Rebuilt many times over its history, it is traditionally thought to have been originally built over 1,300 years ago,[6] which would make it one of the oldest mosques in the world.

[4] Although this meant the "Plain Pagoda" in reference to its unadorned surface,[8] it is also sometimes taken to mean "lighthouse" and gave the mosque its alternate name.

Old Chinese Muslim manuscripts say the mosque was built in 627 by Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, a Companion of the Prophet who supposedly came on to China in the 620s.

[9] Although modern secular scholars do not find any historical evidence that Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas actually visited China,[10] they agree that the first Muslims must have arrived to China within the 7th century,[10] and that the major trade centers, such as Guangzhou, Quanzhou, and Yangzhou, probably already had their first mosques built during the Tang dynasty, even though no reliable sources attesting to their actual existence has been found so far.

If Vakkâs had been an envoy [from the Arabs to China], the great Hadith scholars would have recorded it ... because some of them would have understood that anything that happened in the era of our Prophet Muhammad would have to be written down, without ignoring the slightest detail.