Contextualization of Sufi Spirituality in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth- Century China

Liu Zhi (c.1662-c.1730), a well-known Muslim scholar writing in Chinese, published outstanding theological works, short treatises, and short poems on Islam. While traditional Arabic and Persian Islamic texts used unfamiliar concepts to explain Islam, Liu Zhi translated both text and concepts into Chinese culture. In this erudite volume, David Lee examines how Liu Zhi integrated the basic religious living of the monotheistic Hui Muslims into their pluralistic Chinese culture. Liu Zhi discussed the Prophet Muhammad in Confucian terms, and his work served as a bridge between peoples. This book is an in-depth study of Liu Zhi's contextualization of Islam within Chinese scholarship that argues his merging of the two never deviated from the basic principles of Islamic belief.

"This is a brilliant study of the contextualization of Arabic and Persian Sufi Muslim writing for a Chinese audience by one of the most influential Chinese Muslim writers, Liu Zhi (c1662-c1730). David Lee has shown clearly how Liu Zhi translated key Sufi works using Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucianist concepts to encourage the reception of Islam as a fourth recognized tradition alongside the other three." Mark Beaumont, Senior Lecturer in Islam and Mission, London School of Theology "Scholars have previously focussed on the innovative nature of Islamic contextualization in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century China. Lee's work goes further, firstly by focussing on: 1) a significant Muslim from the network of scholars in this period, Liu Zhi; 2) his uniquely indigenized use of the Akbarian tradition both for teaching and apologetics; secondly, by combining the use of 1) his own translations with the existing ones; 2) selected Western sources with the previously unknown Chinese secondary sources." David Emmanuel Singh, OCMS, Oxford "David Lee's book is a significant contribution to analysing the legacy of Liu Zhi and translating his literature for an international readership. By conceptualizing Liu Zhi's active engagement of Islamic texts within Chinese traditions and contexts in the translation-conversation framework of contextualization, Lee's contribution will not only stimulate scholarly interests in exploring Liu Zhi's work within and beyond the Nanjing Islamic tradition, but will also provide an important theoretical outlook to further study the contextualization of other Islamic texts in the period of Ming-Qing China." Wai-Yip Ho, author of Islam and China's Hong Kong: Ethnic Identity, Muslim Networks and the New Silk Road "David Lee's book makes a simple but potentially significant intervention in this field: it argues on the bases of Liu Zhi's less-studied popular didactic writings that Liu was not mainly appealing to an emergent elite Sino-Muslim identity or the concerns of Sufi mysticism, but rather was engaged in a Muslin apologetics for a Chinese audience." Eric Schluessel, Journal of Chinese Religions, Volume 46, Issue 1, 10 May 2018

David Lee is Associate Professor of Theology at Evangel Seminary in Hong Kong. He has served as Senior Pastor in the Chinese Church of London.