﻿﻿STUDIES ON ETHNIC GROUPS IN CHINA
Stevan Harrell, Editor﻿STUDIES ON ETHNIC GROUPS IN CHINA
Cultural Encounters
on China’s Ethnic Frontiers
Edited by Stevan Harrell
Guest People:
Hakka Identity in China and Abroad
Edited by Nicole Constable
Familiar Strangers:
A History of Muslims in Northwest China
Jonathan N. Lipman﻿Familiar Strangers
A History of Muslims
in Northwest China
JONATHAN N. LIPMAN
University of Washington Press
SEATTLE AND LONDON﻿STUDIES ON ETHNIC GROUPS IN CHINA
is supported in part by a grant
from the Henry Luce Foundation to the
Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies
of the University of Washington.
The publication of Familiar Strangers:
A History of Muslims in Northwest China
is supported in part by a grant
from the Henry M. Jackson Foundation.
Copyright © 1997 by the University of Washington Press
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
ncluding photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval
system,without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lipman, Jonathan Neaman.
Familiar strangers : a history of Muslims in Northwest China /
Jonathan N. Lipman.
p. cm. — (Studies on ethnic groups in China.)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-295-97644-6 (alk. paper)
1. Muslims—China. 2. Islam—China—History. I. Title. II. Series
DS731.M87L56	1997	97-10814
95i'.oo88297i—dc2i	CIP
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. 00﻿For
Esther and Eugene Lipman,
Avi and Mia Lipman,
and Catherine Allgor﻿The stranger is thus being discussed here not in the sense often
touched upon in the past, as the wanderer who comes today and
goes tomorrow, but rather as the person who comes today and
stays tomorrow—that is, he remains the potential wanderer.
Although he has not moved on, he has not quite given up the
freedom of coming and going.
Georg Simmel
“Exkurs uber den Fremden,” 1908
General Knowledge is Remote Knowledge; it is in Particulars that
Wisdom consists & Happiness too. Both in Art & in Life, General
Masses are as Much Art as a Pasteboard Man is Human.
William Blake
“A Vision of the Last Judgment,” 1810﻿Contents
List of Maps
ix
List of Illustrations
x
Acknowledgments
xii
Preface
xv
Introduction: Purposes and Form
of a Muslim History in China
xvii
11 The Frontier Ground
and Peoples of Northwest China
3
2	I Acculturation and Accommodation:
China’s Muslims to the Seventeenth Century
24
3	/ Connections: Muslims in the Early
Qing, 1644-1781
58
vii﻿CONTENTS
41 Strategies of Resistance:
Integration by Violence
103
5 / Strategies of Integration:
Muslims in New China
167
61 Conclusion:
Familiar Strangers
212
Chinese Character Glossary
228
Bibliography
235
Index
254
viii﻿Maps
i.	Contemporary provinces, autonomous
regions, and municipalities of the
People’s Republic of China
4
2.	The five provinces and autonomous
regions of northwest China
io
3.	Area of the mid-nineteenth-century
Muslim rebellions
116
4.	Center of the 1895—96 Muslim rebellions
i?9
ix﻿Illustrations
Except when noted otherwise, these photographs were taken by the
Rev. Claude Pickens, Jr., during two trips to northwest China in the
1930s. He traveled on horseback all over the Hezhou, Xunhua, Xining,
and Ningxia regions and took thousands of photographs. The entire
collection is deposited with the Harvard-Yenching Library, Harvard
University.
following page 92
1.	Eroded, dry eastern Gansu hill country
2.	The Bayanrong valley in Huangzhong
3.	Tangwangchuan
4.	Elderly Muslim
5.	Muslim grandmother and child
6.	Poor Muslim working man
7.	Muslim family of Amdo
8.	A view from the Muslim suburb (Bafang) to the Hezhou wall
9.	Ahong of a mosque at Guyuan, Gansu
10.	Muslim schoolboys with books and bone “slates”
11.	Agongbei (Sufi saint’s tomb) at Pingliang, Gansu
x﻿ILLUSTRATIONS
12.	Liu Zhi’s gravestone
13.	Salar man
14.	Ma Mingxin’s memorial marker at his gongbei in Banqiao
15.	A large hilltop fort (zhaizi) near Xunhua
16.	Dong Fuxiang
17.	An arch (ptrilou) in honor of Ma Anliang
18.	Gatehouse of a Sino-Arabic school near Ningxia
19.	A Yunnan Muslim on pilgrimage to Gansu
20.	A Jahriya Sufi
21.	Eastern Gansu town gate
22.	Grave of Ma Yuanzhang and his son at Xuanhuagang
23.	Young men selling “Muslim” flatbreads and crocheting white caps
24.	Students at an Ikhwan school in Xining
xi﻿Acknowledgments
For financial support: The Danforth Foundation, Mount Holyoke
College, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Boston-
Hangzhou Summer Study-Travel Program, Dr. Isadore Rodis, the
Jackson School for International Studies of the University of Washing-
ton, the Associated Kyoto Program.
For scholarly resources: The directors and staffs of the East Asian
Collection of the Hoover Institution (Stanford University), the Library
of Congress, the Toyo Bunko (Tokyo), the National Diet Library (To-
kyo), the Kyoto University Library, the Hangzhou University Library,
the Harvard-Yenching Library, the John K. Fairbank Center for Re-
search in East Asian Studies, the Yale University Library, the University
of Washington East Asia Collection. Phil Mobley produced the maps
from my inchoate lists of place names. Raymond Lum of the Harvard-
Yenching Library helped me search for and produced the photographs
from old positives and negatives, which were painstakingly collected
and organized by Mary Ellen Alonso.
For instruction and guidance: Hajji Yusuf Chang, Albert Dien, the
late Joseph Fletcher, Nancy Gallagher, the late Iwamura Shinobu, Hal
Kahn, Ma Qicheng, Ma Shouqian, Ma Tong, Nakada Yoshinobu, the
late Rev. Claude Pickens, Morris Rossabi, Saguchi Torn, Sung Li-hsing,
Lyman van Slyke, Ezra Vogel, James Wrenn, and Yang Huaizhong.
For critical readings: Frangoise Aubin, Peter Bryder, Leila Chebbi
Cherif, Daniel Gardner, Dru Gladney, Sohail Hashmi, Kavita Khory,
Donald Leslie, Jim Millward, and Wang Jianping read parts of the
manuscript and saved me from many errors. Pamela Crossley gener-
ously opened her reader’s comments to discussion and helped me to
refine my sense of our field and its issues. Stevan Harrell listened to the
book as it developed and shared his knowledge of Chinese society and
gift for prose style. Gao Zhanfu patiendy guided a non-Chinese non-
Muslim through the world of Hui scholarship.
xii﻿ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For collegiality and discussion: Jere Bacharach, Linda Benson, Ming
Chan, Helen Chauncey, Chen Yung-fa, Dr. and Mrs. Huan-ming Chu,
Jim Cole, Juan and Liz Davila, Jerry Dennerline, the late Jack Dull,
Jamal Elias, Joseph Esherick, Jay Fiegenbaum, Maris Gillette, Kent
Guy, Kate Hartford, Raphael Israeli, Mohammed Jiyad, Kay Ann John-
son, Kim Ho-dong, Terry Lautz, Janis Levy, Beatrice Manz, Kathy
Masalski, Bob Merkin, Dick Minear, Emiko Moffitt, Barbara Pillsbury,
Mary Rankin, Justin Rudelson, Vera Schwarcz, Marilyn Sides, Miriam
Silverberg, John Voll, Dennis Yasutomo, Elsie Young, and Aaron
Zysow. Laurie Pollack ensured that my superannuated computer would
not eat the manuscript, and Tom and the Computing Group in the
basement performed some amazing transformations. Arienne Dwyer,
Ali Igmen, Bill Clark, and the other graduate students at the University
of Washington enlivened my days with talk and kept me working late
nights.
Colleagues at Mount Holyoke College: All the members of the His-
tory Department past and present, Dan Brown, Lee Bowie and Meredith
Michaels, Joan Ericson, Vinnie Ferraro, Samba and Fatoumata Gadjigo,
John Garofano, Penny Gill, Stephen Jones, Girma Kebbede, Indira Peter-
son, Tadanori Yamashita, Katy and Ted Yao. At the Academic Comput-
ing Center, Vijay Kumar, Paul Dobosh, Teena Johnson-Smith, Cindy
Legare, Sue Rusiecki, Ivy Tillman, and Jurgen Botz have kept me
(barely) afloat on the cybersea. Holly Sharac was always there with an
encouraging word, a tactful remonstration, and omnicompetence.
For publication of the book: The sure editorial hand of Lorri
Hagman and the supervisorial presence of Naomi Pascal, both of the
University of Washington Press,
And closest to home, the family that has put up with this project
longer, than anyone should ever have to live with a doctoral dissertation.
Esther and Eugene Lipman helped me through every year of the
lengthy preparation and research, never wavering in their support or
love. Avi and Mia Lipman have spent their entire lives with the Sino-
Muslims; I thank them and love them for their patience and, as my
father wrote of my brothers and me so long ago, for their blessed
distractions. Catherine Allgor has been an intellectual companion, an
unrelenting critic, and a loving friend on the ten-page days and the ten-
word days. To all of them I dedicate the work to which they have
contributed so much.
It is said that a Muslim rug-maker always includes at least one error in
every carpet, for only God can achieve perfection. Would that I had
xiii﻿ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
both the competence and the chutzpah to think that I could choose what
would be wrong in this book. Its value surely comes from those who
have written before and who have helped me write, and all of its errors
must as surely be my own.
xiv﻿Preface
Since this book covers such a long period, in which the internal and
external frontiers of what we now call China were in more-or-less con-
stant motion, I have not attempted historical reconstruction of the
frontiers or boundaries of states or substate administrative entities.
Rather, for convenience in reference and to prevent cartographers’ night-
mares, the maps in this book are based on 1995 provincial and national
borders as fixed or claimed by the People’s Republic of China. Since in
the narrative I refer to place names appropriate to the period under
discussion, noting modern names and positions as appropriate, those
anachronistic place names (e.g., Hezhou, now Linxia) have been in-
cluded in the maps.
My subject requires that many names and terms be either translated
or transliterated from Chinese, Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. I have
used the/wryzw system of romanization for standard Chinese pronuncia-
tion (putonghua) throughout, with occasional notes on local variation.
The languages spoken in northwest China differ radically from standard
Chinese in many ways, and it would be both difficult and feckless to try
to reproduce local pronunciations. For Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, I
have used the romanization system of the Encyclopedia of Islam, modified
by use of q rather than k and j rather than dj, and by elimination of
consonant underlining. Non-English terms, except those with common
transliterations, are given in italics throughout. Islamic terms with com-
mon English transliterations are given in that form (e.g., Koran not
Qur’an, “muezzin” not mu’adbdhiri).
The Chinese Character Glossary contains personal names and terms
that are rendered in Chinese in the text (excepting the footnotes), but I
have not included characters for place names, which may be found by
consulting an English-Chinese gazetteer or geographical dictionary. Fa-
miliar terms such as dynastic names (e.g., Ming, Qing) and names of
xv﻿PREFACE
ancient historical figures (e.g., Laozi, Confucius), as well as those of
contemporary scholars, have not been included in the character glossary.
All footnote citations are in shortened form; full citations are given in
the Bibliography.
All dating of dynasties uses conventional Sinocentric dates.
xvi﻿Introduction
Purposes and Form of a
Muslim History in China
THE NEED FOR HISTORIES
Muslims have lived in China since the eighth century, but no compre-
hensive account of their 1,300-year history has ever been written in a
European or Middle Eastern language. From the vantage of either
Chinese or Islamic studies, Euro-Americans lack even an intellectual
context for a focused treatment of this important cultural encounter and
the millions of individuals who have participated in it. With a few
notable exceptions, modern Chinese scholars have restricted themselves
to narrow monographs or overblown theoretical models, and the most
thorough Japanese book on the subject ends its narrative in the early
nineteenth century.
Given the copious primary sources that deal with the Muslims of
China, we would expect a larger body of scholarship from foreign
academics. The presence of so many Muslims in China has stimulated
occasional panic and consistent concern among China watchers, espe-
cially missionaries and players of the Great Game of Russian-British
imperial rivalry in Central and East Asia. But most contemporary Euro-
American scholars of Chinese history, not to mention their students,
would be hard-pressed to say much of anything about the history of
China’s Muslim residents, except perhaps that they have been there a
long time and are counted among the “minority nationalities” (shaoslm
minzu) by the government of the People’s Republic of China. But the
stories of how they came to be there, how their lives and those of their
ancestors might have differed from those of their non-Muslim neigh-
bors, how they differ from one another and from other Muslims, and
how their presence might have affected Chinese history do not appear
in conventional histories of China, except when Muslims become vio-
lent. Islamicists know even less about Sino-Muslims, for mention of this
far-flung margin of the Muslim world is generally confined to a few
pages of exotica drawn from the thin secondary sources.
This lack of concern has not been exhibited toward the entrance,
xvii﻿INTRODUCTION
acculturation, and continued presence of the other three “world reli-
gions” in the Chinese cultural area. Despite the difficulty of the sources,
the strategies, successes, and failures of Buddhism, Christianity, and
Judaism in China have been extensively analyzed, including their some-
times degraded, sometimes exotic status as foreign religions and their
adherents’ identification as barbarians, or at least outsiders, who gradu-
ally became ordinary and normal—that is, Chinese. The linguistic and
intellectual obstacles standing in the way of the study of Islam in China
are similar to those facing scholars of other “foreign” religions there,
but an additional difficulty lies in the entrenched notion that Muslims
are everywhere the same—that Islam, more than the other world reli-
gions, demands a strict uniformity of its believers. We can comfortably
describe Chinese Buddhists, cope with the cultural complexity of Chi-
nese Christians, and even consider Chinese Jews as both religiously
Jewish and culturally Chinese. But not Muslims—they must either be
fanatical followers of the Prophet, and thus not Chinese at all, or en-
tirely acculturated, and therefore not Muslim enough to be of signifi-
cance. This complex of attitudes does not conform to the history of
religions in general, certainly not of Islam in particular. For religion
alone cannot ever determine how people behave in specific times and
places; many other valences of identity constantly play in individual and
collective decisions.
In addition to its relevance to the history of both Islam and China,
the study of Muslims in China should be included as an element in the
much larger study of frontiers both cultural and physical, of cultural
contact and syncretism, and of multicultural societies. All over the
world a vast variety of hyphenated or multiple cultural identities has
been established over the course of millennia.1 For many reasons—trade
and long-term sojourning, migration away from military threats or
toward natural resources, the expansion and contraction of kingdoms
and empires, among others—people moved, acculturated to new hu-
man and physical ecologies, and became normal in new places. Some
claim indigenous status after only a few generations (e.g., Afrikaaners,
Anglo-Americans), while others keep (and/or are kept) separate and
remain self-consciously Other after centuries (e.g., the Jews of Europe,
the Hoa of Vietnam). The immigrants, the target culture, and the
particular temporal moment all figure in the complex processes of mu-
tual adaptation and coexistence.
i.	For the creation of such combined identities among the Sino-Muslims, see Lipman,
“Hyphenated Chinese.”
xviii﻿INTRODUCTION
In the past two centuries the nation-state as humankind’s primary
form of large-scale social, cultural, and political integration has become
a crucial actor in the dramas of acculturation—those already in progress
and the new ones created by colonialism, imperialism, and the break-up
or consolidation of empires into “countries.” Modern nation-states fix
their borders, including under their sovereign power whoever happens
to live in the territory thus enclosed. In most cases, that includes large
numbers of people culturally different from those in control. Nation-
states also possess the almost unconstrained power to grant citizenship,
and thus foil humanity, to their residents2 and to count, classify, divide,
and otherwise control crucial elements of personal identity.3 4
Though not utterly new in quality, these capacities of the modern
nation-state do differ significantly from those of premodern states. The
Qing (1644—1912) empire before the nineteenth century, for example,
possessed an ethnological capacity, counting and ordering its subjects
on the basis of language and other cultural variables, but it rarely went
so far as to tell them who they were.4- When the Qing emperors estab-
lished and tried to enforce boundaries between their subject peoples,
they did so to prevent combinations against themselves and to maintain
the normative model of a Manchu center ruling over many distinct
subordinate lords.5 Following China’s enforced inclusion in the world
system of nation-states, the nation-state centered on cultural China—
first in its embryonic Qing and Republican forms and now as the
People’s Republic—has created categories of humanity and superim-
posed them over existing social reality, to which they conform in wildly
2.	Rubenstein, Cunning of History.
3.	Anderson, Imagined Communities, esp. chap. 9, “Census, Map, Museum.”
4.	James Millward has found exceptions to this generalization at the northwestern
edge of the Qing empire, law cases in which officials indicted Chinese-speaking Muslims
(whom Millward calls Tungans) from Gansu who moved to Xinjiang as merchants. After
acculturating in language and marrying local Turkic-speaking women, they cut off their
queues. Were they Chinese, and therefore to be punished for defying the empire’s tonso-
rial strictures on Chinese people, or non-Chinese, and therefore free to wear their hair as
they chose? Both men protested that they had been forced to cut off their queues by
invaders from Kokand, but Nayancheng, the pacification commissioner, believed that
they would not have hesitated to do so themselves, so he punished them with exile. In
addition, he requested a judgment from the Board of Punishments regarding their mar-
riages to Turkestani women and was permitted to beat them with the heavy bamboo,
separate them from their wives, and reinforce their sentence of exile under an antimis-
cegenation statute added to the Altishahr regulations only after these cases were decided
(Beyond the Pass, chap. 6).
5.	Hevia, Cherishing Men, chap. 2.
xix﻿INTRODUCTION
varying degrees. The People’s Republic of China now employs the
awesome apparatus of modem political and social technology to pene-
trate into local society far more effectively than its imperial predecessors
could. In this (to date) century-long process, the Chinese nation-state
has inherited, reimagined, and acted upon a modern, hegemonic para-
digm of “Chinese” society, one based on the powerful concept of minzu.
THE MINZU PARADIGM
The People’s Republic of China divides its citizens into fifty-six minzu,
a word of late nineteenth-century Japanese origin with no obvious
English equivalent. It probably originated as a translation of the Ger-
man das Volk and is now variously rendered as “ethnic group,” “national-
ity,” “(a) people,” and “nation.” Qian Mu, in Dennerline’s English,
thought of it as the “whole people’s descent group,” and believed that
its existence and power grew out of the Chinese lineage and the univer-
sality of the rituals and norms of propriety.6 The minzu was conceptual-
ized in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century China as a powerful,
invisible cement binding together the descendants of the Yellow Em-
peror, a definition that clearly illustrates its genealogical connection to
late Edo and Meiji period (eighteenth—nineteenth century) Japanese
nativism and more distantly to German Aryanism and other European
racialist theories, as well as to indigenous Chinese discourses of race.7 In
the twentieth century, minzu, and various other compound words using
the zu component to claim familial (i.e., genetic) descent, have been
critical elements of the re-creation of Chineseness, deeply affected by
evolutionism (especially Neo-Lamarckism) and the racial-eugenic theo-
ries expounded by Euro-American scientists.
The People’s Republic of China, borrowing from the Stalinist “na-
tionality” policies of the Soviet Union, has transformed the term into a
bureaucratic classificatory tool. Since the 1950s it has been part of the
governing project of the People’s Republic to “identify” China’s minzu,
to classify and count the people within its borders as members of these
minzu, and to educate and provide services and policies for them appro-
priate to their minzu. The state also undertakes verification and reifica-
tion of the primordial quality of minzu membership and identity
through institutions and policies ranging from ethnological and linguis-
6.	Dennerline, Qian Mu, 8-10.
7.	Dikotter, Discourse of Race, esp. chaps. 3 and 4.
XX﻿INTRODUCTION
tic research institutes to collections of minzu folktales to special schools
for minzu children.
Justifying this immense enterprise, now involving over a billion souls,
required the creation of a hegemonic narrative, a unified story that
could demonstrate the bedrock truth of minzu continuity and con-
sanguinity in the past, for the present. That narrative rests primarily on
the teleological imperatives of Lewis Morgan’s five-step journey from
primitive matriarchy to socialist civilization, but, like all such national
stories, it also embodies an ideology of domination, the superiority of
Us over Them. In this account, each minzu, at its own pace and accord-
ing to its own environmental and historical conditions, has followed the
most advanced minzu, the majority Han people, toward higher steps on
the ladder of history. The Han minzu, which is supposed to include the
vast majority of China’s citizens—most (but not all) of the people we
would call “culturally Chinese”—has also been subjected to this most
Procrustean of narratives, but not in the same way as the “less ad-
vanced” peoples. For Han—that is, Chinese—history, unlike other
minzu histories, constitutes the story of Civilization or Culture itself
and thus represents the Chinese version of History, the linear and rig-
idly structured narrative of progress that philosophers of the European
Enlightenment imagined would happen to everyone, sooner or later.8
The “minority nationalities,” formally the shanshu minzu but often
called simply minzu to distinguish them from the Han, have been
placed in their “proper” historical positions by the construction of their
individual narratives, published as jianshi, “simple histories.” These
books all tell more or less the same story, embellished with local detail
and ethnological descriptions. From the Mosuo “living fossils” of Yun-
nan (who cling to archaic practices such as sex outside marriage) to the
pastoral Mongols (many of whose families have been farmers for centu-
ries) to the remnants of the Manchus (some of whom have had to be
convinced to be Manchus), the various minzu move from primitive to
slave to feudal to capitalist to socialist modes of production, progressing
most effectively when they acculturate to Chinese ways and learn from
the progressive classes of Han society.9 The universal promulgation of
these narratives, and the huge master narrative of the Han on which
8.	On the Enlightenment narrative of History, see Duara, Rescuing History, chap. i. To
contrast Han History with those of the various minzu, see Harrell, “Civilizing Projects,”
esp. pp. 25-27.1 have borrowed the notion of a “civilizing project” from Harrell’s article.
9.	For a detailed essay on the jianshi of the “Miao minzu” of southwest China, see
Litzinger, “Making Histories.”
xxi﻿INTRODUCTION
they are modeled, has generated contemporary Chinese History, a story
that can be amended or decorated but never questioned. These histories
constitute a crucial part of the “civilizing project” of the People’s Repub-
lic, which builds upon, expands, and transforms the efforts of earlier
political centers—Mongol Yuan, Chinese Ming, Manchu Qing, Chi-
nese Republican—to express their dominance over peripheral peoples.
Now a centralized nation-state, twentieth-century China has reified the
shape and size of the Qing empire at its greatest extent, minus much of
Mongolia and some of Vietnam, as what China hat always been. Histori-
cal figures as varied as Chinggis Khan, the Dalai Lamas, and the Kangxi
emperor and the vast territories of Tibet, Turkestan, and Mongolia may
thus be unambiguously identified as Chinese.
The problem of hegemonic narratives and the category systems on
which they are based—that is, the objectification of the Other—lies
close to the heart of this book. Euro-American scholars generally have
accepted description of the “non-Chinese” people of China—as is done
unproblematically in the People’s Republic—as members of fifty-five
clearly distinguishable minzu. But upon even cursory examination, the
supposedly exclusive minzu categories break down, become muddled,
invite deconstruction.10 Consider some questions germane to this book:
How is “Muslim” defined in the People’s Republic? What is the rele-
vance of this religious category to the minzu paradigm, which eschews
religion as a determinant of minzu status? Are people Muslims by hered-
ity, even if they do not practice Islam or believe in its tenets? How much
intermarriage outside one’s own minzu is required before ethnic iden-
tity shifts? These questions reiterate the difficulties Euro-American
states have had with the categories “Jew,” “Black,” “Indian,” and many
other putatively genetic boxes, underlining the rigidity and inflexibility
of state-established categories as hegemonic devices, not simple descrip-
tors of ethnological reality.
The People’s Republic of China, claiming to divorce its minzu para-
digm from religion, divides its “Muslim” citizens into ten minzu, each
supposedly distinguished by common territory, language, economy, and
psychological nature.11 Of these ten, nine are held to occupy their own
10.	Many of the papers in Harrell (ed.), Cultural Encounters, undertake this work,
especially those by Harrell, Diamond, Litzinger, Khan, Borchigud, and Hsieh.
11.	Muslims may be divided by language group: the Uygur, Qazak, Tatar, Uzbek,
Salar, and Kirgiz are Turkic-speakers; the Dongxiang and Bonan speak Mongolic lan-
guages; the Tajiks speak a Persian-based language; and the Hui, the default Muslims of
China, are primarily Sinophone but include small populations that use Tai, Tibetan, and
other “minority” languages.
XXII﻿INTRODUCTION
ancestral land and speak their own languages, though several are now
predominantly Sinophone. The tenth, the Hui, whose members make up
almost half of China’s Muslims (and ex-Muslims), constitutes the default
category. Under the Ming, Qing, and Republican regimes, the word Hui
meant “Muslim,” and Islam was called the “teaching of the Hui” (Ch.
Hui jiao). Muslims were distinguished from one another by additional
ethnonyms: the Turkic-speakers of the Xunhua region were called Saia
Hui, the turban-wearing residents of the eastern Turkestan oasis cities
were called Chantou Hui, and Chinese-speaking Muslims were called
Han Hui, among other names. Since the 1950s, however, only a Muslim
or descendant of Muslims who lives in China but does not belong to one
of the nine linguistically or territorially defined Muslim minzu is a Hui.12
Most of the Muslim actors in this book would now be considered
to belong to the Hui minzu—that is, they were Chinese-speaking
Muslims—but they would not have used that name themselves.
The most common ethnogenetic account of the Hui minzu, found in
the Huizu jianshi among many other sources, claims that during the
Ming period (1368—1644) the Muslims of China became a minzu, de-
spite their lacking at least three of the four defining characteristics of
such an entity.13 This Hui minzu is characterized by common descent
from the foreign Muslims of the Tang (618—907) to the Yuan (1279—
1368) period, a wide geographical distribution in China, and exclusive
use of the local vernacular, usually but not always a form of Chinese,
outside of ritual life. No such ethnonym exists in the Ming sources—
there all Muslims are called Huihui, an erroneous generalization of the
earlier Huihe, meaning Uygur.14 Hui, a shortened version of that same
12.	In pre-PRC China a Chinese who converted to Islam would become a Hui, that is,
a Muslim. Now that is no longer the case, for minzu is not a category based on religion.
Such a person would be a “Han who believes in Islam.” Similarly, a Tibetan Muslim’s
minzu status would depend on when the conversion took place. If it were back in the
1780s, the male descendants of that Tibetan would now be members of the Hui minzu.
(The minzu status of females often depends on that of their fathers, so only some female
descendants—those whose fathers were also Muslims—would now be Hui.) If the conver-
sion took place now, however, that Tibetan would remain a member of the Zang minzu,
but one who believes in Islam. Dru Gladney has written an ethnography of the Hui,
focusing on the diversity and local character of their cultures and Islamic practice (see
Muslim Chinese, esp. chap. 7).
13.	A concise version of this argument may be found in Lin and He, Huihui lishi, 1-12.
14.	Nakada, Kaikai minzoku, chap. 1. The Uygurs called by this name in pre-Ming
times were not of the same culture as twentieth-century Uygurs, though they came from
the same part of the world. Members of the contemporary Uygur minzu must by defini-
tion be Muslims, and the Tang to Yuan period Uygurs were not.
xxiii﻿INTRODUCTION
word, was used to mean “Muslim” in Ming and Qing texts, a meaning
changed decisively by twentieth-century governments intent on estab-
lishing minzu (contrasted to religion) as the crucial valence of ethnic
identity in modern China.15
The People’s Republic of China has been remarkably successful in
imposing the language of the minzu paradigm on its entire population,
including scholars and intellectuals of the “minority nationalities” them-
selves, so as a foreign historian I find myself in the position of disagree-
ing at the fundamental level of vocabulary—the meaning of words—
with teachers, colleagues, and most of the Chinese secondary literature
on this subject.16 The reader should certainly be aware of these differ-
ences and judge the arguments in this book not on their conformity to a
familiar vocabulary but on their historical merits. My subjects are pre-
dominandy Chinese-speaking Muslims, but I shall not call them Hui
unless I am referring to the period of the People’s Republic. Because the
word Hui is now entirely subsumed in the Hui minzu, for historical
narrative I prefer the categorical term Sino-Muslim, which combines
Chinese linguistic and material culture and Islamic religion without
relying on an anachronistic category scheme that would lump them
together genetically with Tibetan-, Tai-, and Bai-speakers, among oth-
ers. To go further, I find the entire minzu paradigm, with its putative
antiquity of ethnic consciousness and common descent, to be highly
15.	Some scholars, including Gladney (Muslim Chinese, chap. 7) and Harrell (“Civiliz-
ing Projects”), argue that the whole notion of “ethnic group” or “minority nationality”
can be created only in the context of the modern nation-state, a position with which the
evidence presented here leads me to concur (see chap. 6, this volume). Duara (Rescuing
History, 52—56) disagrees, arguing against Anderson that the gap between modem and
premodern self-consciousness is neither so wide nor so radical as he claims. Duara does,
however, recognize the nation-state as a new kind of community, despite its potential
ties to “archaic totalizations.” There is an enormous literature based on the assumption
that the Hui minzu formed in Ming China and that it was firmly established by the
Qing conquest. The simplest, most essentialized description may be found in Huizu
jianshi, 13—21. An earlier, somewhat more academic treatment, with substantially the
same conclusions, may be found in Xue Wenbo, “Mingdai yu Huimin.” Many of the
texts that will enable an accurate assessment of Islam under Ming rule have been
collected and analyzed by Tazaka Kodo in his magisterial Chugoku ni okeru Kaikyo (esp.
vol. 2, sec. 4-5).
16.	I have had stimulating, frustrating discussions on this subject with colleagues in
Beijing, Gansu, and Ningxia. They generally concluded that I, being a foreigner and a
non-Muslim, did not understand correctly, while I found that they could not tolerate my
argument, which challenged one of the crucial underpinnings of their view of the world,
the minzu paradigm.
xxiv﻿INTRODUCTION
suspect in regard to the Sino-Muslims. One of this book’s purposes lies
in examining what actually happened in some parts of China in order to
test the now politically enshrined minzu version of Chinese and Sino-
Muslim history.
For the same reasons, I shall attempt to use ethnonyms contemporary
to the sources of my narrative for non-Chinese-speaking Muslims, so
Salar will appear in the Qing, and Dongxiang only in the twentieth
century. Perhaps most annoying to contemporary readers, I shall try to
avoid the word Han as well, preferring “Chinese,” or, in some cases,
“non-Muslim Chinese,” as a more neutral marker. Though it certainly
appears in pre-twentieth-century sources, “Han” did not mean what it
does now, and historical accuracy demands that we understand what it
meant then. As Almaz Khan has persuasively argued for the Mongols,
Pamela Crossley more cautiously for the Manchus, and Frank Dikotter
for the Han Chinese, I shall demonstrate with regard to the Sino-
Muslims that ethnic consciousness of the. genealogical kind inherent in
the minzu paradigm is largely a modern phenomenon, based in a hege-
monic ideology that belongs to the nation-state, not to premodern
empires.17
CATEGORY SYSTEMS
Clearly one of the difficulties of a Muslim history in China lies precisely
in determining what the categories—the limits that states, cultures, and
other hegemonic systems place on what meanings are possible by con-
trol over the lexicon and syntax of primary and secondary historical
expression—were at a particular time. Since I am writing for an
English-reading audience, I confine myself largely to the category sys-
tems available in this language, some of which do not exist in Chinese
or the other languages in which my sources are written. Like minzu,
words such as “religion” (Ch. zongjiao), “Muslim” (Ch. Musilin, or
earlier Huihui and Huijiaotu), “ethnicity,” “China,” and “nation-state”
(Ch. guojia) have no neutral or precise referents but rather represent
pieces of historically constructed category systems within discourses of
power.18 From the outset, then, I shall be clear about their meanings.
17.	Almaz Khan, “Chinggis Khan”; Crossley, Orphan Warriors; and Dikotter, Discourse
of Race.
18.	It is both significant and fascinating that many of these Chinese words—minzu,
zongjiao, guojia—were first created in Japan as translations of Euro-American terms.
XXV﻿INTRODUCTION
Religion
The differentness of various Muslims from normative Chinese defini-
tions of themselves, from the idealized descriptions of “Han” culture
and society, does not always lie in the four Stalinist criteria that qualify
Muslims for minzu status. Indeed, the minzu paradigm, as applied in
the People’s Republic of China, embodies only some of the category
problems of a Muslim history in China. In this book, I have categorized
and separated the various actors from one another primarily by creed,
religious association, and the panoply of practices associated with Islam.
“Muslim” represents a powerful valence of identity, engaging us with
religious criteria invariably mediated by words and practices originating
far from China.
Though scholars of religion can supply strict and objective criteria for
membership in the umma,, the universal Muslim community, like minzu
definitions they begin to bend and become more malleable under the
pressure of historical circumstance. In public behavior, not only in
China but also in Muslim heartlands as well, many adult Muslim males,
not to mention women, do not pray five times a day, some stint on their
charitable obligations, and many do not fast during Ramadan, but they
are nonetheless unambiguously Muslims (some would call them “bad
Muslims”). We have even less information to test Muslim identity with
regard to matters of the heart such as faith in God. From studying
Muslims in China, I would argue that “being a Muslim” strongly resem-
bles “being a Jew” or “being a Christian” in the vast variety of religious,
psychological, social, political, and intellectual states it might describe.19
The sources for this book define “Muslim” in many ways, ranging from
silent participation to religious conviction to genealogical descent, and
readers should be aware that no single definition beyond self-ascription
or community membership informs the text. Euro-Americans must be
particularly cautious in ascribing specific collective consciousness or
behavior to Muslims, for we are bound with special tightness by our
own discourses of superiority and hegemony with regard to the Islamic
world.
19- Arguments among Muslims on “what it means to be a Muslim” are as common as
the remarkably similar debates over the meaning of Jewishness in Jewish communities all
over the world. Muslims have rhetorically, ritually, or even politically placed other Mus-
lims outside the umma over many issues, a fact we often forget in our desire to formulate a
unified Muslim Other. I would not argue that anything is possible within Islam—or
Judaism, for that matter—but rather that the range is wider than we usually imagine, and
that this variation is germane to the study of Muslims anywhere.
XXVI﻿INTRODUCTION
Sects, Orders, Teachings, and Solidarities
The Muslims of northwest China have divided themselves into a bewil-
dering number of groups by affiliation with leaders, ideologies, and
religious communities.20 The terminology describing these structures
will be crucial to this historical narrative, for religious solidarity func-
tioned as a central valence of identity in northwest China. Muslims also
identified themselves with particular places, genders, age-cohorts, pro-
fessions, and more, but the sources for northwestern Chinese history
focus to a great extent on expression of loyalty to specific Muslim
leaders, taken to embody the principles and character of their soli-
darities. I shall use the generic term “solidarity” to refer to all such
groups, for they are, to a greater extent than many other components of
identity, voluntary and self-consciously solidary.
The English word “sect” has in Islamic studies come to refer exclu-
sively to groups that can consider other Muslims to be nonbelievers (Ar.
kafir). In modern times the Sunni/Shi’i division is referred to as sectar-
ian, while most others are not, and since that distinction is not relevant
to this history of Islam in China, “sect” does not appear in this book
with reference to Muslims. Islamicists use the word “order” to refer to
Sufi brotherhoods, whose rise in China will be described in consider-
able detail. Chinese, of course, possesses its own terminologies and
categories for such groups, and controversies have arisen over whether a
particular group is zjiaopai (teaching), menhuan (Sufi group with he-
reditary leadership), or some other sort oipai (faction). Qing texts often
refer to Laojiao (Old Teaching) and Xinjiao (New Teaching), while
contemporary studies combine specifically Muslim terms with minzu
categories, for example, Salazu de Zhehelinye (Jahriya adherents among
the Salar minzu). Because so many of the actors in this narrative are
Muslim solidarities, usually personified in their leaders, I shall define
them with care when they appear.
Ethnicity
The complex definitions surrounding the English term “ethnicity” con-
tinue to provide scholars with fertile ground for contumely. Rather than
engage in the theoretical debate, I shall follow the definition proposed
by a recent book: Members of an ethnic group share consciousness of
20.	Gladney, Muslim Chinese, appendix A, includes a list of the names of many of these
organizations or solidarities.
xxvii﻿INTRODUCTION
solidarity by virtue of sharing (putative) common descent and common
customs or habits, and they similarly share consciousness of opposition
to other such groups of “different” ancestry and customs. However
ethnic groups might arise (and there is considerable controversy on the
issue), they do seem to develop (are invented or transformed) “in situa-
tions where a group is confronted in some way by an outside power
with whom it is in competition for resources of some kind, whether
they be material... or symbolic.”21 This definition allows for ethnicity
to be processual, rather than fixed by a list of characteristics in anthropo-
logical time, and it denies the primordial, eternal qualities often ascribed
to ethnic groups by their members and their enemies. This definition
also does not conform to that of a minzu, for the latter is rendered
ahistorical by construction of objectified markers—in official doctrine,
these are common territory, language, economy, and psychological
nature—rather than processes of consciousness or opposition, so I shall
not use the two words interchangeably.
Empire and Nation
The state must be an important actor in any history of Muslims in
China, and here, too, problems of definition arise, especially as we
observe the transformation of the Qing empire into the Chinese nation-
state in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In a recent book James
Hevia notes some crucial differences between Manchu imperial hege-
mony and earlier (specifically Ming) indigenously ruled Chinese states,
such as the “multinational, multilinguistic, and multiethnic” nature of
the Qing polity and the consequent necessity for the Qing rulers to
create a powerful center and an effective balance among their subordi-
nate lords.22 We cannot place “the Muslims” in a single position in this
state-centered model (nor did the Qing), for they lived in so wide a
variety of cultural and political circumstances and in so many different
relationships to the state. Some (e.g., the Turkic-speakers of Altishahr)
were perceived as vassals, others (e.g., the Chinese-speaking Muslims of
Gansu) as domestic subjects like the Chinese; some individuals received
hostile attention from officials, while others achieved high rank. Trans-
forming itself in historical time, and affected by internal and external
forces beyond its control, the empire, like the personal or collective
21.	Harrell, “Civilizing Projects, 28.
22.	Hevia, Cherishing Men, chap. 2. As Pamela Crossley recently noted in a personal
communication, “Empires pinpoint centers, nation-states construct boundaries.”
xxviii﻿INTRODUCTION
identities of its subjects, should be viewed as processual rather than
fixed, and this requires special care in the construction of an apparently
straightforward narrative.
Even Qing authority over the Muslims of northwest China, the cen-
tral subjects of this book, cannot be described as monolithic or consis-
tent. Some of the non-Chinese-speaking peoples, the Salar for example,
had been governed by tusi, local families that received hereditary patents
of office and a degree of autonomy in local affairs from the Qing state.23
After completing the conquest of eastern Turkestan in the 1750s, the
Qing appointed local notables as hereditary lords (Tur. beg) over the
urban Turkic-speakers of Xinjiang, but the Chinese-speaking Muslims
of Shaanxi and Gansu remained entirely under the jurisdiction of the
centrally appointed regular civil officials, though the military played a
major role in local politics. The Qing perceived differences among the
peripheral groups—in their ability or inability to use the Chinese lan-
guage and in their historically demonstrated “govemability”—and es-
tablished local authority accordingly, altering its structure as local and
regional conditions changed.
In local or regional history, we cannot simply examine central policy
or imperial pronouncements and assume their implementation by “the
state.” Rather, we ask, within local structures of dominance, “Who is the
state?”24 The state’s formal and informal apparatus in northwest China
over the past three centuries has included a fair number of Muslims,
some of them conventional graduates of the military and civil examina-
tion system, others holders of less obvious (but no less real) state-
sanctioned authority. The empire governed many of its peripheral sub-
jects from a considerable political—as well as physical—distance, and
this, too, distinguishes it from the more intrusive modem nation-state,
with integration and participation on its mind.
SOURCES AND PERCEPTIONS
Our interpretive problems do not end with the meanings of words. To
repeat a common truism, historical writing depends to a great extent on
what people choose to remember, usually by writing it down but by
2;. The tusi had originally been established by the Mongols, and the Ming continued
some of their appointments in the limited peripheral areas under their control. The Qing,
of course, ruled an empire twice the size of the Ming state.
24.	I am grateful to Stevan Harrell for this insight, based on his fieldwork in southwest
China.
xxix﻿INTRODUCTION
other means as well, and this is determined by what they think is
important. For a history of Muslims in northwest China, most of our
primary sources come from officials, literati, gentry, and other people
associated with the state. The northwest has had the lowest literacy rate
of any part of the Chinese culture area, so few Muslims wrote Chinese
well enough to compose their own histories. Those who did tended to
work, like their literate non-Muslim contemporaries, in the vocabulary
and from the point of view of the imperial center. They did not necessar-
ily agree with one another, for Chinese historiography and intellectual
history are rife with conflict over interpretations of the past, but all of
them, more or less unconsciously, utilized culturewide notions of hu-
man nature, of historical causation, of the working of human society to
inform not only their analyses but also their decisions on what to in-
clude when they wrote.
In Chinese writing about Muslims over the past three hundred years,
one theme overrides all others—that of violence. During the Ming and
Qing periods, it became axiomatic that Huihui, or (if the writer was
careful) some Huihui (meaning Muslims) were by nature fierce, preda-
tory, and hard to control.25 Like similar dominant stereotypes elsewhere
in the world, and others rife in China itself, this image has a history; we
can follow its formation in real time, as specific incidents combined
with more diffuse perceptions of peripheral or “different” people to
arouse fear and loathing.26
Particularly after the Qing conquest of eastern Turkestan—that is, by
the mid-eighteenth century—the peculiar conditions of northwest
China, pressuring the Sino-Muslims from both sides of their frontier
homeland and on both aspects of their hyphenated identities, brought
catastrophic change, which can be narrated in increasingly detailed and
textured form. I am especially concerned with the weight of the stereo-
type of Muslims as violent people, which figured in state and local
25.	Needless to say, this characterization is applied almost exclusively to male Muslims.
I have found almost no premodern Chinese sources that even mention the existence of
Muslim women except as victims of massacre, objects of pacificatory action by the state,
or statistics in census or taxation records. A conversation in May 1996 with Ms. Ma
Yaping, a graduate student at the Gansu Nationalities Institute in Lanzhou, confirmed
that Chinese scholars have not found any sources, either. Ms. Ma must restrict her
research on Sino-Muslim women in Gansu to the People’s Republic (post-1949) for lack
of information on any earlier period. For more detailed analysis of this theme, see
Lipman, “Ethnic Conflict.”
26.	I have dealt with this problem of perception in detail in Lipman, “Statute and
Stereotype.”
XXX﻿INTRODUCTION
sociopolitical and military practice from the mid-Qing into the twenti-
eth century. To narrate a history of violence does not mean to accept the
image as true. Rather, as a historian, I weave the stories the sources tell
into a history of perception that lay beyond the consciousness of their
authors. Hindsight, after all, has to be good for something.
EXPLANATIONS OF SOCIAL DISORDER
From 1949 into the 1980s Chinese historiography has been dominated
by the supposedly materialist analytical construct of class struggle, the
sole motive force of change in the Maoist vision of the past. In contem-
porary Chinese History, the hegemonic narrative centering on the Han
minzu, class struggle remains a primary explanation for social disorder
(including violence): the masses who are the subjects of history and
objects of state control rise up against feudal oppression at moments of
sharpening social contradiction, with varying degrees of success. Within
that rigidly enforced conception of human motivation, however, Chi-
nese historians have creatively integrated older causal conceptions from
imperial China’s Confucian discourse.
As the historian’s focus narrows to specific events and individuals, the
hoary ethic of “praise and blame historiography,” canonized by the Han
dynasty historian Sima Qian (145—87 B. c. E. ?), appears alongside dialec-
tical materialism, attaching judgments of “good” and “evil” to the crucial
actors—emperors, rebels, officials, warlords, intellectuals, and more.
Since Chinese nationalism (often permeated with Han minzu chauvin-
ism) has come to dominate explanatory modes, the decision as to what is
good and what is evil depends largely on whether the event or actor
contributed to the good of the nation, its most progressive classes (the
workers and peasants), and, in some cases, the minzu, as it is currently
perceived. Historians therefore set out to judge whether Ma Hualong
was a righteous rebel or a wicked bandit, whether Ma Hongbin was a
virtuous warlord or a feudal warlord, whether Chiang Kai-shek was a
reactionary villain or a national unifier. The objects of historical judg-
ment include not only individuals but also collectives of various kinds,
including Muslim solidarities, entire peoples or nation-states, residents
of a particular place, foreigners (in general or divided into subgroups),
and minzu. Such judgments have powerful impact on the construction of
hegemonic narratives, while their praise-and-blame purpose ineluctably
influences the ways Chinese historians read their sources.
The definition of “good,” and for whom the person or event in ques-
tion might be good, lies at the core of all such judgments. Prior to the rise
xxxi﻿INTRODUCTION
of the modern nation-state, the conventional nostrums of Confucianism
set the standard—goodness lies in acting out benevolence, righteous-
ness, justice, filial piety, female chastity, and so forth. For officials and
other public figures, loyalty to the throne—to the person of the emperor
or his family—stood as an important definer of the good, as long as the
dynasty’s virtue could be seen to remain intact. The Mencian justification
of rebellion against an unjust authority that had lost Heaven’s mandate
might also condition the evaluation, with appropriate hindsight, of a
historical actor. Like many historians of China, I shall have occasion to
mention the proverb “A winner a king, a loser a bandit.” In the nine-
teenth and twentieth centuries the good of the nation-state, its leader,
and the minzu has become the standard for historical judgment, joined
since the rise of the Communist Party by that of the “progressive” or
“virtuous” social classes and of the Party itself.
Under these judgmental, moralistic historiographical regimes—Con-
fucian, nationalist, and communist—the behavior of Muslims in China
has been evaluated. Not only did Muslims have to conform to the current
standard of goodness, but they also suffered opprobrium from an intellec-
tual elite that held its own texts and values to be exclusively true, thus
condemning the Muslims’ texts (and the Muslims themselves) to perma-
nent or temporary barbarism. Confucian scholars usually argued that the
barbarian was civilizable, and we will note many cases of Muslims who
achieved high rank or reputation by their (Chinese) classical learning or
(Chinese) moral action. Foreigners or barbarians were simply those who
had not yet been adequately exposed to Civilization, to Culture.
Dikotter, however, notes that another, more defensive set of categori-
cal differences between Chinese and non-Chinese was available in pre-
modern China, in contrast to this Confucian cultural universalism. The
alternative view defined non-Chinese as utterly and irremediably Other,
different, savage, bestial. Though literati commonly invoked those cate-
gories only under pressure from external elites (e.g., conquest dynas-
ties), when the standards themselves were threatened by uncivilized
power, they nonetheless provided a potential counterbalance to the
ideology of acculturation and absorption of foreigners.27 They also en-
abled both officials and local gentry, in times of social strife, to call on
wide-ranging stereotypes of Others (including Muslims) as evil and
disorderly by nature, controllable only through force majeure applied by
the state rather than by peaceful exposure to the civilizing influences of
literary Culture (or its lower-class correlate, agriculture). In the People’s
27.	Dikotter, Discourse of Race, chap. 1, sec. 2.
XXX11﻿INTRODUCTION
Republic, with its statutory equality among minzu, “barbarian” has
been replaced by “primitive” or “backward” as a characterization of
those minzu who must be persuaded or educated into conformity with
the dominant cultural norms of the Han minzu, while irreversible sav-
agery is reserved for imperialists, feudal regimes, some foreigners (espe-
cially Africans), and, occasionally, the Japanese.
SPECIFICITY AND MULTIPLE CAUSATION
Facing a comprehensive, hegemonic narrative of Chinese history based
on inflexible imperial or Sinocentric standards of judgment, we should
aim not only to deconstruct but also to provide alternatives that compre-
hend the ambiguity and multiple causations inherent in any human
history. In the construction of parallel or alternative narratives, we can
avoid the errors of universalism and overgeneralization that plague the
dominant paradigms; we can read the sources in pursuit of local stories
revealing the same humane richness of motivation we would seek in
order to explain or understand events in our own times and places.
So I present this book not as the history of the Muslims of northwest
China but as a history of Muslims in northwest China—one of many, as
firmly grounded in specificity as the sources allow. My own proclivities
and opportunities led me to the region called Gansu Province by the
Qing but which now includes Gansu and Qinghai Provinces and the
Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. There the Sino-Muslims’ bicultural
quality is sharply pronounced, for they occupy what Richard White, a
historian of European relations with Native Americans, has called the
“middle ground,” a place of intimate contact and fear and adaptation, a
place in which peoples adjust to their differences while positioned be-
tween cultures.28 Though it may be dominated by one side or the other,
the middle ground is always ambiguous ground, always capable of
multiple interpretations. The middle ground of Gansu, like that of the
Great Lakes, enabled a long process of sometimes expedient, sometimes
deadly, mutual misunderstanding. Though I believe that Sino-Muslims
inhabited similar middle grounds in Yunnan, Sichuan, and Turkestan,
and elsewhere in China on a more local scale, those stories will have to
await other investigations.
As I explain below, Gansu was the meeting ground of four cultural
zones. In the past millennium the dominant cultural and political cores
of Chinese, Tibetan, Mongolian-Manchu, and Central Asian civiliza-
28.	White, The Middle Ground.
xxxiii﻿INTRODUCTION
tions all have lain far from northwest China, making it a frontier of four
cultures. Under imperial rule from a capital in eastern China, the region
could usually function through negotiation of the terms of relationship
and a careful eye to independent powers that might occupy the “other”
side of the frontier in Tibet, eastern Turkestan, or Mongolia.29
PROGRESS BY NARROWING
We cannot begin such a history in medias res, however. Even the hege-
monic narrative of Sino-Muslim history is not generally known by Euro-
American scholars, so the very presence of Muslims anywhere in China
must be narrated and explained. This story includes the evolution of
social attitudes and socially constructed descriptions of Muslims in China
as a group (stereotypes), providing a general context for more local
history. Therefore I progress by narrowing in both space and time, begin-
ning with a brief and rather general history of the arrival and diffusion of
Islam in what we now call China and moving toward regional, local, and
finally individual stories. Driven by the historian’s inexorable logic of
chronological time, my narrative cannot sustain the vast scope necessary
to be the history ofMuslims in China, nor can it amalgamate into accurate
generalizations all the personal, local, and specific stories that represent
the Sino-Muslims as human beings, as historical actors.
Following chapter i’s geographic and ethnographic introduction to
northwest China, the narrative begins in chapter 2 with an overview
that covers almost a thousand years and encompasses the entire Chinese
culture area, setting the stage by placing Muslims as unfamiliar elements
in the well-known context of Tang through Ming China. As sources
become richer and more complex after the Qing conquest of the 1640s,
chapters 3 and 4 examine specific Sino-Muslim solidarities and their
leaders, covering only a century each, and only in northwest China.
When the Chinese nation-state replaced the Qing empire in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, complex processes of change,
caused by both endogenous forces and others from Euro-America and
from the Muslim world, enveloped the peripheries of China and forced
people to make choices under unfamiliar pressures. Chapter 5 therefore
narrows further to individuals, presenting four portraits of Sino-
29.	In this millennium, only the Xixia kingdom of the Tanguts, a Tibetan-speaking
people, created an independent polity in this region, but many local power-holders (in-
cluding twentieth-century warlords) were able to establish semi-independent satrapies
under distant regimes.
XXXIV﻿INTRODUCTION
Muslim leaders who took very different but equally winding paths to-
ward accommodation with modern China.
In the Qing and Republican periods Muslims played an important
role in constructing Chinese identity—as Gu Jiegang claimed they
would for a modem China—in part by resisting homogenization, by
subverting the dominant definitions of Chineseness, by remaining differ-
ent but present, the “familiar strangers” of my tide. The results of this
history of tension were often brutal and violent, well reported in the
self-consciously moralizing histories of the keepers of public order, who
were also the defenders of the monolithic hierarchy of virtue with them-
selves at the top and distant, uncivilizable foreigners at the bottom. But
some of the Sino-Muslims’ history took place within domestic settings
that historians cannot reach, as Muslims and non-Muslims intermar-
ried, or in marketplace encounters that ended in deals, not brawls, or in
mutual and satisfactory adaptations resulting from centuries of ordered
contact.
Over the past thousand and more years Muslims have come to belong
in China, to think of it as their only home, to use its cultures and
languages as their own. And Chinese culture, in many of its regional
manifestations (especially, but not exclusively, in Gansu and Yunnan),
has developed a “sense of itself” in part through constant interaction
with and gradual inclusion of the Muslim strangers who lived there.
Their myriad of stories cannot be told only in the aggregate, in terms of
ethnic groups or regions. Rather, we meet individual human beings,
follow their decisions and indecisions, try to understand their position
as participants in what appear to be two cultures, as demanding and as
exclusive and intolerant of domestic difference as cultures are prone to
be. Complex choices about adaptation had always been available to
Sino-Muslims, but the richness of our twentieth-century sources allows
us to examine individuals as they faced the wrenching changes wrought
by modernity.
THE VIEW FROM THE EDGE: FAMILIAR STRANGERS
The large processes examined here—acculturation, resistance, incorpo-
ration, integration—should not be allowed to obscure differences
among places, times, and persons. In a book covering 1,300 years I have
sacrificed a measure of specificity, especially in the early chapters, but I
have tried to suggest in anecdotes the richness of sources that awaits us.
Only a novelist’s or poet’s hand could describe adequately the extraordi-
nary physical and human terrain of northwest China, but I hope to do it
xxxv﻿INTRODUCTION
pale justice with maps, photographs, and narratives. This book is in-
tended to create interest not only in further study of Sino-Muslims, but
also in the broad issues of difference and conflict their stories embody.
Most, if not all, of the contemporary world’s nation-states are coming
to terms with domestic minorities—people who belong to more than
one culture simultaneously, people who live in the “middle ground” and
who have created new and syncretic cultures there. (Another recent
book called Familiar Strangers deals with the Gypsies in the United
States.)
It would be feckless to claim that Gansu somehow represents China
as a “typical” region. Gansu lies at the frontier, at the margin, of Chinese
culture (though not of the contemporary Chinese nation-state), and
thus, despite its apparendy oudandish mix of cultures, it can provide us
with what has now become a cliched advantage—the liminal view. The
Sino-Muslims of northwest China indeed live in a dual liminality, at the
outer edges of the two worlds with which they identify as Chinese and
as Muslims. I have written Familiar Strangers as a history of becoming
and then being Chinese while remaining Muslim, of the evolution of a
sense of home. If our understandings of Chineseness cannot encompass
the history of Gansu, then we should revise them. If our generalizations
about Islam, about cultural contact, about acculturation and sociocul-
tural distinction cannot help us explain the society of northwest China
and its processes, we should change them.
xxxvi﻿Familiar Strangers
A History of Muslims
in Northwest China﻿﻿11 The Frontier Ground and Peoples
of Northwest China
Well, I at least find myself reflecting on this point. A geographical
area keeps a certain flavour, which manifests in all its happenings, its
events. ... I sometimes wonder if this thought may not be usefully
taught to children at the start of their “geography lessons.” Or
would one call it history?
Doris Lessing, Shikasta
Muslims live almost everywhere in China. A few small clusters are lo-
cated in the south, more in the northeast, and hundreds of thousands on
the north China plain, with the densest concentrations at Beijing and
Tianjin, though they constitute only a tiny minority among the non-
Muslim Chinese.1 Tens of thousands of Muslims live in Yunnan’s cities
and market towns, and smaller numbers may be found along the trade
routes leading to Burma and Tibet from the southwest. But Muslims in
contemporary China still live most densely along the ancient Silk Road,
which connected Central Asia with north China. Eastern Turkestan
(now the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region) has had an indigenous
population that is almost entirely Muslim and non-Chinese-speaking for
centuries, joined only during the past forty years by millions of non-
Muslim Chinese.
Between north China and Turkestan are two zones of dense Muslim
habitation: the Ningxia region of the middle Yellow River valley (now
the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region) and a crescent of territory in
southwestern Gansu and northeastern Qinghai Provinces. These zones,
one on either side of the regional core at Lanzhou, are the ground of most
i.	A map including only the Muslims classified as Hui by the People’s Republic of
China may be found on the flyleaf of Gladney, Muslim Chinese (table of distribution, p.
28). The Hui Muslims are largely Chinese-speaking, which sets them off from Muslims
who speak Turkic, Mongolic, or Persian languages, though the government has included
some non-Chinese-speaking Muslims among the Hui.
3﻿map i. Contemporary provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities of the People’s Republic of China.
(Map by Philip M. Mobley)﻿FRONTIER GROUND AND PEOPLES
of this book—a frontier of four cultures, a region known in China for
little except poverty, marginality, archeological riches, and bellicose in-
habitants. Though I must begin with a general history of Islam’s arrival
and development in China, since no such narrative exists in English, the
lion’s share of this work focuses on the northwest.
Therefore this book is not about China, but about a particular part of
China, a frontier very distant from the core areas of Chinese culture and
very strange to most Chinese. That does not, of course, reduce its
importance in Chinese history. The distance of the northwestern fron-
tier from “China proper” (which northwesterners call neidi, the inte-
rior) enhances its value as a lens on the range and diversity of Chinese
life. Local history, not in the mode of case studies in search of the typical
but as an understanding of the particular for its own sake, deepens and
subtly diffuses our comprehension of what it is to be Chinese. The
generalization and homogenization of Chinese society by scholars, both
Chinese and foreign, distorts the real and compelling variety created by
distinct environments and their particular histories.
The acts recorded by chroniclers of northwest China have tended to
be violent and antisocial, construed as immoral by the Confiician judges
of history. In a narration of this rowdy past, we must ask why people,
often neighbors for years or for generations, take up weapons to kill one
another at particular historical moments. What begins what Barbara
Tuchman has called “the march of folly,” leading to bloodshed on a
small or large scale? It will not do to say, as many have, that Muslims are
naturally violent and fanatical people because of their doctrine. Nor can
we aver that Chinese people do not care about human life because there
are so many of them. Or that frontiers are just violent places. Historians
of the particular cannot ignore or devalue the often peaceful Muslims,
the often life-affirming Chinese, the often calm fronters. In order to
discover patterns and clues in the specific time and place, we must
patiently explore what people actually did.
In the civil, avowedly antimilitary and culturally homogeneous China
of the dominant mythology, violence may properly serve only the holder
of the mandate of Heaven.2 Yet in folk tradition, from the early legends to
the battles of Cao Cao to the heroes of the Shuihu zhucm and the Luding
Bridge, warfare and martial heroism have vaulted men and women into
exalted memory, and many parts of China have dramatic, explosive local
traditions of violence going back to the Han dynasty (206 B. c. e - c. E.
2.	For a more comprehensive treatment of the problem of violence in the study of
China, see Harrell, “Introduction.”
5﻿FRONTIER GROUND AND PEOPLES
220) or even before. A local historian of Jiangsu tells me that there are
areas of central China where collective or large-scale violence plays almost
no part in history. But to call such places “typically Chinese” ignores not
only stereotypically violent frontiers such as the northwest but also coun-
ties in Zhejiang, Anhui, and even Jiangsu itself that have rich and trou-
bled traditions of violence. To understand China in its particulars, we
must assimilate that violence into our imagery.
Thus we can build on Hsiao Kung-ch’uan’s famous metaphor—
China as a vast mosaic of environments and histories. In this book I
focus on a small part to discover the colors and textures of its many frag-
ments, their brightness and sharp corners, their diverse shapes. As local
history becomes more popular and more viable, a clear vision of the
parts must, in our history of scholarship, clarify the complex human
effort that created the whole.
FRONTIER GROUND
October 1938. Gu Jiegang was tired and worried. His father was dying
back home in Suzhou, but the forty-five year old professor of ancient
history knew he could not travel east to do his filial duty. He had been
on the road for over a year, having left Beiping just ahead of the invad-
ing Japanese, and had arrived in Sichuan only in September, after an
exhausting fact-finding tour of the northwest. Not yet ready to report
to the Sino-British Cultural and Educational Endowment Fund, which
had sponsored his excursion in the hope of learning more about edu-
cation among the northwestern Muslims, he nonetheless agreed when
an old friend asked him to give a lecture. He had to speak to his
audience—the faculty and students of the Mongolian-Tibetan School
of the Central Political College—in a makeshift hall, for Chongqing’s
universities, like its sewers and housing market, had been flooded by
refugees fleeing the Japanese:
When Demchukdonggrub [Ch. De Wang] started the autonomy
movement in Mongolia in 1933, I met with him and his associates at
Bailingmiao. Only after that did I realize the gravity of frontier issues,
so I changed my direction and began to study frontier problems. . . .
[On my recent trip] most of the places I visited were inhabited by Hui
and Fan [Tibetans], . . . Banditry is a really serious problem there. . . .
Though we met with some local desperadoes, fortunately they didn’t
rob us.
The most severe and most pressing problem in the northwest is
6﻿FRONTIER GROUND AND PEOPLES
transportation. ... If you haven’t been there, you couldn’t imagine it,
but between neighboring counties, even townships, people rarely com-
municate. ... If the northwest’s transportation problem is not solved,
there’s no sense even talking about the others.
Of the places I visited, many were districts with complex racial
[Ch. zhongzu] and religious intermingling. . . . The Muslims have
Old Teaching, New Teaching, and New—New Teaching, while the
lamaists have Red, Black, Yellow, and Flowery sects. Among the
races there are Han [Chinese], Manchus, Mongols, Hui Muslims,
Qiang and Fan, Salar Muslims, and Turen [Monguors, a Mongolie-
speaking people], . . .' Because northwesterners have all these fac-
tions, all these mental barriers, they know only that there are sectar-
ian divisions, and they don’t know that they all are citizens of the
Republic of China!
. . . people from the rest of China rarely go to the northwest, and
those who do are all merchants, low-class salesmen, with small minds
and love for high profits, who often jack up prices and cheat ignorant
Tibetans and Mongols.
The places we went on this trip are actually in the middle of our
country’s territory; when people say we got to the frontier, it makes us
feel really ashamed. ... So our responsibility in “frontier work” must
be gradually to shrink the frontier, while enlarging the center, so that
sooner or later the “frontier” will just be the border.3
We have no record of the audience’s reaction to Gu’s lecture, but he
remained convinced that the northwest held one of the keys to China’s
future, so he spent much of his career investigating its history. His
father died that winter without ever seeing his son again.4
The Frontier Ground of Gansu
Gu Jiegang was right about the northwest’s physical position inside
China’s border—the provinces he visited are only slightly north and
west of the country’s geographical center, if the vast areas conquered by
the Qing are included in “China.” But he was certainly ingenuous about
culture. Despite its proximity to the “center” of China, what he called
the northwest constitutes the meeting ground of four topographical
3.	Gu Jiegang, “Kaocha xibei,” 12-16.
4.	For Gu Jiegang’s interest in China’s Muslims, especially their internecine conflicts,
see Nakada, Kaikai minzoku, 75-77.
7﻿FRONTIER GROUND AND PEOPLES
and cultural worlds: the Tibetan highlands, the Mongolian steppe, the
Central Asian desert, and the loess of agricultural north China.5 This
frontier zone encompasses the perimeters of cultures that have been in
evolving contact on this same ground for centuries. We might have a
comparable area in the United States if large numbers of Navajo farm-
ers, Sioux hunters, Anglophone ranchers, and Spanish-speaking herders
all had been packed for a long period of time into a three-hundred-mile-
square, ecologically diverse region of New Mexico. The comparison
between northwest China and the American west did not escape a
contemporary Chinese urbanite sent to work in Qinghai during the
Cultural Revolution:
The road passed through hills and valleys that were at times bleak and
empty, reminding me of what I had imagined the American wild west
would look like, based on a movie I had once seen in Shanghai.
“Where were the cowboys and the Indians?” I asked myself, and later
of course it turned out that I would be one of the cowboys and the
Tibetans would be the Indians.6
In physical space eastern Gansu forms the transitional zone between
steppe/highlands and arable lowlands, its climate dry and severe, its
topographical contrasts sharp and sudden.7 Both of the historically cru-
cial roads in the region—between Central Asia and the cultural cores of
China (west-east), and between Tibet (Xizang) and Mongolia (south-
north)—pass through the Gansu corridor, the narrow gap between the
northern Tibetan mountains and the Mongolian desert.
The complex topography has contributed to equally complex human
geography. In historical time, most of Gansu has been numerically and
politically dominated by Chinese people and the states ruling them, both
the conquest dynasties and the domestic. As Gu noted, sharing or com-
peting with them for the productive and strategic resources of Gansu
have been diverse non-Chinese peoples, among them Tibetans sedentary
and nomadic (including a few Muslims), Turkic-speakers (Muslim and
5.	Fletcher, “A Brief History.”
6.	Frolic, Mao’s People, 1+6.
7.	“Northwest China” usually refers to the contemporary provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu,
and Qinghai, plus the “autonomous regions” of Ningxia and Xinjiang. Before the late
1920s, however, northeastern Qinghai and the Muslim areas of Ningxia were included in
Gansu Province. Since most of the region of concern here lies within pre-1928 Gansu, I
shall use that province’s name except when referring specifically to places that lay in
Shaanxi or Xinjiang under the Qing.
8﻿FRONTIER GROUND AND PEOPLES
non-Muslim), Mongolic-speakers (Muslim and non-Muslim), and mix-
tures among the four. New ethnic identities have evolved as peoples and
states advanced, contracted, and mingled along this multicultural mar-
gin, strategically crucial to many states but central only to those who live
there. Personal and collective identities, elusive and processual in all
human societies, have proved particularly troublesome in frontier areas
when modern states attempt to rigidity boundaries and classify people;
Gansu is no exception.
In central Gansu, at Jiayuguan, lies the symbolic end of the Chinese
agriculturalist’s domain, the terminus of the Great Wall. Even inside the
wall, however, the Gansu topography dictates a diverse economy, with
livestock breeding and trade in animal products playing crucial roles
beside cultivation of food grains and artisanal production. The eastern
half of the province, with its New England—like climate, produces good
tobacco, fruit, millet, and medicinal herbs. Both eastern Gansu and the
Gansu corridor have soils and conditions well suited to the opium
poppy, planted in great abundance in the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries.
Much of Gansu, however, does not look as agrarian China should
(see plate i). The hillsides and grasslands, especially in the high country
of the Tibetan mountains and Alashan, provide pasture for sheep, goats,
local breeds of hardy cattle, horses, deer, and yaks. Between the river
valleys, away from water sources, much of Gansu lies barren, the loess
deeply eroded into steep hills without sufficient topsoil or water for
agriculture. There the population spreads more thinly across the land-
scape, and even the best roads wash out in the rainy season or collapse
when earthquakes strike. Gu Jiegang knew from firsthand experience
how many parts of Gansu, remote from regional or even local centers,
remain difficult to reach because of the infrastructural obstacles posed
by topography and climate.
Gansu Geographical Regions
The Yellow River, its tributaries, and the deforestation of its watershed
have carved out much of this harsh terrain. The rivers—very rapid as
they flow down from the high mountains—obstruct transport, irrigate
narrow fladands along their banks, and erode the slopes from which the
trees have been removed. They also define the regions into which the
province has traditionally been divided. Lanzhou, the provincial capital
and commercial and transportation center of the whole region, lies on
the Yellow River’s south bank, directly between the two zones of dense
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map 2. The five provinces and autonomous regions of northwest China. (Map by Philip M. Mobley).﻿FRONTIER GROUND AND PEOPLES
Muslim habitation. Through the city runs the Silk Road, now a paved
highway, the main land route from central China to Central Asia, as
well as a north-south road connecting Gansu to Sichuan and distant
Yunnan. Though nearby hills make extensive farming difficult, the
Lanzhou region does produce grain and fruit, especially large (and
very sweet) pears. Upriver lie the gorges of northeastern Tibet, and
downriver dangerous rapids hinder irrigation of the poor farmland
along the banks.
Ningxia. The Yellow River finally straightens out northeast of Lan-
zhou, running sedately across the loess plain east of Alashan to the city
of Ningxia (now Yinchuan), the “Lower Yangtze of the steppe.” There,
at the edge of the Gobi Desert, an ancient irrigation system supports a
rich and mixed agricultural economy, including paddy rice. The irri-
gated plain east of the river stretches toward the alkaline desert of the
western Ordos, a source of wealth from salt extraction but a dangerous
obstacle to commerce with north China. Southeast of Ningxia, the ill-
favored loess country of Haicheng and Guyuan contains some of
Gansu’s worst land and poorest people, ending in the rugged Liupan
Mountains, where Chinggis Khan is supposed to have died in the thir-
teenth century.
Longdong.8 The eastern quarter of the province lies at the upper end
of the Wei River valley. The Wei, a tributary of the Yellow River at the
great bend (Tongguan) in southeastern Shaanxi, flows through one of
the earliest centers of Chinese civilization. Shaanxi Province, also called
Guanzhong, the “Area within the Passes,” saw the flourishing of the
Zhou dynasty, the rise of the Qin, and the stable hegemony of the
western Han, all before the beginning of the Christian era. The Sui
dynasty’s canals brought the produce of the south to this yellow-earth
country in the sixth century c.E., and a few decades later the Tang
emperors built their supremely cosmopolitan Chang’an on the Wei’s
southern bank, at present-day Xi’an, where many former capitals had
stood.9 The upper Wei valley in Gansu has sufficient water, a temperate
climate, and enough flat land for reasonably well-graded roads, with the
dry, barren Liupan mountain range as its source and its northwestern
8.	The traditional name for Gansu, Long, is often found in geographical names such as
this one, meaning “eastern Long.”
9.	The Chinese word for loess, huangtu, literally means “yellow earth,” and its intimate
relation to Chinese people’s conceptions of their own history and culture held a central
place in the recent, controversial television documentary “River Elegy” (He shang),
which compared China’s ancient, yellow, riverine culture unfavorably to the new, blue,
expansive, ocean cultures of Euro-America.
II﻿FRONTIER GROUND AND PEOPLES
limit. Longdong remains more closely connected to Shaanxi and China
proper than does the rest of the province, its large towns almost all lying
on the Wei River or on the Xi’an-Lanzhou Road.
Longnan. South of the Wei watershed, east of the Tao River, where
Gansu and Sichuan meet, the southern part of the province lies partly
inside the Yangzi watershed across a divide in the Qinling Mountains.
Well watered but high, with a short growing season, southern Gansu
farmland produces barley and oats as well as millet and wheat. Protected
by its mountains, this part of the province attracted refugees from wars
and disasters to the north and east.
The large Gansu tributaries of the Yellow River—the Xining (Huang),
Daxia, and Tao Rivers—all rise in the Tibetan highlands. Flowing
among chaotic mountain ranges, they subdivide southwestern Gansu
into distinct regions: Huangzhong, Taoxi, and Longnan, all bordering
northeastern Tibet (Tib. Amdo).10 Each of these rivers traverses a transi-
tional landscape from its source in the high mountains to steep foothills
surrounding narrow valleys, then to broad valleys marking the entrance
from cultural Tibet into cultural China. Divided from one another by the
rapidly flowing rivers, which could be crossed with ease only in winter,
these regions also contain a variety of ecological zones, from high grass-
lands suitable for nomads to well-watered arable plains, and thus consti-
tute meeting and mixing grounds for a variety of ethnic groups and
cultures.
Huangzhong. Centered on the Xining River watershed between the
Yellow River and its major city, Xining, cut by rapid rivers and battered
by a harsh climate, the narrow valleys of northeastern Tibet nonetheless
can yield good crops to their ethnically diverse cultivators.11 A local
proverb says, “Gansu is dry, but Qinghai is green” (Ch. Gansu gan,
Qinghai qing). the green including both fields in the valley bottoms
(which sometimes lie above 8,000 ft.) and dense forests on some of the
10.	Current administrative divisions of the People’s Republic of China make Amdo
the northeastern part of Qinghai Province and the northwestern part of Sichuan Province,
quite distinct from the Xizang Tibetan Autonomous Region. I use the term “Tibet” here
in a cultural, linguistic sense, which would demand the inclusion of most of Qinghai,
western Sichuan, and western Yunnan (as well as some pieces of other countries) in Tibet.
No political claim is intended, for the eastern and northeastern parts of Tibet have not
generally been governed from Lhasa but rather have often maintained semi-independence
under Manchu, Chinese, or other nominal hegemony.
11.	The Xining River is usually called the Huang iB River, a homophone of the
Yellow (Huang ) River. I shall use the less common “Xining” name to avoid
confusion.
12﻿FRONTIER GROUND AND PEOPLES
slopes.12 Bounded by Qinghai itself (lit., “the blue-green lake,” Mong.
Kokenor), the Tibetan massif, and the Qilian Mountains in the north,
this area has often been of strategic importance as a meeting ground for
Tibet, Mongolia, and Turkic-speaking Central Asia, as well as for
China’s relations with all three. Included in Gansu by the Qing but
made part of a separate province (Qinghai) in the late 1920s, Huang-
zhong also demands a pastoral or semipastoral life from many of its
inhabitants, for the steep, high hill country does not offer large expanses
of arable land (see plate 2).
Taoxi. The triangle west and north of the Tao River and east of the
mountains, with the Dongxiang mountains at its apex, constitutes a
core zone for this book. The Muslim-dominated city of Hezhou (now
Linxia) and the Tibetan center at Labrang define an ethnic-cultural
progression between China and Tibet. Taoxi marks the southwestern
boundary of arable loess and the northeastern boundary of Tibetan
pastoralism, and its ethnically mixed population reflects the topography.
Though much of Gansu has adequate rainfall in good years, the rain
often arrives suddenly in large quantities rather than spreading itself
over the growing season. Heavy rainfall can be disastrous in loessial
areas such as Taoxi, for that dusty soil must be watered evenly and
slowly to produce good crops. Both the Yellow River and the Wei carry
heavy loads of loess silt away from Gansu, leaving the northwest more
leached and less arable every year. Deforestation and subsequent erosion
cut sharp valleys through the loess plains, creating a jumble of tiny plots
among the steep slopes.
Amdo. West of the Daxia, south of the Yellow River, northeastern
Tibet is largely pastoral and inhabited primarily by Tibetan and Turkic
speakers. Unsuited to any but high-country agriculture in which barley
is the dominant grain, the mountainous Amdo country rewards pasto-
ralists more than farmers. Based in the market towns by the rivers,
Muslims have for centuries moved between the pastoral and agricultural
zones as middlemen, brokers, and translators. Connected to Lhasa only
by long and dangerous roads, Amdo nonetheless constituted a crucial
transportation link between Tibet and Mongolia, especially once the
latter culture area came to be dominated by Tibetan Buddhism and
its lamasery-based political culture. Three great lamaseries—Labrang
12.	Along the Yellow River the mountains east of Lantaishan still have some of their
forest cover, but to the west, past Gaizi and Gandu, they stand bare and eroding, their
trees lost to forest fires or, more commonly, to human beings hungry for fuel, housing,
and wood for tools.
13﻿FRONTIER GROUND AND PEOPLES
(south of Hezhou), Choni or Zhuoni (on the upper Tao), and Kumbum
(near Xining)—and a host of smaller ones controlled the wealth and
military power of the region well into modern times.
Multiple Cores, Multiple Peripheries
In such a hodgepodge of environments, Gansu society could hardly
have been a unified, geographically centered system. In G. William
Skinner’s mapping of China’s regions, Gansu is the periphery of the
periphery, the outer edge of the northwestern macroregion, which has
its core at Xi’an. This book argues that such a single-centered view does
not adequately describe Gansu. The Tibetans, Salars, Chinese-speaking
Muslims, Mongols, and Mongolian-speaking Muslims all had cores and
peripheries arranged very differently. Without understanding their sys-
tems, and the interactions of these conceptions of spatial relations and
hierarchies, we will misconstrue both the geography and the history of
the region, as Gu Jiegang did and many scholars still do.
For example, at this distant edge of their civilization, the Chinese of
Gansu did not simply display the language, habits, and values of their
core; they also adapted to the harsh environment and to the non-
Chinese cultures of their neighbors.15 Frontiers are always in motion
and always have two sides, so Gansu cannot be seen simply as an edge of
cultural China. It also constitutes an outer edge of Tibet, Mongolia, and
Muslim Central Asia. Beginning with their own unique histories, cul-
tures, and cores, the non-Chinese of the frontiers also evolved and
changed through their contact with one another and with China. These
mutual adaptations, rather than any one-way transmission, encompass
the social and cultural processes of this book, as the severe, diverse
Gansu terrain forms its geographical setting. 13
13.	However the elites of China may have envisioned (or still envision) their civilizing
project along the frontiers, the daily exigencies of frontier life made mutual adaptation
necessary. In realms as close to the heart as language itself, the frontier peoples influenced
one another—the Hezhou (Linxia) dialect of Chinese utilizes Turco-Mongolic case end-
ings, possibly from the Mongolic language spoken by some Muslims in Taoxi, just as Salar
has absorbed large numbers of Chinese and Tibetan loan words while retaining Turkic
grammar and Arabic-Persian religious vocabulary (Dwyer, “Altaic Elements”). A Japanese
anthropologist specializing in Chinese frontier studies proposed (just after World War II)
that especially rich social investigation of mutual adaptation would be possible where
Muslims and non-Muslim Chinese lived in close proximity. To that end, he recommended
parallel study of Sino-Muslims living in China proper and non-Muslim Chinese living in
Xinjiang (Iwamura Shinobu, “Chugoku Isuramu shakai,” 12-15).
14﻿FRONTIER GROUND AND PEOPLES
The process of incorporation that Gu Jiegang recommended and so
deeply desired has indeed changed the nature of China’s peripheries as
China has changed. The Gansu frontier zones, which had been shifting
areas of Chinese/non-Chinese interaction and syncretism, have gradu-
ally and sometimes painfully given way in modern times to the new and
powerful concept of political boundary, a demarcation within which na-
tional sovereignty rather than imperial virtue holds supreme power and
demands local loyalty. As the Chinese state changed, so did the pres-
sures imposed on peripheral peoples, especially on leaders who chose to
ally or identify themselves with the political center. The Qing tusi sys-
tem, under which hereditary “native chieftains” (to use the most popu-
lar nineteenth-century English translation) were granted imperial titles
to rule the frontier, had to be replaced by “national” rule or by local
leaders thoroughly imbued with the values of the nation-state. Such
leaders would generally be from the group who have come to call
themselves Han, the “culturally Chinese,” or from the elites of non-
Chinese groups who see their advantage, and possibly that of their
communities, in representing state power locally.14 The great diversity
of Gansu peoples made local leadership a particularly thorny problem,
so the emergence of a new northwestern Muslim elite committed to the
political center of China—first Qing, then Republican (1912—49)—
beginning late in the nineteenth century forms an important part of this
book’s story.
Gu Jiegang did not tell his audience in 1938 that China, newly self-
conscious and struggling to constitute itself as a nation-state, had im-
posed on its peripheries with a heavy hand as it underwent its painful
modern adaptations. National leaders and nationalist thinkers needed to
form a new China both as an idea and as an institution, a modern
nation-state utterly different from what they saw in the anachronistic
Qing empire, yet covering the same territory and tied to the past with
the strong bonds of language and historical consciousness. Gu spoke of
expanding the center (Ch. zhongyuari) until it includes all of China,
leaving the national border as the frontier; that is clearly the goal of
national integration and nation building all over the world. But even
14.	As noted in the Introduction, I have tried to avoid terms such as Han and Hui,
which bear the heavy weight of contemporary ethnonymic practice in the People’s Repub-
lic of China. For the Sino-Muslims, the ethnonym Tongan or Donggan referred exclu-
sively to the Sinophone Muslims of the northwest, but it has fallen into disuse in written
texts, though it is still used by Turkic speakers in Xinjiang. I prefer to use “Muslim” and
“non-Muslim,” plus other appropriate ethnic markers, such as language, rather than the
minzu terminology that dominates Chinese ethnographic discourse.
15﻿FRONTIER GROUND AND PEOPLES
now Gansu and Qinghai people refer to their provinces as “frontier”
(Ch. bianjiang') and the rest of China as the “interior,” for they live
among cultural Others and see themselves as living on China’s cultural
edge.
The first part of that nation-building process, the conceptualization
of a new world, took place almost entirely without reference to China’s
peripheries. There were a few new-style schools (Ch. xuetcmg) in Gansu
after 1900, and small groups of young Communists had to be eliminated
by the Lanzhou authorities in the 1920s.15 But the modern world arrived
in the northwest primarily as military technology, wielded by leaders
who fought their most important battles back east. The reformers,
revolutionaries, cultural essence (Ch. guocui) advocates, and New Cul-
ture intellectuals neither knew nor cared much about Muslims, whom
they knew to be violent, or about wild and woolly Tibetans, except as
potential threats to the unity of the nation.
Another part of the modern process, the creation of a new type of
state, forcibly included the periphery in the recasting of an imperial
(and imperialized) anachronism into a unified polity capable of survival
in the hostile, aggressive twentieth-century world system of nation-
states. New China engaged its frontiers with power rather than persua-
sion, so the ideologies and discussions of the 1920s touched Gansu very
lightly.16 The provincial administrators, bureaucrats, and generals of
Republican China used the tools and techniques of the modem world
in the northwest only to enhance their control over territory. The Chris-
tian general Feng Yuxiang arrived in Gansu not with programs against
opium but rather with campaigns against local militarists and factions of
unruly Muslims.
