Muslim in China:

Muslim in China has about 1400 years of history; it has continuous interaction with Chinese society. Each region in China is distributed Muslims. There are a large amount of population of Muslims who believe in Islam in China.

Number of Muslims in China

China has numerous Muslims who believe in Islam.Based on 2009 China's census, the Pew Research Center concluded in a study that there were 21,667,000 Muslims in China, which accounted for 1.6% of the total Chinese population.

Muslim groups

Muslims in China are mostly Sunni Muslims. Several China's Muslim communities features in the presence of female imams. Ma Tong, one of the Islamic scholars, recorded that there are about 6,781,500 Hui in China predominately following the Orthodox form of Islam mainly adhering to the Hanafi Madh'hab. But, there are a large amount of Muslims who are Sufi groups. Ma Tong told that, Muslim in China has about 21% Yihewani group, 10.9% Jahriyya group, 7.2% Khuffiya group, 1.4% Qadariyya group, and 0.7% Kubrawiyya group. 

Chinese Muslims and the Hajj

From 1401 to 1433, the famous admiral Zheng He and his Muslim crews had made the journey to Mecca and performed the Hajj during one of the former's voyages to the western ocean. After this, a lot of other Muslims in China also made several times of Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca during posterior years.

Briefly during the Cultural Revolution, Chinese Muslims were not allowed to attend the Hajj, and only did so through Pakistan, but this policy was reversed in 1979. Chinese Muslims now attend the Hajj in large numbers, typically in organized groups, with a record 10,700 Chinese Muslim pilgrims from all over the country making the Hajj in 2007.

Muslim in Yunnan:

The Hui Nationality had very first lived in Yunnan since the Tang Dynasty; and at that time, they had built mosques. A large number of the Hui people moved into Yunnan during the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. During the early Qing Dynasty, Yunnan has nearly 800000 Hui population, becoming China second largest Hui ethnic community after northwest region of China. According to the sixthcensus statistics in 2010, Yunnan province has 698265 Hui population, which are distributed around the whole province.

The Shuncheng Street in Yunnan Kunming has been the first business street of Old Kunming since the early Ming Dynasty. All the Muslim restaurants and snacks are concentrated here; this street is really a Muslim flavor snack street in Kunming.

Yunnan province has more than 820 mosques. The famous ones are Kunming Nancheng Mosque, Kunming Shuncheng Street Mosque, GeJjiu Shadian Great Mosque, Tonghai Najiaying Mosque, etc...

Shadian is a famous hui ethnic community in Yunnan. The full name of Shadian is Yunnan Honghe Hani Yi Autonomous Prefecture Gejiu City Shadian District. It is the hometown of Muhammad Ma Jian and Lin Song, who are China's famous Islamic scholars and Arabic translators. ShaDian is located in the northern suburb of Gejiu City; about 12 kilometers away from the city. The new Shadian Great Mosque, built in 2010 is located on the side of Shadian Gongnong Bridge. It can accommodate 10000 people's worship; it is the largest mosque in southwest China.