Uyghur: Encyclopedia - Uyghur

Uyghur

The Uyghur (Chinese: [historical]: 回紇; [modern]: 維吾爾) are a Turkic-speaking ethnic group living in northwestern China mainly in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, where they are the largest ethnic group together with Han Chinese, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, and Russia. Another group of Uyghurs lives in Taoyuan County of Hunan province in Southcentral China. Uyghurs form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by China.

Uyghur - Origins

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).

Known as Huihe (回紇 huíhé) and Huihu in Chinese sources, Under Khutlugh Bilge Kul Khagan's leadership, they established an empire (Khaganate) in the 8th century and replaced 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 people nationality in China.

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

Their empire stretched from the Caspian Sea to Manchuria, and lasted from 745–840, when 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 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 western Tarim Basin (Fergana Valley), and parts of Kazakhstan bordering the Muslim, Turco-Tajik Sultanate, converted to Islam no later than 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 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.

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 Tibetan 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, where they are known as Yugurs (population approximately 10,000). They are distinct from modern Uyghurs.

Most Uyghurs in the Besh Balik and Turfan regions did not convert 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. Genetically and culturally, modern Uyghurs descend from the nomadic tribes from Mongolia 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, the 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 100 A.D. 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.

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 within Xinjiang.

Uyghur - Notable Uyghurs

Famous Uyghurs 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.

See also

• Uyghur language
• East Turkestan/Uyghuristan
• Kushan
• Muqam

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Uyghur", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki