ONE GIANT LEAP IN THE STUDY OF THE CHINESE CRESCENT: A SUPERB ANNOTATED TRANSLATION OF LIU ZHI'S NATURE AND PRINCIPLE IN ISLAM

Abstract

Islamic writings by Chinese Muslim scholars first attracted the attention of European researchers in the nineteenth century. Intermittently since then, the Islamic thought in these writings, expressed in the terminology and phrases of Chinese traditional thought, has been studied not only by European and American researchers but also Chinese and Japanese ones. The focus of such studies has generally been on elucidating the substantial influence of Chinese traditional thought on the Islamic thought of Chinese Muslim scholars, or on the relationship between Islam and Chinese traditional thought in Chinese Islamic writings, investigated either out of a historiographical concern for how Islam became established in China, or else from a philosophical concern to investigate an example of the “dialogue of civilizations”.