The Long March (simplified Chinese: 长征; traditional Chinese: 長征; pinyin: Chángzhēng) was a military retreat undertaken by the Red Army of the Communist Party of China, the forerunner of the People's Liberation Army, to evade the pursuit of the Kuomintang (KMT or Chinese Nationalist Party) army. There was not one Long March, but a series of marches, as various Communist armies in the south escaped to the north and west. The most well known is the march from Jiangxi province which began in October 1934. The First Front Army of the Chinese Soviet Republic, led by an inexperienced military commission, was on the brink of annihilation by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's troops in their stronghold in Jiangxi province. The Communists, under the eventual command of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, escaped in a circling retreat to the west and north, which reportedly traversed some 12,500 kilometers (8,000 miles) over 370 days. The route passed through some of the most difficult terrain of western China by traveling west, then north, to Shaanxi.

Orville Hickock Schell III (born May 20, 1940 in New York City) is an activist and writer working on China, and is the Arthus Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York. He previously served as Dean of the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

Schell's father Orville Hickok Schell, Jr., was a prominent lawyer who headed the New York City Bar Association, chaired the human rights group Americas Watch from its founding in 1981 until his death in 1987, co-founded Helsinki Watch, forerunner to Human Rights Watch, and became the namesake of the Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights at Yale University Law School. Orville Schell III is the older brother of writer Jonathan Schell.

Schell attended Pomfret School in Connecticut, after which he attended Harvard University, leaving in 1960 after his junior year to study Chinese, first at Stanford University and then at National Taiwan University from 1961-1964. While in Taiwan, Schell began writing columns for the Boston Globe as its "Man in Asia." He then returned to Harvard and studied Asian history, culture and politics under John Fairbank and Edwin Reischauer, and completed his bachelor's degree in 1964.

Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri (in Punjabi and Urdu: محمد طاہر القادری) (born February 19, 1951, Jhang, Pakistan) is a Pakistani Sufi scholar and former professor of international constitutional law at the University of the Punjab. Qadri was recently described by the CNN-IBN as the 'International Peace Ambassador'. Qadri was nominated for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize

Qadri is the founder of Minhaj-ul-Quran International, a broad-based global Sufi organization working in the fields of welfare, human rights and education. Its objectives are the promotion of a moderate and non-extremist vision of Islam, the establishment of good relations and understanding between communities and religions, and the education of youth through "employing the methods of Sufism". He also founded The Minhaj University of which he is the head of the Board of Governors, as well as an international relief charity, Minhaj Welfare Foundation.

Qadri was also the founding chairman of the political party Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT), although he is no longer involved in politics. Qadri spoke at the World Economic Forum in January 2011.

Khwaja Muhammad Tahir Bakhshi Naqshbandi (Urdu: حضرت خواجہ محمد طاہر بخشی نقشبندی, born 1962), also known as Sajjan Saeen (Urdu: سجن سائیں, Sindhi: سڄڻ سائين), is a prominent Naqshbandi Sufi shaykh in Pakistan. He was born on March 21, 1962 at dargah Rahmatpur Sharif, district Larkana, Pakistan. He is successor to Khwaja Allah Bakhsh, also known as Sohna Saeen, whose lineage goes to Khwaja Ghareeb Nawaz Hadhrat Fazal Ali Shah Qureshi. His followers and partisans are all over Pakistan and in countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Australia, New Zealand and the USA.

He is patron-in-chief of Jamaat Islah-ul-muslimeen, Rohani Talaba Jamaat and Jamiyat-e-Ulema Tahiriya. He has more than 300 deputies (Khulafa') who are dedicated to spread the Naqshbandi message across the world.

The shaykh was born on January 6, 1962 at dargah Rahmatpur sharif, in district Larkana, Sindh. As per the Islamic principles, his grandsheikh Hadhrat Khwaja Muhammad Abdul Ghaffar said the Azan and Iqamat in his ears at birth, since his father was out of station for Tabligh (preaching). His name was also suggested by his grandsheikh, which was happily accepted by his parents. Pir Mitha died on December 12, 1964. He was under two years of age that his parents migrated from Rahmatpur sharif to another village in Dadu district in January 1965. In April 1965, his father Khwaja Allah Bakhsh established a new village and center for peaching called Faqeerpur sharif, near Radhan Station in Dadu district. There, he passed his childhood while the center was being established. Later, his parents migrated to the new and current center Allahabad sharif situated in district Naushehro-Feroz, and resides there since then.