The Evolution of Chinese Muslim’s Classical Learning and Schools in the Ming and Qing Dynasties

Abstract

Around the middle of the Ming Dynasty, with the Chinese language becoming the mother tongue of Muslims in mainland China, the religious education of Chinese Muslims faced a dilemma. Meanwhile, a rejuvenated educational system was established by Hu Dengzhou (胡登洲) in Shaanxi during the Wanli (萬歷) period. This system, which was called Jingtang education (經堂教育) after a long time, has epoch-making significance in the history of Chinese Islamic thought. Through Hu Dengzhou’s disciples, this educational system gradually spread to North China and Jiangnan, where Shandong School and Jinling School were formed. Sufism played an important role in the two early schools’ teaching arrangements and academic activities. In the middle and late Qing periods, Shaanxi School and Yunnan School emerged one after another. Scholars of these two schools paid more attention to rational sciences represented by philosophical theology and attempted to use theological theories to explain Sufi texts. Overall, the establishment of Jingtang education was not only an urgent requirement for Muslims in mainland China to explain Islamic classics in Chinese, but also a fruitful attempt to replace official schools with private schools. The early Shandong School and Jinling School attached great importance to Sufism for two reasons: (1) Sufism became a prominent study after the 12th century, and most of the teachers of early Jingtang education had a close relationship with the Sufis. (2) These scholars live in a Chinese cultural background with Neo-Confucianism as the mainstream, and there are many commonalities between Sufism and Confucianism, which helps Muslim scholars to use Confucian terms to explain Islamic teaching. In the later period, Shaanxi School and Yunnan School turned to pay more attention to philosophical theology for two reasons: (1) In order to deal with the emergence and ideological differences of Chinese Islamic sects in the mid-Qing era. (2) This change was not unrelated to the influence of the Shixue (實學) thought trends in China, especially the Qianjia School.

1. Introduction

Islam was introduced to China through the “Silk Road” and the “Maritime Silk Road” in the seventh century. Its believers were mainly foreign Muslims in China and their descendants. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, Islamic development in China was insignificant, and the number of Muslims in China was undersized. Due to the implementation of the square-market (坊市) system at that time, these Muslims called Fanke (蕃客) only lived in demarcated areas, namely Fanfang (蕃坊), in some important cities. At the beginning of the 13th century, the western invasion of the Mongolian army broke this situation, and the people in Central Asia and West Asia were forced to be involved in the Mongolian conquest of the Southern Song Dynasty, and a large number of Muslims entered China. In addition, the trade between the new Yuan Dynasty and other Asian countries resulted in a large number of Muslims visiting China to do business and living in big cities and coastal areas. So “the people of Huihui (回回) were in all places in the Yuan period.” (Zhang 1974, p. 8598). Influenced by geographical factors, “the Huihui people’s cultural outlook shows a strong color of Persian civilization, so the language to communicate with the various ethnic groups within the Huihui people can only be Persian. Over time, the Persian language gradually replaced the original language of various Huihui people who entered China. It became the common communication language within them, as well as an important communication language for Huihui people to communicate with other social classes” (Liu 2013a, p. 142). In the Ming Dynasty, on the one hand, the rulers gave preferential treatment to Muslims, and many mosques were built at the emperor’s command. On the other hand, some assimilation measures were taken against ethnic minorities. As Ming Law (大明律) states: “Any Mongolian or Semu people (色目人) are allowed to marry Chinese people, and they are not allowed to marry their own people. Those who violate the law will be flogged 80 times, their men and women will become rulers’ slaves” (Liu 1998, p. 65). Meanwhile, the ban on maritime trade significantly inhibited the economy of the Huihui people who mainly trade overseas. As a result, the connection between Chinese Muslims and the Islamic world has also been negatively affected, followed by a decreased number of foreign Muslim scholars visiting China. Around the middle of the Ming Dynasty, “After a period of internal development, Huihui, an increasingly stable group, produced a relatively prominent ethnic cultural accumulation and gradually formed a new ethnic community” (Yu 1996, p. 136). A Chinese speaking Muslim ethnic community is called the people of Hui (回族).

The distribution of Hui Muslims presented a pattern of “large dispersion and small communities”. They form communities around mosques, known as Jiaofang (教坊) or Islamic communities. The system of three leaders called Zhangjiao (掌教) in each mosque implemented in the Yuan Dynasty continued in the Ming Dynasty. Zhangjiao were responsible for preaching the teachings to the Muslim people. These leaders were mostly hereditary, and they were supported by the government with a certificate attached to the Ministry of Rites (禮部). However, in the middle and late Ming period, this hereditary privilege gradually became an obstacle to the development of the religion. It often made Muslim teachers only enjoy its benefits and cease to care about religious knowledge. Islamic education is difficult to maintain. To make matters worse, some Zhangjiao schemed against each other, made no attempt to make progress, and “betray[ed] their religion for their own benefit” (Z. Ma 1988, p. 430). Some far-sighted personages of the Hui Muslims were deeply worried about this. As a Muslim scholar, She Yunshan (舍蘊善) said anxiously, “From the Tang Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, although some books of our religion were spread here, the ideas and purposes were hardly understood. Therefore, across generations, there were few masters were proficient in the teachings of Islam, resulting in many people being lost” (Zhao 1989, p. 1). Moreover, in the mid-Ming period, Chinese had become the native language of Muslims in mainland China. Using Chinese to explain Arabic and Persian books has become a common problem. The qualification of most Muslim teachers in interpretating the Islamic classics was far from keeping up with the needs of the times, resulting in a situation of “the lack of scriptures, the lack of scholars. Neither the translation is clear, nor the explanation is groundless” (Yu and Lei 2001, p. 513).

During the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, a rejuvenated educational system was established in Shaanxi. The key figure in establishing this network was Hu Dengzhou (1522–1597); he initiated a revolution in religious education among the Chinese-speaking Muslims and began to build a “far-flung network of educational institutions, teachers, and disciples”. Through the Jingtang education, Islam, as Benite says, “developed its own—distinctively Chinese Muslim—institutions, values, and ideals” (Benite 2005, p. 37). In addition to the research of Zvi Ben-Dor’s The Dao of Muhammad: A Cultural History of Muslims in Late Imperial China, Western missionaries and Japanese scholars have also conducted a large number of investigations and studies on the Chinese Muslims’ Jingtang education since modern times. In the middle and late 19th century, some missionaries came to North China, and they paid attention to local Islam and wrote relevant investigation articles. These investigations and studies mainly involved the lives of Muslim teachers and classical learning. In the 1930s and 1940s, Japanese scholars conducted a more in-depth investigation of the Muslim society in North China, especially The Structure of Chinese Islam Society (中国回教社会の構造) by Shinobu Iwamura (岩村忍), which listed in detail the classics used by more than 30 mosque teachers in Zhangjiakou, Datong, Hohhot and other regions at that time. On the other hand, Chinese scholars have made quite rich research achievements on Jingtang education, including conference papers, journal papers, doctoral dissertations and academic monographs. The existing research results relate to the phased history, discipline system, teaching materials and literature collation, character textual research, the language of Jingtang (經堂語), the thought of classics, Schools and the reflection on the current situation. However, there is a lack of a comprehensive grasp of the historical development of Jingtang education in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Moreover, there is very little research on the Shaanxi school and the Yunnan School in the middle and late Qing Dynasty, which is what this paper focuses on. It covers some neglected areas of research on Chinese Islamic education.

