Muslim Groups In China

The vast majority of China's Muslims are Sunni Muslims, although a small minority are Shia.

Mosques

The style of architecture of Hui mosques varies according to their sect. The traditionalist Gedimu Hanafi Sunnis, influenced by Chinese culture, build mosques that look like Chinese temples. The reformist modernist (but originally Wahhabi-inspired) Yihewani build their mosques to look like Middle Eastern Arab-style mosques.

Hanafi Sunni Gedimu

Gedimu or Qadim is the earliest school of Islam in China. It is a Hanafi non-Sufi school of the Sunni tradition. Its supporters are centered on local mosques, which function as relatively independent units. It is numerically the largest Islamic school of thought in China and most common school of Islam among the Hui. Since the introduction of Islam, first during the Tang dynasty in China, it continued to the Ming dynasty with no splits. At the end of the Ming and early Qing dynasty Sufism was introduced to China.

Its members were sometimes extremely hostile to Sufis, Ikhwanis, and Wahhabis, like the Sufi Jahriyya and Yihewani. They engaged in fights and brawls against Sufis and Wahhabis.

Shafi'i Sunnis

Early European explorers speculated that T'ung-kan (Dungans, i.e. Hui, called "Chinese Mohammedan") in Xinjiang originated from Khorezmians who were transported to China by the Mongols, and that they were descended from a mixture of Chinese, Iranians, and Turkic peoples. They also reported that the T'ung-kan were Shafi'ites, which the Khorezmians were also.

Sufi groups

Islamic scholar Ma Tong attempted to calculate Hui membership in Islamic orders and estimated that of the 6,781,500 Hui in China in the late 1980s, 58.2% were Gedimu, 21% Yihewani, 10.9% Jahriyya, 7.2% Khufiyya, 1.4% Qadiriyya, and 0.7% Kubrawiyya. Yang Huaizhong also estimated the proportion of the mosques in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Province and estimated that they were predominantly Sufi. Out of 2132 mosques, he estimated 560 belonged to the Yihewanis, 560 to the Khufiyya, 464 to the Jahriyyas, 415 to the Gedimu and 133 to the Qadiriyya.

Sufi Kubrawiyya

Kubrawiyya (in Chinese Kuburenye/Kubulinye) was a Sufi sect which is claimed to have arrived in China during the Ming dynasty; evidence shows that they existed since the reign of the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing dynasty. A descendent of Muhammad, Muhuyindeni, went to China, reaching the Dawantou village in Dongxiang around Linxia. The village was entirely composed of Han Chinese surnamed Zhang, all of the same clan. He converted several Zhangs in Yinwa to Islam, to his Sufi menhuan in Dawantou, while in Yangwa the Zhang family people did not convert and continued to practice their traditional Chinese religion. All the Han Zhangs and the Hui Zhangs, being of the same family, celebrated New Year together up to 1949.

Sufi Khafiya

Ma Laichi established the Hua Si school (''menhuan'') – the core of the Khufiyya (خفيه; 虎夫耶) movement in Chinese Islam. The name of the movement – a Chinese form of the Arabic "Khafiyya", i.e. "the silent ones" – refers to its adherents' emphasis on silent dhikr (invocation of God's name). The Khufiyya teachings were characterized by stronger participation in the society, as well as veneration of saints and seeking inspiration at their tombs.

Ma Laichi spent 32 years spreading his teaching among the Muslim Hui and Salar people in Gansu and Qinghai.

The Khuffiya is a Naqshabandi Sufi order.

Khuffiya Sufis were sometimes hostile to the Ikhwan and other Sufis like the Jahriyya and the Xidaotang, engaging in deadly brawls and fights against them. Its members also called the Xidaotang founder, Ma Qixi, an infidel.

Sufi Jahriyya

Jahriyya (جهرية; 哲赫林耶) is a menhuan (Sufi order) in China. Founded in the 1760s by Ma Mingxin