West Khanqa - A Muslim Organization with a Commune Nature

West Khanqa is a special Islamic sect in China, which is most popular in Lintan of Gansu Province. It is a Muslim organization with a commune nature founded in the early years of the 20th century. Basically, it has traditional beliefs and similar religious rites to those of some other Menhuan (saintly lineage) groups.

Ma Qixi, the founder of the sect, advocated integrating Islamic creeds with traditional Chinese culture so as to develop Islamic dogmas with the assistance of traditional Chinese culture. At the end of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), people in that region lived a very hard life, so Ma Qixi founded West Khanqa, in which Muslims were organized to live a collective life and work together. Within the organization, several thousand people from about 400 families lived together in Lintan while the other more than ten thousand people were scattered in Gansu Province, Qinghai Province, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Sichuan Province and lived a life separately. There was a general director and other administrators responsible for certain aspects within the organization so that uniform management and distribution could be realized.

The organization also laid stress on education. It set up various schools and brought up some high-level intellectuals. Ma Qixi's creation of Muslim commune was a pioneering work in the Muslim history of China. Ma Qixi was assassinated by a local warlord in 1914.