The Han Kitab Authors 149
will be confined to one corner and will not become the common
learning of the world.”^78
Liu’s second book, written in Hangzhou, is the Tianfang dianli
天方典禮 (literally “Laws and rituals of Islam,” but more simply
“The institutions of Islam”). Published sometime after 1703 , the
work deals with Islamic law and ritual and is a compilation of por-
tions of several different Persian and Arabic works in translation.
Liu tells us in the introduction that it is a “reworking, expansion,
and investigation of Islamic law” based on a book written on the
same topic by his father.^79
Most significant for our current purposes is that the work, like
the Tianfang xingli before it, shows the high level of interaction be-
tween Liu and the broader scholarly community, Muslim and non-
Muslim, that surrounded him. It also was patterned after literary
forms and methods popular in his day, in this case the “evidential”
(kaozheng 考證) trend in scholarship.^80 The work is structured like
an encyclopedia: each precept is presented and explained; this is
followed by a section entitled kaozheng, which explains the roots
and origins of the specific ritual in question using earlier Islamic
sources. The methodology—and the terminology—were those used
by other (Confucian) kaozheng scholars. Liu’s effort to deploy
kaozheng methods is seen most clearly in a short treatise on the
origins of the Arabic alphabet, Tianfang zimu jieyi 天方字母解義
(Explication of the meaning of Arabic letters), in which he pre-
sented the supposedly “ancient” form of Arabic letters alongside
their modern version.^81
After finishing the Dianli, Liu took his works to Beijing and
tried, like Ma Zhu some twenty years before him, to introduce
them to the court. Although he failed to gain the court’s interest,
he managed to engage in a dialogue with several non-Muslim offi-
—————
78. Liu Zhi, “Zixu” (Author’s introduction), Tianfang xingli, 1 a.
79. According to the introduction Liu wrote for the Tianfang dianli, his father
translated a book about Islamic ritual and law, the Tianfang lifa 天方禮法, which
was the basis for his work; see ibid.
80. See Elman, From Philosophy to Philology, p. 99.
81. Liu Zhi, Tianfang zimu jieyi 天方字母解義 (Explication of the origin of the
Arabic characters), published in Nanjing ca. 1706.