Introduction

This chapter focuses on a famous Hui (Chinese-speaking) Muslim scholar Ma Dexin (d. 1874), who lived in Yunnan, Southwest China, in the nineteenth century. Ma Dexin traveled through the Middle East between 1844 and 1848 and transmitted new Islamic knowledge back to China upon his return. He tried to reform beliefs and practices of the Hui into something consistent with an assumed “true” Islam from the Muslim heartland and simultaneously compatible with the Chinese milieu. The many ideas he brought back to China included critical views on the veneration of saints. One of these views objects to both blind adherence to Sufi masters and belief in their divine powers. These targets of objection were central tenets on which the Sufi orders gained power both among Hui Muslims and other Muslims. Ma Dexin preached in Yunnan, which was home to a modest number of followers of a Sufi order called the Jahriyya, who practiced saint veneration. Thus, Ma Dexin made adjustments and reinforcements to the relevant teachings from the Muslim heartland in keeping with the Sino-Islamic intellectual context of his time, thus intending to tempt Hui Muslims to accept views that discouraged saint-veneration. For example, he radicalized a negative opinion about the necessity of a Sufi master in his attacks against the Jahriyya.

In this chapter, I consider the ways in which Ma Dexin adapted critiques of saint veneration from the Islamic world to challenge the Jahriyya. Through this inquiry, I explore how an exotic theory from the Middle East became acceptable or even authentic knowledge among Hui Muslims, and a powerful weapon in denominational disputes within their society, including that between Ma Dexin and Jahriyya.