132 The Han Kitab Authors
neath a tree as foretold in a dream (see Chapter 2 ). Zhao mentioned
the book frequently in the Genealogy as being taught and discussed
by a number of teachers, both before and after its translation. Of
them, She Yunshan was particularly active in introducing the book
into the curriculum. He traveled to several schools, from the Bei-
jing area in the north to the Nanjing area in the south, focusing his
teaching on the book, which in his time had not yet been trans-
lated into Chinese (JXCP, p. 90 ).^33 It is likely that his efforts were
in large part responsible for creating a wide demand for a Chinese
version of the Mirsad.
Wu, in the translator’s introduction, pointed to the need for a
Chinese translation as his primary motive in undertaking the work.
In the 1672 preface to the book, Wu wrote that after studying and
researching Islamic classics for thirty years he wanted to share
what he had gained with others: “The Most Sagely [Muhammad]
says: ‘Whatever one obtains, [one] should share with others’; so I
with great happiness decided to give one copy of a Chinese transla-
tion of the Mirsad to colleagues for public use” 至聖云凡所得者當
分於人余於侻心之下欲以米而撒得一集漢譯以公同人.^34 Here we
see a quintessential expression of the awareness of one scholar of
his own intellectual community and its needs. Wu understood
knowledge as something to be shared and viewed his job as a
scholar to be the transmission and dissemination of knowledge.
In this case, the production of knowledge was again not a soli-
tary venture. The translation of the Mirsad took Wu more than fif-
teen years and was undertaken with the assistance of his brother,
who was also a student of Ma Junshi. According to Wu’s account
in the introduction, his brother would read the book to him from
the Persian, while he translated it into Chinese and wrote it
down.^35 This scene, which reveals that the two brothers differed in
their command of both Persian and classical Chinese, illustrates
—————
33. Among other teachers who used the book are Ma Minglong, Chang Yun-
hua, and Feng Shaochuan.
34. Wu Zixian, “Yi Guizhen yaodao zixu” 譯歸真要道自敘 (Author’s preface
to the Essentials of the Return [to God]), punctuated version in HRZ (Qingdai),
p. 326.
35. Ibid., p. 327.