^As it is often the case with the 17th and 18th-century Hui Sufi figures, the chronology of Ma Laichi's life is not set firmly. Gladney (1996) (p. 47) gives no birth year, and 1766 as the death year; Weismann (2007) (p. 83), gives no birth year, and 1753 as the death year. Lipman (1998) does not give exact years for birth and death, and emphasizes differences between different historians' chronologies (p. 67); however, adding up lengths of time intervals in his biographical account implies that Ma would be close to 48 in 1728. The Great Chinese Encyclopedia (中国大百科全书, vol. 14 宗教 (Religion), p. 255) gives 1681-1766.