ISLAM IN CHINA.

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Zi fa zan zhe ni ("Zanjani's Rules of Words"). First edition of this popular compendium of Arabic morphology by the Persian scholar Izzi al-Din 'Abd al-Wahhab ibn Ibrahim al-Zanjani (d. 665), a woodblock printing probably produced in Yunnan. It is an example of "Han Kitab", books on Islam and the Arabic language produced by Sino-Muslim scholars. These student books were the basis of Chinese Muslims' education in the Islamic sciences, especially among the Hui community, an ethnic group of Arab, Persian, and Central Asian origins from the Yunnan region. Since the late 16th century, Hui scholars had established new avenues for the study and teaching of Arabic and Islamic studies, based on foundational Arabic grammar books adapted for Chinese speakers. Major Hui intellectuals include Ma Dexin (Yusuf, 1794-1874), who had performed the Hajj in 1841 and spent almost a decade in the Middle East, and his student Ma Lianyuan (Muhammad Nūr al-Haqq,1841-1903), "one of the greatest Islamic educationists in the history of Chinese Islam" (Lin, p. 106)Tasrif is a matn, or easily-memorizable compendium, entirely devoted to 'ilm al-sarf, the science of morphology concerning the internal structure and derivation of Arabic words. It became a fundamental text of jingtang jiaoyu, the Chinese Islamic system of education which had started to flourish in the 17th century. Through this educational network, made as much of scholars, students, and mosque schools as of publishers, "Islam not only survive

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