Reprint of the original, first published in 1875.

This bibliography lists primary and secondary works on Islam in traditional China, concentrating on two main topics: Muslims and Islam in China; mutual knowledge by Muslims (both inside and outside China) of China and non-Muslim Chinese of Islam and Muslims (both inside and outside China). The main items are provided with subheadings and short annotations and are evaluated by the authors. Donald David Leslie has previously published a comprehensive bibliography on Jews and Judaism in Traditional China in the Monumenta Serica Monograph Series (vol. 44, 1998).

Following the tumultuous events in China in the first two decades of the twentieth century, there was an urgent need for a reliable reference work surveying all aspects of contemporary China, given that existing reference works and scholarly monographs became rapidly obsolete. Couling’s work, published in 1917, covered so much ground with such accuracy and consistency that it has become established as an essential tool for scholars wishing to understand how the new China was seen and interpreted at the time.