The Han Kitab Authors 121
scholars. That is, this is not a collection of randomly produced
texts. Behind the Han Kitab corpus stands a complex network of
scholars who interacted intensely in a variety of ways. In short,
behind it stands a school. Authors knew one another and read and
commented on the work of other members of the school. More-
over, certain authors had master-disciple relationships, shared the
same classroom, or were related to each other. Just like other Chi-
nese intellectuals, Han Kitab authors spoke not as individuals but
as members of an established and recognizable intellectual com-
munity. Even the small number of Han Kitab authors who were
officials in the Chinese administration maintained contacts with
the Chinese Islamic scholarly community. These scholar-officials
visited the Muslim educational centers or wrote commentaries on
works produced by other Han Kitab authors.
Another sign that these scholars formed a school is the growing
production and use of bibliographies during the eighteenth century,
particularly in Jiangnan. Bibliographies played an important role in
the coalescence of and proliferation of schools. This was also the
case with the Chinese Muslim scholarly community and its appara-
tus. I discuss one eighteenth-century Chinese Muslim bibliography
at some length below; for present purposes what is significant is that
in the 1700 s bibliographies and catalogues were produced in num-
bers greater than ever before in Chinese history and were closely
connected to an extensive book-based culture. Moreover, scholars
of the period stressed the importance of bibliography both as a field
of study and as a tool in the service of other fields of research.^10
Chinese Muslim scholars, like their non-Muslim Confucian
counterparts, were active producers of bibliographies, catalogues,
genealogies, anthologies, and the like. The composition of a spe-
cifically Chinese Muslim scholarly genealogy ( 1677 ) and of a bibli-
ography some hundred years later ( 1780 ) marked important steps
in the gradual consolidation of the Chinese Muslim intellectual
community, first into an educational network and then into a
school—complete with its own lineage, history, and self-perception.
Obviously, what I term the Chinese Muslim educational network
—————- See Elman, From Philosophy to Philology, pp. 160 – 63.