national census of , the : China’s Pre- and total Muslim population is 20.3 million, including: Hui (9,816,805); Post-Modern Crossroad Uyghur (8,399,393); Kazakh (1,250,458); Dongxiang (513,805); Kyrgyz (160,823); Dru Gladney Salar (104,503); Tajik (41,028); Uzbek (14,502); Bonan (16,505); University of Hawaii, Manoa Tatar (4,890). This represents about a forty percent population increase over 1990 census In all of China, there are only contributed Arab, Persian, and figures. The Hui speak mainly three public statues left of later Turkic civilizations to the Sino-Tibetan languages; Turkic- Chairman Mao. Of the three, the region. The new “Trans-Eurasia” language speakers include the one in Xinjiang is perhaps the railroad between Europe and Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, most incongruous. It is in China that passes through Salar and Tatar; combined Turkic- , the farthest city in China Urumqi, completed in 1991, links Mongolian speakers include the from Beijing, and in a place never China as never before with Dongxiang and Bonan, con- visited by the Chairman. With Europe; in addition, there is an centrated in Gansu’s moun- arm upraised, gazing across the increasing number of air and road tainous Hexi corridor; and the People’s Square toward the routes to , Kazakh- Tajik speak a variety of Indo- southern end of the city (and stan, , Mongolia, Persian dialects. It is important /), Chairman Mao’s , and Pakistan. to note, however, that the statue signals that though it is Bordered by some of the highest Chinese census registered one of the most remote cities mountains in the world, in the people by nationality, not from Beijing, since 1949 it has north, east, south and south- religious affiliation, so the actual been firmly under Chinese west by the great Altai, number of Muslims is still control. Bordering People’s Tianshan, Pamir, and Kunlun unknown, and all population Square and well within the mountain ranges, and hemmed in figures are clearly influenced by Chairman’s gaze is the huge new from the west by the Gobi and politics in their use and Bank of China building — the Taklamakan Deserts, the second interpretation. newest monument to Chinese largest in the world, Xinjiang is a rule. Yet, it has not always been place with a long and com- The largest Muslim group in so. plicated history, located Xinjiang are the Uyghur, somewhere between mountain numbering nearly nine million, Xinjiang remains one of the and steppe, oasis and desert, claiming a 1300-year history of pivotal crossroads of China and East and West. The faces, descent from the early Uyghur Central Asia, and has only been languages, clothing, and kingdom in Karabalghasan, intermittently under Chinese dwellings of the “Eastern located in what is now Mongolia, influence and control during Turkestanis” who inhabit the whose kingdom was conquered relatively recent times in its 3000- towns and the new “golden by Kyrgyz tribesmen in 840 CE. year history. The history of the hordes” of travelers who pass The Uyghur fled southwest and region is marked by many through are the most enduring dispersed in the oases towns influences due to its central place legacy of this multicultural and surrounding the Taklamakan between several civilizations. At diverse history. desert where they had a natural intersection of maintained trading relations pathways leading from the Today, over sixty percent of along the ancient Silk Road, ancient capitals of Rome, Persia, Xinjiang’s eighteen million establishing Turfan as their Mongolia, and China, its strategic citizens are Muslims, living across newfound capital and Kashgar as location at the eastern end of the an area one-sixth the size of all one of its most important trading ancient Silk Road, it continues of China. Under the Chinese centers. Their far-flung kingdom today as a meeting place of many Communists, Muslims were flourished until the coming of the cultures. Sir Aurel Stein, the 20th divided among ten official Mongols in the twelfth century. century’s greatest Central Asian nationalities, with the Hui the Prior to the arrival of the Mongols, explorer, characterized the region largest population throughout Islam first arrived in Kashgar by as a “special meeting ground of China, and the Uyghur the the tenth century CE, and the city Chinese civilization, introduced largest population in the Xinjiang became such a center of Islamic by trade and political pene- Uyghur Autonomous Region, learning that one of the greatest tration, and of Indian culture, established in 1956. According to Muslim scholars and lexi- propagated by Buddhism.” Islam the reasonably accurate 2000 cographers of the eleventh

3 century, Mahmud al-Kashgari, was buried just outside of the city in Upar Village (Fig. 1). Al- Kashgari compiled the first complete Turkish dictionary, which has been translated into 26 languages (Fig. 2). Here, the early Muslims encountered strong Chinese, Persian, Turkic, and Indian influences, much of which can still be seen in the art and architecture of the region.

