Confusing Black and White: Naqshbandi Sufi Affiliations and the Transition to Qing Rule in the Tarim Basin

Abstract

This article offers a critique of the prevailing framework for the analysis of Naqshbandi Sufism in Xinjiang, or Eastern Turkistan, from the late seventeenth century onwards: one that describes a division into dynastic Sufi lineages of Isḥaqiyya and Afaqiyya, and treats these terms as equivalent to the factional designations “Black Mountain” and “White Mountain.” I argue that the scholarly tradition has misconstrued key terms in this lexicon, leading to distortions in our accounts of the nature, strength, and political significance of the major Naqshbandi Sufi affiliations of Qing Xinjiang. I begin by describing this scholarly tradition, before turning to an analysis of internal divisions in the Afaqiyya in the eighteenth century, drawing on a wider range of sources than have previously been applied to this question. In the concluding section I show how this new reading will require us to revise episodes in the history of Qing Xinjiang, and confront new questions on the place of Sufism in the politics of the Tarim Basin.