BiographyWang Daiyu claimed to be the descendent of an Arab astronomer who had travelled to China with his family in the 14th century and settled at Nanjing. In recognition of his expertise in astronomy, this ancestor had been appointed to the Directorate of Astronomy. Wang himself was educated in a traditional mosque and mastered Persian and Arabic. Unlike other Muslim students who only learned about Islam and were not educated in the Chinese tradition, Wang later studied Chinese and the Chinese classics, and by the age of 30 had also studied Buddhist and Daoist philosophy.At the time i…

‘The real commentary on the true teaching’‘The true explanation of the orthodox teaching’ Wang Daiyu Date: 1642 Original Language: Chinese DescriptionWang’s  Zheng jiao zhen quan is divided into two volumes, each with 20 chapters. It covers 120 pages in the 1921 edition, of which two pages (pp. 26-7) address the topic of Christian-Muslim relations. In Book 1, in a chapter entitled ‘Changing the real’ ( i-chen), Wang explicates Islam in relation to other religious traditions. He criticises Daoism and Buddhism for failing to distinguish between the Real One ( chen-i), the divine esse…

Yusuf Ma Dexin, Ma Fuchu, Abd al-Qayyum Ruh al-Din Yusuf Date of Birth: 1794 Place of Birth: Dali, Yunnan Date of Death: 1874 Place of Death: Yunnan BiographyBorn in Dali, Yunnan Province, in 1794, Ma Dexin was also known as Ma Fuchu among Chinese Muslims. He claimed the title  sayyid by linking himself as a 21st-generation descendant to Sayyid Ajall Shams al-Din (1211-79), the first governor of Yunnan in the Mongol Yuan dynasty. From his childhood, Ma was trained to read Arabic and Persian Islamic texts, as well as the Qur’an, and he eventually became a renowned madrasa teacher. In 1841, he …