Kristian Petersen: Interpreting Islam in China

A distinctive Chinese Islamic intellectual tradition emerged during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). This talk by Kristian Petersen (Old Dominian University) traces the contours of this Sino-Islamic intellectual tradition and key Han Kitab authors.

Chinese Muslims established an educational system, scripture hall education (jingtang jiaoyu 經堂教育), which utilized an Islamic curriculum made up of Arabic, Persian, and Chinese works. The Han Kitab, a corpus of Chinese language Islamic texts developed within this system, reinterpreted Islam through the religio-philosophical lens of Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucian terminology. Several Han Kitab texts were produced by self-identified “Confucian Muslim” scholars (Huiru 回儒).