Muslim District: the Great Mosque

My knowledge of Islam is comprised of what I recall from an excellent Islamic Culture course I took in college, and what I learned from the entertaining and informative Little Mosque on the Prairie. So, it was kind of cool to be able to see a mosque setup in real life, in the form of Xi'an's Great Mosque.

Heh-heh-heh: "scenic sports"

outside the mosque

The bottom one reads, 'Please don't spit.' 

Warning! Cultural Criticism Ahead: 

Only the Chinese would need to be told not to spit in a holy place.

This is the rather unassuming minaret.

 I snapped this through the doorway. It's grainy because of the lighting.

I'm assuming these clocks are related to the five daily prayers.

I didn't get this immediately: the janitor's face is blue-ed out because it's disrespectful (or something like that) to display images of faces within a mosque.