This book documents an Islamic-Confucian school of scholarship that flourished, mostly in the Yangzi Delta, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Drawing on previously unstudied materials, it reconstructs the network of Muslim scholars responsible for the creation and circulation of a large corpus of Chinese Islamic written material--the so-called Han Kitab. Against the backdrop of the rise of the Manchu Qing dynasty, The Dao of Muhammad shows how the creation of this corpus, and of the scholarly network that supported it, arose in a context of intense dialogue between Muslim scholars, their Confucian social context, and China's imperial rulers.

Overturning the idea that participation in Confucian culture necessitated the obliteration of all other identities, this book offers insight into the world of a group of scholars who felt that their study of the Islamic classics constituted a rightful "school" within the Confucian intellectual landscape. These men were not the first Muslims to master the Chinese Classics. But they were the first to express themselves specifically as Chinese Muslims and to generate foundation myths that made sense of their place both within Islam and within Chinese culture.

Contents
 
 
 
 
 
 Tables, Figures, and Illustrations xi
 Abbreviations xiii
 Introduction 1
 Chinese Islam and Shifting Paradigms in
 the Qing Period 5/
 Simultaneity and "Diasporicity" in
 Chinese Muslim Literati
 Identity 12
1 The Islamic Educational Network 21
 The Urban Context of Eastern
 China 21/ Networks of
 Learning 24/ Clients and
 Constituents 29/ Genealogy
 and Learning 30/ The Nature of the
 Network 35/ Key
 Teachers in the
 Network 38/ Analysis 57/ Who Were
 the Constituents of the Network? 62
2Self-Perception and Identity Among the
 Scholarly Constituency 72
 The Significance of the Starting
 Point 74/ The Scholar
 as a Rescuer/Preserver of
 Knowledge 82/ The Teacher-
 Scholar and His Powers of
 Learning 88/ Geographical
 Location and the Transmission of
 Knowledge 97/ The
 Muslim Scholar as Chinese
 Literatus 100/ Genealogy and
 Chinese Muslim Literati Identity 106
3The Han Kitab Authors and the Chinese
 Islamic School 115
 The Rise of the Chinese Islamic
 School 119/ Providing
 Access to Foreign Knowledge: Translators
 and Translations 125/ Original Authors:
 Wang Daiyu, Ma Zhu, and Liu Zhi 134/
 Liu Zhi: The Culmination of
 Authorship 144/ Bibliography
 and Textual Consolidation 153
4Muhammad and His Dao: Knowledge and
 Identity in
 the Han Kitab 163
 Muhammad, the Chinese Sage 171/ Chinese
 Muslim
 Scholarship as the Study of Muhammad's
 Dao 181/ The
 Dao of Islam and Chinese Muslim
 Scholarly Identity 194/
 Teaching Chinese Muslims About Their
 Origins 200
 Conclusion: Dialogue in Action 214
 Appendix
 Appendix 239
 Reference Matter
 Bibliography 249
 Index 271