The late Qing and Republican periods did see the transformation of
the northwest, not by the polemics or ideals of modernization or devel-
opment but by the process of military incorporation. The “new” local
elite rose not primarily from the ranks of students or cadets, not from
new political activists participating in boycotts or strikes, not even pri-
marily from the more traditional elites who joined the provincial assem-
bly. Among the non-Muslim Chinese elite, local officials of the defunct
15.	Mu Shouqi, Gan Ning Qing, 31.28a, describes the secret activism, arrest, and
imprisonment of eight young Communist women by the warlord government in 1927.
Mu Shouqi’s vast compendium of documentary extracts, quotations, and opinions will be
referred to hereafter as GNQSL.
16.	Yu Yao, “Wusi yundong,” attempts to demonstrate the significance of the eastern
intellectual movement in Gansu but presents no convincing evidence.
16﻿FRONTIER GROUND AND PEOPLES
Qing dynasty retained their high status and gained Republican legiti-
macy, while a Gansu Muslim elite evolved from the Qing military, some-
times supported by the Muslim politico-religious groups (menhuari)
that had enough cash to recruit and equip armies.
With elites such as these, Gansu (in contrast to much of China
proper) had a period of warlord domination virtually without a New
Culture movement of urban intellectuals. The northwestern periphery
was a symbol to be secured, a bastion to be defended, a resource to be
tapped, but not a place congenial to the self-conscious designers of New
China’s identity. Gu Jiegang’s intellectual contemporaries tended to call
the northwesterners outlandish, violent, and hostile to a civilized new
order. Gu Jiegang and his companion Wang Shumin, however, trekking
between Lanzhou and Xining, visiting schools and soldiers and officials,
saw China’s Muslims and the whole northwest with very different eyes,
describing them as potential wellsprings of virile energy for the building
of a new nation. In that fateful year of 1937, Gu wrote: “In the revival of
the Chinese race, the Moslems would have a large responsibility.”17 He
knew, if many of his compatriots did not, that the Muslims of northwest
China were Chinese.
FRONTIER PEOPLES
The Salars have their own independent language, naturally different
in basic vocabulary and grammatical structure from the languages of
the surrounding Han and Tibetan peoples. It is close to the
languages of the Turkmen and the Uzbeks living in Samarkand. . . .
They all belong to the Yugus branch of the western Xiongnu group
of the Turkic languages, which are part of the Altaic language
family. The Salars’ relatively tall and large physique, abundant facial
hair, high-bridged noses, and deep-set eyes and other external
features clearly mark their differences from the neighboring Han
and Tibetan peoples and prove that they have a close racial
resemblance to the peoples of Central Asia.18
17.	Schneider, Ku Chieh-kang, 279, 286-93. Gu Jiegang was not alone in this observa-
tion. Several years earlier the Japanese observer Sakuma Teijiro (“Shina kaikyoto”),
though interested more in Muslim separatism than Chinese unity, concluded that the
majority of Sino-Muslims thought of themselves as Chinese and could be dissuaded from
that position only by a wide-ranging Pan-Islamic movement emanating from Xinjiang or
further west.
18.	Salazu jianshi, 9—10.
I'7﻿FRONTIER GROUND AND PEOPLES
Many a traveler has tried to describe anthropologically the Salar
type—tall, aquiline noses, etc. Such an undertaking has very little
value. As we have already seen, the Salars, at least in the past two
hundred years, are a great mish-mash of Turks, Mongols, Tibetans,
Chinese, and Huihui [Chinese-speaking Muslims].19
People of the Frontiers
In Gansu, agriculture, sedentary pastoralism, and various degrees of
nomadism could flourish in close proximity. Frontier peoples, including
the Chinese, thus evolved their individual and collective identities in ex-
tended contact with many cultural Others. In Gansu live a wide variety
of mixed peoples, all on the frontiers of their linguistic cultures: Turkic-
speaking Muslims, Mongolic-speaking Muslims, Chinese-speaking Ti-
betans, Tibetan-speaking Muslims, Monguor-speaking Muslims and
non-Muslims, and more. These groups, most of them now carefully but
inconsistently classified as “minority nationalities” by the state, have in
earlier times been more fluid, flexible entities. Individual fronter folks,
by conscious choice or unconscious adaptation, defended and altered
their identities among their neighbors.20
In Gansu a non-Muslim Chinese male might convert to Islam to
improve his chances in business, his female cousin in order to marry a
Muslim man who had accumulated substantial wealth. A Muslim mer-
chant might eat pork in order to enhance his working relationship with
19.	Trippner, “Die Salaren,” 261.
20.	As noted in the Introduction, the People’s Republic of China divides its Muslim
citizens into ten minzu. According to this category system, the Muslim minzu living in
contemporary Gansu, Ningxia, and Qinghai may be described as follows: (1) Hui, living
throughout the region, are Muslims who predominantly use Chinese as their native
language (though some in Huangzhong speak Tibetan); (2) Dongxiang, concentrated in
Hezhou and its eastern district, spoke (and some still speak) a dialect of Mongolian,
though many now use Chinese, and call themselves Santa; (3) Salar, living mostly along
the two banks of the Yellow River above and below the town of Xunhua, now in Qinghai,
speak both Chinese and Salar, a Turkic language, related most closely to Turkmen but
now containing a vast number of Chinese and Tibetan loan words; (4) Baoan (or Bonan),
a tiny group living in and south of the Salar country, speak a Mongolic dialect similar to
that of the Monguor people; and (5) Kazak, a nomadic people dispersed west of Kokenor
and in the Gansu corridor, speak the same Turkic language as the Kazaks of Xinjiang and
Kazakstan. The non-Muslim minzu of the region are classified as Han (Chinese), Tibet-
ans, Yugu (or Qara Yugur), Mongols, Manchus, and Monguors. For a conventional
discussion of the current conditions of these peoples, as the People’s Republic officially
analyzes them, see Gansu Sheng Minzu Shiwu Weiyuanhui and Gansu Sheng Minzu
Yanjiusuo (eds.), Gansu shaoshu minzu.
18﻿FRONTIER GROUND AND PEOPLES
a non-Muslim or to avoid offending an important host. A Tibetan
nomad might make a permanent home in a village in order to plant
crops and avoid the seasonal disasters of herding. A Turkic-speaker
might encourage his children to learn the local dialect of Chinese to
better their prospects in an area dominated by the Chinese, or discour-
age them in order to preserve the purity of his Islamic heritage. A
Mongolic-speaking Muslim might be able to earn a living only by mi-
grant labor in non-Muslim areas, so he and his family would travel and
learn Chinese by necessity. To take a concrete example, in Tangwang-
chuan, on the west bank of the Tao River south of Lanzhou, half of the
Wang clan were Muslims while the other half were not, and the same
happened within the Tang lineage (see plate 3). While kinship ties
united Muslims and non-Muslims, members of each clan also could be
enemies of kinsmen and allies of coreligionists, when religion became a
divisive valence of identity.21 In some Tibetan families that did business
with Muslims, one son might convert to Islam, sharing the family home
with a brother who had become a lama. Such decisions and changes,
one by one, have created the complexity of Gansu ethnic identities.
According to an ideological tenet held by many Chinese in premod-
ern times, non-Chinese must either remain in the peripheral darkness of
barbarism or they must laihua, come and be transformed by the civiliz-
ing power of Chinese culture. In this mythic construction, China exerts
a stable, immobile magnetism that draws the susceptible (that is, the
proximate) into sinification by its moral power. This characterization
must be carefully glossed by historical reality.22 Many people have ex-
isted along China’s borders for millennia, altered by China’s presence
but never especially attracted to or absorbed into Chinese culture and
society, as the case of the Tibetans most vividly shows. Though some
Chinese might argue that this demonstrates their reactionary tendencies
or sheer barbaric stupidity, as observers we may conclude that not
everyone who knows China wants to be Chinese. Some may want to
21.	Ma Hetian, Gan Qing Zang, 3. The language spoken in this little town and its
hinterland represents a vivid syncretism of local cultures. With Islamic religious loan-
words from Arabic and Persian, some Turkic as well, and its Chinese-cum-Mongolic
grammar, Tangwanghua symbolizes the entire ethnic, cultural, and religious frontier
region in which it was created, although it does not appear to contain much Tibetan
material (A. Yibulaheimai [Ibrahim], “Gansu zhangnei,” 33-47)- The geographer Li
Xudan, investigating the natural resources of the Taoxi region, also noted that Tangwang-
chuan was one of the few religiously and ethnically mixed towns of the region (“Xibei
kexue,” 25).
22.	Crossley, “Thinking about Ethnicity,” 1-3.
19﻿FRONTIER GROUND AND PEOPLES
trade, others to raid, but they certainly desire to remain themselves,
however syncretically their frontier culture may have grown.
The Gansu Muslims: Patchwork Society
The Muslims of Gansu did not function as a unified community in any
sense of the word but were divided along many lines, including geo-
graphic ones.23 A wide variety of Gansu urban neighborhoods, towns,
and villages may be described as “Muslim,” but they differed in loca-
tion, size, relations with non-Muslim peoples, economic activities, reli-
gious affiliations, and political allegiances (see plates 4-7).
Close to the Shaanxi border, in a loess valley, lay the entirely Muslim
market town of Zhangjiachuan. No non-Muslims lived within miles of
the place, except a few artisans who were careful to obey the strictures
of Muslim dietary purity in order to continue living there. The tax
officers from the county seat could visit and collect, but otherwise non-
Muslims came only for the periodic hide and leather market and for the
livestock fair of nearby Maluzhen. The town was, in the late nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, dominated by a religious leader of the Jahriya
suborder of Naqshabandi Sufis, and his justice was supreme in the
valley.24
In sharp contrast, Lanzhou, the provincial capital, contained several
Muslim neighborhoods, but they constituted no more than 10 percent
of the city’s population. Though the Muslims did prosper in trade, they
had no independent sphere of political action. Their communities built
some large mosques, but they never functioned as religious centers for
Muslims from other parts of the province. Sometimes besieged by Mus-
lims from Hezhou or Xunhua, the Lanzhou Muslims could not or
would not rebel in their own right, living as they did under the eyes of
the governor and his garrison.25
Muslim political hegemony in Gansu, at least in Qing and Republi-
can times, was associated with the community of Hezhou (Linxia), now
the central city of Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, set in the valley
23.	An earlier version of this argument may be found in Lipman, “Patchwork Society.”
24.	Iwamura Shinobu, “Kanshuku Kaimin,” 144-47.
25.	See the population statistics in Botham, “Islam in Kansu,” 377-90. Chongxiu
Gaolan xian zhi (1892), I3.i2a-i2b, gives the 1887 figures as 478,294 “Han” and 24,863
Muslims, in contrast to Botham’s 50,000 Muslims. Though taken from the baojia (mutual
security system) records, the gazetteer figures cannot be regarded as any more accurate
than the missionary’s. The relative percentage, 5-10 percent Muslim, is more trustworthy
than any specific numbers.
20﻿FRONTIER GROUND AND PEOPLES
of the Daxia River southwest of Lanzhou. Muslims and non-Muslims
lived there in equal numbers, perhaps forty-five thousand of each in the
early twentieth century.26 The non-Muslims lived in the walled city to
the north, the Muslims in the suburbs and rural hinterland (see plate 8).
In economic and social power, the Muslims dominated the entire re-
gion. Even in the realm of coercive power, they controlled elements of
the garrison and had powerful local militias of their own for much of
the modern period. The Muslim community also supported many reli-
gious institutions, including the tombs of several important Sufi saints.
Underscoring the city’s centrality in Gansu Muslim life, most of the
Muslim generals who dominated the northwest during the Republican
period claimed Hezhou as their “official” home district, though many
lived elsewhere. As a market for both Chinese goods and the hill coun-
try produce of Tibet, Hezhou prospered in peacetime but suffered
horribly from communal conflict in wartime. The populous but vulnera-
ble Muslim suburb of Bafang was sacked and burned a number of times
as frontier violence escalated after the Qianlong period (1736-96).
Tianshui, now an important town in the upper Wei valley, had a
Muslim community of about five thousand, with eight mosques,
among a population of fifty thousand. But the entire hinterland of this
county seat was non-Muslim, so the town’s small Muslim community
had to maintain a conciliatory attitude, especially since a garrison was
usually stationed there. Though the Muslims there belonged to a sup-
posedly militant revivalist organization, the Jahriya (Ch. Zheherenye or
Zhehelinye), headquartered nearby at Zhangjiachuan, they never rose
up against their neighbors.27
Near Tianshui and Zhangjiachuan the town of Fujiang (now Gangu),
a market town and county seat, had only a small Muslim community. To
a European anthropologist working there in the early twentieth century,
26.	Iwamura, “Kanshuku Kaimin,” 145, cites the missionary journal Friends of Moslems
8:2, 31, for a 60 : 40 ratio of Muslims to non-Muslims. The Muslim population of Hezhou
has been placed as low as 41,000 (Zhang Qiyun, “Taoxi quyu,” 3) and as high as 112,000
(Ma Zikuo, “Musilin zai Linxia,” 15-18). Both Ma Hetian and Nishi Masao record a
50 :50 ratio of Muslims to non-Muslims, and this is confirmed without any scientific basis
by most of the travel accounts. This figure does not, however, include the rural hinter-
lands, especially the solidly Muslim eastern subprefecture, whose inhabitants may have
numbered as many as one-hundred thousand in the early twentieth century (Ma Hetian,
Gan Qing Zang, 18; Nishi Masao, “Kanshuku Seikai,” 8-21 and 41).
27.	“Gansu Tianshui xian gaikuang” gives no indication that the local Muslims were
other than peaceful citizens, though it maligns the Hezhou Muslims as tufei (bandits) for
attacking the city in the late 1920s.
21﻿FRONTIER GROUND AND PEOPLES
the place strongly resembled entirely Chinese towns much further east
and seemed culturally very far removed from the geographically close
Muslim centers. Indeed, in a lengthy ethnography Joseph Dols did not
mention any Muslims at all.28 But the Muslims were there and did
belong to the Jahriya. Through their leaders, they participated in the
anxiety and planning attendant upon that Sufi order’s tribulations and
uprisings.29
With the usual, substantial warnings about the inaccuracy of the late
Qing and Republican population statistics, we may plot the modern
distribution of Muslims in Gansu and find it very uneven. They gathered
in Hezhou, Xunhua, Zhangjiachuan, Xining, Taozhou, Ningxia, and
Guyuan/Haicheng. Large sections of the province—between Lanzhou
and Ningxia, in the east, and in the south—held only small Muslim
communities. The Gansu sections of the Wei valley were completely
dominated by non-Muslims, though Muslims lived at Tianshui, Fujiang,
Pingliang, and Zhangjiachuan. As Gu Jiegang found to his pain, Gansu
roads were notoriously bad, often closed by natural disaster or bandit
menace, placing yet another obstacle in the path of Muslim networks of
communication.
In sum, the condition of Muslim communities in Gansu and their
relations with non-Muslim neighbors depended to a great extent on
local factors. For example, after 1873 Muslims were excluded from living
within the city walls of most towns in the province, for fear of a repeti-
tion of the violence of 1862—73. In Hezhou, Xining, and Ningxia, all of
which had large Muslim communities, they continued to live only in the
suburbs into the mid-twentieth century. But in Tianshui and Lanzhou
Muslims lived in the city with everyone else, so nonthreatening were
their small communities. In some districts Muslims and non-Muslims
lived in the same village,30 whereas around Hezhou the separation be-
tween them seemed quite strict:
On one occasion we made a trip with Muslim muleteers. They were
friendly and suggested that we stay with them in their village, so for
28.	Dols, “La vie chinoise.” This lengthy article emphasizes repeatedly the “Chinese”
quality of the Fujiang community.
29.	The interrogation of a Fujiang Muslim in 1781 revealed that the community had
raised four-hundred taels of silver to aid Ma Mingxin in fighting the lawsuits brought
against his Jahriya Sufi suborder and during his imprisonment in Lanzhou (Agui and Li
Shiyao [Qianlong 46.5.29, June 20,1781] memorial, in Salazu dang’an shiliao, 85-88).
30.	Li Xudan, “Xibei kexue,” 25, notes zones of exclusively Muslim and exclusively
non-Muslim settlement, with mixed villages and towns between.
22﻿FRONTIER GROUND AND PEOPLES
that night we stopped in a little Muslim world. The children were
called I-ssu-mer (Ismael), Fa-ti-mai (Fatima), Er-pu-tu (Abdul). . . .
Before darkness fell, pious bearded men said their evening prayers in
public places.
We made another trip over the same general route but on this
occasion had Chinese [non-Muslim] muleteers. . .. Somehow the
landscape seemed to have a much more typically Chinese complexion
than before. Again we stayed for the night in the native village of our
muleteers. . . . The smell of incense was in the air. . . . pigs grunted in
the courtyards, and in the streets, after dark, accompanied by the
beating of gongs and the clashing of cymbals, effigies and masks were
carried around in celebration.31
We must thus pay close attention to the local in our study of Muslims
in northwest China, not relying on categorization schemes devised by
national institutions, nor on ideologically informed systems of classifica-
tion ordinarily used by Chinese and Western scholars. Gansu identities
were no more rigid or monovalent than others. Locale, family, religious
affiliation, occupation, education, and a host of other loyalties affected
the choices that Muslims and non-Muslims made along the frontiers of
their cultures.
}i. Ekvall, Cultural Relations, 19—20. The author explicitly refers to the feelings of
“we” and “they” that he heard expressed in both villages and emphasizes the strict segrega-
tion between them.
23﻿21 Acculturation and Accommodation
China’s Muslims to the Seventeenth Century
SOJOURNERS IN TANG-SONG CHINA (618-1279)
How the Muslims Came to China
Muhammad had the power to create Heaven and Earth. . . . He
divided the moon into two and put it together again. ... This was
in 621, 4th year of Wu-te [Wude]. The imperial order was
thereupon given to Ou-yang Hsun [Ouyang Xun], a shuai keng-Ung
[shuai gengling] (keeper of the clepsydra) to engrave in seal
characters coins for the Commencement of the (Islamic?) Era, in
order to record the extraordinary feat. After this, (T’ai-)tsung
dreamt that he met a saint and waking up frightened he then sent
several missions to the (saint’s) land. The saint then ordered his
disciple Saad Waqqas to bring the Qur’an in 30 volumes comprising
114 sura and 6,666 verses to offer the emperor. . . . T’ai-tsung edited
it and promulgated it throughout the empire, and the faith
flourished in China.1
The T’ang emperor (T’ai-tsung) dreamt that a turbanned man
chasing a phantom appeared to him in the palace. . . . The
Interpreter of Dreams said: “The turbanned man is a Hui-hui
(Muslim) of the west. In Arabia is a Muslim king of great virtue. A
great sage is born, with favorable omens.” A general Hsu Shih-chi
[Xu Shiji] stepped forward and said: “Send an ambassador across
the western frontiers to the Muslim king, and request from him a
sage to be sent to deal with the threatened evils, so that the country
may be kept at rest.” The great officer Shih T’ang [Shi Tang] was
sent as ambassador. Three religious leaders were sent back to China
1.	Zbengjim si bei ji (1670) by Ting Peng (jinshi 1655), trans, in Leslie, Islam, 72. For
citations on Ting Peng, see Leslie, Islamic Literature, 81-82. The stele is preserved at the
Fenghuang mosque in Hangzhou.
2+﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
with him. . .. Two died on the way, only Ko-hsin [Gexin] arrived.
Ko-hsin told the emperor of the heaven-sent Fu-erh-ko-ni
[Fuergeni, Ar.fitrqan] (the Qur’an), and reproved him for being an
idolator.2 The emperor finally offered to appoint Ko-hsin as
President of the Board of Mathematics.3
Tang and Song Foundations
We have no historical evidence that Sa’ad Waqqas, the Prophet’s maternal
uncle, actually traveled to China, and the Tang Emperor surely neither
edited the Koran nor tolerated being reproved as an idolator. But stories
such as these, popular and never refuted within Sino-Muslim communi-
ties, place Muslims in China very early in Islamic history. It is likely that
Muslims did come to China as political emissaries and merchants within a
few decades of Muhammad’s flight from Mecca to Medina in 622.4 They
joined large numbers of non-Muslim Central and West Asians already
resident in the Tang empire’s trading centers.5 For six centuries thereafter
Arabs and Persians—called Dashi and Bosi respectively—played signifi-
cant roles in China’s economic life, especially along the Silk Road in the
northwest and in the port cities of the southeast coast.6 Only many
2.	Leslie translates/»r^«» as Koran, but it often has the more general meaning of “sacred
scriptures, divine revelations,” and would thus include the Old and New Testaments.
3.	From the Huihui yuanlai, an early eighteenth-century Sino-Muslim text, trans, in
Leslie, Islam, 7+. For various attributions of the text, its editions, and its associated
manuscripts, see Leslie, Islamic Literature, 55—56.
4.	The most thorough English-language scholarship on early contacts between Mus-
lims and China may be found in Leslie, Islam, chapters 4-7, with the materials on Arab
embassies to the Tang in chapter 4. In chapter 8 he summarizes the legendary accounts
current among Sino-Muslims from the Yuan dynasty to the present day.
5.	Apart from Leslie, Tazaka Kodo (Chugoku ni okeru), Zhang Xinglang (Zhong-Xi),
and Yuan Ch’en (Western and Central Asians) have done extensive work on Muslims in
pre-Ming China, and many contemporary Sino-Muslim scholars have also pored over the
difficult primary texts.
6.	The term Bosi presents problems in this context. Though Sino-Muslim scholars
unhesitatingly identify “people of Bosi” as Persian Muslims, it is likely that many of them
were Manichaeans, Mazdaists, or Nestorian Christians well into the Islamic era. This type
of terminological confusion continued as late as the Mongol period, when the Nestorian
Aixie was identified as a Huihui. Even in Persia Muslims and non-Muslims lived side by
side for centuries after the Muslim conquest; it is certainly likely that they did so in distant
China, where the pressure to convert to Islam was considerably less. Much of the contro-
versy surrounding the term Huihui stems from the gradual conversion of the Uygurs (to
whom it first applied) from other religions to Islam, a process that took centuries and
confused the terminology of contemporary texts.
25﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
centuries later, after the Mongol conquest, did they attain to ranks as
exalted as president of the Board of Mathematics.
Much of their trade was carried on in the guise of “tribute” (Ch.
gong), luxury goods delivered directly to the Chinese court by both
legitimate and falsely credentialed representatives of Muslim rulers. The
Chinese official histories list dozens of caravans arriving in Chang’an
and Kaifeng, where they received free lodging, luxurious entertainment,
and benevolent gifts usually reported as exceeding in value the “tribute”
they had brought. “Tributary” missions could not remain in China for
extended commerce but rather returned home, usually within a few
months, bearing their profits and the Chinese emperor’s largesse. Mod-
ern historians correcdy suspect the rhetoric of tribute, surmising that
the commercial functions of such missions were known and expected
among both Chinese and foreigners.7
Some foreign traders, however, came to China to stay awhile. Seafar-
ing Muslims lived as far north as Yangzhou, at the intersection of the
Yangzi River and Grand Canal, while Silk Road merchants could be
found as far east as Kaifeng, the northern Song (960—1127) capital. Few
became participants in Chinese politics or society, in part because the
state acted to segregate them. In Chang’an, Guangzhou, and other
major cities, all foreigners were required to live in separate wards, to
trade in specially established markets, and to restrict their intercourse
with Chinese. The Tang government sometimes prohibited or discour-
aged these male foreigners from marrying Chinese women or wearing
Chinese clothing.8 Muslims remained sojourners, obvious and clearly
designated by state and society; they were granted a measure of legal
and administrative autonomy within their carefully delineated setde-
ments, but they were not supposed to mix with the local population.
These regulations, however, did not prevent some Muslims from study-
ing Chinese, intermarrying, and remaining in China for long periods.
Though we can only speculate about their relations with local people,
there can be little doubt that some of them settled, found wives (Mus-
lims or converts) among the other immigrant groups or locals, and
7.	Yang Huaizhong, “Tangdai de fanke,” 53, for example, straightforwardly identifies
“tribute” as a commercial transaction. Fletcher, “China and Central Asia,” 215-16, con-
cludes that tributary relations served a domestic propaganda purpose but often consti-
tuted a cover for interstate trade. Hevia, Cherishing men, section 1.3, summarizes the
historiographical importance of the tribute system in conceptualizing the Qing empire.
8.	Ouyang, Xin Tang Shu i82.6b-7a records the order of Lu Jun, governor of Lingnan
at Canton, that foreigners and Chinese could not intermarry (Ch. Fan Hua bu de tong
huri), in order to prevent conflict.
26﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
created mixed communities unified by Islam, by their “foreignness,”
and probably by use of Persian as a lingua, franca.
Throughout the Tang, Five Dynasties (907—60), and especially in the
Song period (960-1279), Muslim import-export firms maintained more-
or-less permanent residences or representatives in Chang’an, Quanzhou,
Hangzhou, Kaifeng, Yangzhou, and Guangzhou, and possibly in other
cities as well. They dealt in a vast variety of commodities, and their
numbers were not small.9 For example, Tian Shengong’s soldiers killed
thousands of Dashi and Bosi at Yangzhou in a Tang battle against local
rebels. When Huang Chao’s rebel army took Guangzhou in 879, they are
reported by Arabic sources to have massacred tens of thousands of
foreign merchants, many of them Muslims.10
China’s imports of spices and herbs, rhinoceros horn and ivory, and
precious stones—all light, expensive, and rare, and therefore appropri-
ate for long-distance trade—lay largely in Muslim hands. The official
history of the Song dynasty includes the stories of a number of Arab
merchants who traded at Guangzhou as well as lists of Arab products
presented to the throne as gifts.11 Foreign merchants paid taxes and
enriched the state; fragrances and spices from the west altered tastes and
changed customs; and medicaments from western Asia entered the Chi-
nese market in considerable numbers.12 Frankincense (Ch. ruxiang], a
fragrant resinous gum used as incense, achieved particular popularity at
court, where the emperor sometimes ordered hundreds of frankincense
candles lit. Pu Luoxin, a Muslim merchant who brought large quanti-
ties of the precious commodity to China, received an official title for his
achievement.13
The precious cargoes of Muslim caravans and ships did not go
untaxed or unregulated by the Chinese government. The state mo-
nopolized some cargoes—iron, agate, coral, and especially frankin-
9.	Bai Shouyi, Zhongguo Yisilan, 134-69. Another list of the products sold by foreign
merchants in the southern Chinese markets may be found in Hirth and Rockhill, Chau Ju-
kua. Zhao’s mid-thirteenth century book, drawing heavily on the Lingwai daida of Zhou
Qufei (1178) and lighdy on the Pingzhou ketan of Zhu Yu (early 12th cent.), accurately
describes many peoples and places between southeast China and the Mediterranean,
precisely the world linked by Muslim Arab and Persian traders.
10.	Abu-Zaid of Siraf reported that 120,000 foreign merchants were killed by Huang
Chao, while the later Mas’udi claimed 200,000. See Levy, Biography, 109-21, for an
analysis of the Arabic sources.
11.	For example, Tuo, Song shi 490.17a. The section on Dashi includes stories of the
merchant Pu Ximi and the rich gifts he presented to the throne.
12.	Bai Shouyi, Zhongguo Yisilan, 158-69.
13.	Lai Cunli, Huizu shangye shi, 76.
27﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
cense—so they could be sold only to government officials, with whom
the Muslim merchants could not bargain as they might in an open
market. Commodity taxes, assessed in tax warehouses at the port of
entry, ranged from one-fifteenth to two-fifths ad valorem and consti-
tuted a considerable portion of state revenues, especially after the Song
loss of north China to the Jin invaders in 1127. Officials in southern
ports and in the northern cities used both specially assigned imperial
household funds and their own personal capital to purchase the Mus-
lim merchants’ stock at low prices, sometimes for delivery to court,
sometimes for resale and private profit. Foreign merchants also had to
use a portion of their goods as gifts to both local and metropolitan
officials to ensure prompt processing of paperwork and uninterrupted
permission to trade.
Despite this regulation of their commercial activities, Muslims resi-
dent in China under the Tang and Song nonetheless controlled their
own community life under Muslim officials who received imperial pat-
ents of office. Their neighborhoods, called “foreigners’ quarters” (Ch.
fanftmg), resembled the foreign concessions of the nineteenth century.14
Muslims had the extraterritorial right to be tried under Muslim law for
offenses against other Muslims committed in China, and the commu-
nity’s judge (Ar. qadt) was recognized as a legitimate community author-
ity by the state. Few Muslims became ordinary subjects before the late
Song; as far as we know, neither they nor the Chinese state desired their
acculturation or assimilation.
Tang and Song regulations left Muslim sojourners free to dress, eat,
and pray as they pleased. They retained their native languages, though
they must have learned Chinese for their work in the markets (or from
their Sinophone mothers), and they practiced Islam without engaging
in any missionary activity. The few who became literate in the Chinese
classical canon received notice in the imperial histories, and only one
Muslim obtained an imperial examination degree under the Tang.15
Until the mid-Song, virtually all Muslims in China considered them-
14.	Warned by an unpublished essay by Dilip Basu, I have chosen to translate this
usage of fan not with the conventional “barbarian” but with the less pejorative “for-
eigner.” A debate has recently begun over the evolved historical meanings of this term,
with both “foreigner” and “vassal” receiving support.
15.	Li Yansheng, a Dashi, is credited with having obtained the jinshi degree in the
Tang (Zhang Xinglang, Zhong-Xi, vol. 3, sec. 2, 232-3). Zhang cites the Quan Tang wen as
the source for his story, noting that after residing in China and intermarrying with
Chinese, some foreigners may be “scoured and washed” sufficiendy by Chinese literary
culture to become capable of Chinese scholarship.
28﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
selves, and were considered by the Chinese, to be temporary residents
rather than permanent settlers.16
The Beginnings of Belonging
By the late twelfth century, however, some Muslims had been living
in China for generations and occupied a special status. Included
among the tusheng fanke (native-born foreign sojourners) or wushi
fanke (fifth-generation foreign sojourners), they were allowed to inter-
marry and to purchase land for mosques and cemeteries in the port
cities.17 The southern Song (1127—1279) government even made provi-
sion for foreign merchants to take official positions; after living in
China for three generations, a foreigner could marry an imperial
princess if at least one member of his household possessed an official
title. Many contemporary Chinese Muslim communities claim Tang
origins for their mosques and cemeteries—Sa’ad Waqqas is supposed
to have built the Huaisheng Mosque at Guangzhou—but, based on a
summary of inscriptions and West Asian sources, Donald Leslie con-
cludes that we cannot reliably date the first mosques in China be-
fore the Song. Given the size and duration of their communities,
Guangzhou, Yangzhou, and Quanzhou probably had Muslim grave-
yards and mosques in the Tang, but the sources do not yet allow us
to be sure.18
Though they had been importers and caravaners on a large scale
during the first half of the dynasty, Central Asians seem to have become
less influential in north China after the mid-Tang, for the Silk Road
trade was interrupted by numerous wars and invasions of northern
peoples. Nonetheless, the Song history Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive
mirror for aid in government) tells of foreigners, probably Muslims,
who lived in Chang’an for forty years, married local women, and did
not want to return to their homelands.19 We know that in times of
relative peace travel could be fairly smooth between China and Persia,
for as early as the Arab conquest, non-Muslim Persian refugees found
their way to the Chang’an region, where they were allowed to settle. In
16.	Sauvaget, ‘Ahbar as-Sin, 26.
17.	These dries are attested in the Song huiyao jigao (Zhiguan sec.), according to Bai
Shouyi, Zhongguo Tisilan, 134.
18.	Leslie, Islam, 42-46. The argument for Tang origins is made by Yang Huaizhong,
“Tangdai de Fanke,” 69.
19.	Yang Huaizhong, “Tangdai de Fanke,” 60.
29﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
the Northern Song Karakhanid “tribute” missions had to be reminded
to return home from Kaifeng.20
The gradual Islamicization of the Central Asian Turkic peoples
affected Eastern Turkestan after the eleventh century, as the Kashgar
region became the focus of power struggles among Muslim rulers.21
Despite these alarms and Kftitan, Jurched, and Mongol encroach-
ment, however, some of the trade routes remained open. Xining (in
modern Qinghai), for example, became a major entrepot when the
Tanguts of the Xixia kingdom interrupted the main Silk Road, and
Didao (now Lintao), in modern Gansu, was home to hundreds of
foreign merchants. Muslims in Hezhou, later to become the “Little
Mecca” of Gansu, probably built their first mosque in the Song
period. Even after the fall of the northern Song, Muslims remained
in north China under Jurched rule; as early as 1228 a Mongol regula-
tion protected the temples of Fengxiang, in southwestern Shaanxi,
including a dashiman mixiji (Per. damshmand, Ar. masjid)., a Muslim
mosque.22
We know that by the end of the Song, Muslims had become a
common part of the economic and social world in Chinese cities that
were connected to international trade. Many knew Chinese, under-
stood the marketplace, and intended to remain in China. Muslim trade
provided a share of the empire’s tax revenues and brought valuable
goods both to court and to public markets. In addition, Persian and
Arab merchants brought technology—cotton processing and glass-
making, for example—to their host culture, while providing the Mid-
dle East with Chinese advances in the manufacture of porcelain and
paper. A more complex and less understood exchange took place in the
realm of medicine, for Arabs and Persians brought new materia medica
to China and contributed both to the techniques of healing and to the
pharmacopoeia.23
Though never subject to specific legal discrimination, Muslims were
evaluated negatively both as foreigners and as merchants, a degraded
class in Chinese social theory. Neither they nor their religion attracted
20.	Yang Huaizhong, “Songdai de Fanke,” 96-99.
21.	Ma Qicheng, “Jianlun Yisilan jiao,” 184-88.
22.	The inscription may be found in Cai Meibiao, Yuandai baihua, 5. The Chinese
transliteration dashiman for “Muslim clergy” is analyzed in Poppe, The Mongolian Monu-
ments, 83. I am grateful to Thomas Allsen for this reference.
23.	The complex vocabulary of both pharmacology and botanical taxonomy has pre-
vented me from analyzing the primary sources. Yang Huaizhong, “DuiHuihuiyaofang,”
224—28, gives a brief synopsis of texts.
30﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
positive attention from the Chinese elite—only one reasonably accurate
account of Islam appeared in Chinese in the Tang-Song period, Du
Huan’s Jing xing ji.24 The words fan, hu, Dashi, Bosi, and the like,
though they may be translated as “foreigner” without any particular
negative connotation, certainly could carry the stigmatic nuance of
nasty foreign flavor. At the same time, Chinese eagerly sought to pur-
chase and profit from the spices, jewels, aphrodisiacs, and other exotica
transported from afar by the foreign merchants. Muslims, on the other
hand, gradually found China to be a good place to do business and to
set up households. Since few women made the sea voyage from Dashi
or Bosi, most of the merchants married Chinese women, who converted
to Islam and laid the foundation for permanent Sino-Muslim communi-
ties all over China by teaching their children to speak local dialects of
Chinese.
MUSLIMS IN YUAN CHINA (1279-1368)
Ahmad Fanakati, Finance Minister: Four Portraits
A Saracen, named Achmac, a crafty and bold man, whose influence
with the Grand Khan [Qubilai] surpassed that of the others. ... It
was discovered . . . that he had by means of spells so fascinated His
Majesty as to oblige him to give ear and credit to whatever he
represented. . . . He gave away all the governments and public
offices. . . . Besides this, there was no handsome female who
became an object of his sensuality that he did not contrive to
possess. . . . He had sons to the number of twenty-five, who held
the highest offices of the state. . . . Achmac had likewise
accumulated great wealth, for every person who obtained an
appointment found it necessary to make him a considerable
present.25
24.	Du Huan was captured by the Arabs at the great battle of Talas (751) and taken
westward to the Middle East. He returned by sea to the southeast coast of China over a
decade later. His original text has been lost, but extracts, including his description of
Islam, may be found in the Tong dian, compiled by his uncle, Du You. Leslie (Islam, 21—22)
has translated the relevant sections; for a Sino-Muslim evaluation, see Yang Huaizhong,
“Songdai de fanke,” 128. Zhao Rugua also described Islam, granting it only a brief para-
graph in his section on Dashi (Hirth and Rockhill, Chao Ju-kua, 116).
25.	Marco Polo, Travels, 275-76. It is almost certain that Marco Polo was present in
Khanbalik when Ahmad served as finance minister and when he was assassinated.
31﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
The Emir Ahmad held the vizierate with honor for nearly 25
years. ... he was extremely cautious and alert.26
When Ahmad died, Shizu [Qubilai] still was not entirely aware of
his debauchery, and he ordered the Zhongshu not to interrogate his
wives and children. Inquiring of Boluo, he then learned of all his
crimes and evil. Greatly angered, he said, “Wang Zhu’s killing him
was truly an act of sincerity!” He ordered [Ahmad’s] grave opened,
the coffin ripped apart, and the corpse displayed outside the
Tongxuan Gate, allowing the dogs to tear his flesh. The officials of
all ranks all observed and declared themselves delighted.27
Summing up Ahmad’s life, he served a definite positive function in
government finance in the period of Yuan Shizu’s process of
unifying the nation and stabilizing the situation. . . . But when it
comes to his using official power [for private purposes], hiring his
cronies, plotting for his private gain, and taking advantage of the
powerless, he must be counted among the evil members of the
feudal bureaucracy.28
Ruling China-: The Semu and Mongol Hegemony
The transcultural power of the thirteenth-century Mongol conquests
brought to China an influx of Muslims of many professions and cul-
tures, not just as traders or brokers but also as conquerors and gover-
nors, artisans and architects, scientists and tax farmers. Unwilling to
allow their newly subdued Chinese subjects to govern themselves,
Ogodei, Mongke, Qubilai, and their successors created an intermediary
bureaucracy of non-Chinese administrators and merchants collectively
26.	Rashid al-DIn, a great Middle Eastern chronicler and intellectual, was bom in 1247
and thus was contemporary to Ahmad’s service to Qubilai (Rashid al-Din, The Successors,
291-92).
27.	This final judgment may be found at the end of Ahmad’s biography in Song, Tuan
shi 205.1b—6b, in the “Depraved Ministers” section. The Tuan shi was, of course, written in
the Ming period by servants of the dynasty that had driven the Mongols out of China.
28.	Bai Shouyi, Huizu renwu zhi (Tuan dai), 51-63, citation at 63. Rossabi, Khubilai
Khan, 178—84, attempts an even-handed assessment, concluding that Ahmad probably
was no worse than other officials of his day, regardless of ethnicity or religion, and that
Chinese historical sources and Marco Polo’s account all carry a distorting grudge, the
former because of Ahmad’s foreignness, the latter because of his religion.
32﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
known as semu guan (officials of various categories.)29 The Venetian
Catholic Marco Polo was such an official, but the majority of them were
Central and West Asian Muslims.
Charged with keeping the peace and collecting revenues, as well as
with distributing goods, these outsiders earned an unsavory reputation
among the Chinese but established themselves as permanent residents.
Reserving the highest positions for themselves and the semu, the early
Yuan monarchs prohibited indigenous Chinese from holding the high-
est offices—darughaci (provincial commander), for example. Dozens of
Muslims held ministerial-level offices during the early Yuan, among
them the exceptionally successful Sayyid Ajall Shams ad-Din (Ch. Sai
Dianchi), whose tenure as governor of Yunnan, following a series of
high appointments in the capital, established a permanent Muslim pres-
ence in southwest China.30
Muslims monopolized or dominated some academic and economic
fields within the Yuan bureaucracy. The offices responsible for astron-
omy, medicine, manufacture of weapons (especially catapults and other
siege engines), and foreign languages all had large contingents of Mus-
lim scholars and technicians. The Persian Jamal ad-Din, for example,
brought designs for the latest astronomical instruments from Persia and
constructed an observatory at Beijing, thereafter becoming Qubilai’s
favored calendrical scientist.31 Middle Eastern, especially Persian, astron-
omy (called “Muslim” in China) became an integral part of Chinese
29.	Because the characters used for semu can also mean “colored eyes,” many Chinese
and non-Chinese writers have mistaken this term for a comment on the appearance of
these Central Asians. The Yuan period texts make it abundantly clear that semu is an
administrative term, not a physical description.
30.	Endicott-West, Mongolian Rule, is a monograph on the office of darughaci and its
centrality in the Mongol administration of China. The author concludes that the term,
which she leaves untranslated, evolved over the course of the Yuan period and thus has no
single English equivalent. It always indicates a local or regional governing official whose
duties might comprehend both military and civil functions. As the most unambiguously
successful and high-minded Muslim semu to achieve office under the Yuan, Sayyid Ajall
has been the subject of extensive research by Sino-Muslim scholars, e.g., Yang Huaizhong,
“Sai Dianchi”; Bai Shouyi, Zhongguo Tisilan, 216-98; and “Sai Dianchi Shan Siding,” in
Bai Shouyi, Huizu rernvu zhi (Tuan dai), 12-27. Recent English notices include Rossabi,
KhubilaiKhan, 201-3; Leslie, Warn, 80,83-85; and Armijo-Hussein, ‘The Sinicization and
Confucianization.” For two generations Sayyid Ajall’s descendants continued to hold
positions of trust in the Yuan administration, especially the governorship of Yunnan; many
contemporary Yunnanese Muslim families trace their ancestry to Sayyid Ajall’s lineage.
31.	Jamal ad-DIn and a Chinese, Guo Shoujing, prepared a calendar for the Yuan court
as well as building an observatory. On Jamal’s life, see Yang Huaizhong, “Zhongguo
kexue,” 205-23.
33﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
court life from the late thirteenth century until it was eclipsed by that
brought by the Jesuits nearly three centuries later.32 During the success-
ful invasion of north China by a mixed Mongol-rrmw-Chinese army,
two Muslims constructed the ballistae that enabled the Mongols to take
Xiangyang (then in Henan, now in Hubei). At the Yuan capital special
academies were established for the teaching of Persian and other Cen-
tral Asian languages.33
Acting not only as scientists and officials of the dynasty but also as
commercial entrepreneurs, Muslims became ortaq, corporate partners
with their Mongol overlords, to concentrate and export Chinese goods
and import foreign commodities through the open trade routes of the
interconnected Mongol empires.34 These servants of the Yuan enjoyed
political and economic advantage in their intimacy with the Mongol
court, including direct investment by Mongol princes, loans from gov-
ernment revenues, and even tax-free status under Qubilai and his imme-
diate successors, so they branched out into every region and province of
China. Coming primarily from Central Asia (Chinese sources specifi-
cally mention Khwarezm and Samarkand) as well as Dashi and Bosi,
and dealing not only in luxury goods but also in foodstuffs, salt, and
livestock, they multiplied the Muslim presence in China in numbers and
in scope.35 Since their activities included not only commerce but also
tax-farming, even rural Chinese knew them—and all the semuguan—as
objects of scorn, contempt, and fear.
Like some, but not all, of the foreign sojourners of former dynasties,
the Muslim semu and ortaq of the Yuan intended to remain in China.
Within two or three generations they learned Chinese, and some be-
came well-known literati in the Chinese style. Muslim poets, painters,
and civil officials of high Confucian learning may be found in the cul-
tural history of mid- to late Yuan China.36 Though Donald Leslie dis-
counts the degree of acculturation of Muslims to China during the
32.	The technical language and texts of Yuan-Ming Islamic astronomy have been
masterfully explicated in Tasaka (Tazaka), “An Aspect.”
33.	Leslie, Islam, 94—95.
34.	On the origins and functioning of the ortaq, see Rossabi, Khubilai, 122-23; Schur-
mann, Economic Structure, 4-5, 213—15; and especially Weng Dujian, “Wotuo zakao.”
Two contemporary scholars have done detailed research on the “partnership” nature of
ortaq commercial enterprise: Allsen, “Mongolian Princes;” and Endicott-West, “Mer-
chant Associations.”
35.	Lai Cunli, Huizu shangye, 125-31.
36.	Ch’en, Western and Central Asians, 121,162-63. Biographies of Yuan Muslim literati
may be found in Bai Shouyi, Huizu renwu zhi (Yuan dai).
34﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
Yuan, the Muslim semu soldiers, merchants, and officials certainly estab-
lished permanent residence, albeit usually in separate quarters from their
Chinese neighbors. In the Gansu corridor, the crucial transportation
and communication link with Central Asia, the Mongols settled large
numbers of demobilized soldiers as agricultural colonists on the fields of
fled or dead Chinese farmers.37 Even artisans brought from Central Asia
established themselves in proximity to Chinese, but in clearly defined
and “different” towns or settlements.38 Whether they studied the Confu-
cian classics or not, many of the Muslims who lived in China had every
intention of remaining in the service of “their” Mongol dynasty, and
their wide distribution and broad range of occupations laid the ground-
work for the following centuries of Sino-Muslim acculturation.
Changing Roles, Changing Images
Before the Yuan, antipathy for Muslims among the Chinese followed
conventional formulae of Civilized-Us contrasted to Barbarous-Them.
Outlandish and distant, the Muslim merchants who sojourned in the
Silk Road towns and the southeast coast ports could not have been
familiar to more than a small minority of Chinese. During the Yuan,
however, semu status gave Muslims a special position in Chinese society
that made them both familiar and antagonistic to the indigenous peo-
ple, especially to the elites who would ordinarily have undertaken politi-
cal and social leadership themselves. Muslims functioning as officials
and as merchants enriched themselves and their families, monopolizing
many kinds of power that foreigners had not held under the Tang and
Song—power that had been reserved for the upper classes of Chinese
society, those responsible for committing China’s history and attitudes
to writing. We must, therefore, attend with a grain of salt to complaints
about Muslim culture or behavior, at the same time noting that the
antagonism becomes particularly powerful when non-Chinese people
dominate China.
The four portraits cited above of one of Qubilai’s highest officials, the
Central Asian Finance Minister Ahmad Fanakati, demonstrate this histo-
37.	Gao Zhanfu, “Yuandai de Gansu.”
38.	Rashid al-Din (TZzr Successors, 276) reported a Samarkandi town called “Sinali” or
“Simali,” complete with Central Asian gardens, on the road from Daidu (Khanbalik,
Beijing) to the Mongol khans’ summer palace north of the great wall. The Tuan shi (122, in
the biography of Hasanna) states that three-thousand “Huihui artisans” were settled there
after Chinggis’s and Ogodei’s Central Asian conquests. For a Sinological explication of
this community’s location and character, see Pelliot, “Une ville musulmane.”
35﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
riographical problem. Ahmad (Ch. Ahema) served as an advisor and
administrator to Qubilai for twenty years.39 His performance in office,
described as reasonable and honorable by Rashid al-Din, brought him
the enmity of many Chinese, and he was excoriated after his death for
venality, excessive sexual appetites, nepotism, and corruption of all
kinds. Marco Polo, too, records an entirely negative portrait in his
Travels.40 Some sources report that when Ahmad was assassinated, the
people held a festival, drinking and singing for three days.41 Following
his death, Ahmad’s reputation was slandered by his enemies at court,
and Qubilai condemned him to posthumous disgrace and his family to
punishment. But all of our sources are sufficiendy biased that we cannot
judge fairly what his achievements and crimes may actually have been.
Modern Sino-Muslim scholars also have a hard time with Ahmad, for
their Chinese-language sources tend to judge him harshly, while Sino-
Muslim solidarity would call for a more positive moral evaluation. A
recent biographical dictionary praises his skill as finance minister in
managing the monopolies on salt, tea, wine, vinegar, and metals and in
setting up a system of adequate emoluments for officials. The anony-
mous author also delineates the delicacy and difficulty of being a finance
official under a conquering foreign power. On the other hand, Ahmad’s
corruption, nepotism, and alienation from fellow officials, especially the
Chinese, bring him harsh criticism, as seen in the portrait above.
Apart from targeting specific individuals such as Ahmad for oppro-
brium, Song loyalists and anti-Mongol polemicists wrote texts that have
become famous for their vilification of the semu, especially the Muslims,
calling them the Mongols’ trusties and a gang of uncivilized, immoral
savages. The authors of these texts neither knew nor cared much about
Islam, but they had suffered an unprecedented loss of influence and
prestige, and their critiques go far beyond the rhetoric of the literate
center and the civilizable savage. Passages from the Guixin zazhi of
Zhou Mi, the Xin shi of Zheng Suonan, and the Zhuo geng lu of Tao
Zongyi, all Yuan period compilations, describe Muslims as lacking the
39.	For a detached analysis of sources, see Franke, “Ahmed.” Translations of a number
of sources on Ahmad’s assassination may be found in Moule, Quinsay, 79-88, including a
reconstruction of the process of posthumous punishment meted out to Ahmad’s corpse,
family, and estate after Qubilai discovered his “crimes” from Boluo (Pulad Aqa).
40.	Polo, Travels, 275-78. This chapter was omitted from virtually all manuscripts of
Polo’s work, surviving only in Ramusio’s version. Despite its obvious biases, it seems as
accurate an account of Ahmad’s assassination as we have, though all versions differ
considerably in their details.
41.	Nakada, Kaikai minzoku, 54.
36﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
rudiments of morality, decency, and personal hygiene. According to
Zheng, “Even when they bathe, the Huihui still stink.” Tao quotes a
satirical poem—“Their elephant noses all gone flat, their cat’s eyes
dulled, all their hopes for a long life gone. . . . Alas! When the tree falls,
the monkeys scatter”—to illustrate the fate of the bestial Muslim semu
at the inevitable defeat of their Mongol guardians.42 Here we find, for
the first time but not the last in China, Muslims described as irremedi-
ably Other not in the language of Confucian benevolence toward lesser
beings but rather in the stark discourse of racism. We will find, with all
due irony, that this form of distinction—they cannot be at all like us, for
they are incapable of wenhua. (literary culture)—increased as Muslims
became more acculturated to China.
In historical circumstance, however, the Yuan monarchs did not uni-
formly favor their Muslim servants but kept them under careful con-
straints. Angered by the unwillingness of some Muslim guests to eat his
“unclean” food, Qubilai himself promulgated an edict forbidding Mus-
lims to slaughter animals in the Muslim fashion, requiring instead that
they use the Mongol method.43 Circumcision and the taxation of reli-
gious institutions and teachers—whether Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, or
Christian—also became contentious issues between Mongols and their
semu subjects during the 1280s.44 But whatever their internecine con-
flicts, for the first decades of the dynasty Muslims, Mongols, and other
foreigners controlled and milked the Chinese economy, dominating the
Chinese while gradually becoming acculturated to local ways.
The Muslims, even more than their formerly nomadic overlords,
began to belong in China during the mid-fourteenth century. In those
decades of violence and lawlessness, Muslims all over China organized
or joined local self-defense corps as well as armies loyal to the dynasty.45
When the Mongols were driven out in the 1360s by rebels under the
42.	Franke, “Eine mittelalterliche chinesische Satire,” 202—8, translates Tao’s ridicule
of the Huihui in its entirety. The original text may be found in the Congsbu jicheng
(Assembled collections), no. 220. See also Leslie, Islam, 92-93, for brief translations.
43.	Rossabi, Khubilai, 200—201, notes the anti-Muslim edict of January 27, 1280, re-
corded in both the Tuan dianzhang and the Tuan shi. Rashid al-Din’s version of this edict
and its revocation some years later may be found in Successors, 293—95.
44.	Leslie, Islam, 88-91.
45.	One such Muslim self-defense corps, branded a “rebel” army by official histories,
took a prominent role in Fujian until it was wiped out at Xinghua in 1366. Maejima, “The
Muslims in Ch’uan-chou,” concludes that local enmity against these Muslims, perceived
as violent and unreliable, sealed the fate of the southeast coast communities under the
Ming.
37﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
Ming founder, Zhu Yuanzhang (r. 1368—99), many Muslims chose to
stay. Indeed, many chose to fight on the side of the indigenes, and Zhu’s
commanders may have included a fair number of former semu: Chang
Yuqun, Lan Yu, Ding Dexing, Mu Ying, and many others are unam-
biguously claimed as Muslims by Sino-Muslim scholars. Not remark-
ably, these “meritorious ministers who founded the state” (Ch. kaiguo
gongchen), whether Huihui or not, hailed mostly from Anhui, Zhu
Yuanzhang’s own province, not from the more obviously “Muslim”
southeast coast towns or Silk Road cities.4-6 The presence of Muslims—
for there were certainly some, even if their commanders were non-
Muslim—in the Chinese armies that drove the Mongols northward
presages a gradual, but palpable, change in the condition of Muslims in
late Yuan and Ming China. Originally fanke foreigners and then semu,
they became Huihui, familiar strangers who came today and stayed
tomorrow, ordinary but different.
BECOMING NORMAL IN MING CHINA (1368-1644)
Mongols and semu who live in China may marry Chinese [women]
but may not marry from among their own kind. There are Chinese
who do not wish to marry Huihui or Qipchaqs, so these semu are
not included in this prohibition.47
Huihui are shaggy with big noses, and Qipchaqs have light hair
and blue eyes. Their appearance is vile and peculiar, so there are
those who do not wish to marry them. Mongols and semu may not
marry their own kind. . . . but the Qipchaqs and Huihui are the
vilest among the semu, and a Chinese will not want to marry them.
They may marry their own kind. . . . Allowing them to marry each
+6. Their biographies may be found in Bai Shouyi, Huizu renwu zhi (Ming dai),
including the location of their homes in Anhui. There is considerable doubt among non-
Muslim scholars as to the “Muslim” identity of most of these generals, but Sino-Muslims
assert their “Huiness” unequivocally. Tazaka, Chugoku ni okeru Kaikyo, 861, for example,
questions not only Chang Yuqun’s identification as a Huihui but that of many others as
well. F. Mote, in Goodrich and Fang, Dictionary, 1079-83, indicates that we have no
evidence that Mu Ying was born a Muslim, and the story of his adoption and upbringing
in Zhu Yuanzhang’s intimate circle certainly indicates that he was not raised as one. The
biography of Lan Yu (788-91) also does not mention that he might have been a Muslim,
and Mote’s article on Chang Yuqun (115-20) concurs with Tazaka regarding his Muslim
identity: “This is not verifiable in any source.”
47.	Da Ming lit jijie fuli, lii 6:na.
38﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
other is in sympathy for their [possible] extinction [should they not
be allowed to do so]. There is strictly no prohibition against a
Chinese marrying a Huihui or Qipchaq [should s/he wish to do
so].48
Islam and Muslims
Based on the wide distribution of Muslims in China under the Yuan, the
evolution of the Sinophone Muslims during the succeeding Ming dy-
nasty took place in a bewildering variety of contexts. Many claims have
been made regarding the relationship of Muslims in China to the Ming
state, but few have solid grounding in historical sources; they reflect
anachronistic political controversy more than careful research, which
must be local rather than generalized. From the beginning of the Ming,
when armies under Zhu Yuanzhang drove the Mongols out of China
proper, concern about relations with peoples and states along the north-
ern and western frontiers marked Ming politics, and Ming attempts to
acculturate resident “aliens” demonstrate both fear of Others and confi-
dence in the civilizing power of Chinese culture. Zhu Yuanzhang had
Muslim commanders in his army, and may have had at least one Muslim
wife, but the dynasty he founded neither entirely acculturated its Muslim
subjects nor eliminated anti-Muslim prejudice in China.49
Ming emperors employed Muslims in high office, including a large
number of scientists in the government agencies responsible for astrol-
ogy, the calendar, and the interpretation of omens. Following on the
service and success of Jamal ad-Din under the Yuan monarchs, the
Qintianjian (Bureau of Astronomy) had a special section for the study of
Muslim calendrical science, and a Chinese-language Huihui tianwenshu
(Book of Muslim astronomy) remains extant.50 In addition to describing
48.	Da Ming Id jijie fuli, fuli 6:36b.
49.	Hajjl Yusuf Chang has long claimed that Zhu Yuanzhang was himself a Muslim,
but historians have not generally accepted his argument. On the basis of her surname
(Ma), or on claims made by “unofficial histories” (yeshi, an often gratuitously salacious
genre), one of Zhu Yuanzhang’s senior wives is said to have come from a Muslim family
(Rossabi, “Muslim and Central Asian revolts,” 180-81).
50.	Leslie, Islam, 106. Ho, “The Astronomical Bureau,” notes the parallel establish-
ment of Chinese and Islamic astronomical offices under Zhu Yuanzhang and his succes-
sors, but does not credit the Muslim astronomers with any greater skill than their Chinese
counterparts. Indeed, he attributes the construction of the Yuan period astronomical
instruments entirely to Guo Shoujing, ignoring Jamal ad-DIn. For a less ethnocentric
view, see Tasaka, “An Aspect,” 127-40, in which are translated Ming Taizu’s (r. 1368-1398)
encomiums to the Muslim astronomers and their texts.
39﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
specially designated “Muslim” work-units in the sciences, Sino-Muslim
scholars also claim Muslim origins for many Ming civil officials and
famous intellectuals, including Hai Rui, Ma Wensheng, Ma Ziqiang,
and the iconoclastic literatus Li Zhi, originally from Quanzhou.51 Such
attributions are all suspect if we take “Muslim” to be a religious category,
for they tend to be based on surname and/or place of origin and thus on a
definition of “Huiness” appropriate to the minzu paradigm. Many of
these men, especially Li Zhi, left not a trace of Islamic origins or religion
in their writings or in their biographies, so the attribution of Hui status
reveals in the twentieth-century claims both an anachronistic desire to
have well-known coreligionists and the consciousness of profound accul-
turation among upper-class Ming period Sino-Muslims.
But neither courtly connections nor acculturation of China’s Muslims
could entirely prevent discrimination. Local officials, overwhelmingly
non-Muslim, often mistreated Muslims before the bench:
A Muslim [family] of Hanzhong [Shaanxi] had been reformed [hon-
est subjects] for several generations. At that time [one of them] had a
dispute with a Chinese man and brought a suit before the magistrate.
The magistrate accused [the Muslim] of crime and, on his own respon-
sibility, sent troops to arrest him. The Muslim was furious and escaped
to the mountains. [Despite the intercession of Kang Lang, a local
gentryman, the official insisted on attacking the Muslim but failed to
take him.] Kang Lang continuously tried to persuade the Muslim to
be appeased. [Finally], the Muslim said, “You, sir, know our oppres-
sion, so I bind myself [for punishment at your disposal]. If it had been
the governor, I would simply have been killed.”52
Very few Muslims were lucky enough to have had someone like Kang
Lang as an ally. Unstable economic conditions in many parts of China,
increasingly strict commercial regulation in frontier regions, and local-
ized communal conflict all contributed to the impoverishment of Mus-
lims in the mid- and late Ming. Incidents of “Muslim banditry” and
Muslim-related social unrest were reported from Yunnan to Gansu to
Shandong.53 In official communications, including the annals of the
51.	Biographies of all of these and more may be found in Bai, Huizu rernvu zhi (Ming
dai). Examples of arguments on their Muslim origins may be found in Pei Zhi, “Hai Rui,”
274-75; and Ye Guoqing, “Li Zhi,” 276-84.
52.	Tazaka, Chugoku ni okeru Kaikyd, vol. 2,1195-96.
53.	Tazaka Kodo has collected the important texts on Muslim participation in late
Ming violence in “Mindai goki.”
40﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
central government, Muslims who engaged in illegal activity were
clearly distinguished as different from ordinary Chinese, and they were
treated with special harshness.54
As an illustration of the relationship between the Ming court and its
Muslim subjects, let us consider the statute cited above preventing non-
Chinese in China from marrying within their own communities, requir-
ing them instead to intermarry with the Chinese. This regulation, en-
tirely opposite to the Tang and Song restrictions on intermarriage,
demonstrates the powerful effects of the Mongol conquest and a new
attitude toward outsiders: since foreigners, especially former semu,
might be dangerous, they must be subdued by incorporation, by con-
scious sinification, through constant exposure to Chinese culture in the
intimate family circle and through genetic incorporation into civilized
China. Originally designed to promote acculturation of the Mongols
and semu, the statute has often been cited as proof of Ming harsh-
ness toward non-Chinese. Though the exclusion of the Huihui and
Qipchaqs by virtue of their “vile and peculiar” appearance does allow
for endogamous marriage among them, the wording of the statute
hardly bodes well for social relations. Neither consistent persecution of
Muslims nor liberal ethnic policy informed Ming relations with the
Muslims and other resident outsiders, and a great deal of research will
be necessary before we can draw firm conclusions.
During the Ming the Muslims of China proper (including the north-
west and southwest) found their connections with the western regions
(the Muslim lands of Central and West Asia) to some extent controlled
and limited by the Chinese state, a development that must have contrib-
uted to their acculturation.55 Both for revenue enhancement and for
frontier security, Ming policy makers found it advantageous to attempt
control over all communication on both China’s landward side and the
5+. Tazaka, Chugoku ni okeru Kaikyo, vol. 2,1230,1176, cites the Veritable Records from
the Jiajing reign for use of the term Huizei, “Muslim thieves,” and also of terms such as
“perverse Muslims.” In the same note, he claims that the character for Hui [§] was
enriched with a component meaning “dog” during the Ming period. The causes of
Muslim violence in China, usually laid either to “fanatical followers of Islam” or to the
oppressive policies of the Manchu Qing, must thus be sought in more complex under-
standing of specific local and regional contexts.
55. The much more complete acculturation of the Chinese Jews seems to have
stemmed, at least in part, from their lack of contact with coreligionists outside China after
the fall of the Yuan. Leslie, The Survival, presents a narrative of the Jews of Kaifeng,
summarizing (p. 52) that the community acculturated completely because of its small size
and isolation from other Jews. Poliak, Mandarins, Jews, and Missionaries, y," ff, reaches the
same conclusion, with a more complex texture.
41﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
South China Sea lanes. The Ming did not restrict Islam per se, but
rather worried about Muslims as a potential fifth column for invaders
from Central Asia. Chinese Muslims were accused of trying “to evade
the commercial regulations of the court or planning raids on unguarded
Chinese border setdements,” the one from within China, the other
from outside, confirming an intimate relationship between Muslims on
the two sides of Ming China’s Central Asian frontier.56
During the early years of the Ming, the Chinese were indeed in grave
danger from Central Asia, though they probably did not know either its
extent or its immediacy. Tamerlane, familiar to both Zhu Yuanzhang and
his son, the Yongle emperor (r. 1402-24), did not find the language of the
tribute system quaint or amusing; rather, he saw the embassies from
Nanjing, demanding submission to the Ming emperor’s all-embracing
authority, as galling and provocative. The Ming emperors were neither
Muslims nor militarily powerful enough to make such claims. As early as
1395 Tamerlane determined to avenge the insulting implications of the
Ming communications, but the conquests of Asia Minor and India came
first. Finally, in 1404, he impounded the Yongle emperor’s ambassadorial
caravan of eight hundred camels, raised a giant army, and prepared to
conquer China. Fortunately for the Ming state, Tamerlane died before
launching his invasion, but his son, Shahrukh Bahadur, would consent
only to an equal exchange of embassies, not to the formal language of
submission and tribute demanded by Ming theory. And the Yongle em-
peror, wary of Central Asian Muslim power and eager for the goods
(especially horses) of the overland trade routes, did not press the issue
and agreed to address Shahrukh as a political equal.57
In the aftermath of Tamerlane’s demise, trade and “tribute” missions
moved continuously between China and Herat, Samarkand, and particu-
larly Turfan, whose population converted to Islam during this same
period.58 By the 1450s Turfan’s caravans to Beijing, which had been
56. Rossabi, “Muslim and Central Asian Revolts,” 184.
57- Fletcher, “China and Central Asia,” 206-26, esp. the translation of Yongle’s letter
to Shahrukh, 212-14. Tamerlane’s military capacities and organizational skills are de-
scribed in detail in Manz, The Rise and Rule; Manz calls the plan to conquer China “the
greatest exploit of his life” (73). We know a great deal about Tamerlane’s reception of the
Yongle emperor’s 1404 embassy because, happily, the Spanish ambassador Clavijo (an
indefatigable diarist) arrived at the same time and observed the court with a shrewd
diplomat’s eye (Le Strange, Clavijo, esp. chap. 12). Fear of Tamerlane also played a role in
Ming China’s treatment of its domestic Muslim communities; see, for example, Dazai,
Shina kaikydshi, chap. 5.
58.	This summary is based on Rossabi, “Ming China.”
42﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
dominated in the Yongle period by Buddhist envoys, were undertaken
by Muslim merchants. They continued, even as the Muslim rulers of
Turfan took and held Hami against Ming counterattacks, until the
Ming established an economic blockade in the 1490s to force the Cen-
tral Asians into proper submission. That plan did cause the Turfan
rulers temporarily to deal more cautiously with the Ming court, but
they never gave up Hami. This struggle concluded in Turfan’s favor in
the early sixteenth century, with Hami’s final inclusion in Turfan’s realm
and Ming acquiescence in frequent Muslim trade and “tribute” missions
to Beijing, where they made sensational profits. Despite the Ming
court’s efforts, trade flowed from northwest China to the Ferghana
Valley, via Hami and Turfan, and Sino-Muslim merchants certainly took
advantage of their position as bilingual middlemen on that route.
The Chinese merchants, among whom were many Sino-Muslims,
also gained the final advantage in the frontier tea-for-horses trade,
which the Ming rulers instituted to ensure a steady supply of warhorses,
a commodity China never managed to produce for itself.59 The foreign
demand for tea gave the Ming state some leverage, and an official
monopoly kept the private merchants out for the first half of the dy-
nasty, but frontier wars and corrupt administration gave merchants
increasing room to buy and sell. By the end of the sixteenth century the
government regulations lay in ruins, and the Qing conquests finally
incorporated the markets for tea and the pasturelands of Mongolia and
Central Asia into the empire, along with a brand-new set of problems.60
On the seacoast, too, where Muslim merchants had played a domi-
nant role since the Tang period, the Ming both used the expertise of
Muslims and tried to restrict their trade. The most famous genuine
Muslim of the Ming period, the admiral-eunuch Zheng He (born Ma
He), certainly came from a Muslim family of Yunnan. Zhu Di, then
prince of Yan and later to be the Yongle emperor, called him to service at
the age of twenty and used Zheng He against rebels in his home prov-
ince. “Since Cheng Ho [Zheng He] was pre-eminent among the eu-
59.	A recent communication from Ruth Meserve indicates that many factors must be
blamed for this remarkable failure in a scientific culture that had produced an advanced
agricultural technology. Among them are conservative and often incompetent administra-
tion of the imperial stud, inappropriate pasturing and penning arrangements, unwilling-
ness to invest in expensive breeding stock rather than battle-ready geldings, and certainly
the nomads’ reluctance to supply a potential enemy with so important an advantage as
quality horseflesh. The subject deserves serious study.
60.	Rossabi, “The Tea and Horse Trade.” The same transformation of imperial com-
merce into private trade may be observed in Ming maritime commerce. See below, n6;.
43﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
nuchs for both good looks and sagacity, the emperor Ch’eng-tsu
[Yongle] appointed him to be principal envoy and commander-in-chief
of six great naval expeditions which sailed to the ‘Western Ocean’ be-
tween 1405 and 1421. ”61 Yongle’s successor ordered Zheng on a seventh
voyage in 1430. Zheng’s Muslim upbringing may well have influenced
the emperor’s decision to use him in this office, as was the case in the
appointment of the Persian-literate Ma Huan to be his assistant on
three of the last four expeditions.
The enormous power projected by Ming China under Zheng He’s
command into the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, as far as
the Red Sea and Malindi, brought wealth, new tributaries, rare and
costly trade goods, and exotic animals to court. Perhaps most impor-
tant within China, the voyages created a profound sense of the Yongle
emperor’s legitimacy.62 Foreign rulers from all along the Arab-Persian
trade routes sent representatives to Nanjing, then to Beijing (Yongle
moved the capital in 1421), receiving valuable gifts in return for their
“tribute.” In addition to material wealth and exotica, Zheng He’s
expeditions brought knowledge back to China, awareness that the
people of a huge sweep of the world believed in the Huihui religion.
The second-hand impressions of South and West Asia recorded by
Tang and Song port officials could now be replaced by first-hand
accounts, written in Chinese by men who had actually traveled, traded,
negotiated, and made war far from China’s shores.63 From Quanzhou
to Aden and beyond, they found Muslims. Members of Zheng’s crew
went on the pilgrimage to Mecca, and their accounts describe accu-
rately the Ka’aba, Muhammad’s tomb, the Zamzam well, and other
holy sites of Islam.64
61.	Mills, Ma Huan, 5-8, summarizes Zheng He’s life.
62.	All of these may well have been intended by the monarch; scholars disagree as to
their validity or balance. See the brief summary of arguments and motivations in Mills,
Ma Huan, 1, ni. For an example of the importance of foreign embassies, and foreign
relations in general, to the establishment of dynastic legitimacy, see Toby, State and
Diplomacy, chap. 3.
63.	That knowledge is presented, by category and location, in a compilation of pri-
mary texts, Zheng and Zheng, Zheng He. Among many scholarly efforts to compile the
knowledge gained by Zheng He, Mills’s Ma Huan is outstanding in English; Xu Yuhu,
Ming Zheng He, studies Zheng in a conventionally Sinocentric style.
64.	Both Leslie, Islam, no-n, and Mills, Ma Huan, 173-77, translate Ma Huan’s
account. Edited and punctuated versions of the Chinese texts on Mecca and Medina may
be found in Zheng and Zheng, Zheng He, 232—40 (geography), 338—43 (cities and sites),
388-92 (climate and calendar), 562-66 (products and resources), 656-60 (commerce), and
838-44 (government, customs, and language).
+4﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
Muslims in China and Ming Limits on Foreign Trade
After the 1430s, however, the Ming government no longer saw value in
these expensive, expansive voyages, either as political propaganda or as
covert trading expeditions.65 They ceased, and both the exotics and the
knowledge faded rapidly from Chinese consciousness. Though briefly
revived by the Jesuit presence in the late Ming, Chinese scholarly com-
prehension of and interest in the “western lands” never achieved so high
a level until the nineteenth century’s pressures forced the gates, confront-
ing China with a world ill-remembered and utterly transformed.
Despite both popular and official Chinese prejudice, the Ming period
actually saw resident Muslims forging stronger and more durable ties
with China. Sometimes confined by restrictive travel regulations, and
clearly belonging to China by social process, many Sinophone Muslims
became even more intimate with their native land by intermarriage or by
adoption of Chinese children. Both processes increased their numbers
while linking them ever more closely to China. Sino-Muslim communi-
ties, with the social cohesion typical of minorities in polyethnic societies
and in conformity with the charitable requirements of sharia law (Islam’s
comprehensive code), provided mutual aid and solidarity that promoted
survival in bad times and continuity under acculturative pressures.66
Intermarriage almost always involved a Muslim male taking a Chinese
wife, who converted formally to Islam and became a member of the
Muslim community. Very rarely was a Muslim female allowed to be given
in marriage to a non-Muslim, for strong community pressure and Mus-
lim law forbade “losing” a daughter to the outsiders. As noted above, the
presence of many Sinophone women, however sincere their Islamic con-
version, forwarded the acculturation process (precisely as the Ming stat-
ute intended) by making Chinese the language of home for Muslims in
65.	The causes for the cessation of the voyages are explored by Haraprasad Ray in
Trade and Diplomacy, with his conclusions on pp. 135—37. He believes that the voyages,
which had begun as expressions of imperial strength and as military efforts, gradually
became trading missions over the course of the Yongle period and lost their purpose when
private traders filled the commercial roles they had played.
66.	Muslim conformity to the duty of charity, enjoined by Muslim law, was attested
even by admiring non-Muslims. Yan Congjian’s Shuyu zhouci lu, published in 1574,11.4b-
20a, contains a lengthy section on “Mecca and Medina,” most of which deals with the
Sino-Muslims; at n.6a he praises their community-mindedness and willingness to support
one another in need. Leslie, Islam, 113, cites Lang Ying’s Qixiu leigao (16th cent.) to the
same effect: “They aid equally those who come from elsewhere.” These passages have a
very different tone from the Tang-Song exotica or the Yuan period anti-Muslim polemics
cited above.
45﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
China. A third process, conversion of Chinese adults to Islam, also in-
creased the size and diversity of the Muslim communities, though it was
not nearly as common as intermarriage or adoption. To enhance their
chances of success in commerce, which in some parts of China was domi-
nated by Muslims, to obtain the benefits of a widespread network of
traders and caravaners, Chinese became Sino-Muslims by a religious act
and joined the Huihui.
Muslim adaptation to China lay primarily in the realms of material
culture and language, as the Ming state enhanced the ordinary accultura-
tive pressure on minority communities by attempting to shut off commu-
nication with the “homelands” to the west and south. Tamerlane and his
successors in Central Asia, pirates of many peoples off the east and south
coasts, and a weakening central state all contributed to a less aggressive,
more defensive posture that included restriction of commerce and travel
by China’s peripatetic Muslims.67 The Ming controls succeeded primar-
ily in the southeast, where Muslim communities found themselves in-
creasingly isolated, both by Ming policy and by their Chinese neighbors’
hostility in the wake of the late Yuan Muslim uprisings. In the Yangzi
region, to take an extreme example, late Ming Muslim families wrote
Confucian-style clan genealogies to honor their ancestors in the Chinese
mode. These documents reveal the Islamic practice of these acculturated
Muslims to have been degenerate; their ties with the Muslim world
outside China had been completely severed.68
RESPONSES AND RESISTANCE TO ACCULTURATION
What people call xiaojing was originally a kind of pinyin using the
Arabic alphabet. . . . Most mosque teachers [in China] were
illiterate in Chinese, but they were very skilled in representing
sounds with Arabic. So when they were studying, if they needed to
make a comment in the margin of their text or record a note, the
only reliable means for them to do so was xiaojing. . . . And its use
67.	Rossabi, “Muslim and Central Asian Revolts,” 186, notes a number of Muslim
cross-border raids (from Turfan, primarily) and Muslim uprisings during the Wanli era
(1572—1620), and reports that Ming officials believed these to stem from poor economic
conditions in the northwest. Ming over-regulation of merchants exacerbated the problem
and may have led directly to raids on frontier towns.
68.	Nakada Yoshinobu, “Chugoku Musurimu.” It comes as no surprise that the most
heavily acculturated of the Sino-Muslim communities studied by Dru Gladney (Muslim
Chinese) lived in Fujian.
+6﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
was not limited to the scripture hall. . . . People who had received a
mosque education, whether they worked as religious professionals
or not, could still use this pinyin for recording accounts, writing
letters, or noting events. To this very day there are still a few people
who continue to use it, especially in Gansu, Ningxia, and
Qinghai.69
Belonging: Gedimu and Jingtang Jiaoyu
Until the seventeenth century virtually all Muslim communities in
China focused their communal life around the local mosque. No institu-
tionalized Muslim authority existed above the local community, though
outstanding individuals did emerge as supralocal leaders through Is-
lamic scholarship, religious charisma, accumulation of wealth, or suc-
cess in the examination system.70 Local mosques linked themselves to
other communities informally by bonds of shared Muslim identity and
minority position, of commerce, and of language—the Huihuihua pa-
tois, which inserted Arabic and Persian locutions into the local vernacu-
lar.71 Largely self-governed, the mosque congregations differed from
non-Muslim communities in the centrality of their religious institutions
and the potential for intercommunity connections created by religious
identity.
Most Muslims lived almost entirely within such congregations and
networks, meeting non-Muslims only at market. They were not sup-
posed to eat with non-Muslims or marry their children outside the
community, effectively blocking two crucial social communications. De-
pending on their leaders to mediate between them and the state, they
nonetheless spoke to one another in Chinese, used the same vernacular
as their non-Muslim neighbors (with Huihuihua additions), dressed
similarly, and prepared their food similarly, though it had to be ritually
pure (Ar. haldl, Ch. qingzheri). The Muslims of China thus asked the
69.	Feng Zenglie, “Ming Qing shiqi,” 2+4. Prof. Feng (who died in 1996) kindly sent
me a copy of his 1982 unpublished essay dealing entirely with xiaojing, “Xiaoerjin’ chutan.”
70.	Biographies of leaders of many kinds may be found in Bai, Huizu renwu zhi (Ming
dm), but, as noted above, readers should be aware that the “Muslim”identification of
some, if not many, of the men included in the collection has been disputed. Sino-Muslim
scholars’ inclusion of an individual in the Hui minzu may indicate nothing more than
descent from at least one Muslim, or someone with a Muslim name, and cannot tell us
much about that person’s involvement or faith, if any, in Islam.
71.	Feng Zenglie, “Ming Qing shiqi,” 217-51, gives many examples of jingtangyu that
use both Arabic and Persian vocabulary and, occasionally, grammar.
47﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
inevitable question of cultural minorities: How can we cope with the
acculturative pressures of the majority, the desire of the Others to have
us conform to their ways, while still remaining ourselves and affirming
as positive those characteristics which differ? Some of their answers may
be found in the strategies of Muslim leaders as they planned for Muslim,
community, lineage, and personal success.
Every congregation needed a house of prayer, ranging from a small
village’s single room in a private home to a wealthy trading center’s
elaborate set of buildings. These mosques needed religious profession-
als to perform many crucial functions for the congregation (see plate
9). They led the communal daily and weekly prayers, gave the Friday
sermon, represented the community to the state’s local officials, taught
ritual rectitude and sacred languages, and interpreted and enforced
Muslim law. Taken together, these roles transcended those of conven-
tional non-Muslim Chinese religious figures. Even the ritual and me-
diational functions of the Confucian scholar-gentry did not extend to
conducting funerals for villagers or praying for sons at the behest of
barren women, as Muslim congregational leaders routinely did. Only
in Chinese sectarian organizations do we find such intimacy between
congregation and leader, one reason why the imperial court and its
officials often looked upon Islam as perilously close to heterodox Bud-
dhism or Daoism.
Before the advent of Sufi orders in northwest China, all mosques chose
their own religious professionals, including the imam or ahong, through a
council of elders.72 Selected by the community for their age, high social
or economic status, or relatively high level of Islamic knowledge, the
elders maintained the functional unity of the local congregation, exercis-
ing secular and administrative power in the management of communal
property—especially land donated to the mosque in pious endowment
(Ar. waqf)—and in the selection of the religious functionaries.73
Religious professionals, holding credentials from Chinese or Central
Asian seminaries, traveled from post to post through a network of
advertising and recruitment. Their contracts, and those of their assis-
72.	Feng Jinyuan, “Zhongguo Yisilanjiao,” 144-46. Most Chinese Muslims refer to
Islamic teachers as ahong, from the Persian iikkund, rather than imam or mawld, though
both of those words are known and used in northwest China; the latter term, mania in
Chinese transliteration, generally refers to a student in a madrasa (religious academy).
Famous or especially erudite almng receive higher titles, as do the leaders of Sufi orders.
73- Feng Zenglie, “Ming Qing shiqi,” 223-28, discusses the organization and func-
tions of a large Gedimu mosque community in Xi’an as an example of a fully formed set of
local functionaries and institutions.
48﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
tants, stipulated a period of employment (which was sometimes for
life), after which they could seek another job or renegotiate the relation-
ship. Thus, local elders governed and represented their own congrega-
tions, which collectively employed the ahong and/or imam. Respected
and obeyed, but not necessarily permanent members of the community,
the religious professionals carried the charisma of Arabic and Persian
learning and served as ritual leaders and judges. In a small village a
single ahong might work alone, teaching the small children their Arabic
prayers and conducting life-cycle rituals. In a large city or county town a
mosque (perhaps one of many) might employ an imam, several ahong, a
khatib (preacher), a muezzin to announce the prayers, and a number of
religious teachers. Whatever the size, this type of independent mosque
organization, with its two distinct types of leadership—lay elders and
religious professionals—came to be called Gedimu, from the Arabic
qadim, meaning “old.” It contrasted sharply with new Muslim institu-
tions, the Sufi orders, which arrived in northwest China in the seven-
teenth century.74
During the mid- to late Ming some Muslim communities began to
feel that their children were not receiving adequate Islamic education—
the acculturative pressure to educate children in the majority culture
and language had considerable power—and so some professional educa-
tors undertook to systematize the Islamic curriculum. Now called
jingtang jiaoyu, “scripture hall education,” this Arabic and Persian sched-
ule of lessons had some Chinese flavoring (see plate io). Modern Sino-
Muslim scholars usually associate jingtangjiaoyu with Shaanxi province
and with the name of Hu Dengzhou, one of its formalizers.
Hu came from the Wei valley of Shaanxi, where hundreds of thou-
sands of Muslims lived in the market towns and villages of a prosperous
region. After going on the pilgrimage to Mecca, he decided that Chi-
nese Muslim life had deteriorated, especially in fundamental Islamic
knowledge, and he opened a religious school. We can speculate that by
the mid-sixteenth century, when he flourished, many Chinese Muslims
could no longer understand Arabic or Persian and had to have the
sacred texts explained to them in Chinese. Indeed, by this time purely
Arabic inscriptions had disappeared, replaced first by Arabic-Chinese
texts and then by steles entirely in Chinese.75 Inscriptional evidence
indicates that many generations of Sino-Muslim teachers trace their
74.	Feng Zenglie, “Gedimu’ bayi.” For a general description of this form of commu-
nity organization, see Ma Tong, ’Zbtmgguo Yisilan . . . shilue, 119-27.
75.	Feng Zenglie, “Ming Qing shiqi,” 222.
49﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
intellectual and curricular tradition to Hu and his disciples.76 He is also
credited with regularizing the financing of tuition, room, board, and
study materials for his religious students, some of whom lived in his
home on a work-study arrangement.