2. The Significance of Establishment of Jingtang Education

Hu Dengzhou’s courtesy name is Mingpu (明普), and his Arabic name is Ilyās (إلياس). When he was young, he received the enlightenment education of Confucianism (Yu and Lei 2001, p. 513). When he was old enough to cross the Weihe River by boat alone, he went to a Muslim teacher Gao Taishi’s house on the other side of the river to study Islamic sciences every day (Zhao 1989, p. 26). Hu must have achieved something in his studies, and he always wanted to carry forward Islamic learning. However, until the age of 50, he was still engaged in business and failed to realize his ambition to promote the learning of the classics. On his way to Beijing to do business, Hu met an envoy, also a Shaykh, from a Muslim country. When Hu saw the book Muqāmāt brought by the Shaykh, he could not put it down. The Shaykh was willing to accept Hu as a disciple and teach him this book. They agreed to meet in Beijing in half a year, because the Shaykh wanted to visit more places in China before this time. Then Hu arrived in Beijing and finished his business as soon as possible. While waiting for the Shaykh, he invited famous scholars of traditional Chinese studies to teach him The Book of Songs (詩), Shangshu (書) and Neo-Confucianism (性理之學). As he had the foundation of Confucianism since childhood, he was praised by the scholar after only 100 days of study (Zhao 1989, p. 26). By chance, he got a copy of Mugāmāt and began to read it day and night, so that he could recite the poems in it. When the Shaykh arrived in Beijing, Hu acknowledged him as a teacher and learned from him in Beijing for more than 20 days. After completing the diplomatic affairs, the Shaykh needed to return to his country, and Hu followed him. They started from Beijing, passed through Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi and Gansu, and finally separated at Jiayuguan (嘉峪關). Hu learned a lot from the Shaykh, and his knowledge of Islamic learning made great progress. There is no evidence that Hu had been to Islamic countries.

Soon after, Hu Dengzhou returned to his hometown, bought Islamic classics at a high price, studied them day and night (Zhao 1989, pp. 1–2), and finally explored a set of methods to explain and teach Islamic classics in Chinese that is accurate, plain and in line with Arab grammar. Hu integrated the teaching method of Islamic Madrasah and the mode of Chinese private academies and began to teach students at home. Among his students, Feng (馮) and Hai (海) were the most outstanding. Through them, Hu’s education model was popularized throughout the country. This education system is of great significance in the history of Islam in China.

First, this system established the status of Hanafī School as orthodoxy in Chinese Islam. One of Hu Dengzhou’s aspirations was to promote orthodox Islam in China (Yu and Lei 2001, p. 513). Specifically, it was to unify the teaching content and get rid of the ideas and practices that dodid not accord with the position of Hanafism. One of the most remarkable examples is that they replaced Lianban (連班), that is, Imam stands in the middle of the first row when prayer, with Duban (獨班),that is, Imam stand alone in the front row (Zhao 1991, p. 83). The reform was not achieved overnight, but after several generations’ efforts, the orthodox status of the Hanafi School was finally fully established in Chinese Islam.

Second, Chinese Muslims developed their own system of education, values and ideals through Hu’s education model. The primary textbooks used in Jingtang education should have been basically determined at Hu Dengzhou’s time. His selection of the textbooks was influenced by the Shaykh he met, who may have come from the Ottoman Empire, the Bukhara Khanate or the Jerkham Khanate. The latter two are more likely because the early Jingtang education curriculum was obviously influenced by the Central Asian. After the establishment of Jingtang education, the teachings and ideas of Islam began to be gradually known to the Chinese people. Therefore, “it has truly become a religion with high cultural grade and complete posture among Chinese traditional religions” (Li 2013, p. 36). Islam stepped onto the historical stage of interaction with Chinese traditional religions.

Third, Jingtang education has created a paradigm of teaching and interpreting Islamic Classics in plain Chinese, making the teaching and studying standardized and easy to imitate. Like Hu Dengzhou, many teachers of early Jingtang education had an advanced level of Chinese language and were proficient in Confucianism, which changed the situation that religious scholars could not accurately express religious ideas in Chinese. This way of oral translation of the Arabic and Persian classics laid the foundation for the emergence of Chinese Islamic works, called Han Kitab.

3. Schools of Early Jingtang Education and Their Characteristics

Schools of Jingtang education are not Schools of jurisprudence or theology, nor are they Muslim sects in China. We hold that the formation of the Schools of Jingtang education is mainly affected by two factors; one is the succession of teachings from a master to his disciples, and the other is regional characteristics. Scholars of the same school should have the same or a similar master-apprentice relationship and form their own teaching style and system within a certain region. “They are by no means theoretical schools, but just differences in habits” (Pang 2013, p. 117). It should be pointed out that these schools are only a vague division, and there are no strict boundaries. The students of Jingtang education have a tradition of Youxue (遊學); they travel to different regions to study with different teachers, resulting in interactions and integrations between regions and schools in history.

There was no school of Jingtang education in the early days. Hu Dengzhou’s most famous and accomplished students were Hai and Feng, later known as “Hai Taishi” and “Feng Taishi”. Hai, whose name is Ahamad (أحمد), was born in Weicheng (渭城) in Shaanxi. After finishing his studies, he moved to Weizhou (韋州) in Ningxia. Feng, a native of Xianning (咸寧), now in Xi’an, taught at home after completing his studies. He has six outstanding students known as “Fengmenliujun” (馮門六俊), namely his three sons and three nephews. Three of them are particularly outstanding, his sons, Feng Shaochuan (馮少川) and Feng Shaoquan (馮少泉), and his nephew Feng Bo’an (馮伯菴). These three have many students, and some of them have had great influence on future generations: (1) Zhang Shaoshan (張少山), a student of Feng Bo’an and Feng Shaochuan; (2) Ma Minglong (馬明龍), a student of Feng Bo’an and Feng Shaoquan; (3) Feng Yangwu (馮養吾), a student and son of Feng Shaochuan and Feng Shaoquan.

By the early Qing period, Jingtang Education had formed several major hubs in China. Xi’an (西安), Xianyang (咸陽), Weinan (渭南), Tongxin (同心) and Xining (西寧) in the northwest; Jining (濟寧), Beijing (北京), Zhengzhou (鄭州) and Kaifeng (開封) in the eastern region; Nanjing (南京) in the southeast; Wuchang (武昌) and Bozhou (亳州) in the central region and Menghua (蒙化) in the southwest. Shandong School and Jinling School were first formed in the two most prosperous hubs, Jining and Nanjing. The influence scope of Shandong School includes Hebei, Shandong, Henan and Northeast China. The Jinling School’s influence covers Southeast China. These two schools are closely related, because both of them originated from Zhang Shaoshan and Feng Yangwu.

3.1. Formation of Jinling School

3.1.1. Ma Zhenwu (馬真吾), “the Pioneer of Scholars in Nanjing”

Ma Zhenwu lived in Nanjing at the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty. At that time, scholars in Nanjing were greedy for comfort and were reluctant in making progress. Ma Zhenwu was so incensed by the scholars that he left his hometown and travelled north to learn from Feng Yangwu, who was eight years younger than him. Although Feng Yangwu was 18 years old, he was already a famous teacher. Feng was “brilliant and learned more than his predecessors” (Zhao 1989, p. 39), and presided over the school in the Mosque of Zhangjiawan (張家灣) in Tongzhou(通州). Ma Zhenwu acclimatized himself to the northern environment and worked diligently for six years. Then, Ma Zhenwu taught in Nanjing and was known as “the pioneer of scholars in Nanjing” (南都學者之首倡). He had many students, including Yuan Shengzhi (袁盛之), Ma Chunyi (馬純益) and Ma Jinyi (馬進益), who are all early representatives of Jinling School. Yuan Shengzhi has a son named Yuan Ruqi (袁汝琦), whose student Liu Zhi later became a master of Jinling School.

3.1.2. Zhang Shaoshan Taught at Jingjue Mosque (淨覺寺) in Nanjing

Meanwhile, Zhang Shaoshan, a renowned scholar, was invited to teach at Jingjue Mosque in Nanjing. Zhang had contacts with Confucian scholar bureaucrats and Catholic missionaries in Nanjing. He was regarded by Confucian scholars as “the top scholar”. Zhang trained many students in Nanjing, including the famous Yuan Shengzhi and Zhang Zhong. Zhang Shaoshan later returned to his second hometown, Diaogou (貂溝) in Henan, to deal with his daughter’s marriage.

