Aq Tagh, literally "White Mountain" in Chagatai

Chagatai language

The Chagatai language is an extinct Turkic language which was once widely spoken in Central Asia, and remained the shared literary language there until the early twentieth century...

 Turki

Turki

The Turki language is a Türkic literary language active from the 13th to the 19th centuries, used by different Türkic peoples...

, was a faction of Turkestan

Turkestan

Turkestan, spelled also as Turkistan, literally means "Land of the Turks".The term Turkestan is of Persian origin and has never been in use to denote a single nation. It was first used by Persian geographers to describe the place of Turkish peoples...

i Naqshbandi

Naqshbandi

Naqshbandi is one of the major Sufi spiritual orders of Sufi Islam. It is considered to be a "Potent" order.The Naqshbandi order is over 1,300 years old, and is active today...

 Sufism

Sufism

Sufism or ' is defined by its adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a '...

 originated in Samarkand

Samarkand

Although a Persian-speaking region, it was not united politically with Iran most of the times between the disintegration of the Seleucid Empire and the Arab conquest . In the 6th century it was within the domain of the Turkic kingdom of the Göktürks.At the start of the 8th century Samarkand came...

. During the Chagatai

Chagatai Khanate

The Chagatai Khanate was a Turko-Mongol khanate that comprised the lands ruled by Chagatai Khan , second son of the Great Khan Genghis Khan, and his descendents and successors...

 Yarkand Khanate (Saidia Khanate/Seidiye Xandanliqi in Uyghur

Uyghur language

Uyghur , formerly known as Eastern Turk, is a Turkic language with 8 to 11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and various other...

) in modern day Xinjiang

Xinjiang

Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...

, two Naqshbandi factions, the Aq Tagh and the Qara Tagh (Black Mountain) vied for popularity and political power by allying with different Chagatai princes and developing their own sect of followers. They lived in a white mountain near Artux

Artux

Artux, Atush or Atushi is a county-level city in Xinjiang. The area is 15,509 km² and the total population is 200,000 . Artux is the seat of Kizilsu Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture....

, used white flag or wore the white caps.

The Aq Taghliq sect under Apak Khoja was triumphant in the end with Dzungar military support and usurped power from the Chagatai Dynasty.