Du Shuzhen, also known as Aminah, was born in 1924 in Kaifeng, Henan, China. She began studying Islam at the age of eight, when she entered her local women’s mosque with the intention to become a scholar. When her mother passed away during her childhood, she moved in her aunt before marrying a fellow Muslim scholar at the age of 15. She followed her husband to Shanxi but when he passed away two years later, she returned to Kaifeng, continuing her studies in the mosque in hopes of becoming an imam, an idea not well received by her family. Du continued her studies in Persian, working with the help of a female imam. She began studying the Qur’an in Arabic with the help of her uncle and family friend who were imams in Shangai and Henan. In 1949, she became an imam at the Shifu Mosque in Zhengzhou and devoting her time to working in mosques across China. When the Cultural Revolution in China began, she sought refuge in the East Mosque in her hometown. In 1981, Du was appointed as the senior Islamic teacher at the Beida Street Women’s Mosque in Zhengzhou and two years later, she became a lifelong imam at the mosque. She became the first woman in Henan to perform the Hajj in 1992 when she travelled to Mecca, making the pilgrimage three more times in 1994, 1999, and 2005. She spent her life training other female imams and to day, she has trained more than 70 female imams across China.