrasts from the modern architecture of the nearby buildings. The most prominent features of the building are the four 11 meters high minarets which mark the corners of the upper terrace and the extensive use of white marble on both the paving and the facade.
In addition to three prayer halls and a community hall, there is a medical clinic and a library. The main prayer hall on the first floor can accommodate 1,000 people. A smaller, women's prayer hall is on the upper floor and is surrounded by a terrace. This upper hall is surmounted by a dome 5 meters in diameter and 9 meters in height.
The chief imam of Hong Kong Mufti Muhammad Arshad (M.A. in Islamic studies) has served as the imam and khateeb of this mosque since 2001 and is the Chief Imam of Hong Kong for the Muslims of Hong Kong. He also teaches the mosque's Arabic language course, and delivers the Friday sermons in Urdu, English and Arabic. He is also responsible for the issuance of fatwa and Quranic maktabs. In addition, he is an instructor at the Hong Kong Baptist University. He was ranked one of the 500 world's most influential Muslim leaders in 2009.
Maulana Qari Muhammad Tayaib Qasmi is an Islamic scholar who has lived in Hong Kong since 1989. He served as chief imam and khateeb of the Kowloon Mosque until 2001. He has invited many prominent Islamic scholars to Hong Kong from different parts of the world, such as Makki Sahib, Abdul Majeed Nadeem Shah sahib, Imam-e-Ka'bah, imam Masjid e Nabwi, Maulana Tariq Jameel, Dr. Tahir ul Qadri and Dr. Murtaza Sahib. Dr. Zakir Naik (trustee) is currently running seven large Islamic centres throughout Hong Kong, giving free Quranic education to almost 1500 students including adult students, boys and girls, who study full-time in local schools in Hong Kong. The mosque is very important to the Islamic community of Hong Kong.
The mosque is located near exit A1 of Tsim Sha Tsui station (connected to East Tsim Sha Tsui station by underground walkways). It may be reached via the Tsuen Wan line or the Tuen Ma line (if you walk through the station to East Tsim Sha Tsui station).
There is also a large bus stop situated outside the mosque, with buses to various destinations in Kowloon, New Territories and Hong Kong International Airport. This stop is either announced as Kowloon Mosque or Kowloon Park (which is adjacent to the mosque).
On 20 October 2019 during the anti-ELAB movement, a Hong Kong Police Force water cannon vehicle filled with stinging blue dye sprayed the Islamic Centre twice. [6] [7] The dousing caused hit more than 10 people who were around the premises causing various injuries including former Indian Association of Hong Kong chairman Mohan Chugani, a member of the Hong Kong Unison and Jeremy Tam, a member of the Legislative Council and several journalists; [8] all them were hospitalized for further treatment. [9] [10] [11] [12] Masked protesters, pedestrians and mosque-goers rushed to the Islamic Centre to clean up the blue dye left by the police soon after. [13] The police contacted the mosque authorities explaining the hit as a "mistake"; then they sent some police personnel to the mosque to clean up for five minutes. [14]
Chief Executive Carrie Lam herself came to meet in person with community members and mosque leaders the next day to apologize on the government's behalf over the incident. [8] At 9:40 p.m the same day, police representatives came to the mosque to explain themselves to the media. A female Senior Superintendent was spotted to not wear a hijab – as required by mosque admission rules – when she entered the Islamic Centre, causing criticism over the faux pas. [15] [8]
Hong Kong Unison [16] and Civil Human Rights Front [17] condemned the police regarding this event. Regina Ip of the New People's Party asserted the need for the police force to apologize. [18] Activist Phillip Khan sees the police action taken as an affront to Islam. [19] [20]
Kowloon is an urban area in Hong Kong comprising the Kowloon Peninsula and New Kowloon. It has a population of 2,019,533 and a population density of 43,033/km2 (111,450/sq mi) in 2006. It is one of the three regions of Hong Kong, along with Hong Kong Island and the New Territories, and is the smallest and most densely populated.
Tsim Sha Tsui, often abbreviated as TST, is an urban area in southern Kowloon, Hong Kong. The area is administratively part of the Yau Tsim Mong District. Tsim Sha Tsui East is a piece of land reclaimed from the Hung Hom Bay now east of Tsim Sha Tsui. The area is bounded north by Austin Road and in the east by Hong Chong Road and Cheong Wan Road.
Jordan is an area in Hong Kong, located on Kowloon Peninsula. It is named after a road of the same name in the district. The area is bordered by King's Park to the east, Tsim Sha Tsui to the south, Ferry Point to the west, and Yau Ma Tei to the north. Administratively, it is part of Yau Tsim Mong District.
The Hong Kong Museum of Art (HKMoA) is the first and main art museum of Hong Kong, located in Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui. It is a public museum managed by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department of the Hong Kong Government. HKMoA has an art collection of over 17,000 items. Admission is free for permanent exhibitions. Its rival is the non-government-managed Hong Kong Arts Centre. These two museums are considered to be the top two art museums in Hong Kong that dictate the discourse of art in Hong Kong.
Tsang Tsou-choi, commonly referred to as the "Emperor of Kowloon" was a Hong Kong citizen known for his calligraphy graffiti.
Nathan Road is the main thoroughfare in Kowloon, Hong Kong, aligned south–north from Tsim Sha Tsui to Sham Shui Po. It is lined with shops and restaurants and throngs with visitors, and was known in the post–World War II years as the Golden Mile, a name that is now rarely used. It starts on the southern part of Kowloon at its junction with Salisbury Road, a few metres north of Victoria Harbour, and ends at its intersection with Boundary Street in the north. Portions of the Kwun Tong and Tsuen Wan lines run underneath Nathan Road. The total length of Nathan Road is about 3.6 km (2.2 mi).
