The Chinese word "穆斯林" is a direct phonetic transliteration of the foreign term "Muslim". It was formed by selecting characters whose modern Mandarin pronunciations (Mù sī lín) closely approximate the sounds of the source word, with the chosen characters carrying generally neutral or vaguely positive meanings (like "temple" and "forest") that are secondary to their primary function of representing sound. This is a standard method in Chinese for importing and naturalizing foreign concepts, particularly names and religious terms.