The Han Kitab Authors 133
what was possibly a common feature among Chinese Muslim gen-
try families—one brother seeking success as an examination candi-
date, while the other attended the local Muslim school.
In addition to his brother, Wu’s two sons and two of his col-
leagues contributed prefaces to the translation. The Mirsad in Wu’s
version was taught until the early twentieth century in Chinese
Muslim schools.^36 Thus the work, initially a quasi-canonical classic
in the Islamic world, passed, through translation, into the quasi-
canonical corpus of literature central to the Chinese Muslim educa-
tional system, the Han Kitab.
An examination of the dates of Islamic translations into Chinese
shows that a relatively large number of other translators were ac-
tive in the latter half of the seventeenth century.^37 This burgeoning
interest in translation is reflective of several things. The first is the
expansion, in sheer number of participants, of the Chinese Muslim
educational network. Second is the fact that Chinese-Muslim schol-
arship in the period, clearly, was becoming less specifically western
(that is, accessible only to specialists with advanced knowledge of
Persian and Arabic). The educational system by this point included
a number of people with at best minimal knowledge of Arabic.
This development can be seen in the difference between Zhang
Junshi’s translation and those of Wu and other later scholars.
Whereas Zhang was dependent on a foreign teacher, Wu and oth-
ers made use only of local, Chinese resources. That all these later
translators were either disciples or associates of Chang Yunhua
(who placed great emphasis on learning Islamic languages, com-
posed two grammar books, and compiled a Persian-Arabic-Chinese
dictionary) may account for their ability to work without the as-
sistance of “informants” such as Ashike.
—————
36. Pang, “Zhongguo Huijiao siyuan jiaoyu,” pp. 1028 – 29.
37. See Leslie, Islamic Literature in Chinese. See also Yu Zhengui and Yang
Huaizhong, Zhongguo Yisilan wenxian zhuyi tiyao.