Hannah Theaker (University of Oxford China Centre)

The Ma Family Muslim leaders who dominated northwestern Chinese politics through the early Republican era have unenviable reputations: classed as 'warlords', they are most often described as conservative strongmen, opposed to all things modern and determined to hold onto power for them and theirs at all costs. This paper joins recent revisionist scholarship in rejecting the warlord paradigm to argue that the northwestern Ma families were sophisticated political actors who adopted a range of strategies to reform their local communities and safeguard Islam.

Connected to the Beiyang government through a shared military culture, Ma leaders such as Ma Anliang and Ma Fuxiang strived to ensure political participation for Muslims in the new Republic. However, their efforts were complicated by the legacies of Qing minoritisation of Chinese Muslims and enduring concerns about the nature of Islam in China.