160 The Han Kitab Authors
is the earliest instance in print of the term Han Kitab used as the
collective title for Chinese Islamic books produced in the previous
two centuries. The Han Kitab, according to Lan, was the knowl-
edge produced by Huiru 回儒, Muslim scholars of the Dao. The
purpose of his zhengxue, or orthodox learning, was to establish the
correct genealogy of the Dao. In his introduction and throughout
the entire book, Lan referred to the Han Kitab as jingdian 經典,
“the canon.” Lan explained that the first scholar of the Han Kitab
had been Wang Daiyu of Nanjing and then went on to mention all
the titles of books and their authors in the Kitab. In short, Lan’s
text was not radically different in purpose from many documents
of this genre in the Neo-Confucian tradition.^109 He was seeking to
establish the truth or the “orthodox learning.” The text resembled
Neo-Confucian genealogies of knowledge even in form. It first
volume began with a table entitled “Tianfang Daotong tu” 天方道
統圖 (Diagram of the transmission of the Dao of Tianfang), chart-
ing the transmission of the Islamic Dao from Adam, its first figure,
to Muhammad, its culmination.^110 The table looks exactly like the
Daotong charts that appear in Confucian texts,^111 and in this sense
it makes the simple visual argument that the Dao of Tianfang is a
Dao of learning transmitted all the way from (mythical) antiquity
to the (scholarly) present.
Z
The scholars and teachers who stood behind the Han Kitab were
both products of and contributors to the Chinese Muslim educa-
tional system. Chinese Muslim scholarship was not the result of in-
dividual and isolated activity; rather, it was the external manifesta-
tion of Chinese Muslim literati identity. Chinese Muslim teachers,
students, grammarians, writers, translators, editors, bibliographers,
publishers, and patrons were bound together as a constituency at-
—————
109. On the uses of this genre in the Confucian context, see Wilson, Genealogy
of Way, pp. 177 – 96.
110. Lan, Tianfang zhengxue, 1 : 5.
111. See, e.g., Wilson, Genealogy of Way, pp. 262 – 63. In this instance the chart
begins with Fuxi and ends with Wang Yangming.