Hu and his followers taught a fairly orthodox Islamic curriculum,
innovating only in the relative shallowness of the Arabic and Persian
knowledge expected of their students. Rather than using the Koran
itself as a text, they selected two dozen or more passages as a primer
(Ch. Haiting) of Koranic Arabic; only after completing that text would
students begin the study of the complete Koran. In addition, they used
an elementary Islamic studies textbook called Zaxue (Diverse studies),
which included prayers, presumably in Arabic, and Persian texts on
faith, ablutions, worship, fasting, marriage, funerals, and festivals. One
modern scholar speculates that this book dated from the late Yuan
period, when Persian was still a Muslim lingua franca in East Asia.77
Though we still lack text-based study of this reform movement, the
main innovation of jingtang jiaoyu seems to have lain in the use of
Chinese phonetic pronunciation of Arabic. Though students still learned
the holy books in the original Arabic orthography, they were taught to
recite them with Chinese sounds. Thus the Arabic salam (peace) came
to be pronounced with three Chinese syllables—sa Hang mu. No origi-
nal texts from the Ming period have been published, but colleagues in
Shaanxi inform me that students, especially in the more Chinese-literate
Xi’an community, actually represented Arabic using Chinese characters.
The written transliteration cannot have been widespread, however,
since most northwesterners could not read or write Chinese. Indeed, that
inability led to a second Sino-Muslim invention, xiaojing—the first
pinyin, or systematic alphabetic representation of Chinese. In the mid- to
late Ming Sino-Muslim males educated in the mosque or madrasa could
read, but generally not compose or speak, Arabic and Persian. At the
same time, all of them could speak Chinese, but only a few could read or
write it. To answer the need for a usable written language during this
period, innovative mosque teachers created an Arabic pinyin for Chinese.
Called xiaojing or xiaoerjin, it enabled Muslims who could not read Chi-
nese to represent its sounds in an orthography they knew from their
mosque education. They could thus take notes on texts written in lan-
guages they could read but not speak or write. Of course this method
76.	See, for example, the Xiujian Hu Taishizu jiacheng ji, reprinted in Bai, Huizu renwu
zhi (Ming dai), 404-7.
77- Feng Zenglie, “Ming Qing shiqi,” 229-30.
50﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
suffered from some of the same limitations as any alphabetic representa-
tion of Chinese. Dialectal differences among its users would create incon-
sistencies in representation; neither Arabic nor Persian can represent the
tonal structure of spoken Chinese; and the Middle Eastern orthographies
cannot distinguish syllabic endings (e.g., Xi'an vs. xiari).7* It did survive
its limitations, however, and remains extant among Chinese Muslims,
though only a few use it regularly. The northwestern Sino-Muslims thus
handled their linguistic adjustment to China in two innovative ways:
jingtangjiaoyu utilized Chinese phonetics to represent Arabic pronuncia-
tion, and xiaojing adapted the Arabic script to represent spoken Chinese.
These two methods, taken together, might well symbolize for us the
gradual acculturation processes of Sino-Muslims during the Ming pe-
riod, processes that enabled them to live as subjects of the Ming state, as
participants in Chinese culture, and as practicing Muslims.
Both Gedimu mosque structure and jingtang jiaoyu education show
little deviation from conventional Sunni, Hanafi Muslim communities
elsewhere in the Muslim world. On the basis of current evidence, we
can only surmise that more and more Muslims in China had become
entirely Sinophone, even in Shaanxi and Gansu. The descendants of the
semu Muslims had, after all, been living in China for as long as two
centuries by the time of Hu Dengzhou—six to eight generations—and
could be expected to acculturate in language as well as in many spheres
of daily life. Apart from banditry and evasion of commercial regulations
(both common among non-Muslims as well) they do not appear to have
engaged in collective antisocial behavior, and they accepted the legiti-
macy of Ming rule unless it obstructed their business or threatened their
survival. Their behavior in the troubled times at the end of the Ming
certainly confirms that they considered China to be their home and its
politics to be their own.
STRANGERS IN BAD TIMES:
THE MING-QING TRANSITION (l644--5OS)
He Bi, supervising secretary in the Office of Scrutiny of the Board
of War, presented a long and important memorial to the throne
78.	Feng Zenglie, “Xiaoerjin chutan,” 16-17. Prof- Feng derives the name for this
pinyin from the homophonic xiaojing, “to digest the scripture,” a northwestern term
indicating the written or oral commentaries on sacred texts with which madrasa teachers
instruct their students (p. 12). A remarkable example of xiaojing is preserved in Forke,
“Ein islamisches Tractat.”
51﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
about ways to exert local control over that particularly troubled
region [Gansu]. He began by praising the speed with which Meng
Qiaofang had succeeded, in less than half a month, in recovering
the major cities of Gansu by crushing the Muslim rebels. “Subduing
such despicable wretches” (xiaochour) was “like catching foxes and
rats in your hands”. . . . There was nonetheless the very great
possibility that conflict with the Muslims might recur. No one—
He quickly added—could disagree with the sage policy of imperial
clemency, but it might be pointed out that those who committed
such ravages . . . were not all killed. Furthermore, Muslims and
Chinese were continuing to live alongside each other in the major
cities of the northwest. “Their customs are different and this results
eventually in mutual suspicion.” He therefore proposed that a
policy of ethnic resettlement be adopted. Muslim communities, he
suggested, should be located at least fifty li from the Han zhou
[prefecture], xian [county], or wei [garrison] nearest to them,
wherever there were secluded areas suitable for colonization. There
they should be taken with their families, and transformed from
martial horsemen into peaceful peasants.
Forbid them to breed horses or to keep weapons.
Command their religious leaders to take charge,
regulating their movements back and forth. Let them
all cultivate the soil, and so gradually allay their
ferocious natures.79
Taking Sides
The mid-seventeenth century fall of the Ming, with its attendant social
disorder, provided an opportunity for Muslims to act violently against
the state, should they have reason; they also had to protect themselves
and their homes in unstable times. Muslim “rebels” often joined other
antistate forces, in some case in ethnically mixed units, Muslim and non-
Muslim making common cause in the face of adversity, Ming maladminis-
tration, and state violence. Ma Shouying, nicknamed “Lao Huihui” (Old
Muslim), a Shaanxi Muslim general, materially aided Li Zicheng in his
successful campaign against the Ming in northwest China. Ma came from
the same region as most of Li’s generals, and his battle plans did not differ
79.	Wakeman, The Great Enterprise, vol. 2, 825-26. The original text may be found in
Xie, Qingchu, 282.
52﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
substantially from theirs; he was fighting a Chinese war, participating in
Chinese dynastic upheaval. He obviously did not seek Muslim domina-
tion of China or even liberation of parts of China as Muslim territory.80
Muslim rebels who rose against the Manchu Qing after it defeated Li
Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong (Ma Shouying having died, probably of
natural causes, in 1644) also seem to have lacked separatist ambitions.
Early in its reign over China proper the Manchu Qing court ruled
that merchants from Turfan and Hami, operating within the rubric of
the tribute system, could trade only with selected Chinese merchants
and Qing officials, and only at Lanzhou or Beijing. The Manchus also
intended to reestablish the tea and horse trade state monopolies of the
early and mid-Ming.81 These political intrusions into Central Asian
commerce, resented by the private merchants of the northwest, aggra-
vated an already poor economy and stimulated some Muslims to vio-
lence, especially in the Gansu corridor, the vital transportation link
between Gansu and Turkestan. The Muslims probably knew that the
Manchus were meeting stiff resistance all over China and took advan-
tage of the court’s scattered forces.
Beginning at Ganzhou in 1646, Muslims named Milayin and Ding
Guodong led substantial armies—government sources claimed one-
hundred-thousand soldiers, almost surely an exaggeration—down the
Gansu corridor, taking Lanzhou and a number of prefectural towns and
laying siege to Gongchang, in eastern Gansu.82 This could not have
been a separatist jihad, for the Muslims and their non-Muslim allies
acted in the name of Zhu Shichuan, the former Ming prince of Yan-
chang.83 As Ma Shouying (Lao Huihui) had risen against the Ming and
80.	On Ma Shouying, see Ma Shouqian, “Mingdai houqi,” 36—+0. Rossabi, “Muslim
and Central Asian Revolts,” and Tazaka, “Mindai goki,” cover many of the same texts. We
have no evidence that Ma Shouying imbued his wars with any explicidy Muslim content,
no talk of jihad or even of shengzhan, its imprecise Chinese translation. When Li Zicheng
needed a place to recover from defeat and wounds, he sought out Lao Huihui and stayed
with him for months. Indeed, Ma Shouying formally joined Li Zicheng’s army after many
years of anti-Ming struggle and took an official title, “Yingwu General of the Yongfu
Battalion.” Bai, Huizu renwu zhi (Ming dai), 160. The biographical notice (154-6+)
contains a detailed narrative of Lao Huihui’s battles and praise for his success in uniting
the peoples of various nationalities to fight the feudal Ming.
81.	Wakeman, Great Enterprise, vol. 2, 795-98.
82.	Wei Yuan, Shengwu ji, juan 7, cited in Bai, Huimin qiyi, vol. 3, 3.
83.	Fletcher, “China’s Northwest,” 30. Qing commander Meng Qiaofang’s report ofthe
Ming loyalist component to this “Muslim” rebellion, and his biography inQingshigao, are
also cited by Rossabi, “Muslim and Central Asian Revolts,” 191; and Wakeman, Great
Enterprise, vol. 2, 800. The original texts may be found in Xie, Qingchu, 268—69, 279—83.
53﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
aided other Chinese rebels, so Milayin and Ding Guodong made their
rebellious decisions within a Chinese context and enlisted the legitimacy
of the Ming ruling house to their anti-Qing cause. Zhu was killed early
in the fighting, but the cause did not collapse.
We certainly cannot ignore the rebels’ “foreign” connections to Hami
and, more distantly, Turfan. After some months of rebellion, the sultan
(governor) of Hami, Sa’id Baba, sent one of his sons, Turumtay, to
serve as prince of (rebellious) Suzhou, demonstrating a close link with
Milayin and Ding.84 But we know little else of that connection and can
only surmise that political and religious as well as commercial relation-
ships had been forged across the Ming-Hami frontier and that the two
sides decided to unite in the face of the usurping Manchus. Fletcher
conjectures, on the basis of contemporaneity, that Naqshabandi Sufism
might have played a role in linking Suzhou’s rebels to Hami, but he
acknowledges a paucity of evidence.85
The Qing commander in Gansu, Meng Qiaofang, sent a relief force
to Gongchang immediately and broke the siege. The rebels lost ground
rapidly, retreating first from Lintao and then from Lanzhou in the face
of Mcng’s experienced troops, who advanced in three columns to con-
verge on the provincial capital. Though his rear guard took months to
clear out the rebel remnants south and east of the Yellow River, Mcng’s
main force advanced quickly to besiege Milayin and Ding Guodong’s
main base at Ganzhou, out in the Gansu corridor. After a sanguinary
six-month siege, the rebels negotiated with Meng Qiaofang and surren-
dered. Milayin obtained an appointment as assistant commander in the
Qing garrison at Lanzhou, but both he and Ding Guodong remained in
northwestern Gansu.86
The rebel alliance had calculated correctly that the Qing army had a
great deal to do in early 1649. Within weeks of their victory at
Ganzhou, the Qing troops were transferred southward to fight the
still-dangerous Southern Ming in Sichuan. Taking immediate advan-
tage, Milayin and Ding’s forces again drove southeastward, taking
cities as far away as Lintao and killing Qing officials as they went.
Meng Qiaofang again responded rapidly, pushing the rebels back to
their Gansu corridor bases and killing Milayin at the beginning of a
second siege at Ganzhou. Ding Guodong continued the fight from
Suzhou, further west toward Hami, with litde hope of holding out
84.	Rossabi, “Muslim and Central Asian Revolts,” 192.
85.	Fletcher, “China’s Northwest,” 20-21.
86.	Xie, Qingchu, 268.
54﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
against Meng’s superior army; but anti-Qing forces under Jiang Xiang,
far to the east in Shanxi, unintentionally gave the Muslims a few more
months of life. Leaving irregulars to hold the siegeworks around
Suzhou, Meng spent most of 1649 defeating Jiang, not returning to
take Suzhou until December. Upon Meng’s victory in that month
Ding, Turumtay, and five-thousand followers died at Qing hands, and
the Gansu corridor was “pacified.”87
Pacification (Ch. shanhou) had to be carefully planned in order to
avoid a recurrence of violence. Conventional nostrums of comforting
the common people and rewarding the brave and loyal troops could not
solve the problems of commercial overregulation and poverty that
caused the uprisings in the first place. Milayin’s and Ding Guodong’s
armies had not been simply Muslim rebels—others, including Chinese
and Tibetans, had joined them—but the pacification officials nonethe-
less singled out the Muslims as naturally violent. As we have seen above,
He Bi, a metropolitan official, memorialized that segregation of the
Muslims from all cultural Others would have the most salutary effect in
the long run, for their natures were savage and had to be tamed by long-
term exposure to peaceful husbandry.88 The court accepted his argu-
ment and authorized the resettlement of the Muslims of the Gansu
corridor well away from its cities and garrisons. In addition, trade with
Hami was cut off for five years, until that city’s ruler sent an embassy to
apologize for its role in the uprising.
Though marked as Muslims and thus different from other rebels or
heroes, Ma Shouying, Milayin, and Ding Guodong must nonetheless
be seen as culturally Chinese.89 Their Sino-Muslim identity had
87.	Xie, Qingchu, 268, quotes Meng Qiaofang’s Qing shigao biography: “Our troops
took Suzhou, killed [Ding] Guodong, Turumtay, and their crowd, including Hei
Chengyin. Beheaded five-thousand. West of the river, all is at peace.” Wakeman, Great
Enterprise, 823, cites the same passage. This cursorily described slaughter of Suzhou Mus-
lims would be duplicated by Zuo Zongtang over two hundred years later, in 1873.
88.	Xie, Qingchu, 282.
89.	Their Islamic orthopraxy certainly did not conform to the funerary and other
ritual markers that James Watson finds at the core of “Chinese” culture. I would argue,
however, that “Chinese” is the only word appropriate to describe the culture of
Sinophone people whose homes, sense of heritage, spheres of political action, and
patterns of everyday life may all be found within cultural China. “Islamic” culture
certainly played a part in their lives, but there are no “Islamic” foods, “Islamic” clothes,
or “Islamic” vernaculars outside particular cultural contexts, and this particular cultural
context is definitely Chinese. (A useful analogy might be the cultural, political, and
intellectual lives of many American Jews, which, though they are not entirely devoid of
“Jewish” elements, nonetheless may only be identified as “American.”) I would not go
55﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
evolved in a lengthy process of mutual adaptation between Muslim
immigrants and Chinese society, a process that had begun in the Tang-
Song, accelerated in the Yuan, and come to fruition in the Ming.
Smooth in neither space nor time, that evolution had created Muslims
whose homeland lay in China, whose language was Chinese. They
were as diverse and contentious as the other Chinese among whom
they lived—Ma Shouying did not lead or represent all the Sino-
Muslims, but only a fraction—and, unlike most of the culturally non-
Chinese peoples of China, they did not occupy large territories along a
frontier.
Concentrated in the northwest, the southwest, and the eastern cities
(for the southwestern coastal communities had declined rapidly with
the closing of the Arab-Persian sea trade by the mid-Ming), Sino-
Muslims had become a ubiquitous, anomalous part of the Chinese
landscape. Normal but different, Sinophone but incomprehensible, lo-
cal but outsiders, they challenged some fundamental Chinese concep-
tions of Self and Other and denied the totally transforming power of
Chinese civilization, couched always in moral terms by the Chinese elite.
As we shall see, the Muslims of the northwest had tenaciously main-
tained their connections with Central and West Asia; the Ming decline
and Qing conquest did not find all of them passive or acculturated.
Some had friends in Hami and were ready to fight. Ironically, given our
usual stereotypes of Muslims, they fought as Chinese, in the name of a
Ming pretender to the imperial throne in Beijing. However, we have no
evidence that they constituted any kind of self-conscious entity (e.g., a
minzu} beyond their local communities. No Muslims from elsewhere in
China flocked to Ma Shouying or Milayin’s banners, and their commu-
nities remained relatively isolated in their local and regional contexts,
connected only by sojourning merchants and religious professionals
moving from job to job.
For the next century or so, northwest China’s Muslims lived in rela-
tive peace with one another, with their neighbors, and with the Qing
state. We cannot demonstrate that Qing resettlement policies kept the
peace, for most of Gansu (not to mention the rest of China) was not
so far as Ma Hetian, Chiang Kai-shek, and others, who have claimed that the Sino-
Muslims are “just Hans who believe in Islam.” The Sino-Muslims’ own sense of shared
foreign descent militates against such a definition, however dubious that claim might
seem to an academic historian. We must see Sino-Muslim identity as processual and
highly localized, even individual, in its combination of elements at a particular moment
in time. See Watson, “Rites or Beliefs?”
56﻿ACCULTURATION AND ACCOMMODATION
subject to such orders, but Qing officials and garrisons managed to
control any trouble that arose, and the various peoples of the northwest
found Qing rule, as it gradually expanded westward to include all of
what is now Xinjiang, congenial enough to tolerate.
57﻿3	/ Connections
Muslims in the Early Qing,
1644-1781
WESTERN INFLUENCE: SUFISM IN CHINA
What is to be done, O Muslims? For I do not recognize myself. I
am neither Christian nor Jew, nor Gabr nor Muslim; I am not of
the East, nor of the West, nor of the land, nor of the sea; I am not
of Nature’s mint, nor of the circling heavens.
I am not of India, nor of China, nor of Bulgaria, nor of Saqsin; I
am not of the kingdom of Iraqain, nor of the country of
Khurasan. . . .
My place is the Placeless, my trace is the Traceless; Tis neither
body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved. I have put
duality away, I have seen that the two worlds are one; One I seek,
One I know, One I see, One I call.1
The Sufis have relinquished the form and husk of knowledge, they
have raised the banner of the eye of certainty.
Thought is gone, and they have gained light; they have gained
the throat (essence) and the sea (ultimate source) of gnosis. Death,
of which all others are sore afraid, the perfect Sufis hold in
derision.
None gains the victory over their hearts; the hurt falls on the
oyster shell, not on the pearl.2
Hidayat Allah and Sufism’s Entrance into China
In the early seventeenth century, a Central Asian preacher named Mu-
hammad Yusuf crossed the Pamirs into Altishahr, where he engaged in
1.	From the Divan-i Shams-i Tabriz of Jalal ad-Din Rumi, Reynold A. Nicholson
trans., cited in Iqbal, Life and Work, 136.
2.	From the Mathnawi of Jalal ad-Din Rumi, vol. 1, 3492-96, trans, in Iqbal, Life and
Work, 192.
58﻿CONNECTIONS
religious and political disputes with local leaders and with distant kins-
men who belonged to a rival faction.3 Encouraged by his success among
the Chaghadayid rulers of Altishahr, he traveled eastward, acquiring
disciples in Turfan and Hami, then crossed the Ming frontier into the
Gansu corridor to Suzhou—only a few years later Ding Guodong’s
bastion—where he won the allegiance of the local Muslim scholars,
who were Chinese speakers.4 After a successful sojourn in the country
of the Salars, he returned to Altishahr and there was poisoned by his
rivals and died in 1653.
His son, called Khoja Afaq (or Apaq) in Central Asian sources, but
known to the Chinese as “Hidayat Allah (Xidayetonglahei), twenty-fifth
generation descendant of the Prophet,” moved even more effectively
through northwest China in the 1670s. Taking advantage of the relative
order and freedom of movement provided by Qing hegemony, Khoja
Afaq visited Lanzhou, Didao, Xining, and probably Hezhou, and had a
profound effect on both Muslim and non-Muslim communities.5
Muhammad Yusuf and Khoja Afaq were Sufis, leaders within a move-
ment that changed the entire Muslim world between the thirteenth and
eighteenth centuries.6 Usually called “Islamic mysticism,” Sufism gave
3.	Altishahr (Tur. “six cities”) denotes the western rim of the Tarim Basin, also called
Kashgaria, Tianshan nanlu (the route south of Tianshan), and eastern Turkestan. Mod-
em Chinese sources anachronistically call it “southern Xinjiang” (Xinjiang nanlu or
Nanjiang), but I prefer the more local and more politically neutral term.
4.	Fletcher, “Naqshbandiyya,” 10-13. In several footnotes Fletcher presents evidence
from Turkish and Persian manuscript sources on Muhammad Yusuf’s preaching inside
the Ming frontier, including his conversion of the Salars and the ’ulama-yi Tunganiyyan
(Chinese-speaking Muslim scholars) to Sufism. (Tonggan, or Donggan, remained a regu-
larly used Turkic appellation for the Chinese-speaking Muslims into the twentieth cen-
tury.) Chinese oral and written sources differ in many details from this account; Ma Tong,
Zhongguo Tisilan . . . suyuan, chap. 2, sect. 2 and 3, gives 1622 as the date of Muhammad
Yusuf’s death, does not mention his having preached in Suzhou, and gives his son all the
credit for enlisting the Salars among their followers. Fletcher noted the possibility that
many of the acts attributed to the father or son may have been conflated with the other.
5.	This account is based largely on Fletcher, “Naqshbandiyya,” and on Fletcher’s
“China’s Northwest.” His sources include Trippner, “Islamische Gruppen,” but he notes
that Trippner’s account is based on very incomplete evidence and contains many errors.
6.	Sufism in general has proven frustratingly difficult to define in theological, intellec-
tual, or sociopolitical terms. Geertz, Islam Observed, 48, notes that “this term suggests a
specificity of belief and practice which dissolves when one looks at the range of phenomena
to which it is actually applied. . . . Sufism, as an historical reality, consists of a series of
different and even contradictory experiments, most of them occurring between the ninth
and nineteenth centuries, in bringing orthodox Islam (itself no seamless unity) into effec-
tive relationship with the world.” The great Islamicist Marshall Hodgson called Sufism
“spiritual athleticism,” saying of early Islamic mysticism that it “providejd] an esoteric form
59﻿CONNECTIONS
voice to an aspiration to personal or collective unity with the Divine
that had existed among Muslims almost since the rise of Islam itself.* 7 Its
name, derived from the Arabic word suf, meaning “wool,” indicates
another crucial facet of Sufi belief and practice—ascetic self-denial. The
“original” Sufis wore coarse woolen garments and practiced austerities
as varied as breath control, fasting, chanting, eremitic withdrawal from
the world, and meditation in the hope of achieving a higher state of
religious consciousness and communion with God.
Gedimu and Tariqa
Like all religious movements, Sufism did not remain long unified. Its
teachers in every period drew diverse methods and theological conclu-
sions from their own mystical experiences and from their sociopolitical
contexts. The greatest of them founded Sufi “paths” (Ar. sing, tariqa, pi.
turuq), which gradually became agents of social transformation as well as
more literal “ways” to religious fulfillment. This could happen because
of piety among them, which allowed those of them who were so inclined to explore hidden
meanings and personal resonances not allowed for by the soberly public Shari’ah [law]”
(The Venture of Islam, vol. i, 393-94). Later in his history, however, Hodgson (with many
other historians) notes that Sufism came into far closer intimacy with Islamic law in many
parts of the Muslim world. The Indian reformer Ahmad Sirhindi, for example, “tried to
reconcile the very personal mystical experience, to which Sufism gave a place, with an
intensely social activism such as the Islam of the Shari’ah demanded” (vol. 3, 85) I present a
rudimentary and far too rigid explanation of Sufism here as an aid to readers who may not
be familiar with it. The definition’s utility will decrease as my narrative progresses, as we
become more specific in a northwest Chinese context.
7.	Scholars of comparative religion have found similar impulses within most tradi-
tions, including the Jewish and pre-Islamic Arabian religions from which Islam derived.
Indeed, Sinophone Muslims, when reaching for a terminology to explain Islam in Chi-
nese, found an easy translation for the “Sufi way.” They call tariqa, its mystical impulse,
Dao cheng, “vehicle of the Dao,” a combination of the Daoist “Way” of meditative
asceticism with the Buddhist notion of yana, a means by which human beings may
transform themselves. This use of cheng moves away from the original Sanskrit meaning
(suspiciously close to Dao itself) toward a concrete, instrumental metaphor of transporta-
tion along the Way. The other stages of Islam’s three-fold path—shari'a law and haqiqa,
the perfected Unity with the Divine—are called the “vehicle of the teaching” (Ch.
fiaocheng) and the “vehicle of perfection” (Ch. zhicheng). The names of these progressive
stages, shari'a-tariqa-haqiqa, both in transliteration and in translation, have become stand-
ing terms among northwestern Sufis. The resonance between Daoist and Sufi ideas,
obvious even from a superficial reading of Rumi’s verses at the head of this chapter, has
been studied intensively by scholars of religion. See, for example, Izutsu, Sufism and
Daoism. I am grateful to Prof. Indira Peterson for her Sanskritist’s insights.
60﻿CONNECTIONS
Islam does not dictate or provide any central institutional authorities
beyond the Caliphate, the direct succession to the Prophet’s political
leadership. Each community’s mosque functions autonomously, its lead-
ers and teachers linked to others by personal relationships, inquiring of
great teachers regarding legal and religious questions but not subject to
any formal authority.
In contrast, Sufi paths could establish centers of authority for their ad-
herents and command their obedience even from a distance. The shaikh,
either the founder or his successor, carried a special burden of religious
charisma (Ar. baraka), which endowed him with both spiritual and secular
power. This baraka—transferred from generation to generation in a spiri-
tual genealogy (Ar. isnadorsUsUa)—inhered in the founder, his successors,
and in their tombs. The domed tombs (Ar. qubba, Per. gunbad, Ch.
gongbei) of Sufis came to be distinguishing marks of their ever-widening
presence in Muslim life from Spain to China. At these places their follow-
ers sought inspiration through prayer, or God’s favor through the shaikh’s
intercession. Each Sufi community was led by religious professionals ap-
pointed or ordained by the shaikh, thus creating a tight network of influ-
ence and control. Sufi paths and their associated tombs thus provided foci
of organization, worship, and loyalty more effective than the earlier nonin-
stitutionalized ideals of the universal Muslim community and the con-
strained localism of community-based Gedimu mosques.8
The existence of many paths, however, fostered rivalry among Sufis
for religious authority, which in many cases led to worldly power and
wealth. From their inception, Sufi orders (as the paths are usually called
in English) competed not only for the religious adherence of ordinary
Muslims but also for the allegiance of powerful families and for the
donations and pious endowments that would establish the shaikhs as
wealthy, secular leaders.9 Each teacher possessed secret initiation rituals,
8.	See Gladney, “Muslim Tombs.”
9.	Like religious movements elsewhere in the world, the Sufi paths found what we call
“religious” and “secular” power to be inextricably intertwined: “Its leaders may use it at
different times and places for varying purposes; its adherents use it for other ends. . . .It has
a useful social role to play besides its purely spiritual or quietistic mystical functions. An
order may become involved in politics; it may provide medical or psychiatric help for its
members, or it may become concerned with magic or astrology. For these purposes, it may
include within its ranks remarkable magic-makers or miracle-mongers. The order is often
directed by a highly charismatic personality . . . whose personal attraction for the common
man, or for persons in other parts of society, contributes to the fluctuations of the popular-
ity of the order and to the size of its membership” (Martin, “A Short History,” 276). Marxist
scholars in China have naturally paid considerable attention to the economic aspects of Sufi
organization. For a useful summary, see Yang Huaihong, “Dui xibei,” 287-89.
6l﻿CONNECTIONS
passed down through the silsila, with which to transmit the original
founder’s baraka and include new followers within the order. As the
orders grew, they relied increasingly on a claim of descent from the
Prophet, which made each shaikh also a sayyid and thus required a
hereditary chain of succession.10 Though the founders of these institu-
tions may have been ascetics, their successors and relatives often became
men of great wealth and high political position.11
Shaikhs and their representatives (called variously khalifa and ra’is)
moved along trade routes, staying both in established Muslim communi-
ties and among non-Muslims who seemed amenable to conversion. They
persuaded new followers with a variety of techniques, including elo-
quent sermons, magical wonders (Ar. karamat), lectures on sacred texts,
and the collective repetition of mantralike “remembrances” (Ar. dhikr)
of God. This last-mentioned practice, strongly resembling Amitabha-
centered Buddhism in its rhythmical meditative repetitions (either vocal
or silent), led to the achievement of trance states and direct, personal
connection to the Divine. Sufism thus provided a new expression of
religious passion for its adherents; a new set of exclusive, even esoteric,
techniques for their enlightenment; and a new institutional framework,
the tariqa. Within its network, adherents (Ar. sing, murid) could be
connected to other Muslim communities and leaders could achieve new
wealth and power.
By seeking and accepting initiation into a Sufi order, a murid also
pledged his loyal support to his shaikh and his successors. Within Islamic
communities this intimate link gave the leader unprecedented power,
that of personal veneration and unquestioning obedience.12 A charis-
matic Sufi leader could command a disciplined, organized following
that extended far beyond a single congregation and did not depend on
the goodwill of local community elders. Many shaikhs moved often,
gathering adherents in various villages and towns, linking them together
io.	The status of sayyid, denoting prophetic descent, carries a great weight of religious
(and often secular) authority in most Muslim communities. Difficult to demonstrate (to
an academic’s satisfaction) at a remove of tens of generations, this claim nonetheless is
often made and sustained with oral genealogical evidence.
n. Fletcher, “Naqshbandiyya,” 9, for example, notes a political maneuver by a Sufi
order in Altishahr. The grand master of a Naqshabandi order, Ishaq, named the secular
ruler of the entire region, Muhammad Khan, as his successor within the order, thereby
unifying religious and political leadership in a single man. Muhammad Khan achieved
titles of great import in Sufi theology, qutb (mystical axis) an&ghatvth (mystical helper of
the age), assuring his descendants a central position in the region for many generations.
12.	Yang Huaizhong, “Dui xibei,” 278-81.
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in a solidarity of personal loyalty. This system stood in strong contrast to
non-Sufi Gedimu communities, in which elders directed local affairs in
consultation with religious professionals employed by the mosque. The
Sufi hospice (Ar. zawiya, Pers. khdnqa, Ch. daotang) served as a religious
and social center alternative to the community-based mosque: “There
they [the shaikhs] instructed and housed their disciples, held regular
dhikr sessions . . . and offered hospitality to wandering Sufis. . . . These
institutions, which had some of the same functions as a European monas-
tery, became basic centers of social integration.”13
Sufi institutions, ideas, and politics varied widely in differing con-
texts. Fletcher has demonstrated beyond doubt that Chinese Muslims
did maintain connections to “the West”—the world of Islam—and that
religious and political currents continued to flow across the permeable
frontiers of China and its Islamic neighbor states.14 Since Sufism first
came to China from Central Asia, as a foundation for understanding its
historical place in northwest China we must examine briefly the role
that the shaikh and tariqa played in eastern Turkestan.
Though mysticism seems ideologically to encompass a private, non-
communicable religious experience, Sufi orders were never reluctant to
take part in politics. The most important tariqa in Central Asia, the
Naqshabandiya, “rejected religious quietism and accelerated their mis-
sionary efforts in search of political support, particularly among the
nomads, whose military strength dominated Central Asia’s politics.”15
Conversion of non-Muslims to Islam was as central a concern to Sufis as
to non-Sufi Muslims, and Sufi preachers persuaded members of many
cultures—Tibetan, Mongol, Turkic, and Chinese—of Islam’s rectitude,
with some success.
Sufism moved from western Turkestan eastward, both in early centu-
ries and during the Ming and Qing, allied with the sultans and kings of
both the oases and the nomads. In the late Ming and early Qing, these
were the Uiguristan Moguls, the Kashgar! khojas (Persian for a religious
and political leader), and the amirs of Ferghana and Kokand. Indeed, in
the seventeenth century even non-Muslim rulers such as the Oirat Mon-
gol hegemon Galdan were willing to use Sufis—in his case, the same
Khoja Afaq as came to China—as clients on the throne of Kashgar. The
entrance of Sufism into northwest China therefore created a politically
charged atmosphere, one in which Central Asian rivalries might be
13.	Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, vol. 2, 213.
14.	Fletcher, “Les ‘voies.’ ”
15.	Fletcher, “Naqshbandiyya,” 5-6.
6?﻿CONNECTIONS
played out in a very different sociocultural setting. Instead of a world of
Muslim rulers vying for hegemony, the political environment in which
Sufis in China lived was overwhelmingly dominated by non-Muslims.
Sufi orders’ struggles with one another therefore had very different
effects in Gansu than in Kashgar because of the former’s more distant,
potentially hostile relationship to secular political power, a power that
was inevitably non-Muslim.
As we have seen in the cases of Ma Shouying and Milayin/Ding Guo-
dong, state domination of the northwest could be challenged only by
the very daring, and only at a time of disorder, military weakness, or
administrative malaise sufficiently profound that an uprising might suc-
ceed in toppling the legitimate authority of the throne (Ma Shouying)
or placing an alternative leader in its place (Milayin and Zhu Shichuan).
The arrival of Sufi orders provided a means of mobilization, a network
of solidarity, that had never been present among Chinese Muslims be-
fore. Initially, however, they did not challenge the state, for they had to
establish themselves in a sufficient number of communities, with suffi-
cient adherents, to ensure their own survival, stability, and prosperity.
Khoja Afaq set in motion the career of a crucial figure in that process—
Abu ’1-Futuh Ma Laichi, the founder of the Khafiya suborder of Naq-
shabandl Sufis in Gansu.
Ma Laichi and the Rise of the Menhuan
Khoja Afaq’s strain of the Naqshabandlya, called the Afaqiya in his
honor, stressed thaumaturgic wonders, study of the Mathnawi of Jalal
ad-Din Rumi, a renewal of faith, and adherence to Muslim law.16 In
their meditative practice, followers performed the Sufi remembrance in
silence, the “remembrance of the heart” common to most Naqsha-
bandis, earning themselves the appelation of Khafiya (Ch. Hufeiye or
16.	At the opening of this chapter (second extract) I have cited a fragment of this giant
mystical poem, written in Persian but available in a Turkish translation; it was enormously
popular among Sufis in Central Asia as well as in the Muslim heartlands. With its
multilayered complexity of image and intellectual depth, it has been the subject of endless
debate and interpretation by Muslim and non-Muslim scholars. Hodgson, The Venture of
Islam, vol. 2, 244-54, presents a brief but rich description and analysis, while Iqbal, Life
and Work, chaps. 4—6, discusses the poem in light of its author’s religious and philosophi-
cal life. One of Joseph Fletcher’s manuscript sources has Muhammad Yusuf (or perhaps
Khoja Afaq) telling a Chinese disciple to preach to his congregation upon the Mathnawi
every Friday and Monday (“Naqshbandiyya,” 13).
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Hufuye), “Silent Ones.”17 Khoja Afaq followed his father to northwest
China in search of initiates in order to compete for power with other
members of his family in Altishahr, a common phenomenon in the
intense politico-religious rivalries of Central Asia, often based on heredi-
tary succession to the leadership of Sufi orders and thus to secular
power.18
Finding willing converts in Gansu, Khoja Afaq made three visits to
Xining, a polyethnic entrepot that had been an important stop on one
route of the Silk Road and is now the capital of Qinghai Province.
Muslims from all over the region converged on Xining to hear the
famous Sufi’s preaching; he worked wonders and taught the Mathnawi.
Ma Tong claims that his visits resulted in the formation of nine Sufi
institutions in Gansu, but Fletcher notes only three significant follow-
ers.19 Both agree that the most politically active new group stemmed
from Khoja Afaq’s initiation of Ma Taibaba, a rather retiring Islamic
teacher from Milagou. Though Ma Taibaba undertook no innovations
or organizing, he did appoint as his successor his most brilliant student,
Abu ’1 Futuh Ma Laichi.
According to his spiritual descendants’ account, Ma Laichi’s birth,
17.	Disagreement over the recitation of the dhikr—whether it should be silent or
vocal—is often cited as a major cause of communal violence among northwestern Chinese
Muslims. No doubt the distinction possessed considerable symbolic value to both sides in
disputes between Sufis, but similar contradictions existed in many other parts of the
Muslim world without leading to bloodshed. Algar, “Silent and Vocal dbikr” notes that
most Sufis practice the vocal remembrance. The Naqshabandls, who do not, are distin-
guished by “sobriety, rigor, and restraint.” He attributes the unusual practice of vocal
dhikr by Naqshabandls to simultaneous affiliation with several orders and to the flexibility
necessary if Sufism is to unify rather than divide Muslims. Indeed, Sufis could be initiated
into more than one tariqa, as Ma Tong claims Ma Laichi was, and many Middle Eastern
Sufis practiced both types of dhikr without feeling any contradiction (see Fletcher,
“Naqshbandiyya,” 24-27.) One of the thorniest problems in Sino-Muslim studies, as we
will see below, lies in explaining why liturgical arguments such as that over vocalized or
nonvocalized dhikr were seized upon as causes (however superficial the justification) for
violence among Muslims in northwest China.
18.	Fletcher, “Les ‘voies,’ ” 15—16, notes that Sufis all over the Muslim world founded
“saintly lineages,” especially in the seventeenth century, to unify the baraka of the shaikh
and the temporal, secular power of the tariqa through hereditary succession to its leader-
ship and control of its wealth. Some orders (in China, notably the Qadiriya) forbade
hereditary succession to the position of shaikh, requiring instead that leadership be passed
to the shaikh’s most able disciple, but most “saintly lineages” claimed prophetic descent
and thus passed baraka down within the family.
19.	Ma Tong, Zhongguo Tisilan . . . suyuan, 49; Fletcher, “Naqshbandiyya,” 14.
65﻿CONNECTIONS
education, and spiritual initiation were all linked to Hidayat Allah.20
Both Ma Laichi’s grandfather (Ma Congshan) and father (Ma Jiajun)
concerned themselves with military affairs, the former as a general un-
der the Ming and the latter as a graduate of the military examination
under the Qing. Ma Jiajun went into business rather than seeking an
official position. Wealthy and childless at forty, he traveled from his
home in Hezhou to Xining to request that the famous Khoja Afaq
intercede with God to grant him a son. Having recited the petitionary
prayers, the Khoja told Ma Jiajun that he should marry a young woman
“awaiting faith” in his home town. This non-Muslim woman, twenty-
six years old and still single, had been engaged to a number of men,
every one of whom had died before the marriage could be performed.
Protected by the Khoja’s promise, Ma Jiajun married her, and she bore a
son. According to Khafiya legends, when Ma Jiajun’s business and
property were destroyed by a fire not long after, he gave his son the
name Laichi, “Arrived Too Late.”
In his new poverty, Ma Jiajun could not afford to continue in
Hezhou, so he turned to itinerant tea-peddling along the roads from
Hezhou to Xining. Unable to keep his young son with him, he sent the
boy to a friend in Milagou, who placed him in Ma Taibaba’s Koranic
school to receive his education. Ma Laichi proved a prodigy, mastering
the Islamic curriculum before his eighteenth year and receiving both his
Sufi initiation and ordination as an ahong from his teacher, who handed
on to him the initiatory baraka of Khoja Afaq.21 For thirty years Ma
Laichi worked as a teacher and preacher in the Hezhou region; then in
1728 (according to Ma Tong) he undertook the rigors of the pilgrimage
to Mecca.
Sources differ widely on both the chronology and the locations of Ma
Laichi’s sojourn in the Muslim heartlands. Some accounts have him
study in India, others in Bukhara, still others in Yemen. They agree,
however, that he remained in some center of Muslim learning, probably
more than one, for many years and returned to China bearing a deep
desire to reform Islam in his homeland. He also brought books with
him, some of them standard (a Koran, for example), but others new to
20.	Ma Tong, Zhongguo Tisilan . . . shilue, 223-24, narrates the miraculous story,
giving Ma Laichi’s childhood Islamic name (Ch. jing tning) as Abuduli-Halimu ('Abd
al-Karim?).
21.	This succession by discipleship, on grounds of learning or other merit, was cer-
tainly possible within Sufi orders, though the Afaqiya in Central Asia tended toward
hereditary succession.
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northwest China, especially the volume of “scriptural extracts” called
Mingshale or Mingsha’er in Chinese, which he had received from his
teacher.22
Because so few Muslims from China could go on the pilgrimage or
undertake to read and explain the holy texts in their original languages,
Ma Laichi possessed tremendous prestige upon his return to Gansu.
His charisma and his message won many Muslims, both Chinese- and
Turkic-speaking, to his version of Sufi ritual practice; and his thaumatur-
gic skill awed even non-Muslims into conversion. To this day, communi-
ties of Muslim Tibetans, Mongols, and Monguors in Qinghai Province
venerate him as their spiritual master, the one who converted their
ancestors to Islam.23 Wherever a saint such as Ma Laichi settled, disci-
22.	The description of Mingshale asjingjieju (scriptural extracts) may be found in the
Daqing lichao shilu (Qianlong) 290:24b. Fletcher, “Naqshbandiyya,” 17—18, analyzes this
text’s name syllable by syllable and hazards a guess that it was a sharh (commentary) on a
collection of prophetic writings such as Ibn al-'Arabi’s Fusus al-hikam. Lacking the text
itself, we can only speculate. Ma Tong, Zhongguo Tisilan . . . shilue, 225-26, relates an oral
account of Ma Laichi’s travels and studies. Beginning in 1728, he went via Canton (where
he studied for three months with a famous ahong), then embarked with four companions
for Yemen, where he visited many mosques and met with the great scholars. In Mecca for
the pilgrimage, he took as his teacher the head of the Khafiya zawiya, one Muhammad
Jibuni Ahmad Agelai (Fletcher has “Ajilai”). He then traveled to Damascus, Baghdad, and
Cairo; he “studied” (was initiated into?) the Naqshbandiya, Qadiriya, and Suhrawardiya
Sufi paths. In an unidentified place, he took as his teacher the Mawlana Makhdum, whom
Fletcher also mentions, surmising that he was probably an Indian, though he might have
been teaching anywhere in the Muslim world. Before Ma Laichi’s return to China,
Mawlana Makhdum bestowed upon Ma Laichi the name Abu ‘1-Futuh, and Agelai gave
him eight gifts: a sword, a seal, the text Mingshale, a mawliid (a poem commemorating the
birth of Muhammad), eighty volumes of kitab (writings), a prayer carpet, a woolen
garment, and a “Ka’aba cover.” He arrived in China, via Hong Kong, in 1734. Fletcher,
“Naqshbandiyya,” 16, gives an entirely different itinerary, though naming the same teach-
ers, and has Ma Laichi back in China by 1705, which seems very early and does not accord
with events in his life that may be more surely dated.
23.	Some Tibetans of Kargang, in the region of Bayanrong north of the Yellow River
in modern Qinghai Province, confirm orally what Joseph Trippner found in the work of
Ma Zikuo—that Ma Laichi lived among them and converted their ancestors to Islam by a
variety of techniques, including debating a local nmpoche (“incarnation,” often miscon-
strued as “living Buddha” in both Chinese and English) on theological matters (Trippner,
“Islamische Gruppen,” 154—55, and also Li Gengyan and Xu Likui, “Yisilan jiao zai
Kaligang”). The one Muslim clan among the Monguors (called Turen before 1949 and
Tuzu now), the Ye family, lived in the same region (Schram, The Monguors, vol. 1,32). The
Tuomao, a Mongolian-speaking group who live north of Kokenor in Qinghai, may also
have joined the Khafiya under his influence. Though their oral histories as summarized by
Li Gengyan and Xu Likui do not mention Ma Laichi, they hold firmly to the Khafiya as
“their” solidarity (Li and Xu, “Qinghai diqu”). Ma Tong claims that the Baoan (Bonan), a
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pies would gather, and his participation in any dispute would give
weight to the side he supported.24 In the 1740s a conflict had arisen in
the Hezhou and Xunhua regions over the breaking of the Ramadan fast
at the end of each day. Should one pray first, then eat (houkai), or eat
first, then pray (qiankai')' Ma Laichi threw his considerable influence
behind those who ate first, the qiankai faction. The controversy grew
increasingly bitter, and a houkai leader, Ma Yinghuan, brought suit
against Ma Laichi in 1747.25
Ma Yinghuan’s lawsuit, in a Qing court, illustrates the difficulty of
resolving complex conflicts in Chinese Muslim communities. Elsewhere
in the Muslim world, where “secular” authority would also be Muslim
authority, the state’s jurisdiction would be somewhat less problematic.
Groups in conflict might request a judgment from a famous scholar
rather than resort to the law courts, but even in cases of irreconcilable
conflict, the legitimacy of Islamic state authority and of the statutory
and moral status of the shari'a would be agreed upon, even if the
particular results were not. But in Gansu, neither faction in a dispute
would recognize the authorities cited by the other, and the state, being
non-Muslim, would not act on the same grounds as would Muslim legal
institutions. Therefore, Ma Yinghuan’s action, which explicitly recog-
nized the legitimacy of the Qing legal system to resolve disputes within
northwestern Muslim society, demonstrates the degree to which the
Muslims of the northwest belonged to China. The suit between qiankai
and houkai set a precedent in which religious conflicts between Muslims
could be submitted for judgment to the secular authorities.
It also established parameters of legal controversy within the Qing
code and judicial system. Ma Yinghuan accused Ma Laichi of xiejiao
(heterodoxy) and huozhong (deluding the people), the former a very
serious crime.26 He claimed that Ma Laichi had founded Mingshahui
small Mongolian-speaking group from Tongren County, south of Xunhua, also became
Muslims under Ma Laichi’s influence (Zhongguo Yisilan . . . shilue, 227).
24.	According to Fletcher, Ma Laichi had attained the degree of wait, usually trans-
lated as “saint,” under Mawlana Makhdum’s tutelage (“Les ‘voies’,” 16).
25.	A brief account ofthe case may be found in the Xunhua ting zhi of 1844, 8:i6b-i7a,
which Mu Shouqi copies into GNQSL at i8:j7b-38a. Trippner, “Die Salaren,” 264, claims
that a similar case of dispute between qiankai (fore-breakers) and houkai (after-breakers)
had been brought to court as early as 1731, but official sources do not record it. It probably
represents an error for the well-documented case of 1747, since at least one of the litigants’
names is identical in the two accounts.
26.	The statute regarding xiejiao may be found in de Groot, Sectarianism and Religious
Persecution, vol. 1, 137-47, with the main statute at 137-38. Based on the Chinese state’s
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(Bright Sand Societies), at whose meetings initiates had sand blown
into their ears.* 27 His intention clearly lay in associating Ma Laichi’s
Khafiya Sufis with Daoist or Buddhist groups, always suspect in China
for their bizarre ritual practices and propensity for sedition. A Qing
court might well have found merit in such a line of argument, for Ma
Laichi’s group must have appeared innovative and divisive when viewed
from a legal culture that valued conservatism and harmony, while its
Sufi practices, however calmly these Naqshabandis may have under-
taken them, were certainly unlike those of Gedimu communities. But
the governor-general, Zhang Guangsi, dismissed the case against Ma
Laichi, charging Ma Yinghuan with slander and ordering him punished
according to the y««zwo rule, which stipulates that a false accuser could
receive the sentence his victim might have been given had he been
found guilty.28 The qitmkai and houkai adherents were forbidden to
conduct funerals together and ordered to respect their ancestral religion
without conflict.
This verdict hardly setded the matter. Ma Laichi’s entry into the
public world of Gansu Muslim religious politics had generated division
and conflict, and neither side would give up the struggle. Most texts cite
ritual, liturgical, or magical practices (such as sand-blowing) as the
overt reasons for conflict, but the charismatic hajji from Hezhou had
clearly stepped on sensitive toes in the social and economic realms as
well. His conversion of the Salars, in particular, made Gansu people
experience with Buddhist and Daoist groups perceived as potentially subversive, it concen-
trates on activities associated specifically with them, some of which also point directly at
Muslims as well, especially Sufis. For example, the statute forbids meetings that take place
at night, which of course are necessary for Muslims during Ramadan and Sufis as part of
their Mkr practice. The supplementary statutes forbid writing charms, preparing sacred
writings (especially esoteric, encoded texts), and collecting contributions, among many
other things. Ironically, these statutes, invoked against Sufis in the eighteenth century,
specify banishment to Xinjiang and enslavement to the begs (who were Sufis) or to other
Muslims as fit punishment for the practice of xiejiao (Lipman, “Statute and Stereotype”).
Iwamura, “Chugoku Isuramu,” compares the status of the Sino-Muslim communities to
that of secret societies, firmly lodged within Chinese society but nonetheless segregated.
27.	Nakada, Kaikai, 88, where his source is the edict cited above in note 19. This
“Bright Sand” business, quite common in Chinese accounts, derives from the characters
used in the transliteration of the name of Ma Laichi’s text, thcMingshale. Some versions of
this title use the characters for “bright sand” (ming sha), while others use a different ming
to indicate the sinister “dark sand.”
28.	According to Nakada, whose source is contemporary to the trial, it was Governor-
General Zhang who heard the case. Xunhua ting zhi, 8:17a, names Gansu governor Huang
as the presiding justice.
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nervous, as that Turkic-speaking people, living astride the Lanzhou-
Xining and Hezhou-Xining roads, had a reputation for bellicosity.
Other Gansu people feared that, should Salars be unified under a single
leader in a Sufi order, rather than divided into small, mosque-based
gong communities under several Qing-appointed tusi, they would pose a
dire threat to public safety.29 Indeed, when large-scale hostilities did
break out in Gansu in the 1780s and 1890s, the Salars and the Khafiya
were intimately involved in their inception. Hidayat Allah had appar-
ently had great success among them, and so did Ma Laichi.
Ma Laichi’s innovations did not stop with initiation into the Khafiya.
Building on the models available within the Afaqlya, the Central Asian
Sufism so intimately linked with the political lineages descended from
the Makhdum-i A'zam, Ma Laichi established hereditary succession as
the principle for transmission of baraka within the Khafiya and the
centrality oigongbei, the tombs of a Sufi order’s deceased leaders, in the
ritual lives of adherents (see plate 11).30 His son, Ma Guobao, followed
him as shaikh, thus ensuring that the family’s accumulated wealth would
not dissipate nor its religious power wane. He and several others initi-
ated in the line of Hidayat Allah are credited by Chinese sources with
founding the first menhuan, the Muslim saindy lineages of northwest
China.
Menhuan, an entirely local term, probably derives from menhu, “great
family,” or “official family,” but it has come to refer exclusively to
northwestern Chinese Sufi solidarities whose leadership remains within
a single lineage. Though far from unusual elsewhere in the Muslim
world, the idea of hereditary succession to religious, social, and political
authority fell on particularly fertile ground in China.31 Sufi orders often
transmitted charisma in hereditary lines, but nowhere else did they have
the comprehensive model of the Chinese corporate lineage ijiazu) to
follow. Holding common property, diversifying in trade and other eco-
29.	The tusi system, which boasts considerable antiquity, allowed indigenous non-
Chinese-speaking peoples of the frontier to govern themselves under lineages given pat-
ents of office by the Chinese state. For the workings of the tusi system among the Salars,
see Mi Yizhi, Salazu, 55-70, and for the system in general, She Yize, Zhongguo tusi; and
Zhang Jiefu, “Qingdai tusi.”
30.	Fletcher, “Ch’ing Inner Asia,” 7+, briefly reviews the history of the Makhdtim-
zadas, stressing their claim to prophetic descent and thus the centrality of genealogy—
hereditary succession—within their dynasty and their Sufi traditions. Fletcher correctly
notes that this type of transmission of baraka may be found in Sufi orders all over the
Muslim world, though not in every one.
31.	See, for example, Ewing, “The Politics of Sufism.”
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nomic activities, and participating actively in politics, the menhuan used
strategies evolved by the Chinese jiazu for survival and advancement in
the rapidly changing world of late imperial China. As a unique blend of
Sufi and Chinese forms, the menhuan combined the appeal of prophetic
descent with Chinese notions of family structure and socioeconomic
competition.32 Deriving legitimacy from two of the worlds that met on
this frontier, the menhuan proved to be a powerful new instrument of
local elite control.33
The lineage basis of the menhuan also provided rich ground for
conflict. Ma Laichi was not the only founder (Ch. daozu) authorized by
Hidayat Allah. The initiate Ma Shouzhen returned from Xining to
Didao, on the Tao River, and his lineage became the core of the Mufti
(Ch. Mufuti or Mufouti) menhuan, which engaged in feuding with the
Khafiya at Xining in the nineteenth century.34 Ma Zongsheng ('Abd ar-
Rahman), a well-known Hezhou ahong, received Hidayat Allah’s initia-
tion and instruction and became the daozu of the Bijiachang menhuan;
his tomb is located west of the city.35 And others followed, taking
advantage of the effective serendipity that united jiazu and tariqa in this
context. Unlike earlier Islamic institutions, menhuan could grow by
gaining adherents in many communities, contiguous or not, so they
competed with one another for initiates in all the Muslim regions of
Gansu. Both numbers of members and their wealth could contribute to
a menhuarfs rise, for even poor families could provide young men to
serve as students and as guards for the shaikh.
32.	Ma Tong argues that menhuan differed from other Chinese and Muslim groups in
their unique combination of Sufi religious impulses, esoteric seeking of the Way under the
guidance of a shaikh, and the establishment of lineages as the focus of loyalty (Zhongguo
Tisilan . . . suyuan, +5—47). None of these features, however, distinguishes the menhuan en-
tirely from Sufi orders elsewhere in the Muslim world; its unique character derives rather
from its adoption of corporate lineage forms from the Chinese sociopolitical environment.
33.	Because of the menhuan's, centrality in northwest China after the 1740s, contempo-
rary Sino-Muslim scholars have produced a huge literature describing, categorizing, and
analyzing both the institution and its historical evolution. Based on late Qing and Republi-
can period local wisdom, Chinese scholars often hold that there were “four great
menhuan,” though their lists often differ. Actually, there were (and are) dozens, great and
small. Apart from Ma Tong’s two books, both cited above, see Jin, “Sufei pai”; Guan and
Wang, “Huasi menhuan”; Rehaimude, “Sufei pai”; and Yang Huaizhong, “Dui xibei.”
Foreign scholars, too, have found the menhuan crucial, e.g., Dru Gladney (“Muslim
Tombs”) and Nakada Yoshinobu IKaikai minzoku, chap. 4).
34.	Ma Tong, Zhongguo Tisilan . . . suyuan, chap. 2. The Mufti menhuan leadership
also took a militant anti-Qing stand in the 1895 uprising; see chap. 4, this volume.
35.	Ibid., 214-21.
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By the mid-eighteenth century northwest China had received from
Central Asia a new religious and social form, the Sufi order, which
stimulated a strong drive to political activism, Muslim legalism, commu-
nity solidarity, and horizontal competition. Combined with the Chinese
corporate lineage both socially and ideologically, the Sufi menhuan be-
came competitive economic institutions as well. The coming of Sufism
from the west inclined Gansu Muslims toward their religion’s heart-
lands in Central and West Asia, but their adaptation took place in a
culturally Chinese context. In the Qing period new pressures also ar-
rived from China’s great cities in the east, where powerful currents were
developing that would tie Sino-Muslims more tightly to the linguistic
and intellectual culture of their homeland.
EASTERN INFLUENCE: THE HAN KITAB
Islam with Chinese Characteristics
Human affairs are reciprocal and complementary. The influence and
permeation of Chinese Islam by Confucian thinking seems to have
given late Ming and early Qing Islam, which was tending toward
decline, a transfusion of fresh, new blood, a new vitality presented
to the Muslim scholars. A group of Sino-Islamicists [Yisilanjiao
Hanxuejia] sprang forth. They used Confucian language and
Confucian ideas systematically to study, arrange, and summarize
Islamic religious doctrine; they constructed a complete Chinese
Islamic intellectual system, writing a set of Chinese-language
[Hanwen] Islamic works with a uniquely Chinese style. These
works are called by the Muslims in China the Hun kitab—that is,
the Chinese canon—and they have had a definite influence in Sino-
Muslim society.36
Over the course of the Ming period, as the Muslims of China became
more exclusively Sinophone, intellectuals among them worried that
they might lose their faith, their values, and their uniqueness by losing
36.	Truly, there is nothing new under the sun. When I penned the clever heading for
this extract, thinking to play on the current Chinese state’s claim to have invented “social-
ism with Chinese characteristics,” little did I know that it had already been used by a
Chinese scholar (see Cong Enlin, “Zhongguo tese”). The extract is from Feng finyuan,
“Cong Zhongguo,” 280.
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the ability to read their sacred texts. In Shaanxi and Gansu, this anxiety
led to the strengthening of mosque-based education in Arabic and Per-
sian, which, as we have seen, spread all over China through the posting
of northwestern-trained ahong. But the anxiety was also keenly felt in
the substantial and more acculturated Muslim communities of China’s
large eastern cities. Relatively few Muslims from Nanjing, Beijing, or
even Guangzhou could go on the hajj or study abroad, their ahong
could not interpret the holy books profoundly, and their differences
with their non-Muslim neighbors grew less distinct. The intellectually
inclined among them studied the Confucian classics and sometimes
succeeded in the civil examinations, but Islamic learning could not
thrive in their isolated environment. Islamic intellectual decline might
have been remedied by a new infusion of enthusiasm, knowledge, texts,
or leaders from the Muslim heartlands, but those routes were blocked
by a Ming policy that forbade, or at least discouraged, maritime trade
and contact.
Though Muslims had lived in China since the Tang, and many had
become scholars of Chinese learning, none had written Islamic texts in
their native language, Chinese. Though this may seem surprising after
eight or nine centuries of presence, we know that Arabic and Persian
remained inviolate languages of religious transmission within Islam, so
undertaking that work in another written idiom would certainly have
required a pressing need, individual courage, and an innovative spirit.
In the mid- and late Ming, anxiety over the survival of Islam in China
among the Sino-Muslim elite created precisely the conditions for that
innovation, but only where Chinese learning among Muslims had pro-
gressed to the point that literati who knew both Arabic and Chinese
could contemplate translating texts and ideas from one idiom into the
other—that is, in the eastern cities and in Yunnan.
Linked to and influenced by new movements in Central Asia, Mus-
lims in Gansu, on China’s northwestern cultural frontier, became Sufis,
joined mystical orders, and created the menhuan. Closer to China’s
heartland, Shaanxi Muslims advocated jingtang jiaoyu to ensure that the
sacred languages would survive another generation. But in Suzhou
(Jiangsu Province),37 Beijing, and especially Nanjing, Sino-Muslim lite-
rati created a new genre of texts, the Han kitab, their content accurately
reflected by their half-Chinese, half-Arabic name—the Sino-Islamic can-
37.	This Suzhou is the famous lower Yangzi cultural center, not the frontier city in the
Gansu corridor that had been one of Ding Guodong and Milayin’s bases in 1648.
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on.38 By no means all alike, these books reflected their authors’ sur-
roundings, religious convictions, and intellectual preferences.
Wu Sunqie, from Jiangning, may have passed the official examina-
tions to the level of xiucai, but he withdrew from the search for public
office and turned to studying the Islamic curriculum during the Ming-
Qing transition. Achieving an advanced level, he became an Islamic
teacher in Suzhou, where he undertook the translation of the Mirsad al-
ibad into Chinese, an effort that required five years and the intimate
involvement of his brother, who was possibly more competent than Wu
Sunqie in either Chinese or Arabic prose.
The Mirsad, a thirteenth-century text by Abu-Bakr 'Abd-Allah, traces
the soul’s journey from its original home, through the present life to the
world to come.39 Clearly of Sufi origins, in Wu’s hands it became a
manual for proper Islamic belief and behavior, including sections on
creation, worldly obligations, good and evil, and methods of self-
cultivation for various classes of society. In northwest China Sufis ar-
rived in person, bearing the tariqa as a vehicle of religious and social
organization and their own charismatic leadership for mobilization. In
east China Sufism arrived as philosophical texts, not especially distin-
guished from other Islamic books and quite separate from any social or
political forms.
According to one biography, Wu did not wish to impose any changes
at all on the Mirsad. Rather, he used a rigid method of precise transla-
tion, commenting only on philology or grammar. After the book’s
38.	Some of the earliest reliable editions of these texts, tracked through the world’s
libraries by Donald Leslie and analyzed in his invaluable Islamic Literature, have been
published in a collection of facsimiles by Ningxia Renmin Chubanshe in Yinchuan. Aside
from that excellent compendium, they are generally available only in printings from the
late Qing and Republican periods, many of which are not as accurate as the earlier
woodblock editions. I have been able to use a few of the earlier editions, but most of the
following account is based on quotations from secondary sources. Full-scale study of
these texts has been undertaken by Chinese scholars such as Feng Zenglie and Na
Guochang, but Western and contemporary Japanese scholars should certainly begin this
work as well, for it provides an extraordinary view into the minds of Muslim intellectuals
self-consciously explaining their faith in the idiom of classical Chinese, and thus a subtle
description of the relationship between the two parts of Sino-Muslim identity as these
particular men experienced and explained it. The understanding of these texts among
contemporary Sino-Muslims is far from unified; they are even called by two different
names. In the northwest, they are called the Han kitab. Elsewhere in China, especially
among intellectuals, the genre is known by the purely Chinese title Zhongwen Tisilanjiav
yizhu (Chinese-language Islamic translations and commentaries).
39.	Rizvi, Muslim Revivalist Movements, 436.
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completion, members of his family added a commentary at the begin-
ning of each section, making the text much easier to use. So concerned
was Wu about the possible misuse of his text that he forbade its publica-
tion, so it survived only in manuscript form until the end of the nine-
teenth century.40 41 42
Working at the same time as Wu Sunqie, perhaps even earlier, Zhang
Zhong (also called Zhang Shizhong) of Suzhou wrote two important
books on Islamic philosophy. He based his most important work, the
Guizhen zongyi, on the discourses of an Indian Muslim scholar, a Sufi
whose name appears as Ashige in Chinese. They met in 1638, and Zhang
followed his teacher all over east China. In both Ashige’s discourses and
his own commentary, Zhang focuses on the difficult notions of faith (Ar.
Imari) and obedience to God as the core of Islam: “In Islam, the crucial
thing is acknowledging God; the key to acknowledging God is Iman.”^
In Zhang’s book we find the first articulation of what would become a
crucial principle among Sino-Muslims: In order to know God, we must
know ourselves. Compatible both with orthodox Islam (especially with
Sufi introspection and quietism) and with Chinese notions such as
xiushen (self-cultivation) andy«w/j7/z (cultivating the vital essence), this
psychological, self-disciplined religious ideal appealed to a broad range
of Sino-Muslim thinkers and practitioners over the centuries.
After Ashige left China, Zhang Zhong journeyed to Yangzhou,
where he met regularly with three Muslim disciples, who questioned
him on religion. Together they studied a text rendered in Chinese as
Shuaisuli or Lusuli, but which Leslie lists as Chaharfaslri2, Zhang helped
them to translate the text and commented on it. After their teacher
returned to Suzhou, the students collected his translation and commen-
tary in the Sipian yaodao, divided into four sections: Imdn; God and
Islam; prayer and its rules; and “sacred behavior,” including ablutions
and specific commandments. Though he had not adhered as rigidly as
Wu Sunqie to an ideal of translation, Zhang Zhong nonetheless took
Arabic texts and the teachings of Ashige as the core of his writing,
adding his own ideas in the form of commentary rather than structuring
the entire discourse in self-consciously Chinese ways.
Wang Daiyu (1570s—1650s?), a Muslim of Nanjing, published the
Zhengjiao zhenquan (A true interpretation of the orthodox teaching) in
1642, making it the earliest extant work of its kind, though he probably
40.	Bai, Huizu renwu zhi (Qingdai), 42-43.
41.	Ibid., 37—41.
42.	Leslie, Islamic Literature, 23.
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was not the first to undertake the explanation and justification of Islam
in Chinese or the translation of Arabic and Persian texts.43 Wang’s
preface provides us with the earliest statement of why Sino-Muslims
needed this type of book. His self-justification describes his motivation
and defines his audiences:
My ancestors came from Arabia as presenters of tribute to Ming Taizu.
They could determine the profundities of astronomy and could cor-
rect the errors in the calendar. In surveying the Nine Heavens above
and penetrating the Nine Depths below, they surpassed all previous
ages without the slightest error. They gladdened the emperor’s heart,
and he felt that if they had not had a true learning, they could not have
accomplished this. He appointed them to the Astronomical Bureau,
granted them the right to reside here [in Nanjing] and exemption
from the corvee, and allied them with China forever. In the last three
hundred years, though we have had time enough to become accus-
tomed to the place, still we have not dared forget our origins.
In my youth, I did not study the learning of the Confucians, so as I
grew up, though I had rudimentary literacy, I could not be more than
a sometime clerk. As I matured, I grew ashamed of my mediocre
attainments, so I began to explore nature and principle and the annal-
istic accounts and on the side turned to the various philosophers. As I
came to some understanding of the general meaning, I felt that their
argumentation was perverse and their Way erroneous and mutually
contradictory in places. Compared to Islam [Qingzhen], they seemed
as night and day. Though not wanting to speculate, I absurdly wished
to leave worthy writings for posterity, to clarify [this matter] and
arrive at correct [understanding]. So I met with the various thinkers
and initiated much debate; though they persevered, they could not
compete [with me], and I left them always in the wrong. Of those
superior men who willingly submitted, every one regretted that there
existed no complete guidebook to the Correct Teaching [Islam], So
whenever I had been among them, I went home and noted down what
had been said. Furthermore, in leisure hours, I unsystematically orga-
nized my notes and collected them into several [categorized] sections.
There was too much to keep, so I had to cut it back, and the result was
forty chapters. The principles and Way [discussed] therein are all
43.	Ibid., 21, lists three Islamic works in Chinese with prefaces dated before the
Zhengjiao zhenquan, but none is extant; all are known only through Liu Zhi’s preservation
of their prefaces or postscripts.
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based entirely on reverence for Scripture, with reference to the com-
mentaries, and I have not dared to interpolate my own personal feel-
ings, to add or subtract, or divide the various scholars.44
Wang maintained the fundamental truths and superiority of Islam,
and certainly did not intend to toady or to flatter the Confucians, but he
nevertheless wrote his treatise in a self-consciously Confucian vocabu-
lary. The concepts and arguments of Song and Ming lixue, the orthodox
Neo-Confucianism associated with the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi and
legitimized by the state, constituted the only acceptable philosophical
discourse available to him outside the Arabic and Persian texts that took
Islam’s verities for granted. He could not write about Islam using the
vocabularies associated with Buddhism or Daoism—God forbid!—for
that would accomplish neither of his purposes. As he notes in his pref-
ace, he wished to communicate the truths of Islam to Muslims literate
only in Chinese (“still we have not dared to forget our origins”). He had
also to demonstrate the moral qualities of Islam to non-Muslims for
whom the Neo-Confucian conceptual framework represented the sole
path to ethical or even logical rectitude (“everyone regretted that there
was no complete guidebook to the Correct Teaching”).
Wang’s Zhengjiao zhenquan contains twenty brief essays on philoso-
phy and religion, and twenty on ritual and laws. Rather than translating
a text or compilation of texts from Arabic or Persian, Wang organized
his thinking both in conventional Muslim categories and by Chinese
themes that his non-Muslim interlocutors suggested. His initial chap-
ters, on the unity of God and on creation, include quotations not only
from the Koran but also from Chinese texts, including the Laozi, to
prove that Islamic monotheism can be defended within—indeed can
improve and complete—the Chinese tradition. In syntax reminiscent of
the Four Books,45 he writes: “If one does not comprehend the true Unity
[of God], then the root will not be deep; if the root is not deep, the Way
will not be fixed; if the Way is not fixed, then faith will not be
profound—lacking unity, depth, and profundity, how can their Way
long endure?”46
44.	Wang Daiyu, Zhengjiao zhenquan, 16. This translation owes much to the skill of
Daniel Gardner, to whom many thanks.
45.	The Great Learning (Da xue), The Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong), The Analects
(Lun yu), and Mencius (Mengzi). Wang’s syntax is especially reminiscent of the powerful
parallel sentences that lie at the core of the Da xue text.
46.	Ibid., shang, “Zhenyi,” 19.
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In his sections on ritual and practice, Wang justifies, often in a prickly
and aggressive fashion, Islamic religious life as against the claims not
only of Confucian philosophy but also of Chinese popular religion. His
arguments sound as if they really were transcribed from conversations
in which he held his own against non-Muslim debaters. For example, in
his section on geomancy, he answers the criticism that Islam ignores
human feelings by burying the dead without a coffin:
They say, “Orthodox Islamic law is far too sharp and harsh. In embalm-
ing and burial, this teaching does not allow the use of a coffin or outer
coffin, and that does not accord with human feelings.” I reply, “Not
using coffins attains to two [high] principles: one is nature, and one is
purity. By nature, I mean that the origin of humankind is earth, so
going back to the root, returning to the origin, that means returning
to the earth, and we call that nature. As for purity, when we bury
human flesh and blood in the great earth, it can be transformed and
become earth. . . . How can this not be pure? . . . The dead are with-
out [worldly] knowledge, so even a gold inner coffin and a jade outer
coffin cannot benefit them.”47
In the Zhengjiao zhenquan Wang Daiyu presents his own strongly
held opinions, calling on both Chinese and Islamic canonical texts to
support him, arguing forcefully for Islamic orthodoxy and orthopraxy
in a language shaped by the Chinese elite’s moral concerns, which often
differ sharply from those of Muslim theologians, logicians, and legalists.
In a closely argued section, he equates the Five Pillars of Faith of Islam
with the Five Virtues of Confucianism, calling them both Wuchang, the
Five Constants. Subtly including a Confucian virtue in the description
of each Islamic obligation, he makes good Chinese sense of the funda-
mental Muslim duties: creed (ren, benevolence), charity (yi, righteous-
ness), prayer (li, propriety), fast (zhi, knowledge), and pilgrimage (xin,
faith in humankind).48
Wang’s books were reprinted in many editions and have remained
popular among Sino-Muslims, but they did not have the desired impact
on non-Muslim thinkers. Islam’s outlandish origins, its denial of some
basic and obvious truths of Chinese religion, and, perhaps most impor-
tant, its assertion of Tianfang (Arabia) as a radiating center of civiliza-
tion prevented its being taken seriously by most Chinese intellectuals.
47.	Ibid., xia, “Fengshui,” 132.
48.	Ibid., xia, “Wuchang,” 82-87.
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Wang never claimed Arabia as the sole source of revelation or enlighten-
ment; like other Sino-Muslim authors, he cited the classical prediction
that a sage would arise in the east (Confucius) and another in the West
(the Prophet Muhammad). But so strong was the commitment of
China’s non-Muslim literati to the exclusive centrality of China to Civili-
zation that even parallel or coequal cultural truths expressed in literary
Chinese could not be accepted. Within the intellectual world of the
Sino-Muslims, however, Wang occupies a crucial place as the innovator
who made possible several genres of Islamic writing.
Though the works of Wu Sunqie, Zhang Zhong, and Wang Daiyu all
have come to be included within the Han kitab, the Chinese Islamic
canon, clearly they had very different purposes and methods in presenta-
tion of Islamic content to a Chinese-literate audience. Wu wanted to
present a Middle Eastern text, a Sufi philosophical treatise, in a Chinese
version as close as he could to the original, with little commentary.
Zhang based himself on his teacher’s discourses and created a general
book of Muslim knowledge as the basis for writing his own comments
on Islamic ideas and practice. Wang Daiyu, the most innovative, uti-
lized the entire Neo-Confucian philosophical discourse in order to criti-
cize some of its fundamental concepts and to justify Islam in his own
prose. All three acted within a Muslim world in which Arabic and
Persian no longer sufficed for Islamic education, and in a Chinese world
that demanded of Muslims that they be participants in a universal moral
discourse, not immoral foreigners. Their successors continued to re-
spond to those dual pressures and created a substantial Sino-Muslim
literature.
The Flowers of Sino-Muslim Scholarship: Ma Zhu and Liu Zhi
Born in 1640 in Baoshan County, Yunnan, Ma Zhu studied primarily
the Confucian curriculum as a child. His father, who died when the boy
was only seven, had been a classical scholar, and his mother encouraged
him to follow in the examination pathway. Passing his xiucai exam at
sixteen, he obtained a position under the last claimant to the Ming
throne, the Yongli emperor (r. 1644-62), whose court had been pushed
southwestward into Yunnan by the Qing invaders.49 Unlike his royal
employers, Ma Zhu successfully weathered the Qing conquest, and by
1659 he had published his first book and obtained a teaching position.
+9. Lynn Struve has translated a vivid account of life in that pathetic and roving court
by one of its eunuchs (Voices, chap. 15).
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His essays were well known all over the province by 1665.50 51 But as Wu
Sangui, a Chinese general in the Qing army, began the political maneu-
vers that would bring him into direct conflict with the Manchu court,
Ma Zhu decided to move to Beijing in 1669.
In the reviving Muslim community of the early Qing capital, Ma
turned toward Islamic studies and spent over a decade immersing him-
self in the languages and texts of his religion. As he probed deeper into
Islam, he realized how useful it would be if the new Qing imperium
recognized the faith officially. Trading upon his putative descent from
Sayyid Ajall Shams ad-Dln (in the fifteenth generation) and therefore
from the Prophet Muhammad (in the forty-fifth), he used official con-
nections to request that his status as sayyid be sanctioned by the Kangxi
emperor (r. 1661—1722). Though he failed to obtain imperial recogni-
tion, he did communicate to fellow Muslims how important it was for
the Qing state to place an imprimatur on Islam’s presence in China.
To forward that ambition, he spent much of his time in Beijing compil-
ing his research results into a comprehensive guide to Islamic thought and
practice, the Qingzhen zhinan (Compass of Islam), one of the most popu-
lar and massive of the Han kitab texts. Then, in 1684, with manuscript in
hand and family (his wife and two sons) in tow, Ma Zhu set off on a jour-
ney that would take him to most of the important Muslim communities in
China, except Gansu. In four years on the road, he visited Nanjing and the
other Muslim centers of central China, the major cities of the Yangzi valley,
Shaanxi, and finally Sichuan on the long road home to Yunnan. Wherever
he stopped, he met with famous abong and local scholars to show them his
book, asking them for instruction and gathering prefaces, essays of greet-
ing, and postfaces by the dozen. When he got home, he set about revising
the text to include all their suggestions, criticisms, and addenda, a process
that took another fifteen years and more.
Ma’s book circulated in a variety of manuscript editions, which he
distributed along his route, long before it was ever published. The
final version of the Qingzhen zhinan was complete by 1710. The main
portion of the book, in eight yuan (volumes), includes sections on
orthodoxy and orthopraxy, some addressing the issues and problems
of Chinese Muslim society more practically and concretely than did
Wang Daiyu’s Zhengjiao zhenquan)' The two new juan written in
50.	Bai, Huizu rernvu zhi (Qing dai), 44—45.
51.	Ibid., 48, where the anonymous author notes particularly the section of juan 8
titled Jiaotiao bakuan. Ford, “Some Chinese Muslims,” 148, discounts Ma’s originality and
dismisses his work as a repetition of Wang Daiyu’s.
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Yunnan consisted of a set of queries and responses, like Wang Daiyu’s,
and a record of Ma Zhu’s successful campaign against some of the Sufi
teachings and “heterodox” practices that were being taught in Yunnan
at that time, having been introduced from India. The final juan,
Zuodtw tongxiao (A public denunciation of the perverse way[s]), nar-
rates Ma’s opposition to the Qalandariya (Ch. Gelandai), unconven-
tional Sufis who had converted many Yunnanese Muslims to their own
versions of mystical practice. Ma Zhu found their doctrines and behav-
ior abominable, violating both shari'a law and the core morality of
Confucianism, and he recommended (and obtained) official persecu-
tion of them.
Ma Zhu, possessing a classical Chinese education, skill at Islamic phi-
losophy, and motivation to obtain state validation, undertook to con-
nect China’s Muslim communities to one another by actually traveling
among them. Much of his career, including his lengthy sojourn in
Beijing and possibly the composition of the, Qingzhen zhinan, stemmed
from his ambition to become the empirewide leader of the Qing’s Mus-
lims by having himself proclaimed an official, state-sanctioned sayyid,
thus making himself the Muslim analogue to the descendants of Confu-
cius. He failed in that mission, but that should not discount his success
in composing a lengthy and popular work or in carrying news and
scholarly currents among the scattered Sino-Muslims.
The most famous of all the Sino-Muslim writers, Liu Zhi (also called
Liu Jielian and Liu Yizhai), remained all of his life in the narrow corri-
dor between the lower Yangzi valley and Beijing.52 A native of Nanjing
like Wang Daiyu, Liu came from a family schooled in both Islam and
the Chinese classics. His father had met with Ma Zhu and added a
dedicatory poem to the Qingzhen zlrincm but had never attained his
desire to make his own contribution to the Chinese discussions of
Islamic philosophy. His son, however, received an education that en-
abled him to surpass his father by far. Beginning with eight years of
Confucian schooling, he then concentrated on the Arabic and Persian
curricula for six years. After that, he spent another four years reading
widely in Buddhist, Daoist, and ‘Western” (Ch. Xiyang) writings,
which at that time meant the Roman Catholic and scientific treatises of
Matteo Ricci and his successors, probably available in a private library
in Nanjing. He is said to have studied geography, astronomy, psychol-
ogy, and other subjects that had been important to Muslims in China
52.	As far as we know, the only pilgrimage Liu Zhi ever undertook was to Qufu, in
Shandong, to visit Confucius’ grave.
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over the centuries.53 Competent in all the necessary languages and can-
ons, Liu Zhi set out to stabilize and confirm Islam’s intellectual position
in China by writing its history, clarifying its doctrines, and equating its
truths and profundities with those of the Confucianism that dominated
the philosophical discourses of his day (see plate 12).
The author of many books, of which at least ten are extant, Liu Zhi
achieved considerable fame and moved in exalted circles for part of his
life. He had some of his books presented to the throne and included in
them prefaces by non-Muslim officials ranked as high as vice-minister.
These encomiums did not simply increase sales or circulation. By distin-
guishing Islam clearly from Buddhism and Daoism and by placing upon
Liu’s books the firm imprimatur of the state, they ensured that the
works, and Islam itself, would be regarded as compatible with Qing
intellectual orthodoxy by the strict and wary censors, always on the
lookout for subversive religious doctrines:
After discussing the Muslim religion with Liu [Zhi], [the vice minister
of the Board of War] found that it upheld the Confucian principles of
loyalty to the sovereign, respect by sons for their fathers, brotherly
love, and so forth; the Muslims’ religion, he added, was not to be
spoken of in the same breath as heretical and vicious sects.54
The vice-minister’s words, written in 1710, might have helped to protect
Muslims as a group and Islam itself from persecution seventy years later,
when some Muslims—Sufis in the northwest—did in fact turn violently
against the Qing state.
Liu’s well-known works include a biography of the Prophet, its basic
text translated from the Persian and supplemented by a wide variety of
important inscriptions, legends, and scholarly studies relevant to the
study of Islam in China. This book preserves many otherwise unavail-
53.	Several authors have located collections of Arabic and Persian works that Liu Zhi
used, to a total of sixty-seven titles, most of them religious in character. Ford, “Some
Chinese Muslims,” 151, notes that the relative rarity of Muslim books in China forced Liu
to use a Shi’i version of the Hadith (Traditions of the Prophet) as well as a number of Sufi
texts, though Liu himself was certainly not a Shi’ite nor did he belong to a Sufi order. In
“Islam litteraire chinois” Frangoise Aubin argues that all the writers of the Haw kitab were
Sufi adepts, steeped in mystical doctrine, especially that of the three stages toward ulti-
mate apprehension of God, shari’a-tariqa-haqiqa. More research in the texts, and more
discussions of definitions, will be needed to determine whether these writers may be
accurately described as Sufis.
54- Several citations from Liu’s works may be found in Ford, “Some Chinese Mus-
lims,” 149-52.
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able primary texts in a sort of Sino-Muslim encyclopedia. Aiming at
Sino-Muslim schools as well, he wrote a primer for children, an Arabic
language handbook, and a treatise on the Five Pillars of Faith.55 He also
composed two descriptive texts on Islam: the Tianfang xingli creates a
complete philosophical and religious system combining Islamic and
Confucian ideas in a systematic whole, while the Tianfang dianli pres-
ents Muslim ritual and other religious and secular behavior as entirely
compatible with the highest standards of Chinese society.56
The Tianfang dianli became Liu Zhi’s most famous work because it
was the only Muslim book to be included in the Siku quanshu, the giant
effort initiated by the Qianlong emperor to locate, compile, judge, and
censor all extant literature. Though the compilers’ comments on the
book were negative—‘The style of this work ... is extremely elegant,
but if the base is wrong to start with, fine words avail nothing”—its
very inclusion guaranteed its unique status among the Han kitab and
Liu’s elevation to the highest ranks of Sino-Muslim intellectuals.57
The Tianfang dianli does contribute to our understanding of Islam’s
course in China by providing a wonderfully symmetrical analysis of the
relationship between Islam and Confucianism. Liu begins by claiming
that “the Ways of the Hui [Islam] and Ru [Confucianism] have the
same original source, and from the start their principles \li\ were identi-
cal.”58 Knowing well the Confucian stress on ethical behavior and his
Islamic texts’ more intense focus on theology and humankind’s relation-
ship with God, Liu divides the Dao in two, claiming that the Tiandao
(Way of Heaven) is most effectively expressed through Islam, while the
Rendao (Way of Humankind) may be found in the Confucian canon
and the practices of its followers. Like Wang Daiyu, Liu places Islam’s
Five Pillars of Faith parallel to a Chinese group of five, but he chooses
not the Five Constants but the Five Relationships (Wugang), which
form the basis of Confucian interpersonal ethics. By creating this ethical
parallelism, Liu Zhi placed Islam and Confucianism on an equal foot-
ing: ‘The sacred book ... is the sacred book of Islam, but principle (li)
is the same principle which exists everywhere under Heaven.”59
55.	For citations and textual variations, see Leslie, Islamic Literature, 46-53. Liu’s
family apparently thought him eccentric because he sought neither success in the examina-
tion system nor a position as ahong, but only studied and wrote. Later in life he lost his
friends, and was quite alone when he completed his life of the Prophet.
