CHAPTER 26 The Implicit Dialogue of Confucian Muslims William Chittick and Sachiko Murata [ists as Bred in cine for we ovr thomsend rare, nang ter neage NV Jback to an emissary sent by Muhammad to t2e emzeror. The first bistoricel records of a Muslim pressace date back to about 20 years cfr iMuhammad’s écath, vith a mission that arvvod at the court in 651. Tisirians have found no concsete caidence of dislogue between fuslims and Confucian: before the soveatsenth century, ‘whem diuslims begun writing about thelr religioa in Chinese, By the end of the nine- teenth contuxy ther hed published several iauadred books and treatises in that language, and this itera.ur= provides ample evideres thal they were sagagud in @ constant dialogue with Confucianism, evea if tis sexna to have iaken place largely ‘wighin their own books. Lite evidence bas appeared tat the Confucian scholarly clite ‘wal motice of the sla writings The Chinese Islamic litxreture has sometimes been called by the Lybrid word Han Kitib (Han Qabu £23555, the Chinose bocks. The authors have been called the Huira (7, the afuslim lumatl, becouse they uiliced terms and concepts that reflected She neo-Confacian eynthesis brought about by scholars of tte Sony Dynasty Itisperhaps not without relevance that Zi (2. 12C0), tne most famous ofthe Song scholars, was 8 conterapocery of the greatest of te Muslim synthesacr bn al-Arabt (@. 1240), The intedeciual visions o” both masters play ruajor roles ia shaping tho lira workdview. ‘The saoversent to express Islamic teechings tn Chinose goes back co the =ld- sixtsenth cantory, when 2 groap of scholars decid (9 add the Chinese classes to Ur» traditloral Idamic canon, In his study of the hisry of tus sckool of thought, Zv1 ‘Ben-Dor Bente (2005: chapter 1) explains that tu Dengehou 448 8%, wito dd toward the end of the sixtsenth e=ntury, undertook to estabish a now curriculum thet woalk Import Chinese loarning in addition fo the usual Areble and Persian. Having under~ stood thot Muslims were beconiiag ever mor: ignocani. of thsit own religion, he saw ‘no other wey forthe ulama to transmit ldamic lexening io monolingus! Cininese. Yhe ne Vey la Soman wa Peer Row Daa, Pos ken, Re) by Ceanese Goris 22013 etm Whey & Sons, Le. Pale 2015 ky Joh "Wer & Soe, Lh“TE WALETT LOOUE OF CONRIGAN INS 439 first majorliterery {rut of this movement appeared in 1642 with a book by Wang Daya 35%, who taught in Nanjing and died ix Beijing. Called The Red Commentary on the True Teaching (Zhengflao 2henquan *€ 2.2%), itcovers the mala theoresical and practice) ‘teachings of islam in a dhoroughly Confucian idiom. Benite has argued convincingiy ‘thet Wang Daiya and olher Fuira sary no contradiciien. between their Islamic and Confucian learning. Aske writes, “Chinese Muslim scholarly identity, while dlalagically constricted, zwas one'xy which these scholars understond temse!ves as simultaneously ‘Chinese end ifuslin” (Bente 2005: 13). ‘The Islamic Backy “Wen 80 years of the publication of Wang Datyu’s book, Muslim scholars transleted four Persian books on islamic thought. As far ¢3 we know, no other Muslim tects of =nelortheologicasignifcance were translated into Chinesebefoe the twentieth century. ‘The flr. became the racst popular source for Isizmic teacilngs in Chia down into ‘aodlrn times. The odiginal Persian, called he Path of the Servers from the Crigit tothe [Return (irs al-thad ra enc?" lta’), wes written by Najm el-Din Razi 3256), a Sui toacher of Kubraw! lineage from the city of Rayy (or: the outskirts of rmedera Tehran). At 550 pages itis longer than the other three texts put together. It sven translated by Wa Zixien {5-F $6, a member of an imporiant sckolacly family trom Nanjing, with the tile The Fandanentals of the Return to the ea! (Geizken yaoio $51 280), end was published in tho oar 1670. ‘Two faciors were especially iemportent in the choice to canslate Ra's Path of the ‘Serents nto Chinese First, was recognized throughout the Persianate lands of Islam. (Grom the O'toman realms into Central Asia, tndia, and China) as one of the cleazest and most compretensive sialements of islamic teachings and practices tr cny lan- ffunge, S2cond, it highlights whet 1fuslims saw as a serious lack in Confucton thought, thet is, the refused W talk explctly about the beginning end the end, creation and cschninlogy. The standard terms “origin” and “return” io Rass title show that the overall dscassioa is fremed by the basi slamic teaching tat all manifest zeality comes ‘rom Gad and goes beck to him. ‘Ra's book is @ masterpece of eloyant nd straightforward Persian prow. By con ‘eact, the other three transla tests express the same metaphysicel viston bat with a ‘od dea of technical vocebulary. Masiim schclars probably chosothete thre. devplte tier difculy, bocaus’ ofthe help they cov! provide in foreacating a philosophical ‘isin that would rival end even surpess thet of neo-Conucianism. Tw of them were ‘varslted by an iofluential eacher named She Yunshan #8, who lourished during the soventcenta century rainly in Kaifeng (Benlte 2005: 51-54). 