Ma Shaowu

Ma Shaowu (1874–1937) was a Hui Muslim commander from Yunnan and a leading figure of the Jahriyya Sufi menhuan in Xinjiang, a descendant of its founder Ma Mingxin and a student of its leader Ma Yuanzhang. As Daotai of Kashgar he governed southern Xinjiang, having shot his predecessor Ma Fuxing on Yang Zengxin's orders in 1924; he survived an assassination attempt in 1934 and was killed in Sheng Shicai's purge of 1937. ^{1 2}

There is no Arabic or Urdu article on him; this page rests on the English and Chinese articles, as stated in its sources.

He was born about 1874 at Tonghai in Yunnan, into poverty. The Chinese article traces his descent from Ma Shunqing, eldest son of Ma Mingxin, the founder of the Jahriyya executed in 1781: Ma Shaowu was thus of the founder's own line. After some study of Chinese and of the Qur'an he went to Xiji in Gansu and studied under Ma Yuanzhang, the Jahriyya's leader and a fellow descendant, who took him up and advanced his education; his courtesy name was Shiying. When the order's position in Xinjiang was to be strengthened, Ma Yuanzhang sent him there with instructions to serve as an official and also to assist the menhuan. ^{2 1}

In Xinjiang he rose through Yang Zengxin's administration — clerk, then commander at Kucha in 1914, then magistrate posts — and within the Jahriyya he was known as "the Thin Lord" and held in high regard: he could raise 20,000 taels from the order's adherents in Turfan within ten days. At Yili he built a gongbei tomb shrine and prayer pavilion for Ma Mingxin's wife, who had died a martyr there, and later shrines for the founder's daughters and support for shrines at Lanzhou and Zhangjiachuan; Ma Yuanzhang answered with a handwritten couplet honouring the pilgrimage — "Ten thousand li to pay his respects at the isolated tomb and satisfy the wish of the founding ancestor" — and naming him a worthy descendant of the line. Under Sheng Shicai's predecessors he also helped build the great South Mosque at Dihua with the Jahriyya's deputy in Xinjiang, and the order grew greatly through his standing. ^{2 1}

His feud with Ma Fuxing was also the order's: the Jahriyya held that Fuxing's ancestor had helped bring about Ma Hualong's death, and Fuxing had once expelled Shaowu from Kashgar over sectarian friction. In 1924 Yang Zengxin turned on Fuxing, and Shaowu recruited more than a thousand young Jahriyya adherents around Turfan, led the assault on Kashgar, captured Fuxing and his son and shot them himself. He was first given Hotan, and took up the Kashgar daotai office in 1927, holding southern Xinjiang for the Chinese government: he jailed Soviet consulate agents and pro-Soviet suspects, crushed the Kirghiz revolt of 1932, and when Ma Zhongying's invasion and the Turkic revolts of 1933–1934 overran the south he was besieged, deposed, restored by Ma Zhancang's defection, and besieged again in Shuleh until relief came. He issued his own emergency notes, the "Ma Shaowu tickets", printed on cloth when paper ran short. In late 1934 an assassin — said to be a former follower of Ma Fuxing, acting for Sheng Shicai — shot him in both legs as he rode with his wife and son; he lost parts of two fingers, was treated in the Swedish mission hospital at Kashgar and then in Moscow, and walked on crutches. Travelers Peter Fleming and Ella Maillart interviewed him in 1936. ^{1 2}

Recalled to Dihua as a provincial committee member and civil affairs director, he was caught in Sheng Shicai's Soviet-modelled purge of 1937: accused with Khoja Niyas Hajji and Ma Hushan of belonging to a "Fascist-Trotskyite" network, he was killed on Sheng's orders, and his family was sent to a camp at Yili and learned of his death only in 1944. ^{1 2}

His faith is recorded as sufi, documented. The Chinese article attests his personal standing in the Jahriyya — his descent from its founder, his study under its leader Ma Yuanzhang, his mission to strengthen the menhuan in Xinjiang, his building of its shrines, his raising of its adherents and his own religious stance against Communism — and the English article independently records his kinship to Ma Yuanzhang and the couplet honouring his pilgrimage to the founder's family tomb. Two independent texts attesting personal adherence and practice meet the museum's bar; no legal school is named for him in any source. ^{1 2}

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