3.1.3. Ma Junshi, the Rising Star

There was also a scholar named Ma Junshi in Nanjing, who studied Confucianism when young, and learned Islamic Classics when he grew up. but his Islamic knowledge was not profound. Ma Zhenwu won the respect of everyone after returning to his hometown after completing his studies in Tongzhou, outperforming Ma Junshi. The latter was a competitive person; he left Nanjing and came to Xi’an to study with Zhang Shaoshan, then followed him to Diaogou and finished his studies in five or six years. He was welcomed by Muslim men and women and the old and the young of the city when he returned to Nanjing (Zhao 1989, p. 53). Ma taught in the mosque near his home and trained prominent scholars such as Wang Daiyu (王岱舆) and Ma Zhiqi (馬之騏).

Through the teaching activities of Ma Zhenwu, Zhang Shaoshan and Ma Junshi, a stable group of scholars gradually formed in Nanjing. Most of them were familiar with Confucianism, and some even “master[ed] the knowledge of the four religions”, namely Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and Islam. They translated, wrote, and explained Islamic books in Chinese, and launched the famous movement of “connection between Islam and Confucianism”. This group of scholars shared the same academic interests in a relatively concentrated area and are called Jinling School. In fact, the translation and writing of Islamic books in Chinese is not limited to Jinling School. Scholars from the Shandong School in the same period and Yunnan School in the late Qing period also translated or wrote in Chinese. They elucidated Islamic thought in the terms and through the concepts of Chinese philosophy and carried out a profound dialogue between Islam and Confucianism.

3.2. Formation of Shandong School

3.2.1. Chang Zhimei(常志美) and Li Yanling (李延龄)

Chang Zhimei (常志美, 1610–1670), also known as Yunhua (蘊華) and Muhammad b. Hakīm, was born in Jining in Shandong. Li Yanling was his cousin. They received Confucian education at a private school in their hometown when they were young. At the age of eleven, they learned the basics of Islam and Arabic from a teacher in the local mosque. When they heard that Zhang Shaoshan was teaching in Nanjing, they decided to follow him. When they came to Nanjing, they stumbled into the Hanximen Mosque (旱西門寺), where Ma Zhenwu had just started teaching. Ma Zhenwu was elated to see them and welcomed them to study there. After a few days, they met Zhang Shaoshan, who was preparing to return to Diaogou. They had a good conversation with Zhang and agreed to go to Diaogou to follow him. As a result, they returned to their hometown to prepare their luggage and rushed to Diaogou. Chang Zhimei focused on Arabic grammar and rhetoric, while Li Yanling focused on Fiqh. After completing their studies, they lived alone in the cave of Yishan (峄山) Mountain in Zoucheng (邹城), learned from each other and returned to their hometown after skillful.

3.2.2. “The Largest School” in Early Qing Period

Chang Zhimei was only 20 years old when he returned. He was first invited to set up a school next to the East Mosque (東大寺) in Jining, and then built the West Mosque (西大寺) with the support of some township elders. In 1656, the West Mosque was expanded on a large scale, and more complete school facilities were established. The development of schools was in coincidence with the change of the Ming and Qing societies, which were in turmoil. Under such difficult conditions, they persisted for more than 40 years and trained a large number of Muslim talents. The West Mosque became the largest school of Jingtang Education in the early Qing period. Chang’s students came from Beijing, Jinan, Nanjing, Cangzhou, Zhengzhou, Xiangcheng, Bozhou, Linqing, Liaoyang and other places. “At that time, Yunhua (蘊華), Dinghuan (定寰), Junshi (君實) and Minglong (明龍) were regarded as the four greatest [Muslim] scholars in China. However, the talents nurtured by schools in Wu(吳), Chu(楚), Yan(燕) and Qin(秦) were less than half of those nurtured in Jishui (济水), there were more than 100 very successful students” (Zhao 1989, p. 58). These students of Shandong School had their own specialties; some were good at Arabic language, some were good at preaching and some were good at Sufism.

During the Qianlong period in the Qing Dynasty, Chang Jie (常傑1717–1801), another scholar also surnamed Chang in Linyi (臨邑) developed Shandong School and basically determined the curriculum system with the “Thirteen Classics” (十三本經) as the core. Soon, the center of Shandong School, known as the “The System of Double Chang” (二常學脈), gradually moved north to the Zhili (直隸) area (Feng 2018).

3.3. Textbooks and Characteristics of Early Jingtang Education

Although the textbooks used in Jingtang education vary in different times and regions according to the emphasis of different teachers, the core part should have been determined in Hu Dengzhou’s time. Otherwise, how could Hu establish the status of Hanafism? Hu had an extensive collection of Islamic books. It is unknown which textbooks he chose, in any case, Arabic morphology and grammar, the Arabic Literary Work Mugāmāt, and the books of Hanafism introduced into China at the time of Yuan and Ming Dynasties are essential. Feng Bo’an, Hu’s second-generation student, began teaching Mirsād al-’ibād written in Persian by a great Sufi Shaykh, Najm al-Dīn Rāzī (d. 1256), and Qulistān, a book written by the famous Persian poet Sa‘dī (1213–1291). In addition, Ma Minglong is best at teaching Tafsīr al-Badāwī. His explanation was so exquisite that Confucian scholars who came to visit him were fascinated (Zhao 1989, p. 46).

A large part of the teaching materials in the early Jingtang education were written in Persian, but there was no book dedicated to teaching Persian grammar, which undoubtedly brought difficulties to students in learning Persian. Therefore, Chang Zhimei was asked to write a Persian grammar book. Referring to Arabic grammar books and previous research results, Chang completed his book named Minhāj al-Talab around 1660, making him “the first scholar in the world to study Persian from a scientific perspective” (Liu 2013b, p. 387).

Around 1658, She Yunshan (舍蘊善) went to study with Chang Zhimei, and soon learned Jāmī’s Sharh Mallā’, al-Taftāzānī’s Mukhtasar al-Ma‘ānī, al-Nasafī’s Maqsad al-Aqsā, etc. Chang was pleased about this and left him as an assistant. Later, when She Yunshan presided over a school, he created his own unique teaching methods based on his predecessors:

Beginners who are talented and promising, start with Chahār Fasl, Muhimmāt al-Muslimīn, then learn half of ‘Umdah al-Islām, and then learn three kinds of al-Sarf, and al-Misbāh and Wazā’if (this book is not taught by other teachers. It is a separate subject, namely al-Mantiq, which can be used to solve the study of theology). Then learn Daw’ al-Misbāh or Tabsīr, and then learn Sharh Mallā’ al-Jāmī and Mukhtasar al-Ma‘ānī, these books are devoted to grammar and rhetoric, anyone who studies them can understand the meaning of Arabic. Then let the students learn Minhāj al-Talab in order to understand the meaning of Persian language. Hence, start over again by learning Chahār Fasl, Muhimmāt al-Muslimīn, ‘Umdah al-Islām, and Irshād, Khutab, and then Maqsad al-Aqsā, Mirsād al-’Ibād, Ashi‘‘at al-Lam‘āt, Sharh al-‘Aqā’id al-Nasafiyyah, Mugāmāt, as well as some books of Fiqh, and finally Tafsīr al-Badāwī. If a student assimilates the above knowledge, it will be as easy as splitting bamboo! Even books that are not available in China can be read with Language ability.

(Zhou 2005, p. 19)

Ma Boliang(馬伯良), another student of Chang Zhimei and Li Yanling, translated and adapted Muhimmāt al-Muslimīn in Chinese, named Jiaokuan jieyao (教款捷要). There are 14 reference books listed in the Persian original of Muhimmāt. When compiling, Ma listed another 18 books he referred to in the added content. This bibliography basically covers the books of Fiqh used in the Jingtang education in the early Qing period (See

Table 1. Bibliography in Persian Muhimmāt and Chinese Jiaokuan jieyao.

