After a long absence of about 700 years, Chinese researchers began 3 decades ago to research their Islamic scientific and cultural heritage, seeking individual efforts to revive this heritage, which was written in several languages and scattered here and there in the homes and mosques of Chinese Muslims.

One such contemporary scholar who has specialized in Islamic studies and devoted himself to researching and scrutinizing the heritage of Chinese Muslim scholars is Dr. Abdul Rahman Sheng Huachang, a scholar of Islamic philosophy.

Dr. Zhang believes that the inward-looking policies of China's ruling families in past centuries have severed the connection of Chinese Muslims from the Islamic world, which has made their presence non-existent in studies and literature during these periods of time, causing a scarcity of information about them in Islamic libraries.

Zhang describes this period for Chinese Muslims as an important opportunity to return to communication and communication with Arab and Muslim peoples, especially since China's opening-up policies in the past decades as one of the benefits of trade and economic relations and the follow-up of scientific developments around the world have greatly contributed to the success of the resumption of communication with Chinese Muslims again.

The biggest challenge for Muslim researchers in China on the one hand, and those interested in learning about the ancient religious and cultural heritage of Chinese Muslims, is how to collect and revive this heritage, especially since the efforts made by the children of Chinese Muslims who studied in Islamic universities in Arab and Islamic countries are characterized by individuality and personal diligence, and professional scientific institutions did not enter to take over this historical task before the rest of the heritage of Chinese Muslims was lost from ancient manuscripts and books.

On the reality of the ancient religious and cultural heritage of China's Muslims, and the efforts currently being made to revive and preserve it and then gradually spread it among researchers and those interested, Al Jazeera Net had this interview with Dr. Abdul Rahman Sheng Hua Chang, a researcher in Islamic philosophy, residing in Cairo for about 3 decades.

Dr. Zhang was born into a Muslim family in Weishan County, southwest China's Yunnan Province. His grandfather's father was a sheikh of Islam who has fame in his province, he spent his life in learning and teaching, and he has students, and his grandfather also participated in teaching in the village, and his father also learned Islamic sciences and graduated from one of the mosque schools in the province, as well as his uncle, who is the first sheikh in specialized education for forensic sciences.

Zhang studied elementary school in his village. His grandfather used to pledge his path in religious lessons, and he was a majestic sheikh, who read at leisure, and kept the five prayers in congregation, and woke up before dawn and prayed two rak'ahs, the first reading Surat "Yasin" and the second "Tabarak", and then went to the mosque remembering God on the way. This biography is engraved in the memory of the young boy and has accompanied him in his life until today.

Zhang received his doctorate in Islamic philosophy in 2021 and has published some scientific works, including "Being and Knowledge in Ibn Arabi's Philosophical Sufism" and "Being and Knowledge from Confucian Philosophy", among other scientific researches.

Dr. Zhang recently supervised the investigation of a book by the Chinese professor Muhammad Makin Al-Azhari Al-Darami, who died in 1978, on the history of Islam and Muslims in China.

To the text of the dialogue.

  • As a child, you received religious lessons in "mosque schools"; did you describe how to teach them?

The mosque school has two sections: a full-time section for full-time students, which is considered a specialized study with us in China, and an evening section for primary, preparatory and secondary school students, as these study daily between Maghrib and Isha, because they go to government schools during the day, and they also study in the morning after Fajr prayer on weekends, and this section teaches how to purify, pray, fast, read the Qur'an and memorize short surahs, wirds and remembrances.

These religious schools were widespread in China's Muslim community, and no Muslim village or neighborhood had a mosque school. I was one of the children who had been in the evening religious school since primary school. After a period of time, I discovered that it is one of the most important influences in endearing religion to children and making them aware of familiarity and familiarity with it.

A page from the twenty-fourth part of a historical Qur'an in China (Al-Jazeera)

  • What about your next grades?

The mosque school accompanied us throughout the compulsory full-time study phase in the winter and summer vacation. All this before continuing the full-time study of Islamic sciences in the traditional mosque school in my village, so I learned from my uncle, and read to him what the students knew to read from morphology, grammar, jurisprudence and interpretation, and then I learned at the Noor Muhammad traditional school on our famous Sheikh Muhammad Ramadan the famous scholar in Yunnan (southwest China), and I benefited a lot from him.

She then moved to Gansu Province in northwest China to attend a modern Islamic school there. After graduating, I returned to Yunnan province and taught in an Islamic school there for two years.

I would like to point out that in the traditional school: we read traditional books carefully and focused on purely verbal analyses, as is the custom of the traditional public legal education system in China.

While in the modern school in which I studied, it combines the traditional and the new method, as other books that were not entrusted to traditional Islamic schools in China have decided on us, introducing us to the conditions of Muslims and the ideas of their scholars abroad, and expanding our horizons.

  • How did your scientific journey outside China begin? What are its most prominent stations?

Since the first time I took the path of full-time learning, I intended to travel abroad to continue studying, because the legal education in our country has been weakened for reasons, and the Islamic world is the metal of Islam and the center of science and scholars, so it is necessary to travel to it to benefit from scholars and thinkers, and to learn about the conditions of Muslims in it.

After two years of teaching, I had the opportunity to travel to Syria, so I joined the Fatah Islamic Institute in Damascus (Department of Creed and Philosophy), and fortunately I learned in this department by distinguished professors, headed by Sheikh Muhammad Saeed Ramadan Al-Bouti.

After graduating from the Islamic Conquest Institute, I joined Al-Azhar University, where I graduated, and then completed my pre-master's degree. At Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, we learned from a constellation of distinguished scholars in the field of faith, philosophy and others. She then obtained her master's and doctorate from the Faculty of Dar Al Uloom, Cairo University.

