{{short description|Philosophical treatise on Islam by Ma Zhu}} {{Infobox book |name = Qingzhen Zhinan |title_orig = {{noitalic|{{lang|zh-Hant|清真指南}}}} |translator = |image = |caption = |author = |illustrator = |cover_artist = |country = [[China]] ([[Qing dynasty]]) |language = [[Chinese language|Chinese]] |series = |genre = |release_date = 1683 |english_release_date = |media_type = Print |pages = }} {{Infobox Chinese|c=清真指南|p=Qīngzhēn Zhǐnán|w=Ch'ing-chen Chih-nan}}
'''''Qingzhen Zhinan''''' ({{lang|zh|清真指南}}),{{Efn|Translated into English as ''The Compass of Islam''<ref name=newlines270721>{{cite news|url=https://newlinesmag.com/essays/the-rich-history-of-chinas-islam/|date=27 July 2021|first=Kristian|last=Petersen|newspaper=Newlines Magazine|title=The Rich History of China’s Islam}}</ref> or ''The Guide to Islam''.{{Sfn|Böwering|2012|p=10}}}} also known as '''''al-Murshid ilā ‘Ulūm al-Islām''''',{{Efn|Translated into English as ''The Guide to the Sciences of Islam.''{{Sfn|Wain|2016|p=34}}<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nst.com.my/opinion/letters/2018/09/411469/chinas-forgotten-legacy-islam|newspaper=New Straits Times|title=China's forgotten legacy of Islam|date=15 September 2018|author=Muhammad Syafiq Borhannuddin}}</ref>}} is a philosophical treatise on [[Islam]] written by Chinese [[Hanafi]]-[[Maturidi]] scholar [[Ma Zhu]] and first published in 1683. It later became part of the ''[[Han Kitab]]'', a collection of Chinese Islamic texts written in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.
==Contents== {{Maturidism}} {{Quote|Dragons can soar, tigers can bite, bulls can gore, horses can kick, cocks can rouse, dogs can guard, apes can climb, rats can burrow, silkworms can spin, spiders can make a web, ants can form ranks, bees can make honey—their forms are different, so too their special abilities; their diets vary, as do their voices. These are analogous to artisans making tools. Though their forms and collection are dissimilar—the square and round, horizontal and vertical, small and large, long and short—each is appropriate to its function. We can see the subtle working of their use and know the craftsman's remarkable skill. No one, gazing on the craftsman's uncanny skill, could possibly call it the thing's own inherent nature. Why do bells not give birth to bells? Why do drums not give birth to drums? Can a wooden horse whinny, or a stone cow low?|source=Ma Zhu invoking the [[watchmaker analogy]].{{Sfn|Lipman|2016|pp=26–27}}}}
The preface written by Ma himself has the earliest recorded use of the term ''huiru'' ({{lang|zh|回儒}}) in reference to "Confucian Muslim" scholars.{{Sfn|Petersen|2014|p=343}} The work also contains some two dozen "ceremonial prefaces and dedications",{{Sfn|Frankel|2010|p=10}} including a poem by [[Liu Zhi (scholar)|Liu Zhi]]{{'s}} father.{{Sfn|Lipman|2011|p=81}} The main work comprises eight volumes that cover topics as [[orthopraxy]] and [[orthodoxy]],{{Sfn|Lipman|2011|p=80}} the [[history of Islam]], [[Islamic cosmology]], and [[Sharia]].{{Sfn|Jin|2017|p=68}} Ma Zhu argues that Islam is superior to Confucianism,{{Sfn|Tsai|2020|p=24}} and devotes an entire volume to denouncing the "[[heterodoxy|heterodox]]" [[Sufism|Sufi]]s who had gained a following in his native [[Yunnan]]: he writes that their teachings and practices both violated Sharia and Confucianism and recommends "official persecution" of them.{{Sfn|Lipman|2011|p=81}}
==Publication history== Wishing to spread the message of Islam across China and to be officially recognised as a ''[[sayyid]]'' by the [[Kangxi Emperor]], Ma Zhu completed the earliest manuscript of ''Qingzhen Zhinan'' in 1683.{{Sfn|Thomas|Chesworth|2018|p=641}} He went about China afterwards, meeting notable ''[[ahong]]'' and Islamic scholars to gather feedback on his book. The work underwent several revisions, with the final edition being published in 1710.{{Sfn|Lipman|2011|p=80}} According to Yuan-lin Tsai, ''Qingzhen Zhinan'' is "the first comprehensive introductory work to Islam in Chinese".{{Sfn|Tsai|2020|p=24}} It was later collected in the ''[[Han Kitab]]'', a collection of Chinese Islamic texts written in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.{{Sfn|Lipman|2011|p=80}}