Bibliography in the Original Book of Muhimmāt

Bibliography Added in Chinese Jiaokuan jieyao

Fatāwāal-Surkhsī (فتاوى السرخسي) Muniyyah al-Musallā (منيّة المصلى) al-Hidāyah (الهداية) al-Wiqāyah (الوقاية) al-Kāfī (الكافي) al-Wāfī (الوافي) Kanz al-Daqāiq (كنز الدقائق) Khazānah al-Fiqh (خزانة الفقه) al-Muntafiq (المنتفق) al-Manzūmah (المنظومة) al-Mukhtasar (المختصر) al-Qudūrī (القدوري) al-Muhīt (المحيط) al-Tajwīd (التجويد)

Rawdah al-Musallī (روضة المصلى) Binā’ al-Islām (بناء الاسلام) al-Kifāyah (الكفاية) Majmū‘Khānī (مجموع خاني) Fawz al-Najāt (فوز النجات) ‘Umdah al-Islām (عمدة الاسلام) Fatāwā al-Saghīr (فتوى الصغير) al-Tarjimah (الترجمة) Fatāwā al-Mas‘ūdī (فتاوى المسعودي) Salāh al-Mas‘ūd (صلوة المسعود) Targhīb al-Salā (ترغيب الصلوة) al-Munaffa‘ (المنفّع) Sajdah al-Sahwah (سجدة السهوة) Zillah al-Qārī (زلة القاري) Fatāwā al-Kabīr (فتاوى الكبير) al-Yanābī (الينابي) al-Tuhfah (التحفة) Haqā’iq (حقائق)

).

By the Qianlong period, Shandong School of Jingtang education had basically formed a complete curriculum system, that is, Six Classics for primary education (小學六本經, see

Table 2. Six Classics for primary education in Shandong School.

Title	Category	Language
Daftar al-Imān (دفتر الإيمان)	Primer on Faith	Arabic and Persian
Khatm al-Qurān (ختم القرآن)	Selections on the Quran	Arabic
al-Niyat (النية)	Prayers	Arabic and Persian
Chahār Fasl (چهار فصل)	Primary Textbook	Persian
Muhimmāt al-muslimīn (مهمّمات المسلمين)	Primary Textbook	Persian
‘Umdah al-Islām (عمدة الإسلام)	Primary Textbook	Persian

) and Thirteen Classics for higher education (大學十三本經, see

Table 3. Thirteen Classics for higher education in Shandong School.

Title	Category	Language	Author
Asās al-‘Ulūm (أساس العلوم)	Arabic Morphology and Grammar	Arabic & Persian	Muhammad Hayat
Daw’ al-Misbāh (ضوء المصباح)	Arabic Grammar	Arabic	Abū al-Fattāh Nasr al-Dīn al-Mutalaqī (1143–1213)
Sharh Mallā’ al-Jāmī (شرح ملّا الجامي)	Arabic Grammar	Arabic	‘Abd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (1414–1492)
Mukhtasar al-Ma‘ānī (مختصر المعاني)	Arabic Rhetoric	Arabic	Sa‘d al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī (1322–1390)
Sharh al-‘Aqā’id al-Nasafiyyah (شرح العقائد النسفية)	Theology	Arabic	Sa‘d al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī (1322–1390)
Sharh al-Wiqāyah (شرح الوقاية)	Islamic Jurisprudence	Arabic	‘Ubad Allah (d. 1346)
Minhāj al-Talab (منهاج الطلب)	Persian Grammar	Persian	Chang Zhimei 常志美
Khutab Rasūl (رسولخطب)	Hadith Commentariesof Sufism	Persian	Ibn Wa‘d (1012–1102)
Arba‘ūn Fuqarā’ (أربعون فقراء)	Hadith Commentariesof Sufism	Persian	Husām al-Dīn
Gulistān (گلستان)	Persian Literature	Persian	‘Abd Allah Sa‘dī al-Sharāzī (1213–1291)
Mirsād al-‘Ibād (مرصاد العباد)	Sufism	Persian	Najm al-Dīn Rāzī (1177–1256)
Ashi‘‘at al-Lam‘āt (أشعّة اللمعات)	Sufism	Persian	‘Abd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (1414–1492)
Mushaf (مصحف)	Kuran	Arabic

).

In addition to the textbooks listed above, there were numerous reference books for scholars in the early Jingtang education. Liu Zhi (ca. 1660–1730), the most systematic and prolific scholar, listed a total of 65 reference books in his Tianfang xingli (天方性理) and Tianfang dianli (天方典禮), which almost included all the Islamic books that could be seen and recognized in China at that time. These books covered many fields, such as commentaries on the Kuran, jurisprudence, theology, Sufism, logic, history, astronomy and the calendar, geography, linguistics, dream interpretation and so on. Together with the textbooks of Jingtang education, these books influenced Chinese Islamic thought in the early Qing period.

It is worth noting that the Sufi books played an important role in the early Jingtang education. Sufi books account for a large proportion both in the textbooks of Jingtang education and in the bibliography of scholars. Although some of the scholars of early Jingtang education performed Sufi practice under the guidance of their Sufi teachers, they were a few after all. Most of the scholars and students did not practice with a Sufi teacher, but some theoretical Sufism and moral requirements for self-cultivation were compulsory courses in Jingtang education. It can be seen from Table 3 that more than one third of the Thirteen Classics in Shandong School were related to Sufism. Two of them were very important. Mirṣād al-‘ibād min al-mabda’ ila’l-ma‘ād is the most famous book of Rāzī, who was a disciple of Najm al-Dīn Kubrā (d. 1221), the eponymous founder of the Kubrawī Order (Murata et al. 2009, p. 11). This book was translated into Chinese Guizhen yaodao (歸真要道)by Wu Zunqi (伍遵契, ca. 1598–1678), a student of Chang Zhimei. In fact, Ma Minglong’s translation Tuiyuan zhengda (推原正達) may be earlier (Zhao 1989, p. 45), but we haven’t found it today. Ashi‘‘at al-Lam‘āt is a commentary on the Persian prose classic Lama‘āt by Fakhr al-Dīn ‘Irāqī (d. 1289), a student of Ṣadr al-Dīn Qūnawī (d. 1274). This book plays an important role in the school of Ibn al-‘Arabī. It was translated into Chinese by She Yunshan in 1679, named Zhaoyuan mijue (昭元秘诀). In addition to the above Sufi books, there are two other Sufi works that had a remarkable influence, Lawā’ih and Maqsad al-Aqsā. Jāmī’s Lawā’ih is called Zhaoweijing (昭微經) in Liu Zhi’s Tianfang Xingli, where Liu cited it eleven times. He later translated this book into Chinese Zhenjing Zhaowei (真境昭微). The author of Maqsad al-Aqsā is ‘Azīz al-Dīn al-Nasafī (d. 1300), a member of the Kubrawī line. His book, which once caused controversy in Shandong School, was translated into Chinese Yanzhenjing (研真經) by its defender, She Yunshan. The above four Persian Sufism works had a great influence on the history of Chinese Islamic thought and played a key role in the movement of “connection between Islam and Confucianism” during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Scholars from Shandong School and Jinling School studied these Sufi texts and other books, then wrote in Chinese and communicated with Confucianism, the mainstream thought in China, and produced many far-reaching works, such as Zhang Zhong’s Guizhen zongyi(歸真總義), Wang Daiyu’s Qingzhen daxue(清真大學), Mi Wanji’s Jiaokuan weilun (教款微論), Ma Zhu’s Qingzhen zhinan (清真指南), Liu Zhi’s Tianfang dainli (天方典禮) and Tianfang xingli (天方性理), etc.

