The Han Kitab Authors 127
working. Translations were also an important tool in reinforcing
the internal cohesion of the educational system, as well as curricu-
lar standardization, since their availability meant that all the mem-
bers of the system used one recognized and legitimate version of
each text. Such standardization was necessary not only for “ideo-
logical” reasons but also for the simple reason that it facilitated
communication among scholars from different areas, a point made
clear through an examination of specific translators.^20
One of the first translators involved in the rise of the Han Kitab
was Zhang Junshi 長君時 (ca. 1584 – 1661 ), who also appears under
his style name, Zhang Zhong 張中, and is known among Chinese
Muslims as Hanshan sou 寒山叟 (Elder of Hanshan). Zhang was a
native of Suzhou and studied in Nanjing in the school of Zhang
Shaoshan, who had migrated from Xi’an. Zhang Junshi is listed in
Zhao Can’s Genealogy as one of Zhang Shaoshan’s disciples; next
to his name and place of origin, Zhao noted that he “translated the
Guizhen zongyi and other books” 張君時蘇州府人氏譯歸真總義
等書 (JXCP, p. 41 ). Among Zhang’s classmates in Nanjing we find
four figures who would later become prominent within the educa-
tional network: Chang Yunhua and Li Yanling, founders of Jining
school in Shandong, Ma Junshi of Nanjing (himself an author), and
Yuan Shengzhi, founder of the Yuan school in Nanjing.
In 1638 , while studying in Nanjing, Zhang met an Indian Muslim
(Sufi) scholar, who appears in the Genealogy as Ashike 阿世喀 and
was already known among other Chinese Muslim students as a well-
read person. Zhang wrote a detailed description of his relationship
with the Indian teacher, commenting even on his “strange” foreign
physical appearance: “big nose, big eyes, high forehead, long beard—
his facial and general appearance were very strange, and all the peo-
ple said that he was a Buddhist monk” 觀其儀表隆准眼高額長髯雄
奇魁偉人僉曰此胡僧也. He continues, “Only Master Zhang
Shaoshan of Lintong recognized him and said: ‘This is a scholar
—————
20. An example of standardization is the case of the Mirsad al-’ibad (see below).
Zhao’s Genealogy contains several references to this book by different titles. Ap-
parently different teachers (such as Ma Minglong, who produced his own transla-
tion of the book under a different title [JXCP, p. 44 ]) had their own translations
of this text. After its translation by Wu Zixian, however, all references in later
Chinese Islamic texts use the title he gave the book.