==Reception== ''Qingzhen Zhinan'' was praised by Chinese Muslims and "became probably the single most respected of the many works written by Chinese Muslim scholars",{{Sfn|Böwering|2012|p=10}} but received a "less enthusiastic response" by contemporaneous Confucian thinkers who were "conservative and somewhat xenophobic".{{Sfn|Stewart|2018|p=479}} According to Jonathan Lipman, writing in his 2016 book ''Islamic Thought in China'', ''Qingzhen Zhinan'' was "unsuccessful in persuading non-Muslims of God’s cosmogenetic power" but "remains popular among Sino-Muslims, who combine Chinese and Islamic cultures in their intellectual and religious lives."{{Sfn|Lipman|2016|p=29}} Yuan-lin Tsai accused Ma of bias, while stating that his work was "much less philosophical" than that of [[Wang Daiyu]] and failed to make a "substantive contribution to the comparative discourse of Islam and Confucianism".{{Sfn|Tsai|2020|p=24}} According to scholar Kristian Petersen, Ma's "monumental" work was part of an effort that "set the stage for an important restyling of Islamic education and scholarship within the Chinese context."<ref name=newlines270721/>
==Notes== {{Wikisourcelang|zh|清真指南}} {{Notelist}}
==References== ===Citations=== {{Reflist|20em}}
===Bibliography=== {{refbegin}} * {{cite journal|first=Gerhard|last=Böwering|title=Preliminary Observations on Islamic Ethics in the Chinese Context|year=2012|volume=5|number=2|journal=Journal of International Business Ethics|url=http://americanscholarspress.us/journals/JIBE/pdf/JIBE-2-2012/v5n212-art1.pdf}} * {{cite journal|title=Review: Being What We Read: Perennialism in Chinese Islamic Studies|first=James D.|last=Frankel|publisher=[[University of Hawai'i Press]]|journal=China Review International|year=2010|volume=17|number=1|pages=8–12|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23734345}} * {{cite book|title=Islam|first=Yijiu|last=Jin|isbn=9789047428008|publisher=Brill|year=2017}} * {{cite book|title=Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China|first=Jonathan|last=Lipman|publisher=[[University of Washington Press]]|year=2011|isbn=9780295800554}} * {{cite book|title=Islamic Thought in China: Sino-Muslim Intellectual Evolution from the 17th to the 21st Century|first=Jonathan|last=Lipman|publisher=[[Edinburgh University Press]]|year=2016|isbn=9781474402286}} * {{cite journal|title=Shifts in Sino-Islamic Discourse: Modelling religious authority through language and travel|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|journal=Modern Asian Studies|first=Kristen|last=Petersen|pages=340–369|year=2014|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24494583}} * {{cite journal|title=Islamic Thought in China: Sino-Muslim Intellectual Evolution from the 17th–21st Century Edited by Jonathan Lipman (Review)|first=Alexander|last=Stewart|date=1 September 2018|journal=[[Journal of Islamic Studies]]|volume=29|number=3|url=https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/islamic-thought-in-china-sino-muslim-intellectual-evolution-from-the-o5JTIbX70A?|url-access=subscription|pages=478–482}} * {{cite book|first1=David|last1=Thomas|first2=John A.|last2=Chesworth|title=Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History. Volume 12 Asia, Africa and the Americas (1700-1800)|publisher=Brill|year=2018|isbn=9789004384163}} * {{cite book|chapter=Ma Zhu's ''Qingzhen Zhinan''|title=Intellectual History of Key Concepts|year=2020|editor1-first=Gregory Adam|editor1-last=Scott|editor2-first=Stefania|editor2-last=Travagnin|isbn=9783110547825|first=Yuan-lin|last=Tsai|publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG}} * {{cite journal|title=Islam in China: The Hān Kitāb Tradition in the Writings of Wang Daiyu, Ma Zhu and Liu Zhi: With a Note on Their Relevance for Contemporary Islam|journal=Islam and Civilisational Renewal|volume=7|year=2016|first=Alexander|last=Wain|doi=10.12816/0027166|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/307529770_Islam_in_China_The_Han_Kitab_Tradition_in_the_Writings_of_Wang_Daiyu_Ma_Zhu_and_Liu_Zhi_With_a_Note_on_Their_Relevance_for_Contemporary_Islam|hdl=10023/23961|hdl-access=free}} {{refend}}
[[Category:1683 non-fiction books]] [[Category:1683 in China]] [[Category:17th-century Islam]] [[Category:17th-century manuscripts]] [[Category:1710 non-fiction books]] [[Category:Islamic texts]] [[Category:Qing dynasty literature]] [[Category:Treatises]] [[Category:Books about Islam]] [[Category:Kangxi Emperor]]