The Han Kitab Authors 129
李之華, recent converts to Islam who did not understand Arabic
or Persian. Wanting them to have access to the Chahr fassl, “which
was not in the language of China” 非中國之語, Zhang translated
the book for them.^26 In both cases, as with other works Zhang
translated, he was in fact translating not just from one language to
another but also from one form (orality) to another (the written
word). Zhang’s Indian interlocutor, Ashike, read the original
works aloud to him, providing commentary on the text as he did,
and Zhang later (ostensibly from memory) committed them to pa-
per in a Chinese version.^27 In addition to his numerous translations,
Zhang was also the author of an original work, the Kelimo 克里默,
which is a short explication of the meaning of kalām, or Islamic
“theology.” In this work, too, Zhang operated as a translator, cit-
ing key terms in Arabic (in transliterated from) and then translat-
ing and explaining them.^28
Immediately on their publication in the 1640 s, Zhang’s works
were widely circulated throughout the Chinese Muslim educa-
tional system and were cited by later authors. They have since re-
mained central works within the Han Kitab. Zhang’s works and
Zhang himself as scholar illustrate one of the central dynamics of
the Chinese educational system: it produced scholars who in turn
produced scholarship and was dedicated to a simultaneous trans-
mission and expansion of a body of knowledge that came through
transmission and expansion to be not simply Muslim but distinctly
Chinese Muslim. This “Chinese Muslim-ness” came to be the uni-
fying principle, or philosophic outlook, that ultimately bound to-
gether all Chinese Muslim scholars as a school.
The most important and intriguing translator of the period flour-
ished three decades later. This was Wu Xizian 伍子先 (ca. 1598 –
1678 ), who also appears under his style name, Wu Zunqie 伍遵契, of
—————
26. Zhang Zhong, “Xu Sipian yaodao yijie” 敘四篇要道譯解 (Introduction to
the translation of the Four Chapters), HRZ (Qingdai), p. 315. See also the story in
Tazaka, Chūgoku ni okeru Kaikyō, p. 1370.
27. The term koushou (verbal instruction or dictation) is used in both Zhang’s
and Sha’s texts to describe the way in which the translations were undertaken.
28. For the complete text. see HRZ (Qingdai), pp. 213 – 22 ; for a short introduc-
tion, see ibid., pp. 210 – 12.