56.	This account relies heavily on Feng Zenglie, “Liu Zhi.”
57.	Quote from Ford’s translation, “Some Chinese Muslims,” 151.
58.	Feng Jinyuan, “Cong Zhongguo,” 257-300.
59.	Ford’s translation, “Some Chinese Muslims,” 150.
8?﻿CONNECTIONS
In its substantive chapters the Tianfang dianli progresses from the
abstract and cosmological to the practical, from sections on original
teaching and true dominion to the Five Pillars, the Five Relationships,
collective prayer, and life-cycle rituals. Often criticized by both Muslim
and non-Muslim scholars as too Confucian, too conciliatory to China’s
hegemonic philosophical discourse, Liu actually walks a line between
Wang Daiyu’s feisty defense of Islamic uniqueness and the writings of
entirely acculturated scholars from ex-Muslim families, which are indis-
tinguishable from non-Muslim texts.
Of course, many ahong continued to maintain that only Arabic and
Persian could be appropriate vehicles for Islamic scholarship, but Liu Zhi
and his predecessors had struck a powerful chord among the Sino-
Muslim elite. Their works provided both a revivalist impulse, kindling a
new interest in Islam among Muslims more oriented toward the Confu-
cian classical curriculum and the examination system, and a propaganda
tool for enlightening non-Muslims as to Islam’s high moral standing.
“Use Confucianism to transmit Islam” could become an effective Muslim
technique only when a sufficient number of Muslims in China had be-
come illiterate in the sacred languages but literate enough in Chinese to
handle complex philosophical and ritual texts. Despite the scorn of Mus-
lim traditionalists, who called them antiscriptural and perverters of cus-
toms, the writers of the Han kitab brought to the fore elements of their
faith that resonated most harmoniously with the dominant political and
moral philosophy of Qing China.60
As Qing rule grew more stable and more repressive in the eighteenth
century, Muslims in eastern China could ill afford to alienate the offi-
cials. Rather, they provided an intellectual justification by which Mus-
lims could live comfortably in China, remain Muslims, and still partici-
pate in the larger culture within which they constituted a minority. This
strategy, so obviously different from that of the Sufis, grew out of the
context of the eastern cities (even the Yunnanese Ma Zhu did his re-
search and writing in Beijing), where the non-Muslims constituted an
unassailably vast majority.
This contrasts sharply with the northwest. There the ahong had more
power, and intellectual life (in any language) was less easily available, as
were books. Very few men could follow the examination system path,
60.	As Aubin states, many of the Han kitab texts emphasize the Three Vehicles of
increasingly esoteric Sufi knowledge. I would argue that their authors chose these particu-
lar concepts in part because they work so well in a culture devoted to self-cultivation as
humankind’s highest activity. See Li Xinghua, “Zhongwen Yisilanjiao,” 282.
84﻿CONNECTIONS
and far fewer Muslims could read Chinese. In Gansu the presence of
large, successful Muslim communities, antagonistic perceptions of cul-
tural Others, and a rowdier, more militarized atmosphere stimulated
Sufi orders to create solidarities of Muslims based on loyalty to a shaikh
and a desire for widespread self-defense. The spark that touched off
long-lasting violence was the arrival of another Sufi order, the Jahriya,
in the person of another pilgrim returned from Yemen, Ma Mingxin.
NAQSHABANDI REVIVALISM IN CHINA
On July 25,1946, the Rev. F. W. M. Taylor wrote to his fellow missionary,
Claude L. Pickens, Jr., to clarify a “chain of succession” for the Jahriya
Sufis of Ningxia, who, he reported, called themselves “dervish,” a com-
mon Turkic appellation for Sufis. Taylor had worked among the north-
western Muslims for many years, unsuccessfully arguing the virtues of
Christianity against their stubborn adherence to their ancestral religion.
He had sent an earlier version of the silsila to Samuel Zwemer, Pickens’s
father-in-law and the dean of Muslim studies among the American Pro-
testant missionaries, but it had included errors. Unlike virtually every
other such document from China, this silsila included the generations
before the order’s arrival in China; it thus constituted the starting point for
Joseph Fletcher’s detective work to uncover the origins of Naqshabandi
revivalism in China.61 The Arabian generations (in Taylor’s imperfect
romanization) were:
1.	Uways-al-Qarani
2.	Jami
3.	Sheikh Muharyindi
4.	Abu Uesaidun (Yezid)
5.	Junayd
6.	Tajr
7.	Dahawandini, i.e., Naqshband, who died in a.h. 791-A.D. 1389
8.	Zayn
9.	Abu Duha Halik
After years of effort, in the late 1970s Fletcher finally discovered the
identity of the last two men on this list, thus demonstrating conclusively
what was already recorded within the Jahriya suborder but unknown
61.	Fletcher, “The Taylor-Pickens Letters,” 2+.
85﻿CONNECTIONS
outside it—that the Jahriya Sufis of Gansu were Naqshabandls, that
their Sino-Muslim founder had studied in Yemen, and that they were
intimately connected to Sufi revivalism all over the Muslim world. Re-
search done in China has since deepened that connection, and an Arabic
document from within the Jahriya has largely confirmed it.62
Ma Mingxin and the Jahriya: The Arabian Connection
All over the Muslim world, the great wave of Sufism changed its char-
acter during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Renewal (tajdid)
movements grew from West Africa to China, advocating purification of
Islam from local cultural accretions and from the abuses (social and
economic, as well as theological) possible within Sufi orders. In many
parts of Asia, the Naqshabandi order stood at the forefront of this new
movement, epitomized by the career of Ahmad Sirhindi, the Mujaddid
i-Alf i-Sani (Renewer of the Second Muslim Millennium), in India in
the early seventeenth century.63 This Sufi revivalism reached northwest
China most dramatically in the person of'Aziz Ma Mingxin (1719?—81),
a Gansu Naqshabandi who, like Ma Laichi, had studied for many years
in Mecca and Yemen.64 His teachers there came from the school of
Ibrahim ibn Hasan al-Kurani, one of the best-known Sufi revivalists of
the Arabian peninsula. Among several generations of disciples, al-
62.	Ma Xuezhi, Zhehelinye daotong shi, a translation of about one-third of the Arabic
original, existed only in an “informal” version in 1984.1 was thus able to read it, but not to
copy or retain it. The text includes stories of the Chinese shaikhs of the Jahriya, the
miracles they worked, and their victories over their Muslim and non-Muslim enemies.
The section on Ma Mingxin makes it clear that he studied in Yemen; Ma Tong, Zhongguo
Tisilan . . . shilue, 364-65, concurs, identifying Ma Mingxin’s teacher as Muhammad
“Bulu Seni,” probably a mistransliteration of Muhammad 'Abd al-Baqi b. az-Zayn, the
father of the az-Zayn discussed below. Ma Tong’s silsila also includes 'Abd al-Khaliq,
though in a different position in the list, an inconsistency possibly due to his oral sources,
as compared to Fletcher’s written Arabic documents. Ma Xuezhi’s abridged Chinese
version has now been supplanted by a complete translation of the text, called Rashuh after
its first Arabic word. Done by two Jahriya ahongs and the famous Sino-Muslim novelist
Zhang Chengzhi, the published translation is an important addition to our primary
sources on Sufism in China. The reference to Ma Mingxin’s sojourn in Yemen may be
found in Guanli Ye, Reshihaer, 10.
63.	For a review of Sirhindl’s career, politics, theology, and disciples, see Khan, The
Naqshbandis, esp. 40-98; and Friedman, Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi.
64.	Ma Mingxin had several names, both Arabic and Chinese, and scholars disagree as
to which one(s) might be most authentic. According to Ma Tong, he came to be called
'Aziz only after his return from Arabia; his Islamic given name was Ibrahim. He also had a
Sufi name (Ch. daohad), Wiqayat Allah (Zhonggue Tisilan . . . shilue, 363).
86﻿CONNECTIONS
KuranFs intellectual and spiritual descendants included the leaders of
socioreligious movements in Sumatra, Java, north India, Arabia, China,
and west Africa, evidence of the remarkably open communication
among international Sufi elites during this century.
Joseph Fletcher has demonstrated how two Naqshabandl Sufis from
China, Ma Laichi and Ma Mingxin, obtained quite different versions of
their order’s tradition, though they both may have studied within the
same schools in the Middle East.65 As we have seen, Ma Laichi had
returned to China as a practitioner of the silent dhikr characteristic of
the Naqshabandl order. Ma Mingxin, a decade or two later, studied
with the next generation of Yemeni teachers, who taught that the dhikr
of God could be chanted aloud as well. His teacher, 'Abd al-Khaliq b.
az-Zayn al-Mizjaji, participated in a scholarly world much more recep-
tive to new forms of remembrance, and he himself is reported to have
taught both the silent and the vocal dhikr to his disciples.66
The dhikr was certainly not the only contentious issue among the
Naqshabandis of Yemen in the early eighteenth century; tajdid—
commitment to political, social, and religious renewal of Islam—
divided them even more profoundly. Among the students of al-Kurani,
especially in the second generation, were fundamentalists who shook
the Islamic world with their negative evaluations of contemporary prac-
tice. Muhammad Hayat as-Sindi, for example, who was one of'Abd al-
Khaliq’s teachers, also included among his disciples Muhammad b.
'Abd al-Wahhab. The latter became the most famous anti-Sufi, anti-
accretion polemicist of his generation in Arabia and founded a move-
ment that still reigns supreme in the Arabian peninsula. Indeed,
“Wahhabi” became synonymous for European scholars with the most
intolerant, most reactionary revivalism of the modern period. Activist
revivalists such as Shah Wall Allah of Delhi, Muhammad as-Samman,
and 'Abd ar-Ra’uf as-Sinkill of Sumatra all partook of the same atmo-
sphere as Ma Mingxin. For them, as for Ahmad Sirhindi, politics and
social reform constituted a crucial focus for Naqshabandis.67
65.	Fletcher, “Naqshbandiyya,” 27-33.
66.	Ibid., 30, esp. 114.8.
67.	It may seem contradictory that Muslim leaders educated within Sufi orders would
have become anti-Sufi activists, but by this point in Muslim history virtually every major
teacher belonged to one or more orders, so that “Sufi” could encompass the entire, vast
variety of Muslim intellectual and political life, including anti-Sufism. In China the range
was narrower, but “Sufi” could still include both the well-organized, military-minded
Gansu menhuan and solitary Sino-Muslim intellectuals, such as Liu Zhi, in Nanjing or
Suzhou.
87﻿CONNECTIONS
Trained with budding revivalists from all over the Muslim world,
Ma Mingxin returned to China in 1761 intending to purify Islam, estab-
lish Koranic orthopraxy, and purge the faith of accretions from the
surrounding culture. Like all mainstream Naqshabandls, he held the
observance of Islamic law, sharia, to be central to Muslim orthopraxy.
According to Ma Tong’s oral sources, Ma Mingxin’s reformist program
included unimpeachable Sufi and Sunni tenets: opposition to religious
leaders’ accumulation of wealth through donations; opposition to gran-
diose mosques and elaborate decoration; emphasis on emotion in mys-
tical practice, including the use of music; and advocacy of Sufi succes-
sion by merit rather than heredity.68 Though a Naqshabandi like Ma
Laichi, Ma Mingxin did not practice the silent dhikr, the “remembrance
of the heart” characteristic of most Naqshabandi groups. Rather, he
and his followers chanted the vocal remembrance called jahr (Arabic
for “aloud”), from which his suborder took its name, Jahriya. This
vocal dhikr was often accompanied by rhythmic swaying, hand move-
ments, even ecstatic dancing.69
Ma Laichi and his disciples and descendants, resting on the Afaqi
tradition of Central Asia and their own local self-interest, disapproved
of Jahri rituals and deeply resented the presence of a rival for religious
hegemony in the northwest. By the late 1760s, with Jahriya and Khafiya
adherents active all over Gansu, deep, long-lasting conflict within the
northwest’s Muslim communities began to complicate the already diffi-
cult relationship between Muslims and the Qing state.70
68.	Ma Tong, Zhonj^guo Yisilan . . . suyuan, 123-25.
69.	Algar, “Silent and Vocal,” +4—46, attributes the use of vocal dhikr by Naqshbandis
to the practice of multiple affiliation, but also to the existence of a secondary line of
spiritual descent within the order, one that justifies jahr through the Prophet’s initiation
of Ali b. Abi Talib. Though he does not believe jahr proper to Naqshbandis, Algar
nonetheless admits that it can be of benefit to its practitioners, if done with good inten-
tion. Ma Tong notes that precisely during the period of Ma Mingxin’s pilgrimage, via
Central Asia, the Qarataghliq (Black Mountain, Ch. Heishan) Sufis were in ascendance
on both sides of the Pamirs. The Heishan, whom Fletcher (“Naqshbandiyya,” 10, n3)
identifies as the Ishaqlya, also used the vocal dhikr, so Yemen would not have been the
only place Ma Mingxin could have practiced this particular ritual innovation. Ma Laichi
would not have received the same influences, since his suborder was so closely identified
with Khoja Afaq and the Baishan, the Ishaqlya’s sworn rivals.
70.	Another popular Sufi order, the Qadirlya, arrived in the Hezhou region in the
early Qing, its Chinese founders initiated by a peripatetic Arab missionary who styled
himself Khoja 'Abd Allah (Ch. Huazhe Abudu Donglaxi), a twenty-ninth-generation
descendant of the Prophet. (Khoja is not an Arabic title, but 'Abd Allah is reported to
have studied all over the Muslim world, from Medina to Baghdad and India, so he might
88﻿CONNECTIONS
When Sufism first arrived in China, many local Muslims had opposed
the new wave, finding its meditative forms and pursuit of the esoteric
Way incompatible with their conventional Gedimu lives. But the Cen-
tral Asian and Chinese Sufi missionaries such as Hidayat Allah, Ma
Laichi, Ma Mingxin, and Khoja 'Abd Allah had powerful advantages in
the symbolic capital they brought from the Muslim heartlands. Many
had been to Mecca, and at least two claimed Prophetic descent, attri-
butes embodying very high status in the Muslim communities of the
Qing empire. They knew Arabic and Persian well, which most Gedimu
clergy did not, having been educated entirely within the local jingtang
and madrasas. The Sufis’ possession of “pure” texts from West Asia, and
their ability to interpret them, added to their influence on potential
converts to the Sufi ways. Some of them also became adept at
thaumaturgic wonders, which swayed people toward conversion to the
path both by direct observation and by the powerful voices of embellish-
ment and rumor.
Conflict among Sufis
Charismatic shaikhs such as Ma Laichi and Ma Mingxin obtained sub-
stance and standing in their communities once sufficient numbers of
local Muslims had committed themselves to their respective paths. Ma
Laichi used his personal magnetism and the organizational innovation
of the intercommunity Sufi order to amass great wealth from the dona-
tions and tithes of initiates. Property donated in pious endowment,
often land but also flocks, swelled his fortune and made it permanent.
This wealth, of course, was no longer available to the conventional
mosques or to other Sufi orders. Sufi elites, beginning with the Khafiya
but later including the Jahriya as well, competed with one another and
have picked it up elsewhere.) Though very important in the history of Sufism and the
menhuan system in China, the Qadiriya did not play a prominent part in the violence of
the mid-Qing and will therefore not be discussed here (Ma Tong, Zhongguo Yisilan . . .
suyuan, 82-92). Since the Qadiriya did not practice hereditary succession to the baraka of
the shaikh, the term menhuan seems inappropriate, but Chinese sources regularly include
the Qadirlya within that category. I am grateful for this information to the current
Qadiriya shaikh Yang Shijun ahong, a 92-year-old celibate who has lived all his life within
the order, based at the Dagongbei complex in Hezhou. Yang laorenjia, as his followers call
him, graciously spent two hours with me in May 1996, telling me stories of Khoja 'Abd
Allah’s visits to Hezhou, the founding of the Qadiriya, and the past century of Gansu
Muslim history. Like his predecessors, he will choose his successor from among his
disciples, who live with him and study religion as their sole occupation.
89﻿CONNECTIONS
with Gedimu institutions for the resources of their communities, for
property, money and religious authority, for the status attached to Is-
lamic learning and orthopraxy, and for congregational decision-making
power.
The most divisive conflicts, which produced long-term and disastrous
consequences for the Muslims of the northwest, occurred not between
Sufi orders and Gedimu congregations but between rival Sufi orders.
The Khafiya and Jahriya came to be personified in their leaders, who
preached what Gansu Muslims heard to be different messages, practiced
what they observed to be different rituals, and advocated different social
and political ideals. Khafiya Sufis claimed to find Jahriya practices super-
stitious, heterodox, and sometimes—as in the case of rhythmic motion
during vocal dhikr recitation—downright immoral. Ma Mingxin, on
the other hand, criticized the excessive contributions demanded by Ma
Laichi’s successors for their religious services, the emphasis on venera-
tion of saints and tombs, and the development of hereditary succession
within the Khafiya. This last became a central issue as Khafiya shaikhs,
beginning with Ma Laichi himself, passed the baraka of the saint down
to their sons, an act with great socioeconomic significance. Hereditary
succession led direcdy to the formation of menhuan, of which Ma
Laichi’s Huasi menhuan was the first.
In addition to differences over ritual minutiae, which provided many
of the overt issues in conflict between Khafiya and Jahriya, Ma Ming-
xin, bearing al-Kuranl’s political and religious commitment to Islamic
renewal, gave the Jahriya a far more militant attitude toward reform of
Muslim practice and toward the non-Muslim state. Ma Laichi’s
Khafiya, in contrast, tended to follow the political traditions of Khoja
Afaq in cooperating with state authority—Khoja Afaq had, after all,
ruled Kashgar under a non-Muslim imprimatur from Galdan.71 During
the years after Ma Mingxin’s return to Gansu in 1761, the rivalry be-
tween Khafiya and Jahriya escalated into open and violent feuding, for
all of these Muslim communities were armed. Indeed, the martial arts
were known to be a Muslim specialty in the northwest. The militariza-
tion of Qing society, sometimes perceived as beginning only in the
1790s, began earlier and proceeded more rapidly on the northwestern
frontier. Borderland people, both for protection and for hunting, pos-
sessed weapons, including firearms, and trained their sons to use them.
Each mosque community, especially those in areas of mixed Muslim and
non-Muslim settlement, developed at least some paramilitary capacity.
71.	Fletcher, “Les ‘voies,’ ” 21.
90﻿CONNECTIONS
Single villages or local alliances prepared hilltop forts and stockades
against attack, as did their non-Muslim neighbors. Sufi orders, larger
and supralocal, organized their own militias on a wider scale, with more
effective centralized command coming from the headquarters of the
shaikh.
From the 1760s on Muslim communal violence and the state’s reac-
tion to it dominate the historical record of northwest China. The
Khafiya tended to ally with the state and remained the “established”
Sufi order, given the positive appelation Old Teaching to honor its pro-
Qing stance. Both officials and non-Jahriya Muslims labeled the Jahriya
with the pejorative epithet New Teaching and consistendy described it
as threatening and heterodox.72 With its militant commitment to Is-
lamic renewal, the Jahriya frightened local officials by “creating” numer-
ous violent incidents between Muslims. Official fear increased when
Khafiya adherents attacked the Jahriya in lawsuits and in the streets. The
sanguinary results will be described below.
Sino-Muslim scholars have not yet successfully dealt with the root
causes of violence between competing Sufi orders in eighteenth-century
Gansu. Why did advocates of silent and vocal dhikr confront one an-
other with fatal consequences in northwest China? In Arabia, after all,
Sufis could and did practice both types of remembrance without any
apparent contradiction or conflict—indeed, an individual could be initi-
ated into two orders that differed in the matter. The answers, therefore,
must lie in northwest China, not in Islam itself, in the characteristics of
Gansu Muslim society and its history, not in any inherent qualities of
Sufism, Naqshabandism, or Islamic doctrine. We are now prepared to
examine a wide variety of possible causes: local ecologies, local eth-
72.	A great deal has been made of this Old Teaching vs. New Teaching dichotomy
within Sino-Muslim studies, including attempts to find a single movement or organiza-
tion or theology to which the terms might be attached. A close examination reveals a
bewildering variety of usages. “Old Teaching” has been used to describe non-Sufi Gedimu
communities (early 18th cent.), Gedimu plus the Khafiya (late i8th-mid-i9th cent.), or all
nonfundamentalist groups (Gedimu, Khafiya, Jahriya, and the other menhuan) as op-
posed to the New Teaching, which has meant the Khafiya, Jahriya, Ikhwan, Xidaotang,
and others. Saguchi, “Chugoku Isuramu no kyoha,” notes that “New Teaching” was even
used to describe reformist attempts in eastern China in the eighteenth-twentieth centu-
ries. Whenever one of these words turns up, we must probe carefully into the local context
to discover the points of contention and the leaders/organizations in conflict rather than
assigning some absolute meaning to either term. The Chinese officials and Muslim leaders
who used them were neither ethnographers nor Islamicists but rather politicians, using
loaded terminology to make polemical points. The words “liberal” and “conservative” in
American political discourse have similar power, variation, and ideological vagueness.
91﻿CONNECTIONS
nographies, pressures internal to the northwestern Muslim communi-
ties, and influences from both local non-Muslim society and the Qing
state.
The immediate proximity of the Gansu corridor to Hami had facili-
tated Sa’id Baba’s aid to Milayin’s rebels back in the 1640s. During the
century following Meng Qiaofang’s massacre at Suzhou, religious lead-
ers continued to move between northwest China and Central Asia,
creating far more durable, institutional connections. As we have seen,
from the 1650s to the 1780s the Muslims of the northwest received two
new ways of conceiving of Islam, of themselves, and of their place
within Chinese culture and society. They came more or less simulta-
neously, one from the west and one from the east, bringing new ways of
belonging, both to China and to the Muslim umma, but also the possi-
bility of new and much wider conflict.73 From the Muslim lands, Sufism
spread to the Qing empire as it had to most of the Muslim world,
through the charisma of powerful saints who both initiated Muslims
into their institutions and converted non-Muslims to their version of
Islam.
In contrast, Sino-Muslim intellectuals in eastern cities, trained in
both the Islamic and the Confucian curricula, produced synthetic analy-
ses of Islam (including Sufi ideas) in the vocabulary of conventional
Neo-Confucianism. Both of these visions of Sino-Muslim society—
revivalist and militant, emphasizing tension (from the Muslim heart-
lands), and syncretic and adaptive, emphasizing compatibility (from the
major Chinese cities)—continue to enliven Sino-Muslim life to the
present day. Their contradictions, internal and with one another, repre-
sent symbolically the difficulties of being both Chinese and Muslim. As
Sino-Muslims came to understand the possibilities for unity inherent in
73.	I have separated “western” and “eastern” Islamic influences on northwest China
too radically here. The two currents, Sufism and the Han kitab, actually shared many
ideas, even some texts, as Frangoise Aubin has made clear in “En Islam Chinois” (esp. pp.
+93—515). Sufi texts had been available to Muslim scholars in China (in Arabic and Persian
of course) long before Wang Daiyu and his colleagues undertook to render Islamic ideas
into Chinese. We have seen that Liu Zhi embedded many mystical notions in his descrip-
tions and justifications of Islam. According to Ma Tong, (Zhonqcfuo Tisilan . . . shilue,
387), Ma Mingxin had read Liu Zhi’s works and admired them enough to say, “Jielian
[Liu Zhi] planted the flowers, and I reap the results.” (This saying will turn up again,
altered to fit the circumstances, in chapter 5.) However, given its obviously Arabian
origins, it would be an exaggeration to claim that Ma Mingxin’s Jahriya was somehow an
indigenous, synthetic Sino-Islamic movement. Nor have we any evidence that Sufi orders,
as distinct from Sufi ideas or texts, made their way to eastern China at any time before the
early nineteenth century.
92﻿i. Eroded, dry eastern Gansu hill country﻿t.. The Bayanrong valley in Huangzhong
3. Tangwangchuan, from a nearby hilltop.
(Holton Photographs, Harvard-Yenching Library, Harvard University)﻿4. Elderly Muslim
5. Muslim grandmother and child
6. Poor Muslim working man﻿7. Muslim family of Amdo (note Tibetan-style hats)﻿8. A view from the Muslim suburb (Bafang) to the Hezhou wall﻿9- Ahong of a mosque at Guyuan, Gansu
io. Muslim schoolboys with books and bone “slates'﻿ii. \gongbei (Sufi saint’s tomb) at Pingliang, Gansu
12. Liu Zhi’s gravestone, inscribed entirely in Chinese
(restored, 1870 and 1908)﻿ij. Salar man, looking neither ferocious nor Chinese﻿14- Ma Mingxin’s memorial marker at hisgongbei in Banqiao
15. A large hilltop fort (zbaizi) near Xunhua﻿i6. Dong Fuxiang﻿i7. An arch (pailou) in honor of Ma Anliang﻿i8. Gatehouse of a Sino-Arabic school near Ningxia﻿19- A Yunnan Muslim on pilgrimage to Gansu
20. A Jahriya Sufi, with his distinctive pointed cap﻿2i. Eastern Gansu town gate with slogan
“Do not divide Muslims and Han!”
22. Grave of Ma Yuanzhang and his son at Xuanhuagang﻿2?. Young men selling “Muslim” flatbreads and crocheting white caps﻿24. Students at an Ikhwan school in Xining﻿CONNECTIONS
these two modes, or decisively selected one over the other, they created
many individual and collective solutions to that dilemma.
External factors were also clearly at work. The corruption of the Qing
court, especially the Qianlong emperor’s favorite Heshen and his cabal,
caused a degeneration of local government in late-eighteenth-century
northwest China. A major financial scandal among provincial officials
in Gansu revealed widespread malfeasance on the frontier. In addition,
the qiankai-houkai disturbances had called official attention to the dan-
ger of internecine quarrels within Muslim communities, and the state
was keeping a more-than-usually watchful eye on Hezhou, Xunhua, and
Xining. In this atmosphere of suspicion, corruption, and prejudice
against Muslims, the Qianlong emperor tried to implement the policies
handed down to him by his father.
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY TRANSFORMATIONS
The Muslims of every province, as well as the brigands of
Hebei. .. and Anhui... all form bands to feud and kill. In such
cases, if there are some who call themselves “hired guns,” employed
for violent action . . . their sentences of military exile should be
raised by one degree.74
The arrival of Sufi orders in northwest China did not utterly trans-
form local society. The agricultural and pastoral economies continued to
evolve in their long-standing patterns, transportation remained slow
and uncertain at times, and wool and leather goods were carried from
highland to valley, while pots, tea, and grain moved the opposite way.
Chinese, Turks, Tibetans, and Mongols of many faiths and in many
combinations met on the grasslands, on the roads, and in the markets to
haggle and deal, to intermarry, and sometimes to fight. In that local
context, Sufi religious solidarities became wealthy saintly lineages,
menhuan, which competed for power and disrupted local order pre-
cisely at a time of rapid change in the Qing empire. With the Khafiya
and Jahriya orders present and growing in Gansu, in the second half of
the eighteenth century, let us now examine the larger world of the Qing,
to discover the external pressures that impinged on Gansu in this crucial
period.
74.	Dull cunyi 302.11, cited in Kataoka, “Keian shiryo,” 23, n2$.
93﻿CONNECTIONS
The Conquest of Xinjiang
For over a century after their invasion of China proper, the Manchu Qing
extended their empire westward and northwestward. This period of con-
quest, which created the “China” we now recognize, culminated in the
complete subjugation of eastern Turkestan and Zungharia. Though the
Kangxi emperor had defeated Galdan’s Zunghars, it was left to his grand-
son, the Qianlong emperor, to finish off indigenous resistance and foreign
invasions, all led or inspired by Sufi shaikhs.75 With the final defeat of the
AfaqI branch of the Makhdumzada khojas, a Naqshabandi lineage de-
scended from Khoja Afaq and thus related to the Khafiya of Gansu, by 1759
the Manchus controlled the vast sweep of territory from the Altai all the
way to the southern side of the Tarim Basin, and west as far as the Pamirs.
The Qing government’s strategic purposes in taking and holding this
enormous and potentially very expensive territory included preventing
an alliance between Mongolian (including Zunghar) rulers and those of
Tibet and “controlling” the potentially violent Kazakhs who lived west of
Zungharia.76 Beyond occupation by about twenty-five-thousand troops
of many cultures, the Qing governed the “New Dominion” (Ch. Xin-
jiang) with a light hand, desiring not assimilation of the predominantly
Turkic-speaking Muslim population to Chinese or Manchu ways but
rather cooperation in maintaining an orderly society and commerce in
this buffer zone. North and east of the Tianshan, direct military govern-
ment and substantial Chinese (Muslim and non-Muslim) in-migration
gradually transformed Zungharia into a polyethnic agricultural-pastoral
region. In Altishahr, south of the mountains, local hereditary leaders
administered a lenient tax system with appropriate corruption, while
sojourning Chinese and Central Asian merchants kept the goods flowing
despite a (generally ignored) ban on their permanent setdement. All over
Xinjiang merchants from Shanxi, Jiangnan, and the northwest, including
many Sino-Muslims, found profitable markets for both staples and lux-
ury goods, which they exchanged either for cash or for jade, the terri-
tory’s main export to China proper.
75.	For a summary of Xinjiang’s government, economy, and society in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, see Fletcher, “Ch’ing Inner Asia.”
76.	The first century of Qing rule in Xinjiang, especially its economic and social
history, is described with clarity and accuracy in Millward, Beyond the Pass. James Hevia
(Cherishing Men, chap. 2) discusses Qing overlordship in Inner Asia primarily with refer-
ence to Tibet, but his arguments apply largely to Xinjiang as well. The most comprehen-
sive published work on Xinjiang in this period may be found in two books by Saguchi
Torn: Jithachi-jukyit seiki and Shinkyo minzoku.
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We can only speculate as to the effects of these remarkable conquests
on the Muslims of northwest China. By ending a century of warfare in
Turkestan and including the entire region in their empire, the Qing had
opened up a new domestic arena for Sino-Muslim economic enterprise
and cultural exchange. Though they regulated the activities and setde-
ment patterns of Chinese in Xinjiang, the Manchus certainly enabled
northwestern Muslims to escape from sometimes dire conditions in
Gansu, to seek a better life on the newly available Zungharian arable,
which they could not have done under the Ming. The Qing also drew on
the resources of the northwest, both products and people, to supply and
transport the enormous quantities of material needed by the armies that
took and then garrisoned the New Dominion. All Gansu Muslims—
including muleteers, caravaners, purveyors of food and fodder, livestock
breeders, and farmers—could profit from producing, brokering, and
hauling military supplies.
But the demise of independent Islamic political power east of the
Pamirs had the same effect as the even more expansive rise of Europe
had elsewhere in the Muslim world—it caused Muslims to question
their own rectitude in the face of non-Muslim political power. Renewal
movements, not coordinated or united across the Islamic world, none-
theless reacted to similar phenomena in similar ways, especially when
shaped by the hierarchical, intercommunity potentials of the Sufi or-
ders. Thus we may find both the militance of Ma Mingxin’s Jahriya and
the compliance of Ma Laichi’s Khafiya comprehensible in the face of
overwhelming Qing military might and political control. The Khafiya
accepted the obvious domination of the dynasty to thrive under its
expanded rule, while the Jahriya demanded reform and renewal of Islam
to counter the triumph of Qing—that is, non-Muslim—hegemony.
Qing Maladministration
Just as Qing power was most convincingly displayed in Central Asia,
the seeds of disaster were sown within the bureaucracy in Beijing and all
over China proper. The corruption and maladministration usually asso-
ciated with Heshen and his followers touched the northwest early and
hard. We cannot easily ascertain the relationship between the greed of
officials and conflict in society at large, but the two coincided with dire
results in mid-Qianlong period Gansu, as the Grand Council noted:
[In Gansu] the Fan [Tibetans] and Muslims live intermingled, and
You favor them with “impartiality and equal benevolence.” You do not
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set up distinctions and categories or forbid their customs, so all can
imbibe Imperial Virtue and be steeped for generations in the court’s
favor. That the rebellious Muslims could dare such reckless behavior is
beyond reason and principle. If we seek the cause, it lies in the Gansu
officials, high and low, who fabricate “disasters” and injure the people
in their boundless greed. The severity of years of accumulated offenses
finally broke down Heaven’s harmony, created malign energy, and led
to this poisonous calamity and military burden.77 As we read Your
Majesty’s edicts to local officials, [we recognize that] Your Majesty
long ago understood and revealed this.78
The actions of the rebellious Muslims will be described in the next
chapter, but we must first examine what the officials were doing that
might have stimulated or at least aggravated their anger.
Beginning in the 1770s Gansu Province’s revenues began to disappear
into officials’ private purses in very large quantities.79 The Qianlong em-
peror’s investigators discovered three main types of corruption: direct
embezzlement of grain from the ordinary land tax and ever-normal gra-
naries; embezzlement of a portion of funds requested for the construc-
tion of new granaries; and, most spectacularly, conversion into cash and
embezzlement of donations, which were legal only in grain, from pur-
chasers of examination degrees. This last method was extended by a sys-
tem of false reporting in which those districts with high donation rates
would also be slated to receive high levels of “famine relief,” whether
they experienced famine or not. The “relief” was, of course, pocketed by
local officials in collusion with the provincial treasurer. In a province as
poor as Gansu, one might expect only paltry amounts to be available
from these sources, but the provincial treasurer, Wang Danwang, made
millions of taels from his various schemes, while his subordinates and
77.	“Malign energy”: the Chinese word qi, usually translated as “vital essence” or, to
follow Daniel Gardner, “psychophysical stuff,” in this phrase approximates the 1960s
locution “bad vibes.”
78.	Qinding Lanzhou jdue, 153, the Grand Council’s appendix to an edict of filly 9,1781.
This officially sponsored compendium of documents was compiled by the staff of Agui,
the imperial commissioner deputed to subdue the rebellious Muslims of Gansu in the
1780s.
79.	Many of the sources for this case may be found in the Qinding Lanzhou jilue, as its
prosecution was both contemporary to and causally linked by analysts in Beijing with the
Muslim rebellion of 1781. The best secondary analysis and compendium of sources may be
found in Yang Huaizhong, “Shiba shiji.”
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local officeholders all over the province cleared from a few thousand to a
hundred thousand each.
Not only Qing Grand Council members but also contemporary schol-
ars have concluded that the corruption of Qing officialdom had a great
deal to do with rapidly increasing violence in society after the mid-
Qianlong period. The analytical vocabularies of Confucianism, Marx-
ism, and the liberal social sciences have all been employed to describe
the connections, but often without reference to the complexities and
eccentricities of specific local systems. Certainly the extraction of mil-
lions from the Gansu economy by Qing officials had a deleterious effect
on ordinary people’s lives, especially when grain prices and supplies
were so shamelessly manipulated by the state’s functionaries. But that
does not necessarily lead to the formation of secret societies, heretical
sects, or rebellious bands. After all, similar corruption took place in
Zhejiang—Wang Danwang had been transferred there before his arrest
and prosecution—without the kind of results that occurred in Gansu.
That is, the financial despoliation of the region by Qing officials played
a part in alienating the Muslim population from the state, but was not
in itself sufficient to cause widespread violence. Qianlong’s officials had,
despite his ancestors’ and his own admonitions, also created conscious
policy toward Muslims as a group that encouraged communal violence
in the northwest by encouraging officials to discriminate against them.
Muslims in Qing Law
In 1730 Lu Guohua, the chief prosecutor of Shandong, memorialized
requesting that Islam be banned from the Qing empire, for its customs
were different and deluded the people. The Yongzheng emperor (r.
1722—35) entirely rejected Lu’s view, reiterating what his father had often
stated: Muslims living under Qing rule fall within the bounds of civiliza-
tion, among the emperor’s own children, and are to be treated with the
same benevolence as all his subjects. The differences between min (non-
Muslim Chinese) and Hui consist only of “native customs handed down
by ancestors from generation to generation,” not heterodoxy or treason:
Why should the Muslim people alone be provoked and made the sub-
ject of criminal charges? If the Muslim people indeed transgress, laws
and statutes exist under which they will certainly be punished. . . .
Henceforth, when the Muslims have basically done nothing wrong but
officials, whether high or low, seize on the pretext of minor differences
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in customs in order to memorialize wildly, I shall certainly administer
severe punishment.80
This evenhanded stance on the part of the early Qing emperors
boded well for Muslims all over the empire, had local officials been
willing or able to enforce their sovereign’s will. But memorials such as
those of Lu Guohua, and many others, indicate that the Qing em-
ployed many men strongly prejudiced against Islam—indeed, against
all “different” teachings—and that imperial impartiality faded rapidly
beyond the emperor’s own gaze. The emperor’s officials saw themselves
as defenders of the entire Qing order—its law, ideology, customs, lan-
guage, and more—against any barbaric Others. They probably also
faced considerable pressure from local non-Muslims, including gentry,
to protect local society from the ferocious and criminally inclined
Huihui. It is nonetheless significant that no large-scale Muslim violence
against the state or its local officials occurred for over a century after
Milayin and Ding Guodong’s rebellion was crushed in 1648—not until
the mid-Qianlong period.
Like his father, the Qianlong emperor often repeated the time-
honored nostrums of imperial benevolence, specifically endorsing the
view of a Shaanxi official who found Islam harmless and Muslims to
be law-abiding subjects.81 Even during the literary inquisition, when
he might have been expected to be particularly sensitive to unusual or
potentially heterodox doctrine, he ruled openly and straightforwardly
that there was nothing inherendy subversive about Islam. By 1782
“Muslim violence” in Gansu had caused great anxiety and expense for
the court, and in that same year a Cantonese Muslim seminarian
named Hai Furun was arrested in Guangxi. The literary inquisition
was in full swing, and the prefect impounded all his Muslim texts for
80.	This rescript, found with Lu’s memorial in the Yongzheng Shilu, 94:4b—5b, is
widely cited in works on the Chinese Muslims, including Leslie, Islam, 124, and Saguchi
Torn, “Chugoku Musurimu,” 127. This translation is Leslie’s.
81.	Bi Yuan, the acting governor of Shaanxi, reported on the reaction of the Xi’an
Muslim community to violence by Jahriya Muslims in neighboring Gansu: “The Hui of
Shaanxi feared that they might be dragged in and were inevitably plunged into some
apprehension.” To defuse the situation, Bi proclaimed the emperor’s impartiality to the
local Muslims: “As for those who just perform their religious rites normally and break no
law, new provisions to deal with them are unnecessary and should be avoided so as not to
alarm and spread doubt among the people” (Leslie, Islam, 127, citing an edict found only
in Liu Zhi’s encyclopedic biography of the Prophet, not in any official Qing compilation.
The translation is Joseph Ford’s).
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examination and indictment. Hai’s books included Arabic and Persian
“scriptures,” which the officials of course could not read, and a num-
ber of Han kitab by Liu Zhi. Zhu Chun, the Guangxi chief inspector,
memorialized that the Chinese texts were “presumptuous and reck-
less . . . containing more than a few wild and deviant passages,” and he
recommended harsh punishment.82
In a pair of firm edicts that summer, the Qianlong emperor denied
Zhu’s charges, analyzing Islam as a harmless religion, albeit a foolish
one, and insisting that Muslims deserve the same protection as other
subjects of the empire:
The sacred texts which they regularly recite consist of books handed
down from of old containing no really scurrilous or plainly seditious
language. Furthermore, the phrases in these books to which Zhu
Chun has drawn attention are on the whole crude expressions which
cannot be described as violent and rebellious. These are simple, igno-
rant Muslim people, faithful to their religion. ...
The sacred books which they revere are household knowledge
among the Muslims. There is no difference here with the Buddhists,
Daoists, and Lamas. Surely they could not be exterminated and their
books burned!83
Clearly the emperor had no intention of discriminating against Islam
itself, or against law-abiding Muslims in his domains, so he chastised
Zhu Chun for overzealousness, and Hai Furun was released unharmed.
The emperor saved his ire for what he perceived to be the cause of
violence by Muslims—the “New Teaching” of Ma Mingxin, that is, the
Jahriya.
But Qianlong could not control the anti-Muslim sentiments or prac-
tices of his officials in the field any better than his father had been able
to do. Indeed, under Qianlong and his successors, even the statutes of
the dynasty began to reflect the perception that Muslims are somehow
more violent and ferocious than other subjects. The distinctions be-
tween Hui and min in criminal law were subtle but real indicators of
prejudice on the part of the Board of Punishments and its magistrates.
The first statute directed specifically at activities by Muslims dates from
82.	Zhu’s memorials may be found in the collection Qingdai wenziyu iang (1938), cited
in Ma Ruheng, “Cong Hai Furun,” 8-12.
83.	The edicts may be found in the Qianlong Shilu, and are cited by both Ma Ruheng
and Leslie, Islam, 128, from which this translation is taken.
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Qianlong 27 (1762), demanding that Muslim jiaozhang (religious profes-
sionals) report any untoward activity in their communities and specify-
ing punishment for local officials who do not report Muslim criminal
acts.
The first case invoking this statute came at the end of that same year,
when a local Shandong official reported that Muslims, rude and brutal,
had formed a secret party to become bandits (Ch.feitu). He requested
severe punishment from then on for such “crowd-gathering collective
crimes.” The Board of Punishments, with the emperor’s permission,
approved banishing Muslim thieves found with weapons in groups of
three or more, with no distinction between leaders and followers, to the
southwest frontier regions as guards. Similar crimes by non-Muslims
would be distinguished by whether they had succeeded in stealing any-
thing, and if so, how much, while leaders and followers would be
punished differently.84 But official (and unofficial) assumptions about
the Muslims’ fierce natures argued against making such fine distinctions
in cases involving Huihui, and the Board’s discriminatory precedents
and decisions gradually accumulated.
Beginning in the 1770s the Qing annals contain reports of Muslim
street brawling, feuds (Ch. xiedou), and other forms of collective vio-
lence. Metropolitan officials became quite suspicious of Muslims in
general, so when the Board of Punishments received a Shandong report
of a murder case involving Muslims, they created a new Muslim-specific
statute. Dou’ou (brawling) was the category: If more than three armed
Muslims kill a person, the perpetrator should be punished under the
ordinary regulations, and the rest should be banished to the southwest
as guards. If they are not armed, then the sentence should be reduced
one grade, to one hundred blows and three years of servitude. If ten or
more are involved, even if they are not armed, and if someone is
wounded, they should be sentenced under the statutes for collective
armed brawling. These punishments are one to several grades heavier
than those meted out to non-Muslims for the same offenses.85
The trend was clear. The Qing state gradually created a body of law
that distinguished Muslims as a special category of persons who, if they
violated the criminal law, should be dealt with more harshly than others.
Strongly reminiscent of the discriminatory behavior we have seen in
Ming period officials, this prejudicial treatment helped to create an
atmosphere within the government ranks that militated against the im-
84.	Kataoka, “Keian shiryo,” 4, citing the Da Qing liiligenyuan, 64.
85.	Ibid., 19, citing the Da Qing liiligenyuan, 83.
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partiality proclaimed by the emperors. These regulations remained well
within the Qing system of precedents, but their proclamation certainly
demonstrated to Muslims all over the empire that they were to be
treated differently by their magistrates. By the Daoguang period (1821-
50) the substatute cited at the beginning of this section made perfect
sense in its equation of all Muslim offenders with the most feared, most
violent members of non-Muslim society, the fierce brigands of Anhui
and Hebei. Reacting to increasing disorder, the Board of Punishments
later added the bandits of Henan to the list.
Militarization and Local Violence
As a final factor in this history of external influences on mid-Qianlong
Gansu, we must cite the violence that struck more and more Chinese
locales during and after the 1770s. Much more obvious after the
Qianlong emperor’s abdication and the White Lotus uprisings (post-
1795), the degeneration of local order had nonetheless already begun,
as had the defensive, militarizing reaction of local elites and their self-
defense associations.86 The Wang Lun uprising of 1774 is usually held
to have been the first major outbreak in China proper, though Turke-
stani rebellions had taken place following the Qing conquest of
Xinjiang in the 1760s, and the Muslim uprising of 1781 followed seven
years later.87
China’s elite has, for millennia, claimed a harmonious and peaceful
character for Chinese society, a Confucian vision in contrast to the
barbaric Others that surround it. Violence within the empire could be
laid to the continuing existence of evil men and evil ideas, both of which
could and should be extirpated by a virtuous state. Thus, even when its
officials killed Muslims wholesale or created discriminatory statutes, the
Qing state continued to claim that it need only do away with the
“weed” Muslims and leave the good ones in peace. An alternative con-
struction of outsiders, that of bestial and irremediably savage Others,
could be used to justify full-scale interstate warfare (as against Galdan or
the Makhdumzada khojas), but had to be tempered when conquered
peoples became children of the emperor, their leaders made subordinate
lords. Both of these views of social disorder blinded central and local
officials to the multiple causes of local violence, to the complex combina-
tions of antagonism among “different” people at the local level, feuding
86.	Kuhn, Rebellion and Its Enemies.
87.	Naquin, Shantung Rebellion.
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within Muslim communities, and socioeconomic dysfunction that had
begun to plague Gansu in the mid-eighteenth century.
No single innovation, invasion, or domestic development triggered
the violence that rocked Gansu in 1781 and 1784. The Qing state’s inept
military reaction, eventual brutal pacification, and proscription of the
Jahriya (called New Teaching) took place in a context shaped in part by
the changes described above. The conquest of Xinjiang, corruption of
the Qing administration, legal discrimination against Muslims, and the
gradual increase in violence in society at large all played their part in
causing the outbreak led by Su Forty-three (Su Sishisan), which opened
a sanguinary century and a half of killing by and of Muslims in north-
west China.
102﻿4	/ Strategies of Resistance
Integration by Violence
FIRST BLOOD IN THE 1780S
After the morning prayers, as I passed Ma Laichi’s street, oh God!
A crowd gathered against me. Taking long poles and short sticks
and whips, they beat me, and the women stood in the doors and
threw garbage. With God’s help, not knowing how I found the
courage and strength, I beat them one by one, broke their
weapons, and defeated them. Thus the vengefiilness grew deeper,
for Ma Laichi’s fourth son took a crowd to the magistrate and said
we had set up a new teaching to deceive the people. The court
decided against us, and I was dragged in and beaten forty strokes,
while Ma Mingxin received three. As they beat him, the bludgeon
split in two! . . . The next day after dawn prayers, I again went by
Ma Laichi’s street and cursed the people from one end to the other.
The revengers said, “How can he be so bold?” and again went to
court. The magistrate decided, “All should return to their native
places.”1
Khafiya vs. Jahriya at Xunhua
After Ma Mingxin’s return from “the west” and his successful campaign
of conversion, Khafiya and Jahriya adherents in “Salar country”
(Huangzhong)—and elsewhere in Gansu—became rivals. The Muslims
themselves and the Qing state called their altercations “religious dis-
putes,” and official documents record religious justifications for violence
to bear out this judgment—vocalization of the dhikr, wearing of shoes at
funerals, the length and cut of beards or mustaches, and other ritual
minutiae, as well as the more generic but more serious charges of hetero-
doxy and deception. But these “religious” conflicts clearly had secular
1.	Ma Xuezhi, Zhehdinye davtong shi xiaoji, cited in Yang Huaizhong, “Lun shiba
shiji,” 320-21.
103﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
causes as well. A wide variety of hot and divisive issues beyond the vocal
dhikr compelled the two orders first to confront one another, then to seek
redress from the local authorities: rivalry over the profits of religious
institutions, establishment of control over converts to Islam, personal
conflicts between lineages and individual leaders, and, as the Jahriya
history recorded, the boldness of young men bearding their “enemies” in
their lairs and brawling in the streets.2
The confrontation between Ma Mingxin’s and Ma Laichi’s followers
might well have been an ordinary event, just another gang war or feud
in the complex shuffle of frontier history, had it not taken place among
the Salars. The officials of Gansu feared Salar violence, as did many non-
Salars who lived within range of Huangzhong, for their reputation as
raiders had spread from the Gansu corridor to Shaanxi. This labeling of
the Salars as inherently, genetically violent and ferocious had been done
so often, in so many official documents and local discussions, that it
came to be known as true (see plate 13).
The Salars’ ancestors had migrated from Central Asia to China, proba-
bly during the fourteenth century.3 The Chinese accounts of their jour-
ney, undoubtedly influenced by centuries of antagonistic hindsight,
maintain that the Salars were cast out of their homeland for their violent
behavior.4 Isolated by the rough terrain from state power, the Salars
earned a reputation for violence that belied their numbers, fewer than
fifty thousand in the early twentieth century.5 With a comparative eye
2.	Elsewhere I have argued (unfortunately without sufficient care regarding words such
as “ethnicity”) that local feuding and street violence, almost always undertaken by young
males, must be understood at least in part as a stimulating, enjoyable activity (Lipman,
“Ethnic Conflict,” 79—81). Michael Ignatieff, traveling in Croatia, found the combination
of young males, guns, ethnicity (including religion), and alcohol particularly potent and
dangerous in creating an atmosphere of murderous violence (Blood and Belonging, 3-5).
3.	For a recent investigation of their origins, see Mi, Salazu, esp. chaps. 1 and 2.
4.	Trippner, “Die Salaren,” 241-76, esp. 241-50. According to a legend quite general in
the sources, the Salars migrated eastward guided by a white camel and carrying a bag of
Central Asian soil. They settled around Xunhua, where the local earth matched that in the
bag, and the white camel transformed itself into a prominent white boulder.
5.	Population statistics for the Salars, like those of any group in China, must be
evaluated with great care. The Xunhua ting zhi of 1844, 4.28a-3ib, gives 2,780 households
for the eight main Salar communities on the south side of the Yellow River. This would
indicate a much smaller population than the thirty thousand Salars counted by the newly
established People’s Republic in 1953. But there were five other Salar communities on the
north side of the river, outside Xunhua Subprefecture, as well as many Salars residing
elsewhere or living on the road. We also have no way of knowing how Salar identity, or
any other ethnic identification, was determined in the 1953 census, not to mention the
censuses conducted by the Qing and Republican governments.
104﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
on the Montagnards of Vietnam, the hillbillies of Appalachia, the Karen
of Burma, and many others, we may surmise that we have received the
flatlanders’ view of the Salars, one thoroughly prejudiced against them.
The Salars engaged in dangerous, low-status occupations such as long-
distance trade by raft and caravan. Many of them settled far from the
Xunhua region, and many joined the military. In sedentary, civil China,
such professions and mobility sufficed to earn a people the reputation of
being congenital bandits. Some Salars did prey on merchants, but their
mobile, mercantile professions would have marked them as vagrants, if
not bandits, whatever they might have done. We cannot trust the Chi-
nese imagery, which would automatically type the Salars as uncivilized.6
As elsewhere among the Chinese Muslims, the local mosque consti-
tuted the core of the Salar communities, which were known as gong.
The eight gong on the south side of the Yellow River and the five on the
north all supported numerous religious institutions despite relatively
small population and poverty. Xunhua County alone counted sixty-two
mosques of various sizes in the early twentieth century.7 Salars intermar-
ried with other groups, including Chinese and Tibetans, and adapted in
a variety of ways to their frontier environment. They wore the queue
under Manchu rule, for example, but many of them successfully resisted
footbinding. Physically they appeared to be a combination of all the
northwestern peoples, as Joseph Trippner pointed out in the passage
translated on page 18. To maintain their connections with their Islamic
roots, and to tap wider commercial markets, the Salars allegedly estab-
lished and maintained connections with Muslim Central Asia that were
stronger than those of their Sinophone Muslim neighbors. Their reli-
gious tradition gave them motivation, their Turkic language gave them
the necessary means of communication, and their far-ranging trade gave
them greater opportunity.8
The Xunhua region, which most Salars called home, was a backwater
6.	Trippner, “Die Salaren,” 261. The late Rev. Claude Pickens, Jr., a missionary with
long experience among Chinese Muslims, traveled to the northwest in 1936. In response to
an early draft of this book, he wrote that he deplored the overemphasis on Muslim
banditry, calling it a Han perversion of the truth. The Muslims had received this character-
ization, in his opinion, without earning it, victimized by ethnic prejudice and Han control
over the written record.
7.	Zhou, Qinghai, 185.
8.	“Sara Kai oyobi Moko Kaikai,” 76. Arienne Dwyer, who has done the most exten-
sive contemporary work on their language, informs me in a personal communication that
the Turkic elements in the Salar language most closely resemble the Turkmen language,
from west of Samarkand.
105﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
from a Chinese point of view, a frontier town with few eminent literati
in its gazetteer and little but conflict to mark its history. Lying amid
steep hills on the south bank of the Yellow River, the town had a
subprefectural yamen (ting) and a small garrison. These represented the
only state authority for miles around, authority over a mixed hill-
country population of Tibetans, Salars and other Muslims, and Mon-
guors, but very few Chinese-speakers.9 What seemed to any sensible
Chinese to be the back of beyond constituted a cultural homeland for
the Salars, who had by the mid-Qing lived there longer than Europeans
have lived in North America. When conflict arose among its diverse
peoples, however, Xunhua became an unstable social, military, and cul-
tural environment.
In harsh natural conditions, with potential enemies on all sides, none
of the frontier peoples could have survived without a martial tradition,
without both weapons and the skill to use them, and survive the Salars
did.10 We can hardly blame them, but we can also understand the
development of stereotypes and fears among non-Salars who lived
nearby. An anxious twentieth-century missionary summarized the local
stereotype of the Salars, one he shared wholeheartedly:
The geographic situation of [Salar] territory, adjoining as it does upon
Tibet, enables them to engage in constant warfare with that people,
and thus to nurture within them the fierce spirit of their forefathers.
Word that the Salars are out upon the warpath will throw the largest
Chinese trading community into a panic. It is commonly said that the
Salars can only be governed by a Salar, and even for him the task is not
always easy.11
We need not accept this stereotype at face value to understand its
evolution or its power. The non-Muslim Chinese and other local peo-
ples formed rigid images of some of their neighbors as brutal, warlike,
9.	Monguors, or Tu people (lit. “indigenes, autochthones, people of this earth”),
occupy much of the Huangzhong triangle. They live in lineage settlements. Their lan-
guage, folkways, history, and ethnic interactions have been studied by Louis Schram, who
lived among them for many years. Though biased in their favor, his monograph
(Monguors) contains a wealth of information on the border region as a whole.
10.	Arienne Dwyer’s as-yet unpublished fieldwork indicates that the ethnocultural
distinctiveness of the Salars is rapidly disappearing under the acculturative pressures of the
Chinese-dominated state and both Chinese-speaking and Tibetan-speaking neighbors.
She believes that their Turkic language, already replete with Chinese and Tibetan gram-
matical and lexical influences, will not survive another generation.
11.	Andrew, The Crescent, 17.
106﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
uncivilized and predatory—in short, barbarous beyond rescue. The ap-
pearance of feuds, apparently based on ideological differences, among
the Salars created a volatile atmosphere all over the province, for their
very name evoked fearful images, and their armed affrays evoked a
violent response from the state.
The Sufi combatants in Xunhua or Hezhou were certainly not plan-
ning the “great enterprise” of dynastic replacement or a political seces-
sion from Gansu, much less a. jihad to convert pieces of the Qing empire
into the territory of Islamic government. Rather, they sought local
revenge on local enemies. Lacking any effective central authority within
their own communities—a qadi to whom one side had recourse would
have been rejected as heterodox by the other—both Old and New
Teaching, as the Khafiya and Jahriya were called in the reports of Qing
officials and the diaries of local gentry, took their cases to the secular
officials. They also took matters into their own hands, with young men
beating each other in the streets, which called their conflicts clearly to
the attention of the authorities.12
From Feud to “Rebellion”
The Khafiya as a religious order had not caused much violent feuding in
Gansu until the establishment of the Jahriya, Ma Mingxin’s revivalist
followers, who came to be seen as the destroyers of a once-stable social
order. As demonstrated above, the Sufi paths were not merely religious
collectives devoted to meditation but rather loci of loyalty for many
types of social and political activity. Their internal cohesion and devo-
tion to a single leader made it possible for them to mobilize passion and
armed force against their enemies, in this case other Sufis. Twenty years
of escalation culminated in 1781, when law cases and street violence
between the competing orders brought the Qing authorities to Xunhua
to investigate.13 Learning more of the Jahriya leadership and its appar-
ently subversive activities, they arrested Ma Mingxin, who was not
anywhere near Xunhua at the time, as the chief troublemaker, imprison-
ing him in Lanzhou. Xinzhu, adjutant general at Hezhou, was sent to
Xunhua with Yang Shiji, prefect of Lanzhou, to round up Ma’s cohort
and end their threat to social harmony.
Some of the Salar Jahriya Muslims, under the military leadership of
Su Forty-three, met the two officials and their small company of troops
12.	Yang Huaizhong, “Lun shiba shiji,” 311-16.
13.	Nakada, Kaikai minzoku, 88-89.
107﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
at Baizhuangzi. Obviously prepared for trouble, the Muslims had con-
cealed their weapons and presented themselves as a welcoming party of
Old Teaching adherents. When Xinzhu told them he intended to elimi-
nate the New Teaching, Su and his men overpowered the military escort
and killed both officials.14 With this violent act, the internecine strife
among Muslims became secondary, and “rebellion,” as defined in Qing
law, began. Not only had feuding among Muslims created intolerable
social disorder, but even worse, officials—the local representatives of
imperial majesty—had been murdered. The state’s theory, and its own
claim to legitimacy, demanded that Qing troops intervene quickly and
violently to punish the miscreants who appeared to challenge central
power.
The Muslims responded with violence of their own, and more of
them became “rebels.” This legal charge, combined with the widespread
perception of the Jahriya as heterodox, placed these particular Muslims
in direct confrontation with the legitimacy of the Qing state, though
the Salars had not initially intended to question that legitimacy. Their
actions up to the attack on the government officials, and much of their
strategy thereafter, aimed primarily at other Muslims, at the Khafiya, at
their local enemies. In their own perceptions, to the extent that we can
deduce them from their actions, by killing Yang Shiji and Xinzhu they
were reacting to an outside threat—military intervention in their inter-
nal affairs and the threat of massacre against their tariqa,. In Qing eyes,
however, the Salars under Su took a critical step when they killed
officials—from being potentially subversive or heterodox Muslims to
being rebels—and the echoes of that act lasted over a century.
To illustrate the power of folk memory in perpetuating fear and
violence, and the extent to which the Qing state could engage to keep
the peace on its frontiers, let us consider “The Ballad of Su Forty-three,”
collected by the ethnographer Wang Shumin, who accompanied Gu
Jiegang around the northwest in 1937. The ballad evokes local attitudes
toward the 1781 violence from a distance of over a century:
Hush up, hush up, listen to me,
From Xitou here comes Su Forty-three.
Su almng has Salars in tow,
Ready to fight all the way to Lanzhou.
Su abong, he hasn’t much brain,
So he follows a teacher named Ma Mingxin.
14.	GNQSL i8.47a-b.
108﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
Ma Mingxin, he’s a really smart guy,
Has thousands of Salars ready to die.
Thirty-six hundred are ready for war,
But Su can’t move without something more.
When cherry-tree leaves roll up like beans,
Su found Hann Number Two, it seems.15
Hann Number Two was smart as hell,
Going to help Su beat old Qianlong well.
Hann Two’s wife was a very bright dame,
And she wanted her man to give up that game:
Husband, you hear!
And Su hear, too!
You bug the Emperor,
And he’ll get you!
You bug the man,
That’s a heavy crime!
The moment he’s mad,
That’s the end of your time!
The emperor’s men are as hot as the sun,
Your Salars are a cloud on the run.
As soon as the sun shines, the cloud is done.
How many Salars are left there? None!
As soon as the sun shines, the cloud is dead.
Can’t you get that into your head?!16
Hann’s wife appears to have been more aware of the consequences of
attacking government forces than were her man or Su Forty-three, at
least in this ballad.
Despite the threat of Qing retaliation, Su intended to punish the
Khafiya for bringing down official wrath on the Jahriya and to rescue Ma
Mingxin from unjust imprisonment in Lanzhou. From Xunhua, he led
his two thousand Muslim troops rapidly toward Hezhou, where they
invested the town, killing a number of Old Teaching adherents, Qing
soldiers, and government officials. Not allowing the provincial military
15.	The surname Hann, belonging to the leading families of the Salars, romanizes a
Chinese character different from but homophonous with the ethnonym Han.
16.	The ballad may be found in its entirety in Wang Shumin, “Qianlong sishiliu nian.”
It has been reprinted in several anthologies, including ZTSCZX, vol. 1, 802-19. Gu
Jiegang included an assessment of the Muslim problem, in embryonic form, in his diary of
his trip to the northwest, Xibei kaocha riji. His views on non-Chinese minorities within
China may be found in Schneider, Ku Chieh-kang, esp. chap. 8.
109﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
leaders enough time to organize effective resistance, the Jahriya Muslims
secretly crossed the Tao River on hide rafts (Ch. pifazi) to besiege
Lanzhou.17 The authorities inside the city, reacting in haste and fear,
brought Ma Mingxin onto the Lanzhou wall to show him to the besieg-
ers. The Jahriya adherents showed Ma immediate devotion and respect,
despite his chains, so the Lanzhou officials recognized in him a subver-
sive, a destroyer of the dynasty’s sacred order. They took him down from
the wall and beheaded him immediately. In their perception of the danger
they faced, this action could be justified despite Ma Mingxin’s lack of
direct involvement with Su Forty-three’s attack on Xinzhu and his men
(see plate 14).
The “New Teaching bandits,” as Qing officials had begun to call them,
attacked the Lanzhou city walls but failed to make any headway. They
lacked even rudimentary siege equipment or experience, and all of their
military successes had depended on rapid movement rather than careful
planning or positional battles. Determined on revenge against the evil
officials who had murdered their shaikh, they barricaded themselves,
perhaps one or two thousand strong, on the mountains south of the city.
The Qing court, thoroughly alarmed at this sudden assault on a provin-
cial capital, sent Imperial Commissioner Agui from the capital to “pacify”
them. Unable to reduce the hillside stockades with his regular troops and
burdened by the military incompetence of his colleague, Heshen, whom
he sent back to Beijing, Agui called in the armed militia of the southern
Gansu Tibetans, the Alashan Mongols, and the local Chinese garrisons,
all nearby and endowed with a reputation for valor. Agui’s multicultural
army cut off the Muslims’ water supply and eliminated them after a three-
month siege, killing Su with all his Jahriya followers in the final battle.18
This success against the Jahriya continued a longstanding Qing policy of
using frontier people to control other frontier people.
17.	These pifazi, a mode of transportation uniquely suited to the rapidly flowing
rivers, bulky cargoes, and easily available materials of the northwest, have been the subject
of much curiosity among foreigners and non-northwestern Chinese, nowadays appearing
in many travel brochures and videos as a noteworthy tourist attraction of Gansu. For
sources on their history, see Iwamura Shinobu, “Koga joryu.” Both Moore, “Raft Life,”
and Kohler, “Die Bedeutung,” offer excellent pictures of the rafts.
18.	The copious memorials and reports regarding this bloody uprising and its repres-
sion may be found in Qinding Lanzhou jilue. Agui’s participation is particularly notewor-
thy, and his own literary and official descriptions may be found in Nayancheng, A Wen-
chenggung nianpu (1813), from 22.43a, where the first emergency memorial from Lanzhou
is reported, through Agui’s final reports, ending at 25.18b. Some Sino-Muslim historians
proudly note that none of the “bandits,” as the Qing called them, surrendered, choosing
instead to die heroically, while other scholars find this self-sacrifice for religion foolish.
IIO﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
This violence in 1781 provided motivation for further armed affrays,
stimulating hatred against cultural or religious Others and desire for
revenge on all sides. It also vividly illustrated real contradictions within
the Gansu Muslim world. This war did not simply pit Muslims against
the Qing state, against the Manchus or the non-Muslim Chinese, but
also Muslims against other Muslims. Some Khafiya Muslims fought on
the side of the government against Su Forty-three. Evidence of similar
divisions among Muslims may be found in the annals of every subse-
quent conflict, an important advantage for the officials enforcing social
order and an important caution for us to be very wary of the words
Chinese scholars use to describe such wars: “nationality struggle”
{minzu douzheng), “nationality righteous uprising” {minzu qiyi), and so
forth. By essentializing peoples as minzu categories (“the Salar, Dong-
xiang, and Hui minzu battled the feudal Qing oppressors,” etc.), such
descriptions distort more than they explain, depriving the events of
their contextual richness.
The Jahriya’s Revenge in 1784
After Agui’s victory near Lanzhou and the elimination of Su Forty-
three, Qing officials exerted themselves in locating and punishing New
Teaching Muslims. Mistakes were made, including the transportation of
Ma Laichi’s third-generation successor, Ma Wuyi, and other Old Teach-
ing adherents to the southwest as “New Teaching rebels.” The “pacifica-
tion” process made more enemies for the Qing, as local officials tried to
impress the throne and their superiors with their assiduous prosecution
of rebels and their allies. It should be no surprise that some Jahriya
Muslims who escaped the dragnet immediately began to plan revenge
for the death of their shaikh (brutally murdered in Lanzhou), their com-
rades slain in battle, and their fellow Jahriya adherents persecuted in the
pacification process.
Under the leadership of Tian Wu, a Jahriya ahong but not a Salar, they
stockpiled arms, built forts, prepared banners, and gathered substantial
food supplies to resist siege.19 Tian’s preparations centered in the high-
lands on the north side of the Wei River watershed and at Guyuan, in
the barren valleys of northeastern Gansu, both far from Xunhua. Jahriya
19.	Saguchi Torn, “Chugoku Isuramu,” 79-80; and Schram, Monguars, vol. 3, 64. For
one perception of Tian Wu’s vengeful motivation, see the Ping Hui jilue, an anonymous
account of Muslim violence in the northwest written by a minor Gansu official, mHMQT,
vol. 3,12.
Ill﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
Sufism, anti-Qing sentiment (shared by some non-Jahriya Muslims),
and the desire to avenge Ma Mingxin combined to evoke a wide re-
sponse in these particular Muslim areas, but not in others. Tian Wu’s
religious vocation and base area indicate that the Jahriya organization
extended well beyond Salar country by 1781. The Sinophone Muslim
communities of eastern Gansu, more culturally Chinese than were the
Salars, had also been deeply affected by the coming of Sufism and the
fear that Qing reprisals against some Muslims would spread to all.
In 1784, three years after Ma Mingxin’s death, Tian Wu and Zhang
Wenqing, possibly a relative of Ma Mingxin’s wife,20 called for revenge
and attacked local garrisons in eastern Gansu, geographically and cultur-
ally distant from the Salar country of the earlier uprising.21 Tian was
killed early in the fighting, but this upheaval grew even larger than Su
Forty-three’s and took the Qing several months and much expense to
quell. Despite pious declarations that only the rebellious miscreants them-
selves would be punished, Li Shiyao nonetheless executed over a thou-
sand women and children among the eastern Gansu Jahriya adherents,
earning yet another measure of long-lasting Muslim enmity.22 23 Even the
local chroniclers—staunch supporters of the state and the Qing-
endorsed superiority of Chinese culture—noted that this massacre of the
innocent stimulated the fighting spirit of the remaining rebels.
In the aftermath of this second victory over local Muslims, some
Qing commanders realized that this outbreak of violence had been due,
at least in part, to the ferocity of anti-Jahriya violence three years earlier.
Fukang’an noted that neither he nor the other Qing generals could
actually exterminate the New Teaching, as they had been ordered to do,
and that some Old Teaching Muslims, hearing rumors of anti-Muslim
massacres, had indeed joined the rebels. To attempt a wide-ranging
slaughter of Jahriya adherents, or forced reconversion to the Old Teach-
ing, would permanently alienate all the Muslims of Gansu, among
whom were both good and evil people. He recommended a more le-
nient pacification than had been practiced in 1781.2?
20.	Local sources in Xinjiang, where Ma Mingxin’s wife and daughters were sent in
exile, record that her surname was Zhang, and that she came from the same town as
Zhang Wenqing in Tongwei County (Wu Wanshan, Qingdai xibei, 40, n6).
21.	The official compendium of campaign documents, authored primarily by Agui and
his colleagues, the same group who succeeded against Su Sishisan, was published as the
Qinding Shifengpu jilue. A secondary account may be found in Wu Wanshan, Qingdai
xibei, 39—52.
22.	An Weijun, Gansu xin tongzhi 17.3.
23.	Wu Wanshan, Qingdai xibei, 50.
112﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
Despite Fukang’an’s plea, the government again proscribed the New
Teaching, by which it still meant the Jahriya, and instituted heavy penal-
ties against any Muslim participating in religious disputation. Not limit-
ing pacification to the Jahriya alone, the official pronouncements for-
bade all Muslims to build new mosques, convert non-Muslims to Islam,
or adopt non-Muslim children. Ahong could no longer preach outside
their own locales, a prohibition aimed at peripatetic Sufi missionaries.24
Those crimes and their penalties, of course, applied equally to non-
Jahriya Muslims, but Khafiya adherents nonetheless continued to serve
the Qing in many local capacities, and they obtained some of the lands
confiscated from the families of the New Teaching “criminals.” The
Qing tried to suppress not Sufism itself, which officials could not com-
prehend, but the New Teaching, which had been identified as the insti-
gator of violence.
Contrary to their intentions, Qing officials encouraged the Jahriya by
linking it so directly to subversion. Muslims dissatisfied with Qing rule
gravitated to the militant suborder as to an underground movement. Its
propagation continued, and its anti-Qing character, though no more
inherent in its rituals than in those of the Khafiya, was reinforced by its
proscription. The ahong who felt themselves responsible for the Jahriya’s
cohesion and continued activity began to write covert collections of
miracle stories in Arabic and Persian, describing and praising the karamat
of Ma Mingxin and his successors. One such book by a Gansu ahong
known as Guanli Ye, recently translated into Chinese by two young
Jahriya ahong and a well-known Muslim novelist, was used to transmit
not only the suborder’s traditions but also its silsila, which had to be kept
entirely secret to avoid Qing persecution.25 Despite the ban on their
organization, Ma Mingxin’s initiates found converts from Turkestan to
Manchuria, and as far south as Yunnan, where many Gansu adherents
were exiled (see plate 15).26 This contrasts sharply with the other Gansu
Sufi orders and suborders, which restricted themselves almost entirely to
local activity and, as institutions, remained respectable in Qing eyes. The
24.	Fletcher, “Naqshbandiyya,” 34.
25.	As noted above, Guanli Ye’s entire text has now been translated into Chinese.
Zhang Chengzhi, “Kakusareta Chugoku,” is a brief description and analysis of the text
and its importance. The book’s description of the Jahriya silsila agrees with that of Aubin,
“En Islam Chinois,” though they give different Arabic names to the second shaikh, Ma
Mingxin’s immediate successor.
26.	There have been many studies of the Jahriya and its transmission after Ma
Mingxin. All of them cite Shan Huapu, “Shaan-Gan jieyu lu,” an oft-reprinted source, as
an authority. The most important Euro-American version is Aubin, “En Islam Chinois.”
113﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
Jahriya’s uniqueness as a transregional Muslim organization provided
even greater evidence to Qing authorities of its menace to social order.
Not until the founding of “national” Muslim institutions by Beijing,
Nanjing, and other eastern Muslim “new intellectuals” in the twentieth
century did Sino-Muslims have any noncommercial structures with so
wide a range of activity.
These eighteenth-century wars should not be described as “ethnic
conflict” or “Muslim rebellions” but rather as local feuds over both
religious and secular issues, inflamed and polarized by heavy-handed
state violence wielded by local officials terrified of the Salars’ reputation,
men who worried about their careers and their dossiers in the capital
more than the lives of the subjects over whom they ruled. Since they
would be blamed for disorder in the territory under their temporary
control, the spread of the outlawed New Teaching beyond the Xunhua
district caused them considerable anxiety, but neither they nor their
non-Muslim subjects could distinguish clearly between “good” Muslims
and “bad” ones except by membership in a “teaching.” Some Muslims
also had a stake in labeling some of their coreligionists as “the wrong
kind of Muslims,” and they regularly did so in court after Ma Mingxin’s
return from his pilgrimage in 1761. We can see how the complex of
national policy decisions regarding the New Teaching, provincial malad-
ministration, local religious and political rivalries, military officials over-
zealous in their obedience to unenforcable orders, and currents from the
Muslim west combined to begin a sanguinary history in Gansu, one that
was to last more than a century and a half.
The Qianlong emperor himself was baffled by the northwestern rebel-
lions. In a poignant letter to Fukang’an, he wrote:
In this instance of the Muslim rebels under Tian Wu—how could they
manage, without cause or reason, to collect a crowd, set a date, and
rebel? Why would Muslims from far and near join up and follow them
like sheep? I have pondered this over and over, and I examine myself
to find the answer: In the decades since I ascended the throne, I have
acted with great caution, not daring to allow myself the slightest
arrogance or pretense. I have constantly attended to the people’s suffer-
ings. ... As for Gansu, I have given exceptional relief—for the past
many years I have not heard of floods or drought, famine or short-
ages, and never of the poor losing their homes, nor of bandits stirring
up trouble, nor of local officials extorting or harshly accusing, thereby
causing thieves to run amok and disturb the peace. Or did news of Li
114﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
Shiyao’s investigations of Muslims leak out, so rebels could start ru-
mors flying of [a government campaign to] “exterminate the Mus-
lims” as an excuse to incite riots? I have thought of all these things, but
none seems to be the true reason. In the end, why did they rebel? We
must get to the bottom of this!27
EVERY SIXTY YEARS A BIG REBELLION
These differences of religious faith led to constant conflicts between
Chinese and Moslems. (Chu Wen-djang)
The Muslim revolt in Shensi and Kansu was, however, not just a
religious movement. Like the revolt in Yunnan, the Tungan
Rebellion was a large-scale community conflict—the coalescence of
the persecuted mosque-centered communities for the purpose of
survival. (K. C. Liu and Richard J. Smith)
The Shaanxi Muslim uprisings were the inevitable results of the
Qing’s reactionary oppression, religious prejudice, and harsh
economic exactions, all policies of feudal oppression; they were the
explosion of Shaanxi’s social contradictions. (Chen Chongkai)
The Shaanxi-Gansu Sino-Muslim uprising was a struggle of the
people of the Hui minzu to resist Qing reactionary control, which
included opposition to the systems of feudal control and class
oppression and exploitation; most important, it was a struggle to
resist the Qing rulers’ minzu prejudice and minzu oppression. (Wu
Wanshan)
This new Islam [the xinjiao\, which started by disseminating Islamic
puritanism among Muslims, partly through the use of jihad, turned
into an extremist Mahdi movement which attempted to use jihad
(mainly against non-Muslims) to bring the millennium, and ended
up as a multifarious range of sects and sub-sects which, in effect, set
27.	Wu Wanshan, Qingdai xibei, 48. The emperor disingenuously neglected to men-
tion the financial scandal in Gansu that had only recently been cleaned up. He can hardly
have forgotten such a major law case, which resulted in the execution or severe punish-
ment of dozens of provincial and local officials for some of the crimes he mentions here.
115﻿Contemporary
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Ganzhou
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BEIJING
SICHlIAN
map 3. Area of the mid-nineteenth-century Muslim rebellions. (Map by Philip M. Mobley)﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
themselves apart from Islam and turned to ritual introspection.
(Raphael Israeli)28
Historiography of the Great Rebellion
The contemporary Chinese historical literature on the Muslims of the
northwest pays close attention to the violence of the 1860s and 1870s,
using two evocative and revealing vocabularies, one in the People’s Re-
public, another in Taiwan. Self-consciously reversing the Qing officials’
language, The Righteous Uprising of the Shaanxi Hui People, 1862-1875,
recently published in Xi’an, employs the unassailably virtuous term qiyi
(righteous uprising) to define the moral quality of the Muslims’ military
action.29 In its analysis of conflict between local Muslims and non-
Muslims, the latter bear the heavy, judgmental appelation dizhu tuanlian,
“landlords’ militia.” The anti-Qing armies of the mid-nineteenth century
all receive approbation as antifeudal forces, but the Muslim rebels of the
northwest (and the southwest as well) carry the additional positive cachet
of being minzu heroes, fighting for the independence and unity of all of
the diverse minzu of China against Manchu hegemony. In this way
of thinking, the Manchus are defined as evil not because they are
Manchus—in the dominant minzu paradigm, that minority status
should carry a positive nuance—but because they are feudal, oppressive,
or incompetent.
In Taiwan, however, scholars employ a vocabulary entirely lacking
class and minzu terminology, as in the title of a recent monograph by
the late Gao Wenyuan, The Anti-Qing Movement cf the Northwestern Hui
People in the Late Qing.30 His list of “immediate causes” of the violence
includes a wide variety of political, economic, and social shortcomings
of Qing government, all covered by the prc literature as well, but not
antifeudal class struggle or the depredations of “landlord” militias in-
spired by minzu hatred. In Gao’s view Sino-Muslims acted against the
Qing as good Chinese, for morally sound reasons—the state’s lack of
28.	These epigraphs are taken from Chu Wen-djang, Moslem Rebellion, 4; Liu and
Smith, “The Military Challenge,” 217; Chen Chongkai, “Cong Shaanxi Huimin,” 52; Wu
Wanshan, Qingdai xibei, 144; and Raphael Israeli, Muslims in China, 204.
29.	Shao Hongmo and Han Min, Shaanxi Huimin. This vocabulary, of course, does
not originate in the 1980s but descends from the revisionist work on structures of power
in traditional society, especially peasant rebellions, done by many twentieth-century Chi-
nese scholars. It finds obvious expression in works such as Bai Shouyi’s Huimin qiyi, the
compendium of primary sources compiled in the early 1950s.
30.	Gao Wenyuan, Qingmo xibei.
117﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
virtue is clearly established—and the local anti-Muslim forces receive a
negative judgment in terms reminiscent of Confucian historiography.
None of this is new, of course, in Chinese historical studies, for we
have become accustomed (perhaps deadened) over the course of more
than four decades to this contradictory cacophony of dueling paradigms
presented in the secondary literature. In this particular case, however,
neither set of historians highlights what might seem to Euro-Americans
to be a crucial fact: the rebels were Muslims, and Islam may have played
a role in motivating them. After all, we have been taught by years of
Orientalist discourse to expect violence from Muslims, and all of the
Chinese judgments of Islam and Muslims recounted in the previous
chapters have included a proclivity for antisocial behavior. Raphael
Israeli’s book on the subject is subtitled “A Study in Cultural Confronta-
tion,” and in it he claims almost exclusively religious rather than contex-
tual causation for Ma Hualong’s uprising.51 What role did religion actu-
ally play in this context? Are the historians of the People’s Republic
correct in seeing Islam as nothing more than one factor unifying the
Hui minzu with its brother Muslim minzu against the feudal Qing? Are
the Taiwan scholars justified in presenting nineteenth-century Muslim
opposition to the Qing as a problem of imperial political virtue? Is
Israeli correct to see Islam and the Confucian ideology of the Chinese
order as inevitably and permanently incompatible and Islam itself as the
primary cause of violence? We will pursue these issues here as we exam-
ine the most widespread violence in Sino-Muslim history—twelve years
of bloodletting that devastated several provinces, left millions dead and
homeless, and advanced the process of frontier incorporation that Gu
Jiegang lamented as still unfinished in 1939.
Multifocal Rebellions: Shaanxi
The decades after the 1780s had seen no major Muslim actions against
the Qing in Gansu, but during this time the widespread networks of
Muslim traders and wandering religious professionals brought news of
increased violence and agitation all over China, as well as specific intelli-
gence regarding the Qing military’s incapacities.52 As we have seen, this
period also saw subtle but marked discriminatory precedents emerge in 31 32
31.	Israeli, Muslims in China.
32.	C. K. Yang has studied the “mass actions” reported in the Veritable Records of the
Qing for the years 1796-1911 and reports more than six thousand of them (“Some Prelimi-
nary Statistical Patterns”).
118﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
the Qing criminal statutes. Dealing primarily with cases in Shandong,
Anhui, Henan, and other central provinces, the Board of Punishments
affirmed the general perception that Muslims are inherently more vio-
lent people than non-Muslims and thus should be punished more se-
verely for the same acts. We have no evidence of Sino-Muslim reactions
to these changes, but Muslims certainly knew that their “Huiness”
would be a negative, perhaps even dangerous, attribute if they came
before the Qing officials’ bench.
After 1850, with the outbreak of the Taiping wars in the south and
then hostilities between Muslims and the Qing in Yunnan, the atmo-
sphere in the northwest grew very tense. Violence on a small scale—
market brawls or intervillage feuds—became more and more frequent.33
Qing civil administration, which had been shaky since before the 1781—
84 uprisings, had not recovered. Corruption and official malfeasance,
overwhelming taxation, neglect of the military, and confiscation of food
supplies by local troops continued to plague both Muslim and non-
Muslim residents of Shaanxi and Gansu.
