Liu Zhi (1660?－1730?) is the most prolific Chinese Muslim scholar in the Ming-Qing era.
He carries out the comparative study and inter-religious dialogue between Islam on the one hand, and Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism on the other hand, which is initiated by Wang Dai-yu (?
－1657?), attaining a high level of intellectual maturity. Liu Zhi’s three major works, Tianfang Dianli Zeyaojie (An Important Selection of the Explanations of Islamic Laws and Ceremonies, 1709), Tianfang Xingli (The Islamic Philosophy of Nature and Principle, 1710), Tianfang Zhisheng Shilu Nianpu (The True Annals of the Prophet of Arabia, 1776, its English translation published in 1921), contain a comprehensive system of the synthesis of Islam and Chinese religions. This paper focuses on Tianfang Xingli, Liu Zhi’s most esoteric and philosophical text.
1. Liu Zhi’s Intellectual Background
Liu Zhi (1660?－1730?) was born in Nanjing, the one-time capital of the Ming dynasty and also the cultural and intellectual center of South China in late Imperial China. It is not coincidental that most of the Chinese Muslim scholars writing influential Chinese texts on Islam are from Nanjing, including Wang Daiyu (?－?1657), the first Chinese Muslim scholar to write in Chinese a systematic discourse on Islamic creed, and Wu Zunqi (?－?), the translator of the most famous Sufi text among the Chinese madrasa (jingtang), Najm al-Dīn Dāyah Rāzī’s (1177-1256) Mirsād
al-‘ibād min al-mabda’ ila’l-ma`ād. The Nanjing jingtang is the Muslim learning center of South
China and surrounded by the predominant Han Chinese culture. Therefore, the jingtang scholars could have a better chance to access to the first-class Confucian scholarship and tend to develop a more inclusive view on Confucianism and other Chinese traditions.
Liu Zhi recalls his apprenticeship that he began to study the Chinese classics at the age of 15, then devoted six years to Islamic literature, three to the Buddhist tripitaka, and one to the Taoist canons. He completed his education by studying 137 books from the “West.” He tried to
“synthesize all of those intellectual traditions within the framework of Islamic knowledge.” (Preface to Tianfang Zhisheng Shilu Nianpu) This recount is surprising to a modern reader due to his ability to go through not only Islam and the three Chinese teachings, Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism but also many Western texts. Some might be curious at what kind of Western texts were available to Liu Zhi in late 17th-centurty China. The most possible answer is those which were introduced by the Jesuit missionary arriving in China a century earlier. Indeed, those European books were not easily available to local intellectuals like Liu Zhi. There is little mention about the “Western” learning in Liu Zhi’s works. So it requires a further study to solve this puzzle.
It is interesting to compare Liu’s apprenticeship with that of his jingtang predecessor Wang Daiyu. Liu studied Chinese classics first and then turned to Islamic literature; Wang did Islamic literature first and then turned to Chinese classics at the age of thirty, much later than Liu. This difference might explain why Liu is more inclusive and sympathy with the Chinese traditions than Wang. The latter strongly criticizes that Neo-Confucianism has been corrupted by Buddhism and Taoism and goes astray from Confucius’ original thought. (Zheng Jiao Zhen Quan)
2. The Sufi “classics” in Tianfang Xingli
Liu Zhi writes in his preface to Tianfang Xingli that this work is a selective commentary on the
“six classics” of the Chinese madrasa (jingtang). Besides the Qur’ān, the other five are all Sufi texts, including the three classics of “the principal (li) learning of human nature (xing) and mandate (ming)” in the Chinese madrasa, jingtang, in terms of Zhao Can (Zhao, 1989, pp. 19, 90), a
jingtang historian one generation earlier than Liu Zhi－Najm al-Dīn Dāyah Rāzī’s (1177-1256)
Mirsād al-‘ibād min al-mabda’ ila’l-ma`ād, which is the most influential Sufi text among the jingtang scholars, ‘Abd al-Rahmān Jāmī’s (1414－1492) Ash`at al-Lama’āt and ‘Azīz al-Dīn Nasafī’s (d.1300) Maqsad-i Aqsā. The fourth classic is Jāmī’s another work Lawā’ih, which is translated into Chinese by Liu Zhi himself and this Chinese translation is re-translated into English by Sachiko Murata and collected in her Chinese Gleams of Sufi Light (2000). It is difficult to identify the last one which Liu Zhi does not mention its author and names “Zhen Kuan Jing” (the Classic of True Light). This could be a book regarding one of the most celebrated Sufi ideas, “Nur Muhammadi”, which has been well discussed among the jingtang scholars prior to Liu Zhi.
Tianfang Xingli is divided into six parts. The first part, which Liu Zhi calls “the original classic,” includes the important quotations from the six classics and sets down the main ideas of the text in five chapters. The five chapters are followed by ten diagrams that illustrate the metaphysical and cosmological relationships described in the chapters. Each of the five remaining parts explains one of the five chapters in detail, and each employs twelve more diagrams to do so. They appear to be interpret the Sufi philosophy, particularly the school of traditional Chinese depictions of the relationships among the three basic realities－heaven, earth and the human being. Apparently, Liu and other jingtang scholars have seen a parallel between the Sufi mystical philosophy and the Neo-Confucian philosophy of “nature and principle” (xing-li) on metaphysical level. Liu’s Tianfang Xingli provides the most comprehensive comparison between them.
