Kaishar, a 23-year-old car salesman, said his heart hurt when he first saw that the gates to the mosque were closed.

"There was no reason to shut the gate. They said it was for our safety but actually there is no need, nothing will happen here," said Kaishar, with a red prayer mat folded under his arm.

It was not known how many of the mosques across the city of 2.3 million people were opened.

A few blocks from the White mosque at the Yang Hang mosque, hundreds of men streamed in clutching green and red and blue prayer mats. A white notice that had been glued to the front gate canceling the day's service was gone.

An mosque official, who refused to give her name, had said earlier the closure was ordered for public safety reasons after the widespread ethnic violence between Uighurs (pronounced WEE-ger) and Han Chinese. She didn't elaborate.

The Government has imposed curfews and flooded the streets with security forces to avoid a repeat of the running street battles earlier in the week.

The secretary-general of the Urumqi Islamic Association, who would give only his surname Ma, denied there had been any order to shut the mosques and said individual mosques may have decided to do so independently.

But a man from the Urumqi Administration for Religious Affairs, who refused to give his name, said only mosques in areas not affected by the violence were told they could open.

"In the areas where there were serious clashes and violence, some mosques were closed for the safety of the religious people," he said.

... contd.