Jahriyya

Founded in the 1760s by Ma Mingxin, it was active in the late 18th and 19th centuries in what was then Gansu Province (also including parts of today's Qinghai and Ningxia), when its followers were involved in a number of conflicts with other Muslim groups and in several rebellions against China's ruling Qing dynasty.

[1] The Jahriya order was founded by the Gansu Chinese-speaking Muslim scholar Ma Mingxin soon after his return to China in 1761, after 16 years of studying in Mecca and Yemen.

[2][3] He had studied there under a Naqshbandi Sufi teacher named 'Abd al-Khāliq (known to the Chinese Muslims as "Abu Duha Halik"), who was a son of az-Zayn b. Muhammad 'Abd al-Baqī al-Mizjaji (1643/44–1725), originally from Mizjaja near Zabīd, Yemen.

Az-Zayn, in turn, had studied in Medina under the famous Kurdish mystic Ibrahīm ibn Hasan al-Kūrānī (1616–1690), who was known for advocating the vocal (rather than silent) dhikr.

Unlike the "silent" Khufiyya Sufis and following al-Kurani's teaching, Jahriyya adherents advocated vocal dhikr, which is reflected in the name of their school (from Arabic jahr, "aloud").

[2][3] Ma Mingxin also did not agree with the emphasis that the Khufiyya members placed of the veneration of the saints,[4][2] construction of grandiose elaborately decorated mosques and the enrichment of religious leaders at the expense of their adherents.

[5] By the early 1780s, the Jahriyya movement had spread over much of the then province of Gansu (which at the time also included today's Qinghai and Ningxia), as had the late Ma Laichi's Khufiyya menhuan.

[6] While openly confronting the government was obviously a suicidal act for Su's followers, modern researchers [Lipman (1998, p. 108)] surmise that they were motivated by the perceived threat of massacre against their menhuan.

Unable to dislodge the Salars from their fortified camp with his regular troops, Agui sent the "incompetent" Heshen back to Beijing,[11] and recruited Alashan Mongols and Southern Gansu Tibetans to aid the Chinese Lanzhou garrison.

In the aftermath of the Salar revolt, Ma Mingxin's widow, whose surname was Zhang (originally, from Gansu's Tongwei County), and his daughters were exiled to Xinjiang.

Three years after the death of Ma Mingxin, a Jahriyya ahong (imam) named Tian Wu, started a rebellion against the imperial government.

It was centered in the eastern part of the then Gansu Province (including Guyuan, which is within today's Ningxia) – a very different, Hui rather than Salar, region from the Xunhua County of the 1781 rebellion.

As it happens too often during suppression of rebellions, many non-combatants perished as well; it is reported that Li Shiyao's forces executed over a thousand of women and children of in Jahriyya communities of Eastern Gansu.

[12][16] In view of modern historians, the suppression of Jahriyya was indeed counterproductive, since the dispersion of the order's throughout the country allowed them to widely popularize their idea among China's Muslims.

While the order's second and third leaders were selected primarily based on their abilities, the fourth shaikh, Ma Yide (late 1770s – 1849), who assumed the leadership position in 1817, was the son of the third.

[22] After fortifications outside of the town itself had been captured by the government troops, and starvation started inside the walls, Ma Hualong surrendered in January 1871, hoping to spare the lives of his people.