The vast majority of China's Muslims are Sunni Muslims, although a small minority are Shia.
Muslims are a minority group in China, representing 1.6 to 2 percent of the total population (21-28 million people) according to various estimates. Though Hui Muslims are the most numerous group, the greatest concentration of Muslims are in Xinjiang, which contains a significant Uyghur population.
The Uyghurs of Xinjiang are Sunni Muslims. Large numbers of Han (ethnic Chinese) began moving into Xinjiang after the establishment of the autonomous region in the 1950s. The influx became especially pronounced after 1990, and by the late 20th century the Han constituted two-fifths of Xinjiang's total population.
穆斯林 [mùsīlín] {noun} Muslim (also: Moslem)
Islamic influence came from the various steppe peoples who assimilated into the predominant Han-Chinese culture. Muslims who were transferred to China from Persia and Central Asia to administer the empire served as administrators, generals, and in other leadership positions.
According to Hui Muslim tradition, Sa'd came to China as an ambassador in 650 during the reign of Emperor Gaozong of Tang.
Today's China is home to a large Muslim population – around 1.6% of the total population, or around 22 million people. They are not newcomers. Islam was introduced to China by envoys from the Middle East who traveled to meet Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty in the seventh century.
During the Tang dynasty, when relations with Arabs were first established, the Chinese called the Arabs 大食 (Dàyì or Dayi).
The whole of Orthodox Christianity is named Zhèng jiào (正教). Christians in China are referred to as "Christ followers/believers" (Chinese: 基督徒; pinyin: Jīdū tú) or "Christ religion followers/believers" (Chinese: 基督教徒; pinyin: Jīdū jiào tú).
Shias comprise a majority in Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Bahrain, and a plurality in Lebanon, while Sunnis make up the majority of more than forty countries from Morocco to Indonesia.
The divide originated with a dispute over who should succeed the Prophet Muhammad as leader of the Islamic faith he introduced. Today, about 85 percent of the approximately 1.6 billion Muslims around the world are Sunni, while 15 percent are Shia, according to an estimate by the Council on Foreign Relations.
Shia Muslims believe that the Prophet publicly designated his cousin and son-in-law, Hazrat Ali (peace be upon him), as the first in a line of hereditary Imams from the Prophet's family to lead the community after him. Sunnis consider the caliphs as the immediate successors of the Prophet.
Other religions are growing but continue to make up a small proportion of the population. Hinduism has grown by 55.3 per cent to 684,002 people, or 2.7 per cent of the population. Islam has grown to 813,392 people, which is 3.2 per cent of the Australian population.
Modern growth. Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world. In 1990, 1.1 billion people were Muslims, while in 2010, 1.6 billion people were Muslims.
However, it's clear that both the Uyghurs and Huis live under an authoritarian regime that treats deviations from its cultural and ideological standards with increasing ruthlessness – a state that one Hui academic, speaking under condition of anonymity, described simply as “chauvinist.” While entire Hui communities may ...
Confucianism and Taoism (Daoism), later joined by Buddhism, constitute the "three teachings" that have shaped Chinese culture.
Taoism (also called Daoism) is a Chinese religion that developed a bit after Confucianism, around two thousand years ago. In contrast to Confucianism, Taoism is mainly concerned with the spiritual elements of life, including the nature of the universe.
China for years has allowed sales of the Bible through official channels only. Currently, among China's major religions, which include Buddhism, Taoism, Islam and folk beliefs, Christianity is the only one whose major holy text cannot be sold through normal commercial channels.
The Romans and the Greeks knew the country as 'Seres', “the land where silk comes from”. The name 'China' does not appear in print in the west until 1516 CE in Barbosa's journals narrating his travels in the east (though the Europeans had long known of China through trade via the Silk Road).
About eleven million Uyghurs—a mostly Muslim, Turkic-speaking ethnic group—live in the northwestern region of Xinjiang. The Chinese government has imprisoned more than one million people since 2017 and subjected those not detained to intense surveillance, religious restrictions, forced labor, and forced sterilizations.
Before the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the Huaxia nationality named their motherland Zhongguo, and after that, it developed into a nation of various nationalities, and was then called Zhonghua Nation (known as Chinese Nation). ZhongdenotesChina and Hua is the Huaxia nationality for short.
The Chinese government is wary of religion for several reasons. China is officially an atheist state and Communist Party members are banned from believing in or practicing any faith; there is concern that religion can function as an alternative to Communism and thus undermine loyalty to the government.
The country with the single largest population of Muslims is Indonesia in Southeast Asia, which on its own hosts 13% of the world's Muslims. Together, the Muslims in the countries of Southeast Asia constitute the world's third-largest population of Muslims.
Total population 211 million. 96 per cent Muslims (of them, 80-85 per cent Sunni, 15-20 per cent Shi'a); Christians 1.6 per cent; Hindus 1.6 per cent. Community sources put the number of Ahmadi Muslims at approximately 500,000-600,000.