4. Schools of Jingtang Education after the Mid-Qing Period and the Change of Their Focus

Although there were many famous teachers in Shaanxi and Yunnan in the early stage of Jingtang education, they did not form a group of scholars led by one or two core figures, nor a unified curriculum system, and showed no prominent regional characteristics. Therefore, they could not be called Shaanxi School and Yunnan School at that time. During the period of Jiaqing (嘉慶) and Daoguang (道光) in the Qing Dynasty, Jingtang education had a new development. It began to flourish in Shaanxi, with a considerable number of talents, soon affecting other regions, and Shaanxi School was finally formed. At the end of the Qing period, Yunnan School was born in Southwest China. There was also a lot of interaction between these two schools, and they were different from the previous Shandong School and Jinling School in curriculum and academic interest.

4.1. The Formation and Development of Shaanxi School

4.1.1. Zhou Liangjun Reinvigorated Jingtang Education

Zhou Liangjun (周良浚) was born in Jingyang (涇陽), Shaanxi, and lived around the years of Qianlong and Jiaqing of the Qing Dynasty (Bai 1992). About his early experience, we only know that he studied with a teacher surnamed Bai (擺). A recent study (Wu 2017) shows that Zhou was the eighth or ninth generation student of Hu Dengzhou, and his teachers can be traced back to the following:

Hu Dengzhou (胡登洲)→Teacher Feng (馮先生)→Feng Shaoquan (馮少泉) and Feng Bo’an(馮伯菴)→Ma Minglong (馬明龍)→Huangfu (皇甫)→Yang Cong (楊聰)→Ma Mingta (馬明塔, also known as Xiaoxining小西寧)→Akhund Di (邸阿訇)→Akhund Bai (擺阿訇)→Zhou Liangjun (周良浚)

Zhou Liangjun is the founder of Shaanxi School; he had taught at Xiaopiyuan (小皮院) Mosque for decades in Xi’an, which became the most significant center of Jingtang education at his time in China. Zhou died around 1851 and came to be called Zhou Laoye (周老爺), Master Zhou or Shaykh Zhou. Zhou’s students were distributed in Shaanxi, Gansu, Henan, Shanxi, and even North China and Xinjiang.

There are eight well-known disciples of Zhou in his early years, namely Jianchuan Ma (劍川馬), Liu Changqing (劉長清), Xi Bai (細擺), Ma Shier (馬什爾), Jia Youcai (賈有才), Hu Zhenlong (虎振龍), Beigou He(北溝赫) and Mi Zhongyi (米中一), who later studied with Liu Changqing, Jianchuan Ma and Jia Youcai (Wu 2014, p. 81). Among them, Jianchuan Ma was best at teaching Sharh al-‘Aqā’id al-Nasafiyyah, and Xi Bai was best at teaching Tafsīr al-Badāwī. According to what Pang Shiqian said, Zhou’s younger students in his later years were even more successful than those of the above eight, such as Yang Zhenlong (楊振龍), Zhang Gudong (張古東) and Ma Fuchu (馬復初). Yang Zhenlong was born in Sangpo (桑坡), Henan, known as the “Second Yang” (二楊). Through his influence, the Jingtang education in Henan began to change into Shaanxi School. As Pang Shiqian said, “In the early years, most of the mosques in Henan invited Akhunds from Shandong, such as Akhund San, Akhund Song, Akhund Hongwu, etc. Since the “Second Yang” became famous in Shaanxi and returned to Henan to run schools, the atmosphere of running education has improved, and the Islamic education in Henan has become the system of Shaanxi School” (Pang 1985). Zhang Gudong was also born in Sangpo. Later, he settled in Changzhi (長治), Shanxi, and taught there. He became an essential figure in the spread of Shaanxi School in Shanxi. Ma Fuchu later became a master who founded Yunnan School.

4.1.2. The Development of Shaanxi School after the Hui People’s Uprising in Shanxi and Gansu

In the first year of Tongzhi (1862), the Hui people’s anti-Qing uprising broke out in Shaanxi, and the fires of war broke out in all parts of the northwest China. The uprising forces include 18 battalions led by Bai Yanhu (白彥虎) and other leaders, the forces led by Ma Hualong (馬化龍), the fifth leader of Jahariyyah Sufi-Menhuan, in Jinjibu (金积堡), Ningxia, and the forces led by Ma Zhan’ao (馬占鰲) in Hezhou (河州), Ma Guiyuan (馬桂源) in Xining (西寧) and Ma Wenlu (馬文祿) in Suzhou (肅州). After the suppression of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement, these Hui revolts ended in failure one after another. More than a decade of war led to a sharp decline in the population. Taking Shaanxi as an example, before the war, there were about 1.7 million Hui people, accounting for 12.3% of the total population of the province. After the war, less than 50,000 Hui people survived in Shaanxi, with the population loss rate exceeding 91% (Lu 2003). Most of the population died of war and famine, and a small number of them migrated westward to the Pingliang (平涼), Zhangjiachuan (張家川) and Hehuang (河湟) areas. In addition, one of the post-war policies of the Qing government was Rongxi (戎徙), that is, forcing the Hui people to leave their hometown and move to new desolate areas.

After the war, some surviving scholars, who were the third or fourth generation disciples of Zhou Liangjun, such as Ma Shouqing (馬壽清), Lan Bingwen (蘭炳文), Yu Yueming (禹月明), Ma Deqing (馬德清), Guo Lianyi (郭連益), Zhi wanxuan (者萬選) and Ma Yongcheng (馬永成, known as Yaoli Ma窯里馬), became the backbone of the revival of Shaanxi School. Among them, Ma Deqing and Yaoli Ma taught in Zhangjiachuan, and the others taught in Pingliang, which became the second center of Shaanxi School. The most influential of these scholars was Ma Shouqing (1814–1902), known as Pu’er Ma (普洱馬) because he was born in Pu’er, Yunnan. His teachers include Jianchuan Ma, Xi Bai and Mi Zhongyi. Ma Shouqing had been Bai Yanhu’s military Imam and was placed in Pingliang after the war. Later, he ran schools in Gansu, Sichuan, Henan and Inner Mongolia. Ma Shouqing was not only one of the key figures in the revival of Shaanxi School after the war, but also the first scholar of Shaanxi School to write books. His first book was a diary named Zhengda Guangming (正大光明), written in Xiaojing (消經), a unique language created by Hui people to spell Chinese pronunciation with Arabic and Persian letters. In this book, he recorded his personal experience of the war in Shaanxi and Gansu. His second book was Mingli juzheng (明理居正), also known as al-Bayān al-Ma‘iyyah, a theology work on the topic of withness.

Ma Shouqing’s most famous student was Ma Liangjun (1867–1957), also known as Shantang (善堂) and Muhammad Yūsuf al-Hijrānī, who was born in Zhangjiachuan. When he was young, he studied Chinese and Islamic sciences with Ma Deqing in his hometown and became a local Imam at the age of 18. Before long, he left his hometown and came to Pingliang to study with Ma Shouqing. A few years later, when he took over the teaching chair of his teacher who was going to Sichuan, he became famous. Around the age of 40, he was invited to Xinjiang and taught successively in Hami (哈密), Changji (昌吉), Yanqi (焉耆), Ili (伊犁) and Urumqi. He became the core figure in the spread of Shaanxi School in Xinjiang. In his 20 years in Ili, more than 50 of his students presided over schools of mosques in many regions. These students trained more students, and they become the main force of the Hui people’s Jingtang education in Xinjiang. At the age of 80, Ma Liangjun was publicly elected as the religious leader of the Hui people in Xinjiang. In addition, he was the most systematic author of Shaanxi School and also one of the most prolific Chinese Muslim scholars in history. He wrote more than 30 books in Chinese, Arabic, Persian and Xiaojing (消經), covering Arabic morphology, grammar and rhetoric, Islamic theology, jurisprudence, philosophy, Sufism, astronomy and the calendar, Islamic history, geography, poetry and some letters.

