The second Naqshbandi tariqa, the Jahiryya order, was founded in China under the dynamic leadership of Ma Mingxin (1719-81). One of the most fascinating detective stories in historical discovery is the tracing of Ma Mingxin’s spiritual lineage to Mizjaja, a village on the outskirts of Zabid in Northern Yemen, by Joseph Fletcher. While Chinese Sufis have known for generations that their saint Ma Mingxin studied in the Middle East, it was never clear where he received his “New Teaching” from or where he studied. Middle Eastern Sufi accounts recorded the presence of Chinese Muslims studying in certain Sufi areas, but only Joseph Fletcher was able to put the two together. This was important discovery as Ma Mingxin’s Sufi practice was thought to be novel, even heterodox, and the subject of many conflicts in Northwest China. This controversy is mainly over Ma Mingxin’s use of the Jahr in remembrance (“vocal dhikr”, from whence comes the name “Jahriya”, the “vocal” ones), which he openly advocated in opposition to the Khufiyya’s silent remembrance, the more standard Naqshbandi practice. After an extensive search through arcane Sufi documents in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Chinese, and a final personal trip to Yemen, Fletcher discovered that the name of the Sufi saint whom Chinese Muslim records indicate Ma Mingxin studied under, but did not know exactly who he was, was a Naqshbandi Sufi, az-Zayn b. Muhammad Abd al-Baqi al-Mizjaji (1643/4-1725) whose family home was in Mizjaja, the Zabid. Chinese Sufi records only indicate that Ma Mingxin studied in Yemen in a Sufi order known as the Shazilinye, whose Sheykh was Muhammad Bulu Seni, but did not know the full ancestry and origins of the order. Most Jahriyya only say “The root of our order is Arabia, the branches and leaves are in China” This discovery is extremely significant in the history of ideas, as it is known that az-Zayn had studied in Medina under the famous Kurdish mystic, Ibrahim b Hasan al-Kurani (1616-90), who also advocated the use of vocal formulae in the remembrance of Allah (al-jahr bi-dh-dhikr). Al Kurani’s students were are the forefront of Islamic reform and revolutionary movements throughout the Islamic world.

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