In the tenth century, the Karluks, Yaghmas, Chigils and other Turkic tribes founded the Kara-Khanid Khanate in Semirechye, Western Tian Shan, and Kashgaria, and later conquered Transoxiana. The Karakhanid rulers were likely to be Yaghmas who were associated with the Toquz Oghuz, and some historians therefore see this as a link between the Karakhanid and the Uyghurs of the Uyghur Khaganate, although this connection is disputed by others.
The Karakhanids converted to Islam in the tenth century, the first Turkic dynasty to do so, and modern Uyghurs see the Muslim Karakhanids as an important part of their history. However, Islamization of the people of the Tarim Basin was a gradual process. The Buddhist Kingdom of Khotan was conquered by the Muslim Karakhanids from Kashgar in the early 11th century, but Qocho remained mainly Buddhist until the 15th century, and the conversion of the Uyghur people to Islam was not completed until the 17th century.
The 12th and 13th century saw the domination by non-Muslim powers: first the Kara-Khitans in the 12th century, followed by the Mongols in the 13th century. After the death of Genghis Khan in 1227, Transoxiana and Kashgar became the domain of his second son, Chagatai Khan. The Chagatai Khanate split into two in the 1340s, and the area of the Chagatai Khanate where the modern Uyghurs live became part of Moghulistan, which meant "land of the Mongols". In the 14th century, a Chagatayid khan Tughluq Temür converted to Islam. His son Khizr Khoja conquered Qocho and Turfan (the core of Uyghuristan) in the 1390s, and the Uyghurs there became largely Muslim by the beginning of the 16th century.
From the late 14th through 17th centuries the Xinjiang region became further subdivided into Moghulistan in the north, Altishahr (Kashgar and the Tarim Basin), and the Turfan area, each often ruled separately by competing Chagatayid descendants, the Dughlats, and later the Khojas.
Islam was also spread by the Sufis, and branches of its Naqshbandi order were the Khojas who seized control of political and military affairs in the Tarim Basin and Turfan in the 17th century. The Khojas however split into two rival factions, the Aqtaghlik Khojas (also called the Afaqiyya) and the Qarataghlik Khojas (the Ishaqiyya). The power of the Khojas lasted until the 19th century.
Qing rule
In the 17th century, the Buddhist Oirat Mongol Zunghar Khanate grew in power in Zungharia, and took control over the former territory of the Chagatai Khans. The Khojas in the Tarim Basin became vassals to the Dzunghars. The expansion of the Dzungars however brought it into direct conflict with the Qing Empire in the late 17th century, and in the process also brought Chinese presence back into the region a thousand years after the Tang Dynasty lost control of the Western Regions.
The Qing's campaigns against the Dzungars ended with the genocide of the Dzungars. During the Dzungar conflict, two Aqtaghlik brothers Khoja Burhan-ad-din and Khoja Jahan also rebelled against the Qing, an action which prompted the invasion and conquest of the Tarim Basin by the Qing in 1759. The Uyghurs from Turfan and Hami (Kumul) such as Emin Khoja were allies of the Qing in this conflict, and these Uyghurs also helped the Qing to rule the Altishahr Uyghurs in the Tarim Basin. After the Dzungar genocide, the Uyghurs moved into Zungaria. In Beijing, a community of Uyghurs was clustered around the mosque near the Forbidden City, having moved to Beijing in the 18th century.
In the Dungan revolt of 1864, Andijani Uzbeks from the Kokand Khanate under Buzurg Khan and Yakub Beg expelled Qing Dynasty officials from parts of southern Xinjiang and founded an independent Kashgaria kingdom, called Yettishar (English: "country of seven cities"). Under the leadership of Yakub Beg, it included Kashgar, Yarkand, Hotan, Aksu, Kucha, Korla, and Turpan.
Large Qing Dynasty forces under Chinese General Zuo Zongtang attacked Kashgaria in 1876. After this invasion the two regions of Dzungaria , which had been known as Zhunbu (Dzungar region) or Tianshan Beilu (Northern March), and the Tarim Basin, which had been known as the Huijiang ("Muslim-land") or "Tianshan Nanlu (southern March), were reorganized into a province named "Xinjiang", which when literally translated means "New Territory".
Modern era
In 1912, the Qing Dynasty was replaced by the Republic of China. By 1920, Pan-Turkic Jadidist Islamists had become a challenge to Chinese warlord Yang Zengxin who controlled Xinjiang. Uyghurs staged several uprisings against Chinese rule. Twice, in 1933 and 1944, the Uyghurs successfully gained their independence (backed by the Soviet Communist leader Joseph Stalin): the First East Turkestan Republic was a short-lived attempt at independence around Kashghar, and it was destroyed during the Kumul Rebellion by Chinese Muslim army under General Ma Zhancang and Ma Fuyuan at the Battle of Kashgar (1934). The Second East Turkestan Republic was a Soviet puppet Communist state that existed from 1944 to 1949 in what is now Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture after the Ili Rebellion.
