Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – September 11, 1992

After the morning prayer, we went to the airport to travel to the Muslim-populated province of Xinjiang. We went by Chinese plane. A group of Chinese accompanied us. The companions will come later with our planes. On the way, I sat through many explanations about China. until

Urumqi, the capital of the province, was three and a half hours away, most of the way we were going through the clouds, and we couldn't see it. Where it was found, it was mostly a dry desert and sometimes there were inhabited spots or snow-covered mountains.

We landed at Urumqi airport and were received by the provincial officials in the airport lounge until the plane was fueled and ready to fly to Kashgar. We got many explanations from the governor of the province and the local scholar. At twelve o'clock we flew to Kashgar; Because Kashgar airport is not ready to receive big planes, we went with their 737 plane which is smaller.

Mr. Taimur Mowat, the governor and ruler of the province, accompanied us. He said that the province is autonomous and has 16 million people, 9 million of whom are Muslims. We got off at Kashgar airport at 1:30 Beijing time. Scholars and the governor of the city came to welcome. It is a green city of two hundred thousand people with old buildings. We made a short stop at the government guest house of the city.

We had lunch in a hurry. They have good food which is our nature. It is similar to our own food. Their guest house is short and has small rooms and old furniture. The streets were sprinkled with water. People did not pay attention on the way; They didn't know, or they didn't want to, but a large crowd gathered in the mosque for Friday prayers and outside the mosque to see us. Maybe the silence of the streets was for gathering in the mosque. They were in the mosque and there were very few on the street.

Basically, the situation was the same among Pakistani Sunnis. We rarely saw them in the street reception and gatherings; Except women without hijab. When we entered the mosque, even though they looked with interest and sometimes stood up, they did not express their feelings with slogans or voices.

After the Friday prayer, the imam of the mosque said Khair Moghaddam and I gave a short speech to them. He recited two short sermons in Arabic. Before the prayer, he ordered order in Farsi with the sentence "Saf Rast". In Jakarta, Imam Juma did the same thing with "Astraol al-Sufuf", Arabic.

After the prayer, when going in and out of the mosque, when passing in front of the people, they treated the orderly procession very well. They were clapping outside the mosque and inside the mosque, they wanted to shake hands with us.

We visited a craft workshop; It was very basic. Men and women did embroidery and instrument making. They gave a big rabab, [a kind of traditional instrument] as a gift. Companions bought things. I also bought two embroidered shirts. The salary of new employees was about 100 yuan per month, and the salary of experienced workers was about 200 yuan. They said that the wages of daily agricultural workers are the same. It is clear that they cannot have a good life with this level of salary.

We returned to Urumqi. The city is big and clean and has a local government guest house. For dinner, we went to People's Hall, which is an interesting building. Their governor wanted to play the role of a general manager in the negotiations; He is a good person and a Muslim. After the official negotiations, a very good dinner was served, similar to our own receptions. Unlike the parties in Beijing, women served here. We went back to the guest house to sleep. I was tired After showering, I slept.