 Afaq Khoja was a great-grandson of the noted Naqshbandi Sufi teacher, (احمد کاسانی) (1461–1542) (also known as "Makhdūm-i`Azam", مخدومِ اعظم, "the Great Master") and was revered as a Sufi teacher in his own right.Afaq was born in 1626 in Kumul, where his father Muhammad Yusuf Khoja preached.His mother Zuleiha Begum was the daughter of Mir Sayyid Jalil Kashgari, a rich "bek" from the village of Bashkerim in the Kashgar Region, who settled in Kumul after fleeing from Kashgar several years previously.