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Liu Zhi's Confucian Translation of Monotheism and Islamic Law 316 Book Reviews / Islamic Law and Society 19 (2012) 312-326 Rectifying God’s Name: Liu Zhi’s Confucian Translation of Monotheism and Islamic Law. By James D. Frankel. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press, 2011. Pp xxi + 248. ISBN 978-0-8248-3474-6. $48.00. Long peripheral to the field of Islamic studies, Islam in China has recently received more attention, much of it driven by translations of the corpus of works known as the Han Kitāb, a Chinese-Arabic syncretic term combining “Chinese” with “(Muslim) book.” In fact, the Han Kitāb is a number of works, written by Chinese Muslim literati between the 1630s and 1730s, covering Islamic theology, history, philosophy, and law. Established scholars, recent Ph.D.s, and current graduate students in China, Europe, and the United States are in the midst of translating this quasi-canon, the most sus- tained intellectual effort by Chinese Muslims to make Islam cognizable in Chinese thought. Chief among these works is James Frankel’s Rectifying God’s Name: Liu Zhi’s Confucian Translation of Monotheism and Islamic Law. Frankel examines the translation of Islam in China through the life and works of Liu Zhi (ca. CE 1660–ca. 1730), one of the chief architects of this effort. e book provides a nuanced analysis of one part of Liu Zhi’s “Tianfang trilogy” (p. xix), the Tianfang dianli (Ceremonies and Rituals in Islam), the only Han Kitāb text that deals with ritual law matters and that has received official recognition by Neo-Confucian orthodoxy. “Neo-Confucianism” actually refers to a host of different and sometimes contradictory reinventions of Confucian thought, beginning in the Song Dynasty (CE 960 to 1279). Scholars, backed by imperial authority, sought both to expunge from Confucianism the mystical elements of Buddhism and Daoism that had influenced it over the previous centuries, and to borrow selectively from the alternative traditions to compete with these traditions for ideological preeminence. Tianfang dianli is thus a work of extreme importance to understanding the accommodation of Islamic law to Chinese legal culture, which never had a notion of divinely revealed law. Working in both Chinese and Arabic, and touching upon not just Islamic and Neo-Confucian doctrines but also Buddhist, Daoist, Christian, and Jewish theologies, Frankel’s methodology is that of an “adjustable lens” (p. 3) that focuses on the par- ticularities of Liu Zhi’s translation of key Islamic terms and concepts, and, at the same time, considers broader concerns of philosophic-religious syncretism. Frankel sum- marizes his central thesis as follows: “Accommodating his thought to the rational standard of contemporary Chinese thought, in his presentation of Islam Liu Zhi down played the role of revelation, expounding instead theological concepts, with frequent reference to natural law and sophisticated metaphysical arguments of Neo- Confucian lixue (lit. “study of principle”) (xix-xx). In Chapters 1 and 2, Frankel provides the historical and social context for Liu Zhi’s writing of the Tianfang dianli. Liu Zhi wrote in a self-conscious tradition, building upon the work of what could be called the first generation of Chinese Muslim literati. Beginning in the mid 16th century, these scholars sought to translate Arabic and Persian texts for non-scholarly Chinese Muslims whose mother tongue was Chinese and to whom the languages of Islam were alien (p. 26). e second generation of Chinese ʿulamāʾ (p. xxi) composed original works that described Islamic beliefs and doctrines © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI: 10.1163/156851912X639527 Book Reviews / Islamic Law and Society 19 (2012) 312-326 317 by using the idiom of Chinese language and thought, and, especially of Neo-Confucian orthodoxy. ese scholars, such as Wang Daiyu, Ma Zhu, and Liu Zhi, were the principal translators of the foreign faith in China, writing both for Chinese Muslims, subject to tremendous acculturation pressure by the Han Chinese who comprised the vast majority of China’s population, and for a non-Muslim audience for whom Islam was potentially heterodox. ese authors wrote a Confucianized form of Islam with the intention that both audiences, Muslim and Han Chinese, would better compre- hend Islam. Beginning with Chapter 3 and continuing through Chapter 6, Frankel shifts from context to content, and this analysis comprises the main contribution of his work. e significance of Tiangfang dianli is that it has become the foundational text for explaining Islamic ritual law through Chinese Neo-Confucian cognates. Liu Zhi em phasized the aspects of sharīʿa dealing with religious duties over its purely “legal” areas. e day-to-day ritual law was placed in the context of a broader cosmological and abstract examination into the nature of God. By “matching concepts” (p. 155-6), Liu Zhi worked across the two traditions as a kind of bricoleur, assembling cultural bits in a work of philosophical, theological, ethical, and legal synthesis. Specifically, Liu Zhi used Neo-Confucian concepts such as dao as one (Islamic) way within the Way (p. 59), jiao (Teaching) as the (Muhammadan) vehicle that manifests the dao (p. 68), sheng (sage) as a category for the Prophet Muhammad (p. 81), and li, which means, in different contexts, either principle, as in the unchanging dao, or ritual, as in the practice of sacrificial rites, which Liu Zhi equated to Islamic propriety (p. 101). Additionally, in Chapter 6, Frankel explains how Liu Zhi created neologisms such as “zhenzhu” (true lord) to provide a term that resonated with the concept of God in Chinese Neo-Confucian orthodoxy (p. 161). Frankel’s work does justice to the complex intellectual labor performed by Liu Zhi, who has attained near sagehood in the eyes of many Chinese Muslims. Simply put, anyone working on Islam in China should consult Frankel’s book. is study of Liu Zhi’s work raises two broader interrelated issues. Beginning where Frankel leaves off, with the legacy of Liu Zhi among Muslim minorities in China today (p. 181), I would underscore the revered position of Liu Zhi in the collective consciousness of Chinese Muslims1 who continue to read, debate, and memorize Liu Zhi’s writings, including Tianfang dianli. e way in which they do so is telling. Many Chinese Muslims under- stand Liu Zhi to be offering a kind of vision of the reconciliation of Islam with Chinese culture, particularly Neo-Confucianism. at is, Liu Zhi’s writing is both prescriptive and descriptive, but perhaps more of the former than the latter, more ‘ought’ than ‘is’. 1) N.B. China has ten officially recognized Muslim minority groups that can be categorized, roughly, into “Chinese Muslims,” “Turkic Muslims,” and “Mongolian Muslims.” e largest group of the first category is known by the ethnonym Hui in China, whereas the second category includes the Uyghur, much discussed in Western media. is discussion pertains mostly to Chinese Muslims although Mongolian Muslims who live in proximity to Chinese Muslims share a similar intellectual patrimony. e same cannot be said for Uyghur who are unaware of Liu Zhi or the Han Kitāb..
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