Taipei Grand Mosque Imam Ma Shiao-chi (馬孝棋) was one of five Taiwanese students who flew to Libya in 1977 to join a language exchange program to study Arabic.
Born to Muslim parents that came to Taiwan from Nanjing with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government in 1949, Ma grew up in Kaohsiung and worshipped in a mosque in the city once or twice a year when he was young.
Ma's ancestors had been Muslims for hundreds of years. They were believed to be nomads who moved from Central Asia to China. For several centuries, they lived their lives according to the Muslim tradition.
FILE PHOTO, TAIPEI TIMES
As a teenager, Ma knew he could not eat pork and there were no photos of his ancestors hanging in the house. His family does not worship idols, as most Taiwanese people do.
Ma's parents prepared lunchboxes for him and his sisters when they went to school. While Ma's friends ate in restaurants, Ma would eat his lunchbox, to keep from accidentally eating pork or anything cooked in lard.
But at the time, Ma did not quite understand why he lived that way.
"As we grew up, we gradually had some idea of our religion. But our idea of Islam remained rather unclear," he said.
In his first year in high school, Ma was told that Libya, then still a diplomatic ally of Taiwan, offered a scholarship program for five Taiwanese students to study Arabic in the country.
Ma decided to give it a shot. He passed exams for the program. In November 1977, he and the other four students arrived in Libya.
"The night after our arrival, I laid in my bed and stared at the ceiling. I had seen many interesting things on my journey there and did not feel sad at all. But at the quiet of the night, I began to miss my parents. Home was so far from me," Ma said.
Phones were not widely available in Libya in 1977. Ma spent his first night there writing a letter to his parents. He knew that for the exchange program, he probably had to spend the next 10 years in the North African country.
During a summer vacation in 1982, Ma decided to take a trip around Italy, as it is geographically close to Libya. He spent 28 days traveling around Italy and also visited the Vatican.
Earlier this month, President Chen Shui-bian (
"When I went to the Vatican in 1982, the Pope was there. This time I went there to join his funeral. It is such a coincidence. This is destiny. Nobody knows the times for things," he said.
The imam said he did not follow the rituals in the Pope's funeral. He attended the mass, he added, to express his respect and give a blessing to the late pontiff.
"We need interactions between different religions so that we can seek harmony out of our differences," he said.
To make pocket money in Libya, Ma looked for part-time jobs during vacations.
"The first job I had was to be a shepherd. I had no idea about how to be a shepherd," Ma said.
As Ma drove his herd out into the field, he had to watch for wolves or foxes and cast stones at them if they attempted to approach his sheep.
Many important religious figures are depicted as shepherds, Ma said.
"Jesus, Moses and Mohammad were all shepherds. It is a holy job. My first job was being a shepherd. Looking back at my life, I knew the job had deep meaning," he said.
"We can learn a lot of things from shepherding. We can learn how to minister to people from the experience of leading a herd of sheep. Today, my job is like being a shepherd. I have the responsibility of leading people," he said.
Before Ma became the imam of the Taipei Grand Mosque in 1999, he visited many Muslim families. The experience, he said, brought him a lot of frustrations and disappointments.
"Society has affected Muslims. When I visited Muslim families, they were not always willing to receive us or share with us matters of faith. I thought we ought to be able to talk more," Ma said.
The imam has tried to organize social activities for young Muslims so that they can make friends with each other. His job, he said, is to lead these people back and help them restore the Muslim way of life.
The disruption of 941 flights in and out of Taiwan due to China’s large-scale military exercises was no accident, but rather the result of a “quasi-blockade” used to simulate creating the air and sea routes needed for an amphibious landing, a military expert said. The disruptions occurred on Tuesday and lasted about 10 hours as China conducted live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait. The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said the exercises affected 857 international flights and 84 domestic flights, affecting more than 100,000 travelers. Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a research fellow at the government-sponsored Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said the air
Trips for more than 100,000 international and domestic air travelers could be disrupted as China launches a military exercise around Taiwan today, Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said yesterday. The exercise could affect nearly 900 flights scheduled to enter the Taipei Flight Information Region (FIR) during the exercise window, it added. A notice issued by the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration showed there would be seven temporary zones around the Taiwan Strait which would be used for live-fire exercises, lasting from 8am to 6pm today. All aircraft are prohibited from entering during exercise, it says. Taipei FIR has 14 international air routes and
Taiwan lacks effective and cost-efficient armaments to intercept rockets, making the planned “T-Dome” interception system necessary, two experts said on Tuesday. The concerns were raised after China’s military fired two waves of rockets during live-fire drills around Taiwan on Tuesday, part of two-day exercises code-named “Justice Mission 2025.” The first wave involved 17 rockets launched at 9am from Pingtan in China’s Fujian Province, according to Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng (謝日升) of the Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Intelligence at the Ministry of National Defense. Those rockets landed 70 nautical miles (129.6km) northeast of Keelung without flying over Taiwan,
City buses in Taipei and New Taipei City, as well as the Taipei MRT, would on Saturday begin accepting QR code payments from five electronic payment providers, the Taipei Department of Transportation said yesterday. The new option would allow passengers to use the “transportation QR code” feature from EasyWallet, iPass Money, iCash Pay, Jkopay or PXPay Plus. Passengers should open their preferred electronic payment app, select the “transportation code” — not the regular payment code — unlock it, and scan the code at ticket readers or gates, General Planning Division Director-General Liu Kuo-chu (劉國著) said. People should move through the
RSS