Ma Laichi's mausoleum (Hua Si Gongbei) in Linxia City

Islam in China
History History Tang Dynasty • Song Dynasty Yuan Dynasty • Ming Dynasty Qing Dynasty • Dungan revolts (1862-1877, 1895-1896) Panthay rebellion • 1911-Present
Major figures Chang Yuchun • Hu Dahai • Mu Ying • Lan Yu • Yeheidie'erding Hui Liangyu • Ma Bufang Zheng He • Liu Zhi Haji Noor • Yusuf Ma Dexin Ma Hualong
Culture Cuisine • Martial arts Chinese mosques • Sini Islamic Association of China
Cities/Regions Hong Kong • Kashgar • Linxia Ningxia • Taiwan • Xinjiang
Groups Hui • Uyhgurs Kazakhs • Dongxiang Kyrgyz • Salar Bonan • Tajiks Uzbeks • Tatars Utsul • Tibetans
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Ma Laichi (1681? – 1766?^[1]), (simplified Chinese: 马来迟; traditional Chinese: 馬來遲; pinyin: Mǎ Láichí; Wade–Giles: Ma Lai-chih) 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 order in Chinese Muslim history.^[2][3]

Life[link]

Afaq Khoja's blessing[link]

Ma Laichi came from a Chinese Muslim family with a military background. His grandfather, Ma Congshan, was a general under the Ming Dynasty; his father, Ma Jiujun, passed imperial examinations 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.^[3]

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, to ask for a blessing from Afaq Khoja, 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 fiance 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 "[one who] came too late".^[4]

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 run by Khoja Afaq's disciple Ma Tai Baba (马太爸爸, "The Great Father Ma", 1632–1709) in the nearby Milagou (米拉沟).^[3] (apparently, within today's Minhe Hui and Tu Autonomous County).

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 that he had received from Afaq Khoja.^[3]

The great Hajj[link]

According to Ma Tong's chronology of Ma Laichi's life, after 30 years of religious work in 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 Arab World (primarily in Mecca and Yemen; some versions of his biography also mention Cairo and Damascus). Due to the scarcity and imprecision of existing Chinese and Arabic sources, different researchers came 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 (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 overland, via Central Asia, and studying for a while in Bukhara. In Mecca, his teacher was the head of the Khafiya zawiya (Islamic school) there, Muhammad Jibuni Ahmad Agelai (or Ajilai, in other accounts). Another teacher who have influenced him greatly was Mawlana Makhdum, who gave Ma Laichi the name Abu 'l-Futūh. Not much is known about Makhdum, but Joseph Fletcher surmised that he may have been an Indian.^[2][3]

The Khufiyya[link]

After returning to China, Ma Laichi established the Hua Si (华寺; "Multicolored Mosque") school (menhuan) - the core of the Khufiyya 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 (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.^[2]

Ma Laichi spent 32 years spreading his teaching among the Muslim Hui and Salar people in Gansu and Qinghai. He also converted to Islam numerous Tibetan,^[5] Mongol,^[6] and Monguor-speaking communities in Qinghai, sometimes after winning a religious debate with a local "Living Buddha". 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.^[2][3]

Death[link]

On the grounds of Hua Si Gongbei

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 menhuan, Ma Mingxin.^[7] Ma Guobao was later succeeded by Ma Wuyi.^[8]

Ma Laichi's grave in Linxia City was restored in 1986. The shrine complex, which includes a mosque and is known as Hua Si Gongbei (华寺拱北), continues to be the center of the Hua Si Khufiyya menhuan.^[2]

Literature[link]

• Gladney, Dru C. (1996). Muslim Chinese: ethnic nationalism in the People's Republic. Volume 149 of Harvard East Asian monographs (2 ed.). Harvard Univ Asia Center. ISBN 0-674-59497-5. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=_hJ9aht6nZQC.  (First edition appeared in 1991).
• Lipman, Jonathan Neaman (1998). Familiar strangers: a history of Muslims in Northwest China. Hong Kong University Press. ISBN 962-209-468-6. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=4_FGPtLEoYQC. 
• Weismann, Itzchak (2007). The Naqshbandiyya: orthodoxy and activism in a worldwide Sufi tradition. Volume 8 of Routledge Sufi series. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-32243-X. http://books.google.com/books?id=nPL7p8id6Y8C. 