Salisbury Road is a major road in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
Middle Road is a street in the southern part of Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
Haiphong Road is a road south of Kowloon Park, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong. The road links Canton Road and Nathan Road.
The Guangzhou–Kowloon through train was an inter-city railway service between Hong Kong and Guangzhou jointly operated by the MTR Corporation of Hong Kong and the Guangzhou Railway Group of mainland China. Services operate along the East Rail line within Hong Kong territory, crossing the Hong Kong–Chinese border at Lo Wu, and continuing along the Guangmao Railway and Guangshen Railway in Guangdong province.
Abdull Ghafar Khan, better known as Phillip Khan, is a Hong Kong businessman and political activist. A Pakistani national born and raised in Hong Kong, Khan's ambitions to stand for election to the city's Legislative Council reportedly have been blocked by the refusal of the Hong Kong Immigration Department to consider his application for naturalisation as a Chinese national.
The Ibrahim Mosque is a mosque in Mong Kok, Hong Kong. It is the sixth and latest mosque built in Hong Kong. The mosque was constructed and is managed by the United Welfare Union Hong Kong Limited.
The month of August 2019 in the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests saw a continuation of protests throughout the city. Several of the peaceful daytime protests were held by social groups such as families, the elderly, and various professions. In many instances, peaceful protests occurs during the day, turning increasingly violent at night. In North Point and Tsuen Wan, white- or blue-shirted armed groups were attacking protesters, but unlike in the Yuen Long violence of 21 July they were beaten back in North Point. Protesters aimed at drawing international attention through methods such as extended sit-ins at the airport. In many occasions, an eye injury of a female protester who had served as frontline medical staff became a symbol of the protests. At the airport protests, a mainland journalist was violently tackled by protesters who did not reveal his identity to the protesters. Protesters later apologised for this incident, reducing tensions and satisfying some pro-establishment lawmakers. The Prince Edward station attack on 31 August proved to be a further landmark event in the protests.
The Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) struggled with corruption among its ranks from the 1940s until the 1970s. It gained the nickname "Asia's Finest" after undergoing reforms in 1979. Since the 2010s, the force has faced allegations of police brutality, sexual assault, excessive use of violence, falsification of evidence, and a lack of professionalism.
The month of September in the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests saw again citywide unrest. Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced on 4 September that the extradition bill, in suspension since July, would be fully withdrawn, which fulfilled one of the five demands of the protesters. Also, following an earlier promise, Lam held a discussion session with randomly selected members of the public on 26 September. These acts, however, had little to no effect on the protests, as protesters insisted that all of the five demands be met. That this latter goal would be hard, if not impossible, to achieve – due to the very limited room given to Lam's administration by mainland Chinese authorities, as transpired from comments by officials – did not discourage the protesters from continuing to take to the streets.
In October 2019, the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests saw a further escalation of violence. It became evident that the protests were unlikely to end soon, and that they posed the biggest popular challenge to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping since his ascension to CCP general secretary in 2012. To bring the situation under control, Chief Executive Carrie Lam invoked colonial-era powers to impose an anti-mask law, aimed at preventing protesters from hiding their identity. Observers considered the law, which came into force on 4 October, as a precedent for possible wider use of emergency powers at the expense of citizens' freedoms and in addition democratic rights, as they even saw the possibility of the upcoming District Council elections being cancelled based on the emergency law. The mask ban did, however, not achieve the desired effect, but rather proved a further focal point of protests. In November, the High Court ruled the mask ban to be unconstitutional, although in April 2020, an Appeal Court ruled that it was constitutional in the case of unlawful assemblies.
The 2019 Prince Edward station attack, also known as the 31 August MTR station incident, was an incident in which Hong Kong police indiscriminately attacked passengers while arresting protesters who were returning home via Prince Edward station, on the night of 31 August 2019, after a protest was held that same day. The event was described as the police version of the 2019 Yuen Long attack, and the police have been criticised as acting like terrorists. Rumours have been circulated that several protesters were beaten to death at the station, but the police have rejected allegations. However, a mourning vigil was set up by a group of residents outside one exit of the station.
The month of November 2019 in the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests started with protesting in malls and police getting into homes and malls to arrest protesters. The death of Chow Tsz-lok in Sheung Tak, Tseung Kwan O had led to more protests. In mid November, there were city-wide strikes which lasted for more than a week. Hong Kong Police officers fired tear gas in Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), and nearby areas. In late November, the District Council elections were held. The pro-democracy camp in conjunction with the localist groups got more than 80 per cent of the seats and gained control of 17 out of 18 District Councils.
This is a list of protests in January 2020 that were part of the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests. The protests continued to be buoyed up by the success of the pan-democrats at the November 2019 District Council Elections, but also continued to feel the effects of the mass arrests at the November 2019 siege of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. With the notable exceptions of protests on New Year's Day and on 19 January, protests remained smaller-scale but took place almost every day. It appeared that police, under its new chief Chris Tang, had changed its tactics to round up violent protesters early, aiming to avoid the spiralling into evening violence that had occurred in many of the earlier protests.
On 22 February 2021, Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, proposed that Hong Kong's governance had to be in the hands of "patriots". Observers considered it possible that the definition of "patriot" would require candidates for public office to embrace the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, as also suggested by Hong Kong Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Erick Tsang; and that this signified a departure from the position that had prevailed since a speech by China's paramount leader Deng Xiaoping in 1984.