During his 1672 visit to Hezhoi, Khoja Afaq played an important role in the life of a certain Ma Laichi (1673-1753), a Hezhou Hui of extraordinary talent who went on to found one of the earliest and most influential Naqshbandiyya orders in China, the Khufiyya menhuan.  According to Sufi tradition, Ma Laichi was born to a childless couple after receiving Khoja Afaq’s blessings, and was later raised and trained by one of his disciples, Ma Tai Baba (“Great Father”), who later gave him his daughter in marriage and passed on to him the leadership of the mystical path that he had received from Khoja Afaq.  From 1728-81, Ma Laichi went on to the pilgrimage to Mecca, Yemen, and Bukhara where he studied several Sufi orders, and became particularlly influenced by Mawlana Makhdum, a man of uncertain origin, who Fletcher hypothesizes may have been Indian.  When he returned from his polgrimage, Ma Laichi established the most powerful of the Khufiyya menhuan, the Huasi (“flowery mosque”) branch, propograting the order for 32 years among the Hui and Salar in Gansu and Qinghai, before his death in 1766 at the age of 86.  The menhuan is still quite active and centered in Linxia Hui Autonomous Region, Gansu, at the tomb of Ma Laichi, which was restored in 1986.

Originating in an earlier Central Asian and Yemeni Naqshbandi Sufism, the Khfiyya order was permeated with an emphasis on a more passive participation in society, the veneration of saints, the seeking of inspiration at tombs, and the silent dhikr (“rememberance,” properly “Khafiyya,” the “silent ones)   There are now over 20 sub-branch menhuan throughout China, with mosques in Yunnan, Xinjiang, and Beijing.  Most Khufiyya orders are concentrated in Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, and Xinjiang with several of the original Khufiyya practices in some outlying areas such as northern Ningxia beginning to lose their distinctiveness over time.

ref: Atabaki, Touraj.  Mehendale, Sanjyot. Central Asia and the Caucasus.  pub: Routledge (2005)