If I were to ask you to name the country that hosts one of the largest Islamic research institutes in the world, an Islamic institute housing over 50,000 books on Islam, your mind might naturally scan through Muslim-majority countries or even Western nations with significant Islamic scholarship. But what if I told you that this remarkable center isn’t in any of those places, but rather in our iron brother, China?

Yes, you read that right. In China, there’s an Islamic institute that boasts a digital library with hundreds of workstations for students, state-of-the-art hostels that accommodate over 500 students at a time, and a university that provides a generous stipend to its students along with guaranteed job placement.

This university also has prayer halls equipped with hot and cold water year-round, and a mosque capable of hosting hundreds of Muslims for their five daily prayers in complete freedom and security. It’s a place where the pursuit of Islamic knowledge is nurtured with the utmost care and respect. I recently spent three days in Urumqi, a city once known as a hotbed of unrest in China.

This was my second visit to this north western city after a gap of ten years, and the transformation I witnessed was nothing short of remarkable. Unlike Pakistan, where most cities—save for a few exceptions—seem to have deteriorated over time, Urumqi has evolved into something entirely different. Ten years ago, Urumqi had the feel of a small town with a rudimentary industrial base.

The streets were sparsely populated with cars, and the Grand Bazaar had the appearance of something akin to our own Raja Bazaar. But today, Urumqi is a city reborn. It now boasts an IT park, Innovative Development Corridor of Urumqi Economic and Development Zone, Software Park, Taishan Cloud Computing Industry Base and Green Valley Scientific Innovation Town where leading Chinese and international companies have established their regional headquarters, research and innovation centers, manufacturing plants, and import-export hubs providing jobs of hundreds and thousands of local youths. I will be writing more on this subject in my upcoming letters to the Editor for this newspaper.

Qamar Bashir

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024