written in Arabic and was filled with Qur'anic and Islamic metaphors. It described the Pingnan rebellion using Islamic terminology:"The cause of the dispute was that the Idolaters and their chiefs assembled together to kill the Muslims and began to insult their religion.... Having abandoned every hope of life, we fought with the Idolaters and God gave us the victory.... [The ruler's] name is Sadik, otherwise called Suleiman. He has now established Islamic Law. He administers justice according to the dictates of the Qur'an and their traditions. Since we have made him our Imam we have been by the decree of God, very victorious.... The Ministers and chiefs under our Imam are as single-hearted as Abu Bakr and as bold as Ali. No one can face them in battle. They are imperious to the Infidel but meek to the Muslim. The metropolis of Infidelity has become a city of Islam!"The Dali Sultanate used Imperial Chinese Symbols & challenged the Qing by using Ming era Imagery. Du tried to highlight the foreign nature of Manchu rule even in dress; and his own imperial robes were from the "Chinese" Ming dynasty. According to David G. Atwill: "The regime reflected the strong interethnic ties of the Hui with the Han and of the Yi with predominantly Han-Islamic imagery and a heavily indigenized presence in its institutions and rule." Du Wenxiu cited the example of the Nanzhao Kingdom, as proof for the feasibility of an Independent Yunnan based government:"if we cannot realize far-reaching permanent victory, we can still achieve a smaller, more remote success like that of the Nanzhao Kingdom, which lasted eight hundred years".The power of the Hui State between the years 1863-68 was described by the French missionary Father Ponsot: "Since the Hui occupied Dali they have become consistently stronger and more or less the masters of the land. They control almost all the towns around Zhongdian, Heqing and Lijiang extending almost up to Tibet, land of the lamas."Areas under rule of the Dali Sultanate were widely considered to be far safer and less corrupt than the areas under imperial control. European travelers observed that a "calm tranquility reigned over this country". Traders "lauded the security of the White banner [Dali-controlled] territory" and locals attributed the presence of prosperous trade to Du Wenxiu's efforts to "trade as much as possible, both by the imposition of light duties and a rigorous administration of justice."