Muslims suffered from social discrimination as well, enforced not
only by the state but also by local security organizations, often orga-
nized by local gentry specifically to confront them. The militarization of
society had proceeded apace all over the Qing empire, but in the north-
west the non-Muslim tuanlian (militias) had an obvious target in the
large local Muslim communities, who responded by forming their own
armed bands. This process advanced most rapidly in the Wei valley of
southern Shaanxi Province, where agriculture and trade supported a
dense population that may have included as many as a million Muslims
by the mid-nineteenth century. Most Shaanxi Muslims had not been
persuaded to join Sufi orders, so their villages and urban neighbor-
hoods remained Gedimu, mosque-based local solidarities connected to
one another by the emotional ties of shared Islamic identity but not by
any institutional bonds. Faced with hostile, armed non-Muslims, how-
ever, these Muslims did form multivillage associations for self-defense,
and they constructed several series of stockades and fortified strong
points on the hillsides north of the Wei River. The forts of the
Fengxiang Muslims, for example, stretched “over a hundred li ” in south-
33.	Schram, Monguors, vol. 3, 66, notes a number of local disturbances, some of them
sizable, in Huangzhong between 1859 and 1862. Communal relations had clearly deterio-
rated all over the region, and the vast violence taking place further east, with its conse-
quent channeling of Qing coercive resources away from the northwest, had predictably
stimulating effects on simmering local conflicts.
119﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
western Shaanxi. To no one’s surprise, these forts and their armed
young men came into regular, violent confrontation with non-Muslim
tuanlian in the vicinity, but the Muslims never created any provincial or
even regional leadership. Elites and their militias, like most people’s
concerns, remained almost entirely local, rarely extending beyond a few
counties.
The most vicious battles took place in the southeastern part of the
province in the early 1860s. Attested in local sources, these feuds
alarmed local society in a number of counties and involved thousands of
armed men. In addition, the years 1861 and 1862 brought outside forces
to play a role in stimulating local conflict. Taiping armies moved north
from Sichuan under Shi Dakai and from Henan under Chen Decai, and
the western Nian threatened from the east, so friction increased in
Shaanxi. Knowing the Qing’s military ineptitude and inadequacy, Mus-
lims and non-Muslims reinforced their stockades, and some Muslims
made contact with the invaders as potential allies against the local non-
Muslim tuanlian.^
Shaanxi was not the only locus of confrontation. All over Gansu as
well, local leaders provided weapons to their followers and organized
militias. Mosques affiliated with menhuan had especially effective net-
works of intelligence and supply, since their members could easily
move between communities and their religious leaders owed alle-
giance to a single shaikh. The Sufi suborders could also concentrate
economic resources effectively, for their members regularly contrib-
uted to the menhuan s treasury. Without any central coordination, the
34.	Wang Zongwei, “Qingdai Shaanxi”; and Zeng Liren, “Xi Nian jun.” The role of
the Taiping, Nian, or other non-Muslim rebellions in causing or stimulating or encourag-
ing the northwestern Muslim rebellions has yet to be elucidated in a nonpolemical fash-
ion. Fletcher, “Naqshbandiyya,” 40, argues that the Taiping invasion of Shaanxi in 1862
touched off communal violence. Curwen, Taiping Rebel, 264, finds that the Taipings
intended to take advantage of already-existing unrest. Jen, The Taiping Revolutionary
Movement, 470-71, states that the Taiping general Chen Decai linked his army with rebels
in Hanzhong, southern Shaanxi. The combined army, led by Lan Dashun, was to be
responsible for the death of Dolongga in 1864. Li Xiucheng, however, in his deposition to
Zeng Guofan’s staff, said that the Taipings had not been in communication with the
Shaanxi or Gansu Muslim rebels (Curwen, Taiping Rebel, 311). Work on the Taiping
invasion of Shaanxi is now being done by provincial and local historians in China. See, for
example, Wu Wanshan’s explanation in Qingdai xibei, 65-66; he finds that the eastern
Shaanxi Muslims had already planned to move against the Qing but used the arrival of the
Taiping armies as an opportunity rather than part of a self-conscious alliance. His argu-
ment that anti-Qing rather than communal elements prevailed among the rebels ignores
plenty of evidence of already-existing local conflict.
120﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
Gansu Muslims created no fewer than four large military regions,
each controlled by charismatic religious and military leaders. Across
the Yellow River from Ningxia, at the town of Jinjipu, the Jahriya
leader Ma Hualong made his headquarters. At Hezhou, Ma Zhan’ao
of the Khafiya, both an ahong and a tuanlian commander, became the
primary leader. Ma Guiyuan led the Muslim militias at Xining;
Suzhou, out in the western Gansu corridor, saw an independent Mus-
lim force take shape under Ma Wenlu. The connections among these
centers consisted primarily of information networks, not any coordi-
nating structure, and no historian has been able to document effective
decision-making discussions among them, though Jahriya adherents
in all four owed loyalty to Ma Hualong. As we shall see, they met
very different fates as local xiedou violence escalated into full-fledged
military confrontation in the 1860s.
The initial local cause of the 1862—73 violence, according to Wen-
djang Chu, was a brawl over the sale of some bamboo poles at a Weinan
County market. Other historians have discovered other accounts, all
describing events that increased communal tensions. One author, for
example, claims that a group of Muslims attempted to break into a non-
Muslim theatrical performance toward which they had not contrib-
uted.35 Reports from elsewhere in the northwest indicate that localized
warfare, including conflicts between competing Muslim groups, oc-
curred in many regions during those same years. News of these conflicts
traveled rapidly via the Muslim trading networks as well as Qing official
channels, increasing tensions all over Shaanxi and Gansu. The Xining
area, for example, suffered from serious xiedou clashes that spring be-
tween competing Khafiya suborders, who had been feuding for several
years.36 In sum, the “rebellion” was an escalation of existing tensions in
a variety of settings rather than a centralized, planned uprising caused
by an explosion of new conflicts or contradictions from a single flash
point.
All agree that violence of an unusually general nature erupted in the
35.	Chu, The Moslem Rebellion, 25, mentions the bamboo poles. See also Mei,
“Stronghold.” As part of an important oral history project in southern Shaanxi, Ma
Changshou collected many local tales and versions of “the beginning” of this violence
(Tongzhi nianjian, esp. chaps. 1-+). The multiple incidents, local conflicts, and lack of
Muslim central leadership in these accounts accurately represent the conditions in
Gansu as well.
36.	Wu Wanshan, Qingdai xibei, 114, reports violence among Muslims at Tankar,
Bayanrong, and Xining, especially between adherents of the Huasi and Mufti menhuan,
both suborders of the Khafiya.
121﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
Wei valley and spread with great rapidity in the spring of 1862.37 The
fighting did not follow any prearranged plan but rather ran along the
roads and rivers that connected the Muslim communities, all of which
reacted against the threat of attack by tuanlian, withdrawing to their
forts or attacking non-Muslim villages. Southeastern Shaanxi has be-
come known as the origin of rebellion both because of the arrival of the
Taiping and Nian armies and because the Muslims of that area were able
to kill high officials and gentry. Zhang Fei, a Hanlin scholar and for-
merly a high-ranking censor, came from Xi’an to Lintong to organize
tuanlian and to persuade both Muslims and non-Muslims that the “na-
tional enemy,” the Taiping army, was the main threat to social order.
After ordering the local non-Muslim tuanlian to leave him unguarded
and parlaying unsuccessfully with the two sides, Zhang and his party
were captured by Muslims, taken to Cangtouzhen, and killed, making
the local Muslims “rebels” in Qing perception and law.38 Elsewhere the
local non-Muslim tuanlian mobilized and struck first.39 Generally the
37.	Chu, Moslem Rebellion, is a study of government minority policy and the military
strategy of Zuo Zongtang. With a similar perspective, Lanny Fields has studied Zuo’s
“statecraft” (jingshi) orientation in a useful book on the mid-century wars, Tso Tsung-t’ang
and the Muslims. The best study of the official documents on the rebellions remains
Nakada, “Dochi nenkan.” An English narrative, with some attention to the interaction of
Zuo’s policies and the Gansu environment, may be found in Liu and Smith, “The Military
Challenge,” esp. 211—34. All of these are solidly based in the primary sources, but Chu’s
book in particular contains errors of interpretation due to its national policy perspective,
while Liu and Smith claim, without any evidentiary citations, that Ma Hualong’s com-
mand network covered all of Gansu. Scholars in China cited above—Feng Zenglie, Wu
Wanshan, Ma Changshou, Gao Wenyuan—and many others, including the dean of Sino-
Muslim scholars, Bai Shouyi, have produced voluminous and detailed histories of these
events. Primary sources include the massive official compendium of military documents,
Yixin, Qinding fingding Shaan Gan Xinjiang Huifei fanglue in 320 juan, published during
the Guangxu period; local gazetteers; collections of personal writings from Qing com-
manders and occasional Muslims; Mu Shouqi’s Gan Ning Qing shilue, 20-24; Ma
Changshou’s oral history project, cited above; and accounts by local gentrymen in
Shaanxi and Gansu. Many of the Qing sources are listed in Chu’s bibliography, Moslem
Rebellion, 207—19.
38.	Chu, Moslem Rebellion, 25-27. Some of the primary texts may be found in Gao
Wenyuan, Qingmo xibei, 191-203.
39.	The geographical spread of the violence may be traced in the Qinding pingding
Shaan Gan Xinjiang Huifei fanglue (see n37) and other contemporary sources. Shan
Huapu has done a preliminary survey (“Shuo Shaan-Gan”). In areas of endemic conflict,
we must assume that villages were organized over a wide area, constituting what Phillip
Kuhn has called “multiplex tuanf unless geography made complex structures impossible.
Certainly many non-Muslim areas possessed subcounty military units, some with formida-
ble stockades, against what they perceived to be a constant threat of Muslim violence
122﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
Muslim violence, not that of the semiofficial tuanlian, was held to consti-
tute “rebellion,” and local officials certainly perceived it within that
category of crimes.* 40
Faced with epidemic violence and murdered upper gentry, a series of
inept Qing commanders, including Yingqi and Shengbao, wavered as to
general policy: should they take a hard line and treat all Muslims as rebels,
or should they try to separate “good” from “weed” Muslims as their
theory demanded? Military contingency argued for the latter solution;
given the heavy demands on their military resources for fighting the
Taiping and other insurgents, the Qing could put only a few thousand
poorly armed troops into the field against an enemy potentially number-
ing hundreds of thousands. But the local non-Muslims, terrified of the
hideous violence of which they believed the Muslims to be capable,
demanded the former, an option known as “washing away the Muslims”
(Ch. xi Hui).4'1 One source reports that unofficial “proclamations ap-
peared declaring that all Muslims were ‘to be killed without further
inquiry.’ ”42 In these Shaanxi non-Muslims’ eyes, their government could
protect them only by ending the Muslim threat permanently—by killing
all the Muslims or allowing the tuanlian to do so.
Policy options also divided the Muslims. Some commanders, fearing
the worst from the state and knowing the worst of the tuanlian, argued
for a full-scale strike against the provincial capital at Xi’an, to neutralize
resistance and force the Qing to pardon them and remove the poten-
tially fatal “rebel” label. Others rejected this radical course and pleaded
for more diplomatic methods. In an atmosphere already rife with ru-
mors of sanguinary deeds (some of them true) and intensified by the
alarms of many armed bands, the bellicose arguments carried the day.
Some dissenting Muslims were killed by their coreligionists, while oth-
ers committed suicide in despair, and in late June the organized Muslim
(Kuhn, Rebellion and Its Enemies, 67-69). The possibility of “extended multiplex tuan”
seems somewhat more remote, given the lack of high-ranking gentry and the relatively
sparse resources of the northwestern countryside.
40.	Ping Hui zhi, in HMQT, vol. 3, 61, relates that Zhang Fei threatened to accuse non-
Muslim militia of rebellion if they did not disperse, but this seems to have been extremely
rare.
41.	We should certainly take note of this sinister name’s resemblance to the “ethnic
cleansing” practiced in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union after 1989, especially
in former Yugoslavia. The sickening violence perpetrated in the name of local purity there
certainly found its match in northwest China during the 1860s, 1890s, and 1920s.
42.	Ma Xiaoshi, Xibei Huizu geming jianshi, cited in Liu and Smith, “The Military
Challenge,” 217.
123﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
tuanlian besieged Xi’an.43 For over a year Qing troops from Shanxi to
the east and Sichuan to the south tried to relieve the city. Fierce fighting
between Muslims and Qing armies, with their non-Muslim tuanlian
allies, took a terrible toll on both fighters and civilians. With the relief of
Xi’an in the fall of 1863, and the relatively competent Dolongga leading
troops westward toward Fengxiang, Qing victory seemed assured. But
government troops remained too thinly spread across the province, and
the anti-Qing Muslims counterattacked and remained in control of sub-
stantial parts of Shaanxi for five more years. Not until the defeat of the
Taipings and the arrival of Zuo Zongtang as supreme commander,
bringing his veteran Hunan troops and methodical logistics, could the
Qing finally retake all of Shaanxi in late 1868.
In the meantime, the fighting had created a vast number of homeless
Muslim refugees, of whom a majority fled westward to Gansu, where
their “Eighteen Great Battalions,” organized according to their native
places and leaders, concentrated in eastern Gansu and sought to rebuild
their strength until they could fight their way home. These military
units remained the Shaanxi Muslims’ institutional form and focus of
loyalty for the remainder of the period of violence. In each of the Gansu
centers, local Muslim commanders had to decide what to do about the
Shaanxi refugees, who were both “us” (Muslims) and “them” (nonlocal,
and often members of different religious solidarities). The Gansu lead-
ers were unwilling to integrate the Shaanxi fighters and their many
dependents entirely into their communities, so the Shaanxi Muslims
came to constitute not only nuclei of resistance to Qing “pacification” in
Gansu but also a contentious issue among Muslims. Their horrifying
experience in Shaanxi and their vengeful, homeless presence in Gansu
contributed to violence in many parts of that province, and their dis-
persal at the end of hostilities troubled the northwest for years. They
never succeeded in forming any effective central command, remaining
in eighteen units, whose manpower and then number gradually de-
creased as disease, warfare, and desperate conditions took their toll.
What began as a brawl, or series of brawls, became a succession of
tragic massacres and flights. Literally decimated, the once large and
wealthy Shaanxi Muslim communities never regained their position.
The 1953 census found only fifty-four thousand Muslims in the entire
province, far less than 10 percent of what the population had been a
century earlier. The Xi’an community, a few thousand strong, escaped
unscathed from the rebellion only by promising again and again, under
43.	Ping Hui zhi, mHMQY, vol. 3, 62.
124﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
close military scrutiny, that they would not under any circumstances
join the rebels.
Multifocal Rebellions: Gansu
In Gansu, with its more dispersed and much larger Muslim population,
the Qing could not hope to inflict so crushing a defeat, nor had the Gansu
Muslims any place to which they might flee. The rest of China offered no
refuge, nor did Turkic-speaking Xinjiang appear an attractive alternative
to most. Qing commanders and policy makers differed on the extent of
violence necessary to pacify the Muslims, and in the end they treated each
center differently, depending on the resistance offered, the military op-
tions available, and their perception of the Muslims’ motivation. After
“pacifying” Shaanxi in 1868, Zuo Zongtang turned his attention first to
Jinjipu, the well-defended headquarters of the Jahriya under Ma Hua-
long, spiritual descendant of Ma Mingxin.44 Ma Hualong had engaged
not only in battle but also in negotiation with provincial and national
government forces over the years since 1862; he had surrendered on at
least one occasion and taken a new name, Ma Chaoqing (One Who
Attends upon the Qing). On that occasion, Mutushan, the Qing general
at Ningxia, had beaten his more militantly anti-Muslim rival general
Duxinga in a policy debate over accommodating the Muslims, and he
had accepted Ma’s surrender. The court, hoping to avoid the high costs
and difficult logistics of a frontier war, believed Mutushan when he
claimed that Ma’s proposed surrender was sincere. Zuo Zongtang,
among others, sided with Duxinga. On the Muslim side, rather than
quietly returning his troops to their farms, Ma Hualong had instead con-
tinued to strengthen his base, building a wider circle of defensive fortifi-
cations around Jinjipu and actively aiding the Shaanxi Muslims in their
attempts to return to their homes by force.
When Zuo Zongtang finally solved his financial and logistical prob-
lems, through a combination of careful planning and foreign loans, he
sent three columns into eastern Gansu in 1869, converging on Ma
Hualong’s headquarters. Overcoming strong Muslim resistance and
two mutinies within Qing ranks, Zuo’s generals reached Jinjipu with
44.	The Qing continued to refer to the Jahriya as the New Teaching throughout this
period, and they saw it as the main disruptive influence in the northwest. Zuo and his
superiors debated whether to proscribe it, allow it to exist under strict controls, or treat it
like any other Muslim group. A relatively liberal policy prevailed over Zuo’s objections,
and the Jahriya was not forbidden.
125﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
their Krupp siege guns in September of 1870 and forced Ma Hualong’s
surrender in January 1871.45 At Zuo’s insistence, the entire leadership of
the Ningxia Jahriya, including Ma Hualong and as many of his family as
could be captured, were executed following the siege, and thousands of
ordinary Jahriya adherents were massacred during “pacification.” As we
will see, Zuo never succeeded in exterminating the New Teaching, but
he certainly did try, by strenuous argument in letters and memorials and
by one-sided violence after Ma Hualong’s surrender.46
Neither Muslim defense nor Qing suppression followed this same
course at Zuo’s next target, the frontier entrepot of Hezhou, a Muslim-
dominated trading town lying between China and Tibet.47 The most
important rebel leader at Hezhou, Ma Zhan’ao, was certainly not an
anti-Qing holy warrior. Like Ma Hualong both an ahong and a general,
he was head of the Huasi menhuan, associated with Ma Laichi’s
Khafiya. Ma Zhan’ao managed to preserve his political prerogatives and
his territory by astutely handling Zuo Zongtang. After seizing Hezhou
in 1862, he had established a stable base for antigovernment activity or,
as the Muslims saw it, a haven for protection against the hostile Qing
order.48 Though Zuo prepared his campaign against Hezhou in 1872
with great care and stockpiling of supplies, he could not overcome Ma
Zhan’ao’s carefully positioned troops in the Taoxi triangle.49 The Qing
armies crossed the Tao to fight the crucial battle around the town of
45.	These mutinies are generally believed to have stemmed from the activities of the
Gelaohui, a secret mutual-aid society that played a major sociopolitical role in Shaanxi,
Gansu, Sichuan, and Henan throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Many of Zuo’s troops were Gelaohui members, so when he garrisoned the northwest, the
secret society extended its influence all the way to Xinjiang through migration and troop
movements. See Yang Zengxin, Buguo zhai wendu, 2nd (yi) collection, 3.ia-5a, which
describes the presence of the Gelaohui from the Xinjiang provincial governor’s point of
view. A secondary account has been published by Kataoka Kazutada (“Shinkyo no
karokai”).
46.	Zuo’s apparently contradictory analyses of the causes of the rebellion—that it was
the fault of the non-Muslims and that it was the fault of the New Teaching—can be
reconciled if we recognize that he had different audiences and different purposes as he
described the rebellion to his staff, to his superiors in Beijing, to members of his family in
letters, and to posterity in reports written for the permanent record.
47.	Here again I use these terms not in reference to nation-states or other “legitimate”
authorities, but rather to describe cultural zones.
48.	Yixin, Qindingpingding Shaan Gan XinjiangHufei fanglue, 83.7b, notes that when
Ma Zhan’ao took over Hezhou at the beginning of the disturbances in the early 1860s, he
aided local Qing officials in their escape from the town, doing his best to protect life and
property.
49.	On Zuo’s logistical preparations, see Chu, Moslem Rebellion, chap. 4.
126﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
Taizisi late in that year, and the Muslims drove the government troops
back on the river, then out of Taoxi, killing several commanders and
retaining complete control of their territory and supply lines. Though
the waters of the Tao may not have run red with blood, as one mission-
ary reported, Zuo’s legions fled before the Muslim counterattack.50
Had Ma Zhan’ao been a separatist fanatic, as the typical Muslim
leader is often portrayed, he surely would not have behaved as he did
after this battle. While still mopping up the Qing remnants in Taoxi, Ma
sent his own son to Zuo’s field headquarters at Anding to propose
immediate surrender of Hezhou.51 He declared his loyalty to the Qing
and his willingness to aid the imperial armies in further campaigns
against any rebels, including Muslims. Ma’s effectiveness in dealing
with the Qing and protecting his own community may be demon-
strated by his influence on Qing policy in the wake of the fighting. As
Zuo Zongtang shuffled surrendered Muslims from place to place in
Gansu, following He Bi’s seventeenth-century recommendation that
the Muslims be isolated, he undertook the reduction of conflict near
Hezhou by moving the non-Muslims away. This happened nowhere
else in northwest China.52 After the surrender Ma Zhan’ao executed
local Muslims foolish enough to disagree publicly with his decision to
ally himself with the Qing state.53 For his loyalty and subsequent success
in campaigns against “rebellious Muslims” at Xunhua and Xining, he
received the feathered cap of the fifth rank (Ch. buttling wupin ding dai),
a token of prestige and merit requested for him by Zuo Zongtang.54
50.	Andrew, Crescent, relates a complete Muslim victory. Lattimore, Inner Asian Fron-
tiers, cites the Russian scholar V. Shakhmatov, who agrees. Other sources that confirm this
account include at least one Republican-period local gazetteer from the region, Chongxin
xicm zhi of 1926, 4.50b, and Tian, “Longshang qunhao.” For extensive primary source
citations, see Gao, Qingmo xibei, 293-309.
51.	Zuo’s first meeting with his victorious enemy’s son impressed Zuo sufficiently that
he renamed the young man Anliang, an abbreviation of anfen wei liangmin, “making peace
for the good people.” Even decades later, Ma Anliang reminded his own violent and
rebellious son of the meaning of that name—their family, beginning with Ma Zhan’ao,
had determined to build a safe haven for Muslims in Gansu, with themselves leading the
elite under a Qing and then a Republican state aegis (GNQSL 29.2315-24!}).
52.	See Chu, Moslem Rebellion, 150; Liu and Smith, ‘The Military Challenge,” 234.
53.	GNQSL 24.9a—10a.
54.	Ma Zhan’ao has not fared so well at the hands of p rc historians. In time-honored
fashion, they judge tpingjie') him severely for his collaboration with feudal forces. Though
approving of his surrender, for it saved tens of thousands of lives, they find him and his
descendants to have become willing servants of the oppressors and the founders of the
exploitative, semifeudal Ma family warlords. For a succinct statement of this judgment,
see Li Songmao, “Qing Xian-Tong.”
127﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
His army buttressed by the newly recruited Hezhou Muslims, Zuo
Zongtang turned his commanders toward Xining. Though his ultimate
objective lay in opening the road to Xinjiang through the Gansu
corridor—which meant dealing with the Muslim-held fortress at Su-
zhou—Zuo calculated that Xining’s strategic position south of the road,
and the large number of Shaanxi Muslims who sheltered there, argued
for taking that major city first. Well protected by its mountains and rivers,
Xining held out against Zuo’s commander Liu Jintang for three months
but fell in the late fall of 1872. The gentryman Ma Guiyuan, who com-
manded the Muslims, was captured in Salar country, and thousands of
armed Muslims were killed. But Zuo did not mete out severe justice to
the Xining Muslim community itself. Rather, he arranged for the resettle-
ment of the surviving Shaanxi refugees, as he had done after Jinjipu and
Hezhou, on arable lands distant from other Muslim centers, mostly in
eastern and southern Gansu.
Finally free to recapture Xinjiang for the Qing, Zuo’s forces faced the
last Gansu obstacle at Suzhou, a heavily walled fortress astride the main
highway through the Gansu corridor, defended by a large number of
Muslim commanders from all over the northwest. Ma Wenlu, who held
highest local authority, came originally from Xining, and many Shaanxi
Muslims had joined his banner. As in his previous campaigns, Zuo
moved cautiously, assuring his supply lines and sufficient ammunition
for his German siege guns by reinforcing Lanzhou and establishing an
arsenal there. By September of 1873 Suzhou was entirely cut off from the
east and surrounded by fifteen thousand Qing troops under Zuo’s per-
sonal command. Ma Wenlu surrendered on October 24, his walls bat-
tered by heavy shells and undermined by tunnels and explosives. The
next month Zuo ordered and oversaw the execution of seven thousand
Muslims, most local but 1,500 of them from other Gansu and Shaanxi
communities. This number surpassed those executed when Meng
Qiaofang took the same city from Ding Guodong in 1649. To guarantee
that the Gansu corridor would remain open and unthreatened, Zuo
removed the few surviving Muslims from all the cities and towns in the
corridor, from Lanzhou to Suzhou, and resettled them in southern
Gansu: ‘Their seed will no longer remain in these three prefectures, and
one need not worry about collusion between Muslims inside and out-
side the Chia-yu Pass [Jiayuguan].”55
55.	Cited in Liu and Smith, “The Military Challenge,” 235. Though Qing policy
makers had worried about collusion between Gansu and Xinjiang, the Shaanxi and Gansu
anti-state forces and actions were overwhelmingly local throughout the nineteenth cen-
128﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
Thus ended the “great rebellion” of the northwestern Muslims, in
total defeat. As we have seen, it actually consisted of multiple rebellions,
local in both personnel and outcome, and its objectives, as far as we
know, had never included toppling the government or setting up an
independent Muslim state.56 The flight of the Shaanxi Muslims, the
only connective tissue among the various rebellious centers, did not
create or enable any unified leadership. The Shaanxi Eighteen Great
Battalions were forced to be outsiders in Gansu, and they never found a
home until Zuo Zongtang resettled their remnant survivors by force
after his victories.57 One Shaanxi Muslim commander, Bai Yanhu, held
his refugee force together and retreated from one Gansu Muslim refuge
to another, fighting all the while, then fled after the Xining debacle to
Xinjiang, where he joined with several Turkic-speaking Muslim leaders
to continue the anti-Qing fight. He ended his days under Russian rule,
west of the Pamirs, and his followers are numbered among the ancestors
of the Dungan “minority nationality” of Kyrgyzstan.58
tury. Xinjiang’s various rebels, most of them Turkic-speaking and well connected to
Muslim centers west of the Pamirs, rarely made any connections with their predominantly
Chinese-speaking coreligionists east of Hami.
56.	That objective, attempted only once in a Chinese-speaking part of China, belonged
to Du Wenxiu and his “State that Pacifies the South” (Ch. Pingnan Guo) in Yunnan, an
entirely different environment in which Muslims rebelled against the Qing in the 1850s
and 1860s. Only a few direct links have been conclusively documented between those two
Muslim anti-Qing movements, though a large literature on the Yunnan rebellion has been
produced by Chinese, Japanese, and Euro-American scholars. A recent doctoral disserta-
tion from Sweden makes an important contribution to the sociocultural background for a
study of the Yunnanese Muslims (Wang Jianping, “Concord and Conflict”).
57.	Chu, Moslem Rebellion, 149—56, describes and tabulates the resettlement program.
58.	A large literature on Bai Yanhu and his Shaanxi band’s long flight has been
produced in both China and the former USSR, and Svetlana Rimsky-Korsakov Dyer has
done linguistic and ethnographic work on the Dungan in the Central Asian republics. Bai
was not the only anti-Qing Sino-Muslim commander to flee to Russian territory, but he is
certainly the best known. In the judgments of contemporary Chinese historians, the
Muslim rebel Bai Yanhu and the victorious Qing general Zuo Zongtang share an ironic
juxtaposition. Zuo Zongtang’s brutal victory over the “righteous uprising” of the north-
western Muslim peoples certainly makes him a supporter of reactionary, exploitative,
corrupt Qing power, but his recovery of Xinjiang from the separatist Muslim leader Yakub
Beg earns him positive evaluation as a reunifier, a restorer of China’s legitimate authority
over eastern Turkestan. Bai Yanhu, on the other hand, began in Shaanxi as a righteous
rebel, stayed that way throughout his legitimate wars in Gansu, then became a much more
problematic and negative presence by supporting the separatists in Xinjiang and then—
greatest sin of all—fleeing the homeland into Russian territory. Clearly, the Xinjiang
Muslims’ separatist movements and the Shaanxi-Gansu Muslim uprisings take very differ-
129﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
Muslim Rebellion or “Muslim Rebellions”?
The above narrative, schematic and rapid, can nonetheless inform our
discussion of Muslims in China by challenging a number of paradig-
matic constructions: the unified minzu, the fanatical Muslims, the ra-
tional and statecraft-practicing Qing officials, even notions such as “re-
bellion” itself. For none of these is a natural, inherent quality of persons
or events; rather, we must use the evidence to describe what people
did—that is, we must construct narratives—and modify our paradigms
and vocabulary accordingly. To take one dramatic example from this
complex series of events, let us consider the Muslim militias of the Wei
River valley. Conscripted by their communities for self-defense, armed
and drilled, provided with fortifications both physical and ideological,
these young men could have had a wide variety of motivations to attack
a nearby non-Muslim village. Were they simply ordered to do so by
manipulative, fanatical ahong' Did they lust after loot or violence for its
own sake? Or had they heard reports (true or not) of massacred Muslim
villages down the road, of tuanlian on the rampage, of Qing armies
raping and pillaging? Were they predatory or protective, rapacious or
terrified, or did they change over time? These questions can be an-
swered only through the construction of focused narratives on the basis
of local evidence, not by wholesale, essentialized characterization of
religious groups, minzu, or other collectivities.59
These conflicts, like those of 1781 and 1784, pitted Muslim and non-
Muslim Qing loyalists against Muslim (and occasionally non-Muslim)
insurgents, righteous rebels, or rioters (depending on the historian’s
vocabulary).60 “Muslim unity,” a concept dear to scholars, missionaries,
ent places in this historiography. Ma Tong, the most senior scholar of Sino-Muslim
studies in Gansu, visited Bai’s descendants in Kyrgyzstan in 1991 to investigate the dual
charge that Bai had treacherously betrayed China by joining Yakub Beg’s separatist move-
ment in Xinjiang and that he had also intended to help imperial Russia invade China. He
found both allegations unfounded and now maintains an entirely positive evaluation of
Bai’s anti-Qing movement (Gansu Huizu shi, 95-97). Bai Yanhu presents no problem at all
for Taiwan-based Gao Wenyuan, who unambiguously regards Bai’s long-term, uncompro-
mising, peripatetic struggle against the Qing as heroic (Qingmo xibei, 407-24).
59- Elizabeth Perry analyzed armed peasant groups in Huaibei, Anhui Province, using
precisely this method, and discovered fundamental differences between bands that were
protective and others that were predatory (Rebels and Revolutionaries).
60.	Zhu Chongli, “Tongzhi shiqi,” reminds us that though undeniably ethnoreligious
conflicts dominated this period, instances did occur in which Muslims and non-Muslims
cooperated against the state.
GO﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
and many northwesterners when describing the Muslims, did not pre-
vent numbers of Gansu Muslims from joining the Qing forces or siding
with them. Such people found greater advantage in alliance with the
state, and they did not hesitate to kill coreligionists. Wang Dagui of the
Haicheng region, for example, fought effectively for the Qing and was
awarded a cap button of the sixth rank (Ch. liupin dingdui). Local anti-
Qing Muslims caught up with him during a counterattack in 1863 and
killed him, with his entire family.61 It would be comfortable to say that
Old Teaching Muslims were loyalists and New Teaching Muslims rebels,
but the evidence does not support such a contention. Though anti-Qing
activism in northern Gansu (now Ningxia) centered in the Jahriya, some
of the most successful resistance to the Qing came from within the
Khafiya and from the refugee Shaanxi Muslims, very few (if any) of
whom were Sufis at all, not to mention adherents of the New Teaching.
Nor did Ma Hualong, fifth-generation holder of Ma Mingxin’s posi-
tion as head of the Jahriya, oppose the Qing with the fanatic’s lust attrib-
uted to him by most accounts.62 Branded by the Qing as the main leader
of this rebellion, Ma was not a secessionist, and he sought to protect his
followers and his territory around Jinjipu, suing for peace when possible
until forced to last-ditch military resistance. He often requested amnes-
ties for various groups of Muslims and was reported to be treating non-
Muslims well in the territory under his control.63 Even according to
official accounts of the campaigns against him, Ma initially had no desire
to establish an antidynastic enterprise. He took no royal titles of office
within his movement, though one of his Jahriya subordinates did, under
the influence of Taiping and Yunnanese rebellious styles.64
61.	Wang Dagui is discussed at some length in Chu, Moslem Rebellion, 58-59, 65-66,
and in the Haicheng xian zhi of 1908, 9.1b.
62.	Aubin, “En Islam chinois,” 524—28, lists the masters (shaikhs) of the Jahriya in a
chronological table, with their various appelations, dates, and the locations of their
tombs. Ma Tong, Zhongguo Yisilan . . . shilue, 491, constructs a less detailed table.
63.	Ma Shouqian, a senior historian at the Central Nationalities University (Zhong-
yang Minzu Daxue) in Beijing, has evaluated Ma Hualong positively, despite his status as
an elite Muslim landlord and ahong, because the anti-Qing struggle he led was fundamen-
tally defensive in nature. Had Ma Hualong taken a separatist stand, like that of Yakub Beg
in Xinjiang, he would certainly be viewed very differently by contemporary Chinese
scholars (“Qing Tongzhi nianjian,” esp. the final section).
64.	Nakada, “Dochi nenkan,” 91-92, 133-34. Mu Shenghua ahong, of northeastern
Gansu, chose to call himself the “king who pacifies the south and restores the Ming” (Ch.
pingnan fuming wang), recalling the multiple Taiping kings, Du Wenxiu’s Pingnan Mus-
lim state in Yunnan, and the desire to restore the Ming, which had motivated so many
anti-Qing rebels (Ma Chen, “Mu Shenghua”).
HI﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
Jihad, Islamic “holy war,” has held pride of place in Euro-American
thinking about Islam since the Crusades. A vision of fanatical hordes
unafraid of death has dominated our perceptions and prevented a clear
understanding of wars fought by Muslims. Literally “effort directed
toward perfection,” jihad became a general term for military action by
Muslims to expand Islamic territory or, if need be, to defend it. The idea
of a war to convert Qing territory into Islamic territory could almost
never be entertained by a Sino-Muslim leader, as compared to Turkic-
speaking Muslims in Xinjiang, who often did declare jihad against the
Qing. Indeed, virtually all of the Shaanxi and Gansu Sino-Muslims, as
we have seen, shared a strong sense of belonging in China and of the
Qing state’s legitimacy. Shengzhan (lit., “sacred or holy war”), the Chi-
nese translation of jihad, came to mean self-sacrifice for Islam, a call to
heroism rather than political domination.65 Muslims in Shaanxi and
Gansu engaged in shengzhan not to topple the state but to attack local
officials, to take revenge on local enemies, or to defend themselves.
The bloodshed and sacrifices of Ma Hualong’s stubborn defense of
his main base at Jinjipu might well have been avoided had Zuo Zong-
tang or his superiors in Beijing been willing to talk peace with the
“fanatical Muslim rebel,” as Mutushan had done. But Zuo was pressed
for victory, imbued with the monolithic Confucian conception of impe-
rial authority, and convinced that the New Teaching lay at the root of
Gansu’s troubles. He foiled Ma’s attempt to surrender to Mutushan and
threw army after army at Jinjipu, determined to set an example for all
rebellious frontier peoples. In light of this evidence, Zuo Zongtang
appears as much a fanatical defender of his faith, the Qing imperium
and its bureaucratic Confucianism, as Ma Hualong was of his Jahriya
and his territory.66
Neither the creation of negative images of Muslims nor the usefulness
of such images to the Qing state should surprise Euro-American histori-
65.	Encyclopedia of Islam, rev. ed., vol. 2, 538-40. The expansion of Islam’s territory at
the expense of non-Islamic territory is seen by Raphael Israeli as a primary motivation for
Muslim rebellion in China (“The Muslim Revival,” 121-23), but I find no evidence for this
assertion in the Chinese record or in the scattered statements from the rebels. Jihad as a
formal legal concept has not been demonstrated in any primary sources from China;
rather it seems to be part of a complex of images of Islam—partially Middle Eastern,
partially Orientalist—transported to China. Shengzhan, on the other hand, meant a reli-
giously sanctioned war, an “us” vs. “them” communal war, not jihad in its legalistic
Islamic sense.
66.	For Zuo’s ideology and politics in the context of Qing period jingshi activism, see
Fields, Tso Tsung-t’ang, passim.
132﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
ans. Lacking texts from the Muslim side, we cannot rely on evidence
manufactured by self-serving military officials to deduce Muslim fanati-
cism. Such tactics have long been a mainstay of official Chinese historiog-
raphy when describing those who failed to achieve their goals in oppos-
ing the state—“A winner a king, a loser a bandit.” We can read the
sources carefully to comprehend the discriminatory, prejudiced filters
through which Qing officials and local gentry viewed the Sino-Muslims
and also search outside the official correspondence and military com-
pendia for evidence regarding Muslim motivation and behavior.67
We must also remember that the flood of Shaanxi refugees into
Gansu, driven from their homes amid slaughter and pillage, helped to
keep anti-Qing sentiment alive in communities within which they set-
tled. Jinjipu, Xining, and Suzhou sheltered large numbers of Shaanxi
Muslims, and those areas became strongholds of anti-Qing Muslim
bands. But even as they worked together to resist the Qing, the Shaanxi
Muslims and the Gansu Muslims—including Ma Hualong’s Jahriya—
viewed the conflict differently. According to one source, Ma Hualong
tried to use the Shaanxi Eighteen Great Battalions as a front line of
defense, protecting his northern Gansu troops and forts. Many Gansu
Muslims mistrusted the outsiders, and Zuo Zongtang’s lieutenants later
summarized: “Ma Hualong was a New Teaching Muslim, holding to
different religious objectives than those of the Shaanxi Old Teaching [in
this case, Gedimu] Muslims, and they were mutually incompatible [lit.,
‘fire and water’].”68 Hezhou’s Muslims, led by Ma Zhan’ao, successfully
controlled the Shaanxi refugees’ local potential for violence and thus
placed themselves in an advantageous position to hold their territory
after “pacification.” Thus, the Shaanxi Muslims and the Jahriya—not
Muslims in general—provided crucial nuclei of resistance, and those
two violently anti-Qing groups differed considerably in motivation.
The Shaanxi refugees wanted to fight their way back home, while the
Jahriya adherents seem to have been moved deeply by commitment to
67.	Ma Changshou, Tongzhi nianjian, presents new personal and local data germane to
understanding the motivations for violence among both Muslims and non-Muslims in
Shaanxi, county by county. Among the yet-to-be-mined sources for this rebellion, the
depositions and confessions of captured rebels will certainly give us a much clearer idea of
their organization, their motivation (as the rebels themselves presented it, under duress,
before execution), and their behavior. Various provincial “literary and historical materials”
series have also published reminiscences collected early in this century.
68.	Yi Kongzhao, Pingding Guanlong jilue 7, in HMQT vol. +, 8. For a general sum-
mary of conflict within Muslim communities and its relationship to Muslim uprisings, see
Gao Zhanfu, “Guanyu jiaopai.”
133﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
their shaikh and to Islamic revival, by the Qing’s policy of proscribing
their tariqa and exterminating them, and certainly by the desire to
protect their homes.
Zuo Zongtang’s lenient, even generous acceptance of Ma Zhan’ao’s
surrender stands in strong contrast to the brutality meted out at Jinjipu
and to the massacre at Suzhou. Nakada Yoshinobu explains Zuo’s bene-
volence as the result of several lines of reasoning. A campaign against
Hezhou would have taken a long time, and Zuo’s superiors looked to
him for a rapid, inexpensive victory after the protracted battles in Shaanxi
and northern Gansu. It had, after all, been almost a decade since the
beginning of the troubles. Appeasement of the Hezhou Muslims, which
could be made to look like victory, produced success and fame for Zuo
without incurring high costs.
In addition, Ma Zhan’ao had volunteered to serve the throne, allowing
Zuo to “use the Muslims to control the Muslims,” a conventional and
attractive solution to frontier problems. This variation on an ancient
Chinese political theme saved lives and expense for the Qing command-
ers while preventing unified Muslim resistance to Qing power, a unity
inaccurately predicted by Qing ethnography to be inevitable and perma-
nent. Zuo exacerbated already-existing divisions among Sino-Muslims
by supporting some groups and persecuting others, and by physically
separating communities of Muslims from one another by large-scale
resettlement. This strategy proved particularly effective in dealing with
the Shaanxi refugees, who had become so intractable wherever they
lodged. Zuo moved them to isolated Muslim enclaves in eastern
Gansu—at Zhangjiachuan and Pingliang, especially—to prevent them
from returning to their Wei valley villages. Their homes and fields in
Shaanxi had already been taken over by local non-Muslims, and Zuo
knew the refugees would demand satisfaction if they returned.69
Ma Zhan’ao had been willing to negotiate and had demonstrated no
antistate, dynastic, or jihadist ambitions, so his “rebel” status might be
negated rather easily and made to appear temporary. Unlike Ma
Hualong, who had been associated with the heterodoxy and long-term
violence of the Jahriya, Ma Zhan’ao led one part of what the Qing called
the Old Teaching, which at this point included both the Khafiya, with
its many subgroups, and the Gedimu congregations of both Shaanxi
and Gansu. The Qing had blamed the entire northwestern debacle on
69.	There seems no doubt that the Shaanxi Muslims’ main desire was to go home, and
that Zuo Zongtang’s refusal to allow them to do so kept them fighting as long as they did
(Luo and Wu, “Lun Qingdai,” 81).
134﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
the New Teaching for almost a century. The active participation of an
Old Teaching leader in anti-Muslim campaigns served to divide the
Muslims further, to isolate the New Teaching more effectively, and to
establish more firmly the “legitimacy” of the Old Teaching.70 First as a
rebel leader, and then as a “returned” loyalist, Ma Zhan’ao built an
alliance between Muslim local elites and Qing authority in order to
control local violence while retaining a measure of local power in the
face of Qing officials and armies. Events after 1873 bear out the ironic
observation that Ma Zhan’ao, by surrendering Hezhou, had preserved
it as a territorial base for himself and his descendants, for the entire
Hezhou region remained under the control of his family for another
half century.
To Hezhou’s northwest, the Xining Muslims had been engaged in
local feuding with one another before 1862, and many Shaanxi refugees
made their way across Gansu to this multicultural outpost to intensify
already-existing tensions. Local Muslims knew that the Qing armies
would follow the Shaanxi refugees as soon as they could mount a
campaign, and controversy arose over the appropriate response to Qing
oppression and violence. Despite feelings of loyalty and solidarity with
their coreligionaries from Shaanxi, fear of the army and of local non-
Muslim tuanlian hindered organization until the attack finally came.
Once Liu Jintang’s army started killing in the Muslim suburbs, whole
communities lay open to massacre, however law-abiding they may have
been. Official pronouncements to the contrary notwithstanding, Qing
soldiers could not easily distinguish “good” Muslims from “weed”
Muslims—troops do not take the time to make such subde distinctions
among civilians assumed to be armed and hostile. From immediate
experience, the Muslims knew that they would be treated as enemies by
the Qing military. Ma Guiyuan’s small army held off the enemy for a
few months, but he was defeated and executed by a coalition of govern-
ment troops and local militia, some of them Muslims. Ma Zhan’ao’s
troops participated in this campaign on the Qing side, ensuring that the
Salars at Xunhua did not join Ma Guiyuan’s army. With the execution of
Ma Guiyuan, the final massacre at Suzhou, and the flight of the remnant
Shaanxi refugees under Bai Yanhu to Xinjiang and then Russia, the long
violence in Gansu came to an end. The triumph of Qing arms has been
attributed to the abilities of Zuo and his commanders, to the harsh
terrain and scattered Muslim communities, and to the logistical and
technical superiority of the Qing armies. We may now add one more
70.	Nakada, “Dochi nenkan,” 150.
135﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
crucial factor: the Muslims did not act from any unified strategy, nor
did they unanimously oppose the Qing authorities.
This interpretation of the 1862—73 rebellion helps us toward a new
understanding of Islam in China, especially the Old Teaching—New
Teaching conflict, and of Muslim relations with non-Muslims in Gansu.
We find mutual fear, economic rivalry, and influence from the Taiping
and Nian rebellions to have been important stimuli to violence, added
to the state’s corrupt, incompetent fiscal administration and its endemic
suspicion of closed voluntary associations within Chinese society. This
last motivation found expression in a continued demonization of the
Jahriya. Zuo Zongtang argued strenuously in government councils for
complete proscription:
The reason why the New Teaching must be prohibited is that it claims
to be from God and makes ridiculous prophecies. This group’s behavior
is very strange and often lures foolish Muslims into willing slavery. The
victims often are trapped into conspiracy without knowing how and are
even willing to face execution without the slightest regret. . . . This
makes the New Teaching a potential danger to the Empire. . . . [Ma
Hualong] healed the sick and granted children to those who prayed for
the birth of children. . . . When the New Teaching is eliminated . . .
then Shaanxi and Gansu can expect to be safe for a hundred years.71
Zuo lost that political battle, and the Jahriya recovered from the terrible
devastation of Jinjipu, but not without changing both its behavior and
its organization, as we will see in chapter 5. Some modern scholars have
concluded that the New Teaching represented a decadent, corrupt form
of Islam. In fact, as we have seen, it was part of an Islamic revival, a
movement to return to Koranic purity through mystical unity with the
divine and a purging of Chinese-influenced customs, but neither its
doctrine nor its behavior were inherently anti-Qing.
An essential part of this Sufi faith lay in obedience to the leader of the
order, in whose hands lay the power of initiation into the order and
whose tomb provided individual and communal inspiration to his de-
scendants and followers. Such leaders may be found all over the Muslim
world, including the darwish of Turkey, the pir in India, the serigne of
the Wolof, and China’s jiaozhu. The extraordinary loyalty they inspired
in their followers constituted an important element in their potential
threat to Qing state interests. With China’s long history of peasant
71.	Chu, Moslem Rebellion, 157-58.
136﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
uprisings, rebellious sects, and millenarian movements very much in
mind, officials reacted with extreme hostility to the activities of “hetero-
dox” religious groups in times of social unrest. Voluntary association,
always problematic in totalitarian states, became identified with subver-
sion in the eyes of the Qing authorities.72 In the nineteenth century the
Jahriya embodied structural and ideological characteristics that, seen
from the Qing point of view, made it subversive even in times of peace
and made Ma Hualong an intolerable menace, despite his willingness to
negotiate and to protect non-Muslims under his control.73
We may thus conclude that religion did indeed play a role in the
violence of mid-nineteenth-century northwest China, but it was neither
a consistent nor a dominant role. Local economic, social, and political
conditions certainly loomed large in the calculations of all protagonists,
as did state policy toward the Muslims and Qing decisions on taxation,
military preparedness, and local control. Like ethnic identity, religious
identity can never be an absolute predictor of behavior, and in these
alarms and clashes we see Muslims making a wide variety of decisions—
some active, some reactive—in the face of a majority society and state
they correctly perceived to be potentially hostile.
Islam did not determine the actions of the Shaanxi Muslim battalions,
Ma Zhan’ao, or even Ma Hualong, but all of them acted inside frame-
works of Muslim community and identity, which were different from
those of their non-Muslim neighbors. Sometimes led by ahong, engaged
in what they called shengzhan, answering a shaikh's call to unified resis-
tance, going into battle prepared for shexide (the Sino-Muslim translit-
eration of the Arabic shahid, “martyrdom”), these Muslims do not seem
to have been very Chinese. Yet, as we have seen, they were Chinese, like
other anti-Qing rebels—fighting for the safety of their villages and
families, reacting to a state authority to which they granted legal legiti-
macy as long as it did not attack them, fighting against the Qing or
making local peace deals as they judged most expeditious or noble or
72.	This subject, very much a la mode in Chinese studies of the 1960s and 1970s, is
reviewed in Wakeman, “Rebellion and Revolution,” which notes the scholarly conflict
regarding the Islamic content of Muslim movements (p. 227).
73.	The same may be said for the White Lotus, that complex amalgam of Buddhist and
other folk organizations falsely conflated by Qing authority into an inherendy rebellious,
heterodox unity. For the Qing’s reaction to White Lotus activism, see Overmyer, Folk
Buddhist Religion, esp. chap. 5. A comprehensive analysis of the transformation of “White
Lotus” from a religious to a sociopolitical construct may be founnd in Ter Haar, The
White Lotus Teachings. The difficulty of analyzing such religious movements accurately is
discussed in Esherick, The Origins.
137﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
safe. Therein lies the historical puzzle of Muslim “rebellion” in China, a
puzzle we confront again in the 1890s.
EVERY THIRTY YEARS A SMALL REBELLION
[Hann] Nuri was a Xunhua Salar Muslim, leader of the Old
Teaching at Gaizigong. He and the New Teaching adherent Hann
Si accused each other over an old grudge and started a feud [Ch.
xiedou] ,74 75 Their contention was most turbulent, and could not be
settled rationally. Governor-General Yang Changjun drew up an
indictment and commanded the Xining prefectural office to hear
the case, for Xunhua was in Xining Prefecture. Woshikeng’e
presided, and both litigants followed correct procedure.
Nuri came to the prefect’s court and deposed that the Old Teaching
esteemed and loved the Koran and saw the New Teaching as a
heretical doctrine. He cited many precedents as proof, talking with
confidence and composure. . . . [He said that] the former governor-
general, Zuo Zongtang, had held that Gansu Muslim rebellions’
origins lay in religious disputes [between Muslims], If religious
litigations do not cease, armed conflict will be born. The roots of
conflict are surely in the New Teaching. -
[At the end of Nuri’s deposition] Hann Si sensibly stayed silent,
not saying a word. Woshikeng’e held that Muslim religious disputes
were commonplace, and sent both litigants back to Xunhua,
ordering them to settle their quarrel and feud no more.7s
The New Old and New New Teachings
Is the above case not history repeating itself, as the Jahriya and Khafiya
go at it again?76 On the surface, the case of Hann Nuri and Hann Si,
74.	These two Hanns were not related to one another, as far as we know, and neither
was a Han, that is, a non-Muslim Chinese. A number of families sumamed Hann held the
position of tusi over the Salars under the Qing.
75.	GNQSL 24.403-413.
76.	The tide of this section is not intended as a translation of any Chinese terms,
though terms such as New-New Teaching (Xinxinjiao) and New-Flourishing Teaching
(Xinxingjiao) do appear in Chinese texts. Rather, I intend to indicate that the entities
designated as Old and New Teachings in 1895 were not the same as the Old and New
Teachings of the 1780s or even the 1860s. That is, the terms have only contextual meaning,
no absolute meaning, and must be examined carefully whenever they appear, to discover
to what they might refer.
138﻿Kumbum
|an(rong)
Lanzhou
iaifaei
i Nlvxln
Mt. •
Hejiapi
Jinggucheng;
IdTaozhoi
BEIJING
Area of
main map
Contemporary
province boundary
25	SOmiles
map 4. Center of the 1895—96 Muslim rebellions. (Map by Philip M. Mobley)﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
who is conflated with Hann Musa in some sources and called Hann
Laosi in others, could have been adjudicated in the 1760s or 1860s. We
find the same sorts of people (feuding Muslims) in the same location
(Xunhua) suing one another over the same sorts of things (accusations
of heterodoxy). But it was not repetition, for this case came before the
Xining judge Woshikeng’e in 1894, and northwest China had undergone
many dramatic changes since Ma Mingxin’s time, as had the rest of the
Qing empire.
In the almost two centuries since Sufism had made its first inroads
among the Gansu Muslims, the menhuan had arisen as a dominant
institution in many centers, especially Hezhou, Xining, and Ningxia,
but also in smaller towns such as Didao and Xunhua. Saintly lineages
that led Sufi suborders, the menhuan also constituted crucial loci of
secular power, bearing strong structural resemblance to the corporate
lineages that controlled local systems all over the Qing empire.77 The
division between “Old” and “New” at Xunhua stemmed from a power
struggle within a single menhuan, for both litigious Hanns belonged
to the Huasi menhuan of the Khafiya, which the Qing had called part
of the Old Teaching. Nuri and Musa followed different leaders within
their solidarity, and their xiedou involved not only currents of revival-
ism from the Muslim world to the west, as Ma Mingxin’s and Ma
Hualong’s had, but also Zuo Zongtang’s pacification of Gansu in the
1870s.
When Ma Zhan’ao surrendered after defeating Zuo Zongtang in
1872, his supporters included two brothers, Ma Yonglin and Ma
Yongrui, who were ahong from the Huasi menhuari’s leading family, the
descendants of Ma Laichi. Ma Yongrui had played an important mili-
tary role in the 1860s, while his brother Yonglin had provided wealth to
the cause through his commercial success. After “pacification” had been
completed through the elimination of Muslim dissenters, Ma Yongrui
retired in Hezhou, while Ma Yonglin continued as a leader in local
politics and in the menhuan. Ma Yongrui’s son, Ma Rubiao, followed
his father and uncle into religious studies, and the story of the new New
Teaching revolves around him.
Either through the influence of an Arab missionary named Selim who
came to Gansu, or during his pilgrimage to Mecca, or both, Ma Rubiao
became involved in the Shadhillya, a Sufi order popular throughout the
77.	Mary Rankin and Joseph Esherick have reviewed the literature and theoretical
spectrum on local elites, especially in relationship to state power, in their “Concluding
Remarks,” in Esherick and Rankin, Chinese Local Elites, 305-45.
140﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
Muslim world.78 Though not very different from the Khafiya of his
ancestors, this new affiliation gave Ma Rubiao the impulse to reform his
own menhuan, to purify religious practice and bring it into conformity
with what he had come to regard as “pure” Islam. Returning from his
pilgrimage, Ma Rubiao followed a familiar pattern; he gathered disci-
ples, drawn by his charisma and that of his texts and reformist ideas, and
split the Huasi menhuan. While Ma Zhan’ao lived, he was able to
mediate between the reformist and conservative elements within the
Huasi, but after his death in the late 1880s internal conflict over leader-
ship, ritual practice, and finances spread from Hezhou to other Khafiya
centers, especially Xunhua.79 As the latest innovators, for so they were
branded by their opponents, Ma Rubiao’s reformist followers bore the
condemnatory appelation of New Teaching, while his uncle Ma Yonglin
led the Old Teaching resistance to change.
By 1887 xiedou had broken out between the rival Huasi factions at
Xunhua, and the escalation of fear and violence began again. Given their
ferocious reputation, religious feuding among the Xunhua Salars always
represented danger to Qing officials, though in this case the initial
impetus to conflict did not lie among the Salars but among the Sino-
Muslims at Hezhou. As the troubles continued and lawsuits multiplied,
the authorities all over the province grew more concerned about wide-
spread violence. In the fall of 1894, as the Xunhua litigants argued in
court, their followers fought it out in the streets of Xunhua, and Mus-
lims were killed. The Hezhou commander Tang Yanhe decided to send
Ma Yonglin and Ma Yongrui to mediate, since they held high status in
the menhuan within which the xiedou were taking place. Eager to for-
ward his antireformist cause within the Huasi, Ma Yonglin secredy
encouraged Hann Nuri to attack the New Teaching, which he did,
killing at least two ahong. Khafiya adherents also believe that Ma
Yonglin knew that the Qing had severely depleted their northwestern
defense forces in order to fight the Sino-Japanese War, and that he told
Hann Nuri that there were no Qing armies west of Tongguan, in
Shaanxi.80 Following long-standing Khafiya custom, the New Teaching
78.	Guan Lianji and Liu Cihan (“Yibajiuwu nian”) hold that Selim’s influence caused
Ma’s conversion; Gao Wenyuan (Qingmo xibei, 433) claims that Ma became a reformer on
the pilgrimage; and Ma Tong (Zhongguo Tisilan . . . shilue, 238) writes that Ma took Selim
as his teacher in Gansu, then went to Mecca and received initiation in the Shadhiliya.
79.	Ma Tong’s informants told him that Ma Zhan’ao favored the New, forcing Ma
Yonglin to forego any public opposition to the reformists until after Ma Zhan’ao’s death
(Zhongguo Tisilan . . . shilue, 239).
80.	Ibid., 240. Unfortunately for the Muslims and Gansu, this claim was false.
141﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
group sought relief from the Qing law courts, sending representatives
to Lanzhou, where they accused both Hann Nuri and Ma Yonglin
before Governor-General Yang Changjun.
Qing Action, Muslim Reaction
Xunhua. In the spring of 1895, Yang Changjun sent Chen Jiaji, a
Xining military official, to Xunhua with a small military force and or-
ders to end the troubles. By the time he reached Xunhua, Chen seems to
have decided that Ma Yonglin and Hann Nuri’s Old Teaching, the
antireformist group within the Huasi menhuan, was responsible for the
xiedou. He locked the Xunhua town gates against the Muslims who had
gathered to present their cases to him, arrested eleven Old Teaching
leaders, and had them executed, displaying their severed heads to awe
the Salars into submission.81 His troops fired on the protesting crowds
from the walls, and the Old Teaching Muslims reacted by surrounding
Xunhua, several thousand strong, on April 2,1895. Thus began a year of
warfare that devastated southern Gansu from the Tao River to Xining
(see plate 15).
Chen Jiaji had acted in what he perceived to be a productive manner,
punishing the destroyers of public order and parading the grisly results
as a deterrent to further crime. From the Old Teaching Salars’ perspec-
tive, their leaders had been unjustly slaughtered by an evil Qing official,
and, for all they knew, they were next. From this point on, Chinese
sources limit themselves to descriptions of troop movements, batdes,
strategies, and massacres. We must infer the personal and collective
motivations of the belligerents (and the bystanders) from the extent of
their participation.
Fearing that the violence might spread to other Muslim centers,
Governor-General Yang planned a rapid military campaign to relieve
Chen Jiaji at Xunhua. Within a few days of Chen’s debacle, General
Deng Zeng, who had participated in the wars of the 1860s, moved east
from his base at Xining, and Tang Yanhe was to cross Jishi Pass from
Hezhou to catch the Xunhua besiegers between two Qing armies. Be-
fore Tang even reached the mountains, however, he attacked several
Muslim villages near Hezhou and announced that he would kill all
Muslims, regardless of their menhuan affiliation or behavior.82 Muslims
81.	GNQSL 24.42b.
82.	Guan and Liu, “Yibajiuwu nian,” 48-49. Mu Shouqi also mentions proclama-
tions, but narrates a different, probably apocryphal beginning to the violence. According
142﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
all over the province heard immediately and reacted to Tang’s threat of
massacre, so the Old vs. New Teaching controversy within the Huasi
menhuan disappeared rapidly in the fear inspired by this brutal, publicly
stated intention. Thereafter, the violence was no longer limited to the
Old Teaching or the Salars, though it remained geographically con-
fined.83 Muslims in areas attacked by Qing troops had little choice but
to oppose them. As in the 1860s, soldiers operating in hostile territory
could hardly be expected to inquire as to the “good” or “weed” status of
Muslims, all of whom they perceived as potential enemies. Yang
Changjun tried to quell the fear with proclamations declaring Qing
benevolence and demanding an end to the fighting:
Initially the Muslims of Gansu were without religious conflict. From
the early Qianlong period, the “Eat Befores” and “Eat Afters” arose
[referring to the qiankai-houkai conflict]. With such theories came
menhu \menhuan\ and from menhu came conflict over power and
profit. The religion divided Old from New, who accuse each other and
take murderous revenge. . . .What good do all these rebellions do? . . .
Immediately turn back and peacefully pursue your occupations!84
Once Muslim leaders had been declared “rebels” by the state, it would
be hard to imagine them believing any promises of Qing benevolence,
with the memory of the 1870s still fresh and raw and Tang Yanhe’s
extermination order being enforced in local fact and general rumor.
Yang’s proclamation encapsulated the perceptions of both the state
and the local non-Muslims: Muslim violence, which they called rebel-
lion, stemmed from conflict within the Muslim communities. Violence
in society may not be tolerated, so Muslim internecine strife must be
condemned, along with all institutions that appear to promote it, such
as New Teaching and menhuan. If conflict occurs, the state must inter-
vene, despite the antistate unity created by direct military interference in
Muslim affairs. This dogmatic, straightforward analysis, reinforced by
to Mu’s story, Yang Changjun unintentionally instigated the Hezhou violence by trying to
save characters in his announcement. Instead of writing “Sa-la-er Hui,” which unambigu-
ously means “the Salar Muslims,” he wrote Hui,” which might refer to the Salars or
might mean “disperse and scatter the Muslims.” Fearing the latter import, the Hezhou
Muslims rebelled (GNQSL 24.44a).
83.	Rijnhart, With the Tibetans, 58.
84.	GNQSL 24.43a.
1+3﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
centuries of precedent, dominated Qing policy toward the northwest-
ern Muslims, contributing to violence and tragedy.
The local non-Muslims, as frightened of the infamous Muslims as the
Muslims were of them, locked themselves in their walled cities and
stockades. They called for protection from the state and for extermina-
tion of the Salars. Over a century of violent confrontations and their
subsequent exaggeration in oral tales had taught Gansu people that
Muslims on the rampage, especially Salars, killed non-Muslims whole-
sale. The governor-general blamed the menhuan, solidarities that he
perceived as subversive to the all-encompassing legitimacy of the Qing
state. Christian missionaries, with their own particular vision of Islam
and Muslims derived from the Middle East and Orientalism, theorized a
jihad in Gansu. Seeing the Near East’s holy wars mirrored in this distant
corner of what they called the Celestial Empire, they misunderstood the
workings of communal hatred and community memory in northwest
China, the inertia of local feuding and thirst for revenge, and the ineffec-
tiveness of the Qing government in preventing violence or stemming it
once it began.85
Hann Nuri, knowing that he faced superior forces once the govern-
ment mobilized, used the Muslim domination of the Yellow River to
cross from Xunhua to the north side in secret. He surprised and de-
feated Deng Zeng’s relief force moving south from the Bayanrong
garrison, while Tang Yanhe’s column from Hezhou was halted at Jishi
Pass. Successful in blunting the first Qing attempts to subdue them in
the spring of 1895, the Xunhua Muslims alone had neither the numbers
nor the weapons to resist an onslaught by concentrated armies.86 The
diverse Muslims of southwestern Gansu all feared the ethnocentric
wrath of the majority and the state, violently expressed by local militia
and government troops, so the insurgents worked to convince other
Muslims of the immediacy of the danger.
Hezhou. The largest concentration of Muslims lay at Hezhou, where
Tang Yanhe commanded the garrison inside the walled city, while Ma
85.	The late nineteenth century brought Euro-American missionaries to Gansu, and
their direct observations enrich our understanding of the region, despite their clearly
stated and consistent religious biases.
86.	Despite the Sino-Japanese War, which was just ending back east, the Qing did have
plenty of troops available in the northwest, apart from Deng Zeng, Lei Zhengguan, and
Tang Yanhe’s local garrisons. Yang was able to call upon forces under Dong Fuxiang from
Xinjiang; the Muslim cavalry under Ma Anliang; Li Peiying from the corridor; He
Jianwei from eastern Gansu; Wei Guangtao from Shaanxi; and Niu Shihan from Ningxia,
all within the space of a few months (Wu Wanshan, Qingdai xibei, 244-47).
144﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
Yonglin and the Khafiya held sway in the Muslim suburbs, with their
headquarters in Bafang, south of the city wall. Within Hezhou Prefec-
ture only large settlements, such as the market towns of Hanjiaji and
Tangwangchuan, had mixed populations; the rural villages were exclu-
sively Muslim or non-Muslim. In peacetime travelers remarked on the
delicious produce, delightful climate, and bustling markets of Hezhou,
especially its Muslim suburbs. A wealthy borderland entrepot, the town
attracted non-Muslims from all over China as well as Muslims of many
languages and cultures.87 Hezhou’s Muslims paid great attention and
devotion to their religious institutions. Like Naqshabandls all over the
world, Hezhou Sufis built tombs, some of them elaborate and large, to
venerate their shaikhs and to seek their intercession. The various
solidarities supported at least seven large tomb complexes, each with its
prayer halls, as well as a dozen major mosques and many small ones.
Madras as in Hezhou sent graduates to Muslim communities all over
China, and hundreds of religious professionals led the liturgy and read
the sacred books.88
The Hezhou city wall was strong and easy to defend, but the suburbs,
without walls, often fell victim to manmade disaster. If contemporary
reports are to be believed, each victory for Muslim or non-Muslim was
accompanied by slaughter among the non-Muslim, Muslim, Tibetan,
and other civilians, for communal war never excludes noncombatants
from its casualties. Despite commercial symbiosis and the intercommu-
nity cooperation that it entailed, Hezhou had a sinister reputation as a
center for heterodox Muslim movements and as a headquarters for
Muslim bandits. The Hezhou Muslims served Gansu mothers as a bo-
geyman for disobedient children: “When I was a baby, whenever I
wouldn’t stop crying, my mother would say to me sternly, ‘Don’t cry
any more! If the Hezhou Muslims hear you, they’ll come and kill
you!’”89 By the late nineteenth century, as we have seen above, those
Gansu mothers could draw on a century of violent memories to terrify
their children and verify their fear of the Muslims.
The story of Chen Jiaji’s murderous attempt at pacification of
87.	Fan Changjiang, Zhongguo de xibei jiao, 90. Ge Chifeng’s account of his visit to
Taoxi includes oral evidence that many Hezhou people, Muslim and non-Muslim, came
from Nanjing and still spoke a Yangzi dialect (Zangbian caifengji, 2). Studies of the wool
and hide trade mention merchants from Shandong, Shanxi, and Mongolia purchasing and
shipping goods from Hezhou. Li Wujin, “Gansu Linxia,” gives a lengthy list of the
Hezhou market’s commodities.
88.	Liao, “Gansu zhi minzu wenti,” 86; and Ma Zikuo, “Musilin,” 16.
89.	Xu Wanli, “Cong Hezhou shuoqi.”
145﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
Xunhua quickly reached Hezhou, as Tang Yanhe’s local garrison moved
out to break the Xunhua siege, so some Hezhou Muslims organized to
defend themselves and to seek revenge against the state, especially after
receiving news (or rumors) of Tang’s intemperate proclamation that he
would “wash away the Muslims.” The sources tell us little of the recruit-
ing procedures of these groups, but we know that local anti-Qing lead-
ers rose immediately to the occasion. Chief among them was Ma
Yonglin, who actively agitated for violence, resorting to terror against
Muslims who resisted his appeals. Reluctant Muslims lost their homes
to arson or their families to assassins.
Ma Zhan’ao had trained his son, Ma Anliang, who had gone to
negotiate the surrender in 1872, to be both an administrator and a
soldier, and Ma Anliang had gone to Xinjiang as a cavalry commander
in a Gansu unit of the Qing military. In his role as a Qing military
official, Ma Anliang earned the enmity of many Muslims. He led only
one faction of the Huasi menhuan, and the others had good reason to
complain of his access to state authority. Familiar with this local history,
the anti-Qing Ma Yonglin sought and obtained the support of a leading
Muslim named Min Fuying. Min’s grandfather and father had opposed
Ma Zhan’ao and rebelled against Ma Zhan’ao’s local ascendancy in 1874,
two years after the surrender. Their campaign had been brutally quelled,
all of its leaders executed. Min Fuying, with many followers, joined Ma
Yonglin in the hope of taking revenge on the weakened Qing and Ma
Anliang for his ancestors’ deaths.90
From his headquarters in Bafang, Hezhou’s largest Muslim suburb,
Ma Yonglin could persuade or intimidate the local people more effec-
tively than could the distant Ma Anliang, clearly an officer of the
hostile Qing armies. Perceptions of history, both personally experi-
enced and orally transmitted, taught some Hezhou Muslims that vio-
lence did not discriminate clearly between friends and enemies, so they
joined the rebels in self-defense. Others had learned, from the same
history, that violent opposition to the Qing state brought only sword
and fire down upon their homes, so they opposed Ma Yonglin. All
Gansu Muslims, whether inclined to violence against the state or not,
knew that local officials could attack them without warning. In an
atmosphere of such insecurity and fear, being a Muslim could not in
and of itself determine the choices any anxious resident of Hezhou
might make. People decided to fight for one side or the other, not to
90.	For the Min family’s conflict with Ma Zhan’ao, see Hezhengxian zhi of 1930, 206 ff.
146﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
fight, or to flee for many reasons—personal relations with followers or
leaders, personal histories of family loyalty, guesses as to who might
win, and more. Ma Yonglin, for example, was apparently not yet ready
to declare open rebellion against the state, so he continued to play the
mediator in negotiations with the officials, a stance reminiscent of Ma
Hualong’s thirty years before. When Qing commander Lei Zheng-
guan arrived at Hezhou with his forces from eastern Gansu, Ma
Yonglin offered to be intermediary between the apprehensive local
Muslims and the new garrison.
Despite superficial resemblance to earlier conflicts, the 1895 violence
did not herald a much wider war, as the Wei River valley battles had in
the 1860s. No flood of bitter, homeless Shaanxi refugees urged the
Gansu Muslims to fight. No Muslim communities were uprooted, nor,
with only one exception, did large numbers of Muslims move across the
province to join the struggle. The bellicose Muslims of Xunhua, He-
zhou, and Xining remained isolated from other Muslim centers. Though
communication certainly did exist between Hezhou and Zhangjiachuan,
the Haicheng/Guyuan region, and Ningxia, those communities did not
share the immediacy of the threat felt in southern Gansu after Chen
Jiaji’s brutal warning to the Salars and Tang Yanhe’s and Yang Chang-
jun’s proclamations. As we will see below, even the Taozhou Muslim
community, southeast of Hezhou within the Tao River bend, had inter-
ests sufficiently different from those of the Xunhua-Hezhou-Xining mili-
tants that it armed itself in defense against them. In addition, the
Jahriya, the New Teaching of the 1860s, had changed to the point that its
formerly militant centers in Ningxia, Zhangjiachuan, and elsewhere in
eastern Gansu took no part in the fighting.
Haicheng. Shortly after the outbreak of violence at Xunhua and
Hezhou, a jail break and flurry of military activity did occur at Hai-
cheng, in eastern Gansu about 250 kilometers northeast of Hezhou.91
On May 30, 1895, a band of one hundred Muslims attacked the magis-
trate’s yamen in Haicheng; killed the magistrate, his clerk, at least two
women, and a servant; plundered the storehouses; burned the official
buildings; and, perhaps most important, opened the jail to free Muslim
91.	Haicheng lies at the south end of a broken, eroded loess plain stretching from
Ningxia on the north to the Liupan mountains in the south. The population of this region
(currendy called Xi-Hai-Gu for its three counties), predominantly Muslim, was widely
scattered across a landscape suitable for herding, with some poor agriculture in the loess
valleys. The Haicheng xian zhi of 1908 gives the figures 8,489 Han and 39,051 Hui for the
county, a total of 47,540.
147﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
prisoners.92 The alarm spread rapidly, for the “rebels” (as they were
immediately branded) had not bothered to cut the telegraph lines, so
nearby officials heard immediately of this outbreak and declared martial
law in several counties.93
Local militia under local leadership made quick work of this minor
incident.94 Not staying to hold the town for long, the escapees and their
rescuers fled to Hezhou before the attacks of local tuanlian and Qing
troops. Yang Changjun reported that the incident had lasted two
weeks.95 At least eight Muslims were executed, and many Muslim civil-
ians lost their lives in the ensuing cleanup by Qing troops, undertaken
with brutal inefficiency. The Haicheng incident revealed not a wide-
spread Muslim conspiracy but rather the isolation of the Taoxi and
Huangzhong fighting from other Muslim centers. There were no
threats in other areas, no reactions even in nearby, heavily Muslim
districts such as Zhangjiachuan or Guyuan. The response by Qing au-
thorities in eastern Gansu indicates a fear of Muslim violence greater
than actual Muslim capacity to act violently against the state or against
local enemies outside of Taoxi-Huangzhong.
After reinforcing Tang Yanhe’s garrison, Lei Zhengguan closed the
gates of Hezhou in the face of Ma Yonglin’s agitation in the suburbs
outside the walls. His guards checked all travelers on the road through
the east gate, the only one left open, while strong patrols held the walls
opposite Bafang. The tension rose, and Ma Yonglin, Zhou Shixiang
(also called Zhou Qishi), and Min Fuying finally led their armed follow-
ers to besiege the city on June 8,1895. They wanted to join their banners
to those of the Xunhua Old Teaching, but as a Muslim force approached
Jishi Pass from Xunhua, Muslim troops, led by Ma Fulu and Ma
92.	There are several accounts of the jailbreak and the subsequent Qing campaign
against the Muslims: Haicheng xian zhi, 9sb-6a, and the biography of Ma Yanqun at
8.12a; An Weijun, Gansu xin tongzhi of 1909,17.94b; Guyuan zhou zhi of 1909, 4.37b; and
several Western accounts, especially Rockhill, “The Dungan Rebellion,” 414—18. Al-
though the Chinese accounts do not agree on exact details, none claims that the “rebel-
lion” at Haicheng was of more than minor importance. The Europeans inflate its signifi-
cance. Mu Shouqi, GNQSL 24.47b notes that the yamen was guarded by a ferocious
hound, which hated Muslims and killed one of the intruders.
93-	Chongxin xian zhi of 1926, 3.3a; and Zhenyuan xian zhi of 1935,17.37b. Guyuan, an
important town near Haicheng, was reported to be in Muslim hands (North China
Herald, Sept. 27,1895).
94-	The Haicheng gazetteer gives credit for the operation to a local martial arts specialist
who had been an antirebel commander under Zuo Zongtang (Haicheng xian zhi, 8.12a).
95-	Yang’s victory memorial may be found in the Guyuan zhou zhi of 1909, 8.29b.
148﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
Guoliang, stopped them.96 These commanders, brothers of Ma Fuxiang
and Ma Anliang respectively, clansmen and forerunners of the Ma fam-
ily warlords of the Republican period, clearly felt no sense of solidarity
with the antistate activity of Ma Yonglin or the rebellious Xunhua
Muslims. Their interests and loyalty lay with the dynasty, a choice their
fathers had made that had served their families well.
Didao. Unable to unite with coreligionists to the west, Ma Yonglin
and his allies looked eastward, to an alliance with the sizable Muslim
community at Didao. Located on the east bank of the Tao, Didao
controlled a vital ferry and floating bridge crossing between predomi-
nantly Muslim Taoxi and non-Muslim Taodong. The Muslims of Didao
constituted about 10—15 percent of the town’s people, and several
suborders and menhuan had their headquarters there. The Hezhou Mus-
lims did not attack Didao themselves, but rather persuaded some of the
Didao Muslims to violence. The Mufti, a Didao menhuan that traced its
leaders back to Hidayat Allah, responded by taking the tuanlian forts
west of the Tao, crossing the river, and besieging the town. For Ma
Yonglin, Didao constituted a crucial military objective. Its floating
bridge gave eastward access not only to its own substantial hinterland,
but also to the entire upper Wei valley. No forts guarded the mountain
road from Didao to Weiyuan, so a successful crossing of the Tao would
leave the valleys all the way to Tianshui open to Muslim attack.97
In addition to the Mufti militants, Ma Yonglin’s supporters enlisted
the aid of armed bands among the Mongolic-speaking Muslims of
Hezhou’s hilly eastern prefecture, the people now called the Dongxiang
minzu by the Chinese government. Those Muslims numbered 150,000
in the 1955 census, far more than the Salars, but their villages lay scat-
tered over a wider territory.98 That as late as the 1940s many of these
Muslims (who call themselves Santa) had not yet learned Chinese con-
firms their relative cultural isolation. Of their folkways we know little,
96.	GNQSL 24.49b.
97.	Erich Teichman reported the ease with which the crossing from the Tao to the Wei
watershed could be made in the early twentieth century (Travels of a Consular Officer, 124-
25). The entire upper Wei valley to Tianshui, or even beyond, would be open to a Muslim
army that took Didao. That had happened in the 1860s, when Longxi and several other
upper Wei towns were devastated by the Taoxi Muslims.
98.	In 1941 the Chinese Communist Party reported only 20,000-30,000 Muslims in
the Dongxiang. The reluctance of minorities to be counted, often due to fear that conscrip-
tion and/or taxes would surely follow, may be responsible for the very low figure, which
derives from oral and traditional written sources rather than a census (Zhongguo
Gongchandang Xibei Yanjiushe, Kangzhanzbong, 278-79).
149﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
except that they treated Muslim guests with extreme politeness and had,
according to Chinese sources, a fanatical loyalty to their local leaders."
A Japanese traveler noted that, unlike most Mongols, they did not drink
any alcohol, indicating strong adherence at least to that prescription of
Islamic law.99 100
Both widespread fear of violence from the Muslims of the Dongxiang
and their reputation for lawlessness derived, at least in part, from their
physical setting, in the poverty-stricken hill country east of Hezhou,
west of the Tao. Their markets lay either at Hezhou or across the Tao on
the “non-Muslim” east side. So in order to survive, they depended on
the river crossings at Tangwangchuan and Didao. If the non-Muslims
who occupied the east bank of the Tao closed the ferries and floating
bridges, the people of the Dongxiang could not travel eastward for
marketing or for seasonal work, on which they depended for income to
supplement their meager hillside agriculture.101 Much of the violence
associated with these Muslims revolves around those crossings and the
roads leading to them.102 The extreme poverty of the hill country also
played an important part in their “antisocial” inclinations.103 We do not
know to what extent their Mongolian cultural heritage or language
divided them from Chinese-speaking or Turkic-speaking Muslims.
The gazetteer account of the battles around Didao contains further
evidence that local Muslims fought local batdes in 1895 and confirms the
importance of the Qing monopoly of substantial walled cities in defeat-
ing Muslim attempts to seize the military initiative. Besieging a fortified
city is never easy without artillery; the mobile, often mounted Muslim
soldiery found it well-nigh impossible.104 The inhabitants of Didao
99.	Ma Zikuo, “Musilin,” 15-16.
100.	“Sara Kai oyobi Moko Kaikai,” 75—78.
101.	Andrew, The Crescent, 32, describes the Salars and “Mongol Hwei-Hwei” of the
Dongxiang, heading east with their families to work the harvest season on farms in
eastern Gansu and Shaanxi.
XO2. Fu, “Taiping Tianguo,” 7, cites stories from official sources of Muslim complaints
against non-Muslims who closed the ferries or harassed Muslims trying to cross.
103. Ma Hetian saw the poverty of the people who lived on Niuxinshan (Oxheart
Mountain) in the Dongxiang, commenting that these people were thieves primarily
because they were incredibly poor (Gan Qing Zang, 15).
10+. Note that the sieges of Xunhua, Hezhou, Xining, and Didao described in this
section all failed to take the walled citadels. Herbert Franke concludes that “the compara-
tive safety of towns, together with the wide area enclosed within the walls, always gave
the defender an advantage over the attacker.” This certainly held true for late Qing Gansu,
where siege artillery was virtually unknown, except for Zuo Zongtang’s Krupp cannon,
and where strong fortresses were the rule. Indeed, even the Qing armies found it difficult
150﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
town could thus resist a Muslim attack, but the bulk of the non-Muslim
population lived in smaller, less protected places, so the prefect re-
quested funds from Lanzhou to raise local braves for resistance. The
local gazetteer describes the Didao war, which lasted from mid-June
into August, 1895:
The Mufti rebels . . . privately made banners and uniforms.105 They
arranged with Tongzhi period ex-rebels who had escaped punishment
to entice thieves and bandits from the Dongxiang to attack Siwashan
fort. Altogether they killed and wounded over six hundred Han. They
united to force the Shikangcha and Songmingyai stockades, then they
surrounded and attacked Jinggucheng [all on the west side of the Tao
opposite Didao]. Xining and Hezhou were thoroughly alarmed at this
time.
On June 29 they crossed the river, gathering at the lumber mill.
They surrounded the city for more than a month, not resting day or
night and killing many. The prefect,. . . the clerk, . . . and local gen-
try .. . did their utmost in defense, so the rebels failed. The rebels
heard that General He Jianwei was coming to the rescue, so they cut
the floating bridge and escaped in the night. When [He] Jianwei
arrived, he ordered his army to advance and relieve Jinggu. The rebels
besieging the town congregated at Gaojiaji. Then Imperial Commis-
sioner Dong Fuxiang was ordered to advance over the river and attack
the rebel horde at Gaojiaji and annihilate them. . . . [Qing troops]
destroyed thegongbei and moved the miscreants to Yongdaojiazhuang,
ordering that they not be allowed to resist the Han or again establish
menhuan. The case was closed.106
The composition and outcome of the Didao uprising strengthened the
Qing and local perception that menhuan and gongbei caused the Muslim
to take fortified Muslim strongpoints such as Duoba, near Xining. If a city were well
defended and provided with food, only rapid breaching or mining of the walls, which had
deteriorated in some cases, could prevent a prolonged siege that favored the defenders if
rescuing armies were on the way (“Siege and Defense,” 19+).
105.	The Mufti menhuan, descended via Ma Shouzhen from Hidayat Allah within the
Khafiya suborder of the Naqshabandiya, did not naturally or invariably oppose the author-
ity of the Qing state or make war on non-Muslims. Only a month before the 1895 violence
began in Didao, Mufti adherents captured a non-Muslim bandit and conveyed him to the
authorities for punishment (Hezheng xian zhi of 1930, 216).