3. Sufism in the Neo-Confucian terminology
Liu Zhi’s mastery of the Neo-Confucian terminology could fool those who are not familiar with Islam to regard him as a Confucian revivalist. This is the case of a non-Muslim mandarin, the Vice-Minister of the Board of Propriety, who writes a preface to Tianfang Xingli to admire Liu Zhi that although the Buddhists and Taoists had undermined the ancient Confucian doctrines, “however, in this book we can see once more the Way of the ancient sage….Thus, although his book explains Islam, in truth it illuminates our Confucianism.” (Murata, p.25)
Liu uses the pair of terms ti-yung (substance-function) to explain God’s transcendence and
immanence, and another pair of terms xiantian/houtian (before-heaven/after-heaven) to differentiate between the pre-creation eternity and the process of creation. Both are the most important
metaphysical concepts of Neo-Confucianism. Substance that underlies all things is one, while functions that become manifest in all things are many. He relates this pair to the interpretation of Tawhid,
The Beginning is nameless; the True Substance is not attached. The True Being contains the ten thousand things in unity, the Uniquely One. Its subtle function is perfect. Once the Substance functions, the Action begins…….The One is differentiated into the ten thousand things and all principles (li) of heaven and humankind are included. Among them is there a subtle matter called the original vital-energy (yang chi), which is the end of the before-heaven and the root of the after-heaven. The original subtle transformation starts separating yin and yang. (Ch.1)
The Sufi Neo-Platonic theory of emanation is presented in the Neo-Confucian terms. The dualism of principle and vital-energy is another way of expressing the pair of substance-function. Liu adds,
No one is able to see the Real One, the Lord of the ten thousand things. Its non-existence and non-attachment are called Substance; Its all-encompassing illumination is called Function; Its infallible exactness is called Action. These are the three Divine Attributes.
(Ch.5)
〈「最初無稱」圖〉）
Liu remarks that both Buddhist and Taoist philosophers usually take “nothingness” (wu) as the highest metaphysical principle. It is correct to mark the “namelessness” of the True Substance as
“nothingness,” but it could have a danger to confuse “nothingness” with nililism. Liu Zhi quotes his teacher Hei Ming-feng to make a distinction between Islam and the Chinese teachings,
The Beginning is beginningless, but the beginningless is the beginning of the ten thousand things. Therefore, it is called the Beginning. It should not be called
“nothingness” in order to make it difference from other heresies; it should not be named in order to eliminate any prejudice. Yi jing says Tai Chi (Great Ultimate); Chou Tun-I says Wu Chi (Non-Ultimate); Buddhists say the beginningless; Taoists say the original beginning. All of these ideas talk about the origin of the after-heaven but Islam says the root of the before-heaven. (ibid.)
Liu Zhi adopts Wang Daiyu’s celebrated explanation to the distinction between the Real one and the Numerical One to make the ontological difference between God and the universe. He uses three diagrams to illustrate each of them，
The Real One: the True Substance is not attached「真體無著」；
the Great Function is all-encompassing「大用渾然」（Divine Intellect; Divine Power）；
the first separation between substance and function「體用始分」（Action, Pre-destination;
Fire produces flash, all lamps are lightened. This is called “pre-destination.” The metaphor of ink-well is subtle and wonderful）；
The Numerical One: the true principle is ever-lasting flouring「真理流行」（Mandate）；
the first separation between nature and principle「性理始分」（9 levels of natures; 9 levels of primciples）；
the manifestation of vital-energy and the concealment of principle「氣著理隱」（vital energy）。
The first manifestation of creation is presented in the first diagram of the Numerical One, which comes to the most interesting idea, ming, (mandate). Liu associates it with the Divine Command (amr) in Islam and with the “mandate of Heaven” in Confucianism. Based upon the latter, Liu and other Muslim scholars construct a theory of Confucianism as the original
monotheism and use Islamic creationism to recover the “lost link” of Confucianism to monotheism.
One of the Four Books, the Doctrine of the Mean, says “the Mandate of Heaven is human nature; to follow our nature is called the Way.” Wang Daiyu considers the later Confucians mistakes this sentence and simply equalize the mandate of Heaven with human nature. Liu follows Wang’s argumentation and interprets the “mandate of Heaven” literally as God’s command (Koran 36:82)..
So The mandate of Heaven is not identical with human nature. The mandate of Heaven is “given” to humankind as its true nature.
4. Conclusion
Liu Zhi could have made a great challenge toward the Chinese intellectual tradition if he had not grown up in the relatively conservative ethos of the early Qing era. Liu’s works were little known outside the Chinese Muslim community and at that time few Chinese literati had truly appreciated other than the Confucian tradition. The bloody conflict between the Han and the Hui in
Northwest China occurred in five decades after Liu’s death. Unfortunately, this event resulted in the censorship of the Qing government to the Hui community and interrupted any further constructive interaction between the Han and the Hui. The tension between the state and the Hui community was gradually accumulated and irritated into the great Hui uprisings in Northwest and Southwest China in the late Qing era. The harsh suppression of the Hui rebellion almost wiped out the Chinese Muslim intellectual tradition. From then on, in generally, the Hui people have physically and mentally segregated themselves from the Chinese society till our modern age.
It is regrettable that only few of Liu Zhi’s ground-breaking works are translated into other languages and studied by the scholars of religious studies. I think the rediscovery of Liu’s
philosophy could make a contribution to both Islamic studies and the studies of Chinese religions and also bring up a fresh thinking to the scholarship of comparative studies and inter-faith dialogue.
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