Ziyārah, Mystical Poetry, and Resurrection of Sufi Saints in Post-Mao China

By Tommaso Previato

The Qadiriyya and Jahriyya confraternities (Ch. menhuan) contributed to shaping the religious landscape of northwest China through their mystical views, beliefs and practices. My project analyzes their textual constructions of sainthood (Ar. walāya, lit. “friendship [with God]”) in the post-Maoist Islamic revival (early 1980s to mid 2010s), a period when China’s opening to the world allowed for local Muslims to restore their reputation amid loosening restrictions on religious activities. The project underlines the role of self-published devotional literature – such as hagiographies, stories of martyrs and miracles (karāmāt), and mystical poetry – in Sufi efforts to resuscitate their saints from the ashes, despite enduring disputes with the reform-oriented Yihewani (Chinese for al-Ikhwān, meaning “[Muslim] brothers”).

1. General Overview

1.1 The Qadiriyya Da Gongbei

The Qadiriyya was the first Sufi order to build a presence in China. Introduced by Khoja ‘Abd Allāh (d. 1689) in the second half of the 17th century, the order grew under Qi Jingyi (d. 1719), who expanded its influence across the northwest, especially Linxia and Hanzhong, in southern Gansu and Shaanxi. Known to Sinophone Muslims as the Da gongbei (lit. “Great Shrine”), with gongbei being the Chinese transliteration of qubbah (Arabic for “dome”), the Qadiriyya is distinguished by its monastic lifestyle, a rarity in Islam. Monastics begin their apprenticeship in their teens, undertaking mandatory retreats near their master’s shrine. By the early 2000s, the Da Gongbei had about 200,000 followers, making it the third-largest confraternity in the country. While adhering to the Hanafi school of law, it also incorporates Shi’a and other ritual elements from Daoism and Buddhism.

1.2 An Offshot of the Yemeni Naqshbandi Tradition

The Jahriyya, established by the Gansu-born Ma Mingxin (d. 1781) in the mid-18th century, traces its origins to the Naqshbandi community of Zabid, Yemen. Noted for its loud dhikr (“remembrance [of God]”) litanies, the confraternity took active part in a series of anti-dynastic rebellions between the late 18th and mid-19th centuries, resulting in persecution by the Chinese imperial authorities and opposition from other Muslim groups. Since most of its members died in the rebellions, the Jahriyya has placed a strong emphasis on the veneration of martyrs, with survivors dispersing across Gansu, Yunnan and Xinjiang. Despite the turbulent past, it has grown into the largest Chinese Sufi confraternity, boasting over 900,000 adherents, half of whom reside in Ningxia.

2. Devotional Practices in Shrine Settings

In the Qadiriyya and Jahriyya, like in other Sufi traditions, pious visits (Ar. ziyārah) to shrines containing the relics of prominent shaykhs are central to spiritual purification. These shrines serves as pilgrimage sites for Sufi practitioners pleading for the shaykh’s intercession in their quest for union with the divine. Shrine visitation carries exoteric and esoteric connotations. From an esoteric point of view, it is a metaphor for the soul’s journey toward God. Just as the Mecca pilgrims circumambulate the Ka’ba – the temple of heart (qalb) where the purified self becomes one with God – so too do practitioners visit the shakyh’s shrine, confronting the nafs (“the [egoistic] self and its desires”) and cleansing their hearts of worldly attachments. At this intersection of outward and inward dimensions of pilgrimage, practitioners seek divine blessings (barakah) and effusions (fayz) from the relics. By making the shaykh’s relics their qibla (“direction of prayer toward the Ka’ba”), they recognize the shaykh as an exemplar of sanctity and a conduit of barakah.

Building on extant ethnographic and devotional literature, my findings show that in both confraternities the shrine provides not only the structure for what in Chinese is called zhanji, meaning “good fortune through touch or direct contact” with the relics, but also a space for deep contemplation. The closer practitioners come to this sacred space, the easier their pursuit of spiritual purification. Accordingly, shrine visitation becomes a self-transformative act that enables the practitioners to transcend the ego and make room in their hearts for divine qualities to sprout, while simultaneously materializing the shaykh’s spiritual essence before the wider community of devotees.

