Wang Daiyu

Wáng Dàiyú ({{zh|s=王岱舆|t=王岱輿|p=Wáng Dàiyú|w=Wang Tai-yü}}, Xiao'erjing: {{lang|zh-Arab|ٔوْا دَﻰْ ﻳُﻮْ}}) (ca. 1570 - ca. 1660) was a Chinese Hanafi-Maturidi{{cite web|url=http://www.alfaisalmag.com/?p=16608|title=الماتريدية وآثارها في الفكر الإنساني بدول طريق الحرير.. الصين نموذجًا|publisher=Alfaisal Magazine}}{{cite web|url=http://midad.com/article/221923/الحنفية-الماتريدية-في-بلاد-الصين|title=الحنفية الماتريدية في بلاد الصين|date=4 January 2020 |publisher=midad.com}} (Hui) scholar of Arab descent.{{cite web|last1=Yip|first1=Ho, Wai|title=Wang Daiyu|url=http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/christian-muslim-relations-ii/wang-daiyu-COM_30357?s.num=0&s.f.s2_parent=s.f.book.christian-muslim-relations-ii&s.q=Wang+Daiyu|language=en}} His given name was Ya, style name Daiyu. He called himself Zhenhui Laoren {{lang|zh|真回老人}} ("The True Old Man of Islam") and went by his style name.

Life

His earliest ancestor in the early Ming period came to China in the retinue of a Tributary Emissary from the West (the Arabian Peninsula). Because he was adept at the art of astronomy and calculating calendars, he held the office of Master Supervisor of the Imperial Observatory, and was granted a residence in Lu Fei Lane (present day South Hong Wu Street) in Nanjing.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BwuSpFiOFfYC&q=wang+daiyu+muslim+theologian+imperial+board&pg=PA37|title=China's Muslim Hui community: migration, settlement and sects|author=Michael Dillon|year=1999|publisher=Curzon Press|location=Richmond|page=36|isbn=0-7007-1026-4|access-date=2010-06-28}}

Philosophy

His descendants followed in this field. As a child, Wang Daiyu learned from his father. Later, he studied under Ma Junshi from Nanjing. At the age of 20, he began studying Chinese and an intensive investigation of the writings of Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, as well as other miscellaneous teachings. In the fifteenth year of the reign of the Chongzhen Emperor, he made a translation of Zhengjiao Zhenquan (正教真詮, "A True Explanation of the Right Religion"),http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp110_wuzong_emperor.pdf p. 8. in twenty "juan", and began the enterprise of translating the Islamic scriptures into Chinese. Later, he also wrote Qingzhen Da Xue (清真大學, "The Great learning of Islam") and Xizhen Zhengda (希真正答, "Rare and True Answers"). Within Chinese Islamic circles, he is known by the laudatory title, "Great Saint of the Qing Period." Wang believed in providing Islamic works in Chinese-language versions instead of depending upon Arabic ones.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hUEswLE4SWUC&q=wang+daiyu+arabic+chinese+linguistic|title=China's Muslim Hui community: migration, settlement and sects|author=Michael Dillon|year=1999|publisher=Curzon Press|location=Richmond|page=38|isbn=0-7007-1026-4|access-date=2010-06-28}}

Wang died around 1660 and was buried in the cemetery attached to Yongshou Mosque in Beijing.{{Cite book |last1=Sha |first1=Zongping |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l-i6EAAAQBAJ |title=The Islamic-Confucian Synthesis in China |last2=Xiang |first2=Shuchen |date=2023 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-6669-1337-8 |pages=38 |language=en}}

Works

Wang was fluent in Chinese, Persian, and Arabic.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vIUmU2ytmIIC&q=wang+daiyu+arab&pg=PA118|title=Cheng Ho and Islam in Southeast Asia|author1=Tan Ta Sen |author2=Dasheng Chen |year=2000|publisher=Institute of Southeast Asian Studies|page=118|isbn=981-230-837-7|access-date=2010-06-28}}{{Cite book|last=Murata|first=Sachiko|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N9aEDgAAQBAJ&q=%22Wang+Daiyu%22+%22persian%22&pg=PA4|title=The First Islamic Classic in Chinese: Wang Daiyu's Real Commentary on the True Teaching|date=2017-03-27|publisher=SUNY Press|isbn=978-1-4384-6507-4|language=en}} He studied Confucianism extensively and used it to explain Islam.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UyHYAAAAMAAJ&q=wang+daiyu+arab|title=Islam and Confucianism: a civilizational dialogue|author=Gek Nai Cheng|editor=Osman Bakar|year=1997|publisher=Published and distributed for the Centre for Civilizational Dialogue of University of Malaya by University of Malaya Press|page=75|isbn=983-100-038-2|access-date=2010-06-28}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s4Lp8tgr3esC&q=wang+daiyu+arab&pg=PA27|title=Muslims in China|author=Aliya Ma Lynn|year=2007|publisher=University Press|page=27|isbn=978-0-88093-861-7|access-date=2010-06-28}}

Wang wrote "The Real Commentary", in which he uses Chinese Classical texts to explain Islam, since Chinese speakers couldn't read original Islamic texts in other languages. He is most critical of Buddhism and Taoism, while citing Confucian ideas which agreed with Islam in order to explain it.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cVFDIPIv3ZgC&q=longest+work+wang+confucians+taoists+and+buddhists+the+real+commentary|title=Chinese gleams of sufi light: Wang Tai-yü's great learning of the pure and real and Liu Chih's Displaying the concealment of the real realm; with a new translation of Jāmī's Lawāʼiḥ from the Persian by William C. Chittick|author=Sachiko Murata, William C. Chittick, Jāmī, Daiyu Wang, Tai-yü Wang, Chih Liu|year=2000|publisher=SUNY Press|page=22|isbn=0-7914-4637-9|access-date=2011-05-21}}

Wang wrote about Islam in the Chinese language and in a Confucian context, not to convert non-Muslim Chinese to Islam, but to help Muslims in China understand Islam, since the majority of them spoke Chinese at his time.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cVFDIPIv3ZgC&q=bulk+of+them+spoke+chinese|title=Chinese gleams of sufi light: Wang Tai-yü's great learning of the pure and real and Liu Chih's Displaying the concealment of the real realm; with a new translation of Jāmī's Lawāʼiḥ from the Persian by William C. Chittick|author=Sachiko Murata, William C. Chittick, Jāmī, Daiyu Wang, Tai-yü Wang, Chih Liu|year=2000|publisher=SUNY Press|page=4|isbn=0-7914-4637-9|access-date=2011-05-21}}

Wang also used the Chinese language and Confucianism to explain Islam to non-Muslim Han Chinese in addition to Muslims.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0jMOAQAAMAAJ&q=arabic+han+chinese+inform|title=Encyclopedia of religion, Volume 7|author=Lindsay Jones|editor=Lindsay Jones|year=2005|edition=2, illustrated|publisher=Macmillan Reference USA|page=4632|isbn=0-02-865740-3|access-date=2011-05-21}}

Wang Daiyu's works eventually became part of the Chinese Islamic text the Han Kitab, along with other Muslim scholars from eastern China like Liu Zhi, and Ma Zhu.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AvDOudr5M6MC&q=wang+daiyu+arab&pg=PA103|title=Remapping China: fissures in historical terrain|author=Gail Hershatter|year=1996|publisher=Stanford University Press|location=Stanford California|page=103|isbn=0-8047-2509-8|access-date=2010-06-28}}