4.2. Characteristics of Shaanxi School

The curriculum of Shaanxi School was different from Shandong School’s “Thirteen Classics”, which had a fixed number of textbooks and teaching order. Instead, it was divided into eight sciences known as Eight kinds of ‘Ulūm (八樣爾林) for teaching, namely word-formation (al-Sarf), grammar (al-Nahw), rhetoric (al-Balāghah), logic (al-Mantiq), jurisprudence (al-Fiqh), theology (al-Kalām), Koran commentary (al-Tafsīr) and Sufism (al-Tasawwaf). Among the first four basic sciences, logic was the characteristic of Shaanxi School, which was regarded as the basis for learning theology. A concise textbook of logic called Wazā’if was widely used; its author is unknown. According to the Arabic manuscripts that have been passed down to the present, the whole book summarizes 66 logical rules and is divided into three chapters. The first chapter (including 23 rules) deals with simple terms (Mufradāt); the second chapter (including 29 rules) deals with combinations (Murakkbāt) or propositions; the third chapter (including 14 rules) deals with definition (al-Hadd) and reasoning (Istidlāl), mainly about the syllogism. In addition, two important logic books are often used, namely Iīsāghūjī by Athīr al-Dīn al-Abharī (1200–1265) and al-Risālah al-Shamsiyyah by Najm al-Dīn al-Kātibī al-Qazwīnī (1204–1277).

Among the latter four sciences, theology and Koran commentary are the specialties of Shaanxi School. People often say that the characteristics of Shaanxi School were “specialized and elaborated” (專而精), which means that most teachers of Shaanxi School were dedicated to study these two sciences. The most influential textbook in theology is Sharh al-‘Aqā’id al-Nasafiyyah and its several commentaries. As Pang Shiqian said, “From the time when master Zhou started his educational activities to the end of the Qing period, Shaanxi School mostly engaged in theology” (Pang 2013, p. 117).

An interesting example is Wang Shouqian (王守謙), a scholar in Niujie (牛街), Beijing. His ancestors had presided over the Niujie Mosque since the Ming Dynasty. Wang went to Shandong and studied for six years when he was young, but he was yet to acquire advanced knowledge. However, he went to Shaanxi to study with Xi Bai, a student of Zhou Liangjun, and finally achieved great success. After that, he returned to Beijing and taught in some mosques. “Among the knowledge he learned in Shaanxi, the most elaborate one is al-‘Aqā’id (theology). Other sciences, such as logic and inheritance law, are also highly valued. At that time, scholars in North China had no further study in the science of al-‘Aqā’id, so Master Shou[qian] only overwhelmed these contemporaries with this skill” (Wang 1939). Wang Shouqian was good at teaching Sharh al-‘Aqā’id al-Nasafiyyah, which was unique among scholars in North China and was respected by everyone.

In some inscriptions and manuscripts of Shaanxi School, scholars with great attainments in the field of theology are often called Muhaqiq, which is rarely seen in the previous literature. This term reminds us of the philosophical theology since al-Ghazālī and Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, and scholars in this field are often called Muhaqiq. Ma Shouqing and Ma Liangjun were the representatives of this honor. In Mingli juzheng (al-Bayān al-Ma‘iyyah), Ma Shouqing studied every verse about “withness” in Guran and selected the most typical verse to elaborate, that is, “He is with you wherever you are ” (57:4). Ma Shouqing said, in the preface of the book, “The purpose of this book is to clarify and investigate the question of Withness based on that in the Koran and hadith, as well as that in Koran commentary, theology and Sufism” (S. Ma 1886, p. 1). As a student of Ma Shouqing, Ma Liangjun wrote the most works in the field of theology among Chinese Muslim scholars. On the basis of studying the works of Māturīdism, Ma Liangjun also paid attention to the works of the later Ash‘arī scholars, such as ‘Adud al-Dīrn al-Ijī (d. 1355), al-Taftazānī (1322–1390), al-Sayyid al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī (d. 1413), al-Sanūsī (d. 1490) and al-Bajūrī (1783–1860). Three of Ma Liangjun’s theological works are very significant. The first is a commentary on Sharh al-‘Aqā’id al-Nasafiyyah, which was named Hijrānī’s commentary (Hāshiyah al-Hjirānī) after him. The second is a textbook for students, named Kitāb al-Talkhīs al-Kabīr. The third is al-Madubat al-‘Azīm, which systematically compares the thoughts of different Kalam schools on the basis of introducing the thoughts of Māturīdism.

In short, we find that the main focus of Shaanxi School was no longer Sufism, but theology and Tafsīr. It paid more attention to rationality, demonstration and fine thinking in learning. In Mingli juzheng (al-Bayān al-Ma‘iyyah), Ma Shouqing warned students not to learn Sufism merely in order to remember some Sufi’s remarks. His proposal was understood by some later scholars as advocating Sufi practice, and by others as giving up learning Sufism, even theoretical Sufism. A few disciples of Shaanxi School voluntarily gave up teaching and learning Sufism and replaced it with Hadith. Sufi books such as Ashi‘‘at al-Lam‘āt were eliminated from their curriculum. In fact, Ma Shouqing himself tends to explain theories of Sufism with theological thought and integrate the two theories. Ma Liangjun’s tendency to integrate theology and Sufism is more obvious. For him, the rational speculation of theology and the retreat of Sufism are two parallel ways to understand God; as he said, “There are two ways to know God. The first way is to reflect and reason about His existence, His oneness, His perfect and transcendental Attributes through His signs and actions. The second is the way of retreat, struggle and witness. Those who follow the way of knowing God differ in the superiority of the way. Theologians believe that the best way to know God is reflect and reason, because the way of Sufi and retreat is difficult, and few people arrived. Sufis believe that most of the knowledge obtained by reflect and reasoning is not free from conjecture and imagination. Most of them reason about unknown things based on known things, so they may go astray, and they will inevitably follow their nafs in speculation. The way of Sufism is different, because it makes the soul and heart get rid of the mixture of imagination and speculation, and get purified. It does not retain anything, but only waits for the emanation of divine knowledge” (L. Ma 1928, p. 11). Ma Liangjun himself was the most outstanding theological scholar in China; at the same time, he had spiritual teachers and Sufi practice, although he had never joined any Sufi Order or Sufi Menhuan (門宦) in China.

4.3. The Rise and Development of Yunnan School

4.3.1. Ma Fuchu, the Founder of the Yunnan School

Ma Fuchu (1794–1874) was born in a Muslim scholar family in Dali (大理), Yunnan. He studied with his father since childhood and went to Shaanxi to study when he grew up. It was said that Ma Fuchu once learned from the old Zhou Liangjun after he arrived in Shaanxi. After returning to Yunnan, Ma Fuchu taught in mosques in Lin’an (臨安) and other places. In 1841, Ma Fuchu set out for a pilgrimage to Mecca. He passed through Jingdong (景東), Pu’er and Simao (思茅) in Yunnan, then entered Myanmar and lived in Yangon for five months. Then, he went to Jeddah by sea via Calcutta and finally arrived at Mecca. Ma Fuchu also visited Medina, Cairo, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Aden and Suez. During this period, he learned about local conditions and customs of various countries, visited many officials and scholars, read all kinds of books and made great progress in knowledge. He returned to China in 1849 and soon received recognition. Students from many places came to learn with him and he became quite prestigious among Yunnan Muslims.

Soon after Ma Fuchu returned home, the anti-Qing uprising broke out in Yunnan, and he became one of the recognized leaders. In the southeast region, the armed forces led by Ma Fuchu and Ma Rulong (馬如龍) besieged the provincial capital several times and asked the government to punish the culprits who provoked hatred among ethnic groups and slaughtered the Hui people. They reconciled with the Qing government many times, but the Qing government did not keep its promise, and the uprising ended in failure. Ma Rulong surrendered to the Qing government and slaughtered other insurgents, while Ma Fuchu was tricked into killing in Kunming (昆明) at the age of 81. In western Yunnan, the armed forces led by Du Wenxiu (杜文秀) echoed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement and united the people of all ethnic groups to establish the Dali regime. They advocated overthrowing the rule of the Qing Dynasty, but still ended in failure. Ma Fuchu did not stop his studies and writings during the seven-year war. During the war and in his later years after getting rid of the war, he completed more than 40 works and translations in Chinese and Arabic, covering Arabic morphology, grammar and rhetoric, logic, jurisprudence, theology, Sufism, astronomy and the calendar, travel notes and poetry.