106.	Didao zhou xu zhi of 1909,12.3b-4a.
151﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
troubles in Gansu. Both local and national Qing officials had numerous
precedents for considering sectarian solidarities to be inherently danger-
ous, especially when they espoused a religious ideology that could be
branded subversive. Though Islam was not in itself anti-Qing, as the
Qianlong emperor had declared, some of its forms could be and were
construed in that way by hostile local authorities.107
Old Taozhou. Blocked to the east and north, the rebellion also could
not spread to the south, where the large and wealthy Muslim commu-
nity of Old Taozhou reacted to the violence by uniting with local non-
Muslims, both Chinese and Tibetan, in defense. Old Taozhou lies inside
the big bend of the Tao River, separated from the rest of Taoxi by
mountains and a wide expanse of grassland occupied by seminomadic
Tibetans. The town’s economic life depended on the roads that led
northward to Lanzhou, via Labrang and Hezhou, and southward to
Sichuan and Yunnan. To the south and east, the Tao was unnavigable by
manned craft, though some commodities such as lumber could be
floated downstream, and only a tenuous floating bridge connected the
north and south banks at Choni. To the west lay the towering Tibetan
massif, culminating in Amnye Machin, a range twice calculated (incor-
rectly) to be higher than Everest.108
Like Hezhou, Xunhua, Xining, and other towns in southwestern
Gansu, Old Taozhou marks the Chinese-Tibetan ethnic frontier with a
Muslim-dominated market, its Muslim community vulnerable between
potentially hostile non-Muslims. Community-minded Taozhou Muslims
supported thirteen mosques, thirty-one ahong, and five gongbei in the
107.	The comparison of Chinese Muslims, especially those associated with the New
Teaching (whatever that may have meant) in the northwest, to secret societies has been
used for centuries by both military and civilian officials to describe what they see when
they look at menhuan or other Muslim solidarities. See, for example, the Qianlong em-
peror’s opinion in the Daqing lichao shilu 1208.2. The analogy to the White Lotus sect is
particularly germane, for the term New Teaching similarly became an epithet applied
rather indiscriminately to Muslims who behaved rebelliously. See also Iwamura Shinobu,
“Chugoku Isuramu.”
108.	The botanist-explorer Joseph Rock, whose hyperbole was matched only by his ill-
humor, wrote to the National Geographic Magazine (February 1930) that he had found a
mountain range over twenty-eight thousand feet in height, surpassing the Himalayas. His
measurements, which he later corrected in The Amnye-Ma-chhen Range, were inaccurate,
as were those of Leonard Clark. An equally egotistical traveller, Clark repeated the error
almost twenty years later while fleeing from the Communists with defeated Muslim and
Tibetan troops and printed it in The Marching Wind, especially chap. 11. The mountain is
spectacular; for photographs and an imperfect historical account of its exploration, see
Rowell, Mountains of the Middle Kingdom, chaps, n-12.
152﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
early twentieth century.109 The various Taozhou ethnic groups felt Ti-
betan political influence much more than Hezhou did, for the headquar-
ters of the Choni tusi, a Qing-appointed, hereditary Tibetan leader, lay
only twenty-five kilometers away, on the bank of the Tao. Direct Qing
power, exercised from Minzhou and the “new city” of Taozhou, also
played a considerable role, so in Taozhou we find a truly tripartite world,
one in which non-Muslim Chinese, Sino-Muslim, and Tibetan political
and social forces coexisted or conflicted more or less in parallel, without
complete domination by one group or another. Certainly both the Qing
state and the Choni tusi could exert coercive power, but from a consider-
able distance, so the Taozhou peoples governed themselves by coopera-
tion among local elites.
In general terms, the Old Taozhou communities performed different
socioeconomic functions. The agricultural and pastoral economy lay
primarily in Tibetan hands, though Sino-Muslim and non-Muslim Chi-
nese farmers clustered around the market towns.110 Like coreligionists
all over Gansu, the Muslims of Taozhou undertook distribution of
goods and marketing, including interregional trade. The local non-
Muslim Chinese farmed and produced artisanal goods such as metal-
ware and pottery. The Muslim gentry (Hui sheri) of Taozhou, like Mus-
lim elites of other Gansu towns, performed both secular and religious
functions. Ahong, merchants, successful examination candidates, and
military men all partook of this status. By the late nineteenth century,
ahong were often landlords, merchants, or even local tuanlian command-
ers. Their interests thus included both loyalty to Islamic exclusivity and
the very real benefits they derived from association with the Qing state
and non-Muslim society.111
Physically and socially separated from Muslim centers to the north,
delicately balanced between Qing authority to the east and the Tibetans
109.	Liao, “Gansu zhi minzu wenti,” 85.
no. Travelers reported that, despite the poor quality of the loessial soil, Taozhou
peasants cultivated their terraced hills all the way to the top. Both Rock and Ekvall,
especially the latter, describe the gradations of pastoralism and agriculture of the Tao
valley and emphasize the cultural and economic symbiosis they found there (see Ekvall,
Cultural Relations). During a field research trip to the Taozhou region (now called
Gannan, southern Gansu) in May 1996, I gained the same impression of an intensely
cultivated arid region. The hillside fields suffer from lack of water during the growing
season, though they are eroded by the snowmelt in springtime.
hi. Old Taozhou provides excellent examples of these multiple roles within the Mus-
lim elite. The leaders of the Xidaotang solidarity, based in Taozhou, took all of them. See
chapter 5. A typology of Muslim gentry in the mid-nineteenth century may be found in
Fu, “Taiping Tianguo.”
153﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
to the west and south, with nomads and mountains on three sides, the
Old Taozhou Muslims had a strong vested interest in peace. Located in
an ideal commercial middleman’s position, they were correspondingly
vulnerable in times of trouble. Their numbers were never sufficient to
threaten the Tibetans, nor could they escape the Qing presence. Accom-
modations, not confrontation, marked their reaction to the violence at
Xunhua and Hezhou in 1895. Banditry remained in check that summer, a
sign of stable control by local gentry:
In the fifth month of year 21 of the Guangxu reign period [June 1895],
the Hezhou and Huangzhong Muslims rebelled. Dissatisfied elements
among the Taozhou Muslims had started rumors, stirring up trouble
and inciting disorder, taking a challenging position and wildly rampag-
ing around. Wild stories circulated among the Han . . . who panicked
and fled. People’s spirits were agitated, and the markets were empty.
But the Han and Muslim gentry . . . held to the correct way and did
not fear.112
The multicultural gentry managed to keep control, despite the provoca-
tions of local rowdies. When a Hezhou Muslim led his fighters across
the grasslands in pursuit of fleeing Qing troops, the gentry-led locals
captured and executed him. Set in its defensive posture, Taozhou saw
no major outbreaks of violence in 1895.
The Limits of Violence
We have now seen the spark of violence fall on Xunhua, Hezhou,
Haicheng, Didao, and Taozhou in 1895. At Haicheng local troops
quickly ended any threat from a large-scale jailbreak. At Didao the non-
Muslim majority and Qing officials acted expeditiously, with the help of
outside troops, to blunt a rebellious thrust by a local Muslim group
(Mufti) and its Dongxiang-based allies. At Taozhou Old City nothing
happened at all beyond rumors and local agitation, put down by the
gentry. Only in Taoxi and Huangzhong, centered on Hezhou, Xunhua,
and Xining, could the anti-Qing Muslims undertake concerted violence.
Unable to take major cities, they either kept their forces moving or
based themselves in smaller fortresses surrounding the Qing garrisons.
After his subordinates failed to relieve Xunhua, Deng Zeng himself
led a column from Xining, via Bayanrong, in early June. The Salars
112.	Taozhou ting zhi of 1907,18.3b.
154﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
could not concentrate enough force on the north or west sides of their
siegeworks around Xunhua to stop his column, which reached the town
on June 12, ending the two-month siege.113 Hann Wenxiu, who had
emerged as a central Salar leader during the siege, fled across the river to
the northern gong. Had Deng been able to continue his advance, catch-
ing the remaining Salar forces between Lei Zhengguan’s Hezhou garri-
son and his own troops, he might have ended the Xunhua threat. But
Deng realized that the violence could easily spread to his base at Xining,
so he returned to Bayanrong rather than penetrate more deeply into
rebel territory.
Back at Hezhou, Ma Yonglin and other anti-Qing commanders or-
dered continuous assaults on the city wall and on non-Muslim villages in
the immediate hinterland. Throughout June and July small forts and
stockades south of the city fell to the Muslims, who slaughtered the
defenders in thousands and took their land. The Chinese chronicles extol
the heroism of the defenders of Ninghepu (now Hezheng County),
where seven corps of militia drove off the Muslim attackers, made some
successful forays beyond their walls, and neutralized a large besieging
force.114 During July the Xunhua leader Hann Wenxiu brought his fight-
ers to the Xining region and led them, with local Muslims, to take forts in
the northern and southern valleys that converge on that city. From Didao
to north of Xining, Gansu burned, but the rest of the province lay rela-
tively quiet, except for the movement of Qing troops and supplies toward
the disturbances.
Governor-General Yang Changjun planned to relieve Hezhou by us-
ing Tang Yanhe’s army, still stationed south of the city, in conjunction
with a sortie by Lei Zhengguan’s garrison inside the walls. Tang, whose
Muslim subordinates Ma Fulu and Ma Guoliang had held Jishi Pass
against the Salars, moved north via Laoyaguan in early August. Accord-
ing to several accounts, Tang was persuaded by a promise to surrender
and a bribe from Muslim leaders to remain at Shuangcheng for the
night, where his army suffered an ambush and scattered in the face of
the enemy.115 Lei Zhengguan, shut up in Hezhou, could not move
113.	GNQSL 24 48b.
114.	The story of Ninghepu’s resistance is in Hezheng xian zhi of 1930, 216—20. Mu
Shouqi worried a great deal about the wisdom of arming the common people, for greater
harm could come to them if they were armed. In addition, the enemy could provide
himself with weapons by taking them away from the inexperienced farmers (GNQSL
25.9a). But the Ninghepu militia, organized by local gentry and defending their own
homes with semiprofessional elan, made all the difference in resisting the Muslims.
115.	GNQSL 25.63-73; Gao Wenyuan, Qingmo xibei, 437; Wu, Qingdai xibei, 243.
155﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
against the besiegers without the other half of the pincers, so the slaugh-
ter continued in the countryside.
Ma Yonglin and the other Hezhou Muslim leaders found themselves
with two conflicting objectives. They needed to take Hezhou, consoli-
date their base, and eliminate the Qing armies and mintuan stockades
that still threatened their local security. But they also needed to break
out of Taoxi, either toward Xining or north and east, to find allies in
other Muslim communities before larger Qing armies arrived to “pac-
ify” them. In the end they achieved neither objective. Ma Yonglin did
traverse the Dongxiang to cross the Tao in early August, but his inva-
sion was easily turned back by Qing cavalry under the redoubtable Ma
Anliang, who remained in the field to lead the Qing forces in counterat-
tacking toward Hezhou. However deeply Ma Anliang may have felt
solidarity with other Muslims, it certainly did not extend to Ma
Yonglin, who had plundered Ma Anliang’s home base.116
In August 1895 Dong Fuxiang was in Beijing as a Xinjiang representa-
tive at the empress dowager’s sixtieth birthday party. Concerned about
the Gansu violence and impressed by the powerful Manchu minister
Ronglu’s recommendation of the young soldier, the court sent him into
the field once more against the Gansu Muslims. A central figure in
northwestern politics and internationally known for his role in the at-
tack on the Beijing legations in 1900, Dong Fuxiang has been confused
with Deng Zeng,117 erroneously called a Muslim,118 and maligned by
Europeans as an arch-criminal (see plate 16). He first gained promi-
nence during the Muslim rebellion of the 1860s, when he and his father
formed a group of local partisans to defend their home county, the son
116.	Mu Shouqi records Ma Anliang’s devotion to his father’s pro-Qing stand, a
position that caused him often to be accused of treachery by anti-Qing coreligionists
(GNQSL 28.18a—18b). He was, however, successful as a mediator throughout his career,
dealing with Muslim and non-Muslim elites all over the province, and he remained a
popular leader among the urban Muslims, especially merchants in Lanzhou and Hezhou,
who stood to lose by widespread violence.
117.	Bonin, “Les Mahometans du Kan-sou.”
118.	Broomhall, Islam in China, 161, claims that Dong, though a Muslim, “because of
some small personal pique, had sided against his co-religionists.” This thoroughly incor-
rect information, coming from the Western world’s most-cited authority on Islam in
China, must give us pause to consider the quality of our sources! Tian, “Longshang
qunhao,” 3-14, is only one of several Chinese sources that unambiguously identify Dong
as a non-Muslim. Teichman, Travels, 109, relates that Chinese informants told him that
Dong was not a Muslim, but that he refused to believe them. The European press had so
universally associated Dong with Muslim troops during the Boxer uprising that he could
not credit a different version of the story.
156﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
finishing the war as a colonel in the Qing army commanded by Liu
Jintang.119 Ma Anliang, Ma Fulu, and other important Hezhou Muslim
officers enlisted in Dong Fuxiang’s army after Ma Zhan’ao’s surrender,
hoping for advancement within the Qing military and for social order
with a measure of local autonomy for the Sino-Muslim elite.120
Coming from Beijing to eastern Gansu in 1895, Dong brought some-
thing new to the field against the Muslims, the greatly increased fire-
power of European small arms. Though Dong’s troops had not been
trained in the European fashion and still resembled the anti-Taiping
armies of the mid-nineteenth century, they were armed with Reming-
tons and Mausers. Dong used these new weapons, vastly superior to the
Muslims’ muzzle-loaders, halberds, and swords, to great effect.121 Never
before had the Hezhou Muslims been forced to recognize the superior-
ity of Qing arms. Their experience in the 1860s had led them to believe
that the Tao River, the mountains of the Dongxiang, and their own
mobile, stout-hearted cavalry would serve to block any invasion.
Dong’s successes were not only military. He also used localist politics
to halt a movement of Muslims from Ningxia to southwestern Gansu.
This episode provides a measure of evidence for contact and coopera-
tion among Muslims all over Gansu, but it must be examined carefully.
It took place in the fall of 1895, around harvest time.
When [Dong] Fuxiang arrived at Pingliang,. . . [two local literati] of
Jinjipu came to welcome him there. Fuxiang asked them, “How are
the fall crops?” They replied, “All harvested, with only the Muslims’
fields yet unharvested.” Fuxiang was surprised and asked, “Where
have they all gone?” “Most of them have gone to Hezhou.” Fuxiang
said, “I shall send people to urge them to return home.”
After the gentry left, he commanded his clerk quickly to prepare a
proclamation to be printed in thousands of copies. ... In brief, it
stated: “At the moment, Hezhou has rebelled and Xining reacted. I,
the commander, have received the emperor’s command to take forty
119.	d’Ollone, Recherches, i-jx.
120.	Tian, “Longshang qun hao,” +. While in Beijing, Dong Fuxiang had come to the
attention of Ronglu, one of the empress dowager’s favorite ministers. Their relationship
led to the old empress’s admiration for the Gansu army and its commander and her order
that the northwesterners be brought to the capital region as part of her metropolitan
forces during the Boxer crisis. Dong’s connection to that powerful court faction would
have enhanced both his reputation and his power in Gansu. See Xue Zhengchang, “Dong
Fuxiang.”
121.	GNQSL 25.21a.
157﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
battalions of horse and foot [soldiers] to attack Hezhou and Xining.
You have all listened to and been misled by rumors and run off,
leaving your ripened crops to the birds. Hezhou is in the south,
Ningxia in the north, as different as horses and cows. The court clearly
differentiates good [people] from evil [people]. Could it possibly exter-
minate you all without exception? Within one month you must re-
turn, each to his farm, never again to be frightened out of your wits in
this way,” etc., etc.
He chose three of the corporals of the guard who were skilled in
rhetoric and gave each a platoon. From Pingliang they went to
Guyuan, posting copies of the notice as they went. At large villages,
they would exhort people. . . . Those among the Muslim braves who
returned to their homes were registered by name, age, and residence
and the official list sent first to Ningling subprefecture. Then the
provincial capital was notified. When Yang Changjun saw the Ning-
ling report, which said that the Muslims from this district who re-
turned from Hezhou numbered over ten thousand, he said to a provin-
cial official, “Dong Xingwu [Fuxiang] has not even advanced on
Hezhou yet, and Hezhou’s flank army has disappeared.”122
Far more effective than Yang Changjun’s earlier warning, Dong’s
traveling lecturers actually thwarted the Ningxia reinforcements, return-
ing them to their unharvested fields. They were frightened by Dong’s
army and reputation, giving up their expression of Muslim solidarity in
the face of threatened Qing repression. The Muslims may also have
been persuaded by Dong’s evocation of localism, for he was a local man
himself and would have chosen the most convincing arguments. This
incident, evidence for Muslim intercommunity cooperation, nonethe-
less had no effect on the southern Gansu violence. Some combination of
Dong Fuxiang’s skill, Muslim fear, self-interest, localism, and perhaps
religious rivalry prevented the northern and southern Gansu Muslims
from uniting their forces against the Qing. The Ningxia Muslims made
no further concerted efforts to aid the anti-Qing Muslims at Hezhou.
Dong Fuxiang set up his headquarters at Anding, Zuo Zongtang’s old
base east of Lanzhou, and prepared to invade Taoxi.
His first objective was to cross the Tao and break Ma Yonglin’s siege
of Hezhou, relieving Lei Zhengguan’s garrison. As Dong moved to-
ward the river, the Hezhou besiegers renewed their efforts to take the
city, for they could not concentrate their forces to repel Dong’s invasion
122.	GNQSL 25.i2b-i3a.
158﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
if Lei Zhengguan’s Hezhou garrison remained in their rear. They failed.
Beginning on November 17,1895, Dong killed thousands of Muslims at
Kangjiayai, crossed the Tao at Didao, relieved the siege of Jinggucheng,
and struck across the Dongxiang. Ma Anliang’s cavalry crushed Muslim
resistance on the slopes of Oxheart Mountain and broke the Hezhou
siege in a week of heavy fighting, relieving the town on December 4.
Over four hundred Muslim leaders were captured and executed—Ma
Weihan, the leader of the Mufti from Didao, died with Ma Zhan’ao’s
old subordinate Zhou Qishi, and Ma Yonglin’s entire family suffered
the extreme penalty. The Hezhou uprising, which had cost tens of
thousands of lives and the devastation of Bafang, ended in a complete
victory for the Qing state. With the Muslim general Ma Anliang in
charge, the Qing could be sure of southern Gansu for the remaining
fifteen years of its rule.
Xining. Like Lei Zhengguan’s defense of Hezhou, the Xining garri-
son’s successful resistance against Muslim besiegers kept another large
Qing army intact and active deep in “Muslim” territory. Xining, like Old
Taozhou and Hezhou, stands on the frontiers of several ecologies, cul-
tural groups, and political-military powers, astride the main road be-
tween Tibet and Mongolia, a road crucial to the political and religious
histories of both peoples. It lay at the western end of Qing administra-
tive penetration into Amdo, and its Muslim trading community occu-
pied the cultural middle ground between China and Tibet.123 Xining’s
city wall, one of the most imposing in premodern China, towered over
a wide plain at the confluence of three rivers. Its garrison could domi-
nate both the local hinterland (Huangzhong) and the essential caravan
routes that passed nearby.124 If the Qing empire could control Xining, it
could maintain its domination over the politics of Amdo, the region’s
123.	Again, I use these as cultural terms, not as the names of sovereign states or
territories enclosed by boundaries drawn on maps by negotiators. Marco Polo, who
passed through Xining on his way to the Yuan capital in the late thirteenth century, made
careful note of the physical characteristics of the Tibetans who controlled the city at that
time. He described the yaks and musk deer and reported “no lack of com.” He observed
“idolators,” by which he meant the Tibetans, as well as Muslims and Nestorian Christians
in the town, a combination that was once again found in the late Qing when the China
Inland Mission established a station there. The able missionary Charles Ridley made
excellent studies and maps of the area, as did German Catholic priests who lived nearby.
The studies of the latter are summarized in Eberhard, “Notes on the Folklore,” 306-10.
124.	The French priest Evariste Hue, with his traveling companion Joseph Gabet,
made the journey from Kumbum, a great lamasery near Xining, to Lhasa in 18+5-+6.
Their account, published in English as High Road to Tartary, contains vivid descriptions of
Amdo.
159﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
communication with the Mongols, and the commerce of its highways.
But the roads from Lanzhou and the Gansu corridor to Xining, the
city’s lifelines to the world of China, passed through several steep,
narrow passes, places at which a small defending force could easily
prevent passage by a much larger one, rendering the city’s position
tenuous in times of trouble.
Many aspects of Xining’s socioeconomic life showed marked blend-
ing of Chinese and Tibetan ways. Xining Chinese built Tibetan-style
houses, but local wedding customs strongly resembled those of China
proper.125 Despite their local accommodations, many Xining Chinese
saw, and continue to see, the Tibetans as a primitive, inferior, uncul-
tured people, separated from civilization by their barbaric character
but useful as mercenaries and auxiliaries in frontier warfare. Xining
floated on a sometimes restless sea of non-Chinese people, who put
up with Qing (or any other external) hegemony to the extent that it
profited them or the state could preserve its prerogatives with troops.
Around the turn of the twentieth century many groups lived in
significant numbers both in the suburbs and in the hinterlands—
Chinese, Tibetans, Mongols, Monguors, Sinophone Muslims, and
Salar Muslims. No simple mapping, however, could do justice to the
intricate intermixing of groups throughout the region, for they often
did not live in clearly delineated areas but rather in adjacent villages
or neighborhoods.
Xining’s high walls faced those of the Muslim suburb, Dongguan, only
a few meters distant. The valleys leading to the city bristled with forts
held by both Muslim and non-Muslim militias. Datong, Bayanrong, and
other county towns could also be easily surrounded by insurgents based
in hilltop stockades. In such an atmosphere, the Qing officials both
regularly and brutally used military force against the locals. All the com-
munities armed themselves for defense of their lives against their neigh-
bors and/or the state. Through the summer of 1895 local tuanlian and
government troops reacted to the escalating violence around Hezhou
and Xunhua: Muslim residents of Xining were subjected to searches on
the road, exclusion from the city walls for fear of spies, and other official
and unofficial discrimination. As the Xunhua Muslim leader Hann
Wenxiu raided closer and closer to the city, many suburban Muslims
125.	Rijnhart, With the Tibetans, 27—28. See also Frick, “Hochzeitssitten.” The Filchner
expedition observed both the strength of Chinese culture in the area and its attraction and
accommodation to Tibetan culture, especially in the material realm (Filchner, Wissen-
schaftliche Ergebnisse, vol. 2,124).
160﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
joined him, and Muslim forces attacked stockades and fortified villages
throughout Huangzhong.
In these “little wars” around Xining, communal or religious identity
functioned very much like lineage identity in Chinese society, creating
one vector of unity for villages or groups of villages, a boundary against
the dangerous Others. In Philip Kuhn’s terminology, the simplex tuan
of many Xining Muslim villages engaged in vendettas (Ch. xiedou} with
non-Muslim villages and with Tibetans.126 The funds to buy arms and
provisions for such activities (which, in other parts of China often were
provided by lineage organizations) in Muslim Gansu came from the
communal treasury of the mosque, to which all were expected to con-
tribute, and from the wealth of successful commercial families. They did
not, however, attempt to overthrow the Qing state or found any type of
autonomous Muslim polity, for their ability to organize rarely exceeded
the confines of their villages or multivillage local systems. The spatial
arrangement of Muslim and non-Muslim communities, mixed and lim-
ited by the harsh terrain, did not encourage regional organizations, nor
did the division of Xining Muslim society by the various religious
solidarities. Indeed, as we have seen, fighting between Muslims could be
as vicious and enduring as Muslim vs. non-Muslim battles.
Tension rose very high as Salars assaulted Deng Zeng’s own camp
near Bayanrong and took commander Li Shijia prisoner at Jingningpu.
Deng’s army, positioned primarily to fend off Salar violence emanating
from Xunhua, could not prevent local Muslim raiding even within sight
of Xining’s walls. On September i armed Muslims mounted the Dong-
guan walls to begin a bombardment of Xining that lasted several
days.127 Deng Zeng feared the worst—capture of the main citadel—and
brought his entire army back to the city, where he met the Muslims
head-on. A major batde ensued, with heavy losses on both sides but no
clear victory.128 Though the Xining garrison ventured out to take the
Muslims in a pincer movement, they failed, so Deng entered the city but
could not break the siege. The Xining Muslims’ decision to attack the
city thus followed the pattern of Hezhou and Didao. Local Muslims,
fearing an assault from apparently bloody-minded local tuanlian or
126.	For a complete discussion of the growth and structure of tuanlian, focusing on
south China, see Kuhn, Rebellion, esp. 76-78, on the relationship between militia and
lineage organizations.
127.	GNQSL 25.8a-9a, 10a. Lacking modern artillery, the Dongguan Muslims relied
on homemade cannons and small arms, hopelessly inadequate to the task of breaching
Xining’s high walls.
128.	Xining dengchu, 1.2b.
I6l﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
from the Qing authorities, struck first in the hope of securing a quick
victory and control over the walled town. At the roots of this violence
lay local emotions and fears, not any grandiose dream of Muslim hege-
mony based on religious ideology. The weakening of Gansu’s Qing
garrisons by withdrawals to fight the Sino-Japanese war encouraged
some Muslim leaders, and their motivation to fight overrode their
knowledge of the local garrisons’ strength and the height of the walls.
Batdes continued all over Taoxi-Huangzhong in September, with the
Qing garrisons and local tuanlian consistently holding the advantage
through their control of stockades such as Hejiapu, across the river
from Didao on the western, “Muslim” side of the Tao; Baitasi, at a
crucial Yellow River crossing north of Hezhou; and Ninghepu, south of
Hezhou. Deng Zeng and Lei Zhengguan held out in stubborn defense
of Xining and Hezhou, as Qing reinforcements began gradually to
arrive from Shaanxi, Ningxia, and Xinjiang.129
Overwhelming Force at Xining
The Xining Muslims, scattered in dozens of villages and divided by
Qing garrisons and tuanlian, established a headquarters and bastion at
Duoba, west of Xining City. To this fortified market town, with its large
Muslim population and many mosques, came fighters and villagers who
feared to remain in the open. The Duoba leaders employed their for-
tress as a staging area for attacks against Xining and other enemy strong
points. When Li Peiying tried to join Deng’s defense, the Muslims
blocked his relief force for over a month at the narrow passes leading to
the city, despite Deng Zeng’s efforts from within the citadel.130
Deng, waiting for reinforcements and trying to contend with chaotic
conditions in Xining’s hinterland, enlisted the aid of the Qinghai Tibet-
ans as Agui had done at Lanzhou in 1781. Eager for loot and a chance to
strike at the Muslims, the Tibetans joined with alacrity. This alignment—
Qing troops, local non-Muslim tuanlian, and Tibetans all attacking local
Muslims—deepened hatred and rivalry between Tibetan and Muslim
common folk, despite their ongoing commercial association in the wool
trade. The enmity often burst into brutal, sickening violence during the
next few decades of disorder. Tibetan participation in these wars demon-
strated yet again to local gentry and Qing officials the wisdom and effi-
cacy of using one group of frontier people to fight another.
129.	GNQSL 25.8b, 10a, 12b.
130.	GNQSL 25.17a.
162﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
Chinese people have generally seen Tibetan culture as inferior to their
own, but the Tibetans maintained their language, folkways, religion,
and economy remarkably well in the face of their self-confident antago-
nists.131 Only Tibetans could live and produce wealth in the highlands,
across which no one could fight as effectively; for this skill they were
granted a ferocious reputation as killers and robbers. The experience of
Chinese, European, and Muslim travellers who ventured into their terri-
tory partially justifies this fame.132 With some exceptions, Amdo Ti-
betan society, especially its religious institutions, remained relatively
independent of outside control even in areas of Qing or Muslim power,
or Chinese cultural influence. The lamaseries held much of the local
secular and economic power on the grasslands, often greater than that
of the Qing state, which bought partial Tibetan compliance by assessing
lower taxes than those of nearby non-Tibetans. In addition, some Ti-
betan leaders—the tusi families—received hereditary patents of office
from the Qing.133 This cultural and political combination resulted in
many Tibetans’ learning some Chinese and adapting in part to Chinese
culture, the while remaining clearly Tibetan.134 In this complex Muslims
played the economic middleman, making available the products of agri-
cultural China and the flatland artisans to the Tibetans, who in turn sold
them pelts, wool, and other highland products.135
Beyond trade and productive activity, the Tibetans played a role in
the military affairs of Gansu. When the tusi called for troops, every
family had to respond. The lamaseries, too, had extensive arsenals, and
the monks organized militias and stockpiled arms to defend their tem-
ples. The brutality and extent of conflicts along this frontier, from the
131.	Ekvall, Cultured Relations, 9—12, 83 in summary, and esp. chaps. 3 and 4.
132.	Sutton, In China’s Border Provinces, contains many harrowing stories of the loath-
ing inspired in the European author by his experience with the Tibetan nomads. The
North China Herald reported their depredations near Xining and the response by Ma Qi,
head of the local Muslim military, in 1924 (see esp. August 13).
133.	Zhang Qiyun, Xiahe xian zhi, 3.3a—3b, notes Tibetan fluency in the Chinese
language, as does Wang Zhiwen, Gansu sheng xinanbu, 33. Dreyer, China’s Forty Million,
10—11, discusses briefly the development of the tusi system under the Qing. It was
primarily intended to govern “semicivilized” non-Chinese peoples by utilizing a hierar-
chy of titles granted to powerful local lineages, thereby keeping them contented and
loyal.
134.	A small group of Huangzhong Tibetans around the town of Kargang even
converted to Islam under the influence of Khafiya missionaries, but despite some alter-
ation in their clothing styles and food, they remained Amdo Tibetans in language and
culture (Li Gengyan and Xu Likui, “Yisilan jiao zai Kaligang”).
135.	Ekvall, Cultural Relations, chap. 4.
163﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
Tao valley to Xining and Kokenor, illustrate painfully the fear and ha-
tred that sometimes characterized communal relations in Gansu.
The lamaseries concentrated wealth and political power. Contribu-
tions flowed in to support the monks and rimpoche, whose prayers and
pilgrimages spiritually maintained the Tibetan world. The most impor-
tant rimpoche at Labrang, for example, sat on a golden throne, sur-
rounded by precious objects and clad in jewel-encrusted robes in stark
contrast to the poverty of the pilgrims praying in his courtyards. Schol-
ars went out from the great lamasery at Kumbum, near Xining, to
propagate and strengthen religious practice and allegiance all over Ti-
bet. Their missions also maintained the political power and relation-
ships of the rimpoche and their agents, who were often their regents.136
Using their long experience in dealing with the Qing state and many
cultural Others, the Tibetan leaders chose friends and enemies with
care. In 1895 they correctly allied themselves with the Qing. They called
up their cavalry in the Xining area, operating both independendy and
under Qing command against the Muslim insurgents.
Early in the fall of 1895 Qing victory had seemed imminent. Wei
Guangtao was on his way with a large force of the Hunan Army, Zuo
Zongtang’s old command; Dong Fuxiang had taken Hezhou and was
free to strike through Salar country toward Xining; Niu Shihan had
finally left Ningxia to assist in the final victory. But the bitter Gansu
winter interfered, as did tenacious Muslim resistance. The Muslims
knew that submission meant violent death at the hands of the imperial
armies (including Muslim commanders such as Ma Anliang) and their
own non-Muslim neighbors. After halting Niu Shihan east of the
Xining River gorges, the Salars had offered to surrender on terms favor-
able to the Qing. But the Qing commanders, many of them Gansu men,
felt too strongly about Muslim depredations and the necessity for thor-
ough “pacification.” They intended to make no mistakes like those of
Zuo Zongtang, who had left too much power in Muslim hands.
So Qing forces converged on Xining from the north, east, and south-
east. Wei Guangtao’s Hunan braves fell heavily on the Muslim villages,
and Dong Fuxiang’s troops joined in the despoliation, but the Muslims
still held out. As late as mid-February, even with Qing troops stationed
136.	The commander of the Labrang monastic army during the early Republican
period was the elder brother of the monastery's chief rimpoche. The obviously political
process of ascendancy to the status of a high rimpoche has always been clear, even to most
Tibetans, but it has not necessarily diminished their respect or devotion to those same
rimpoche.
164﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
in the villages, Deng Zeng and his commanders were not able to pre-
vent non-Muslims from being ambushed and slaughtered by Muslims
in broad daylight, within sight of Xining’s walls. Nonetheless, as the
weather improved, so did conditions for infantry and cavalry assaults,
supported by the few Qing artillery pieces. Finally, in March, the Duoba
Muslims, their numbers gready reduced through unsuccessful sorties
and depleted food supplies, surrendered unconditionally. Their leaders
lost their heads, and the common soldiers dispersed to their ruined,
empty villages. Thousands of Muslims tried to follow the tracks of Bai
Yanhu west toward a Muslim refuge. Unlike Bai’s veterans in the 1870s,
they never reached Russian territory but were hunted down by pursu-
ing armies, frozen by the late winter of the north Tibetan marches, and
starved by the barren wasteland. Finally captured and relocated near
Korla, in Xinjiang, fewer than two thousand survived.
Lessons Learned
The violence between some Muslims and Qing loyalists and allies of
various cultures had devastated a fourth of a province, killed tens of
thousands, and sustained the worst fears of all. The Qing officials re-
tained their conviction that religious disputes among the Muslims, par-
ticularly those caused by the New Teaching (whatever that may have
been) and the menhuan, led to conflagration and bloodshed.137 The
local non-Muslim Chinese verified their tradition, that their Muslim
neighbors were bloodthirsty fanatics. The Muslims confirmed that they
were to be discriminated against, excluded, even slaughtered, because
they were Muslims, and thus different. The total Qing military victory
did not bring lasting peace, for even brutal pacification could not elimi-
nate communal mistrust and hatred. As long as the Muslims and non-
Muslims remained neighbors and state authority could not maintain
local order, the problems would continue to exist.
The events of 1895 also illustrated again the disunity of the Gansu
Muslims, their vulnerability to piecemeal attack. Official and local fears
still emphasized the ferocious loyalty Muslims supposedly felt for one
another, but the Muslims could not actually unify their communities in
137.	Among the Qing officials who held this view was Yang Zengxin, later the imperi-
ous autocrat of Xinjiang, who served after 1895 as prefect of Hezhou. He wrote often that
divisions among the Muslims should be blamed for the violence of northwestern society.
Mu Shouqi, Republican period gentryman and compiler of local history, agreed, as did
many other Gansu elites. It did not occur to them that the state might respond differendy
to conflict within Muslim communities (GNQSL 25-37b-39b).
165﻿STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
action. Despite efforts by the Xunhua, Hezhou, and Xining Muslim
militants to call for a general uprising, many Gansu Muslims remained
aloof or actually opposed their coreligionists. Between the pacification
of Gansu in 1872 and that of Hezhou in 1895, a number of Muslim
leaders faced realistically the Qing capacity to control its peripheries.
Adjusting to that capacity, most of them became Qing commanders or
allies in order to preserve their local power and, as they thought, the
very existence of their communities.
Poised on the frontier of cultural China, resisting or adjusting to the
changes occurring in China, Gansu folk also struggled to remain them-
selves. Violence from their neighbors or their government often threat-
ened their lives and property, so hatred and fear dominated their memo-
ries and their decisions in time of trouble. When Chen Jiaji killed eleven
Old Teaching Muslims and displayed their heads at Xunhua, many
Muslims felt compelled to act in self-defense and vengeful anger. Their
poverty had not changed, nor had their harsh environment, but Qing
pressure had grown more insistent, more “modern” in its demand for
incorporation and in its enforcing power. The Muslim communities,
too, had changed, for most of the menhuan, originating as revivalist
Sufi institutions, had evolved into essentially conservative local soli-
darities, organized to preserve the community power and wealth of
important lineages.
Neither Ma Anliang, the Qing cavalry commander, nor Ma Yonglin,
the disrupter of social order, fits into the standard Qing categories of
Muslim villainy. Neither was a “New Teaching bandit” or an anti-Qing
state-building holy warrior. Ma Yonglin failed because his coalition of
anti-Qing and anti-reformist Muslims could not organize widespread,
protracted resistance to state power. Ma Anliang succeeded because he
served the Qing loyally against some of his Muslim neighbors, bringing
new weapons to frontier conflicts. His reward, like his father’s, was local
authority, albeit closely controlled by Qing officials, an authority that
evolved into Gansu’s unique system of Muslim warlordism in the twenti-
eth century (see plate 17).138 The “Ma family warlords” (Ch. Majiajunfa)
represent a new development in the Muslim worlds of northwest China,
the modern nation-state’s incorporative power expressed locally through
cooptation of existing elites. That process is evident in the following
narrations of the lives of four individual Gansu Sino-Muslims who fol-
lowed very different paths, all of which led toward a closer relationship
with New China.
138.	That evolutionary process is summarized in Lipman, “Ethnicity and Politics.”
166﻿5	/ Strategies of Integration
Muslims in New China
MA FUXIANG (1876-1932) AND THE MUSLIM
WARLORDS OF THE NEW CHINESE NATION
Our Party [the Guomindang] takes the development of the weak
and small and resistance to the strong and violent as our sole and
most urgent task. This is even more true for those groups which
are not of our kind [Ch. fei wo zulei zhe}.1 Now the peoples [minzu]
of Mongolia and Tibet are closely related to us, and we have great
affection for one another; our common existence and common
honor already have a history of over a thousand years. . . .
Mongolia and Tibet’s life and death are China’s life and death.
China absolutely cannot cause Mongolia and Tibet to break away
from China’s territory, and Mongolia and Tibet cannot reject China
to become independent. At this time, there is not a single nation on
earth except China that will sincerely develop Mongolia and Tibet.2
Becoming a Warlord
Like the 1895 anti-Qing leader Ma Yonglin and many other young
Hezhou Muslim men, Ma Qianling, a small merchant and farmer,
fought against the Qing under Ma Zhan’ao. After the surrender in 1872
he received a Qing reward and prospered in trade, returning to the
military life only briefly when he and Ma Zhan’ao had to drive out a
remnant group of diehard Muslim rebels from the Hezhou hills in 1877.
He had four sons with his three wives, one of whom was a convert to
Islam, and he gave the boys auspicious Chinese names—Fucai (Happi-
ness and Wealth), Fulu (Happiness and Emoluments), Fushou (Happi-
1. This phrase from the Zuo zbuan (4th cent, b.c.e.) appears in many accounts of
Chinese attitudes toward other peoples and cultures. The original reads, “If [they are] not
of our kind, their hearts must be different” (Ch. Fei wo zulei qi xin bi yi).
z. Ma Fuxiang, Mmg Zang, 1-2.
167﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
ness and Longevity), and Fuxiang (Happiness and Good Omens). Ma
Fuxiang, the youngest, was born in 1876 in a small town near Hanjiaji,
in Hezhou prefecture.
Like many elite Sino-Muslims, he received a dual education in the
Confucian and Muslim traditions, reading both the Koran and the
Spring and Autumn Annals (which he preferred to the Four Books).3 * 5 As
an adult, Ma Fuxiang grew very fond of elegant prose and calligraphy,
but in his youth he had ambitions closer to his roots. His older half-
brother Ma Fulu excelled in military exercises, so under the influence of
Yang Changjun’s 1889 visit to Hezhou to review his troops, Ma Fuxiang
joined his brother in the martial arts hall. After three years of local
training, he and another brother, Ma Fushou, attended military school.
When the 1895 violence broke out, Ma Fuxiang was twenty and full of
martial vigor. Allied with the Qing through their father, he and his
brothers all opposed the plans of Ma Yonglin and the rebellious Mus-
lims of their home district, so they joined the Qing army commanded
by Tang Yanhe. Ma Anliang’s brother Ma Guoliang, Ma Fulu, and Ma
Fuxiang commanded the Qing troops that held Jishi Pass against an
advancing column from Xunhua and earned province-wide fame. When
Tang Yanhe’s forces were ambushed and defeated at Shuangcheng, the
Ma brothers fled south with their general, then back to Lanzhou. Yang
Changjun rewarded them for their steadfast loyalty to the dynasty and
sent them toward Hezhou with Dong Fuxiang. They earned Dong’s
praise during the reconquest of their home district, then participated in
the massacre of rebel Muslims in Maying, Milagou, and other Hezhou
towns, delivering thousands of severed heads and ears to their superi-
ors.4 According to Ma Tong’s oral sources, Hezhou Muslims said of Ma
Qianling’s sons that their offices were built of Muslim heads, and Ma
Anliang’s red cap was dyed with Muslim blood.5
After victory in 1896 Ma Fuxiang continued his martial education and
earned the military juren degree in 1897, while Ma Fulu became a mili-
tary jinshi. Nothing prevented these young Muslim soldiers from serv-
ing under Qing generals—their father had, and the increasing militariza-
tion of the whole Qing empire pressed them toward enlistment with the
3. Much of the chronological material in this section is taken from He Yan, “Ma
Fuxiang.” Ma Fuxiang’s academic proclivities are discussed on p. 33.
+. Ma Fuxiang, Shuofang dm zhi of 1926, 28.2ia-2ib. Ma Fuxiang sponsored the
writing of this gazetteer and listed himself as its general editor, so its accounts may be
regarded as his own.
5.	Ma Tong, Zhongguo Yisilan . . . shilue, 245.
168﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
most powerful commander, whatever his place of origin or religion may
have been. In Gansu that was their own general Dong Fuxiang, so Ma
Fulu and Ma Fuxiang, along with many other young men of their
lineage, went with him to Beijing as junior officers when his army was
transferred to the metropolitan defense force in 1898. They fought
against the foreigners during the Boxer uprising, and Ma Fulu died in
the battle for the legations, as did four of his cousins.6 Ma Fuxiang took
over his brother’s unit, bringing his Gansu braves home as part of the
imperial family’s escort on their flight to Xi’an. He received substantial
rewards, including an appointment as garrison commander in eastern
Gansu. Through the emperor and empress dowager’s personal favor,
powerful appointments followed at Xining, then in Xinjiang. For ten
years he increased his military strength and established political connec-
tions all over the northwest, trading on his own military reputation, his
brother’s, and his father’s.
In addition to his loyalty to the Qing state, Ma Fuxiang conceived a
strong attraction to Confucianism and Chinese culture. His study of the
classics, both in Gansu and in Beijing, led him toward a Confucian-
Islamic synthesis.7 Relying on the translations and commentaries of the
Han kitab, Ma affirmed the compatibility of Confucian morality and
Islamic religion. He combined this ideological persuasion with a realistic
assessment of the military and political position of Gansu in the Qing
state, forging a lifelong commitment to Muslim participation in the
political system of the Qing and then Republican China. Political
loyalism also dovetailed neatly with Ma’s desire to make money from
connections between the northwest and central China. He joined a non-
Muslim gentryman to set up one of Gansu’s first modern industries, a
match factory, and took a financial interest in the Tibet-to-Tianjin wool
trade.8 His love of Chinese culture, including the arts of calligraphy and
elegant conversation, certainly influenced his political and social choices.
In a memoir one of his young secretaries remembered that Ma Fuxiang
enjoyed hobnobbing with high Guomindang officials, an advantage in
his career. The Muslim general also made a study of Daoist religion and
ancient Chinese texts and set up filial stone steles in memory of his
deceased ancestors. His last consort, the daughter of a Lanzhou Muslim
official, was famous for her Chinese calligraphy, a very unusual accom-
6.	He, “Ma Fuxiang,” 37.
7.	Iwamura, “Kanshuku sho”; and Tian, “Longshang qunhao,” 12-13.
8.	GNQSL 24:45b; and Zhao Songyao, “Gansu Ziyiju,” 53-59. The wool trade is
described in Millward, “The Chinese Border Wool Trade.”
169﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
plishment for a Gansu Muslim woman and very appropriate for a com-
panion to Ma Fuxiang.9
The intimate relationship between Muslim leadership in Gansu and
the Qing state found expression in the provincial leadership’s reaction
to the Wuchang incident, the dramatic beginning of the revolution of
1911. Both Governor-General Changgeng and Shaanxi Governor Sheng-
yun were loyal Manchu servants of the dynasty, so they determined to
oppose the rising tide of anti-Qing activism and republicanism.10 Ma
Anliang, more conservative than Ma Fuxiang, shared their support of
the imperial order and occupied a crucial role in their military plans.
The most immediate threat lay in the revolutionary army of Zhang
Fenghui in Shaanxi. The Qing loyalists had to choose between entrench-
ing themselves as a Gansu “western bastion” or striking eastward
against Zhang. With Ma Anliang in command, they chose belligerence.
Ma proposed raising twenty battalions of loyal Muslim braves, so
Changgeng called a special meeting of provincial leaders to discuss the
matter. They shilly-shallied, anxious about the arming of Muslims even
for such laudable motives. Ma’s demonstrated loyalty carried the day,
but Gansu gentry and common folk remained leery of Muslims bearing
weapons, even under a dynastic banner.11
Ma Anliang attacked Shaanxi successfully, and Yuan Shikai took the
invasion seriously enough to alert eastern troops to move against him.
As Ma approached Xi’an, however, an intermediary convinced him that
the emperor’s abdication was real, that the Qing state had declined
irreversibly, and he withdrew. Declaring his support for the Republic,
Ma Anliang virtually ended northwestern resistance to the new govern-
ment and earned himself the same chance his father, Ma Zhan’ao, had
earned in 1872, after the battle of Taizisi. In company with many Qing
provincial officials, he consolidated his local power and remained a
mediator and broker in communal relations and local government, pro-
moting the careers of numerous Muslims in provincial and local of-
fices.12 The diehard Manchu Shengyun kept up the good fight; as late as
9.	One of Ma Fuxiang’s filial steles may be found in the courtyard of the provincial
museum in Yinchuan, Ningxia. The text is carved in both standard characters and in the
Han dynasty clerical script at which Ma fancied himself expert. On his youngest wife, see
Ma Tingxiu, “Ma Fuxiang shishu.”
10.	Shengyun had become acquainted with Ma Fuxiang when the latter escorted the
imperial family to Xi’an in the aftermath of the Boxer debacle.
11.	GNQSL 26.41b—42a.
12.	Yu, “Xinhai geming.” See also Ma Peiqing, “Changgeng Shengyun,” 190-97. All
of that issue of Gansu wenshi ziliao xuanji is devoted to the 1911 Revolution in Gansu,
170﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
1918 he was reported as still trying to persuade Ma Anliang to stage a
Qing restoration.13 14 15
Sources differ as to Ma Fuxiang’s reaction to the invasion of Shaanxi in
1911, but all agree that he did not participate. Defending his local allies
from Changgeng and Shengyun’s reactionary violence, he joined with
non-Muslim gentrymen to declare provincial independence and nomi-
nate candidates for local offices.14 After the emperor’s abdication Ma
Fuxiang became a member of the Gansu Provincial Assembly.15 For his
cooperation, and because of his strong army, he received a vice-
commander’s post at Ningxia, on the Gansu-Mongolian border, from the
Republican government of Yuan Shikai. Beginning from that base, he
expanded his power in northern Gansu until his army dominated not
only Ningxia itself but Suiyuan Province (western Inner Mongolia),
Alashan, and the rich plains on the east side of the Huang, between the
river and the Ordos desert. That frontier assignment provided him with
the military and economic foundation to become a senior member of the
“Ma family warlords,” three Gansu Muslim lineages that dominated the
northwest from Ningxia (Ma Fuxiang’s family), Xining (Ma Qi’s family),
Hezhou, and the Gansu corridor (Ma Anliang’s family) through much of
the Republican period.16
In the northwest, with its long-standing militarization, communal
strife, and extreme poverty, “banditry”—that is to say, organized vio-
lence and robbery by groups of armed men—became an important
secondary occupation for many farmers and townsmen. Though many
of his troops and officers had probably been “bandits” at one time or
another, Ma Fuxiang’s desire for standing within the China-centered
state caused him to oppose banditry. Serving in the “legitimate” mili-
tary, uniformed and sanctioned by a political power regional or na-
tional, Ma Fuxiang gained a high reputation by batding against “ban-
dits” around Ningxia and to the north. He captured a Mongol who had
taken royal titles in 1913 at Baotou and, four years later, he defeated and
executed Daerliuji, a Mongol prince who proclaimed himself emperor
including articles on the anti-Manchu uprising at Ningxia, the brief independence move-
ment at Qinzhou (Tianshui), and the telegrams sent by Changgeng and Shengyun to the
Grand Council during the crisis.
13.	Nakada, Kaikai minzoku, 103.
14.	“Gansu jiefang qian,” 33.
15.	Zhao Songyao, “Gansu Ziyiju,” 56.
16.	For an abbreviated genealogical chart of the Ma lineages and a brief account of
their rise to power, see Lipman, “Ethnicity and Politics.”
171﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
and invaded Ningxia. Both Ma Fuxiang’s oldest son Ma Hongkui and
nephew Ma Hongbin (his late, heroic half-brother Ma Fulu’s son) took
detachments out to the Gansu corridor and to Suiyuan to capture or
neutralize “bandits.”17
Becoming a National Figure
Ma Fuxiang emerged from this chaos of the early Republic as ruler of
Ningxia and leader of a fairly cohesive, well-organized military command
centered on his Muslim cavalrymen. In politics as well as military matters,
he had followed Ma Anliang, whose father had been his father’s superior
officer, so after Ma Anliang’s death in 1918 the role of mediator between
Muslims and non-Muslims fell, at the provincial level, upon Ma Fuxiang.
His base at Ningxia gave him a comfortable distance from the dirty
politics of the provincial capital, and his cavalry gave him the clout to
argue his points against the Muslim and non-Muslim generals who
fought over the northwest for the next twelve years.
The most fundamental conflicts among the Gansu militarists, as else-
where in China, involved control over territory and taxation of its popula-
tion. Governor Zhang Guangjian, President Yuan Shikai’s appointee,
had contended with Ma Anliang for Gansu’s economic resources, but he
had no choice but to allow Ma Fuxiang relative independence in Ningxia.
On the other side of the province Zhang seized the administration of
Hezhou, the Muslim center of Gansu, for the provincial government at
Lanzhou. In opposition, the often-divided Muslim garrison command-
ers managed a measure of unity, the result of which was a 1920 telegram to
the central government (such as it was) in Beijing demanding Zhang’s
removal.18 The economy of Zhang Guangjian’s parts of Gansu had
eroded, so he chose peaceful retirement, leaving Beijing with a choice to
make. Ma Fuxiang might well have been the next governor, for he had
served loyally, had fought for the Republic, and had a solid base of
support among the Muslims. If power, competence, and experience mat-
tered, he should have been appointed.
But the non-Muslim reaction to his consideration, when it was first
rumored, was widespread and strong. A Muslim provincial commander
(Ch. dujun) meant a Muslim-dominated province, with the terrifying
Muslim soldiery in control. For people imbued with decades of fear and
centuries of memory of Muslim violence, that would have been an
17.	Chen Shaoxiao, Xibei junfa ji, 5.
18.	Nakada, Kaikai minzoku, 105.
172﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
intolerable threat. Telegrams flowed to Lanzhou and Beijing, particu-
larly from eastern Gansu, protesting against Ma’s candidacy in the
strongest terms, even citing the old slogan “Chinese and Muslims are
eternal enemies” (Ch. Han Hui shi cbou).19
Convinced that Ma’s appointment would be inappropriate, Beijing
selected Lu Hongtao, Zhang Guangjian’s assistant, as dujun. Lu’s
inheritance was a disastrous economy; a weak provincial army; an
empty treasury; and a social fabric shattered by opium, drought, un-
stable currency, and military disunity. The dujun’s authority reached
no farther than his most distant loyal garrison, and Gansu lay under
the sway of eight regional military commanders (Ch. zhenshoushi),
four Muslims and four non-Muslims. As a part of the “nation,” the
Chinese Republic, Gansu remained passive and profoundly conserva-
tive, only very gradually taking up any of the challenges of modernity.
Many Lanzhou and county-level elites felt strong pangs of regret
when the government defeated, captured, and executed a Qing resto-
rationist who raised an army in 1920 and attacked the provincial
capital.20
Lu Hongtao had no better fortune than his predecessor in balancing
the competing forces in Gansu. When he left the province in 1925 the
petty warlords of eastern Gansu, all non-Muslims, were engaged in
inconclusive battle with the Lanzhou authorities. President Duan Qirui
appointed the famous “Christian general” Feng Yuxiang as military
governor of the northwest in 1925. Feng had heard of Ma Fuxiang’s
success against bandits and appointed Ma as his codirector of northwest-
ern border defenses, a title that again “legitimized” Ma’s already-
existing power. Ma used Feng’s influence to obtain national-level civil
and military posts, including that of national aviation commander.21 All
of the Gansu Muslim militarists found the presence of Feng’s powerful
Guominjun (National People’s Army) tolerable as long as Feng and his
Gansu general Liu Yufen directed their attacks eastward, toward the
non-Muslim eastern Gansu warlords or Shaanxi. But the Muslims’ goal
of using Feng to maintain order while enjoying discreet independence
could not be realized. Feng and Liu needed to bleed Gansu dry of
revenue and manpower in order to participate in major campaigns
against Zhang Zuolin, dominant warlord of north China. The impera-
tives of battle did not allow the existence of independent military power
19.	GNQSL 30.21b.
20.	GNQSL 30.20b.
21.	Shimohayashi, “Seihoku Shina,” 202.
173﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
in Feng’s rear, nor could he allow the province’s revenues to fall into
potentially hostile hands.
In 1927—31 the cumulative effects of long-term militarist exploitation,
drought, earthquake, famine, and ethnic hatred brought on another
round of savage local warfare. Taxed beyond the limit by their govern-
ments), pressed into service as soldiers or transporters, robbed, beaten,
and brutalized, the ordinary people of Gansu now had to cope with slow
death by starvation and clear natural signs of Heaven’s displeasure.22 The
Muslim militarists could gain from this horror if they could direct its
violent results against Feng Yuxiang or other local rivals. Most actively
anti-Feng was Ma Tingrang of the Gansu corridor, Ma Anliang’s third
son. He made careful arrangements for delivery of a large shipment of
Manchurian arms from Zhang Zuolin, Feng Yuxiang’s most powerful
enemy, and prepared to move against the Guominjun when the weapons
arrived in 1927.
Another young Muslim officer also moved against the Guominjun,
though with far less thorough preparation. Ma Zhongying was a cousin
of Ma Qi, the Muslim commander at Xining. He left that city with a few
foolhardy companions in 1928, intending to attack Hezhou and rid
Sino-Muslim country of the outside troops. In those times of extraordi-
nary misery and deprivation, his activist, violent call drew thousands of
followers from Huangzhong and Taoxi. Ma Zhongying’s Gansu cam-
paigns lasted three years and included three sieges of Hezhou and raids
from the upper Wei valley to the Gansu corridor, from the Sichuan
border to Ningxia.23
Ma Fuxiang, eager to increase his influence, sent one of his sons to try
negotiations at Hezhou during Ma Zhongying’s sieges.24 Ma Fuxiang
also joined other Muslim gentry, including Ma Yuanchao of the Jahriya,
in writing to Muslims all over the province, exhorting them to keep the
peace.25 But neither the Guominjun nor the “legitimate” local Muslim
leaders could maintain order in Gansu, so Ma Fuxiang sought allies
outside the province, to stabilize his power and to rid the area of Feng by
political alliance rather than military force. By mid-1927 the effectiveness
22.	Kang, Xibei zuijin shinian, a northwestern “modern” gentryman’s account of his
region’s travails, lists dozens of incidents of sickening violence perpetrated by all sides
during the 1920s. A shorter, but equally graphic list may be found in GNQSL 31.493—503.
23.	Fan Manyun, “Liu Yufen”; and Linxia Huizu Zizhizhou Wenshi Ziliao Weiyuan-
hui, ed., Ma Zhongying. The results of Ma Zhongying’s raid on Old Taozhou after the
failure of his final encirclement of Hezhou are discussed later in this chapter.
24.	Iwamura, “Kanshuku Kaimin no niruikei,” 149.
25.	GNQSL 31.51a.
174﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
of the Northern Expedition against the southern warlords and the Com-
munists had been demonstrated. Guomindang (Nationalist Party) army
commander Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) grew rapidly in power and
status, moving toward decisive confrontation with the northern warlords
after his victorious march to the Yangzi. Building on three years of grad-
ual approach to the Guomindang, Ma Fuxiang broke openly with Feng
Yuxiang, using nationalistic rhetoric to justify a new alliance with Jiang
Jieshi. All warlords traded in these sentiments of “for the people” and
“unify the nation” to justify their militarism, but this new sloganeering,
however superficial, had special significance when it came from a Mus-
lim. For Muslims, even more than non-Muslims, this explicit nationalism
contrasted with dynastic loyalty, Islamic isolationism, and Gansu region-
alism and meant the end of the imperial era—a new stage in the slow,
murky dawning of the polyethnic Chinese nation-state.
Ma Fuxiang was the first Gansu Muslim warlord to join the Guomin-
dang, and he achieved national recognition through national alliances.
In the wake of Feng Yuxiang’s departure and the creation of Qinghai
and Ningxia as independent provinces in 1928, Ma participated in the
reorganization of Gansu’s provincial government. In his combination of
national, regional, and local power and interests, he resembled the Mus-
lim examination graduates of the past, who had left their homes to take
official posts elsewhere in the empire, leaving their relatives to safeguard
their local interests and to ensure their gentry status for another genera-
tion. Ma Fuxiang rose rapidly in the official titles competition of the
Guomindang: he served as mayor of Qingdao, governor of Anhui,
member of the Guomindang Central Committee, member of the State
Council, and chair of the Mongolia-Tibet Commission of the Guomin-
dang government.2,6 Playing the militarist politics of the day with con-
siderable skill, he helped to arrange the defeat of Feng Yuxiang and the
surrender of several of Feng’s subordinates, including Ma’s own son Ma
Hongkui. Though Ma Fuxiang never held an active civilian post in
Gansu after moving east as a Guomindang leader, he nonetheless exer-
cised a lively and direct interest in the northwest, keeping in close touch
with his subordinates in Ningxia.
Ma Fuxiang also took the lead in establishing national Muslim orga-
nizations sponsored by the Guomindang. Until the 1920s only the
Jahriya—never the Chinese state or any transregional party—had under-
taken to unify the Muslims of China institutionally. With a national
26.	See Boorman, Biographical Dictionary, main entry under Ma Fu-hsiang; and Zhang
Wei, “Gu Guomin zhengfa.”
175﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
(rather than imperial or regional) government finally in power after
1928, Muslims had to be actively incorporated into the citizenry and
organized in legitimate special-interest groups with nationally known,
easily identifiable leaders, rather than being identified as legally differ-
ent or potentially subversive. The state supported these groups with
money and with recognition of their leaders as symbolically influential
political figures. Wealthy and well known, Ma Fuxiang had long taken
an interest in Muslim educational institutions and had established a
public library in Ningxia. As early as 1917 he had gathered investors and
spent his own money to sponsor a Mongolian-Muslim normal school
and a number of Muslim elementary schools throughout the territory
under his control (see plate 18). Immediately after his removal to the
east as a Guomindang official, Ma Fuxiang joined Muslim gentry from
several provinces in founding the China Islamic Association (Zhong-
guo Huijiao Gonghui), and he served for a while as titular director of
instruction at the Islamic secondary school in Beijing.
North Chinese Muslim intellectuals and progressive ahong had estab-
lished the Chengda Normal College in Jinan, Shandong, in 1925. This
first national institution of higher learning for Muslims in China offered
a combined Chinese, “modern” (i.e., Western), and Islamic curriculum.
Because of his Confucian and Muslim educations, Ma Fuxiang sympa-
thized with this movement and participated actively, especially when the
May Thirtieth troubles brought Ma Songting ahong and the Chengda
College to Beijing.27 Never forgetting his early intellectual growth un-
der the influence of the Han kitab, Ma Fuxiang invested in new editions
of many major texts, including most of the books mentioned in chapter
3. His efforts enabled Wang Daiyu, Ma Zhu, and especially Liu Zhi to
find new audiences among twentieth-century Sino-Muslims, and some
previously unpublished texts were brought to light.
Ma Fuxiang belonged to the new age of nationalist Confucianism,
the “revolutionary conservative” ideology that sought to change
China’s institutions, national strength, and domestic order while pre-
serving its cultural values and elite traditions. He enjoyed socializing
with non-Muslim gentry and Guomindang leaders but was also carefhl
in advancing the careers of promising young Muslims who wanted to
emulate his worldly success.28 Non-Muslim allies praised him for his
guojia yizhi, his “national consciousness,” which they distinguished
from the stereotypically “different” Muslim consciousness as well as
27.	Ma Songting ahong, “Zhongguo Huijiao.”
28.	Ma Tingxiu, “Ma Fuxiang,” 190.
176﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
from provincial militarism. In public they admired his Islamic-
Confucian synthesis, publicized through his reprint projects of both
the Han kitab and Chinese classical works. They felt comfortable with
his advocacy of national unity, as all of them strengthened their local
bases in their home provinces.
In 1932 Ma Fuxiang—a rising star in Guomindang central councils, a
crucial power broker in the northwest, the best-known Muslim in
China—suddenly took sick and died while traveling from Hankou to
Beiping. He left behind a wide variety of projects to forward his ambi-
tion of achieving a true Sino-Muslim synthesis, the full integration of
the Sinophone Muslims as citizens of the Chinese Republic and partici-
pants in Chinese culture. He had planned with Ma Zhenwu, head of
one branch of the Jahriya in Ningxia, to translate the Koran into Chi-
nese. In 1931 he had taken a leading role in proposing formation of the
Muslim Educational Progressive Committee (Huimin Jiaoyu Zujin
Weiyuanhui), to be sponsored by the central government. When it came
into existence in 1933, that organization promoted Chinese education
among Muslims. In his military days Ma Fuxiang had led troops to kill
coreligionists who opposed what he saw as the Gansu Muslims’ best
interest, a stable position in a strong Qing state. By the end of his life
China had changed radically and the Muslim militarist had become an
educator, provincial gentryman, and Guomindang official, protecting
his territory and his family’s interests while working toward an active
role for Gansu and China’s Muslims in a strong nation-state. Ma
Fuxiang worked all his life to include himself among those who “are of
our kind,” the Chinese. His son and nephew, both staunch supporters
of the Guomindang and enemies of the Communists, ruled Ningxia—
most local people say very badly—for the remainder of the Republican
period.
MA YUANZHANG (1853-1920)
AND THE REVIVAL OF THE JAHRlYA
Ma Guanglie [Yuanzhang] does not look upon other religions with
hatred; in fact, he joined [his forces with] the militia to pursue
bandits. He may be called a man with national minzu
consciousness!29
29.	GNQSL 28.26a.
177﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
Rising from the Ashes
Syncretic assimilation to the new China of the late Qing and Republic
could be expected from Ma Fuxiang, the son of Ma Zhan’ao’s lieuten-
ant, for a segment of the Gansu Muslim elite identified with the Khafiya
had sought accommodation since before the 1780s rebellion. But no
one, least of all Gansu non-Muslims, expected the head of the Jahriya to
entertain such notions. Oft-proscribed since Su Forty-three’s violence
of 1781 and central to the uprising of Ma Hualong, the Jahriya, under its
condemnatory label of “New Teaching,” still inspired fear all over the
province. Despite the slaughter at Jinjipu, the order revived under the
leadership of a newjiaozhu, Ma Yuanzhang. He continued his predeces-
sors’ devotion to Jahriya solidarity, but his exposure to Chinese society,
his broad education, and the changing times altered his perception of
the place of the Muslims, including the Jahriya, in China, and he did not
act as many of his predecessors had acted.
We have seen the influence of Sufism and the tariqa fall on northwest
China, with deadly results—conflicts within Muslim communities lead-
ing to Qing military intervention, rebellion, and massacre. We must not
forget that between, or even during, those warlike events, Sufism as a
religious system, as faith and practice and intellectual-emotional experi-
ence, played a central role in the lives of its adherents. Though the
syncretic texts of the Han kitab were produced in eastern China, not in
the much larger but less literate world of the northwestern Muslims, Ma
Tong’s oral histories have revealed that a rich religious and cultural life
also animated the Sufis of Gansu. The ahong read and interpreted the
sacred texts, teachers and ordinary folk told tales of miracle-working
Sufis and evil enemies, and everyone “remembered” the glories of their
own virtuous ancestors, shaikh and daozu, embellishing the past to suit
their circumstances. The tombs of the daozu and his successors provided
an especially moving religious environment, as did the periodic collec-
tive celebrations (Ch. ermanli, Ar. al-ramal] of the Prophet or of the
shaikh, occasions for renewing solidarity and offering gifts.30 As it did
for Sufis elsewhere in the world, the Aaotang provided not only a locus
for community organization, which it surely did, but also a hospice, a
place of religious refuge. Frangoise Aubin has brilliantly reconstructed
the Jahriya religious life in China, focusing on the relationship of saint
to follower, the importance of the collective dhikr recitation, and the
30.	Gladney, “Muslim Tombs.”
178﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
excitement of understanding the proper approach to the divine.31 Dur-
ing the life of Ma Yuanzhang, the religious and intellectual power of
Jahriya Sufism in Gansu reemerged from the bloodshed and chaos of
the nineteenth century into a new relationship with Chinese culture.
According to his great-grandson, Ma Yuanzhang was a direct descen-
dant of Ma Mingxin.32 When Agui defeated Su Forty-three and the
New Teaching in 1781, he sentenced all of Ma Mingxin’s surviving family
to exile in Yunnan. There the survivors joined the large and active
western Yunnan Muslim community, proselytizing the Jahriya and serv-
ing as the jiaozhu’s representatives in the southwest. Ma Yuanzhang’s
father, Ma Shilin, journeyed from Yunnan to Ningxia twice to visit Ma
Hualong, once staying two years in Tongxin, south of Jinjipu, as an
ahong. When Du Wenxiu set up his Muslim-dominated Pingnan state in
Yunnan in the 1850s, Ma Shilin joined him as a garrison commander and
civil official. He held his fortress of Donggouzhai for over a year against
a Qing siege, then committed suicide in defeat. His sons had been sent
to Sichuan for safety, Ma Yuanzhang among them. They disguised
themselves as merchants and traveled to Gansu, arriving about a year
after the fall of Jinjipu and the death of their shaikh (see plate 19).
When Ma Mingxin returned to Gansu from Yemen in the 1760s, he
had severely criticized the Khafiya for allowing Ma Laichi’s son, Ma
Guobao, to succeed to his father’s baraka as shaikh, rather than selecting
the most meritorious disciple of the late master. During the decades
between Ma Mingxin’s execution and Ma Hualong’s ascendancy at
Jinjipu, that high-principled stand had eroded, as it had elsewhere in the
Muslim world, in favor of the hereditary charisma of a saintly lineage.
Ma Mingxin’s two direct successors to the shaikh's position, the second-
and third-generation masters of the Gansu Jahriya, were indeed chosen
by their predecessors or by the high-ranking initiates for their Koranic
scholarship, knowledge of Arabic and Persian, and piety.33 But the
fourth master, Ma Yide (late 1770s—1849), was the son of the third, and
from that generation onward the Jahriya moved toward the common
pattern of Sufi suborders in northwest China, that of the menhuan.
Though the transformation was not complete until Ma Yuanzhang’s
31.	Aubin, “En Islam chinois,” +93-520.
32.	This chronology of Ma Yuanzhang is based on: Ma Chen, “Ma Yuanzhang”; Ma
Tong, Zhongguo Tisilan . . . shilue, +19-29; and Kawamura, “Ba Gensho.” Descent from
Ma Mingxin made Ma Yuanzhang’s aspiration to the now-hereditary leadership of the
Jahriya legitimate.
33.	Aubin, “En Islam chinois,” 528.
179﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
lifetime, the crucial first step had been taken with Ma Yide’s succession
in 1817.
With proper devotion to the now-hereditary Jahriya chain of succes-
sion, Ma Yuanzhang tried to find any remnants of Ma Hualong’s family
who had survived the massacre at Jinjipu. He discovered two of Ma
Hualong’s grandsons, Ma Jincheng and Ma Jinxi, living under Qing
guard in Xi’an. Both boys had been sentenced to castration when they
reached twelve years of age, and Yuanzhang arrived too late to effect a
rescue of the older son, who suffered the penalty for his grandfather’s
rebellion. But when the unfortunate boy was sent to Kaifeng as a slave
after his punishment, Ma Yuanzhang placed disguised Jahriya members
near him, and they cared for him until he died in 1890. Ma Yuanzhang
did manage to have the second grandson rescued uncastrated from
confinement and smuggled through a series of Muslim homes to the
small but prosperous Muslim community of Hangzhou, in the lower
Yangzi valley. Working as a leather merchant, Ma Yuanzhang moved all
over eastern China, visiting Jahriya Muslims in a dozen provinces and
gaining fame as a trustworthy ahong, returning to the northwest to live
only after the 1895 violence had ended.
Ma Yuanzhang established his base in and around the town of
Zhangjiachuan, in the eastern part of the province, where Zuo Zong-
tang had relocated thousands of Shaanxi Muslims after the great rebel-
lion. Far from the feuds and violent histories of Hezhou, Didao,
Xining, and Ningxia, Zhangjiachuan became an all-Muslim enclave. No
non-Muslims lived within miles of the place, except for a few artisans
who were careful to follow the strictures of Muslim dietary law. The
Jahriya controlled the town and the nearby valleys, and there Ma
Yuanzhang undertook his work of community building, aiming toward
agricultural self-sufficiency, commercial success, religious education and
expression, and an end to feuding.34
Devoted to the revival of his order, Ma Yuanzhang also directed his
34.	Iwamura, “Kanshuku Kaimin no niruikei,” 144-47. Zhang Yangming, Dao xibei
lai, devotes an entire chapter to his stay in Maluzhen, Zhangjiachuan’s market. One
English account of the place exists, by an incredulous Rodney Gilbert, who combines in
his brief article the language of light-hearted travel with that of “Hordes of Semi-barbaric
Mohammedan Fanatics.” His description, shorn of its more fanciful elements, reveals a
tighdy organized community, devoted to its leader and to acts of charity, thoroughly
Chinese and Muslim. Gilbert found the community’s focus on Ma Yuanzhang, with
whom he had a cordial conversation, to be shocking and potentially dangerous, at the
same time remarking that the aged religious leader was devoted to Chinese republicanism
and had sent his son to work in Lanzhou (“Remarkable Development”).
180﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
efforts toward Muslim solidarity in general. Centering his personal and
religious life in the Jahriya—he married a woman from Ma Hualong’s
family—Ma Yuanzhang nonetheless cultivated friendships with non-
Jahriya Muslims and with influential non-Muslims as well.55 He ob-
tained a classical Chinese education, taking three northwestern Hanlin
scholars and a member of the Manchu ruling clan as his teachers. Skilled
in both Chinese and Arabic calligraphy, he scattered ceremonial scrolls
and inscriptions around the northwest. He made three complete copies
of the Koran in his own handwriting and composed essays and poems
on topics as diverse as the nature of prayer and the obligations of
patriotism. His followers venerated their jiaozhu and made pilgrimages
to his daotang, practices common to Sufis all over the world in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries.56
Dong Fuxiang, the Gansu general and military superior of Ma
Fuxiang’s family, could not hold national office after the Boxer debacle.
In European minds, he had been the most intractable, most reactionary
of the Qing loyalists, and his Gansu Muslim troops had been the most
steadfast against the foreign armies during the siege of the legations at
Beijing. As one of the besieged wrote:
Those to the north and west—all Kansuh men under Tung Fu-
hsiang—rcmainfed] sullen and suspicious. From other directions, and
especially on the east, where Jung Lu’s troops were posted, it was
possible to obtain supplies (small, but welcome) of eggs and vegeta-
bles, the sellers being smuggled through the Chinese soldiers’ lines in
spite of the prohibition of their officers, and it was from this side that
the messengers came with all later letters. They declared, in fact, that
they could not get through the troops on our western side without
being shot.35 36 37
An international clamor for Dong’s execution produced prevarication
from the Qing court, which did not want to punish him for having done
35.	One of Ma’s Hanlin teachers was Liu Erxin, a Lanzhou Confucian scholar fero-
ciously loyal to the Qing. In 1911 Liu founded the Confucian Society, a conservative group
that spread rapidly among the gentry. He consciously took Zeng Guofan as his model and
proposed firm allegiance to the classical curriculum from his seat in the Provincial Assem-
bly. See Yu, “Wusi yundong,” 102; Ma Chen, “Ma Yuanzhang,” 292; and Zhao Songyao,
“Gansu Ziyiju,” 54.
36.	Saguchi, “Chugoku Isuramu,” 85-87; and Aubin, “En Islam chinois,” 552—53.
37.	Tan, The Boxer Catastrophe, 114, citing the papers of the British minister, Sir Claude
MacDonald.
181﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
his job so loyally. Under pressure, the Qing stripped him of his rank,
though not his command, and banished him to a remote province—
Gansu, where his continued prestige and influence remained a source of
anxiety and gall for the European community in China until his death.38
Dong Fuxiang remembered Ma Hualong and Jinjipu very well, and
he desired to control the economic resources of northern Gansu, so he
resented the successful revival of the Jahriya.39 Rumors flew that he
planned to use his local militia to exterminate the Jahriya, so Ma
Yuanzhang had to respond. Times have changed, he wrote to Dong,
this is not the Tongzhi period, and you are not Zuo Zongtang. If you
dare to move against the Jahriya, Muslims all over the country will
report your treachery to the foreigners, and you will be finished.40 Ma
Yuanzhang had already used his Manchu contacts to obtain a pardon for
Ma Jinxi, so Dong knew that Ma might do as he threatened. Aware of
his own unpopularity with the Europeans and the Qing’s promise to
punish him, Dong backed down, and the region remained at peace.
After decades of discrimination and turmoil, the Jahri Muslims could
once again wear their distinctive white caps on the streets of Guyuan or
Haicheng and do their business unafraid, thanks to Ma Yuanzhang (see
plate 20). His reputation as ashanren, a saint, grew apace, and pilgrims
flocked to Zhangjiachuan.
Coming to Terms with New China
Anti-Manchu violence broke out at Ningxia in 1911, led by the powerful
Gelaohui secret society.41 The provincial government sent Ma Qi to
restore order, and the revolutionaries sent Yu Youren to Zhangjiachuan
to see Ma Yuanzhang, to persuade him not to support the Qing. Yu
advocated anti-Manchu revolution and left books for Ma to distribute,
but Ma did not wish to endanger his relationship with the provincial
capital and its distant Qing masters. He sent the eastern Gansu Muslim
militia, under one of his sons, to help Ma Qi fight against the Gelaohui,
38.	Letters regarding Dong’s purported rebellious activities in Gansu may be found in
the North China Herald numbers of July 3, 1901; January 8, 1902; March 12,1902; April 9,
1902; and many others.
39.	Aubin notes the presence at Zhangjiachuan of merchants from Andijan, in the
Ferghana Valley west of the Pamirs, as well as pilgrims and merchants from Canton,
Nanjing, Guizhou, Yunnan, and all over Gansu (“En Islam chinois,” 552).
40.	Ma Chen, “Ma Yuanzhang,” 298.
41.	GNQSL 26.42a-44b. A Gelaohui plot at Xining was nipped in the bud at the same
time.
182﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
including its Muslim members, at Ningxia. After the failure of Sheng-
yun, Changgeng, and Ma Anliang’s invasion of Shaanxi in 1912, Ma
Yuanzhang adapted rapidly to the “Republican” (that is, warlord) ad-
ministration and the devolution of power to the local level. Ma recog-
nized that Yuan Shikai’s government, which could appoint the highest
provincial officials, held one key to Gansu’s stability.
When the powerful, peripatetic general Bai Lang invaded Gansu with
tens of thousands of “bandit” troops in 1914, Governor Zhang Guang-
jian had just been appointed by the central government, and real power
still lay in local hands, not in Lanzhou. Ma Jinxi, Ma Hualong’s par-
doned grandson, was arrested and accused by eastern Gansu gentry of
collusion with Bai Lang. Ma Yuanzhang went directly to Lanzhou, to
Zhang Guangjian, whom he was able to bribe to release Ma Hualong’s
remaining descendant. In the early Republic, unlike the mid-Qing, the
provincial government could use the Jahriya to cooperate in maintain-
ing social order. From 1911 on ambitious power holders in northern and
eastern Gansu sent emissaries to Zhangjiachuan rather than risk disaffec-
tion of the Jahriya. Ma Yuanzhang had achieved legitimacy for himself
and his once-proscribed order. His militia could not prevent Bai Lang
from taking Zhangjiachuan, but they fought in the unsuccessful defense
of Tianshui and gained reknown and non-Muslim gratitude for their
leader.42
Ma Fuxiang and the other Gansu militarists found governor Zhang
Guangjian’s domination in Lanzhou both irritating and expensive. By
1916 they were already arguing for a local dujun, under the slogan
“Gansu people should govern Gansu” (Ch. Gan ren zhi Gan). Calling
on Ma Yuanzhang as a fellow Muslim and a fellow provincial, Ma
Fuxiang, who desired the position of dujun himself, asked his support
for a message to Yuan Shikai. Instead of cooperating with his coreli-
gionist, Ma Yuanzhang telegraphed Beijing that Zhang remained the
best man for the job. He earned Ma Fuxiang’s enmity, but he gained
stature and influence in Lanzhou and east China by this apparendy
selfless, “patriotic” act. When Ma Yuanzhang visited Lanzhou in 1918,
the people welcomed him warmly and hung out scrolls and banners: “A
man of all quarters, a boat for all waters!” (Ch. Dong nan xi bei ren, jiang
he hu hai chuari) (see plate 21).43
On December 16, 1920, a massive and devastating earthquake struck
the Haicheng-Guyuan region of eastern Gansu. Because so many of
42.	“Gansu dudufu dang’an,” 262 ff.
43.	Ma Chen, “Ma Yuanzhang,” 301.
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the residents of that loess country lived (and a few still live) in man-
made caves carved horizontally into the steep hillsides, whole villages
were buried alive that night. Entire mountainsides slid into valleys,
rivers were obstructed and flooded the low-lying areas, and massive
cracks in the earth swallowed fields and farms. Estimates of the death
toll, always suspect in China, ranged as high as two hundred thou-
sand. A quarter-mile of the Xi’an—Lanzhou highway, along which Zuo
Zongtang had planted two continuous rows of willow trees, moved
overland to lodge forlorn on a newly created hill.44
That earthquake also killed Ma Yuanzhang and one of his sons, both
crushed by the collapse of a mosque near Zhangjiachuan.45 Already in
his mid-sixties, he had devoted his life to reviving the Jahriya, but not in
its old form and not with its old purposes. Under his leadership the
order no longer functioned as the New Teaching—the fundamentalist,
anti-assimilationist, mti-menhuan institution created by Ma Mingxin
and his disciples in the eighteenth century. Indeed, it had already lost
the New Teaching name to a new sub-group within the Khafiya during
the 1895 troubles. The Jahriya under his leadership had become another
menhuan, split by factional strife, led by wealthy patriarchs and dedi-
cated to conservative goals within Chinese society—Islamic spiritual
growth and Muslim economic success. Instead of dying for the Jahriya
and Islam, his followers learned to read Arabic and Chinese and under-
took commercial ventures all over north and west China.
This new legitimacy and cooperation were not solely results of the fall
of the Qing, though the Republic and its decentralized power structure
made Ma Yuanzhang a particularly attractive ally for the Gansu provin-
cial leaders. The new impulses also grew from the new imperatives
China brought to its frontiers in the late nineteenth century and from
the growing dependence of the northwest on China proper, fostered by
the modern growth of the Chinese state and economy. In the mid-Qing
a New Teaching leader could be only nfeitu, an illegitimate antistate
44.	Zhao Shiying, “Gansu dizhen jianzhi,” 259-67, contains numerous published ac-
counts of the quake’s damage and local attempts to aid the suffering and homeless. For an
English-language account and some extraordinary photographs, see Close and Mc-
Cormick, “Where the Mountains Walked.”
45- So firm were Euro-American images of Muslims that missionary accounts of Ma’s
death claimed that he was on the verge of a new “Mohammedan rebellion” when provi-
dentially killed by the earthquake. One even reported that killing had already begun in the
towns of eastern Gansu. Given the above narrative of Ma Yuanzhang’s life to this point,
these notices reveal only the fear and prejudices of their writers, not Ma Yuanzhang’s
activities or condition in 1920.
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bandit. By the early Republic, Gansu non-Muslims could call Ma
Yuanzhang a shanren, and Gansu gentry could praise his “national eth-
nic consciousness” as they praised Ma Fuxiang’s. Ma Yuanzhang re-
sponded by publicly proclaiming his loyalty to China, even if that in-
volved political opposition to Muslim countries. When the Ottoman
government allied with Germany, technically China’s enemy in the first
World War, Ma telegraphed Beijing:
We are the same as the Han except in religion. We are not united in
any way politically with Arabia. Our lives, livelihoods,and graves are
in China. Why should we harm our country for some foreigners?
