The majority of academic works relating to Islam in China discuss the Hui people as a Muslim-majority ethnic group predominant in certain areas of China, however, this is an oversimplification that fails to adequately represent historical reality. Furthermore, presenting the Hui in terms of ethnic designation without a critical consideration of how that designation evolved can lead to broad misunderstandings in this topic. This thesis describes how the meaning of 'Hui' has shifted over time from designating geographic origin, to religion, to nation, and finally ethnicity and highlights important social and political causes and effects of those changes. I encourage scholars to carefully note these changes in order to be more precise about how the term 'Hui' should be interpreted in various historical contexts.