4.3.2. Ma Lianyuan and the Formation of Yunnan School

The other key figure in the Formation of Yunnan School was Ma Lianyuan (马联元), also known as Zhiben (致本) and Muhammad Nūr al-Haqq, who was born in Yuxi (玉溪) in 1841.When he was young, he studied with his father Ma Xuekuan (馬學寬), a famous Imam in Yunnan. At about the age of 20, he mastered Chinese and Islamic learning and was invited to teach in a village. Meanwhile, the anti-Qing war in Yunnan was going on, and society was in turmoil. Many Muslim teachers and students abandoned their studies and participated in the war. Soon, Ma Lianyuan followed his uncle to Mecca and traveled to Turkey, Iraq, Egypt, India and other countries. He studied al-Hāshiyah al-Shāmiyyah with the Indian scholar Rahmat Allah, Tajwīd with the Egyptian scholar ‘Abd Rabb al-Rasūl and taked Dhikr of Naqshbandī from the Turkish Shaykh ‘Abd al-Hamīd (L. Ma 2013, p. 11). When Ma Lianyuan returned to Yunnan in 1874, the war was over, the population decreased sharply and it was a dilapidated scene. Almost all the schools of Jingtang education had been closed or dissolved, and there was a lack of talents. Ma Lianyuan took the initiative to undertake the important task of revitalizing Jingtang education, and he decided to change the declining situation of Jingtang education in Yunnan.

Ma Lianyuan inherited Ma Fuchu’s unfinished works, trained students and compiled teaching materials, and wrote more than 20 kinds of books, including the famous Gīmyā’ Fārsiyyah, which is the second Persian grammar work written by a Chinese scholar. At the age of 60, Ma Lianyuan left Yunnan for Myanmar. He trained more than 2000 students, many of whom presided over mosques in Guizhou, Sichuan, Yunnan and Myanmar, including the famous Tian Jiapei (田家培) and Wang Jiapeng(王家鹏), who was also a student of Ma Shouqing, as well as his three sons Ma anzhen (馬安貞), Ma Anyi (馬安義) and Ma Ankang (馬安康). The following year, Ma Lianyuan arrived in India and lived in Kanpur, and was buried there after his death in 1903.

4.4. Characteristics of Yunnan School

Different from Shaanxi School that formed before the Hui people’s rebellion in Shaanxi and Gansu, Yunnan School was formed after the anti-Qing uprising war in Yunnan. The different situations led to different methods of teaching. However, like the early Shandong School and Jinling School, the two later schools had no clear boundary, and their scholars and students have more exchanges and integration.

Ma Fuchu had planned to compile textbooks for four fundamental sciences, that is morphology, grammar, logic and rhetoric. He named the whole set of textbooks Kitāb al-Muttasiq, but he only completed the first three parts of it before he died. Later, Ma Lianyuan continued to complete the part of rhetoric and made detailed annotations to the whole. In addition, in order to enable more students to master Islamic knowledge as soon as possible, Ma Lianyuan made some innovations. He reduced some voluminous classics to form compact versions, making it easy for students to learn and remember. As Ma Lianyuan said, “I have been teaching here for nearly 30 years. During this period, I investigated and found that most students suddenly encounter obstacles which hinder their studies which they are devote themselves to. Because most of them are too poor to stay in school for a long time, and because language differences are the most common differences, Arabic is very difficult for them. Therefore, I selected and compiled some abridged books that meet their qualifications and are easy to understand for them from most books of each discipline, because I sympathize with them. In this way, these [abridged versions] will be enough for them once their studies are interrupted. As for the students who have entered voluminous classics since then, these are easy for them to understand” (L. Ma 2013, pp. 17–18). Taking into account the difficulties of learning Persian, Ma Lianyuan compiled the concise Persian grammar textbook Gīmyā’ Fārsiyyah.

Both Ma Fuchu and Ma Lianyuan translated some Persian Sufi classics into Arabic or Chinese and made appropriate explanations. Ma Fuchu translated Maqsad al-Aqsā into Arabic and Chinese, respectively. Ma Lianyuan translated Khutab into Arabic and named it Zhisheng bayou (至聖寶諭). Ma Fuchu had brought Liu Zhi’s Tianfang xingli (天方性理) to the Islamic world. In Mecca, he translated it into Arabic at the request of a scholar, and then made a brief commentary. This translation was completed around 1844 and published in Yunnan in 1867. In 1898, Ma Lianyuan also translated and annotated the Root Classic of Tianfang xingli in Arabic and published it in Yunnan, naming it Latā’if. Afterwards, a detailed annotation was made in Arabic and Persian. This new translation and commentary, named Sharh al-Latā’if, was published in Kanpur, India, in 1902 and was soon used as a textbook in some mosques in Yunnan and Northwest China. It should be noted that one of the important purposes of Ma Fuchu and Ma Lianyuan in translating and interpreting Sufi texts was to refute the misinterpretation of these books by some people. In one of his Chinese books, Ma Fuchu criticized some people for their misunderstandings about the view of the relationship between God and the world in Lawā’ih and Ashi‘‘at al-Lam‘āt as well as their misunderstanding of the theory of unity. In his Arabic book Lixue zhezhong (理學折衷), Ma Fuchu tried to explain these theories of Sufism in detail. By comparison, Ma Lianyuan is more inclined to explain Sufism theory to people with a knowledge of theology. For example, in Sharh al-Latā’if, he explained the theory of manifestation with the theory of Names and Attributes in Ash‘arism and Māturīdism.

The Yunnan School basically formed a phased teaching mode in the subsequent development process, which was divided into three levels. At the primary stage, students first learned some chapters of the Guran and a basic knowledge of Islam. The textbooks used were Khātim al-Gurān, ‘Umdah al-Islām, Chahār Fasl and Muhimmāt al-Muslimīn. The latter three were different from the versions in Shandong School, because they had been reorganized and revised by Ma Lianyuan. Later, Ma Yuncong (馬雲從), the great grandson of Ma Lianyuan, translated them into Arabic and Chinese. In addition, Ma Lianyuan also wrote天方分信篇 (Tafsīl al-Imān) in Persian. The main contents of the second stage of study were Arabic morphology and grammar, using some textbooks of the previous Jingtang education and new teaching materials compiled by Ma Fuchu and Ma Lianyuan. In the advanced stage, the main learning content was five classics, which were customarily called “Five Higher Books” (五大本), namely Tafsīr al-Jalālayn, Sharh Mallā’ al-Jāmī, Mukhtasar al-Ma‘ānī, Sharh al-Wiqāyah, Sharh al-‘Aqā’id al-Nasafiyyah. In addition, students with a better degree also studied two commentaries of the Guran, namely Tafsīr al-Badāwī and the Persian Tafsīr al-Husaynī, which Shaanxi School is good at.

