Ma Laichi (1681? – 1766?; ), also known as Abu 'l-Futūh Ma Laichi, was a Chinese Sufi master, who brought the

Khufiyya Khufiyya (; Arabic: خفيه, the silent ones) is a Sufist order of Chinese Islam. It was the first Sufist order to be established within China and, along with Jahriyya, Qadiriyya and Kubrawiyyah, is acknowledged as one of the four orders of ...

movement to China and created the Huasi ''

menhuan Menhuan () is a term used by the Hui and Uyghur Muslim populations of China to indicate a Chinese Ṣūfī '' ṭarīḳa'' ("order" or "saintly lineage"). The leaders of a ''menhuan'', which usually are Ṣūfī Muslim '' murs̲h̲id'' ("ma ...

'' ( Sufi order) - the earliest and most important Naqshbandi (نقشبندية，納克什班迪) order in

Chinese Muslim Islam has been practiced in China since the 7th century CE.. Muslims are a minority group in China, representing 1.6-2 percent of the total population (21,667,000- 28,210,795) according to various estimates. Though Hui Muslims are the most nume ...

history.Gladney (1996), pp. 47-48Lipman (1998), p. 65-67 5741-Linxia-Huasi-Gongbei

Life

Afaq Khoja's blessing

Ma Laichi came from a

family with a military background. His grandfather, Ma Congshan, was a general under the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han peo ...

; his father, Ma Jiujun, passed

imperial examination The imperial examination (; lit. "subject recommendation") refers to a civil-service examination system in Imperial China, administered for the purpose of selecting candidates for the state bureaucracy. The concept of choosing bureaucrats by ...

s on the military track under the Qing, but instead of joining government service, made a fortune in business. His home was in Hezhou (now called Linxia), one of the main Muslim centers of Gansu. According to the legend told by Ma Laichi's followers, Ma Jiajun was still childless at the age of forty, and, desirous to have a son, he went to

Xining Xining (; ), alternatively known as Sining, is the capital of Qinghai province in western China and the largest city on the Tibetan Plateau. The city was a commercial hub along the Northern Silk Road's Hexi Corridor for over 2000 years, and w ...

, to ask for a blessing from

Afaq Khoja Afaq Khoja ( ug, ئاپاق خوجا), born Hidayat Allah ( ug, هدایت‌الله; ), also known as Apaq Xoja or more properly Āfāq Khwāja ( fa, آفاق خواجه), was a Naqshbandi īshān and political leader with the title of Khwaja ...

, a Naqshbandi ''shaykh'' visiting from Kashgar, and a reputed miracle worker. After reciting some prayers, the Kashgarian Sufi master told Ma Jiajun to go back to Hezhou and to marry a certain non-Muslim woman, who had previously been engaged a number of times, but every time her fiancé died before the wedding. Ma Jiajun indeed married that 26-year-old woman, and she bore him a son. Soon after, all Ma Jiajun's property was destroyed by a fire, and he named his son "Laichi", meaning "

ne who NE, Ne or ne may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Neutral Evil, an alignment in the American role-playing game ''Dungeons & Dragons'' * New Edition, an American vocal group * Nicomachean Ethics, a collection of ten books by Greek philosopher Ar ...

came too late". Rendered destitute by the fire, Ma Jiajun became a tea peddler, travelling in the region between Hezhou and Xining. His boy, meanwhile, studied at the

Koranic school The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sing ...

run by Khoja Afaq's

disciple A disciple is a follower and student of a mentor, teacher, or other figure. It can refer to: Religion * Disciple (Christianity), a student of Jesus Christ * Twelve Apostles of Jesus, sometimes called the Twelve Disciples * Seventy disciples in t ...

Ma Tai Baba (, "The Great Father Ma", 1632–1709) in the nearby Milagou (). (apparently, within today's

Minhe Hui and Tu Autonomous County Minhe Hui and Tu Autonomous County (; Xiao'erjing: ) is the easternmost county in Qinghai Province, China. It is under the administration of Haidong (lit. Eastern Qinghai) Region. "Hui" refers to the Chinese Muslims, whereas "Tu" refers to the e ...

). Tai Baba's top student, Ma Laichi had learned everything the school had to offer by the age of 18. Tai Baba ordained the young Ma as an '' ahong'' and initiated him into Sufism, passing onto him the ''

barakah In Islam, ''Barakah'' or ''Baraka'' ( ar, بركة "blessing") is a blessing power, a kind of continuity of spiritual presence and revelation that begins with God and flows through that and those closest to God. Baraka can be found within physi ...

