As Mosque Education developed, a comparatively completeeducational system and a unified teaching method were graduallyworked out. In its initial period, Mosque Education was not classified into higher or primary learning. It operated just as a private school did. It was conducted in mosques and Muslims invited an Imam to teach Islamic scriptures and religious knowledge to foster Islamic professionals. As it became more and more popular, and required by actual needs, Mosque Education developed towards specialization with the separation of higher learning from primary learning, and was classified into three levels: college, secondary school and primary school. College level was specialized to educate new Imam. The students at this level were called Khalifah or Manla. They were taught Arabic, Persian, Islamic Laws, doctrine, Qur"anic annotation and literature in a systematic way. Colleges were set up in large or medium-size mosques. The teachers of college were specially invited Imams, who were respectfully called Jingshi (master of scriptures), Mingjing (one who masters scriptures), Akhund (Imam), or Usta (sir)? Secondary school level was a transitional link of Mosque Education. Generally secondary school level did not exist independently; it was either attached to primary school as its higher class or to college as its elementary class. Primary school level was the initial period of Mosque Education where Muslims could acquire basic Islamic knowledge. The main taskof primary school was to teach Arabic letters, al-Kalimah al Tayibah (Testimony), Du"as used in daily prayers, and also teach how to perform and receive ablution, prayer and fast, and allow students to learn and recite Khatam (selected verses from the Holy Qur"an)? There were no textbooks for primary school level, and it was taught by way of oral teaching. Of all the three levels of Mosque Education, the primary level was the most popular. In some places such as Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai, the primary Mosque Education was taken as compulsory. It was a duty of every parent to send their school-age children to primary school to receive basic Islamic education. The popularization of the primary level of Mosque Education was of great importance to the spread and development of Islam in China. In the past several hundred years, it was one of the major reasons why the Huis and other Muslim peoples could adhere to their Islamic faith.
In the early period of Mosque Education, it was compulsory for the students to transcribe the textbooks and the scriptures that the teachers used. It not only guaranteed Mosque Education to move forward smoothly, but also promoted the development of the Huis‘ Islamic calligraphy art, which developed into a unique branch of traditional calligraphic art in China.
Mosque Education was conducted in the unique language of Jingtang Yu (Yu means language. Mosque Education is called Jingtang Education in Chinese, so the language it uses is called Jingtang Yu)? Jingtang Yu is a special expression that organizes Chinese, Arabic and Persian words and phrases in Chinese grammar. It is a special language with unique characteristics that was created by the Chinese Islamic scholars in specific historical and cultural circumstances to develop Islam in China, which is still in use in Mosque Education today.
The rise of Mosque Education gave the Huis and other Muslim peoples a systematic Islamic educational system and made Islam stride forwards towards a systemized and theorized religion. It was also the first popularization of Islamic scriptures, doctrine and thoughts, marking the beginning of the profound combination and extensive exchange of Sino-Arab cultures. Mosque Education brought up a great number of capable persons who devoted themselves into Islamic cause and education, fostered many well-known Islamic scholars, and put an end to the history that Islam was passed onto the next generation only by the elder generation"s oral instruction. It initiated the movement of translating and writing scriptures in Chinese, and changed the situation that the Muslims in China were short of Chinese versionsof Islamic scriptures and the true spirit of Islam could not be rightly interpreted. It brought the mosque"s educational function into play in addition to its religious function. Mosque Education also helped to strengthen the contacts and exchanges among JiaoFangs, especially among the Islamic intellectuals, and enhanced the Islamic consciousness of other Muslims and improved their religious conduct.
The main centers of Mosque Education were Shaanxi, Shandong and Yunnan. Nanjing was one of the centers of Mosque Education as well, and it is here that the movement of translating and writing scriptures in Chinese was initiated.