130 The Han Kitab Authors
Nanjing, the translator of two major Persian Sufi works.^29 Wu, a
member of the important Wu lineage of Nanjing, was a fairly suc-
cessful examination candidate and earned the initial degree of xiu-
cai 秀才 (licentiate). Shortly after the Qing conquest in 1644 , which
apparently put an end to his career as an examination candidate, he
embarked on his second career as an Islamic scholar. Wu first stud-
ied with Chang Yunhua and Li Yanling in Jining, where he spent
several years (JXCP, p. 55 ). He then returned to Nanjing and stud-
ied with Ma Jinyi (JXCP, p. 97 ). All three teachers, along with Wu
himself, are listed in Zhao’s Genealogy.
Sometime around 1660 Wu began working on his translation of a
book that greatly influenced the writings of later Chinese Muslim
writers. Known in the educational system as Mi’ersa de 米尒撒德, or
by its Chinese title, Guizhen yaodao 歸真要道 (Fundamentals of the
return [to God]), the book had already been in circulation in the
system in its original Persian for several decades.^30 This was the Mir-
sad al-’Ibad min al-mabda ila al-ma’ad (The path of God’s bondsmen
from origin to return), a well-known Sufi text in the Islamic world.
The Mirsad was written in the early thirteenth century by Abu Bakr
Najm al-Din Daya Razi, a Sufi master simply known as Daya. Daya
was one of the masters of the Central Asian Kobravi (Kubrawiyya)
Sufi order, and his book is a massive compendium of Sufi precepts
and rituals, all directed toward reaching a state of communion with
God (the “return to God” mentioned in its title). To this day the
book is among the most influential of Sufi texts.^31
—————
29. The date of death must be questioned, particularly since there is no men-
tion of Wu in any Chinese Islamic text after 1680.
30. It seems, although I am not certain on this point, that Wu’s was the first
translation of the Mirsad into any language. It was first translated into English less
than twenty years ago. The Kobrawiyya Sufi order was founded by Najm al-Din
Kobra (born ca. 1145 – 46 in the city of Khorizm; died in 1221 during the Mongol
conquest of the city). The order spread into Central Asia fairly early on and per-
sisted and flourished there until the seventeenth century and later. The order’s
texts emphasized the visionary experience of those who take the Sufi path and the
morphology of man’s inner being. See Algar, “Introduction,” in idem, The Path of
God’s Bondsmen, pp. 2 – 4.
31. Ibid., pp. 1 – 25. The author of the book, Daya, also completed an Arabic
version. An Arabic manuscript of the Mirsad was found in Gansu by the French
mission to China led by Ollone; see Leslie, Islamic Literature in Chinese, p. 28. In