The source of the Hui nationality was very special, and her forming process was long and complex. In her formation and development process, Islam played a very important role of tie. We can say, if there had not been the wide spreading of Islam in China, the present Hui nationality would not possibly have formed. 

The formation of a nationality for the religious reasons is truly scarce among the 56 nationalities in our country. Even for the nationalities that also believe in Islam, the situations are completely different. For the Uygur, Kazak, Kirgiz and other nationalities in Xinjiang region, the nationalities formed firstly, and then they transferred to believe in Islam. If there was no spreading of Islam, or though it was spread while was not accepted by Uygur, Kazak and other nationalities, they would still be national entities of objective reality. While the Hui nationality was not so, she formed because of the belief in Islam and the coagulating role of Islam.

Stalin said: "Nationalities are the steady communities that were formed by people in history and have common language, area and economic life and common psychological character shown with common culture." Different from other nationalities, the Hui nationality with many sources used many languages at the beginning, those from the western Asia used Persian and Arabian, those from the middle part of Asia used various languages of the Tujue language group, those inside China used Chinese or other languages, only after that, Chinese gradually became the common language used by all Huis people. In the aspect of common area, the Hui nationality has been presenting the distribution state of great scattering and small concentration since the start and formation until now, it was different for them to form large common inhabiting area. In the aspect of economic life, their economy has its own characteristics, but because of the scattering of inhabitance, no specific economic system or economic centers have developed and formed. Only the common psychological character shown with common culture, or national consciousness, plays a decisive role to the formation of national community. While this kind of national consciousness and national sense of recognition are just based on the belief in Islam. That means, the huge cohesion of Islam has integrated the people of different countries and nationalities together, and made up the Hui nationality---a new member of Chinese nation. Therefore, the national consciousness of the Hui nationality in history had thick religious color.