'' that he had received from

The great Hajj

According to Ma Tong's chronology of Ma Laichi's life, after 30 years of religious work in the Hezhou region, Ma Laichi left China in 1728 for a Hajj to Islam's holy places in the Middle East. In 1728-1733 he studied under a number of Sufi masters in the Arab World (primarily in

Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow ...

and

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

; some versions of his biography also mention

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...

and Damascus). Due to the scarcity and imprecision of existing Chinese and Arabic sources, different researchers have come up with different versions and dates for Ma Laichi's great Hajj: the standard Chinese account by Ma Tong tells of Ma sailing to Arabia from

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...

(after studying for 3 months with a famous '' ahong'' there), and coming back by the sea route as well; other accounts have him traveling to the west by land, via Central Asia, and studying for a while in Bukhara. In Mecca, his teacher was the head of the

Khafiya Ma Laichi (1681? – 1766?; ), also known as Abu 'l-Futūh Ma Laichi, was a Chinese Sufi master, who brought the Khufiyya movement to China and created the Huasi '' menhuan'' ( Sufi order) - the earliest and most important Naqshbandi (نق� ...

'' zawiya'' (Islamic school) there, Muhammad Jibuni Ahmad Agelai (or Ajilai, in other accounts). Another teacher who influenced him greatly was Mawlana Makhdum, who gave Ma Laichi the name Abu 'l-Futūh. Not much is known about Makhdum, but

Joseph Fletcher Joseph Francis Fletcher (April 10, 1905 in Newark, New Jersey - October 28, 1991 in Charlottesville, Virginia) was an American professor who founded the theory of situational ethics in the 1960s, and was a pioneer in the field of bioethics. Flet ...

surmised that he may have been an Indian.

The Khufiyya

After returning to China, Ma Laichi established the Hua Si (; " Multicolored Mosque") school (''menhuan'') - the core of the

(خفيه) 虎夫耶 movement in Chinese Islam. The name of the movement - a Chinese form of the Arabic "Khafiyya", i.e. "the silent ones" - refers to its adherents' emphasis on silent

dhikr ''Dhikr'' ( ar, ذِكْر}, , also spelled ''Zikr'', ''Thikr'', ''Zekr'', or ''Zikar'', literally meaning "remembrance, reminder" or "mention") is a form of Islamic meditation in which phrases or prayers are repeatedly chanted in order to remem ...

(invocation of God's name). The Khufiyya teachings were characterized by stronger participation in the society, as well as veneration of saints and seeking inspiration at their tombs. Ma Laichi spent 32 years spreading his teaching among the Muslim

Hui The Hui people ( zh, c=, p=Huízú, w=Hui2-tsu2, Xiao'erjing: , dng, Хуэйзў, ) are an East Asian ethnoreligious group predominantly composed of Chinese-speaking adherents of Islam. They are distributed throughout China, mainly in the n ...

and Salar people in Gansu and

Qinghai Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest po ...

. He also converted to Islam numerous Tibetan, Mongol, and

Monguor Mongour, formerly also known by various names including Tu and Dchiahour, may refer to: * Monguor people * Monguor language The Monguor language (; also written Mongour and Mongor) is a Mongolic language of its Shirongolic branch and is part of ...

-speaking communities in

, sometimes after winning a religious debate with a local "

Living Buddha A ''tulku'' (, also ''tülku'', ''trulku'') is a reincarnate custodian of a specific lineage of teachings in Tibetan Buddhism who is given empowerments and trained from a young age by students of his or her predecessor. High-profile examples ...

". Some of these communities still belong to the Khufiyya, and their members still revere Ma Laichi as the saint who brought their ancestors into Islam.

Death

After the death of Ma Laichi, his position as the leader of the Khufiyya was inherited by his son, Ma Guobao - an act that came to be strongly criticized by the founder of the competing

Jahriyya Jahriyya (also spelled Jahrīya or Jahriyah) is a ''menhuan'' ( Sufi order) in China, commonly called the New Teaching (''Xinjiao''). Founded in the 1760s by Ma Mingxin, it was active in the late 18th and 19th centuries in what was then Gansu Pr ...

''menhuan'',

Ma Mingxin Ma Mingxin (1719–1781) () was a Chinese Sufi master, the founder of the Jahriyya ''menhuan'' (Naqshbandi Sufi order). * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ma, Laichi 17th-century Chinese people 18th-century Chinese people Hui people Naqshbandi order Chinese Sufis Chinese imams 1680s births 1760s deaths Year of birth uncertain Year of death uncertain Religious leaders in China