The Han Kitab Authors 137
his most immediate colleagues. As we have seen, however, Chinese
Islamic scholarly knowledge was characterized by the widespread
dissemination of texts of all kinds and an emphasis on the trans-
mission of textual knowledge across generations. In this context,
Wang’s texts came ultimately to provide a model for many others
working in the system. Wang’s scholarship is also characteristic of
Chinese Muslim textual production in general. Just as Wu Zixian’s
translations grew out of a collective body of individuals (his
brother, his sons, and his colleagues), Wang’s scholarship also arose
out of a collective setting. His students and colleagues were its
most immediate contributors, but later teachers and writers used
and added to his principles.
In terms of understanding the ways in which Chinese Muslim
scholarship grew out of an entire intellectual environment, another
important writer is Ma Zhu, a native of Baoshan 保山, Yunnan,
and the author of the important Qingzhen zhinan ( 1680 ). This book
reveals much about the culture of writing in the Chinese Islamic
educational network and the extent to which it had developed
since the publication of the first translations and books by mem-
bers of the educational network.
Ma Zhu’s career was markedly different from Wang’s, as were
the ways in which he was connected to the network. He is repre-
sentative of a group of authors who, although they passed through
the examination system and even served as officials, maintained
close ties to the Chinese Muslim educational apparatus. Ma Zhu’s
work reflects both aspects of his intellectual development.
Ma Zhu was a descendant of the great Sayyid (a title reserved for
the descendants of the Prophet) Saidianchi Shansiding Wuma’er
賽典赤贍思丁烏馬兒)—Sayyid Ajall Shams al-Din Omar—who set-
tled in Yunnan during the Yuan. (Ma Zhu repeatedly claimed that
he was the Sayyid’s fifteenth-generation descendant.)^51 He was
born to a family of minor gentry; his father, Ma Shikong 馬師孔,
was a first-degree holder and worked as teacher in a school training
examination candidates in the Confucian classics. Ma Zhu became
—————
51. The main source of detail about Ma Zhu’s life is a long, well-written
chronological autobiography; see Ma Zhu, “Yusufu zhuan” 郁速馥傳 (Autobiog-
raphy of Yusuf), in QZZN, pp. 28 – 33.