The Thought of an ‘Islamic Confucian’ : Wang Daiyu and his Great Learning of the Pure and Real

In 16th and 17th, Matteo Ricci and other Catholic catechists entered China and by means of writing Christian books in Chinese made deep relationships with Chinese elite class successfully. They called themselves ‘West Confucians’ （西儒）. Actually there were also ‘Islamic Confucians’ （回儒） appearing during the same time. ‘Islamic Confucians’ were known by their Islamic Chinese books which were called Ch. Han Ar. Kitāb (Chinese Islamic canon). This thesis chooses the first ‘Islamic Confucian’ named Wang Daiyu and his one book which called Great Learning of the Pure and Real（清真大学）. This book is based on Confucianism’s most basic canon Great Learning（大学）and it illustrates Islamic thought with Confucian words and thought, and so on. The objective of this thesis is analyzing how this book make Islamic thought and Confucian thought in one system. We learn that in Wang’s theory the monotheistic God is the first principle and the Beyond Ultimate（無極）is the second principle. Everything in this world is created and ordered by the Lord God, but God is not the direct creator, the Beyond Ultimate created everything instead. But it did not create phenomenal reality directly but fate, person’s life, talent and other matters people can not control by ourselves. Phenomenal reality is created by Great Ultimate（太極）directly. A difference with Zhu xi（朱子）and Lu jiuyuan（陸九淵）, is that in Wang’s theory the Great Ultimate is an important part in Beyond Ultimate and the relationship with them is just like the relationship of Adam and Eve. Apart from this, we also learn in this paper why he translated God as Real One（真一）, and how he quoted The Eight Steps（八条目）of Great Learning, and so on.論文/Article