Uyghur

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Template:Ethnic group The Uyghur (Uyghur: ئۇيغۇر; Turkish: Uygur; Template:Zh-stp) are a Turkic people, forming one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. In China, Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (also known as East Turkestan). A community of Uyghurs also exists in Taoyuan County of Hunan province in South-central China. Image:Xinjianj uigur.svg

1 Identity
2 History
3 Uyghurs today
4 Notable Uyghurs
5 References
6 External links
- 6.1 Language
- 6.2 Guantanamo Uyghur FOIA Documents
7 See also

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Identity

Historically the term "Uyghur" (meaning "united" or "allied") was applied to a group of Turkic-speaking tribes that lived in what is now Mongolia. Along with the so-called Kokturks (a.k.a. Gokturks), the Uyghurs were one of the largest and most enduring Turkic peoples living in Central Asia. They existed as a tribal federation ruled by the Juan Juan from 460–545, and then by the Hephthalites from 541–565 before being taken over by the Gokturk empire (Khaganate).

Image:Gokturkut.jpg

Known as Huihe (Template:Zh-stp), Weihu or Huihu in Chinese sources, under Khutlugh Bilge Kul Khagan's leadership, they established a Khaganate (empire) in the 8th century, replacing the Gokturks. Their ethnonym Huihu is the origin of the term Huihui (回回), which came to be used for Muslim in Chinese and which is now used for the Hui minority in China.

They live mainly in Xinjiang, China, where they are the largest ethnic group, together with Han Chinese, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Turks, and Russians.

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History

Before the Uyghur Empire was founded, the steppes from Mongolia to Central Asia were ruled by the Turkic Empire. The first Turkic Empire was destroyed by Emperor Li Shi-min of the Tang Dynasty and the second Turkic Empire was rebuilt during the reign of Empress Wu. At the time the Uyghur was a subject tribe under the Turks. In 744 the Uyghur, together with other subject tribes, the Basmil and Kharlukh, defeated the Turkic Empire and its allies and founded the Uyghur Empire at Ötüken.

Their empire stretched from the Caspian Sea to Manchuria, and lasted from 745 to 840. It was administered from the imperial capital Ordu Baliq. In 840, following a famine and a civil war, they were overrun by the Kirghiz, another Turkic people. The result was that the majority of tribal groups formerly under the umbrella of the Uyghurs migrated to what is now northern China and especially modern Xinjiang. Joined by other Turkic tribal groups living in Zungaria and the Tarim Basin, they established the Idiqut kingdom which lasted until 1209, when they submitted to the Mongols under Genghis Khan. Others, occupying the western Tarim Basin (Fergana Valley), and parts of Kazakhstan bordering the Muslim, Turco-Tajik Sultanate, converted to Islam no later than the 10th century and built a federation with Muslim institutions called Kara-Khanlik, whose princely dynasties are called Kara-Khanids by historians.

After the rise of the Seljuk Turks in Iran, the Kara-Khanids ('black khans dynasty') became nominal vassals of the Seljuks. Later they would serve the dual suzerainty of both the Kara-Khitans to the north and the Seljuks to the south.

In his now dated book Empire Of The Steppes, René Grousset reports that the Uyghurs took up a settled agricultural lifestyle in the Tarim. They had an opportunity to resume nomadism after the Kirghiz were driven out of Mongolia by other tribes, but the Uyghurs chose not to do so.

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A small number of Uyghurs also migrated to what is now Gansu province in China around the late 9th century, where they converted from Manicheism to Lamaism (Tibetan & Mongol Buddhism). Unlike other Turkic peoples further west, they did not later convert to Islam; they are thus unusual amongst Turkic peoples. Their descendants still live there to this day; they are known as Yugurs (population approximately 10,000) and distinct from modern Uyghurs.

