Chow (first row, second from right) with the 33 visitors.
NGO holds tour for public with guide giving insights into building’s architecture
When a Klang tour outfit scheduled a trip to the new Klang Chinese Muslim Jamek Mosque for the breaking of fast, this drew the interest of Buddhist Mok Poy Sun.
The housewife then roped in 10 of her family members and friends for the event that was to be held on a Saturday.
Mok, 48, said she saw it as a chance to show her children how Muslims observed the holy month of Ramadan.
“I want them to understand why Muslims fast because as Malaysians, I feel that we must take the effort to understand religions other than that of our own,” she explained.
Mok had heard about the trip through Jalan-jalan Klang (JjK).
The non-governmental organisation (NGO) consists of guides who conduct walking tours to promote the royal city’s culture and heritage that dates back hundreds of years.
“I have been following JjK’s walking tours for six years and found their events to be informative and interesting,” said Mok.
The pagoda for moon sighting.
Although it was not her first visit to a mosque, Mok related that the experience this time around was a markedly different one.
This was thanks to the mosque management which provided the tour participants with a knowledgeable guide in Muhammad Abdul Qayyum Ong.
He explained in detail about the mosque’s architecture and how it had been inspired by the Great Mosque of Xi’an in China.
Abdul Qayyum also shared interesting nuggets on the complex’s pagoda and how it was used for moon sightings.
He also conducted a tour of the complex’s facilities.
It had taken two hours to complete the tour of the complex itself, before the group joined the others there to break fast.
Under a tent in the mosque’s compound, one of Mok’s friends, Agnes Chin, 40, said she wished there had been more time for the tour.
On the whole, Mok and Chin described the tour as calming and serene.
They were fascinated with how the Islamic calendar was based on cycles of the moon
Chin and Mok with family and friends waiting to break fast at the mosque.
During the tour, JjK founder and president Chow Hoong Fai, 43, said the Chinese Muslim mosque, which had been completed in 2024, was the first to have been built in Selangor.
In total, there are five Chinese Muslim mosques in Malaysia.
There are two in Perak, and one each in Kelantan, Melaka and Selangor.
Since the Selangor mosque was built, Chow has organised for no less than 300 tourists from Taiwan and China to visit it.
In the most recent tour, 33 participants paid a RM38 fee each.
A portion of the total sum was donated to the mosque.
According to Chow, half of the tour group were from Klang while the rest was from Kuala Lumpur.
On hand to assist visitors don head scarves before entering the mosque was Haslina Tiong, 65, a volunteer guide.
The visitors also listened to a talk by Malaysian Chinese Muslim Association honorary secretary-general Ann Wan Seng.
Ann’s talk was on health benefits of fasting.
Joining the visitors in breaking fast were residents of the Padmasambhava Children Loving Association and seven members of the Malaysian Deaf Muslim Association.
