Chinese Islamic architecture


The Chinese Islamic architecture or the Islamic architecture in China is a term used to indicates to the architectural heritage of the Muslims in China both of mainland or outer land of China since the earliest times to the present.
Islam has been practiced in Chinese society for 1,400 years. Currently, Muslims are a minority group in China, representing between 0.45% to 1.8% of the total population according to the latest estimates. Though Hui Muslims are the most numerous group, the greatest concentration of Muslims is in Xinjiang, with a significant Uyghur population. Lesser but significant populations reside in the regions of Ningxia, Gansu and Qinghai. Of China's 55 officially recognized minority peoples, ten groups are predominantly Sunni Muslim.

Introduction of Islam 616–18 AD

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 of Prophet Muhammad : Sa`d ibn Abi Waqqas, Sayid, Wahab ibn Abu Kabcha and another Sahaba. Wahab ibn abu Kabcha may have been be a son of al-Harth ibn Abdul Uzza. It is noted in other accounts that Wahab Abu Kabcha reached Canton by sea in 629 CE.
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. Some sources date the introduction of Islam in China to 650 AD, the third sojourn of Sa`d ibn Abi Waqqas, when he was sent as an official envoy to Emperor Gaozong during Caliph Uthman's reign.
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 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".
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.
While modern historians say that there is no evidence for Waqqās himself ever coming to China, they do believe that Muslim diplomats and merchants arrived to Tang China within a few decades from the beginning of the Muslim Era. The Tang dynasty's cosmopolitan culture, with its intensive contacts with Central Asia and its significant communities of Central and Western Asian merchants resident in Chinese cities, which helped the introduction of Islam.
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". Arab people are first noted in Chinese written records, under the name Dashi in the annals of the Tang dynasty,. 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.
Arab sources claim Qutayba ibn Muslim briefly took Kashgar from China and withdrew after an agreement but modern historians entirely dismiss this claim.
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, 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.

Chinese Islamic architecture in Tang period

the earliest Chinese Islamic architecture was the Great Mosque in Xian was built in 742, and the Daxuexi Alley Mosque in Xi'an
, one of China's oldest mosques

Chinese Islamic architecture in Song-Liao Period

There are many examples of Islamic architecture during Song and Liao Dynasties; the Niujie Mosque in Beijing 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, and the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty. and the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou.

Chinese Islamic architecture in Yuan period

There are many examples of Islamic architecture during Yuan such as Beijing Dongsi Mosque which enlarged during Ming dynast, Beijing Tongzhou Mosque, Quanzhou Qingjing Mosque which has the only example of stone entrances, Hangzhou Fenghuang Mosque. This period was characterized by Islamic architectural elements such as high entrances, domes, transition zones, use of bricks and stones.

Chinese Islamic architecture in Ming period

Chinese Islamic architecture in Qing period

Gongbei

Gongbei, 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. The grave itself usually is topped with a dome.
A similar facility is known as dargah in a number of Islamic countries.
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. 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.