'This book is a captivating narrative of four hundred years of Islamic intellectual history in China. Vivid portraits of Muslim thinkers and luminous studies of complex writings lead the reader into a world of discussions, where the Prophet speaks Chinese while ideograms interpret concepts imported from the Middle East.'
Alexandre Papas, National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris
Tells the stories of Chinese Muslims trying to create coherent lives at the intersection of two potentially conflicting cultures
How can people belong simultaneously to two cultures, originating in two different places and expressed in two different languages, without alienating themselves from either? Muslims have lived in the Chinese culture area for 1,400 years and the intellectuals among them have long wrestled with this problem. Unlike Persian, Turkish, Urdu or Malay, the Chinese language never adopted vocabulary from Arabic to enable a precise understanding of Islam's religious and philosophical foundations. Islam thus had to be translated into Chinese, which lacks words and arguments to justify monotheism, exclusivity and other features of this Middle Eastern religion. Even in the twenty-first century, Muslims who are culturally Chinese must still defend their devotion to a single God, avoidance of pork and their communities' distinctiveness - among other things - to sceptical non-Muslim neighbours and an increasingly intrusive state.
The essays in this collection narrate the continuing translations and adaptations of Islam and Muslims in Chinese culture and society through the writings of Sino-Muslim intellectuals. Progressing chronologically and interlocking thematically, they help the reader develop a coherent understanding of the intellectual issues at stake.
Jonathan Lipman taught East Asian history at Mount Holyoke College, 1977-2015. His books include Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China (1997) and, with Barbara Molony and Michael Robinson, Modern East Asia: An Integrated History (2011).
Cover images: © Shutterstock.com. Calligraphy, ink on paper by Imam Haji Abdul Hakim, used with the kind permission of its owner Asad Reza. The image was provided by gallery 6, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Cover design: Stuart Dalziel
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ISBN 978-1-4744-0227-9
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Jonathan N. Lipman is Felicia Gressitt Bock Professor Emeritus of Asian Studies and Professor Emeritus of History at Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts. His research focuses on Islam and Muslims in China since the 17th century, including religious, social, political, and economic themes. Jonathan is author (with Barbara Molony and Michael Robinson) of Modern East Asia: An Integrated History (2011), Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China (1998), (with K.W. Masalski and A. Chalk), Imperial Japan: Expansion and War (1995), and co-editor (with G. Hershatter, E. Honig, and R. Stross) of Remapping China: Fissures in Historical Terrain (1995) and (with S. Harrell) of Violence in Chinese Society: Studies in Culture and Counterculture (State University of New York Press, 1990).

Editor's Introduction: Four Centuries of Islamic Thought in Chinese; Jonathan Lipman; Part I: The Qing Empire (1636-1912); Chapter 1. A Proper Place for God: Ma Zhu's Chinese Islamic Cosmogenesis, Jonathan Lipman; Chapter 2. Liu Zhi: The Great Integrator of Chinese Islamic Thought, James D. Frankel; Chapter 3. Tianfang Sanzijing: Exchanges and Changes in China's Reception of Islamic Law, Roberta Tontini; Chapter 4. The Multiple Meanings of Pilgrimage in Sino-Islamic Thought, Kristian Petersen; Part II: Modern China; Chapter 5. Ethnicity or Religion? Republican-Era Chinese Debates on Islam and Muslims, Wlodzimierz Cieciura; Chapter 6. Selective Learning from the Middle East: The Case of Sino-Muslim Students at al-Azhar University, Yufeng Mao; Chapter 7. Secularization and Modernization of Islam in China: Educational Reform, Japanese Occupation, and the Disappearance of Persian Learning, Masumi Matsumoto; Chapter 8. Between 'Abd al-Wahhab and Liu Zhi: Chinese Muslim Intellectuals at the Turn of the 21st Century, Leila Chérif-Chebbi; Bibliography; Glossary of East Asian Names; Glossary of East Asian Terms; List of Contributors.