1a 1679, he pub- lished The Classic Searching for the Rea (Yarahenjing WX), » translation of The Fur. thest Goel (Miaggad-{aqst) by ‘Ari Sasa (2. ca, 1300). Nasa, Ike Raw, belonged tothe XKubrawi liteage of Sufsma. The boo! is a short, dcr, and sophislcated presetation cof basic sheological end cosmological teachings dravn fron the two major strands of Islamic theology and metaphystes, and indeed, thete predominept strands down: nto carly podern times. The fret of thes is heoretcal Sufism, whoee greatest teacher was460 vmusercternes ss0 ereneo raniaa Sou el"Arebi, and the second philosophy, whose most influential master aes Avicenna ‘au Sin, d, 1037). In soveral 2ersian books, of which The Furthest Goal is probably the best known, Nasaii was able to simplify aad popularize the teachings of kath cchools of thought, neither of nich is knowa for its clarity of exposition. She Yunshen also translated a much more difficult book, Rays of the Mlashes (Ashi“at elloma’ai) by ‘Abd al-Rabmaa Jémi (4. 1492), a greet poet and littcratear and the ‘most influential propagator of th teachings 2° Thn al“Arabi in the Persianate londs of slam. He gave it the title The Secret Inquisy into the Criginal Display (Zhaoytean mijue izeteit), Raye of the Flashes is a cormeatery on the Flashes, a femons book on lova ‘ay & second genevation audent of Lbn al-Arabf, Fak al-Din ‘Irdgi (@. 1289), who ‘wrote it ster listening to lectures by Sadr al-Dis Quai (@. 1274), tba al“Arabi’s ‘most prolific and inflvential stadent. ‘sei avoided the complicate? philosophical lere minology of Ton al-irebi and Qinawi and erpressed the ideas in the iraditionud imagery of love —-made famous in the West by tranclatione of the poetry of Qiinax's friend Rami (é. 1275), In his commentary, Jami chose to explain ‘Iréq’s points in the maetephysical and phllosuphical language typicel of Ibe al-‘\rabi's echool of thought, ‘The result ts a dense meditation on the Divine Realty. Jars’s approach must have rewarded careful study, for we note ket the foarth beak to be translated inio Chinese wes Gleam (Lawa't), his beautifully written. short summery of Ibn al‘isebt's meta physics and its implications for pareving the path to God. This appeaced in the yea 1724, teansleied by iit Zhi 81%, porhps the greaiest of the Huira, about whom we saillazcake shortly. If we dwell at length on these four books, it is became thetr conteat and apnroach ‘throw a good den! o/ light on the meaner in which dhe Hira were ebie to bring about ‘# harmenious marriage between Confucianism and Isla. By focusins on thereletively systematic explanetioas of islamic theory and prectice develope in the Sul treetion, they were able to overcome the monumental obstacle faced by anyone who wants to ‘express the teachings of an alien reiyion In the Chinase language, They were not so ni as to think that eonvoying Islamic t2achings in tte language of the sophisticated {intellectual tradition of China could bs wecoruplished simply Ly translating ard analyze fug the Qar‘an, even if thet text fs acknowlsdged by all Muslims as the fudation of the religion. They understood that if they ware zo transenit the book's message into a Jonguage otter then Arabic, they would need to begin by explaining its worldview, which is no means sel-evident in the hook: itself. Nor is It clarfid by the expositions of stamic law ("he Shaxiah) written by jurists (fugaha') ot the ctetemouts of the cised Cagida) wristen by theologians. Boots om Yaw and creed were written for practicing Muslims who wanted 1o be instructed in how toact:correctly and believe :ightl. Typical sts of the objects o! Leisf derived from tie Qur'zn meation God, the angels, the scrig- ‘ores, the orophets, and the Cay of rescrectfon. But witat exact'y do thes: worls mean? Every thtaking person ~ and the Qur'an frequentiy urges tts readers to reflec: on their situetioa in the world - monds to engege in @ quest to understand waat he or she beiloves. In the Qur'an and islamic thorght generally, tae semautic fields of faith (ian) and knowledge (‘im) overlap, so Muslim scholars had little eympethy for “loaps of {xtth." Eeplication of the meaning of the objects of belie? was the fesk undertaken by ‘he intelectual tradition, by which we mean the thre> broad approaches to explaining