First Translator of Quran into Chinese
Jingchai was born in Tianjin in northeast China in a family in which there were many religious scholars.
His grandfather and father were among the Muslim scholars of China and his mother also was learned person in Islamic sciences.
Jingchai studies Islamic sciences and started religious propagation activities after graduation in 1905.
In 1922, he travelled to Egypt and entered Al-Azhar Islamic University. He then visited Mecca and after performing Hajj, he went to Turkey.
In 1924, he returned to China, taking with him 600 books. After returning home, he began translating various books, spending 40 years of his life on that.
He also compiled an Arabic to Chinese dictionary, which remained the only reference work in the field for 30 years.
His main work, though, was translation of the Quran. It was the first translation of the entire Quran into Chinese, which took him 20 years to complete.
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The translation was printed in Beijing in 1932, then in Yinchuan in 1942 and Shanghai in 1946.
Sheikh Ilyas Wang Jingzhai devoted his life to Islam and Muslims and that is why he has a special place among Chinese Muslims, who consider him one of their main imams.