Though there were Han-Muslim killings in the Qing, since the Repub-
lic we have kept the peace and done our duty, not opposing the
government or secredy plotting. We have been good citizens among
the Five Nationalities!46
The revival of the Jahriya did not produce simple, positive results. Ma
Jinxi, Ma Hualong’s grandson and former castrato-in-waiting, consid-
ered himself to be the heir to the baraka of the Jahriya jiaozhu. Ma Yuan-
zhang, on the other hand, had led the suborder’s rise from the ashes of
Jinjipu and had married a woman from Ma Hualong’s lineage in order
to tie himself closer to that source of legitimacy. Though he never
openly challenged Ma Jinxi’s claim to Ma Hualong’s mantle, he claimed
Ma Mingxin’s for himself, thus splitting the seventh generation of
Jahriya masters into two sometimes-rival factions. Ma Yuanzhang’s,
based around Zhangjiachuan, has come to be called the Shagou lineage,
from the site (near Ningxia) of one of his twogongbei (see plate 22). Ma
Jinxi, who returned to the Ningxia region, set up his headquarters near
Jinjipu, and his lineage has come to be known as the Banqiao, after its
location. In the eighth generation, which followed, no fewer than six
Jahriya leaders claimed legitimate descent from Ma Yuanzhang, while
two of Ma Jinxi’s sons competed within the Banqiao family. In short,
the Jahriya became a menhuan, with all of the centralizing and fragment-
ing possibilities of that complex institution and its commitment to
stability and continuity within Chinese society.47
The career of Ma Yuanzhang, like that of Ma Fuxiang, illustrates an
important but ironic theme of modern Chinese history. At its edges, a
new nation must assert both political and cultural sovereignty, and
46. Shimohayashi, “Seihoku Shina,” 217 f.
47- Aubin, “En Islam chinois,” 526-28,542-51.
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convert what had been frontier buffer zones for an empire—those gov-
erned by Qing period tusi, for example—into integral parts of the
homeland, demarcated by national boundaries. This was the substance
of Gu Jiegang’s message in 1938—that the border and the frontier must
be the same line. But that process took a long time, including the Qing
conquest of the northwest and then eastern Turkestan; Agui’s subjuga-
tion of Su Forty-three and Tian Wu; Zuo Zongtang’s carefully planned
reconquest of the whole northwest; the creation of Xinjiang as a prov-
ince; and Dong Fuxiang’s cooptation of Ma Anliang and his Muslim
cavalry to defeat Ma Weihan, Ma Yonglin, and the other rebels of 1895.
All of these military acts forwarded the political incorporation of the
northwestern frontier into a Chinese-dominated nation-state, centered
in the east.
The irony lies in the gradual disintegration that characterized political
China as a whole during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As
Qing and then Republican governments struggled to hold at the center,
as secessionist movements broke off large chunks of the empire, as the
entire political fabric unraveled after 1916, the northwest drew closer to
China. Ma Fuxiang, Ma Yuanzhang, and many other northwestern
Muslims played roles in that conflicted but nonetheless clearly centripe-
tal movement. By accepting the legitimacy of the Qing and Republican
states and actively supporting them, working with or even becoming
officials, building their own communities as part of the Chinese nation,
these new leaders ensured the inseparable bond between their poor,
battered region and the New China a-borning in its cultural centers
back east.
MA QIXI (1857-1914) AND HIS SINO-ISLAMIC
COLLECTIVIST MOVEMENT IN SOUTHERN GANSU
In 1914, after Ma Anliang murdered Ma Qixi, more than forty
young women of the Xidaotang were kidnapped to Hezhou, where
they were imprisoned in a cart shop before being bestowed upon
men. Two abong from another menhuan just happened to be
walking by the shop gate and saw what was going on, so they
could not help but ask, “You say that your Xidaotang is an
orthodox Way, but everyone says you’re heretics! What the ear
hears may be groundless, but what the eye sees is true, so we’ll test
you today. Can you answer?” Then the two ahong started quizzing
them about faith, the six articles of faith, and the five divine
186﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
commandments, and then moved on to the interpretation of each
part of the Koran, shari'a, the Three Vehicles [of Sufism], and
more. Those young women, using both Arabic and Chinese, cited
the scriptures and quoted the texts, answering every question
smoothly and fluendy. The two ahong were deeply moved, and they
ran to Ma Anliang and said, “You’ve made a grave error! Their
religious solidarity is a true one.” And they demanded that the
imprisoned Xidaotang women be released.48
On the inside, communist; to the outside, imperialist [Ch. Nei
gongchan, wai dtguo\ 49
Local Leader, National Vision
Ma Yuanzhang rebuilt the Jahriya, using its already established net-
works, its interprovincial trade, and its tradition of internal cohesion in
the face of social, religious, and political hostility. His expertise in Chi-
nese calligraphy, social relations, and politics earned him the admiration
of Qing officials and local gentry, while his Islamic learning, Arabic
calligraphy, and ability as a mediator won him the respect and obedi-
ence due from menhuan adherents to a successful jiuozhu. Around
Zhangjiachuan, he tried to built a self-sufficient refuge, a place where
Muslims could live, not detached from Chinese society but far enough
from the real dangers of ethnic strife and prejudice. He also shared with
Ma Fuxiang, the cosmopolitan Guomindang warlord based at Ningxia,
the need to relocate the Sino-Muslims politically in the rapidly changing
world of New China. At home in Gansu, both of them had to deal with
Ma Anliang, whose military and political power, based at Hezhou,
dominated the region. All players in Gansu public life knew that Ma
Anliang would use his cavalry and his close relationship to the Lanzhou
authorities against any opposition, a willingness displayed most vividly
in his violent attack on the Xidaotang, an apparently innocuous Muslim
group based at Old Taozhou.50
+8. Zhu Gang, “Zhongguo Yisilanjiao,” 101-2.
+9. This proverbial description of the Xidaotang appears in many articles on the
subject, e.g., the comment of Gu Jiegang’s companion in his northwestern mission (Wang
Shumin, “Xidaotang,” 123).
50.	Old Taozhou refers to the jiucheng, the more ancient and strategically located of
two walled towns in the county, both now called Lintan. New Taozhou, for a long time
the administrative seat of the county, lies twenty miles to the east, closer to the northward
bend of the Tao River and to China.
187﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
The Xidaotang grew and thrived in the multicultural atmosphere of a
trading town on the frontiers of cultural China and cultural Tibet.
There, Muslim merchants of many languages and backgrounds, non-
Muslim Chinese from many centers, and Tibetans both sedentary and
nomadic met to exchange goods. Wealthy in peacetime, vulnerable in
wartime, Old Taozhou had been a meeting ground of cultures since the
Six Dynasties period (c.e. 220—589), when it was established to guard
the border with the Tuyuhun, who were finally driven out by the Latter
Zhou. A millennium later Mu Ying, one of Zhu Yuanzhang’s close
associates, brought an army to subdue the “eighteen lineages of the
Tufan” in 1379. Many of his Muslim soldiers stayed at Taozhou, building
the town’s first mosque and setting up in trade between the nomads and
the sedentary population of the Tao valley, Hezhou, and points north
and east.51
As discussed above, Taozhou did not share the internecine Muslim
battles of suborders and menhuan that brought fire and sword down on
Xining, Xunhua, Ningxia, and Hezhou after the 1760s. Its Muslim com-
munity remained primarily Gedimu, organized in mosque-based local
solidarities dedicated to local action through their elites, the Hui
gentry—which included ahong, merchants, military examination gradu-
ates, and landowners. Far from any direct connection with Central Asia,
balanced between Tibet and China, Taozhou’s Chinese-speaking Mus-
lims were more oriented toward China than toward the Muslim heart-
lands. They claimed descent from Nanjing natives among Mu Ying’s
Muslim troops, so their culture remained more “eastern,” more associ-
ated with China proper than with the frontier.52 Two suborders of the
Khafiya, the Huasi and Beizhuang menhuan, sought initiates in the
town with some success and were able to establish mosques, but neither
serious religious disputes nor violent lineage feuds broke the relative
peace of the Taozhou Muslims.
Ma Qixi was born into the family of a Taozhou ahong of the
Beizhuang menhuan. In the early stages of his education, he showed
great promise as a scholar, so his father made a fairly unusual choice for
a Gansu man of religion. He sent his eleven-year-old son to study with a
non-Muslim, a local examination graduate, at his private academy.
Amazed by the boy’s precocious intellectual skills, the teacher intro-
duced his student to a more prestigious instructor, the locally famous
senior licentiate Fan Shengwu, whose school convened at New Tao-
51.	Taozhou ting zhi of 1908,106. Sec also Zhang Tingyu, Ming shi 2.15b.
52.	Guan, “Xidaotang,” 76.
188﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
zhou.53 Following the conventional curriculum for civil service candi-
dates, Ma Qixi placed second in the Taozhou examination, then fourth
at the prefectural examination in Gongchang, achieving both the praise
of his teacher and the civil rank of xiueai, rare for a northwestern
Muslim.
Though he had spent much of his time on the standard Neo-
Confucian texts, Ma Qixi had also read widely in the Han kitab and
found there the core of Sino-Muslim knowledge. In his analysis, neither
the Confucians nor the Daoists had the highest learning. Rather, Wang
Daiyu, Ma Zhu, Liu Zhi, and the others had synthesized the universal
Confucian discourse of virtue, morality, nature, and principle with the
glorious monotheism of Islam to produce the true way. Acting on his
conviction that Sino-Muslims should use Chinese culture as their me-
dium for understanding Islam, Ma Qixi returned to Old Taozhou and
opened his own school, the Gold Star Hall (Ch. Jinxing Tang), at a
gongbei of his own Beizhuang menhuan. There he taught Islamic reli-
gion, the Chinese curriculum, and the Haw kitab to a devoted following,
which slowly grew to over one hundred students. His students learned
the standard vocabulary of xiushen, individual cultivation of the inher-
ently virtuous self, but they did so in order to comprehend God’s
commandments and the model life of the Prophet.
Clearly differing with his ascetically minded, Central Asian influenced
Sufi colleagues in the Beizhuang menhuan, Ma broke with his original
solidarity and became an independent instructor, focusing on Liu Zhi’s
works. The Sufis of the Khafiya called him heterodox, even a nonbe-
liever, for his worldly success and his unconventional curriculum; they
even went so far as to forbid their followers any meat slaughtered by Ma
Qixi or his followers.54 Since Taozhou’s Muslim communities had not
been riven by religious conflict before this point, all disturbances could
conveniently be blamed on him and his (yet again) New Teaching. By
1902 the strife was sufficiently severe that Beizhuang and Huasi adher-
ents went to court, charging Ma Qixi and his followers with hetero-
doxy, and the Taozhou subprefect proscribed Ma’s teaching and con-
victed his followers, a number of whom were jailed or beaten.55 After
53.	Zi, “Zhongguo Yisilanjiao Xidaotang shilue,” 2.
54.	Guan, “Xidaotang,” 83.
55.	Details of the suit, including the defendants, their sentences, and the verdict’s
reversal by a higher court, may be found in “Ma Qixi xiansheng,” 131-32. This account,
very sympathetic to the Xidaotang, was written by an anonymous Muslim associated with
the solidarity.
189﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
the verdict was reversed a year later, Ma set up a mosque in Taozhou,
and the resulting furor threatened to escalate into violence. Taking his
cue from Laozi, the legendary Daoist sage who went west beyond the
pass, Ma Qixi set out on the pilgrimage to Mecca in 1905 with two
disciples.
The three Chinese pilgrims never reached their goal. Trapped by local
and regional wars and unsetded political conditions in Russian-
dominated Central Asia, Ma spent three years in Samarkand, studying
and teaching (his adherents say) among the Baishan suborder of Sufis.56
After one of his companions died, he returned to Taozhou, more con-
vinced than ever that he should teach Chinese Muslims to understand
Islam through Chinese culture, precisely the formula proposed by the
authors of the Han kitab. Again opening a school, this time he called it
the Xidaotang, which could be translated either as Western Hospice or
Hall of the Western Dao.57 Under that name, and in conformity with
Ma’s unique vision of Sino-Muslim life, the new solidarity flourished.
Because of his strong attachment to Chinese culture, Ma Qixi also paid
close attention to political developments within China, so when the Qing
fell in 1912, the men of the Xidaotang cut their queues and the women
unbound their feet.
Establishing the Collective
Appropriate to a young man raised in a mercantile atmosphere, Ma Qixi
practiced and taught a very worldly, as well as religious, Islam. He
emphasized social practice and economic life, the organization of Mus-
lims for material and spiritual success. To that end, he made the
Xidaotang into a collective corporate enterprise in which economic,
cultural, and religious life were combined. The capital for this venture
came from the possessions of his own family and those of his followers.
56.	Baishan (White Mountain), a term common in Sino-Muslim accounts of Central
Asian Islam, probably refers to the Afaqlya, the Naqshabandi suborder associated with
Khoja Afaq and therefore with the Khafiya. That solidarity is called Aqtaghliq, also
meaning White Mountain, in Turkic sources. Despite Ma Qixi’s difficulties with the
Khafiya in his home town, he had been raised within that suborder and probably felt most
comfortable with its rituals and texts in the foreign atmosphere of Samarkand (Fletcher,
“Naqshbandiyya,” 10, nj).
57.	The former translation is the more likely, since daotang (Sufi hospice) was already
an established term among Gansu Muslims and Ma Qixi’s mosque lay west of Taozhou’s
wall. But the ambiguity may well have been intentional, since Ma Qixi’s Dao, Islam, came
from the west, from Tianfang, from Arabia.
190﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
Anyone who entered the Xidaotang as an “inner” (full) member donated
all property, personal goods, and wealth to the collective treasury, which
the leaders then invested in a wide variety of activities. Beginning with
Taozhou’s specialty—trade between pastoral Tibet and agricultural-
artisanal China—the Xidaotang expanded into agriculture, livestock rais-
ing, forestry, and processing. The Xidaotang’s trading company, under
the corporate name Tian Xing Long, became an important player in the
production, concentration, brokering, transport, and sale of goods rang-
ing from grain and vinegar to jade and rare medicaments.
Initial resistance to Tian Xing Long’s success came, of course, from
its local competitors, chief among them the Huasi menhuaris Yi Xing
Gong company, headed by a Taozhou Muslim gentryman. In Huasi
perceptions, not only did the Xidaotang teach heterodoxy and lure
adherents away from the menhuan, it also deprived the established com-
pany of revenues and trade. Unfortunately for Ma Qixi and his follow-
ers, the Hezhou warlord and Huasi adherent Ma Anliang had invested
heavily in the Yi Xing Gong—one source says to the amount of thirty
thousand taels of silver.58 Apart from the obvious economics, Ma
Anliang had a variety of reasons to hate, or at least mistrust, Ma Qixi
and the Xidaotang. Within the Gansu Muslim institutional world, Ma
Anliang supported the Huasi menhuan, which had opposed Ma Qixi’s
“innovations.” Allied with the most conservative Manchu ex-governors,
Ma Anliang might well have found the Xidaotang’s advocacy of Repub-
lican loyalty galling. Most telling, the Hezhou warlord certainly wanted
to control the commerce of the Taoxi region, a rich source of revenue
that was flowing increasingly into the collective coffers of the Xidao-
tang. Ma Anliang found his solution in the invasion of Gansu by the Bai
Lang army in the spring of 1914.
Bai Lang, a talented and charismatic military man from Henan, com-
bined the career and romantic imperial aspirations of a roving brigand
with the nationalist politics of the early Republican period. He was
denounced as a bandit, touted as a social revolutionary, and widely
perceived as the immanent emperor of a new dynasty, an impression he
did not hesitate to exploit. He worked for the restoration of the Qing,
then accepted the Republican governorship of Henan, and ended by
comparing himself to Liu Bang, the founder of the Han dynasty. His
campaigns in Henan, Anhui, Hubei, and Shaanxi have been well stud-
ied, but the end of his military success, namely his defeat in Gansu, has
58.	Guan, “Xidaotang,” 85.
191﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
not.59 Unable to reduce Xi’an by siege as Liu Bang had done, Bai Lang’s
army entered Gansu from Shaanxi at its peak strength, perhaps as many
as ten thousand men, heading for Sichuan and a new base. Six weeks
later, they emerged from Gansu a straggling mob of disorganized units,
fleeing eastward for home. This dramatic change had been wrought by
the tenacious resistance of local troops, successful pursuit by central
government forces, blockading of the southward passes by Sichuan
provincial armies, and by the Gansu terrain. The last stop for Bai Lang
had been Old Taozhou.
After taking cities in eastern Gansu in the spring of 1914, Bai Lang
lost an important positional battle with Gansu provincial forces along
the main Xi’an-Lanzhou highway.60 He then moved southward only to
find the Baishui River uncrossable with the Tibetan snowmelt and the
passes blocked by the Sichuanese. With national and Gansu troops
behind him, he had to keep moving northwestward to Minzhou, where
his frustrated troops looted, raped, and killed inside the walls for a
whole night.61 Unable to follow his original plan, Bai Lang was trapped
inside the cul-de-sac of Taoxi—he could not retrace his steps or move
south, and Ma Anliang’s army blocked the direct route to Lanzhou via
Didao, so the Taozhou—Hezhou road offered the only escape route.
After defeating the tusi Yang Jiqing’s Tibetans, Bai’s army headed for
New, then Old Taozhou, both of which they took, but with very differ-
ent results. New Taozhou did not resist and was only briefly looted. The
gentry and militia of Old Taozhou prepared to defend its stout wall,
while the Xidaotang adherents barricaded themselves in their stockade
at Xifeng Mountain.62
59.	Two useful English-language sources on Bai Lang are Hegel, “The White Wolf”;
and Perry, “Social Banditry Revisited.” Neither deals with the Gansu war, which ended
Bai Lang’s successful march across North China. Bai Lang was often erroneously called
the “White Wolf,” for his surname means “white” and his given name is a homophone for
“wolf.”
60.	The surrender of Tongwei County involved the local gentry’s welcoming Bai,
putting him and his officers up at the local elementary school, and giving them dinner.
Bai’s social conscience did not allow him to devastate so poor and polite a place, so he
donated a substantial sum to the commander to buy books for the schoolchildren
(GNQSL 28.24b).
61.	Mrs. Christie, wife of a missionary, barely escaped with her virtue intact; many
local women were not so lucky. Her diary account may be found in the North China
Herald, June 27,1914, and a somewhat more cynical version in Farrer, On the Eaves, vol. 2,
75-76.
62.	A missionary writer claims that the Xidaotang had provided itself with modem
weapons, purchased with commercial profits and shipped into Gansu via Hankou and
192﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
Descending from the east in the last week of May, Bai confronted the
Old Taozhou coalition with overwhelming numbers. Knowing the
town’s wealth and its Muslim majority, the Henan and Shaanxi troops
destroyed the city with a brutality unprecedented in their long march.
After a brief battle, the invaders broke the defenders and began a thor-
ough pillage of the walled city, which lay empty even a year later:
The chief feature was the fact that the four walls enclosed nothing but
a mass of ruins, the town having been burnt out by the White Wolf
[Bai Lang] rebels the year before; we saw many a ruined city in Kansu
in the course of our travels—indeed, in that province ruins are the rule
rather than the exception—but nothing so utterly and completely
destroyed as Old T’ao Chou.63
Reginald Farrer, who was collecting wildflowers in the Tibetan moun-
tains during the battle, heard about it from Mr. Christie and Mr.
Purdom, who were in Taozhou only a few days after:
Tao-jo was taken by storm, and the Wolves immediately set themselves
deliberately to destroy every living thing within its walls, not only the
men and women, the cattle and horses, but down to the very dogs and
cats in the lanes. The gates were stacked up to their arches with
carrion, and the streets a chaos of corpses.64
The Muslims of the town, many of them Huasi and Beizhuang adher-
ents, held out in one of the large mosques but, facing defeat, either
immolated themselves or were burned to death by Bai Lang’s men.
Between eight thousand and sixteen thousand people died in the sack of
Taozhou, a high percentage of them Muslims.65 Even sources favorable
to Bai Lang call the massacre a mistake, and some do not mention it at
all.66
The social origins of many of Bai Lang’s men may hold a clue to the
Hanzhong. Certainly the Xidaotang had the money and the connections to accomplish
this difficult feat of transport, even under the watchful eyes of Ma Anliang (Andrew,
Crescent, 58).
65.	Teichman, Travels of a Consular Officer, 135.
64.	Farrer, On the Eaves, vol. 2,101.
65.	Pei Jianzhun, “Bai Lang rao Long,” 40, reports the higher figure. Most sources lie
in between the two.
66.	Yu Yao, “Bai Lang qiyi jun,” 118.
193﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
horrific violence visited on the Taozhou Muslims. They were members
of the Gelaohui secret society, which, in the volatile atmosphere of
Henan and southern Shaanxi, had become virulendy anti-Manchu and
anti-Muslim.67 Contemporary Chinese scholars join Farrer and the cor-
respondent of the North China Herald in chorus, accusing Ma Anliang
of treachery against his compatriots at Taozhou, of refusal to do battle
with Bai Lang. But Ma Anliang’s main purpose lay in protecting He-
zhou, and beyond it Lanzhou, not the small towns of southern Gansu,
and his immobility in the face of an invading army ten thousand strong
is certainly understandable, if not forgivable. Passive though it was, his
strategy worked. Blocked on the north by Ma’s defensive posture at
Hezhou, the Bai Lang army had no route except to return eastward via
Minzhou. The Tibetans had destroyed the floating bridge over the Tao,
and the crossing drowned many of Bai’s men. The southern Gansu
towns, already pillaged once, held out more effectively than they had
before, and the supplies, the loot, and even the food were gone. Bai’s
career was over, his army a disorganized and hungry rabble splintering
and running for home, never to reunite as an effective fighting force.
Bai himself was driven to suicide shortly after, but one of his command-
ers became governor of Shaanxi, and others reintegrated themselves
into their home districts.
And the Xidaotang? They held their suburban fortress against an
assault by Bai Lang’s men and actually left their redoubt to attack the
looting invaders, against considerable odds, the day after the city was
taken. Retreating further into Tibetan territory with their families, they
suffered only minor losses in battle and preserved their strength. And
there lay Ma Anliang’s opportunity, for he could easily give public
credence to the rumors that Ma Qixi had struck a deal with Bai Lang,
the murderer of so many Muslims and helpless civilians of all communi-
ties. Ma Yuanzhang had resisted Bai Lang in eastern Gansu; Ma
Anliang himself had held firm; the Khafiya martyrs of Taozhou had
died nobly; but Ma Qixi, he accused, had treacherously sold out.68
Claiming to be pursuing bandits, in mid-June Ma Anliang sent a battal-
ion to Taozhou, where they entered the Xidaotang compound at Xifeng
Mountain and captured twenty-five men, including Ma Qixi, his two
67.	Reginald Farrer observed the Gelaohui as a menacing presence in Fengxiang a few
weeks before the Bai Lang invasion of Gansu (On the Eaves, vol. 1, 84).
68.	For Ma Yuanzhang’s mustering of the Jahriya militia against Bai Lang, see GNQSL
28.25b. For Ma Anliang’s use of the rumor of Ma Qixi’s connection to Bai Lang, see Guan,
“Xidaotang,” 85.
194﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
younger brothers, his son, and other leaders of the solidarity. Taking
them to a nearby riverbank, Ma Anliang’s men shot them all.69
So personal a vision and leadership as Ma Qixi’s might have been
irreplaceable, but he had built an institution sufficiendy coherent that
his successors were able to carry on. For five years after the killings,
Xidaotang adherents poured out the collective’s wealth in lawsuit after
lawsuit, at Lanzhou and then at Beijing, to bring the crime home
against Ma Anliang. Each suit was referred back to Zhang Guangjian
at Lanzhou, and each time he decided not to interfere. Even after
another, smaller massacre of Xidaotang men at Taizi (now Hezheng)
during a memorial service, the provincial authorities did not or could
not act to censure the powerful Muslim militarist.70 Finally, following
Ma Anliang’s death in 1919, the Muslim general Ma Lin brought the
Lanzhou authorities and the Xidaotang together to negotiate at He-
zhou, and Ma Qixi’s solidarity was recognized as a legal Muslim insti-
tution rather than a renegade gang.
Fish and Meat: Staying Alive in the 1920s
After its legalization, the Xidaotang had to survive the privations and
politics of Gansu in the warlord period. The province had always been
poor—had long suffered under the tyranny of a harsh environment,
strong military presence, and heavy official exactions—so the 1920s did
not bring new kinds of suffering, just more of the old ones. The absence
of effective government combined with nature’s eccentric depredations
to bring the whole region the hardest and poorest of times. Opium
cultivation on a vast scale deprived many counties, even multicounty
regions, of their grain supplies; multiple currencies made even the sim-
plest market transactions into elaborate calculations; major earthquakes
reduced wide areas of eastern Gansu (1920) and the eastern part of the
Gansu corridor (1927) to rubble; and drought brought multiprovince
famine in the late 1920s.71
Even in those awful times, the Xidaotang achieved commercial and
69.	The anonymous author of “Ma Qixi xiansheng” (p. 134) writes: “On the nine-
teenth day of the intercalary fifth month, the warlord Ma Anliang, of the hate-filled
movement, used the excuse of clearing out bandits and, without public documents,
without legal warrants, shot the master to death. Those who followed him included his
brothers, Qijin and Qihua, his son Longde, his nephew Xilong, and [many others].”
70.	For a brief account of this incident, see Min, “Hezheng Taizijie,” 170.
71.	For detailed descriptions of these and other privations, see Lipman, “The Border
World,” chap. 5.
195﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
religious success. The Xidaotang was known as one of the “three great
families” of southern Gansu, in company with Yang Jiqing (the Tibetan
tusi at Choni) and the chief rimpoche of the great lamasery at Labrang.
At its core lay about four hundred “inner” adherents who lived collec-
tively in a huge compound at Taozhou, administering their commercial
empire and common wealth. Each male member received an assignment
according to his abilities, so the solidarity made best use of the mascu-
line talent at its disposal. Another one thousand or so adherents lived
away from Taozhou, working on the road or at production, processing,
and sales enterprises. The Xidaotang bought agricultural land, pas-
tureland, and forest land, all of which they put to profitable use, becom-
ing self-sufficient producers of grain, large-scale traders in livestock, and
exporters of wood products. Some Muslims chose not to become fully
collectivized members, preferring to remain as private entrepreneurs,
working for the Xidaotang but retaining their own possessions; one
survey estimated their numbers at around 3,500, for a total of around
five thousand members in the entire organization.72 73 This large, well-
integrated collective structure clearly had very positive benefits, for the
solidarity thrived even in the 1920s.
It did not escape unscathed, however, from the warlord batdes that
plagued the region. After Feng Yuxiang took titular command of the
northwest, local commanders of all ethnicities scrambled to accommo-
date his powerful outside army. Hoping to drive Feng away from Taoxi
and Huangzhong, Ma Zhongying, the Little Commander (local Ch. Ga
Siling), a Xining Muslim adventurer from Ma Qi’s family,75 raided the
entire Hezhou region in the late 1920s, attacking Hezhou three times,
and then fled southward toward Taozhou with thousands of young Mus-
lim men, eager to plunder.74 Ma Zhongying’s troops clashed with local
Muslims and with the Tibetans in and near Old Taozhou, so the
Xidaotang members abandoned their shops, warehouses, and homes,
72.	Guan, “Xidaotang,” 89, citing “an investigation.”
73.	The European adventurer Sven Hedin wrote a book about Ma Zhongying’s cam-
paigns in Xinjiang, giving him the name Big Horse, but he was always known as the Litde
Commander in Gansu, for he began his campaign against Feng Yuxiang’s Guominjun at
the tender age of seventeen (Hedin, The Flight of “Big Horse”). After three years of
peripatetic campaigning in Gansu, with no apparent effect on the Guominjun but devas-
tating consequences for much of the province, he entered his forces into the factionalist
politics of Xinjiang, described (more accurately than Hedin could) in Forbes, Warlords
and Muslims, chaps. 3—+. Ma Zhongying fled to the Soviet Union in 1934, at twenty-three
years of age, and no one knows what became of him (Fan Manyun, “Liu Yufen,” 110—27).
74- See Lipman, “Ethnic Conflict,” 78-81.
196﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
fleeing into Tibetan territory for their lives. The Xidaotang central com-
pound became Ma Zhongying’s headquarters.
In three years of complex fighting, the Xidaotang lost a large portion
of its wealth, but none of its cohesion or political savvy. Even while its
headquarters lived in exile among the Tibetans, branches continued to
do business, and a new office opened in Zhangjiakou (Chahar’s entre-
pot, northwest of Beiping).75 When peace returned after 1932, the soli-
darity’s leaders forged closer ties with the new rulers of the northwest,
the Guomindang, and once again thrived. Like Ma Fuxiang, they saw
their best advantage in alliance with the Guomindang’s national power,
which would allow them considerable local autonomy while encourag-
ing peace and order for their commerce. When war with Japan broke
out, the Xidaotang was in an ideal physical and economic position to
provide the Nationalist government in Chongqing with the Taozhou
region’s special products, especially leather. Ma Mingren, third jicwzhu
of the Xidaotang, traveled to Chongqing in 1941 and was introduced to
President and Commander-in-Chief Jiang Jieshi by Bai Chongxi, the
Muslim general from Guangxi Province.76
At its height around 1946 the Xidaotang had retail shops or agents in
Chengdu, Songpan (Sichuan), Xi’an, Zhangjiakou, Beiping, Tianjin,
Shanghai, and Inner Mongolia. In southern Gansu, it possessed two
thousand draft animals, seven thousand mu (over one thousand acres)
of land, five ranches with three thousand head of livestock, thirteen
forestry stations, eighteen water-powered mills, two brick and tile kilns,
two oil presses, and shops for making leather, flour, and vinegar. Mem-
bers traded cloth, metalware, grain, flour, oil, sugar, medicine, and tea
to the Tibetans, in exchange for wild animal pelts, rare medicines (espe-
cially musk), hides, and wool. They took cattle to Minxian, horses to
Shaanxi, coral and jade to Inner Mongolia. In 1927 they had founded a
joint company with a Beijing firm to sell borderland goods in Beijing
and bring metropolitan products to southern Gansu.77
Being a Muslim and a Chinese
So engaged was the Xidaotang in business and politics that we might
forget its religious and intellectual character. As one of modern China’s
most successful collectives, it merits recognition and study as a socioeco-
75.	Zhu Gang, “Xidaotang dashi ji,” 255-58.
76.	Guan, “Xidaotang,” 94.
77.	Guan, “Xidaotang,” 90-91.
197﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
nomic institution, but it also stands out as a Muslim solidarity. Apart
from confirming an ordinary Chinese stereotype, shared by the Mus-
lims themselves, that Sino-Muslims are inherently and uniquely good at
trade in the marketplace, the history of the Xidaotang also reveals the
flexibility of Chinese culture as a medium for the transmission of Islam
(see plate 23).
Ma Qixi and his successors led conventional Muslim religious lives—
that is, they (and some of their followers) conducted five daily prayer
services, gave sermons on Friday, fasted during Ramadan, and so on.
Their religious innovations lay in establishing the centrality of China, in
their interpretation and transmission of Islamic meaning. By relying on
Liu Zhi and the other Han kitab writers, they enabled their adherents to
study and comprehend Islam within China, self-consciously “using Chi-
nese culture to enhance Islamic truths.”78 One of Ma Qixi’s surviving
texts, a commentary on Liu Zhi’s philosophy, succinctly elucidates the
Sino-Muslim synthesis, in both language and substance: “The way in
which the Five Pillars [of Islam] order a person’s life is by controlling
the self and expelling the selfish, reviving the true luminous virtue [Ch.
ming de\, so that one might return to the state of perfect impartiality.”79
Unlike the Khafiya and Jahriya, the Xidaotang did not bring any new
texts from Arabia, nor did it create any new rituals that became bones of
contention. Rather, the solidarity placed its greatest emphasis on educa-
tion, conducted both in Chinese and in the Islamic languages, in con-
trast to the jingtang jiaoyu of other groups and times. Xidaotang mem-
bers, male and female, received a fine Muslim education, as the anecdote
at the head of this section on Ma Qixi reveals. Because Ma Qixi and his
successors emphasized the Han kitab, they also learned to read Chinese
at a very high level, and many also studied Tibetan in order to succeed
in the solidarity’s frontier commerce. The Xidaotang established schools
almost immediately upon its founding, and many of their young people
went on to high school in Lanzhou, and even to university, not a com-
mon achievement among the education-starved Gansu Muslims.80
Xidaotang schools thus combined secular education in Chinese texts,
Islamic education in Arabic and Persian, and Sino-Islamic education in
the Han kitab, giving their students an unprecedented advantage in the
context of China’s expanding involvement on its frontiers. They cer-
tainly did not neglect their religion, for Ma Qixi himself claimed that
78.	Zhu Gang, “Zhongguo Yisilanjiao,” 103.
79- Guan, “Xidaotang,” 81. Thanks to Dan Gardner for his perfect impartiality.
80.	Ma Fuqun, “Xidaotang Ma Qixi,” 144-53.
198﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
Islam’s truth lay at the foundation of all truth, and Xidaotang Muslims
paid close attention to their Islamic duties.81 But Ma Qixi’s emphasis on
the Han kitab, for which the Xidaotang received the sometimes pejora-
tive nickname Hanxue pai (the Chinese studies faction), distinguished
them from other northwestern Muslims. Drawing on a saying attrib-
uted to Ma Mingxin, Ma Qixi recognized both the Sufi and the Han
kitab influences that shaped him and his movement: “Jielian [Liu Zhi]
planted the seeds, Guanchuan [Ma Mingxin] opened the flowers, and I
reap the fruit.”82 With the solidarity of a kibbutz, the success of a
commercial corporation, a serious Islamic heritage, and strong motiva-
tion to be self-consciously Chinese, the Xidaotang members adapted
quickly to China’s rapidly impinging modernity.
As has been noted above, in this period of its greatest modern
disintegration, when central power had virtually ceased to exist, China
expanded outward through militarism and modernism, cultural cen-
tralization without a political center, to incorporate its frontiers more
effectively than the Qing had been able or desired to do. Ma Fuxiang,
Ma Yuanzhang, and Ma Qixi all felt that pressure in different ways,
and all worked to ensure the success of their communities—defined as
lineage, religious solidarity, local community, region, or the Sino-
Muslims as a whole—drawing closer to New China. One measure of
their devotion to this goal lies in their decisions to pursue Chinese
calligraphy as an art, as a cultural expression, as a means of social com-
munication with elite non-Muslims. Ma Fuxiang became known for
his prefaces, Ma Yuanzhang for his letters and essays, and Ma Qixi for
his ceremonial scrolls (Ch. duilian).
Our final Muslim leader, Ma Wanfu of the Dongxiang, took the
opposite tack and tried to protect Islam and Muslims in China by an
older strategy, by purifying religion and practice through “authentic”
texts and rituals brought from Arabia. The fate of his fundamentalist
venture will serve as the last chapter in this history, for it, too, could not
escape the acculturating power of New China as a nation-state. Though
Ma Wanfu himself never became a calligrapher, the second generation
in his solidarity included a number of men who did.
81.	Zhu Gang, “Zhongguo Yisilanjiao,” 104, writes: “Xidaotang adherents prayed all
the time. Especially when they were working for the good of the jiaomen, or when they
met with difficulty in any activity, they would chant the Kalima of praise [the profession
of faith, There is no God but God, and Muhammad is God’s Prophef], rhythmically and
in unison. This sound often became an encouragement for people, a mantra to encourage
them to brave any hardships.”
82.	Ma Fuqun, “Liu Jielian xiansheng,” 180.
199﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
MA WANFU (1853-1934)
AND THE RISE OF THE CHINESE IKHWAN
Oh God! Help our government and nation, defeat the invaders,
and exterminate our enemies. Protect us from the evil deeds done
by the violent Japanese. They have occupied our cities and killed
our people. Send upon them a furious wind, cause their airplanes
to fall in the wilderness, and their battleships to sink in the sea!
Cause their army to scatter, their economy to collapse! Give them
their just reward! True God, answer our prayer! Amen.83
The Early Life of Ma Wanfa, Hajji
We have seen Islamic currents from West and Central Asia arrive in
Sino-Muslim communities in successive, intermittent waves. The first,
the early transmission of Islam, based in sojourning merchant enclaves,
lasted from the seventh century to the fourteenth, with a tremendous
boost from the transregional, unifying force of the Mongol conquest.
The Ming period, one of relative isolation from West Asia, saw the
growth of an indigenous Islamic tradition in Chinese, including jing-
tang jiaoyu and the early Han kitab. The second wave, that of Sufism
and the tariqa, lasted from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth
and culminated in the formation of the menhuan in the northwest. Non-
Sufi (Gedimu) communities continued to exist, of course, and consti-
tuted the mainstream of Sino-Muslim life outside the northwest and
parts of Yunnan.
This influx of Sufi ideas and institutions had a complex and subtle
relationship to the violent changes going on in Qing China, changes
that brought some Sino-Muslims to oppose the ruling dynasty (Ma
Mingxin, Ma Hualong, Du Wenxiu), others to defend it (Ma Guobao,
Wang Dagui, Ma Anliang). With their non-Muslim neighbors, all of
them felt to varying degrees the effects of dynastic decline and the
encroachments of Euro-American political and economic expansion.
Precisely during a period of intense foreign pressure on the Qing, the
1890s, a third wave of Islamic influence, scripturalist fundamentalism,
lapped up onto China’s inland frontier. Calling itself names familiar to
historians of the Muslim heartlands, this new movement became power-
ful through allies as unlikely as Muslim militarism and Chinese national-
83.	See Ye Zhenggang, “Ningxia Yiheiwani,” 319, for a reproduction of the prayer in
its poster form.
200﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
ism. In the late twentieth century it continues to wield power in many
Sino-Muslim communities and constitutes one of China’s largest reli-
gious associations.
Sufism had come to China through two types of leaders. Some, such
as Hidayat Allah (Khoja Afaq) of the Naqshabandlya, were West and
Central Asian Muslims who traveled to China as missionaries. Others,
such as Ma Laichi and Ma Mingxin, were Chinese Muslims who went
west on the hajj, to seek texts, inspiration, and teaching in Muslim
centers. A major intellectual and religious movement of the Muslim
world, scripturalist fundamentalism, arrived late in the nineteenth cen-
tury by both of these means, with Sino-Muslim pilgrims playing the
greater role in its transmission. Chinese Muslim narratives concentrate
on one man, Hajjl Guoyuan (1853?—1934), whose Chinese name was Ma
Wanfu and whose Muslim name was Nuhai, as the primary carrier of
these new ideas.84
Ma Wanfu was called Guoyuan after his native town, in the eastern
subprefecture (Dongxiang) of Hezhou. Like many Muslims of that
region, Ma Wanfu spoke a Mongolic language as his native tongue.
People of the Dongxiang also had a reputation as a tightly knit, impene-
trable, and intransigent ethnic community. Local non-Muslims feared
them, as they did the Salars, as violent and unpredictable, saying that
they stuck together and enjoyed a good feud. Ma Wanfu’s father and
grandfather belonged to the same Beizhuang menhuan as Ma Qixi,
founder of the Xidaotang. Ma Tong, who conducted field research there
during the 1950s, records that Beizhuang adherents claim religious de-
scent from an Afghan Sufi living in Yarkand during the eighteenth
century. Several heads of the menhuan had gone to Xinjiang to seek
inspiration, and the leader during Ma Wanfu’s early years had made the
pilgrimage to Mecca.85
Ma Wanfu’s father and grandfather were local religious profession-
als, so he began his study of Arabic and Persian at an early age and
performed brilliantly. At only twenty-two he was initiated into the
order (“donned his cloak”) and ordained as a religious teacher.86 Dur-
ing almost two decades of teaching in Gansu, Ma Wanfu became less
84.	Chronological accounts of Ma Wanfu’s life may be found in Ma Kexun, “Zhong-
guo Yisilanjiao Yiheiwanipai”; Ma Tong, Zhonggue Tisilan . . . shilue, 127-54; and Bai
Shouyi, “Ma Wanfu.”
85.	Ma Tong, Zhongguo Tisilan . . . shilue, 277-93, 487.
86.	The use of the term “donned his cloak” (Ch. chuanyi) for initiation into a Sufi
order is general throughout the Muslim world.
201﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
and less satisfied with the texts and practices of the communities in
which he worked. Finally, in 1888, he took to the road with his teacher
and a wealthy Muslim provincial graduate (Ch. jureri) named Ma
Huisan, and together they undertook the rigors and dangers of the
journey to Mecca. There Ma Wanfu entered a religious academy and
pursued advanced studies in Islamic languages, law, and liturgy for
four years.
Here we must discuss briefly the political and religious situation on
the Arabian peninsula during Ma Wanfu’s sojourn there in the 1890s.
The coastal plain and the holy cities lay under the rule of Ottoman
governors, while the interior was turbulent with the struggles that even-
tually brought the Ibn-Sa'ud family to power. Since the late eighteenth
century an alliance in the arid Najd Desert had united the political
ambitions of the Ibn-Sa'ud clan and the religious claims of Muhammad
ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab and his successors. Sometimes powerful enough to
conquer the coastal plain, that alliance during the 1890s had been driven
back on its desert bases, but it continued to exert strong religious
influence while in political eclipse.
Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab belonged to the small, fundamental-
ist Hanbali school of jurisprudence, which advocated the strictest mono-
theism, demanded adherence to “original” Koranic principles and op-
posed later interpretations and individual judgment. In particular, 'Abd
al-Wahhab and his followers found Sufism, with its mystical doctrine of
human unity with the Divine, heterodox and abhorrent.87 The venera-
tion of saints and tombs, especially if taken to the point of worship,
repelled them as a polytheistic accretion on the pure monotheism of
Islam. Willing to go to war in defense of this fundamentalist purity, 'Abd
87.	See chapter 3 for 'Abd al-Wahhab’s intellectual and religious relationship to the
revivalist impulse of Ma Mingxin and the Chinese Jahriya: Joseph Fletcher, by brilliant
detective work and with conscious irony, linked Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab not only
with Sufism but even with Chinese Sufism. Their connection lies in the life and teaching
of Ibrahim b. Hasan al-Kurani (1616-90), a Naqshabandi Sufi as well as an initiate of
other orders. Al-Kurani and his son, Abu ‘t-Tahir Muhammad al-Kurdl, taught Muslims
from all over the world, including Shah Wall Allah of Delhi and Muhammad Hayat as-
Sindl, also an Indian, who was Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab’s teacher. Among al-
Ktiranl’s other students we find az-Zayn b. Muhammad 'Abd al-Baqi al-Mizjajl (d. 1725), a
Yemeni Sufi who, probably through his son, 'Abd al-Khaliq (d. 1740), taught Ma
Mingxin, the founder of the Chinese Jahriya. The fact that al-Kurani and his son actually
came from Kurdistan and taught the vocal dbikr to their Sino-Muslim students led
Fletcher to name a section of his last paper “The Remembrance of the Kurds and Hui,”
the only legitimate usage of that dreadful pun, common among English-speaking
cognoscenti of the Sino-Muslims, that I have ever found (“Naqshbandiyya,” 24-29).
202﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
al-Wahhab and his successors claimed unique truth for their version of
Islamic practice, condemning other Muslims as deviants or even as nonbe-
lievers for dissenting. This attitude, often erroneously generalized to
include all Muslim fundamentalism, came to be called “Wahhabism” by
European scholars and was perceived to lie at the root of Muslim violence
all over Asia in the nineteenth century.
In Arabia from 1888 to 1892, Ma Wanfu absorbed a variety of reli-
gious teachings, which certainly included fundamentalist ideas such as
those of 'Abd al-Wahhab. Though influenced by them, Ma did not live
under Sa'udi rule in Mecca, nor did he ever publicly renounce the
Hanafi school of jurisprudence in which he had been educated.
Rather, he came to perceive his mission to be one of sweeping reform,
not doctrinaire conversion to Hanbali practice. During those years, he
also befriended and guided a number of Chinese Muslims who came
on the pilgrimage. Among them were ten ahong from the Dongxiang,
who returned to China with an abiding admiration for Ma Wanfu and
became the core of his scripturalist movement after his return. Per-
suaded by one of his teachers that his work lay in China, not in further
study, Ma Wanfu took ship in Arabia in 1892 and arrived in Guang-
zhou that same year.88
Few Chinese Muslims could undertake the hajj, primarily because of
their poverty and the distance and danger involved. The holy books and
liturgical texts they used, therefore, contained numerous errors, for they
were damaged or poorly copied by ill-educated ahong and not regularly
replaced or replenished by books from the Muslim heartlands. Muslims
thus regarded returned pilgrims, especially teachers bearing “authentic”
texts and capable of Islamic textual scholarship, with special veneration,
as we have seen in the cases of Ma Laichi and Ma Mingxin. So it was
with Ma Wanfu:
[On his way home from Canton] Ma Wanfu was in Laohekou, Hu-
nan, during Ramadan and stayed at the mosque there. The local Mus-
lims expressed a warm welcome for this returned pilgrim, both a hajji
and a teacher. The local imam allowed him to lead prayers, and during
the evening service he bowed four times, then sat and read the hymns
of praise aloud. The local people and the imam said, “Since Waqqas
Baba taught us here, we have always bowed twice and then read the
hymns of praise. On what do you base your four bowings?” He
88. Ma Tong, Zhongguo Yisilan . . . suyuan, 182.
20?﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
answered, “On the scriptures.” . . . He stayed more than a year [to
teach] and left: a lasting impression on the local Muslims.89
Imbued as he was with reformist, even fundamentalist ideas, Ma Wanfu
must have been a formidable figure despite his youth, threatening to
contemporary practice and therefore to established institutions. In
highly acculturated Hunan, there would have been none to dispute
him, but Gansu’s Muslim elite, with a deeper and stronger tradition of
Islamic expertise, would not acquiesce so quickly.
Upon his return to the northwest in 1893, Ma Wanfu accepted an
appointment as teacher and imam in the home village of Ma Huisan, his
pilgrimage companion. Because of his presence, that small mosque be-
came an important center of learning in the Dongxiang region, and
teachers from all over Gansu flocked to study with Hajjl Guoyuan.
Lacking inspired teachers and eager to study authentic texts from Ara-
bia, these men became his disciples, joining him and his “ten returned
pilgrims” in a new movement. Borrowing from the desert-dwelling
followers of ibn-Sa'ud, Ma Wanfu called himself and his students Ahi
as-Sunna (Ch. Aihailisunnai), the Kinsmen of the Tradition. Later, per-
haps after 'Abd al-'Aziz’s success in unifying Arabia under his rule and
under Wahhabi religious domination, the distant Chinese Muslims bor-
rowed another name for themselves, the triumphant al-Ikhwan al-
Muslimun (Ch. Yiheiwani), the Muslim Brotherhood, to signify the
unity of all Muslims. That name denoted the fundamentalist, scrip-
turalist impulse, which had such wide-reaching effects all over the Mus-
lim world.90
Text and Context: The Diffusion ofthe Ikhwan in China
Specific cultural contexts determined the reception and use of that fun-
damentalist impulse within Muslim communities, as they always do
89.	Ma Kexun, “Zhongguo Yisilanjiao Yiheiwanipai,” +45-46. The Waqqas Baba
upon whom the Hunan Muslims call for the legitimacy of their practice was a Companion
of the Prophet, perhaps his maternal uncle, Sa’ad Waqqas, who looms large in Sino-
Muslim legends of their own origins. Scholarly opinion has rejected all of the tales of his
mission to China as fantasy, but they have great power among the Sino-Muslims to this
day. For a summary of the texts and stories, see Leslie, Islam, chap. 8.
90.	Contrary to some Muslim and non-Muslim images, the effects of Islamic funda-
mentalism are not always and everywhere the same, any more than are those of Christian
fundamentalism. See Geertz, Islam Observed, chap. 3, for an extended comparison of the
results of the scripturalist impulse in Indonesia and Morocco.
204﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
with religious, political, or academic innovations. China’s “Wahhabis,”
as their enemies called them, must therefore be studied both as bearers
of ideas present elsewhere in the Muslim world and as participants in
specifically Chinese, especially northwest Chinese, communities and
events. The fate of Ma Wanfu’s Ikhwan presents a compelling case for
this approach. Within one generation of its fundamentalist, antiaccul-
turationist founder, the movement had become an ally of Chinese na-
tionalism, a tool of an acculturating Muslim elite, and an important
bridge between Muslim communities and the burgeoning Chinese
nation-state.
Ma Wanfu, opposed to Sufism and to all external influences on Islam,
refused to learn to read and write Chinese, forbade his children to learn
Chinese, and insisted upon Arabic and Persian education as the founda-
tion of Muslim orthopraxy. He spoke Chinese, but his academy and his
movement were based on the purity and distinction of Islam, its sacred
languages, and its adherents among the nonbelievers. Like the Hanbali
reformers of Arabia, Ma Wanfu also claimed a special truth for the
Ikhwan among Muslim teachings. His frequent use of the slogan “Ven-
erate the scriptures, reform the customs” (Ch. Zunjinggaisu) led to his
movement’s being called the “scripturalist faction” (Ch. zunjing pai).
Ma Wanfu’s program for reform of Islam in China had ten basic
tenets, most of them dealing with liturgical practice and directed against
Sufism.91 They were perceived as a full-scale attack on established ways
among the northwestern Chinese Muslims, against both Sufi and
Gedimu practice. They focus particularly on the menhuan, which had
accumulated wealth and high status through hereditary succession to
the leadership of Sufi suborders. The performance of the veneration
rituals at tombs, for example, and the great memorial festivals for saints
and shaikhs were occasions for massive contributions by members of
Sufi orders to their leaders, who would lose that income if Ma Wanfu’s
program were put into practice. Ma Wanfu also recommended that
Muslims read the Koran themselves, which would deprive religious
professionals of the income obtained by reading sacred texts on behalf
of congregation members at times of religious significance. One of the
Ikhwan’s favorite slogans, “If you read scripture, don’t eat; if you eat,
don’t read scripture” (Ch. Nianle buchi, chile banian), aimed to end the
practice of feeding the imam or ahong in exchange for the reading of
scripture. Indeed, paying religious professionals to undertake tasks origi-
nally required of all Muslims struck Ma Wanfu as a forbidden Chinese
91. Ma Tong, Zhongguo Tisilan . . . shilue, 131.
205﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
accretion. Even the wearing of coarse white mourning clothes (Ch.
daixiao) by Muslims seemed to him a violation of Islamic distinctiveness
and a degradation of Islam.
In Ma’s design, the Kinsmen of the Tradition had to be radically
separated from non-Muslims, and their common orthopraxy and knowl-
edge of texts had to produce an upsurge of unity. Given the sweeping
character of his reform proposals, we should not be surprised that he
met with considerable resistance. Though he attacked Gedimu customs
as well as Sufism, immediate and powerful opposition came from the
menhuan. Their leaders saw the Ikhwan as a serious threat to their
dominance; as zealous teachers flocked to the Dongxiang to study with
Ma Wanfu, his enemies planned to neutralize his influence. In 1895—96
tens of thousands died as internecine Muslim strife brought down the
wrath of the Qing state once again on Hezhou, Xunhua, and Xining.
Responding, as had Ma Yuanzhang, to the disastrous results of disunity,
Ma Wanfu came to a very different conclusion. Declaring that his objec-
tive was the unification of all Muslim religious factions in northwest
China, he argued that shedding blood for Islam in a war against nonbe-
lievers constituted noble martyrdom (Ar. shahid, Ch. shexide).
Since Ma Wanfu directed his movement primarily against the men-
huan, as well as supporting the anti-Qing struggle, he alienated impor-
tant Gansu leaders, especially Ma Anliang, who also opposed Ma Qixi’s
Xidaotang with such deadly purpose. Trained in both the Muslim and
Chinese curricula, Ma Anliang had been raised by his father, Ma
Zhan’ao, to be a bridge between Islamic culture and Chinese culture,
between Qing power and their family’s control over the Hezhou region.
As Ma Wanfu began to build his movement, Ma Anliang responded
with confrontation and repression, using his army to enforce his inter-
ests in religious as well as political life. In acute danger, Ma Wanfu fled
to Shaanxi—not westward but eastward, away from the Muslim
heartlands—where Gedimu communities welcomed him more readily
than did the strongly Sufi centers of Gansu. For the next ten years the
reformist hajji wandered as an exile, sometimes back in Gansu, some-
times in Shaanxi or even in Xinjiang, but never far ahead of Ma
Anliang’s pursuit. Despite living and working under cover, Ma Wanfu
still managed to maintain his ambition to defeat the menhuan and
institute a reform of Muslim religion and daily life.
Finally, in 1917, Ma Anliang caught up with Ma Wanfu, then living in
Hami. In that chaotic, decentralized period following the fall of the
Qing, Ma Anliang and Zhang Guangjian, the non-Muslim governor of
Gansu, combined to request the aid of the non-Muslim warlord of
206﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
Xinjiang, Yang Zengxin, in doing away with the Ikhwan. Ma Anliang
and Yang Zengxin had fought together against Muslim rebels in 1895,
while Ma Wanfu had encouraged those same insurgents, so Ma Anliang
could call on both comradeship and desire for revenge in seeking a non-
Muslim’s help in apprehending the renegade Ikhwan leader. Arrested by
Yang Zengxin’s constabulary and chained in a prisoner’s cart, Ma Wanfu
and his son were shipped eastward along the ancient Silk Road toward
certain death at Lanzhou.92
Alliance with MaQi
At this point an ironic and dramatic twist of politics intervened in what
might otherwise have been a very short history of scripturalist funda-
mentalism in northwest China. One of Ma Anliang’s sometime allies
among the Muslim generals of Gansu, Ma Qi, had for some time
worked to create an independent territorial base at Xining, at the cul-
tural edges of both China and Tibet, on the vital Tibet-Mongolia road.
After the fall of the Qing, Ma Qi obtained dominion over Xining and
built up his family’s strength and fortune in that isolated but relatively
productive region. Despite his prosperity, however, Ma Qi could not
match Ma Anliang’s military power or his religious and political connec-
tions. Searching for means to encroach on his ally-rival’s power, Ma Qi
discovered Ma Wanfu’s predicament and decided to enlist the Ikhwan to
his advantage against Ma Anliang’s Huasi menhuan.
Ma Qi sent a military force through the Biandu Gorge to the main
highway. They easily overwhelmed the guards and brought the Ikhwan
leader to Xining, where he resided for the rest of his life, depending
entirely on the patronage of Ma Qi and his descendants. Ma Qi, for his
part, promulgated the Ikhwan’s religious tenets as his own. He insti-
tuted strict antiopium prohibitions, for example, and reduced the
power of menhuan within his territory. He did not, however, take Ma
Wanfu’s entire separatist program to heart. He continued to participate
in the China-orientated militarist system, to make allies and enemies
among Muslim and non-Muslim generals, and to involve himself in the
nationalist struggles of the 1916-30 period of disunion. Ma Qi thus
began the process that was to transform the Ikhwan from a radical fund-
amentalist group to a much less divisive, much more China-centered
reformist movement.
After all, the Ikhwan, however appealing it may have been to reli-
92. Ma Kexun, “Zhongguo Yisilanjiao Yiheiwanipai,” 456.
207﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
gious professionals eager to transcend their imperfect texts, had not
succeeded in drawing much loyalty away from established institutions.
Even the Gedimu communities of Shaanxi, where Ma Wanfu had
worked for many years, had not become hotbeds of scripturalist radical-
ism. The fundamentalist Ikhwan could not succeed to any great extent
in communities that perceived themselves as respectably and correctly
Chinese, and most Muslim communities in the northwest either did or
wished to appear as if they did. In addition, the solid networks of the
menhuan and the centuries-old traditions of the Gedimu held great
power among Sino-Muslims. The leadership of men such as Ma An-
liang and Ma Qi was grounded in their proven ability to protect their
communities from the Qing state, from violent coreligionists, and from
communal antagonists such as Tibetans and non-Muslim Chinese. Ma
Wanfu and his disciples could not replace these established leaders until
they joined their banner to Ma Qi’s secular power, but in order to serve
his purposes, they had to dissociate themselves from a separatist mes-
sage and embrace a more socially conservative platform acceptable to
their patron (see plate 24).
Once that happened, the Ikhwan’s advantages as an advocate of Mus-
lim unity became clear. In light of their obvious rivalries with one
another, the menhuan could not claim to be promoting unity, and
Gedimu mosques lacked intercommunity connections. The Ikhwan,
therefore, filled an important gap in northwestern Muslim life after 1917,
calling for Islam in China to become a coherent and unified force but
gradually reducing its potentially separatist demands. So successful was
Ma Qi in promoting and using the Ikhwan that Ma Fuxiang’s family at
Ningxia also decided to identify with its aims and take advantage of the
inherent legitimacy of its call for Muslim unity. Though they continued
to be members of their family’s original menhuan, Ma Fuxiang, his son
Ma Hongkui, and his nephew Ma Hongbin all encouraged the Ikhwan
in their territory, which stretched from the Mongolian desert almost to
the Wei River valley.93
The Ikhwan and Chinese Nationalism
In its association with Ma Qi, Ma Fuxiang, and their successors, the
Ikhwan dropped much of its fundamentalist program, at least parts that
impinged on the world of politics. Indeed, following its need to be politi-
cally reliable among these rather conservative Muslim warlords, the
93.	Mian, Ningxia, 118-31.
208﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
Ikhwan eliminated any reference to 'Abd al-Wahhab from its teachings.
Claiming to continue the Sunni, Hanafi teachings universal among Sino-
Muslims, the Ikhwan dissociated itself consciously from the Hanbali
movement of the Saudi Arabian Ikhwan while retaining its anti-Sufi,
exoteric religious perspective.94 As an example of this transformation, let
us consider the career of Hu Songshan (1880-1956), an Ikhwan teacher
who became an important figure during the war against Japan.95 The son
of a northern Gansu ahong who belonged to a Khafiya menhuan, Hu
Songshan was raised to continue his father’s work and allegiances, but by
his eighteenth year he had already surpassed his father and taken a new
teacher, Wang Naibi of Haicheng. Advancing rapidly in his studies, Hu
became Wang’s favorite pupil and joined his teacher in reading the “new”
texts made available through Ma Wanfu’s Ikhwan.
Deeply moved and convinced of the necessity to reform the menhuan
system, Hu rushed through the remainder of Wang’s curriculum and
returned to Ningxia at the age of twenty-one to become the first Ikhwan
ahong in that heavily Muslim region. He persevered despite attacks from
local menhuan adherents, including physical violence. Within ten years
the Ikhwan had a stable membership in Tongxin County, and a number of
teachers promulgated Hu Songshan’s version of Ma Wanfu’s scripturalist
message. He opposed all cash payments to religious professionals for
services rendered, striking at the economic base of the menhuan system.
He opposed expensive and wasteful religious rituals, especially those
surrounding funerals, and particularly vilified the obviously Chinese
wearing of white mourning garments. Finally, he opposed Sufism in its
entirety, the veneration of saints, meditation at tombs, and the mystical
doctrine of unity with God. In order to demonstrate his devotion to the
Ikhwan’s stand against menhuan, Hu Songshan took dramatic action and
destroyed his own father’sgongbei, built at Tongxin after 1899.
The course of Hu Songshan’s life might have resembled Ma Wanfu’s
more closely had he gone to Mecca earlier in the century. But Hu
delayed that obligation until 1925, when he was forty-five years old. His
experience changed his perspective on Islam, on China, and on the role
of the Ikhwan. Unlike Ma Wanfu, Hu Songshan suffered prejudice
through his long round-trip pilgrimage not because he was a Muslim
but because he came from China. He concluded from this painful lesson
94.	Ma Tong, “Alabo de Wahabiyapai.” I am grateful to Prof. Ma for allowing me to
cite this paper.
95.	For Hu’s life, see Ye Zhenggang, “Ningxia Yihewani,” 308-25; Mian, Ningxia,
120-24; and Ma Tong, Zhongguo Yisilan . . . shilue, 146.
209﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
that only a strong China could give the Sino-Muslims the individual
and collective freedom to practice their religion and guarantee their
status and safety outside China’s borders. So he became a fervent Chi-
nese patriot. After returning to Ningxia he continued to preach the
Ikhwan’s doctrine, but he added to it strong doses of current events and
advocacy of Chinese unity in the face of imperialist threats and domestic
warlordism.
During the 1930s, as he observed the national and international scene,
Hu continued to believe that only Chinese national strength could save
the Muslims of China, and that only modern education and science
could engender national strength. He thus agreed with the many mem-
bers of the Gansu Muslim elite—including Ma Fuxiang, Ma Yuan-
zhang, Ma Qixi, and their successors—that Muslim schools must teach
Chinese and modern subjects such as science and foreign languages, as
well as the Islamic curriculum. Committed to this idea, Hu Songshan
gave up his post as an ahong to become the principal of the new Sino-
Arabic Middle School (Ch. Zhong-A Zhongxue) established by the
Muslim gentry of Wuzhong County, near Ningxia.
After the Japanese invaded China proper in 1937, Hu Songshan es-
poused the Chinese nationalist cause even more fervently. He decreed
that every morning’s required prayers would be accompanied by the
salute to the flag and an exhortation to national pride and patriotism.
When he delivered the Friday sermon in the school’s prayer hall, he
invoked Koranic authority to urge sacrifice in the anti-Japanese struggle.
To spread his message more widely, he penned a prayer in Arabic and
Chinese (translated at the head of this section), had it printed bilingually,
and posted it in all mosques, schools, and Muslim gathering-places in the
area. We see in this prayer an intimacy with China-as-home combined
with faith in God that is not often found in the liturgies of dispersed
Islam. It resembles closely the vernacular “prayers for our country” said
in Diaspora synagogues, after the Enlightenment and the French Revolu-
tion brought citizenship and civil rights to some Euro-American Jews.
The author of this plea was as clearly Chinese as he was Muslim, and his
membership in a putatively fundamentalist movement only underscores
the importance of that combination.
Truly, the Ikhwan had come far from Ma Wanfu’s original purposes.
Instead of resistance even to becoming literate in Chinese, Hu Song-
shan and other Ningxia Ikhwan teachers translated important Muslim
texts into Chinese. Hu Songshan followed the Neo-Confucian Muslim
authors of the Han kitab by composing a “Muslim Three-Character
Classic” as a primer for Sino-Muslim students in their study of Islamic
210﻿STRATEGIES OF INTEGRATION
faith, ritual, and daily life. Though Ikhwan mosques, like Gedimu
mosques in northwest China, did not have any overarching institutional
unity, they did improve upon Gedimu fragmentation by holding major
religious ceremonies at larger, central mosques called haiyisi. These
mosques invited Ikhwan adherents from surrounding smaller communi-
ties, generating some supralocal solidarity.96 The Ikhwan was also held
together by the oppositional quality of its religious ideas, by common
use of the specific texts Ma Wanfu had brought from Arabia, and by the
consciousness of purity and rectitude that belongs to reformers.
Hu Songshan cannot be considered a “typical” Ikhwan teacher, for he
stood out by his liberal attitude toward modern ideas and practices. He
allowed photographs to be taken of himself and his mosque, he encour-
aged the students in his school to practice sports, and he attempted to
discover a Muslim cosmology compatible with modem science. A tireless
promoter of Muslim unity in a strong China, he studied the Chinese
classics in order to urge solidarity between Muslim and non-Muslim for
nationalist goals. In doing so, he unified the goals of the apparently
irredentist Ikhwan with those of the Han kitab-. to make Islam compre-
hensible, moral, and effective within a Chinese political, intellectual, and
cultural world without compromising its core principles. In apparent
contradiction to Ma Wanfu, his anti-Qing, antiassimilationist teacher,
Hu Songshan joined his life and work to those of Ma Fuxiang, Ma
Yuanzhang, and Ma Qixi, all of whom tried to make a safe place for Islam
and Muslims in modern Gansu. Ma Fuxiang chose involvement in na-
tional politics and the Guomindang, Ma Yuanzhang the revival of a
transformed Jahriya, and Ma Qixi the creation of an entirely new solidar-
ity, the Xidaotang. All of them became leaders of solidarities coping with
the problem of being a Muslim in China. The variety of their solutions,
even in a single province in the northwest, reveals the hitherto hidden
complexity and richness of the Sino-Muslim world.
96.	Sources favorable to the Ikhwan credit them with this innovation, but Gao,
“Linxia Qingzhen,” 197-200, claims that they were created at Hezhou by Ma Zhan’ao and
Ma Anliang to maintain control over the Muslims more effectively than did smaller,
scattered mosques.
211﻿6	/ Conclusion
Familiar Strangers
[The Huihui minzu] is not one of those native peoples that has
always lived on the ancient soil of China (like the Han, Miao, or
Qiang), nor one of those purely immigrant groups that came to
China from abroad (like the Koreans or Russians), nor one of the
peoples of a border region who have long lived in contact (like the
Kazaks or the Dai). Rather, it relied upon the tremendous unifying
power of Islamic culture, which concentrates Muslims of different
countries and different languages into a single entity, causing a
minzu to form from a blend of foreign elements and partially
domestic inhabitants, creating a new species. On the vast, broad
land of China it planted roots, sprouted, bloomed, and produced
fruit, becoming an important component of the indivisible, great
minzu family of China.1
THE MULTIVALENCE OF SUBALTERITY
Part of the scholarly enterprise of late twentieth-century America lies in
missing, then finding and reviving the voices of the silenced, revising
our histories to include the women and African-Americans and Indians
and Gypsies and others who were there, whose actions surely shaped
the past as they do the present, but whose presence and power have
been excluded from the dominant narrative. The Sino-Muslims have
ever been marginal to China’s own history, appearing only as exotics in
the Tang-Song, as conquerors and villains in the Yuan, and then disap-
pearing into the category of sinified barbarians until they rise up against
the Qing, either as righteous rebels or as murderous and disorderly
savages, depending upon the historian’s point of view. Only since the
founding of overtly Chinese Muslim organizations by both religious
and secular Muslim intellectuals in the 1920s have there been national
Muslim voices speaking for and about this “minority nationality.” This
1.	Lin and He, Huihui lishi, 1.
212﻿CONCLUSION
chronology would indicate that the notion of minzu, of particular peo-
plehood within the “indivisible, great minzu family of China,” had to be
invented before those voices could be perceived as legitimate within
China.2 Until then, Chinese conceptions of their own civilization (and
all others’ strangeness) demanded that Muslims either laihua, come and
be transformed, or remain beyond the pale as irremediable barbarians.
This grandiose ideological principle could not, of course, work in
practice. Muslim voices were heard in China from the Tang onward,
and they spoke a variety of languages, including Chinese. Most Mus-
lims, however attractive they found living in China, however much
particular places in China became home, did not desire to be non-
Muslims. As they acculturated in language, first spoken and then writ-
ten, and in folkways and customs they found or helped to create in their
local ecologies, Muslims were not undergoing some process peculiar to
China. All over the Eurasian and African worlds, Muslims made such
adaptations, sometimes as a culturally dominant class (as in Java), some-
times as a conquering elite ruling a non-Muslim majority (as in India or
Spain), sometimes as a mercantile or peripheral acculturating minority
(as in the Philippines, east Africa, or China). If this were not so, Mus-
lims would be everywhere and always the same, and Clifford Geertz,
among many others, has demonstrated conclusively that they are not.3
Muslims never achieved a legitimate voice within the awesome
history-making apparatus of the Chinese state and its intellectual min-
ions both in and out of office. The Hai Furun case and the Siku quanshu
editor’s comment on the Tianfang dianli clearly demonstrate that Chi-
nese officials could not possibly regard texts in Arabic and Persian, or
even Muslim texts written in elegant Chinese, as civilized. Had the
Sino-Muslims been completely isolated, cut off from contact with
sources of inspiration, knowledge, texts, and experience outside of
China, they might well have gone the way of the Jews of Kaifeng, who
had utterly lost their sense of differentness from their neighbors, except
as a vague memory, by the end of the nineteenth century. That process
did take place among the Muslims of southeast China after piracy and
2.	Gladney, Muslim Chinese, 81-87, cogently argues this position, insisting on its close
relationship to the creation of the Han as the dominant minzu of China.
3.	In 19871 participated in an ACLS-sponsored conference, in New Delhi, on Muslims
as minorities in non-Muslim states. We heard papers on European, South Asian, Southeast
Asian, and East Asian Muslim peoples, wonderfully diverse and adapting in fascinating
ways to the cultures within which they live. At the end, we found nothing we could isolate
as viable themes to tie them together, except the simple fact of their minority status, so
closely were their acculturations and resistances linked to their particular environments.
21?﻿CONCLUSION
Ming defensive policy closed the once-vital sea links between that re-
gion and the Muslims to the south and west. Both the formerly Muslim
Guo family of northern Taiwan, described by Barbara Pillsbury, and the
Ding clan of descendants of Quanzhou Muslims, whose partial re-
Islamicization is narrated by Dru Gladney, illustrate what can happen in
the absence of reviving external contact.4
As they underwent their evolution in official perceptions from fanke
and foreign merchants (Tang-Song) to semu (Yuan) to Huihui (Ming-
Qing), Muslims who lived in China became Chinese in a wide variety of
places, and they took many professions. The descendants of foreign mer-
chants, artisans, scientists, and soldiers became farmers, officials, ahong,
migrant laborers, peddlers, doctors, caravaners, raftmen. They married,
the men often taking non-Muslim wives in the early centuries; they began
to give their children Chinese names as well as jing ming-, and they lived
complex lives inside the local politics of their villages, market systems,
and counties—material lives not vastly different from those of their non-
Muslim neighbors except for adherence to the strictures of the dietary
laws and intercommunity solidarity based on common religion. In struc-
ture, however, their communities differed substantially from those of
non-Muslims in the centrality of the mosque, its education, rituals, and
religious professionals, especially the elders and ahong (in Gedimu com-
munities) or the jiaozhu and his representatives (in Sufi orders and
menhuan}. We have no evidence of supralocal organization among them
before the arrival of the tariqa in the eighteenth century, though Ma Zhu
did try to become the Qing empire’s official sayyid.
If they were aware of the lives of other Muslims in China, it was as
Muslims that they knew them. If they traveled, as so many did, they
could find haldl food, a common vocabulary, and a mosque for prayers
only in another Muslim community, and there lay one crucial element of
the strangeness of Muslims in China. They could be connected to one
another by their religion in ways that non-Muslim Chinese could not,
except through pilgrimage or sectarianism. Sino-Muslims shared the
jingtang education, the religious and ritual knowledge of insiders,
which distinguished them as individuals from non-Muslims. They could
use Huihuihua, the Arabic and Persian lexicon of authenticity, which,
despite its local Chinese dialectal base, indicated to other Sino-Muslims
4- Pillsbury, “No Pigs for the Ancestors”; and Gladney, Muslim Chinese, chap. 6. The
Dings are also one of the clans discussed by Nakada, “Chugoku Musurimu.” It is, as
discussed above, no surprise that these entirely acculturated ex-Muslims lived in central
and southeast China, not in the north or west.
214﻿CONCLUSION
that they were dealing with coreligionists. Indeed, the Muslim potential
for connection with other Muslims transcended in geography and lan-
guage the bonds of native place and lineage, which gave most Chinese
their primary personal relationships in social life. And thus did the Sino-
Muslims fulfill Georg Simmel’s definition of a stranger—though they
stayed, they never quite gave up the freedom of coming and going. To
non-Muslim Chinese they looked unified, their solidarity foreign and
frightening despite their familiar presence. One can imagine the non-
Muslims saying of them, ‘They always stick together,” feeling the un-
easy alterity that majorities feel in the face of minority exclusivity.
But they did not stick together. On the contrary, their communities
divided along lines of religion, politics, class, gender, and other valences
of identity and identification that individuals use to make choices in
their lives.5 As we have seen, everyone in northwest China knew at least
one crucial “fact” about the Muslims—they were violent people, and
their violence was often directed against one another: “When Old and
New Teachings fight, it’s a matter for swords and troops before it’s
over!” On the evidence delineated above, we may conclude that in times
of conflict, being a Muslim did not determine anyone’s behavior, though
it probably influenced everyone’s. Beyond the context of violence, some
Sino-Muslims succeeded in business or the examination system or the
army, while others did not; some chose to affirm the legitimacy of the
ruling sovereign, while others did not; some chose to educate their
children in Chinese, others only in Arabic and Persian, while still others
could not educate them at all. Outside of the Jahriya and Ikhwan, most
of the solidarities that unified and divided the northwestern Muslims
did not extend beyond Gansu, and even within that region large-scale
Muslim action was the exception rather than the rule. In day-to-day life,
their local and regional communities did not have much to do with one
another, except for connections created by sojourning merchants and
ahong, so they did not create any wide consciousness of unity before the
modern period.
Here lies a difficulty and danger of applying the minzu paradigm to
the history of the Sino-Muslims (or, I would argue, that of any people).
Created only in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, ap-
5.	These choices, like ours, were not always conscious, instrumental, and rational. An
enormous literature provides analyses of the interaction of these valences or elements of
identity—which come to the fore when, and how. Prasenjit Duara’s recent summary
imposes a refreshing simplicity: “The self is constituted neither primordially nor mono-
lithically but within a network of changing and often conflicting representations” (Rescu-
ing History, 7).
215﻿CONCLUSION
plied consistendy as a political tool by an effective central government
only after 1949, the notion of minzu asserts that such entities existed as
self-consciously unified solidarities long before the technological and
social intrusions and capacities of the modem nation-state made that
possible. There is no doubt that the Hui minzu now exists in China. But
did it come into being in the Ming period as Muslims adapted to being
Chinese, or did the rise of Chinese nationalism in its particular forms
and with its particular concerns create it? As Dru Gladney has also
argued, the narrative presented in this book supports the latter assertion
with regard to the Sino-Muslims.6
The Hui minzu, with its wide dispersion and diverse contexts, can
exist only as an imagined community, a people with solidarity, as it
develops a national leadership, a national consciousness, a sense of
China and of itself that transcends the local, particular forms and
relationships that governed Sino-Muslim people’s lives before the mod-
ern era.7 Thus, I have avoided the term Hui in favor of “Muslim,”
avoided Han in favor of “(non-Muslim) Chinese.” The People’s Re-
public’s minzu ethnonyms certainly did exist in premodern times, but
they did not mean the same things as they do now. Hui or Huihui
meant “Muslim,” and Han meant “culturally Chinese,” as James Wat-
son and others have defined it, but they were not exclusive minzu
categories. Indeed, a common term for the Sino-Muslims, in addition
to the Central Asian Donggan, was Han-Hui, the Han Muslims, while
some of the Mongolic-speaking members of today’s Dongxiang minzu
would have been called Meng-Hui, the Mongol Muslims. These com-
bined terms certainly cannot coexist with the minzu paradigm, which
demands exclusive membership in one minzu, but they nonetheless
accurately describe the peoples’ cultural conditions.8
6.	Crossley, “Thinking about Ethnicity,” and Orphan Warriors; Gladney, Muslim Chi-
nese, 96-98.
7.	This vocabulary for understanding the development of nation-states finds its first
expression in Anderson, Imagined Communities.
8.	An American graduate student who has lived for years in Xinjiang tells me that he is
often asked, in local Turkic, “To what millet do you belong?” This term clearly does not
intend its Ottoman meaning, which indicated religious community, for in the context of
the People’s Republic, it has come to mean minzu. His interlocutors are not satisfied with
“America” as an answer, either, for though millet has important political implications, it is
not the same thing as citizenship. They are asking about blood—millet, minzu—and accept
“English” as a legitimate response. In this case, I wonder what they would do with the
Scotch-Irish-English-French-German reality. We should certainly note the resemblance of
this minzu paradigm to ideas of race, especially as constructed by nineteenth- and
twentieth-century Euro-Americans (Dikotter, Discourse of Race, chaps. 3-5).
216﻿CONCLUSION
THE PROBLEM OF VIOLENCE
Here we must confront the question Joseph Fletcher’s death left unan-
swered. Why did divisions among Sufi suborders, usually defined as
differences in ritual practice (e.g., vocal vs. silent dhikr), result in sangui-
nary warfare in northwest China, though they did not in other parts of
the world? In eighteenth-century Arabia, as we have seen, individuals
could even participate in recitation of both kinds of dhikr without feel-
ing that they were doing anything odd. We find bloody conflict be-
tween Sufis to be sensible in Central Asia—between the Afaqiya and
Ishaqlya, for example—because the stakes lay in political control over
territory, the rulership, the state. But in northwest China, such control
was beyond the dreams of any sane person, except when the central
government was already in a state of collapse, and even then, Milayin
and Ding Guodong allied with a Ming pretender, not with a Muslim
conqueror. What, then, caused the Gansu Muslims to attack one an-
other so violently?
The narrative presented above argues for multiple causation and for
careful examination of the terms of explanation. Certainly we must
grant some causal power to pre-existing geographical, social, economic
and political conditions, to the pressures inherent in a frontier society
with a harsh and unyielding natural environment. The northwest re-
mains China’s poorest region, its population overburdening the unpro-
ductive arable, its rainfall barely adequate, its infrastructure unprotected
against the vagaries of weather and seismic movement. We must also
note the presence of many distinctive groups in a restricted space, identi-
fying themselves by culture, religion, language, and local or regional
loyalty, competing for scarce resources. In particular, the proximity of
agricultural and pastoral peoples and the position of the Muslims as
economic middlemen, balanced in a vulnerable position between cul-
tural China and non-China, militate against the region’s lying peaceful
and serene. Even at Old Taozhou, whose elites resisted splitting along
ethnic lines, there was plenty of pressure to do so. Such frontier zones
often create communities in arms, ready to resort to the martial arts,
men who sleep with their weapons close at hand.
This same frontier quality also created a peculiar tension in Gansu
Muslim society, caused by its lack of an intellectual elite apart from the
religious professionals. In the Middle East, or other entirely Muslim
cultural environments, disagreements over religion certainly did be-
come conflictual, were taken to court, or even resulted in brawling,
feuding, and war. But they could also be argued in a context of mutually
217﻿CONCLUSION
accepted rules, of religious curiosity and intellectual interaction. On the
Islamic frontiers of Gansu, the rigidity of orthodoxies without the possi-
bility of such dialogue created the nexus for religious conflict. Without
the confidence of obvious authenticity, as in solidly Muslim contexts,
Sino-Muslims required rigid adherence to rules, especially those re-
ceived from the Muslim heartlands, and could not question or modify
them within a shared intellectual tradition. Instead, they resolved con-
flicts among themselves with violence, sometimes (but not always) en-
couraged by their religious leaders.
We can also adduce causes external to the Muslim communities. The
corruption and incompetence of Qing officials, negative evolutionary
change in government regulations and attitudes toward Muslims, and a
special vigilance over social order in the northwest following the final
conquest of Xinjiang all contributed to rising tension in Gansu in the
late eighteenth century. The Sino-Muslims were not, after all, unique in
acting violently against the Qing state. Studies of the Taiping, Nian,
Miao, Boxer, and other large-scale antistate actions have also indicated
the importance of seeing violence as firmly rooted in local contexts, not
just as the result of cultural difference, oppositional ideology, or dissatis-
fied and therefore rebellious leaders.9
The initial innovation within Muslim communities in eighteenth-
century Gansu came not from the Jahriya but from the Khafiya, the first
Sufi tariqa to win significant numbers of adherents in the region.
Hidayat Allah’s and Ma Laichi’s success in building cohesive, multicom-
munity networks of personal loyalty to themselves and their descendants,
especially among the Salars, presented a direct threat to the legitimacy
and power of the Gedimu elite, both ahong and elders. The Mufti
suborder of Didao, also descending in religious succession from Hidayat
Allah, had similar success, but not among the Salars, who were always
perceived as more volatile and dangerous than other frontier peoples. Ma
Yinghuan’s initial lawsuit, however, couched in terms of qiankai and
houkai factions, did not result in long-term violence. Only with the arrival
of the Jahriya and its conversion of Mongolic- and Chinese-speaking
Muslims as well as the Turkic-speaking Salars to a tariqa in direct com-
petition with the Khafiya did street fighting become general at Xunhua,
9.	The Miao minzu, as currently constructed in the People’s Republic, resembles the
Hui minzu in the wide cultural diversity of its members, who are united primarily by their
inclusion in a Chinese category. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries some Miao
undertook armed struggles against Qing authority, while others did not, another charac-
teristic they share with the Sino-Muslims (Diamond, “Defining the Miao”).
218﻿CONCLUSION
and then the local Qing administration had to take more invasive notice,
given the precedents and responsibility for social order it bore.
That constituted one of the most important causes of “Muslim rebel-
lion” in northwest China, as it did elsewhere in the empire. Despite
imperial pronouncements to the contrary, Muslims were regarded as
different and dangerous by Gansu local officials both civil and military.
Heavy-handed, brutal, often indiscriminate state violence, or the rumor
of its impending onslaught, stimulated Muslims engaged in feuding to
confront the armed forces of the state in battle. When Su Forty-three (in
disguise) met Xinzhu at Baizhuangzi (1781), when Zhang Fei came to
negotiate in southeastern Shaanxi (1862), and when Tang Yanhe de-
spoiled villages west of Hezhou (1895), the Muslims heard, believed,
amplified, and spread the word that the Qing intended to “wash away”
the Muslims, exterminate them all. People with a martial tradition, orga-
nized into local militias (Shaanxi) and by the tariqa, (Gansu), following
their gentry or ahong or jiaozhu, might certainly meet such a challenge
violently, especially if they knew that the state’s local forces were weak-
ened by the Taiping or Sino-Japanese war.
So we have come to another answer to the Qianlong emperor’s self-
incriminating question, “Why did they rebel?” They gathered their
forces against local enemies—Muslim or, in Shaanxi, non-Muslim.
Blockaded in their forts, remembering old massacres or hearing of new
ones, they reacted against state or militia violence with violence of their
own and thus became rebels in the eyes of the state without any plan to
seize territory or set up an antistate or proclaim a jihad. In short, we
must see “rebel” as a state-created category in most of these cases, not as
a description of what the Muslims intended to do. Only in 1784, when
Tian Wu made banners and planned an uprising, do we see more deliber-
ate intention, and that makes sense as revenge for the bloody pacifica-
tion and decimation of the Jahriya in 1781.