5. Conclusions

5.1. The Establishment of Jingtang Education was a Fruitful Attempt to Replace Official Schools with Private Schools

The Jingtang education founded by Hu Dengzhou was a successful attempt to replace an official school with a private school. In the mid-Ming period, academies as a type of private school were approved by the government, due to the various drawbacks exposed by the Confucian official schools. The Confucian academy culture began to recover from the period of Emperor Xianzong (憲宗) to Emperor Xiaozong (孝宗) of the Ming Dynasty after going through a silent period in the early Ming period. In Shaanxi, in the sixth year of Hongzhi (弘治) reign (1493), Wang Chengyu王承裕, the founder of the Sanyuan School (三原學派), accompanied his resigned father to his hometown and borrowed the monk’s house as a lecture place, called Hongdao Shuwu (宏道書屋). Later, Wang Chengyu went to Beijing to become an official. After resigning from office, Wang built the famous Hongdao Academy (宏道書院) by borrowing the abandoned courtyard of Puzhao temple, and taught there for more than ten years. In 1495, Song Xuetong (宋學通), the magistrate of Wugong County in Xianyang, built the Lvye Academy (綠野書院) in the Lvye Pavilion, the former site where Zhang Zai (張載) once taught. In 1496, Wang Yunfeng (王雲鳳) restored Zhengxue Academy (正學書院) in Xi’an. In addition, Lv Nan (呂柟), a notable scholar of Guan School (關學), built Dongguo Villa (東郭別墅) after his retirement and gathered his disciples to give lectures every day, attracting scholars from all over the country. Later, he built Donglin Academy (東林書屋), because the villa couldn’t accommodate so many students. The scale and influence of his teaching became larger and larger, “almost as prosperous as Wang Yangming’s Academy” (Liu 1985, p. 11). Around the Jiajing period when Hu Dengzhou lived, the development of academies in Shaanxi exceeded that of the previous generation. There were more than 40 academies, mainly distributed in Guanzhong area.

Affected by this, Hui people in Shaanxi also started to set up private schools. Before Hu Dengzhou established his educational system, there were two main forms of Islamic education in China: official schools and private schools. Official schools were funded in some big mosques with official support, and not all mosques were qualified and able to build schools. In addition, as we mentioned earlier, the official schools hosted by hereditary Zhangjiao of the mosques had shown many disadvantages at that time, which was far from meeting the religious education needs of Muslims. Private schools rose under such a background. They were generally funded in the home of Muslim scholars, with small-scale, scattered and irregular students. Hu Dengzhou learned in such a private school when he was young, which was run by Master Gao in his home. Later, Hu Dengzhou established the Jingtang education system, which actually reformed and developed the private school model. Through the efforts of his disciples, this new education system gradually entered mosques all over China.

5.2. Reasons Why Early Jingtang Education Attached Importance to Sufism

As mentioned earlier, Shandong School and Jinling School of early Jingtang education paid the most attention to Sufism. Sufi classics accounted for a large proportion of teaching materials and played a very important role. We believe that there are two reasons for this.

First, Sufism became a prominent study after the 12th century, and most of the teachers of early Jingtang education had a close relationship with the Sufis. In his early years, Hu Dengzhou met an old man in green on the bank of the Weihe River one night and received guidance. The old man was considered to be the mysterious sage Khidr. According to the folklore, there was a Shaykh Salīm who taught Hu Dengzhou the way of Sufism. According to an inscription in the Kangxi period, Hu Dengzhou’s student Hai Dongyang (海東陽) had reached the grade of Sufi teacher (Yu and Lei 2001, p. 55). When Ma Minglong, the third-generation disciple of Hu Dengzhou, presided over the Jiangxia mosque, a Sufi named Jalāl (及料理) came to his mosque to stay. Ma Minglong found out that this person was a wise Sufi scholar, so he learned Mirsād al-’ibād from him and translated it into Chinese. Chang Zhimei, the founder of Shandong School, was also described as being secretly instructed by Khidr, so he could learn without a teacher; he was known as “Chang Xianxue” (常仙學). In addition, Zhang Shaoshan once introduced an Indian Sufi named ‘Āshiq to his student Zhang Zhong, one of the earliest Huiru (回儒), who later became a disciple (murīd) of ‘Āshiq.

Second, in the era of early Jingtang education, Neo-Confucianism had become the mainstream ideology in China. Just as Islamic thought inevitably bears the imprint of Greek philosophy in the West, and due to its collision and integration with Greek philosophy, Islamic thought is bound to have an interactive relationship with Chinese ideological tradition from the ancient East. The ethical values of Confucianism penetrated deeply into the hearts of Chinese Muslims through the imperial examinations, clan system and village treaty system, and became an inherent cultural background for them to understand Islam. Chinese Muslims lived in such a cultural background for generations, and their understanding of Islamic teachings naturally started from this cultural background. Chinese Muslim scholars soon discovered that there were many common topics between Sufism in Islam and the study of Xingli (性理學) in Confucianism. In order to adapt to the mainstream discourse system, Sufism was naturally valued by Muslim scholars. The rise of both “Interpreting Islamic classics with Confucianism” and “Jingtang education” supported the construction of Chinese Muslim’s Study of Xingli based on Sufism. Therefore, Shandong School and Jinling School were best at Sufism, and Sufism textbooks account for the largest proportion in their traditional “Thirteen Classics”.

5.3. Reasons for the Change of the Focus of Later Jingtang Education

5.3.1. Internal Reason

First of all, Shaanxi School and Yunnan School paid more attention to theology, which was closely related to the emergence and ideological differences of Chinese Islamic sects since the mid-Qing Dynasty.

In the early Qing period, a large number of Sufi books and theories were introduced into China. By the middle of the Qing Dynasty, various Sufi Menhuan (門宦) or sects had emerged. There were three types of these Menhuan. (1) Foreign Sufis came to China to spread Sufism, and their disciples later founded sects or Menhuan. (2) Chinese scholars went abroad to study, joined Sufi Orders, and set up their own branches after returning home. (3) Chinese mainland scholars went to Xinjiang to study Sufism, obtained certificates (’ijāzah), and established a Menhuan after returning to their hometown. Most of these sects or Menhuan were founded during the 150 years between Kangxi and Jiaqing, such as Bijiachang Menhuan (畢家場門宦), founded by Ma Zongsheng (馬宗生) in 1672; Mufti Menhuan (穆夫提門宦), founded by Ma Shouzhen (馬守貞) in 1673; Dagongbei Menhuan (大拱北門宦), founded by Qi Jingyi (祁静一) in 1684; Huasi Menhuan (華寺門宦), founded by Ma Laichi (馬來遲) in 1734; Jahriyyah Menhuan (哲合林耶門宦), founded by Ma Mingxin (馬明心) in 1744; Humen Menhuan (胡門門宦), founded by Ma Fuhai (馬伏海) in 1749 and Beizhuang Menhuan (北莊門宦), founded by Ma Baozhen (馬葆真) in 1814. The main reason why Shaanxi School and Yunnan School attach importance to theology was to deal with sectarian differentiation and ideological disputes. Scholars hoped to defend their original beliefs through theology and prevent complex ideological disputes from disturbing the simple beliefs of ordinary Muslims.

5.3.2. External Reason

External factors should not be ignored, that is, the prevalence of the humanistic pragmatism in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, especially the rise of the Qianjia School (乾嘉學派).

In the late Ming and Qing Dynasties, “humanistic pragmatism” and “advocating practicality” became mainstream beliefs and concepts in Chinese intellectual circles. Around this belief and idea, a cultural trend of thought called “Ming and Qing Shixue”(明清實學) by later academic circles was formed. This social and cultural trend of thought began to change in the late Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty. During the Qianlong and Jiaqing years, a textual study mainly focused on collating and revising ancient classics emerged, which was called Qianjia puxue (乾嘉樸學). In the field of Confucian classical learning, there has been a revival of textual learning opposite to the Song Learning (宋學) or Neo-Confucianism, advocating that the empirical Han Learning (漢學), specializing in exegesis, should replace the theoretic Song Learning that advocates interpreting the classics with one’s own will, so as to make up for the disadvantages caused by the empty talk of Xingli in Neo- Confucianism. This kind of practical and realistic textual study often shows the concern of intellectuals, who want to use textual study as an instrument to elaborate their pragmatism or a worldly idea. After the Opium War, China was forced to open to the outside world, and the mainstream discourse system has changed greatly. Chinese Muslim scholars are no longer in the era of talking about “the Study of Xingli”, and the communication between Islam and Confucianism in the Study of Xingli is no longer the main task of Muslim scholars. Therefore, although the study of Sufism still played its continuous influence in the later Jingtang education, it has not received special attention as in the early stage. This may also be a reason for the shift of the focus of Shaanxi School and Yunnan School.