Bukui Mosque (Chinese: 卜奎清真寺; pinyin: Bǔkuí Qīngzhēnsì) is a mosque in Qiqihar, Heilongjiang, China. It is located in Mosque Road (Chinese: 清真路; pinyin: Qīng Zhēn Lù) off Bukui Street.[1] It was built during the Qing dynasty, and listed in 2006 as a Major Site to Be Protected for Its Historical and Cultural Value at the National Level.[2][3] It is the largest and oldest mosque in the province.[4]
The name "Bukui" is the Chinese transcription of a Daur word meaning "auspicious".[1] Bukui Mosque originally consisted of two separate mosques:[2]
The mosque contains roughly 2,000 square metres of constructed space; the whole compound covers an area of roughly 6,400 square metres. The two prayer spaces together can hold a total of roughly 450 people.[2]
The mosque's long history has led to a saying in Qiqihar: "the mosque existed long before the town Bukui".[n 1][5] In 1958, the two mosques were reorganised as a single mosque, with the name "Qiqihar Mosque". The mosque was listed as a city-level protected cultural relic in 1980, and as a provincial-level protected cultural relic in 1981; its name was then also changed to the present "Bukui Mosque".[2] An assessment done that year found that while the East Mosque was in relatively good condition, there was serious structural damage to the West Mosque.[6] Reconstruction efforts were undertaken in 1989–1990.[3] On 25 June 2006, the State Council of the People's Republic of China entered Bukui Mosque onto the sixth batch list of Major Sites Protected at the National Level.[3]