Muslim Sanzijing

In Muslim Sanzijing, Shifts and Continuities in the Definition of Islam in China (1710-2010) Roberta Tontini traces the development of Islam and Islamic law in the country, while responding to two enduring questions in China’s intellectual history: How was the Muslim sharia reconciled with Confucianism? How was knowledge of Islamic social and ritual norms popularized to large segments of Chinese Muslim society even in periods of limited literacy?

Through a comprehensive study that includes a rigorous analysis of popular Chinese Islamic primers belonging to the Sanzijing tradition, Tontini offers fresh insights on the little known intellectual and legal history of Islam on Chinese soil to convincingly demonstrate its evolving quality in response to changing social norms.

Roberta Tontini, Ph.D. (2013), is a research fellow at the Cluster Asia and Europe of the University of Heidelberg. Her publications on the history of Islam in China include Islamic Law in China (OISO, Oxford University Press 2014).

"Historian Roberta Tontini brilliantly engages the problem of continuity and shifts head on in her Muslim Sanzijing...One is struck by the rich history of this text that Tontini exposes as she writes the biography of the book, looking at many lives it took on during the past 200 years."
Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, New York University, Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, No. 23 (June 2017)

"[A] brilliant account on the history of China's acquaintance with Islam and its jurisprudence. This highly informative and insightful monograph addresses a largely neglected theme in the field of Chinese Muslim studies."
Tommaso Previato, Academia Sinica, Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient, 102 (2016)