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Huasi Gongbei

v t e Sufism and Tariqa Ideas Qutb Wali Abdal Fakir Dervish Tazkiah Baqaa Fanaa Haal Keramat Haqiqa Ihsan Irfan Kashf Lataif Manzil Marifa Nafs Noor Sufi cosmology Sufi metaphysics Sufi philosophy Sufi poetry Sufi psychology Sulook Yaqeen Silsila Practices Anasheed Dhikr Haḍra Muraqaba Qawwali Sama Whirling Ziyarat Sufi orders Azeemia Akbarī Alians Ba 'Alawī Bayramī Bektashī Chishtī Galibī Gulshanī Ḥurūfī Idrīsī Jelvetī Jerrahī Khalwatī Kubrāwī Madarī Malāmatī Mawlāwī Mourīdī Naqshbandī Naqshbandi Uwaisī Khalidiyya Nasuhī Ni'matullāhī Nuqtawī Qadirī Qalāndārī Rifa'ī Safāvī Shadhilī Suhrawardī Sunbulī Tijanī Ussakī Uwaisī Zahedī Notable early Sufi saints and mystics Abdul-Qadir Gilanī Abul-Khayr Ahmad Ghazālī Ahmed Yasāvī Al-Ghazālī Al-Hallaj al-Misrī Al-Qāsim al-Qunawī Amīr Kulal Ardabilī Ata Allah Attar Balım Sultan Baha ūd-Dīn Naqshband Bande Nawāz Baqī Billah Bastamī Bhita'ī Bulleh Shah Shah Waliullah Dehlāvī Farīd ūd-Dīn Fozail Gālib Gharīb Nawāz Ghujdawanī Ghulam Farīd Sheik Edebali Gül Baba Hajji Bayram Hajji Bektash Hazrat Mai Safoora Qadiriyya Haddad Hamadānī Hansvī Harabatī Baba Hasan Basri Mahmud Hudayī Hujwirī ibn ʿArabī Jābir ibn Hayyān Jahangasht Jamī Jan-e-Jānāān Jazoulī Junayd Baġdādī Kākī Kaliyarī Karkhī Kharaqanī Kubrā Nāimī Najib al-Suhrawardī Nasīmī Mansur Al-Hallaj Ni'matullāh Nizām ūd-Dīn Nurī Otman Baba Pir Sultan Qutb ūd-Dīn Haydār Rabbānī Rabia Basri Razī Rifa'ī Rukn-e-Alam Rūmī Ibrahim ibn Adham Saadī Salman al-Farisī Sanai Mevlana Halid-i Bagdadi Sarı Saltuk Semnanī Shadhilī Shahāb al-Dīn Suhrawardī Shams Tabrizī Shiblī Shirazī Sultan Walad Surkh Bukhari Taj al-Dīn Gilanī Umar al-Suhrawardī Uwais al-Qarni Yunus Emre Magtymguly Pyragy Zakariya Zarruq Notable modern Sufi saints Auliya Azeemi Nagpuri Meher Ali Sheikh Muhammad Uthman Sirajuddin Qadeer Piya Muhammad Maliki Gohar Shahi Tahir ul-Qadri Tahir Allauddin Taqi Usmani Abdal Hakim Murad Nazim Al-Haqqani Hisham Kabbani Nuh Keller Nooruddeen Durkee Abdalqadir as-Sufi Zaheen Ghulam Mustafa Reshad Feild Ahmad al-Alawi Ashraf Ali Thanvi Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Abd al-Rahman al-Shaghouri Omar Shah Haeri Raza Khan Syed Shujaat Pir Zulfiqar Abdullah Naqshbandi Sufi Barkat Ali Hafiz Qamaruddin Saheb Qibla Fultali Feisal Abdul Rauf Osman Nuri Topbaş Sufi studies Aguéli Almqvist Burckhardt Chittick Corbin Ernst Frager Guénon Hixon Lindbom Lings Nasr Schimmel Sells Shah Schuon Topics in Sufism Art Fiction History Music Poetry Shrines Texts Portal

Kamiokisihkwew in 1896

Fineday or Kamiokisihkwew (born ca. 1852 – unknown; but after 1935) was a Cree war chief of the River People band of Plains Cree. He participated in the North-West Rebellion of 1885 (notably the battle of Cut Knife). Described by a contemporary as "brave in all things," he was a skilled warrior, hunter, trapper and (in later life) a powerful shaman.^[1]

Fineday's memories of the North West rebellion were published by the Canadian North-West Historical Society in 1926.^[2]

David G. Mandelbaum, in the introduction to his extensive study of the Plains Cree cites Fineday as his principal informant.

References[link]

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