The Han Kitab Authors 143
title mingjing 明經 to their names. As noted above, during the
Qing this was an unofficial way of designated a gongsheng 貢生—
that is, a student who had been admitted as a nominee to the local
Confucian schools but still had to pass the metropolitan examina-
tions before he qualified for office.
The use of such familiar titles underscores the “Chineseness”
implied by the list’s heading: “Greetings [from] Throughout the
Country.” The titles, standard ones among the Confucian intellec-
tual elite, are unselfconsciously deployed by these Muslim scholars
to describe themselves and their place within their own, implicitly
parallel, network of learning.
In addition to the list of greetings, the first volume of the Guide
included another important source for understanding the scholarly
network undergirding it. This was a formal preface by Ma Cheng-
yin, the son of the Muslim general-turned-rebel Ma Xiong. Ma
Chengyin wrote his preface in 1681 , two years before the publica-
tion of the book. By way of opening, Ma Chengyin, a patron and
the son of a patron of Islamic scholarship, stated that the Guide
was the most important book to be published in China since the
works of Wang Daiyu.^66 He went to say that the Guide ought to be
regarded as a continuation of Wang’s book.^67 Ma Chengyin’s im-
plication is clear: Chinese Muslim literary works are not the prod-
uct and sole possession of one specific author but instead are com-
ponents of a growing body of knowledge. Different scholars across
space and time engage with this body of knowledge, comment on
it, and, in the most distinguished cases (like that of the Guide), add
to it substantively.
This vision of scholarship as growing out of a distinct, unitary
community is corroborated by the inclusion in the preface of a list
of eleven Muslim scholars, all identified by Ma Chengyin as Huiru
回儒 (Chinese Muslim scholars).^68 The list includes the names of
eminent Chinese Muslim teachers and scholars of the time, along
with their places of residence. All the names also appear in Zhao’s
—————
66. Ma Chengyin, “Zhinan xu” 搘南敘 (Preface to the Guide). In QZZN,
pp. 6 – 7.
67. Ibid., p. 6.
68. Ibid., pp. 6 – 7.