ethnic Chams living particularly in the provinces of Ninh Thuận and Bình Thuận. The Bani community numbered around 64,000 and 407 clerics (2006), is organized by the Bani Religious Leaders Council. The Sunni community has a wider in term of ethnicity (Cham, Viet, Malay, Khmer, Chinese, and Arab). Their population in 2006 was 25,000; mostly inhabiting in the southwest of the Mekong Delta, along with urban areas such as Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City. However, there are esoteric non-orthodox Islamic beliefs in the Mekong Delta which are regarded as mê tín (superstitions). Cham researcher Dohamide conjectures these non-Islamic beliefs among the Mekong Delta Cham as Sufism. He believes that some fragments of the Mekong Delta Cham communities may be perhaps strongly influenced by Sufi orders. Official representation The Ho Chi Minh City Muslim Representative Committee was founded in 1991 with seven members; a similar body was formed in An Giang Province in 2004. Cultural appreciation Though the Muslim community counted only just 1% of Vietnamese population as a whole and has been suffering under communist oppression, the Vietnamese regard the Muslim community with a favorable opinion due to its tolerance approach. It's notable that religious worshipping locations, whenever located, can be found easily and get less harassment despite the communist's atheist policy. Ho Chi Minh City already has five major mosques and a Muslim district. The Cham Muslim Identity in the Mekong Delta There are two main groups of Chams practicing the Islamic faith in Vietnam: one in Central Vietnam in the Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan provinces corresponding to the territories of the ancient Champa kingdom, commonly referred to as the Cham Bani, and another in the southern Mekong Delta, with the latter population being around 64,000. The Cham Muslims of the Mekong Delta reside around the area of Châu Đốc in An Giang Province close to the Cambodian border, and also in Ho Chi Minh City and the provinces of Đồng Nai and Tây Ninh, practicing the Sunni Muslim faith. The Cham Muslims in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta assert their identity as unconfined by national boundaries, but self-identified as an ethnic community with an emphasis on Islam which enables them to transcend geographical boundaries and establish ties with co-religionists across borders. They are seen to engage in a cosmopolitan livelihood largely dependent on trade with extensive extra-local networks that transcends national boundaries. A comprehensive study done on this