3. Sufi-Yihewani Disputes Over Shrine Visitation

Gaining prominence in the first half of the 20th century, the Yihewani reform movement stood in sharp contrast to the views, beliefs and practices of Qadiriyya and Jahriyya Sufis. Inspired by Wahhabi ideology, Yihewani reformers aimed to promote a modern, patriotic version of Chinese Islam free from mystical and sectarian undertones. They condemned the observance of death anniversaries of Sufi shaykhs at their shrines, labelling it an aberrant innovation (Ar. bid’ah). Their aversion to shrine visitation and memorial services, referred to in Chinese as ermaili (from the Arabic ‘amal, lit. “[religious] work”), sparked widespread doctrinal disputes. The rationale behind these disputes is examined, among other works, in Guoyuan Hajji (The Advocate of Conforming to the Scriptures and Reforming Customs), a 1989 biography of the Yihewani’s founder, Ma Wanfu (d. 1934).

Cover page of Guoyuan Hajji (fig. 1), facsimile edition

As the Yihewani’s anti-Sufi posture was endorsed by the Nationalists and, after 1949, by the Communists, Sufi practices were suppressed, particularly during the 1950s and the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), when shrines were destroyed or converted into public parks, and land holdings (waqf, lit. “[charitable] endowment”) confiscated from the shaykhs. Among those targeted for allegedly “squeezing money out of memorial services” were the Qadiri Yang Shijun (d. 1996) and the Jahri Ma Zhengwu (d. 1961). Yang avoided imprisonment by withdrawing into a mountain cave near Linxia (fig. 2 and 3), while Ma was branded a landlord, sentenced for counter-revolutionary crimes, and posthumously rehabilitated in 1983.

Yang Shijun (fig. 2), the 9th-generation shaykh of the Da Gongbei order, and the loess cave (fig. 3) where he retreated in the 1960–70s before restoring the order. Pictures from Yang & Ma 2015: 219, 222

The post-Maoist era marked a sudden resurgence of Sufi practices. The increased availability of devotional texts, once kept confidential and distributed covertly in manuscript form, has opened new avenues for research on these practices. Gangchang (Cardinal Virtues), an early 20th century anthology of gnostic poetry and prose by Yang Baoyuan (d. 1873), 7th-generation master of the Houzihe faction of the Qadiriyya, is one such text.

4. Self-Purification in a Qadiriyya Sub-Corpus of Mystical Poems

An expanded edition of Gangchang, now published under the title Yangzu Quanshu (Collected Works of Grand Master Yang), was discovered in 1990 at the Longquan Shrine in Hualong (Tib. Bayan Khar), eastern Qinghai. Included in the anthology is a sub-corpus of nine poems, drawing from the “night vigil genre” of Daoist monastic literature – an underexplored lyrical style that reflects on the necessity of ascetic discipline to achieve spiritual purification and awakening. Designed to aid novices in meditation during the “five vigils” (Ch. wugeng) from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m., the poems blend Buddhist beliefs in reincarnation with Daoist theories of internal alchemy (Ch. neidan) and Sufi doctrines of self-annihilation (Ar. fanā’), engendering a sophisticated spiritual cosmology that transcends conventional religious boundaries. Infused with esoteric imagery, they evoke alchemical processes that bring the practitioners closer to the divine, advancing through stages of self-purification, each represented by a night vigil.

Much like pilgrimage to the shrines, this corpus of nocturnal poems provide a moral compass for Sufi practitioners, guiding them beyond mental and sensory defilements. Through vivid depictions of inner demons that tempt the purity of heart, the poems urge practitioners to wholly engage in the struggle against the nafs, transforming moral flaws into virtues. Practitioners are awakened to the spiritual change that awaits them once they embrace the path of ascetic renunciation. The implied message is that, without such commitment, union with the divine remains unattainable.

Cover page of Gangchang (fig. 4), in Zhou Xiefan’s 25 volume collection “Canon of Chinese Islam”

References

1. Gao, Wenyuan. 1989. Guoyuan Hazhi: Zunjing Gesu de Changdaozhe. Taipei: Zhongguo huijiao wenhua jiaoyu jijinhui.

2. Ma, Zhong, and Ma Xiaoqin, eds. 2015. Yangzu Quanshu. Xining: Qinghai renmin chubanshe.

3. Yang, Baoyuan. n.d. Gangchang. In Zhou Xiefan, ed., Zongjiao Lishi Wenxian Jicheng – Qingzhen Dadian. Hefei: Huangshan shushe, vol. 19, pp. 204–74.

4. Yang, Jiefang, and Ma Jingcheng. 2015. Zhongguo Yisilanjiao Gaderenye Da Gongbei Menhuan Daotongshi. Yinchuan: Huanghe chuban chuanmei jituan.

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Tommaso Previato, Ph.D. (2012), Sapienza University of Rome, is a visiting fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies – Erlangen. His work lies at the intersection of history, religion, and gender, with a focus on Sinophone Islam and Tibeto-Burman cultures. His latest edited book Fear, Heterodoxy and Crime in Traditional China was published by Brill in June 2024.

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