Aq Tagh

Khwāja or Khoja, (Қожа, خوجا), a Persian word literally meaning 'master', was used in Central Asia as a title of the descendants of the famous Central Asian Naqshbandi Sufi teacher, Ahmad Kasani (1461–1542) or others in the Naqshbandi intellectual lineage prior to Baha al-din Naqshband. The most powerful religious figure in the late Timurid era was the Naqshbandi Shaykh Khwaja Ahrar. The Khojas often played, or aspired to play, ruling roles in the Eastern Turkistan or present day region of Xinjiang, China.

The Khojas of Eastern Turkistan claimed to be Sayyids and it is to that fraternity people of Eastern Turkistan still regard them as belonging. Although Ahmad Kasani himself, known as Makhdūm-i-Azam or "Great Master" to his followers, never visited East Turkestan (today's Xinjiang), many of his descendants, known as Makhdūmzādas, and bearing the title of Khoja (properly written and pronounced as Khwaja) played important parts in the region's politics during 17th through 19th century.

At the death of Makhdūm-i 'Azam (as Aḥmad Kāsānī was sometimes known) a division took place among the Khojas which resulted in one party becoming followers of the Makhdum's elder son called Khoja Muhammad Amin better known as Ishan-i-Kalan and another attaching themselves to his younger son Khoja Muhammad Ishaq Wali. The party of Ishan-i-Kalan seem to have acquired the name of Aq Taghliqs or White mountaineers and that of Ishaq Qara Taghliqs or Black mountaineers but these names had no reference to the localities where their adherents lived. All were inhabitants of the lowlands and cities of Eastern Turkistan but each section made allies among the Kyrgyz of the neighboring mountains and apparently subsidized them to fight their party battles. The Kyrgyz tribes of the Western Tien Shan ranges lying to the north of Kashghar were known as the White mountaineers and Kyrgyz tribes of the Pamir, Karakoram and Kunlun as the Black mountaineers with Yarkand as their main city of influence, so that the Khojas came to assume the designations of their Kyrgyz allies.

List of Khojas
''Note: The following list is incomplete and, at times, possibly slightly inaccurate. It also excludes several collateral lines that ruled over minor territories and were relatively unimportant.''


 * Blue row signifies progenitor of the Khojas of Turkestan.
 * Green rows signify The Aq Taghliqs.
 * Pink rows signify the Qara Taghliqs.
 * Orange rows signify Chinese governors.

Literature

 * Kim Hodong, "Holy War in China: The Muslim Rebellion and State in Chinese Central Asia, 1864–1877". Stanford University Press (March 2004). ISBN 0-8047-4884-5. (Searchable text available on Amazon.com)
 * Gladney, Dru. "The Salafiyya Movement in Northwest China: Islamic Fundamentalism among the Muslim Chinese?" Originally published in "Muslim Diversity: Local Islam in Global Contexts". Leif Manger, Ed. Surrey: Curzon Press. Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, No 26. pp. 102–149.
 * Ahmad Kasani in Encyclopædia Iranica (special fonts required to properly view)