  • What role do you currently play in the fields of research, study and authorship?

As I mentioned earlier, I obtained my PhD in Islamic philosophy, in 2021, and published some scientific works, including the book "Existence and Knowledge in Ibn Arabi's Philosophical Sufism", "Existence and Knowledge from Confucian Philosophy", and some scientific researches.

We hope that our scientific work will be a bridge between the Islamic and Chinese civilizations, so that we introduce the Chinese to the religion, civilization, science, culture and philosophy of Islam, and introduce Arab Muslims to the culture, civilization and wisdom of China, the history of Islam and the conditions of Muslims in it.

  • China's Muslims have a long history spanning more than a thousand years; what is the reality of their heritage today?

The heritage of Chinese Muslims is multifaceted, and their scientific and literary heritage can be divided in terms of language into what was written in Chinese, Arabic, Persian and Turkish, and in terms of source into the works of Chinese Muslim scholars and their translators and the works of Arab and Persian Islamic scholars. The latter, although he is not a Chinese Muslim scholar, contributed to the formation of Islamic personalities in China in a deep way, and took great care of them by reading, copying, translating, abbreviating, summarizing, commenting, explaining and stuffing, until he became an integral part of the scientific formation of Muslim scholars in China, such as Ibn al-Hajib's Kitab al-Kafiyya (in grammar), Saad al-Din al-Taftazani's Sharh al-'Aqidat al-Nasafiyyah, and Abd al-Rahman al-Jami's al-Regulations (on Sufism).

Cover of the twenty-fourth part of the Qur'an engraved and published in the province of Yunnan in the late Manchurian Qing dynasty (island)

  • This is the scientific and literary heritage of Chinese Muslims. Where is the day kept?

There are no public libraries to preserve this ancient heritage of Chinese Muslims; there may be some private libraries concerned with preserving manuscripts of the Qur'an, but most heritage books and manuscripts are scattered through Muslim homes, especially in northwest China and Yunnan (southwest), where Muslims gather more and Islamic education is more widespread. Art and antiquities are mostly kept in museums.

Not long ago, researchers from universities and academic institutes began studying this heritage and collecting manuscripts, a commendable effort, but lacking scientific investigation and careful examination of contemporary science and an integrated Islamic perspective.

  • In what language was the heritage of the Muslims of China written and does it have a geographical extension outside it?

Most of this heritage is written in Chinese, some in Arabic and a few in Persian, including the Uyghur brothers (East Turkestan/Xinjiang province in northwest China) in their Turkish.

I do not have detailed information about the impact of these books outside China, but they must have an impact on Chinese expatriates, as it is natural that they use it to learn and teach religion in the beginning, for Muslims who migrated to Central Asia in the nineteenth century, and the Chinese expatriate community in the last century in Myanmar, where their imams and sheikhs were from China, and they graduated in the traditional legal education system, which is closely related to the Islamic heritage in China.

  • What about efforts to revive this heritage in the present era?

Yes, there are efforts to collect, preserve and revive this heritage that began almost 30 years ago. Most of its authors are academic researchers and university professors specializing in Chinese Islamic culture, through theses and research projects.

  • What are the main obstacles and challenges you face in preserving and reviving Islamic heritage in China?

One of the most prominent obstacles and challenges facing academic researchers is the lack of proficiency in Arabic or Persian, as well as the failure to study Islamic sciences systematically.

On the other hand, Muslim sheikhs and scholars in China, who grew up learning Arabic, Persian and Islamic sciences, are less interested in reviving this heritage scientifically due to the lack of a correct approach to research and investigation.

  • Are there any successes achieved in collecting, reviving and preserving the heritage of Chinese Muslims?

Yes, in addition to individual efforts through master's and doctoral theses, there are huge scientific projects that have been completed, such as the "Great Collection of Islamic Heritage in China" in more than 20 volumes, and the "Complete Encyclopedia of Heritage Books of the Hui Nationalism", in 235 volumes, on the topics of religion, history, politics, art, literature, science and others.

Some famous Chinese Islamic books have been translated from traditional Chinese into simplified for some time, but their proportion to the total heritage is still small, and some works need to be reproduced.

In addition, the Islamic heritage in Arabic has begun to attract the attention of Chinese Muslim researchers who study in universities in the Arab and Islamic world, and some of them have been realized, for example, we investigated the subject of the master's thesis the book "Sharh al-Latif" written by Sheikh Salih Liu Qhi in Chinese based on Arabic and Persian sources, and then translated into Arabic by Sheikh Muhammad Nurul Haq with his explanation and stuffing.

The Book of Explanation of Latif by Sheikh Muhammad Abdul Hakim Nur Al-Haq (Al-Jazeera)

  • Regarding the Islamic heritage in China. Do you have any communication or cooperation with heritage institutions in the Arab and Islamic worlds?

University professors in the Arab and Islamic world encourage their Chinese students to realize the legacy of their Islamic scholars at the master's and doctoral levels, and some researchers have published their research in books, which is a form of cooperation.

Otherwise, I am not aware of any communication or cooperation between Chinese researchers and heritage institutions in the Arab and Islamic world. We need more acquaintance and fruitful cooperation with scientific and research institutions concerned with the revival of the general Islamic heritage.

  • What are your recommendations for reviving China's Muslim heritage?

We recommend that the children of Chinese Muslim researchers be interested in collecting and reviving the heritage of their scientists in various arts and sciences, and they can be chosen for at least the topic of scientific theses. We hope that God will help us to produce integrated collections of traditional Islamic literature that have been written in Arabic.