To add another multivalent conclusion, not all Muslims agreed with
the decision to fight the Qing. We know that some actively opposed it,
including Khafiya adherents in 1781, Wang Dagui and many others in the
1860s, Ma Zhan’ao after his surrender to Zuo Zongtang, and the entire
contingent of Muslims in the Qing military in the 1890s. We know far less
about those who chose not to fight at all, to run or to hide rather than
confront either the armed might of the state or the armed wrath of fellow
Muslims. They may have hated the Qing for its violence against their
people, mistrusted their (or others’) leaders for starting the troubles, but
we can only surmise that plenty of people took the passive option when
they could. We cannot know if they acted on fear or on principle, out of
219﻿CONCLUSION
loyalty to the Qing or in quiet solidarity with fellow Muslims, for they
have left no traces in our historical record to date, a record dominated by
martial action, sweeping generalization, and stereotypical characteriza-
tion. We can certainly conclude that violence is no more natural to the
Muslims of northwest China than it is to other people.
THE PROBLEM OF NAMES
We have already noted the difficulty in understanding the words minzu
and “rebel” in the context of northwest China. Other terms have figured
in this narrative as obfuscators rather than clarifiers of peoples and events,
chief among them New Teaching and its putative opposite, Old Teach-
ing. As we have seen, these words have no permanent referents but rather
vary over time and space. That is, they are applied in particular contexts
to reformist or conservative groups within Sino-Muslim society. If they
were neutral terms, they might simply indicate chronological sequence—
which teaching arrived first? But in a politicolegal culture that demanded
social order, took officials’ ranks and lives in chaotic times, and asserted
tradition as a crucial arbiter of rectitude, the New and Old labels were far
from neutral. Though not invariably proscribed or punished by local
judges, especially before 1781, any group targeted as New Teaching had
already lost part of the battle for legitimacy in Sino-Muslim society. After
the internecine slaughter and state repression of 1781 and 1784, New Teach-
ing, which at that time meant the Jahriya, had come to be associated with
violence, with rending the social fabric, with innovation, heterodoxy, and
deceiving the people. The Old Teaching, which meant the Khafiya and
Gedimu Muslims, could be viewed as potentially accommodating the le-
gitimate authority of the dynasty, even fighting on the side of Agui and
his ethnically diverse troops against Su Forty-three’s intractable “rebels.”
Other words have often been used to describe the violence narrated
above—in Chinese, minzu douzheng and shengzhan,—“minzu conflict”
and “holy war.” On the evidence presented here, we may conclude that
these are far too general to apply conclusively to any of these events. If
minzu conflict pits one minzu against a repressive authority or another
minzu, how can we use the term when Sino-Muslims fight on both
sides, as they did in most of the wars in this book? If Ma Hualong was
fighting a holy war, how can we understand his decision to surrender, to
take a Qing tide, or his unwillingness to unite wholeheartedly with the
Shaanxi Muslims? These wars began as local conflicts, between Muslims
(in Gansu) or between Muslims and non-Muslims (in Shaanxi), which
became polarized by state intervention along lines not purely religious,
220﻿CONCLUSION
ethnic, or geographical, though all three identities surely played parts in
people’s decisions to join one side or another. Some historians are very
careful in their application and understanding of these terms, but many
are not, and we must beware of the easy characterization, the facile
descriptive term.
After all, it was the state that eventually determined what many of the
words meant. Categories such as “rebel,” “heterodoxy,” “New Teach-
ing,” and “bandit” are not natural or inherent descriptors but rather
legally and politically defined black boxes, into which state authority can
place a wide variety of people and behaviors. “A winner a king, a loser a
bandit” summarizes useful folk wisdom on the subject. For religious
ideologies, one might say, “A winner a teaching, a loser a heterodoxy.” By
the mid-nineteenth century, some Qing officials had decided that
menhuan zndgongbei—that is, Sufi orders with their saintly lineages and
saints’ tombs—lay at the root of Gansu’s sanguinary history, but never
did the state try to proscribe them all. Rather, they selected those leaders
and solidarities which appeared most dangerous to social order and la-
beled them as “weeds,” evil Muslims who deceive the people, while
maintaining that all others were “good” Muslims. This could not work in
a local atmosphere laden with fear, bloody memory, and desire for re-
venge. To many Gansu non-Muslims, and Qing officials as well, the only
“good” Muslim was a dead one, or at least one who lived far away from
non-Muslims, especially Chinese non-Muslims. From the seventeenth-
century official’s recommendation of radical separation of Muslims from
civilized society until settled agriculture could work its deracinating
magic, to the late-nineteenth-century generals’ slaughter of Muslim civil-
ians around Xining, this conviction was proposed and sometimes put
into practice.
THE PARADOX OF PERIPHERIES
The names of places, like those of groups of people, carry a heavy
political load. This book has dealt extensively with “frontier” as a name
for Gansu, for the whole northwest. Gu Jiegang was ashamed of the fact
that the frontier lay so close to the geographical center of his nation-
state. Clearly, Gansu was a frontier of China, a zone outside of which
Chinese people would find themselves culturally, if not politically, for-
eign. But Gansu was also a frontier of Tibet, Mongolia, and Central
Asia—a meeting ground of cultures—and we might write a very dif-
fernt history if we saw Tibetans, Mongols, or Central Asians as the main
characters in this narrative.
221﻿CONCLUSION
Not only do frontiers have at least two sides, but they also have resi-
dents, for whom the frontier is home. The spatial arrangements we
privilege—positionings that define terms such as cores, peripheries, and
frontiers—follow closely the relative power and productivity of their
inhabitants. China’s many centers and edges have been carefully mapped
and defined by G. William Skinner and others, but China’s Muslim space
has been invisible within that mapping, and the two are not congruent.
Ningxia, Hezhou, Xunhua, and Xining lie on the periphery of the periph-
ery if one’s perspective centers on China, but they are the cores of concern
for Sino-Muslims and local non-Chinese. Certainly the Muslims inter-
acted with the systems centering on Lanzhou and Xi’an, with prefectural
capitals at places such as Tianshui and Didao, and they participated in an
economy with those cities as cores. But they also participated in a Muslim
economy, political and religious as well as productive, and that Muslim
arrangement influenced their lives as surely as did the “dominant” Chi-
nese patterns. Its symbolic capital flowed among Muslim communities in
the persons and ideas of ahong and jiaozhu, students and pilgrims, while
its goods flowed between cultural China and non-China in Muslim
hands.
This book’s challenge thus lies in identifying parallel structures and
positions within which parallel narratives, such as this history of Mus-
lims in China, actually take place. We do not find a simple arrival and
transformation here, though Muslims do arrive, and the Muslims of the
Qing are certainly very different from those of the Song. But the trans-
formation is mutual, always partial, evolutionary, and unpredictable.
Chinese perceptions of themselves and their own culture have been
deeply affected by the presence of cultural Others in their local systems
and on their frontiers. Northwest China certainly would not be what it
has become without the constant mediating presence of its Muslim
communities, but they have not all behaved consistently or alike.
Through pilgrimages, missionaries, and trade, Muslims in the north-
west also maintained close connections with the Muslim heartlands and
were deeply affected by institutions and ideas flowing into China from
the west. Even in east China, where Muslims were more acculturated in
language and material life than were their Gansu coreligionists, many
nonetheless continue to practice their religion, especially its dietary laws
and endogamy, to the present day.10 So we cannot conclude that the Sino-
Muslims were somehow not sufficiently Islamic to be a distinctive popu-
lation. Nonetheless, Lao Huihui aided Li Zicheng (1630s—44), Milayin
10.	Gladney, Muslim Chinese, chaps. 4 and 5.
222﻿CONCLUSION
and Ding Guodong backed a Ming pretender (1648), and the Khafiya
leaders saw their solidarity’s best interest in alliance with the Qing (1781).
Indeed, this history demonstrates that the most effective Islamic revivals
in the past century of Chinese history have directly engaged their own
Chineseness: the Ikhwan, which failed as Wahhabi-influenced fundamen-
talism and succeeded when it allied itself with Chinese nationalism; and
Hanxue, centering on the Han kitab and expressing Islamic meanings in
current Chinese, a movement that began and flourished in Nanjing,
Beijing, Suzhou, and Jinan before it reached Gansu.
That recent history leads to a final conclusion regarding space: China
incorporated its northwestern frontier most effectively during a period of
extraordinary central weakness. During the height of Qing power the tusi
system allowed considerable local autonomy for frontier elites, and pow-
erful religious figures such as the high rimpoches of Tibetan monasteries
and Sufi shaikhs (e.g., Ma Laichi and Ma Hualong) could establish legiti-
mate local authority parallel to the distant dynasty in Beijing and its local
representatives. Even the Qing conquest of Xinjiang between the 1690s
and 1750s did not result in decisive central control over Gansu. Only Zuo
Zongtang’s reconquest, followed by the cooptation of local elites such as
the Ma families of Qing generals, later to be warlords, finally guaranteed
dominance from the east. Without the active support of Ma Anliang, Ma
Qi, and Ma Fuxiang, neither the late Qing nor the Republic could have
controlled Gansu as they did.
The methods of nation-building learned or created in the hostile
international world of European imperialism served both the old and
the new regimes well in the northwest, so Gansu history reflects accu-
rately the processes of transformation from empire to nation-state, fron-
tier to border, imperial virtue to national sovereignty. Sino-Muslim
history, however, must also take into account the waves and currents of
Central Asia and the Middle East, especially the growth and flourishing
of Sufi orders as revivalist movements and the fundamentalist upheavals
associated with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scripturalism. They,
too, stimulated change in northwest China, in parallel and sometimes in
conflict with the evolution of the late Qing and the rise of New China.
THE PARADOXES OF IDENTITY
Echoing the Chinese logician Gongsun Long, this book has asked,
“When is a Chinese not a Chinese?” Answer: When the Chinese is a
Sino-Muslim. What does it mean to belong to two cultures at once,
when both demand at least a measure of exclusive dominance in individ-
223﻿CONCLUSION
ual and collective life? Historians, psychologists, sociologists and anthro-
pologists have analyzed a wide variety of elements that make up human
identity. In this study of the Sino-Muslims, I have focused particularly
on language, religion, and place, coming to the conclusion that none
can be isolated as somehow more fundamental than the others, and that
all operate all the time. If I have erred on the side of choice, of individ-
ual and collective decisions as expressions of identity, I must plead the
complex and contradictory nature of the sources, which do not allow
simple generalizations to stand.
In a moving essay, the cosmopolitan intellectual Slavenka Drakulic
writes of discovering her national identity amidst the slaughter of a
disintegrating Yugoslavia:
Along with millions of other Croats, I was pinned to the wall of
nationhood—not only by outside pressure from Serbia and the Fed-
eral Army but by national homogenization within Croatia itself. That
is what the war is doing to us, reducing us to one dimension: the
Nation. The trouble with this nationhood, however, is that whereas
before, I was defined by my education, my job, my ideas, my
character—and, yes, my nationality too—now I feel stripped of all
that. I am nobody because I am not a person any more. I am one of 4.5
million Croats.11
This feels like what happened to some northwestern Muslims, though
few if any of them articulated their dilemma in prose. In specific times
and places, they could be reduced by outside force to their Muslimness,
to that one crucial facet of their identities. When Meng Qiaofang,
Xinzhu, Zhang Fei, Yang Changjun, Tang Yanhe, Dong Fuxiang, or even
Ma Fuxiang or Ma Anliang started killing (or threatening to kill) Mus-
lims, the rumors flew: They are going to xi Hui, kill Muslims just for
being themselves, and for being at home. In northwest China, with its
rich memory of massacre and the protagonists’ bellicose reputations, the
rumors of extermination edicts would be believed, and some Muslims
would react to them, killing local others in self-defense or in revenge.
But they did not act simply as “Muslims.” Especially after the arrival
of Sufi orders in Gansu, and the militarization of local society in both
Gansu and Shaanxi, they also acted as members of local solidarities, as
rivals of other Muslims as well as non-Muslims, as residents of particu-
lar communities and members of lineages, as Chinese- or Mongolic- or
11.	Slavenka Drakulic, The Balkan Express, 51.
224﻿CONCLUSION
Turkic- or Tibetan-speakers. And they did not all act in the same way.
Drakulic’s disintegrating Yugoslavia was divided among rival political
factions, all of which strove to mobilize ethnicity as a weapon against
the others, to control “homeland” and claim authenticity and homoge-
nizing centrality. Some Gansu Muslim leaders used the same tactics, but
without the possibility of territorial autonomy. Rather, they utilized the
tariqa, the charismatic power of the ahong and the jiaozhu, the fear of
indiscriminate violence, and the slogans of Muslim unity to motivate
their followers to violence, in defense of their homes or for revenge
against evil others.
Under such circumstances, did individual Muslims in northwest
China really have choices? In Shaanxi in 1862, perhaps they did not.
Perhaps they had to fight, run, or die, homogenized into a monolithic
enemy by their neighbors in the non-Muslim militias and by the Qing
army. But in Gansu, Muslims fought on both sides, and some communi-
ties, like Taozhou’s, chose not to participate if they could avoid it.
Overarching all these choices lies the theme of home, of one’s own place.
The mid-nineteenth-century Shaanxi Muslims retained their defensive
rage, fled and regrouped and attacked again, in order to go home. The
Ningxia, Hezhou, Taozhou, Xunhua, and Xining Muslims all evinced a
deep attachment to their own territory, using its familiarity both for
strategic purposes and to motivate soldiers and civilians to fight. On the
other side, many non-Muslims defended their villages and stockades
with ferocity, suffering massacres at Muslim hands or holding out
against lengthy siege.
Could not the Muslims have left, settled to the west, among coreli-
gionists? Some certainly did. Bai Yanhu fled to Xinjiang and then Rus-
sia (1870s); some of the survivors of Duoba did, too (1890s); and Ma
Zhongying followed them almost forty years later. But very few made
that choice. However hostile, however conflict ridden, Gansu and
Shaanxi were home to these Sino-Muslims, the only places they wanted
to live, with familiar livelihoods, mosques, holy tombs, and graves. The
four leaders whose stories close this history all spent their lives trying to
establish a viable home for the Muslims of northwest China—Ma
Fuxiang by connecting Gansu and Ningxia to the nation-state; Ma Qixi
and Ma Yuanzhang by creating Muslim solidarities of protection and
religious, social, economic, and political stability; and Ma Wanfu by
leading the Sino-Muslims to a purer, more authentic religion. Before
coming under Ma Qi’s aegis, Ma Wanfu failed to provide enough safety
for adherents to his vision of Islamic truth, so it was left to the second
generation of Ikhwan leaders to follow the path already taken by the Ma
225﻿CONCLUSION
family warlords, the Jahriya, and the Xidaotang. They came to terms
with New China and imbedded their religious communities in the ris-
ing nation-state.
FAMILIAR STRANGERS
In the early eighteenth century Liu Zhi wrote his Hem kitab in Nanjing.
A few decades later Hidayat Allah, Ma Mingxin, and 'Abd Allah of the
Qadirlya arrived in the northwest and began the creation of new social
institutions, the Sufi orders. These two currents, originally only chrono-
logically linked, have collided and developed and changed one another
over the course of over two centuries, producing a rich harvest of
conflict and insight. Once the northwest was brought irreversibly into
the Qing empire, after Zuo Zongtang’s reconquest, the leaders of the
Sino-Muslims turned decisively eastward. Never ignoring the Muslim
heartlands, many of them still open to new inspiration, texts, and experi-
ences from the west, they nonetheless cast their lot with China and took
the Han kitab as their guide. Liu Zhi’s Confucian vision of Islam has
not yet gained final victory, for he wished to construct an identity that
would not separate the Muslims from China but unify them with it, an
impossible task as long as they remain, to any extent, strangers. But
those who read Chinese can find in his books a familiar vocabulary of
belief and devotion, a discourse dedicated to making China a home for
believing Muslims.12
For the writers of the Han kitab—and their readers—were and are
serious Muslims, not assimilated half-breeds or betrayers of the faith in
comparison to Ma Wanfu or Ma Hualong. In the face of ordinary
acculturative pressures faced by any strangers—to learn the language,
eat the food, wear the clothes, become normal and familiar—they com-
plied and resisted as their mixed culture demanded. For example, many
Sino-Muslims retain pork avoidance long after they abandon other Is-
lamic practices, but they all speak Chinese as their native tongue. In the
face of the incorporative political and cultural power of the modern
nation-state, all the Sino-Muslims have become citizens of China, no
longer subjects of the empire. Their story after the 1930s must await
another study, but we can say with confidence that they have remained
12.	Wang Jianping informs me in a personal communication that Muslim scholars in
Yunnan, teaching among Muslims who read Arabic and Persian but not Chinese, have
translated some of the Han kitab texts into Arabic for instruction in the madrasa. I cannot
say whether they realize the extraordinary irony inherent in this act.
226﻿CONCLUSION
different from their non-Muslim neighbors, some only in possessing
memories of Otherness, others more completely, while working to
make a place for themselves in China, the only home they have ever
known.
We conclude with a final warning against established categories,
against stereotyped characterizations and facile generalizations. Mus-
lims, like many other kinds of people, have been subjected to a variety of
analytical oversimplifications, their behavior measured always by some
narrow textual standard or predicted by some putatively universal reli-
gious ideology. The narrative told in this book cannot be simplified
accurately; to the extent that it succeeds, it reflects the messiness of what
actually happened in northwest China over the past millennium. Our
histories should not be reducible to dichotomies (“Are they more Mus-
lim or more Chinese?”) or to black boxes (“the indivisible, great minzu
family of China”), for they must take into account what Harold Isaacs
has called “the essential disorderliness of the truth.”13 In a more human,
less cogent history, categories give way to decisions made by individuals
and effective solidarities in particular contexts. Only by learning and
constructing a myriad of such stories can we piece together what it
actually meant, and actually means, to be a Muslim in China.
13.	Isaacs, Idols of the Tribe, 29.
227﻿Chinese Character Glossary
All definitions of nouns are given in the singular form.
Agui
Ahema (Ahmad Fanakati) M'nM
ahong HcO (A) (Per. dkhiind),
Islamic teacher
Aihailisunnai	(Ar.
Ahi as-Sunna), Kinsmen of the
Tradition; the Ikhwan
Ashige HtSM
Bai Chongxi E=l
Bai Lang Eg
BaiYanhu EBlSfuS
Baishan E=| [_L| (Tur. Aqtaghliq),
White Mountain, Naqshabandi
order in eastern Turkestan
Beizhuang	menhuan name
bianjiang jShJBl, frontier
Bijiachang	menhuan
name
Bosi	Persia
ChangYuqun AIDA
Changgeng JtW
ChantouHui	Muslim
who wraps the turban, eastern
Turkestani
Chen Decai BliAA
Chenjiaji [AKjjtS
Chengda Shifan Xueyuan Avll
05	Chengda Normal
College
Daerliuji jDQArJ
daixiao	wearing of coarse
white mourning clothes
Dao jl, the Way
Daoguang jlA, Qing reign
period, 1821-50
daotang )'j|'s’, Sufi hospice
daozu xlifi, founder of a Sufi
order or suborder
Dashi	Arabia
dashiman mixiji
(Per. danishmand-, Ar. masjid),
Yuan dynasty term for a
Muslim mosque
DeWang jjgi
Deng Zeng
Ding Dexing T'j/S ®
Ding Guodong TH®
dizhu tuanlian
landlords’ militia
Dolongga
Dong Fuxiang (Dong Xingwu)
(H IE)
Dong nan xi bei ren, jiang he hu
haiehuan
, “A man for all quar-
ters, a boat for all waters” (said
of Ma Yuanzhang)
Donggan	Tungan, Chinese-
speaking Muslim
Dongxiang ^^|5, minzu name;
228﻿CHINESE CHARACTER GLOSSARY
the eastern subprefecture of
Hezhou Prefecture
dou’ou	armed affray
DuWenxiu
Duan Qirui
duilian	celebratory paired
scrolls and their inscriptions
dujun ig iff, provincial military
commander (Republican
period)
Duxinga f|$f£|55J
ermanli W5S (Ar. al-‘amalf
celebration in honor of the
Prophet or a saint
fan § (Hr), foreigner; barbarian;
a generic term for outsiders, or
specifically for Tibetans
Fan Hua bu de tong hun IfSjST''
Ir] “Foreigners and
Chinese may not intermarry”
Fan Shengwu HiSTiS;
fanfang Iff®, foreigners’quarter
(Tang-Song period)
fanzuo Mrfe, antilitigation regu-
lation stipulating punishment
for false accusers
fei wo zulei zhe	“those
[people] not of our kind”
feitu (Hj/t, bandit
Feng Yuxiang
Fukang’an
Gan ren zhi Gan iEfA'/otf, “Gan-
su people should rule Gansu”
Gansu gan Qinghai qing [J W
“Gansu is dry, Qing-
hai is green”
Gedimu @ (Ar. qadim),
community-based mosque
organization, “traditional” in
China
Gelandai f&Ki'Cy, Qalandariya,
Sufis in Yunnan
Gelaohui	the Elder
Brothers, a secret society
gong ZE, Salar community
gong Jt, tribute
gongbei (gongbai) (£^)
(Ar. qubba), tomb of a Sufi saint
Gu Jiegang
Guanli Ye US Sift
guoeui	national essence
gugjia	nation-state (modem
term borrowed from Japanese)
guojiayishi SASIB, national
consciousness
Hai Furun BO
Hai Rui M
Haiting (Ar. khatm),
primer of Koranic Arabic
haiyisi	(Ar. hayy), a large,
centrally located mosque
Han non-Muslim Chinese,
the “majority ethnic group of
China”
Han Hui	Sino-Muslim
Han Huishichou M 0 JS JJl,
“Chinese and Muslims are
eternal enemies”
Han kitab (Han ketabu)
TfJ, the Sino-Islamic canon
Hann Er \
Hann Nuri 0
Hann Si (Hann Laosi) 0
(^0)
HannWenxiu
Hanxuepai	Chinese
Studies faction; Xidaotang
He Bi M
He Jianwei
Heshen
houkai	breaking the
Ramadan fast after prayer﻿CHINESE CHARACTER GLOSSARY
Hu Dengzhou
Hu Songshan fjEflSU-l
Hualing Wupin Dingdai MtjOl
mil IK, Feathered Cap of the
Fifth Rank
Huang Chao MM
Huasi <£ (3jg) menhuan name
Hufeiye (Hufuye)	(^^
ff|3), Khafiya, a Sufi suborder
Hui (Huihui) 0 (0), Muslim
(a term that gradually came to
mean Sino-Muslim)
Hui 0,ff Muslim gentry
Huihe 0$£, Uygur; (non-
Muslim) eastern Turkestani
during the Tang through Ming
dynasties
Huihui tianwenshu ® inl TJit,
Book of Muslim Astronomy
Huihuihua 000, local Sino-
Muslim patois with Arab-
Persian lexical additions
Huijiao 0§7, Islam (term no
longer used in the People’s
Republic of China)
Huijiao tu 0^$|, a Muslim
(term no longer used in the
People’s Republic of China)
Huimin Jiaoyu Zujin Weiyuan-
hui 0S^WJEj1S»,
Muslim Educational Progres-
sive Committee
Huizei 0M, Muslim thief
huozhong	deceiving the
people
hushang	foreign merchant
(Tang-Song period)
Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek)
W00
Jiang Xiang gig
jianshi	“simple history” of
an individual minzu
jiaomen	religious teaching
or solidarity associated with a
teaching
jiaopai	religious faction
jiaozhang	community
religious leader, non-Sufi
jiaozhu I&ZE, shaikh \ Sufi leader
jiazu	Chinese corporate
lineage
jingming	Islamic name,
given to a Muslim child at
birth
jingtang jiaoyu	scrip-
ture hall education; religious
instruction in Arabic and
Persian
jingtangyu	same as
Huihuihua
jinshi	highest civil-service
examination graduate
Jinxing Tang	Ma Qixi’s
first school, the Gold Star Hall
juren j\, provincial-level
examination graduate
kaiguo gongchen
meritorious ministers who
founded the state, Zhu Yuan-
zhang’s ministers
Kang Lang
Kangxi	Qing reign period,
1661-1722
laihua 0-fE, come and be
transformed
LanYu jgZE
Laojiao	Old Teaching
Lei Zhengguan
li H, principle
li ijil, ritual, propriety
LiPeiying
Li Shiyao
Li Zhi﻿CHINESE CHARACTER GLOSSARY
Li Zicheng
Liu Jintang
Liu Yufen Li LM AY
Liu Zhi (Jielian, Yizhai) §lj (A
*,-W)
Liupin Dingdai Ann IK IK, Cap
Button of the Sixth Rank
Lixue	Neo-Confucianism
Long pK, traditional name for
Gansu
Lu Guohua ASIA
Lu Hongtao
Ma Anliang
Ma Congshan
MaFucai MffiM
Ma Fulu Mi®if&
Ma Fushou MSiW
Ma Fuxiang M’fi)W
Ma Guiyuan MSSI
Ma Guobao M SI K
Ma Guoliang M SI M
MaHongbin MSS#
Ma Hongkui MSS 111
Ma Hualong (Ma Chaoqing)
MIL ft (WTO
MaHuan Mlfc
Ma Huisan MW A
Majiajun W^f^c
Majincheng W3^^
Ma Jinxi WaS®
Ma Laichi MAjS
Ma Lin MM
Ma Mingren M ® t
Ma Mingxin W®$T (M®'l?)
Ma Qi M®t
MaQianling MAM
Ma Qixi Ml?®
Ma Rubiao M$DH£
MaShilin Mffl
Ma Shouying (Lao Huihui)
Ma Shouzhen MAW
Ma Songting M^3?
MaTaibaba MASS
MaTingrang M5iSj
Ma Wanfu (Hajjl Guoyuan)
WMW (ISO)
MaWeihan M&O
MaWenlu MA^
MaWensheng MA A
MaWuyi MS-
MaYide MWW.
Ma Yinghuan MW^
Ma Yonglin MA^tt
Ma Yongrui MA^
MaYuanchao MtgIH
Ma Yuanzhang (Guanglie) M 7C
S («)
Ma Zhan’ao M A 38
Ma Zhenwu MRjS)
Ma Zhongying MAiS
Ma Zhu Mfi
Ma Ziqiang M§$S
MaZongsheng MAA
Majiajz/w/a MAMBfl, Mafamily
warlords (Republican period)
Meng Qiaofang AififA
Meng-Hui R[U, Mongol
Muslim
menhu fAP, great family
menhuan KKlA, saintly lineage;
hereditary leader of a Sufi sub-
order
Milayin AWW
min common people
Min Fuying
Mingshahui ®^W, Bright
Sand Societies, a pejorative for
Ma Laichi’s Khafiya
Ming shale (Mingshaer) Bfj'dhKj
(®gl>W), a text of scriptural
extracts used within the Khafiya
minzu	ethnic group
(modern term borrowed from
Japanese)﻿CHINESE CHARACTER GLOSSARY
minzu douzheng ABM A,
minzu conflict
minzu qiyi A A A A, minzu
righteous uprising
Mu Ying
Mufuti ^8 A SI, menhuan name
Musilin QsfiJr#, Muslim
Mutushan UH A
Naigeshibandingye
IP, Naqshabandiya, a Sufi order
Nei gongchan, wai diguo A A A
“On the inside, com-
munist; to the outside, imper-
ialist” (said of the Xidaotang)
neidi pjffe, the interior, China
proper viewed from Gansu
Nianle buchi, chile bunian A*
“If you read
scripture, don’t eat; if you eat,
don’t read scripture” (Ikhwan
slogan)
Niu Shihan ABB
pailou WfB, memorial or cele-
bratory archway
pifazi	hide rafts of the
upper Yellow River
Pingnan Guo zp^jgl, Du Wen-
xiu’s secessionist state in Yun-
nan
pinyin #, transliteration
system
PuLuoxin
qiankai BuHSJ, breaking the
Ramadan fast before prayer
Qianlong BIA, Qing reign
period, 1736-96
qingzhen MR, pure and true;
Islamic; ritually pure (halal)
Qintianjian A ASS, Bureau of
Astronomy (Ming period)
ren A, benevolence
Rendao Alt, Way of Human-
kind
Ronglu AB
Ru fH, Confucian
ruxiang AB, frankincense
Sai Dianchi	SayyidAjall
Shams ad-Din
Sala(er) (W), Turkic-
speaking Muslim of northeast-
ern Tibet
semu	foreigner resident in
China (Yuan period)
semu guan A @ H’, official of the
various categories; foreign
official in China (Yuan period)
shanhou AB, state-imposed
pacification after violence,
especially rebellion
shanren #A, saint
shaoshu minzu	minor-
ity nationality; minority minzu
Shazilinye iA&#MP, Shadhillya,
a Sufi order
Shengbao
Shengyun BA
shengzhan A®, holy war
shexide	(Ar. shahid),
martyrdom
ShiDakai AMAA
Su Sishisan (Su Forty-three) 2^
HTT
SufeipA	Sufi order;
Sufism
Tang Yanhe
Tao Zongyi lAAfii
Tian Shengong APB
TianWu IB A
Tian Xing Long	the
Xidaotang’s trading company
Tiandao A)M, Way of Heaven﻿CHINESE CHARACTER GLOSSARY
Tianfang	Arabia
Turen ±\, Monguor, a
Mongolic-speaking people of
Gansu
tusheng fanke ETiWisF, domes-
tically born foreigner (Song
period)
tusi i.WJ, hereditary “native
chieftain” in frontier zones
(Yuan-Qing periods)
Wang Dagui 3£;^±
Wang Daiyu 311231
WangDanwang ZEjffBl
Wang Lun 31 lira
WangNaibi 3171/iL'
Wang Shumin 31WS
Wei Guangdao
wenhua	literary culture;
“civilization” in an elite
Chinese context
Woshikeng’e
wotuo	(Mong. ortaq),
foreign merchant partner of
Mongol royalty (Yuan period)
Wu Sangui
Wu Zunqie
Wuchang E'S?, Five Constants
Wugang 5^, Five Relation-
ships
wushi fanke EtSW^, fifth
generation domestically bom
foreigner (Song period)
xiHui gfetU, “wash away the
Muslims”
xiaojing (xiaoerjin') (/Js^E
^), use of Arabic letters to
transliterate Chinese
Xidaotang Oxt'st, religious
solidarity based in Old Tao-
zhou
Xidayetonglaxi
Hidayat Allah, Khoja Afaq
xiedou	feud
xiejiao 3WE heterodoxy
xin {g, faith in humankind,
sincerity
Xinjiao	New Teaching
Xinzhu
xiueai	prefectural exami-
nation graduate
xiushen	cultivating one’s
inherently virtuous inner
nature
xiyang ® Western (in early
Qing refers to the Catholic
writings of Ricci et al.)
Yang Changjun 3 ’ill
Yangjiqing
Yang Shiji
Yang Zengxin
yangqi (KM, cultivating the vital
essence
yi IS, righteousness
Yi Xing Gong 83IE, Huasi
menhuari's trading company
Yihewani (Tift JOB (Ar. al-
Ikhwan al-Muslimun), Ikhwan
Yingqi
Yisilanjiao fTSfiUBSSl, Islam
Yisilanjiao Hanxuejia Sir SHI#
JSOO, Sino-Islamicist,
modern term for a Han kitab
writer
Yongle zK^t, Ming reign period,
1403-24
Yongli 3c J§, Ming remnant
reign period, 1644-62
Yongzheng $IIE, Qing reign
period, 1722-35
YuYouren TOOT
Yuan Shikai ^^§0,﻿CHINESE CHARACTER GLOSSARY
Znxue	Diverse Studies, an
Islamic primer
zhaizi	stockade; fort for
paramilitary militia
Zhamalading (Jamal ad-Din)
JLO'JT _
Zhang Fei 5f5ffj
Zhang Fenghui
Zhang Guangjian ‘jShSFI
Zhang Guangsi
Zhang Wenqing 'JMFCfsS
Zhang Xianzhong
Zhang Zhong (Zhang Shizhong)
Zhang Zuolin
Zhehelinye (Zheherenye) ft
(iS) XE>, Jahriya, a Sufi
suborder
Zheng He
Zheng Suonan
zhi ^3, knowledge
Zhong-A Zhongxue tjr pnj tja 5
Sino-Arabic Middle School
Zhongguo Huijiao Gonghui rF
S Fa W, China Islamic
Association
zbongyuan	central plain;
China proper
zhongzu	race (modern
term borrowed from Japanese)
Zhou Mi
Zhou Shixiang (Qishi)	Jff jjp£
Cfc+)
Zhu Chun yfohl
Zhu Di
Zhu Shichuan tFFBe?
Zhu Yuanzhang
zongjiao	religion (modern
term borrowed from Japanese)
zunjinggaisu	“vener-
ate the scriptures, reform the
customs”
zunjing pai	scripturalist
faction; the Ikhwan
Zuo Zongtang﻿Bibliography
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253﻿Index
'Abd al-'Aziz, 20+
'Abd al-Wahhab, Muhammad b., 87,
202-3, 209
Abu ’1-Futuh. See Ma Laichi
acculturation: as local, 213; as ordinary,
226; process of, xix. See also minzu
paradigm
of Sino-Muslims, xviii; anxiety regard-
ing, 73; and external contact, 213-14;
limits of, 213; in Ming, 39, +0, +5-46,
55-56; in Tang-Song, 28-31; in Yangzi
region, 46; in Yuan, 34-38
adoption, 45,113
Afaqiya (Sufi order), 64, 70, 88, 94,
i9o»0, 217
Agui, no, in, 162,179,186, 220
Ahi as-Sunna (Kinsmen of the Tradition),
204
Ahmad Fanakati (Ahema), 31—32, 35—36
ahong (imam, religious teacher): as distinc-
tive leader, 214; in Gansu, 178; inade-
quacies of, 73; limitation on move-
ment of, 113; opposition to Han kitab
by, 84; as profession, 48—49. See also
Islam; madrasa; mosques; religion
Alashan, 171
Altishahr, 58, 65, 94. See also Xinjiang
Amdo (northeastern Tibet), 12; geography
and economy of, 13; as independent,
163; as middle ground, 159. See also
Qinghai Province; Tibet
Anhui, 38
Arabia (Tianfang): scripturalist fundamen-
talism in, 202—3; as site of conflict,
217; as source of truth, 78—79; Sufi
revivalism in, 86-87
Arabic calligraphy, 181,187
Arabic (language) education, 49-51, 215
Arabic pinyin for Chinese, 50-51
Arabs, 25
Aryanism, xx
Ashige, 75
Aubin, Frangoise, 178
Bafang, 21,146,159
Bai Chongxi, 197
Bai Lang, Gansu campaign of, 183,191-94
Bai Yanhu, 129,135,165, 225
Baishan (Sufi order), 190
Baizhuangzi, 108
banditry, endemic in Gansu, 171
baraka (religious charisma), 61, 66,185
Bayanrong, 144,155,160
beg (hereditary lord), xxix
Beizhuang (menhuan), 188, 201
Bi Yuan, 98»8r
Bijiachang (menhuan), 71
Board of Punishments, xix«4, 99—101,119
Boluo (Pulad Aqa), 32
Bosi. See Persians
Boxer uprising, 169,181
brawling (dou’ou), 100
Buddhism: in China, xviii; as heterodoxy,
48, 77; resemblance to Sufism, 6o»7,
62; studied by Liu Zhi, 81; Tibetan,
13-14; in Yuan, 37
category system: as danger, 227; as dis-
course of power, xxv, 221; minzu para
digm as, xxii, 216. See also ethnicity;
minzu paradigm
Central Asia: Amdo as frontier of, 13; com
254﻿INDEX
merce with, 53; connections with
Gansu, 92; Gansu as frontier of, 221;
as Ming frontier, 42; as origin of
semu, 34, 35; route to, 11; as site of
conflict, 217; as source of Sufism, 63;
Sufi rivalries in, 64-65; in Tang-Song
China, 29. See also Xinjiang
Chang Yuqun, 38
Chang’an, 26, 29
Changgeng, 170,171,183
Chantou Hui. See Uygur minzu
charity, as Muslim duty, 45»tftf
Chen Decai, 120
Chen Jiaji, 142,145,147,166
Chengda Normal College, 176
Chiang Kai-shek. See Jiang Jieshi
China: as environment for Sufism, 64; as
home for Muslims, xxxv; political dis-
integration of, 186. See also northwest
China
China, People’s Republic of: characteriza-
tion of minzu in, xxxiii; “civilizing
project” of, xxii; historiography in,
xxxii; minzu policies of, xvii, xix, xx-
xxiv; Muslim minzu defined, xxiiwrr
China, Republic of, 16,172,175-77,183—
86. See also Guomindang
China Islamic Association (Zhongguo
Huijiao Gonghui), 176
Chinese calligraphy, 168,169,181,187,199
Chinese culture, as vehicle for Islam, 198
Chinese historiography, xxx—xxxiii, 117-18
Chinese identity, Muslims in, xxxv
Chinese language, as vehicle for Islam,
73
Chinese nationalism, 200; Confucianism
and, 176—77; and frontiers, 15-17; in
historiography, xxxi; Hu Songshan
and, 210; Ikhwan and, 205, 208—11;
and minzu paradigm, 216; Muslims
and, 175. See also nation building
Chinese people, xxxii, 8
Chinggis Khan, n
Choni (Zhuoni), 14,152
Christian missionaries, 144
Christianity, xviii, 37
class struggle, xxxi
Communists, 16
Confucianism: and Chinese nationalism,
176-77; Han kitab as, 226; and his-
tory, xxxi-xxxii; and Islam, 75—79,
82-84, 92; social harmony in, 101; vir-
tues of, and Islamic duties, 78. See also
Han kitab; Liu Zhi
Confucius, 79
conversion to Islam, 46,113
corruption, in Gansu, 96-97
cotton processing, 30
Daerliuji, 171
Daoism, 48, 6o»7, 77, 81,169
darughaci, 33
Dashi. See Arabia; Arabs
Datong, 160
Daxia River, 12, 21
Deng Zeng, 142,144,154,161,162,165
dhikr (remembrance of God): defined, 62;
as divisive issue, 6$ni7, 103, 217; recita-
tion of, 178; silent, 64-65, 87, 88, 91;
vocal, 65, 87, 88, 90, 91. See also Sufi
order; Sufism
Didao (Lintao), 154,192; 1648 rebellion in,
54; 1895 rebellion in, 149-52; foreign
merchants in, 30; Hidayat Allah in,
59. See also Mufti
Ding Dexing, 38
Ding Guodong, 53-55, 64,128, 217, 223
Dolongga, 124
Dong Fuxiang: attacks Taoxi, 151; as com-
mander of Ma family warlords, 169;
conflict with Ma Yuanzhang, 181—82;
role in 1895 rebellion, 156—59, 164,168;
as threat to Muslims, 224
Donggan. See Tungan
Dongguan, 160
Dongxiang minzu, 149-50, 216
Dongxiang region, 13, 201, 203, 204, 206
Du Huan, 31
Du Wenxiu, 129K.0, 200
Duan Qirui, 173
Dungan. See Tungan
Duoba, 162,165, 225
Duxinga, 125
earthquake, 183,195
Eastern Turkestan. See Xinjiang
education, Islamic, 49-51, 73,176,198. See
also jingtang jiaoyu
255﻿INDEX
Eighteen Great Battalions, 124,129,133
elders, 48, 214
empire, in history, xxviii—xxix
empress dowager, 156,157M20, 169
ethnic cleansing, [23W4/
ethnicity: defined, xxvii-xxviii; and minzu
paradigm, xxviii; and nation-state,
xxivK/f, xxv. See also minzu paradigm
European weapons, in Gansu, 126,128,157
Fan Shengwu, 188
fanzuo rule, 69
Feng Yuxiang, 16,173-75,196
Fengxiang, 30,119
Ferghana Valley, 43
feud, within Huasi menhuan, 140,141
feuds (xiedou)-. escalation of local, 121;
within Huasi, 140—41; among Mus-
lims, 100,108; rebellions as local, 114;
among Salars, 107, 141; at Xining, 161.
See also violence
Five Pillars of Faith, 78,198
Fletcher, Joseph, 67, 70/230, 85, 87, 2022237,
217
foreigners’ quarters (fanfang), 28
frankincense, 27—28
frontier: Gansu as multisided, 3-5,16,
221-23; Gu Jiegang on, 6—7; as home,
222; in modem nation-building, 15-
17,198, 223; northwest China as, 5, 7,
14,18-20; as site of violence, 5, 90-
91, 217; study of, xviii. See also Gansu
Province; nation; northwest China
Fujiang (Gangu), Muslims in, 21-22
Fukang’an, 112—14
fundamentalism, scripturalist, 200-209,
223
Galdan, 63, 90,101
Gansu Province: as complex frontier,
xxxiii, xxxvi, 3-5, 7-9,14,16,18, 221-
23; corrupt officials in, 96-97; as fron-
tier of Islam, 218; geography and
economy of, 9-14; in late 18th cent.,
93; menhuan in, 70—71; as middle
ground, xxxiii; Muslim solidarity in,
85; Muslim tuanlian of, 120-21; Mus-
lims of, 3,18—23; peoples of, 18-20;
Qing conquest of, 52; self-
government of, 183; Sufism in, 64-
72; warlord period in, 172; Yuan sol-
diers in, 35. See also frontier; north-
west China; rebellion
Gansu Provincial Assembly, 171
Ganzhou, 53, 54
Gao Wenyuan, 117
Gedimu: defined, 47-49; difference from
non-Muslims, 214; difference from
Sufi orders, 69, 89, 90; as Ikhwan tar-
get, 206; as part of Old Teaching,
220; in Shaanxi, 119, 206; as Sino-
Muslim mainstream, 200; in
Taozhou, 188. See also mosques
Gelaohui, 1262243, ^2, 194
gender, xxx„25, 31, 104212
geomancy, 78
glass making, 30
Gobi Desert, n
Gold Star Hall, 188
gongbei (Sufi tombs): as cause for vio-
lence, 151, 221; destroyed at Didao,
151; Ikhwan opposition to, 209; of the
Jahriya, 185; as Sufi centers, 61, 70,
187; at Taozhou, 152. See also
menhuan -, Sufism
Gongchang, 53,54
Grand Canal, 26
Gu Jiegang, xxxv, 6-7, 9,14-15,17, 22,
108,118, 221
Guangzhou, 26, 27, 29, 203
Guardi Ye, 113
Guizhen zongyi (text), 75
Guo Shoujing, 332233, 392230
Guomindang, 167,169,175,176,177,187,
197, 211
Guyuan, n, in
Hai Furun, 98-99, 213
Hai Rui, 40
Haicheng, n, 147-48,154
haldl food, 47, 214
Hami, 43, 53, 54, 55,59, 92, 206
Han Hui (Sino-Muslims), xxiii, 216. See
also Hui minzu; Sino-Muslims
Han kitab (Sino-Muslim canon), 178, 200:
creation of, 72—85; defined, 73-74; in
Hai Furun case, 99; Ikhwan and, 210,
211; as Islamic revival, 223; impor-
256﻿INDEX
tance of, 92, 226; Ma Fuxiang and,
169,176,177; Ma Qixi and, 189,190;
Xidaotang and, 198,199. See also Con-
fucianism; names of individual authors
Han minzu: chauvinism, xxxi; cultural
norms of, xxxiii; culturally Chinese
people as, 15; history of, xxi-xxii; as
most advanced, xxi
Hanafi (school of jurisprudence), 203, 209
Hanbali (school of jurisprudence), 202-3,
205, 209
Hanjiaji, 145
Hann Nuri, 138,141,142,144
Hann Si, 138
Hann Two, 109
Hann Wenxiu, 155,160
hacjiqa, Chinese definition of, 6o»7
He Bi, 52,55,127
He Jianwei, 151
hegemonic narrative of Chinese history,
xxi-xxii, xxxi—xxxiii
Herat, 42
hereditary succession in Sufi orders, 6$nr8,
66mi, 70, 90
Heshen, 93, 95, no
Hezhou: 1872 surrender of, 127,134-35;
1895 rebellion in, 144-48,154,158-59;
Chinese dialect of, 141113; conflict
within Khafiya in, 141; controlled by
Zhang Guangjian, 172; first mosque
in, 30; Hidayat Allah in, 59; Islamic
institutions in, 145; as Ma Anliang’s
base, 194, 206; Ma Fuxiang in, 166; as
Ma Laichi’s base, 66; as Ma Zhan’ao’s
base, 121,126; Muslims and non-
Muslims in, 20-21, 22-23; as Muslim
center, 13, 222; Qadiriya in, 88«7o;
qiankai-houkai conflict in, 68; reputa-
tion of, 145
Hidayat Allah (Khoja Afaq): as founder
of Bijiachang, 71; as founder of
Khafiya, 64-66; as founder of Mufti,
71, 89,149; as Galdan’s client, 63, 90;
journey to China, 59, 65-66, 70, 201,
226; and Makhdumzada khojas, 94-
See also Khafiya; Ma Laichi; Sufism
hide rafts (fifazi), no
horses, 42, 43
houkai. See qiankai-houkai conflict
Hu Dengzhou, 49-51
Hu Songshan, 209-10
Huaisheng mosque, 29
Huang Chao, 27
Huangzhong: complex population of,
160; geography and economy of, 12;
as locus of Muslim violence, 154; Ma
Zhongying in, 174; as Salar country,
103; Xining as center of, 159. See also
Xining
Huasi (menhuan): 1895 rebellion and, 140;
conflict within, 141,142; founded by
Ma Laichi, 90; Ma Anliang and, 146,
207; Ma Zhan’ao as head of, 126;
opposition to Xidaotang by, 191; at
Taozhou, 188; Yi Xing Gong as com-
mercial arm of, 191. See also Khafiya;
names of individual leaders
Hui minzu\ defined, xxiii—xxiv; origins of,
xxiii, xxivnty, 216; and religion, xxiii,
118. See also Sino-Muslims
Huihui, 25, 38. See also Muslims; Sino-
Muslims
Huihui tianwenshu (Book of Muslim
astronomy), 39
Huihuihua, as distinguishing patois, 47,
214
huozhong (deluding the people), 68
Ibn-Sa'ud family, 202—4
identity, as multiple, 224
Ikhwan: alliance with Ma Qi, 207-8;
Arabian roots of, 202-3; as Islamic
revival, 223; and modern education,
210; origins of, 204-6; as trans-
regional solidarity, 215. See also
Ma Wanfu
iman (faith), 75
import products, of Muslim merchants,
27—28
intermarriage, xxii, 26-27, 38, 41, 45,105
Ishaqlya (Sufi order), 217
Islam: in Central Asia, 30; in China, study
of, xvii—xviii; in Chinese culture, 198;
and Confucianism, 75-79, 82-84, 92,
169; distinctiveness of, 215; distin-
guished from Buddhism and Daoism,
82; explained in Chinese, 73; lack of
central authority in, 61; as mark of
257﻿INDEX
Islam (continued)
foreignness, 27; in Ming accounts,
+4; in minzu paradigm, xxii-xxiii; pu-
nitive limitations on, 113; under Qing
hegemony, 95; in Qing law, 98-99; as
religion, xxvi; role in rebellions, 118;
scripturalist fundamentalism in, 200-
209; as uncivilized in Chinese eyes,
213; uniformity in, xviii; unrestricted
by Ming, 42; as valence of identity,
xxvi; in Xidaotang, 198. See also
religion; Sufism
Islamic texts, 89
Israeli, Raphael, 118
jade, 94
Jahriya (Sufi order): in 1860s rebellion,
131-33; anti-Qing action by, 107;
Banqiao branch of, 185; blamed for
violence, 99,136-37; conflict with
Khafiya, 89-93, 103; as divisive inno-
vation, 218; and Dong Fuxiang, 182;
at Fujiang, 22; headquarters at
Jinjipu, 121,125-26; as menbuan, 179—
80,184,185; militance of, 95,136; as
New Teaching, 91, 220; origins of,
86—89; proscription of, hi—13; re-
venge by, in, 219; revival of, 147,177-
86,187, 226; Shagou branch of, 185;
source for study of, 86; spread be-
yond Gansu of, 113-14; at Tianshui,
21; as transregional solidarity, 113—14,
215; at Zhangjiachuan, 20,180,182,
184. See also Khafiya; Ma Hualong;
Ma Mingxin; Ma Yuanzhang;
menhuan; Sufism
Jalal ad-Din Rumi, 64
Jamal ad-Din, 33, 39
Japanese nativism, xx
Jiang Jieshi, 175, 197
Jiang Xiang, 54
jianshi (simple history), xxi
jiaopai (solidarity), xxvii. See also Gedimu;
Ikhwan; Xidaotang
jiaozhu. See shaikh
Jiayuguan, 9,128
jihad, 53,107,132,144, 219
Jingningpu, 161
jingtang jiaoyu (mosque education), 73;
as distinctive practice, 200, 214; need
for, 49; origins of, 49-51- See also
Hu Dengzhou
Jinjipu, 121,125-26,131,180
Jishi Pass, 142,144,148,155,168
Judaism, xviii, 37, 4112.0, 213
Jurched, 30
Ka’aba, 44
Kaifeng, 26
Kang Lang, 40
Kangxi emperor, 80
Kargang, Muslim Tibetans of, 671223
Kashgar, 30, 63, 64
Kazakhs, 94
Khafiya (Sufi order): adherents killed by
Bai Lang, 194; and Afaqiya, 94,
19011.0; associated with sectarianism,
69; conflict with Jahriya, 89—93,103,
109; conflict within, 121,140; heredi-
tary succession in, 90,179; Hezhou
(Bafang) as headquarters of, 121,145;
and Huasi menhuan, 126; as Old
Teaching, 91, 220; origins of, 64-70;
pro-Qing position of, 95,107, in, 113,
178, 219, 223; resistance to Qing by,
131; in Taozhou, 188,189. See also
Hidayat Allah; Huasi; Jahriya; Ma
Laichi; Ma Zhan’ao; menhuan
Khitan, 30
Khoja 'Abd Allah, 881170, 89, 226. See also
Qadirlya
Khoja Afaq (Apaq). See Hidayat Allah
Khwarezm, 34
Kokand, xixi24, 63
Kokenor (Qinghai Lake), 13
Koran, 24, 25,50, 66, 77, 138,168,177,181,
187, 205
Kuhn, Philip, 1221235), 161
Kumbum, 14,164
al-Kuranl, Ibrahim ibn Hasan, 86-87, 90
Labrang, 13,164
lamaseries, 163,164
Lan Yu, 38
language, as valence of identity, 224
Lanzhou, 3, 9, 20, 53, 59, no
law: cases involving Sino-Muslims, xixii4,
68, 91,100,142,189-90; status of
258﻿INDEX
Muslims in Ming, 41, ioo; status of
Muslims in Qing, 97—101
Lei Zhengguan, 147,148,155,158
Li Peiying, 162
Li Shijia, 161
Li Shiyao, 112,114
Li Yansheng, 28/H5
Li Zhi, 40
Li Zicheng, 52, 53, 222
Linxia. Hui Autonomous Prefecture.
See Hezhou
literacy, in northwest China, xxx
literary inquisition, 98—99
Liu Bang, 191
Liu Erxin, 181
Liu Jintang, 128,157
Liu Yufen, 173
Liu Zhi, 226: in 20th cent., 176; career of,
82-84; education of, 81-82; in Hai
Furun case, 99; sources used by,
82»t3; in thought of Ma Qixi, 189,
198-99; works of, 82-84. See also Con-
fucianism; Han kitab
Liupan Mountains, 11
Longdong, 11
Longnan, 12
Lu Guohua, 97-98
Lu Hongtao, 173
Ma Anliang: 1872 surrender of Hezhou by,
127; death of, 172; as Ma family war-
lord, 171, 208, 223; named by Zuo
Zongtang, 127K5;; opposition to
Ikhwan, 206, 207; opposition to re-
publican revolution, 170,183; opposi-
tion to Xidaotang, 187,191,194—95;
passive resistance to Bai Lang, 192,
194; as Qing military official, 146,
149,156-57,164,166,186, 200, 223;
as ruler of Hezhou, 159; as threat to
Muslims, 168, 224. See also Hezhou;
Huasi; Khafiya; Ma family warlords;
Ma Zhan’ao
Ma Congshan, 66
Ma family warlords (Majia junfa), ayns4,
149,166,171, 223, 225-26
Ma Fulu, 148,155,157,168,169
Ma Fushou, 168
Ma Fuxiang: as candidate for provincial
power, 172-73,183; coalition against
Feng Yuxiang, 174; Confucian lean-
ings of, 168,169; death of, 177; early
military career of, 168; economic ac-
tivities, of, 169; education of, 168;
and Guomindang, 173—76,197; and
Ikhwan, 208; and modem education,
176, 210; and modern integration of
Gansu, 185-86,187,199, 223, 225; as
Qing military official, 149,178; as
threat to Muslims, 168, 224. See also
Guomindang; Han kitab; Ma family
warlords
Ma Guiyuan, 121,128,135
Ma Guobao, 70,179, 200
Ma Guoliang, 148,155,168
Ma Hongbin, 172,177, 208
Ma Hongkui, 172,175,177, 208
Ma Hualong: as anti-Qing rebel, 125—26,
132,134,178,182, 200; based at
Jinjipu, 121; negotiation with Qing
by, 125,131-32, 220; religion as motiva
tion for, 118, 226; as Sufi leader, 137,
140; surrender and execution of, 126;
surviving descendants of, 180,185.
See also Jahriya; Zuo Zongtang
Ma Huan, 44
Ma Huisan, 202, 204
Ma Jiajun, 66
Ma Jincheng, 180
Ma Jinxi, 180,182,183,185
Ma Laichi (Abu ’1-Futuh): birth of, 66;
career of, 66—71; compliance with
Qing, 95; descendants of, 140; educa-
tion of, 66; as founder of Khafiya,
64; pilgrimage of, 66, 67«22; practice
of hereditary succession by, 90; as
shaikh, 89; as student of Ma Taibaba,
65; as transmitter of Sufism, 201; trav
els in Middle East, 87. See also Huasi;
Khafiya; menhuan
Ma Lin, 195
Ma Mingren, 197
Ma Mingxin ('Aziz), 85; anti-Qing stance
of, 95, 200; blamed for violence, 99;
career of, 86-90; criticism of
Khafiya, 90,179; execution of, no;
imprisoned in Lanzhou, 107,109; as
Jahriya leader, 103,108-9; Jahriya
259﻿INDEX
Ma Mingxin (continued)
revenge for, 112; Ma Hualong as
descendant of, 125; in Ma Qixi’s
thought, 199; Ma Yuanzhang as de-
scendant of, 179,185; pilgrimage of,
87—88; thaumaturgy of, 113; as trans-
mitter of Sufism, 201, 226. See also
Jahriya; menhuan; Sufism
Ma Qi, 171,174,182, 207—8, 223. See also
Ikhwan; Ma family warlords
Ma Qianling, 167
Ma Qixi: attacked by Ma Anliang, 194;
and Beizhuang menhuan, 188—90,
201; death of, 195; economic ideas of,
190; education of, 188—89; educa-
tional ideas of, 189,198—99, 210;
founds Xidaotang, 190; life of, 186—
99; and Muslim solidarity, 225; reli-
gious life of, 198. See also Han kitab;
Taozhou, Xidaotang
Ma Rubiao, 140,141
Ma Shilin, 179
Ma Shouying (Lao Huihui), 52, 53, 64,
222
Ma Shouzhen, 71
Ma Songting, 176
Ma Taibaba, 65, 66
Ma Tingrang, 174
Ma Tong, 67, 88,I3O»58, 168, 201
Ma Wanfu: education of, 201-2; as
founder of Ikhwan, 201; as fundamen-
talist leader, 199, 225, 226; life of,
200-208; pilgrimage of, 202-3; res-
cue and patronage by Ma Qi, 207-8;
support for 1895 rebellion, 206; trans-
formation of message of, 211. See also
Ikhwan; Ma Qi
Ma Weihan, 159,186
Ma Wenlu, 121,128
Ma Wensheng, 40
Ma Wuyi, in
Ma Yide, 179
Ma Yinghuan, 68-69, 218
Ma Yonglin: in 1895 rebellion, 144,146,
148-49,155,156,158, 166,186; accused
before Yang Changjun, 142; as descen-
dant of Ma Laichi, 140; execution of,
159; as local intermediary, 147; op-
posed to Ma Rubiao’s reform, 141.
See also Khafiya; Ma Anliang;
Ma Fuxiang
Ma Yongrui, 140,141
Ma Yuanchao, 174
Ma Yuanzhang: on Chinese nationalism,
185; death of, 184; on education, 210;
as head of the Jahriya, 178,187,199;
life of, 177—86; and Muslim solidarity,
225; resistance to Bai Lang by, 194; as
trustworthy ahong, 180; in Yunnan,
179; in Zhangjiachuan, 180,182. See
also Dong Fuxiang; Jahriya
Ma Zhan’ao: and Islam, 137; as Khafiya
leader at Hezhou, 121,126,133,141,
167; as Ma Anliang’s father, 146,170;
as Qing military official, 135,178; as
rebel, 134; surrender to Qing of, 127,
135,140,157, 219. See also Hezhou;
Huasi; Khafiya; Ma Anliang; Ma
Fuxiang
Ma Zhenwu, 177
Ma Zhongying, 174,196-97, 225
Ma Zhu: in 20th cent., 176; career of, 79—
81; education of, 79; Qing recogni-
tion sought by, 80, 214; in thought of
Ma Qixi, 188; travels of, 80; as Yun-
nan Muslim gentry, 81. See also
Confucianism; Han kitab
Ma Ziqiang, 40
Ma Zongsheng ('Abd ar-Rahman), 71
madrasa, 4XM72, 50,145
Makhdumazada kbojas, 70, 94,101
Maluzhen, 20
Manchu minzu, xxi. See also Qing dynasty
Manchus, as imperial center, xix
Marco Polo, 31, 36, iS9ni2}
martial arts, 90,106,168, 217
martyrdom (shahid), 137, 206
Mathnawi (text), 64, 65
Matteo Ricci, 81
Mecca, 44, 202—3. See also pilgrimage
medicine, exchange of, 30
Meng Qiaofang, 52-54, 92,128, 224
menhuan, xxvii, 200; as cause of violence,
151,165; as divisive, 71, 143,144; evolu-
tion of, 166; as instrument of elite
control, 70,140; Jahriya as, 184;
Khafiya as, 70; opposed by Ikhwan,
205, 206, 208, 209; organization of,
260﻿INDEX
120; origins of, 70; Qadiriya as,
89«7o; relation to Chinese lineage,
70—72,140; tuanlian of, 120. See also
Jahriya; Khafiya; Sufi order; Sufism;
names of individual menhuan
middle ground, xxxiii, xxxvi
Milayin, 53-55, 64, 92, 217, 222
militarization of society, 119, 224
militias. See tuanlian
millet, as minzu, 2i6n8
min (non-Muslim common people), 97,
99
Min Fuying, 146,148
Ming dynasty, xxiii, 38-51,52,56,100,
I3I»04
Mingshahui (Bright Sand Societies), 68
Mingshale (text), 67
minority nationalities (shaoshu minzu),
xvii
Minzhou, 192,194
minzu conflict, 220
minzu paradigm: anti-Qing unity in, 117;
as category system, xxii, xxvi, 216;
and consciousness, xxv; creation of,
xx; dangers of, 215-16; definition of,
xx-xxi, xxviii; and definition of Hui,
40; and ethnicity, xxviii; evolution of,
xxi; and gender, xxiii; as hegemonic
narrative, xxi-xxii; historiography
within, xxxi; and history, xxxii; impo-
sition of, xxiv; Manchus in, 117; and
Muslim solidarity, xxvii; Muslim
unity in, 130; Muslims in, xxii-xxiii;
northwestern Muslims in, i8»2o; and
race, xx, 2i6»8; religion in, xxii; valid-
ity of, xxiv. See also category system;
ethnicity; China, People’s Republic
of
Mirsad al-Ibad (text), 74
al-Mizjajl, 'Abd al-Khaliq b. az-Zayn, 87
Mongke, 32
Mongol (minzu), xxi
Mongolia, xxxiii-xxxiv, 13, 221
Mongolic-speakers, 9,19,149-50, 201,
216
Mongols, 30,38, no, 171
Morgan, Lewis, xxi
mosques: as distinctive community cen-
ters, 47, 214; large central, 211; prohi-
bition on building of, 113; role and
structure of, 48-49; among Salars,
105
Mosuo minzu, xxi
Mu Shenghua, 131W14
Mu Ying, 38,188
Mufti (menhuan), 71,149,159, 218
Muhammad (prophet), 25,178; biography
of, 82; as Ma Zhu’s ancestor, 80; ori-
gin of Sino-Muslims and, 24; tomb
of, 44; as Western sage, 79
Muhammad Yusuf, 58, 64»n5
Muslim Educational Progressive Associa-
tion, 177
Muslims: acculturation under Yuan, 34-
38; bandits, 40; in China, xvii; defini-
tion of, xxvi; economic roles in Song
China, 30; elites, 166; as foreign
sojourners, 26-27; as generals, 21; as
gentry, of Taozhou, 153,188; milita-
rism of, 16-17, 200; in Ming law, 38-
39, 41; organizations of, national, 176,
212; rebellion of, 219; as scientists, 33,
39-40; scripturalist fundamentalism
of, 202-3; as semu guan, 33; solidarity
of, as Ma Yuanzhang’s goal, 181; unity
of, perceived, 215; valence of identity
of, xxvi; and violence, xxx; in Yuan
bureaucracy, 32-34, 36-37; under
Zhu Yuanzhang, 38. See also Islam;
Muslims; Sino-Muslims
communities of: authority in, 68; con-
flict within, 88; connected by reli-
gion, 214; distinctiveness of, 48, 214;
of Gansu, 20-23; isolated from one
another, 56, 215; local nature of, 22; as
minorities, 45; in Tang-Song China,
28-31. See also Gedimu; Ikhwan;
menhuan; mosques; Xidaotang
as merchants: imports into China by,
27, 31; in Tang-Song China, 26—29;
in tribute missions, 26, 43
Mutushan, 125,132
Nakada Yoshinobu, 134
Naqshabandlya, 201; in 1648 rebellion, 54;
in Central Asian society, 63; centrality
of tombs in, 145; in China, 86-89; in
Gansu, 64-72; Hidayat Allah as mis-
261﻿INDEX
Naqshabandiya (continued)
sionary of, 64-65; Ma Laichi’s initia-
tion into, 67n22; politics as focus for,
87; in tajdid movement, 86; in
Zhangjiachuan, 20. See also Sufi
order; Sufism
nation, xxxi
nation building, as modem process, 15—17,
185-90, 223
nation-state, 205; distinguished from em-
pire, xxviii-xxix; and ethnicity, xix,
icdvnis, xxv; and history, xxxii
national sovereignty, as concept, 15
nationalism. See Chinese nationalism
Nationalist Party. See Guomindang
Nayancheng, xix»4
Neo-Confucianism, 77, 79, 84
New Culture movement, 16-17
New Teaching: as cause of violence, 165;
as contextual term, 220; distinguished
from Old, 91; Jahriya as, 91; as Qing
term, xxvii. See also Ikhwan; Jahriya;
Xidaotang
Nian rebellion, 120,122
Ninghepu, 155
Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, xxxiii
Ningxia Province; creation of, 175; geogra-
phy and economy of, 11; Ma Fuxiang
in, 171—72; as Muslim center, 222.
See also Gansu; northwest China;
Qinghai
Niu Shihan, 164
Northern Song dynasty, 26
northwest China: defined, 7; as frontier, 5,
7-8,14; modem transformation of,
16-17; Muslim minzu of, i8«2o; Mus-
lim zones of, 3; violence in, 5. See also
frontier; Gansu Province; Ningxia
Province; Qinghai Province
Ogodei, 32
Old Teaching: as contextual term, 220; dis-
tinguished from New Teaching, 91;
Khafiya as, 91; as Qing term, xxvii.
See also Gedimu; Khafiya; New
Teaching
opium, 9,173,195
Ordos, 11,171
ortaq, 34
pacification: after 1781,111; after 1784,112;
after 1872,140; after 1873,128; at
Jinjipu, 126; at Xining, 164
People’s Republic of China. See China,
People’s Republic of
Persia, travel to China from, 29
Persian language, 27, 34, 49-51, 215
Persians, 25
Pickens, Claude L., Jr., x, 85
pilgrimage (hajj), 44, 73, 78; of Beizhuang
shaikh, 201; as connection to West
Asia, 222; of Hu Dengzhou, 49; of
Hu Songshan, 209; of Ma Laichi,
66-67; of Ma Mingxin, 87-88; of Ma
Qixi, 190; of Ma Rubiao, 140-41; of
Ma Wanfu, 202-3
pious endowment (waqj), 48, 89
political boundary, as concept, 15
Prophetic descent, 59, 62, 70B30, 80-81, 89,
214
Pu Luoxin, 27
qadi (Muslim judge), 28,107
Qadirlya (Sufi order), 671122, 88K70, 226
Qalandariya (Sufi order), 81
Qarakhanid dynasty, 30
Qian Mu, xx
qiankai-houkai conflict, 68-69, 93,143, 218
Qianlong emperor: on 1784 rebellion, 114-
15, 219; conquest of Xinjiang under,
94; distinction from officials, 99; and
Gansu corruption scandal, 96; on Hai
Furun case, 99; policy toward Mus-
lims of, 93, 98,152; and Siku quanshu,
83. See also Qing dynasty
Qilian Mountains, 13
Qing dynasty: as anachronism, 15; corrup-
tion in, 93, 95-97, 218; as empire, xix,
xxviii-xxix, 15; as invasive actor, 218;
legitimacy of law courts of, 68; and
local authority, xxix; military, 17; mod-
em transformation of, xxviii; and
Muslim internecine conflict, 88,143;
officials as rational, 130; regulation of
northwest China trade, 53; rule over
Muslims, xxix; subordinate lords of,
xix; in Xinjiang, 94-95. See also
Chinese nationalism; Manchus;
nation-state
262﻿INDEX
Qinghai Province, xxxiii, 3,13,17s
Qingzhen zhinan (text), 80-81
Qinling Mountains, 12
Qintianjian (Bureau of Astronomy), 39
Qipchaqs, 38
Quanzhou, 29, 40
Qubilai, 32, 34, 37
race, and minzu, xx, 2i6»8
Ramadan, xxvi, 68,198,198, 203
Rashid al-DIn, yin26, 36
rebellion: of 1648,53-56; of 1781,108-n;
of 1784, in-13; of 1860s, 115-38; of
1895,138—66; historiography of 19th-
cent., 117; as legal category, 108; as
local feuds, 114; local nature of, 150;
as state-created category, 108,122, 219.
See also violence
reform of Islamic practice, 49, 67, 88, 91,
136,140-41, 203-6
religion: as community connector, 47, 214;
in minzu paradigm, xxii, xxvi; as va-
lence of identity, xviii, xxvi, 137; and
violence, 137. See also Buddhism;
Christianity; Daoism; Islam; Judaism
renewal. See tajdid
revenge, as motivation for violence,
111-12,146, 219, 221, 225
Revolution of 1911,170
rimpoche (incarnation), 164,196, 223
Ronglu, 156, I57MJ20
Sa’ad Waqqas, 24, 25, 29
Sa’id Baba (sultan of Turfan), 54, 92
Saia Hui. See Salars
Salar minzu, xxiii
Salars: in 1781 rebellion, 108; in 1895 law
case, 138; in 1895 rebellion, 143,144,
147,154—55,161,164; connection to
Central Asia, 105; conversion to Su-
fism of, 59, 69—70; as crucial actors,
218; feuds among, 141; origins of,
104-5; population of, iO4»c; reputa-
tion of, 104—7; two descriptions of,
17. See also Bayanrong; Qinghai
Province; Xunhua
Samarkand, 34, 42,190
as-Samman, Muhammad, 87
Sayyid Ajall Shams ad-DIn, 33, 80
science, as Muslim specialty, 33-34,39
scripturalist fundamentalism, 200-209,
223
sect, in Islam, xxvii
sectarianism, Daoist and Buddhist, 69
self-cultivation (xiushen), 75,188
semu, 32-35, 38
semu guan (officials of various categories),
a
Shaanxi Province, 11, 49; in 1911 revolu-
tion, 170; Ikhwan failure in, 208; as
locus for rebellions, 119-25; flight of
Ma Wanfu to, 206; Qing victory in,
124. See also Bai Yanhu; Eighteen
Great Battalions; Xi’an
Muslims of: as cause of violence, 130;
decimation of, 124; flight of, 129; and
Islam, 137; as refugees in Gansu, 124,
125,131,133, 220; resetdement of, 128,
134,180; in Suzhou, 128; in Xining,
128, 135
Shadhillya (Sufi order), 140
Shah Wall Allah, 87
Shahrukh Bahadur, 42
shaikh: as distinctive leader, 214; as head of
menhuan, 71; in Hezhou, 145; as local
authority, 223; obedience to, 136; in
Sufism, 61-63,178. See also menhuan;
Sufi order; Sufism
Shandong, 40, 97,100,119
sharia (Muslim law): as central to Muslim
orthopraxy, 88; charity in, 45; Chi-
nese definition of, 6o»7; legitimacy
for Muslims, 68; Ma Zhu on, 81.
See also Islam
Shengbao, 123
Shengyun, 170,171,183
Shi Dakai, 120
Shuangcheng, ambush at, 155,168
Sichuan, n, 54
Siku quanshu (text), 83
Silk Road, n, 25,29
sdsila (Sufi genealogy), 61-62, 85,113
Sima Qian, xxxi
as-Sindi, Muhammad Hayat, 87
as-Sinkill, 'Abd ar-Ra’uf, 87
Sino-Arabic Middle School, 210
Sino-Muslims: acculturation under Ming,
34-40, 41, 45-46, 56; in Amdo, 13;
263﻿INDEX
Sino-Muslims (continued)
becoming Chinese, 214; bicultural
quality of, xxxiii, xxxvi, 17017; on both
sides in rebellions, in, 130-31; in Chi-
nese identity, xxxv; Chinese national-
ism of, 175; as citizens of China, 177;
connections to Central and West Asia,
41,56; decisions by, 146; defined, xxiv;
distinguished in Qing law, 99-101;
distribution in China, 3; divisions
among, 7,123,165, 215, 219-20; in east-
ern Gansu, 112; education of, 46-51; as
fanatics, 130; identity of, 55—56; integra-
tion of, 177; as merchants, in Xinjiang,
94; as middlemen, 13,43,163,217; in
minzu paradigm, xxi, xxiv-xxv, 213;
origin myths of, 24-25; place in
modem China, 187; under Qing rule,
xxviii-xxix; segregation of, 52; sources
for study of, xxx; at Taozhou, 152.
See also Islam; Muslims
Sinophone Muslims. See Sino-Muslims
Sipian yaodao (text), 75
Sirhindi, Ahmad, 6o»d, 86, 87
Skinner, G. William, 14, 222
solidarity, as generic term, xxvii
Southern Ming dynasty, 54
Southern Song dynasty, 29
Soviet Union, nationality policies of, xx
statute law, 99-101
stereotypes, xxx, xxxiv
Su Forty-three (Su Sishisan), 178,179,186,
219; ballad of, 108—9; Khafiya op-
posed to, 220; as military leader, 102,
107—11. See also Jahriya; Ma Mingxin
Sufi order: as cause of violence, 221; Chi-
nese definition of, 6o»7; compared to
Han kitab, 74; conflict among, 61,
89—93,103; difference from Gedimu,
49, 63, 69; distinctiveness of, 214; dis-
tinguished from Sufi ideas, 92«zj; in
Gansu, 178; initiation into, 61; as inno-
vation, 200, 218; as local solidarity,
224, 225; militia of, 219; as revivalist
movement, 223; structure of, 61-63.
See also menhuan; shaikh; Sufism;
names of individual Sufi orders
Sufism, 113; 17th—18th cent, changes in, 86;
in China, 58-72,140, 201; defined,
59-60; in Gansu, 178; in Han kitab,
79; hospices of, 63,178-79; as Ikhwan
target, 205; impact on Chinese society
of, 200; networks of loyalty in, 62;
obedience to shaikh in, 136; range of
meanings of, 87067; revivalism in,
86-88; saints in, 21; among Sino-
Muslims, 112; spread of, 92; Sufis, 62,
84; in Xinjiang, 63-64; in Yunnan, 81.
See also gongbei; menhuan; shaikh;
tariqa
Suhrawardlya (Sufi order), 67022
Suiyuan Province, 171
Suzhou, Gansu, 54,121,128,134
Suzhou, Jiangsu, 6, 37, 75
Taiping rebellion, 119,120,122
Taizisi, battle of, 127,170
tajdid (renewal), 86-87, 90-91, 95
Tamerlane, 42
Tang dynasty, 25
Tang Taizong, 24
Tang Yanhe, 141-43,147,1+8,155,168, 219,
224
Tangwangchuan, 19,145,150
Tao River, 12, no, 126—27,14a, !52, 157-59,
194
Tao Zongyi, 36
Taoxi: Bai Lang trapped in, 192; in de-
fense of Hezhou, 126; as distinct re-
gion, 12; geography and economy of,
13; as locus of Muslim violence, 154;
Ma Zhan’ao’s victory in, 127; Ma
Zhongying in, 174; Taozhou in, 152.
See also Hezhou; Taozhou
Taozhou (New City), 188,192
Taozhou (Old City): 1895 rebellion in,
152-54; defense against Bai Lang, 192;
occupied by Ma Zhongying, 196-97;
sack of, 193; as site of communal ten-
sion, 217; situation of, 188; and
Xidaotang, 187—88,190-91,196.
See also Ma Qixi; Xidaotang
tariqa. See Sufi order
taxation, of Muslim merchants, 27-28
Taylor, F. W. M., 85
tea, traded for horses, 43,53
thaumaturgy (karamat), 62, 89,113
Tian Shengong, 27
264﻿INDEX
Tian Wu, 111-12, 114, 186, 219
Tian Xing Long, 191
Tianfang. See Arabia
Tianfang dianli (text), 83—84, 213
Tianfang xingli (text), 83
Tianshui, 21,183
Tibet: cultural continuum of China and,
13; Gansu as frontier of, xxxiii-xxxiv;
Qing policy toward, 94; Taozhou
and, 188
Tibetan language, 198
Tibetan minzu, xxiii»t2, 8
Tibetan culture: in Chinese eyes, 163;
at Taozhou, 153; at Xining, 160
Tibetans: allied with Qing, no; in anti-
Muslim coalition, 162; as converts to
Islam, 67»2j; divisions among, 7; as
frontier people, 19, 221; in Gansu,
162; in Gansu military, 163; in Taoxi,
152-54; Xidaotang and, 197
Tonggan. See Tungan
tribute system, 26, 42, 43
tuanlian (militias): as anti-Muslim forces,
117,119; at Haicheng, 148; as reaction
to threat, 91, 219; in Shaanxi, 120,122,
130; in siege of Xi’an, 124; at Xining,
135,160-61. See also Shaanxi Province;
violence
Tungan: in Russia, 129; as term for Sino-
Muslims, xix«4, 59»4, 216
Turfan, 42, 43, 53,54,59
Turkic-speakers, 8,19, 70,105,132,150
Turumtay, 54
tushengfanke (native-born foreign sojourn-
ers), 29
tusi (local hereditary chieftains): of Choni,
153; defined, xxix; as local authority,
223; replacement by nation-state, 186;
among Salars, 70, i38»74; system, 15;
among Tibetans, 163. See also beg;
Salars; Tibetans
umma (community of Muslim believers),
xxvi, 92
Uygur minzu, xxiii
Uygurs, conversion to Islam of, 2s»d
violence: 19th cent, increase in, 101,118,
119; causes of, 5,114,136, 217-20; as
characteristic of Muslims, xxx-xxxi,
148; in Chinese society, 101; in de-
fense of home, 225; on frontiers, 5; in
Gansu after 1761,91; as gendered activ-
ity, iO4»2; internecine Muslim, in; as
local, 114,162, 218, 220; motivation to,
225; among Muslims, xxx, 100, in,
143,161, 215; between Muslims and Ti-
betans, 162; as rebellion, 123; relation
to state, 5, 219; role of religion in, 137;
in Shaanxi, 120; social roots of, 101;
between Sufi orders, 103. See also
rebellion
Wang Dagui, 131, 200, 219
Wang Daiyu, 83: in 20th cent., 176; as au-
thor of Han kitab, 75-79; in thought
of Ma Qixi, 189
Wang Danwang, 96-97
Wang Lun, 101
Wang Naibi, 209
Wang Shumin, 17,108
Wang Zhu, 32
“wash away the Muslims” (xiHui), 123,
142-43,146, 219
Wei Guangtao, 164
Wei River valley, 11,119,122,130
wenhua (literary culture), 37
Western {xiyang} writings, 81
White Lotus, 101,137«ZJ, 15211107
Woshikeng’e, 138,140
Wu Sangui, 80
Wu Sunqie, 74-75, 79
Wuchang incident, 170
wushi fanke (fifth-generation foreign
sojourners), 29
Xi’an, 11,123-24,170,180
xiaojing (Arabic p»»yi»), 46, 50-51
Xidaotang: adaptation to modem China,
226; alliance with Guomindang, 197;
called “Chinese studies faction,” 199;
commerce of, 197; as economic collec-
tive, 190-91; education in, 198; as Is-
lamic solidarity, 198-99; origins and
evolution of, 186—99; resistance to
Bai Lang, 194. See also Ma Anliang;
Ma Qixi; Taozhou
xiejiao (heterodoxy), 68-69,103
265﻿INDEX
Xifeng Mountain, 192,194
Xining: 1860s rebellion in, 121; 1895 rebel-
lion in, 154,159—65,166, 221; as center
of Huangzhong, 12; complex popula-
tion of, 160; Hidayat Allah in, 59,
65-66; local feuds around, 135; Ma
Fuxiang in, 169; Ma Guiyuan as Mus-
lim leader in, 121; as Ma Qi’s base,
207; as Muslim center, 222; as Song
entrepot, 30; Zuo Zongtang’s cam-
paign against, 128
Xining (Huang) River, 12
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region: Bai
Yanhu’s flight to, 129; and Beizhuang
menhuan, 201; Gansu as frontier of,
xxxiii—xxxiv; jihad in, 132; Ma An-
liang in, 146; Ma Fuxiang in, 169; Ma
Wanfu in, 206; Muslim survivors set-
tled in, 165; Muslims in, 3; Qing con-
quest of, xxix, 57, 94-95,186, 218, 223;
rebellions in, 101; Sufism in, 63-64;
as Zuo Zongtang’s objective, 128. See
also Hidayat Allah; Kashgar; Yang
Zengxin
Xinzhu, 107,108, no, 219, 224
Xixia kingdom, xxxiv»2p, 30
Xunhua: 1781 rebellion in, 107—9, 218; 1895
rebellion in, 138,140,142-44,154,
166; conflict within Huasi menhuan
at, 141; as Muslim center, 222;
qiankai-houkai conflict in, 68; as Salar
center, 105—6
Yakub Beg, izvnsS, 131063
Yang Changjun: 1889 visit to Hezhou by,
168; on Dong Fuxiang’s success, 158;
as governor-general of Shaan-Gan,
138; Muslim lawsuit brought before,
142; plan to relieve Hezhou, 155;
proclamation of, 143,147; report on
Haicheng incident by, 148; as threat
to Muslims, 224. See also rebellion of
1895
Yang Jiqing, 192,196
Yang Shiji, 107,108
Yang Shijun, 891170
Yang Zengxin, 206
yangqi (cultivating the vital essence), 75
Yangzhou, 26, 29, 75
Yangzi River, watershed, 12
Yellow River, 9-13,106,144
Yemen, 86
Yi Xing Gong, 191
Yingqi, 123
Yongle emperor, 42,43
Yongzheng emperor, 97
Yu Youren, 182
Yuan dynasty, 31-38
Yuan Shikai, 170-72,183
Yunnan, 11, 33, 40,119,1291156, 179
Zamzam well, 44
Zang minzu. See Tibetan minzu
Zhang Fei, 122, 219, 224
Zhang Fenghui, 170
Zhang Guangjian, 172,173,183,195, 206
Zhang Wenqing, 112
Zhang Xianzhong, 53
Zhang Zhong (Shizhong), 75, 79
Zhang Zuolin, 173,174
Zhangjiachuan, 20, 21,180—83
Zhangjiakou, 197
Zheng He (Ma He), 43
Zheng Suonan, 36
Zhengjiao zhenquan (text), 75-78, 80
Zhou Mi, 36
Zhou Shixiang (Qishi), 148,159
Zhu Chun, 99
Zhu Di. See Yongle emperor
Zhu Shichuan, 53-54, 64
Zhu Yuanzhang (Ming Taizu), 38, 39, 76
Zungharia, 94-95
Zuo Zongtang, 164, 182; acceptance of Ma
Zhan’ao’s surrender by, 134,140, 219;
attack on Jinjipu by, 125-26; blames
New Teaching for violence, 138; as bu-
reaucratic Confucian, 132; defeated by
Ma Zhan’ao, 126—27; as Qing com-
mander, 124-29; reconquest of north-
west and Xinjiang by, 186, 223, 226;
resettlement of Gansu Muslims by,
127,129,180. See also rebellion, of
1860s
Zwemer, Samuel, 85
266﻿﻿