162 The Han Kitab Authors
gan with Zhao Can’s Genealogy ( 1670 s) and continued with the
short bibliography of Yuan Guozuo ( 1784 ). Lan was able to present
the entire collection of books as one canon with a specific name
and to count its scholars as one collective of students of a specific
Dao of learning within China. This raises key questions, however.
How could a Muslim scholar in the 1850 s use the term “Dao” when
referring to Islam so freely? How was the fact of that Dao’s non-
Chinese geographical source addressed?