Source: Based on Wikipedia’s post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By No machine-readable author provided. Mr. Tickle assumed (based on copyright claims). – Own work assumed, CC BY-SA 3.0, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=287038<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Origins (Tang dynasty, 7th\u201310th century)<\/strong> Song dynasty (960\u20131279)<\/strong> Yuan dynasty (Mongol rule, 1271\u20131368)<\/strong>
Chinese Muslim tradition holds that Islam arrived through an embassy sent by the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, around 651 CE \u2014 supposedly led by Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqas, a companion and relative of Muhammad, who was received by Emperor Gaozong and credited with founding the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou, China’s first mosque. An older legend even claims companions of Muhammad reached China by sea as early as 615\u2013617 CE. Modern historians doubt Waqqas himself ever visited, but agree Muslim traders and diplomats were active in Tang China within decades of Islam’s founding. Cosmopolitan Tang cities hosted growing communities of Arab and Persian merchants (called “Ta shi,” from the Persian word for Arabs), who arrived via the Silk Road and the port of Quanzhou. Persian immigrants brought polo, cuisine, musical instruments, and medical knowledge. Political contact was sometimes military: Tang and Umayyad forces clashed over Central Asian territory in 715\u2013717, and the famous Battle of Talas (751) pitted Tang China against the Abbasids \u2014 yet relations improved afterward, with an Abbasid mission from Caliph Harun al-Rashid later reaching the Tang capital Chang’an.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Muslim merchants came to dominate China’s foreign trade. In 1070, Emperor Shenzong invited thousands of Muslims from Bukhara to settle as a buffer against the Liao empire, and later waves of Arab settlers followed. Their leader, “So-fei-er,” is remembered as a founding father of China’s Muslim community and reportedly renamed the faith “Huihui Jiao.” Chinese medical texts of this era even incorporated material from Ibn Sina’s Canon of Medicine<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was arguably the high point of Muslim influence. The Mongols favored foreigners \u2014 including Muslim Persians and Arabs \u2014 over native Han Chinese for administrative posts; historical sources note that 8 of 12 provincial governors under Kublai Khan were Muslim. Muslim scholars and craftsmen made lasting contributions: the astronomer Jamal ad-Din supplied Persian instruments, and the architect Yeheidie’erding helped design the Yuan capital, Dadu (modern Beijing). The Muslim trader Pu Shougeng even helped the Mongols conquer the last Song holdouts in the south. However, later Yuan rule also brought persecution \u2014 halal slaughter and circumcision were banned, and Genghis Khan reportedly branded Muslims and Jews as “slaves.” Resentment culminated in the mid-14th century Ispah Rebellion in Fujian, after which local Han backlash devastated the Muslim community there. Toward the dynasty’s end, Muslim generals joined Han rebels to help overthrow the Mongols.<\/p>\n\n\n\n