Most inhabitants in the Besh Balik and Turfan regions did not convert to Islam until the 15th century expansion of the Yarkand Khanate, a Turko-Mongol successor state based in the western Tarim. Before converting to Islam, Uyghurs included Manichaeans, Buddhists and even some Nestorian Christians. It is probable that genetically and culturally, modern Uyghurs descend from the nomadic tribes of Mongolia, the Turkic subjects of the Mongols as well as the many Indo-European speaking groups who preceded them in the Tarim Basin oasis cities. Today, one can still see Uyghurs with light-coloured skin and hair. At the present time, Turkic and Islamic cultural elements are dominant in the Tarim, reflecting Turkic emigration to the Tarim region, especially during the Mongol period, as well as the replacement of previous religious traditions by Islam.

This has had an effect on modern politics, due to this very long, off-and-on relitionship, politically, militarily, and culturally, with China. Chinese rule was in the remote past solid at times in these regions until the An Lu Shan Rebellion and the Battle of Talas both of which were in the 750s. China ruled in the region existed at times as far back as AD 100 or so. This history goes far to explain a troubled relationship with past and present Chinese institutions and with the dominant Chinese ethnic group, the Han Chinese.

Modern usage of the Uyghur ethnonym is used to give an ethnic definition to a traditional Central Asian distinction between nomads and settled farmers. It refers to the descendants of settled Turkic urban oasis-dwelling and agricultural populations of Xinjiang as opposed to those Turkic groups that remained nomadic. It is widely credited as having been used for the first time in 1921 with the establishment of the Organization of Revolutionary Uyghur (Inqilawi Uyghur Itipaqi), a Communist nationalist group with intellectual and organizational ties to the Soviet Union. There is some evidence that Uyghur students and merchants living in Russia had already embraced the name prior this date, drawing on Russian studies that claimed a linkage between the historical khanate and Xinjiang's current inhabitants. Official recognition of the Uyghurs came under the rule of Sheng Shicai, who deviated from the official Kuomintang "five races of China" stance in favor of a Stalinist policy of delineating fourteen distinct ethnic nationalities in Xinjiang.

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Uyghurs today

Following 9/11, China stated its support to the United States of America in the war on terror and many human rights organizations are concerned that this is being used as a pretext to crack down on ethnic Uyghurs. Most Uyghur exile groups today claim their cultural rights are being suppressed by the Chinese government and that the PRC responds to Uyghur expressions of their culture, religion or demands for independence with human rights violations. A large proportion of the Uyghur diaspora supports Pan-Turkic groups and there are several organisations such as the East Turkestan Party. The name Xinjiang is considered offensive by many advocates of independence who prefer to use historical or ethnic names such as Chinese Turkestan, East Turkestan (with Turkestan sometimes spelled as Turkistan) or Uyghuristan.

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Notable Uyghurs

Famous Uyghurs and people claimed to be Uyghur include Tumen, Koltekin, Bayanchur Khan, Sultan Satuq Bughra Khan, Kashgarli Mehmud (Mehmud Kashgari), Yusuf Balasaguni (Yusuf Has Hajip), Farabi (Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Tarkhan ibn Uzalagh al-Farabi), Sultan Said Khan, Abdurashid Khan, Amannisa Khan, Yakubbeg(Bedewlet), Ipar Khan (Xiang Fei), Ehmetjan Qasimi, Mehmet Emin Boghra, Turghun Almas, Alptekins (Isa Yusuf Alptekin & Erkin Alptekin), Rebiya Kadeer, and Ismail Tiliwaldi.

There are 15 Uyghurs imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. They are not released because the United States government believes that if they are returned to China, the Uyghurs might face torture, imprisonment or execution by the Chinese government.

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References

Mackerras, Colin. Ed. and trans. 1972. The Uighur Empire according to the T'ang Dynastic Histories: a study in Sino-Uyghur relations 744–840. University of South Carolina Press.
Millward, James A. and Nabijan Tursun, "Political History and Strategies of Control, 1884–1978" in Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland (ISBN 0765613182).
Rudelson, Justin Ben-Adam, Oasis identities: Uyghur nationalism along China's Silk Road, New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.

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