Chinese Islamic architecture

The Huaisheng Mosque's construction is attributed to the Prophet Muhammad's second cousin, Sa`d ibn Abi Waqqas.

According to Chinese Muslims' traditional legendary accounts, Islam was first introduced to China in 616–18 AD by Sahaba (companions) of Prophet Muhammad : Sa`d ibn Abi Waqqas, Sayid, Wahab ibn Abu Kabcha and another Sahaba.[8] Wahab ibn abu Kabcha (Wahb abi Kabcha) may have been be a son of al-Harth ibn Abdul Uzza (also known as Abu Kabsha).[9] It is noted in other accounts that Wahab Abu Kabcha reached Canton by sea in 629 CE.[10]

Sa`ad ibn Abi Waqqas, along with three Sahabas, namely Suhayla Abuarja, Uwais al-Qarani, and Hassan ibn Thabit, returned to China from Arabia in 637 by the Yunan-Manipur-Chittagong route, then reached Arabia by sea.[11] Some sources date the introduction of Islam in China to 650 AD, the third sojourn of Sa`d ibn Abi Waqqas,[12] when he was sent as an official envoy to Emperor Gaozong during Caliph Uthman's reign.[13]

The History of Islam in China goes back to the earliest years of Islam. According to China Muslims' traditional legendary accounts, eighteen years after Muhammad's death, the third Caliph of Islam, Uthman ibn Affan sent a delegation led by Sa`d ibn Abi Waqqas, the maternal uncle of Muhammad, to the Chinese Gaozong Emperor.

Hamada Hagras in which he recorded that "Chinese historical sources indicate that the Chinese had not heard about Islam only in 639 A.D., according to the old Book of Tang Jiu Tangshu the Emperor Taizong (626‐649) received an embassy from the last Sassanid rulers Yazdegerd III asking for help against the invading Arab armies of his country. however, the emperor avoid to help him".[14][15]

According to Chinese Muslims' traditional legendary accounts, Islam was first brought to China by an embassy sent by Uthman, the third Caliph, in 651, less than twenty years after the death of prophet Muhammad. The embassy was led by Sa`d ibn Abī Waqqās, the maternal uncle of the prophet himself. Emperor Gaozong, the Tang emperor who received the envoy then ordered the construction of the Memorial mosque in Canton, the first mosque in the country, in memory of the prophet.[16]

While modern historians say that there is no evidence for Waqqās himself ever coming to China,[16] they do believe that Muslim diplomats and merchants arrived to Tang China within a few decades from the beginning of the Muslim Era.[16] The Tang dynasty's cosmopolitan culture, with its intensive contacts with Central Asia and its significant communities of (originally non-Muslim) Central and Western Asian merchants resident in Chinese cities, which helped the introduction of Islam.[16]

Hamada Hagras in which he reported that "Islam arrived China during Tang era in 651, during summer of the second year of the era of Emperor Gaozong; in that year was the first Arab embassy to the court of the Tang Dynasty, This is the first direct contact between the Chinese and the Arabs".[14][15] Arab people are first noted in Chinese written records, under the name Dashi in the annals of the Tang dynasty (618–907), (Tashi or Dashi is the Chinese rendering of Tazi—the name the Persian people used for the Arabs).[17] Records dating from 713 speak of the arrival of a Dashi ambassador. The first major Muslim settlements in China consisted of Arab and Persian merchants.[18]

Arab sources claim Qutayba ibn Muslim briefly took Kashgar from China and withdrew after an agreement[19] but modern historians entirely dismiss this claim.[20][21][22]

The Arab Umayyad Caliphate in 715 AD desposed Ikhshid, the king the Fergana Valley, and installed a new king Alutar on the throne. The deposed king fled to Kucha (seat of Anxi Protectorate), and sought Chinese intervention. The Chinese sent 10,000 troops under Zhang Xiaosong to Ferghana. He defeated Alutar and the Arab occupation force at Namangan and reinstalled Ikhshid on the throne.[23]

The Minaret of the Daxuexi Alley Mosque[24]

the earliest Chinese Islamic architecture was the Great Mosque in Xian was built in 742 (according to an engraving on a stone tablet inside), and the Daxuexi Alley Mosque in Xi'an (According to the inscription of the emperor Jiajing of Ming Dynasty; the mosque was built in 705)[15][25]

The Great Mosque of Xi'an, one of China's oldest mosques

There are many examples of Islamic architecture during Song and Liao Dynasties; the Niujie Mosque in Beijing (simplified Chinese: 牛街礼拜寺; traditional Chinese: 牛街禮拜寺; pinyin: Niújiē lǐbàisì; Wade–Giles: Niu-chieh Li-pai-ssu "Oxen Street House of Worship" or Chinese: 牛街清真寺; pinyin: 'Niújiē Qīngzhēnsì'; Wade–Giles: Niu-chieh Ch'ing-chen-ssu "Oxen Street Mosque") is the oldest mosque in Beijing, China. It was first built in 996 during the Liao Dynasty and was reconstructed as well as enlarged under the Cheng Hua Emperor of the Ming dynasty who granted the mosque financial support in 1474,[25] and the Kangxi Emperor (r. 1661–1722) of the Qing Dynasty.[26] and the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou.[27]

There are many examples of Islamic architecture during Yuan such as Beijing Dongsi Mosque (北京东四清真寺) which enlarged during Ming dynast,[25] Beijing Tongzhou Mosque ((北京通州清真寺), Quanzhou Qingjing Mosque ((泉州清净寺) which has the only example of stone entrances, Hangzhou Fenghuang Mosque (州风凰寺).[15] This period was characterized by Islamic architectural elements such as high entrances, domes, transition zones, use of bricks and stones.[28][15]

Gongbei (Chinese: 拱北; pinyin: Gǒngběi; from Arabic: قُبّة‎ (qubba),[29] Persian: گنبد‎ gonbad,[29] meaning "dome", "cupola"), is a term used by the Hui people in Northwest China for an Islamic shrine complex centered on a grave of a Sufi master, typically the founder of a menhuan (a Chinese Sufi sect, or a "saintly lineage"). The grave itself usually is topped with a dome.[29][30]

A similar facility is known as dargah in a number of Islamic countries.

Linxia-City-Heyantou-Gongbe

Between 1958 and 1966, many Sufi tombs in Ningxia and throughout northwestern China in general, were destroyed, viewed by the authorities as relics of the old "feudal" order and symbols of the criticized religion, as well as for practical reasons ("wasting valuable farmland"). Once the freedom of religion became recognized once again in the 1980s, and much of the land reverted to the control of individual farmers, destroyed gongbeis were often rebuilt once again.[31]