Mao declared the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949. He turned the Second East Turkistan Republic into the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, and appointed Saifuddin Azizi as the region's first Communist Party governor. Many Republican loyalists fled into exile in Turkey and Western countries. The name Xinjiang was changed to Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where Uyghurs are the largest ethnic group, mostly concentrated in the southwestern Xinjiang.
Uyghur identity remains fragmented, as some support a Pan-Islamic vision, exemplified by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, while others support a Pan-Turkic vision, such as the East Turkestan Liberation Organization. A third group would like a "Uyghurstan" state, such as the East Turkestan independence movement. As a result, "[n]o Uyghur or East Turkestan group speaks for all Uyghurs, although it might claim to", and Uyghurs in each of these camps have committed violence against other Uyghurs who they think are too assimilated to Chinese or Russian society or are not religious enough. Mindful not to take sides, Uyghur leaders such as Rebiya Kadeer mainly try to garner international support for the "rights and interests of the Uyghurs", including the right to demonstrate, although the Chinese government has accused her of orchestrating the deadly July 2009 Ürümqi riots.
Uyghurs of Taoyuan, Hunan
Around 5,000 Uyghurs live around Taoyuan County and other parts of Changde in Hunan province. They are descended from Hala Bashi, a Uyghur leader from Turpan, and his Uyghur soldiers sent to Hunan by the Ming Emperor in the 14th century to crush the Miao rebels during the Miao Rebellions in the Ming Dynasty. The 1982 census records 4,000 Uyghurs in Hunan. They have genealogies which survive 600 years later to the present day. Genealogy keeping is a Han Chinese custom which the Hunan Uyghurs adopted. These Uyghurs were given the surname Jian by the Emperor. There is some confusion as to whether they practice Islam or not. Some say that they have assimilated with the Han and do not practice Islam anymore, and only their genealogies indicate their Uyghur ancestry. Chinese news sources report that they are Muslim.
The Uyghur troops led by Hala were ordered by the Ming Emperor to crush Miao rebellions and were given titles by him. Jian is the predominant surname among the Uyghur in Changde, Hunan. Another group of Uyghur have the surname Sai. Hui and Uyghur have intermarried in the Hunan area. The Hui are descendants of Arabs and Han Chinese who intermarried, and they share the Islamic religion with the Uyghur in Hunan. It is reported that they now number around 10,000 people. The Uyghurs in Changde are not very religious, and eat pork. Older Uyghurs disapprove of this, especially elders at the mosques in Changde, and they seek to draw them back to Islamic customs.
In addition to eating pork, the Uyghurs of Changde Hunan practice other Han Chinese customs, like ancestor worship at graves. Some Uyghurs from Xinjiang visit the Hunan Uyghurs out of curiosity or interest. Also, the Uyghurs of Hunan do not speak the Uyghur language, instead, they speak Chinese as their native language, and Arabic for religious reasons at the mosque.
Genetics
The Uyghurs are a Eurasian (mixed ancestry) population with Eastern and Western Eurasian anthropometric and genetic traits. Uyghurs are thus one of the many populations of Central Eurasia that can be considered to be genetically related to European and East Asian populations. However, various scientific studies differ on the size of each component. One study, using samples from Hetian (Hotan) only, found that Uyghurs have 60% European ancestry and 40% East Asian ancestry. A further study showed slightly greater European component (52% European) in the Uyghur population in southern Xinjiang, but slightly greater East Asian component (47% European) in the northern Uyghur population. Another study used a larger sample of individuals from a wider area, and found only about 30% European component to the admixture. A study on mitochondrial DNA (therefore the matrilineal genetic contribution) found the frequency of western Eurasian-specific haplogroup in Uyghurs to be 42.6%.
The admixture may be the result of a continuous gene flow from populations of European and Asian descent, or may have been formed by a single event of admixture during a short period of time (the hybrid isolation model). If a hybrid isolation model is assumed, it can be estimated that the hypothetical admixture event occurred about 126 generations ago, or 2,520 years ago assuming 20 years per generation. According to the paper by Li et al.:
- STRUCTURE cannot distinguish recent admixture from a cline of other origin, and these analyses cannot prove admixture in the Uyghurs; however, historical records indicate that the present Uyghurs were formed by admixture between Tocharians from the west and Orkhon Uyghurs (Wugusi-Huihu, according to present Chinese pronunciation) from the east in the 8th century CE. The Uyghur Empire was originally located in Mongolia and conquered the Tocharian tribes in Xinjiang. Tocharians such as Kroran have been shown by archaeological findings to appear phenotypically similar to northern Europeans, whereas the Orkhon Uyghur people were clearly Mongolians. The two groups of people subsequently mixed in Xinjiang to become one population, the present Uyghurs.
