First Contact with China
Pre-Hijra
Even before the message of Islam came to East Asia, the Arabs and Chinese had done trade before. They would trade on China's South Coast. Primarily many of the Chinese were either Buddhist, Hindus or Confucius. Since China was known for its highly advanced society many Arabs would want to learn knowledge from there.
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The Message
At the time of Uthman (RA), he sent an envoy to China.The envoy was a group of Muslims accompanied and lead by Saad ibn Abi Waqqas who was the maternal uncle of the Prophet in 616. When the Chinese emperor named Gaozong received them he actually became proud to have a relationship with the Muslim Empire. He actually let them build a Masjid in honor of the prophet Muhammad called the Hui Shen Mosque. Some historians say that the father of Saad which is Abi Waqqas is actually buried there. So Muslims were visiting China very early on for trade because the Chinese wanted to trade with the Muslims and the Muslims wanted to trade with the Chinese.
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Saad actually visited Guangzhou, later known as Canton which was one of the largest cities in the world, even till today. Trade was a large part of the Chinese culture even till today.
The Spread of islam
Guangzhou had four really big masajid (mosques) from the early on. For 300-400 years the Muslims didn’t have a profound impact on China dawah (Islam spreading) wise. Not until the year 1000 a new dynasty took over called the Song dynasty. Once they took over they started to put the Muslims in charge of their affairs. In fact the law of the dynasty was that a Muslim had to hold the position of trade, because the Muslims were the key to trade. Since the beginning the emperors welcomed Muslim openly to their land. So during this time they invited 5,500 Muslim from Bukhara (modern day Uzbekistan) to settle in North Beijing. He knew that the Muslims were very noble warriors and that most of the Chinese wouldn’t stay loyal, which is why the dynasties were changing so quickly. Just North of Beijing close to the Korean peninsula, there was an empire known as the Lao empire, which was threatening the Song dynasty. For this reason they put a Muslim in charge. The Muslims were lead by a man called Ameer who toke a Chinese name “Sou Fei Er” but in Arabic he was known as Ameer. Even until today the Muslims in China call him the father of Islam because he was the first one to actually settle in China by the emperor.
But when they started to mix in with the largest group known as the Han They became known as the Hui. In Chinese they used to call Islam “Da Shi Fa” which meant “The law of the Arabs”. But Ameer wasn’t pleased with this name because he was of Persian decent. So Ameer insisted they change the name to “Hui Hui Fou” which meant “the religion of the Hui” the word Hui by default meant Muslim. So the name of the religion was actually changed.
But when they started to mix in with the largest group known as the Han They became known as the Hui. In Chinese they used to call Islam “Da Shi Fa” which meant “The law of the Arabs”. But Ameer wasn’t pleased with this name because he was of Persian decent. So Ameer insisted they change the name to “Hui Hui Fou” which meant “the religion of the Hui” the word Hui by default meant Muslim. So the name of the religion was actually changed.