Muslim Printing in Late Imperial China: Woodblocks, Networks, and Creation of Chinese Islamic Knowledge

Abstract

When books existed mainly as manuscripts in the Islamic world, Muslims in late imperial China were making use of woodblock printing to publish their Islamic translations and treatises written in the Chinese language. In that way, they developed their own Chinese Islamic canon of texts—Han Kitab. Contemporary scholars have been exploring how Han Kitab reconciled Confucian and Buddhist ideas with Islamic teachings. Nonetheless, the social aspect—whether and how those works made real impact among Muslims in Chinese society—is yet to be examined. This paper argues that it was owing to Muslims’ active participation in the bourgeoning Chinese print culture that Han Kitab was able to be widely published and circulated across the Chinese territory. Through networks of Muslim authors, publishers, merchants, and officials, etc., many Han Kitab were printed, reprinted, and carried around. Some were gradually received as authoritative, serving as the cornerstone on which particular “Chinese Islamic” knowledge was established. Printing thus allowed dispersed Muslims in China proper to have shared knowledge, discourse, and memory, and contributed to a rising sense of collectivity among them.