Religion
The ancient Uyghurs believed in Shamanism and Tengrism, then Manichaeism, Buddhism and Church of the East. Modern Uyghurs however are primarily Muslim, and they are the second largest Muslim ethnic group in China after the Hui.
The majority of modern Uyghurs are Sunnis, although conflicts exist between Sufi and non-Sufi religious orders. While modern Uyghurs consider Islam to be part of their identity, religious observance varies between different regions. In general, Muslims in the southern region, Kashgar in particular, are more conservative. For example, women wearing the full veil (brown cloth covering the head completely) are more common in Kashgar but may not be found in some other cities. There is also a general split between the Uyghurs and the Hui Muslims in Xinjiang, and they normally worship in different mosques.
Language
The modern Uyghur language belongs to the Karluk branch of the Turkic language family. It is closely related to Äynu, Lop, Ili Turki, and Chagatay (the East Karluk languages), and slightly less closely to Uzbek (which is West Karluk).
The Uyghur language is an agglutinative language and has a subject-object-verb word order. It has vowel harmony like other Turkic languages, and has noun and verb cases, but lacks distinction of gender forms.
Modern Uyghurs have adopted a number of scripts for their language. The Arabic script, known as the Chagatay alphabet, was adopted along with Islam. Political changes in the 20th century led to numerous reforms of the writing scripts, for example the Cyrillic-based Uyghur Cyrillic alphabet, a Latin Uyghur New Script, and later a reformed Uyghur Arabic alphabet. A new Latin version, the Uyghur Latin alphabet, was also devised in the 21st century.
Literature
Most of the early Uyghur literary works were translations of Buddhist and Manichaean religious texts, but there were also narrative, poetic, and epic works apparently original to the Uyghurs. The literary works from the Kara-Khanid period are considered by modern Uyghurs to be an important part of their literary traditions. Amongst these are Islamic religious texts and histories of Turkic peoples, and important works surviving from that era are Qutatqu Bilik (Wisdom Of Royal Glory) by Yüsüp Has Hajip (1069–70), Mähmut Qäşqäri's Divan-i Lugat-it Türk- A Dictionary of Turkic Dialects (1072), and Ähmät Yüknäki's Atabetul Hakayik. Perhaps the most famous and best loved pieces of modern Uyghur literature are Abdurehim Otkur's Iz, Oyghanghan Zimin, Zordun Sabir's Anayurt and Ziya Samedi's (former minister of culture in Sinkiang Government in 50's) novels Mayimkhan and Mystery of the years.
Music
Muqam is the classical musical style. The 12 Muqams are the national oral epic of the Uyghurs. The muqam system developed among the Uyghur in northwest China and Central Asia over approximately the last 1500 years from the Arabic maqamat modal system that has led to many musical genres among peoples of Eurasia and North Africa. Uyghurs have local muqam systems named after the oasis towns of Xinjiang, such as Dolan, Ili, Kumul and Turpan. The most fully developed at this point is the Western Tarim region's 12 muqams, which are now a large canon of music and songs recorded from the traditional performers Turdi Akhun and Omar Akhun among others in the 1950s and edited into a more systematic system.
Although the folk performers probably improvised their songs as in Turkish taksim performances, the present institutional canon is performed as fixed compositions by ensembles. The Uyghur Muqam of Xinjiang has been designated by UNESCO as part of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
Amannisa Khan, sometimes called Amanni Shahan, (1526–1560) is credited with collecting and thereby preserving the Twelve Muqam.[100] Russian scholar Pantusov writes that the Uyghurs manufactured their own musical instruments; they had 62 different kinds of musical instruments and in every Uyghur home there used to be an instrument called a "dutar".
Dance
Sanam is a popular folk dance among the Uyghur people. It is commonly danced by people at weddings, festive occasions, and parties. The dance may be performed with singing and musical accompaniment. Sama is a form of group dance for Newruz (New Year). Some dances may be alternate between singing and dancing, and Uyghur hand-drums called dap may be used as accompaniment to the dance.
Art
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, scientific and archaeological expeditions to the region of Xinjiang's Silk Road discovered numerous cave temples, monastery ruins, and wall paintings, as well as miniatures, books, and documents. There are 77 rock-cut caves at the site. Most have rectangular spaces with rounded arch ceilings often divided into four sections, each with a mural of Buddha. The effect is of an entire ceiling covered with hundreds of Buddha murals. Some ceilings are painted with a large Buddha surrounded by other figures, including Indians, Persians and Europeans. The quality of the murals vary with some being artistically naive while others are masterpieces of religious art.
Source : Wikipedia.
