Up until a couple of years ago this relatively isolated alley, surrounded by high-rise apartments in the western district of Xuanwu, was Beijing's oldest surviving alley, clocking in at a wheezing 900 years old and predating even the Mongol-designed hutong network.
One such was a medieval theologian, Taqi al-Din ibn Taymiyya, a sort of Muslim Luther who in reaction to theMongol onslaught of the 13th century preached a return to the essentials of the faith, which the ulema (clerics) of the time had forsaken.