Islam displaced a multi-

religious and multi-cultural Copyright © Daniel C. Waugh 1996 tradition that combined elements Fig. 1. Mahmud al-Kashgari’s mausoleum at Upar. of Buddhist, Manichaean, Zoroastrian, and even early basin from the second to the years in the first century, and Nestorian Christian practices (by tenth centuries CE, when the remained under nominal Chinese 650 CE, there was a Nestorian Chinese monk, Xuanzang control until the early T’ang archbishopric in Kashgar), (Hsuan-tsang), reported in 644 dynasty, but succumbed to reflecting the importance of the CE that the oasis city of Kashgar Tibetan rule between 670 and region as a meeting place of produced a “luxuriance of fruit 694. From the tenth to the many cultures and kingdoms. and flowers.” Xuanzang was twelfth centuries, the Kara- impressed khanid Khanate, an alliance of not only Karlukh Turkic tribes that had with the accepted Islam, established their widespread capital in Kashgar, and ruled the practice of surrounding trading centers from Buddhism, Bukhara to Khotan. The Sunni but also the Muslim, Satoq Bughra, who died vibrancy of around 955 CE, is credited with the bazaar introducing Islam to Xinjiang. A and multi- Turk from the clan of the ethnic Karakhanids, he was converted character of to Islam by Nasr b. Mansur of the the people, Samanid family who had been some with ruling eastern Iran and much of “blue eyes” Central Asia and Transoxiana, and “yellow and was supposedly sent to the Copyright © Daniel C. Waugh 1999 hair,” Fig. 2. Kashgar near the center of al-Kashgari’s world. Detail Kashgar region on a trade of circular world map accompanying his Dictionary (repro- perhaps of mission, where he eventually duction on display in Ulughbeg Mausoleum, Samarkand). Sogdian or became khan. He and his devout Eastsuccessors extended Islamic Early Persian records refer to the Iranian origin. That diversity is influence throughout the southern Tarim region as the evident to today, where the daily southern oases, where Buddhism home of Kushan tribes, who market attracts thousands, and had once boasted 160 monas- controlled trade with other Silk the famous Sunday bazaar (Fig. teries in Khotan alone. On the Road oases as early as 2000 3, next page) boasts over ten eastern end of the in years ago. The regularity of the thousand, including Han Chinese, places like and perhaps caravan trade between the Uyghur, Russian, Tajik, Kyrgyz, parts of Turfan, con- oases of Merv, Balkh, Bukhara, Uzbek, and Kazakh patrons, as tinued to practice Buddhism until Samarkand, Kashgar, Turpan, well as the ubiquitous foreign the sixteenth century. Today, the and Khotan with the distant tourists. 162 Sunni mosques in Kashgar European and Asian capitals alone evidence the enduring placed this region in a central role As a trading region, southern presence of Islam, though as economic broker and cultural Xinjiang grew under the Han Buddhist influence can be found mediator. Hinayana Buddhism Chinese General Ban Qiao who in the extraordinarily multi-varied flourished in the southern Tarim campaigned in the region for 31 artwork, music, and dance

4 Kashgar and Yarkand from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, saw political and religious competition for influence over the strategic southern region, and their conflicts only ended with Qing rule under Emperor Qianlong in 1754. Today, many of the tombs of the Khojas can still be visited in the Apak Khoja tomb complex in the north end of Kashgar, built originally in 1640 (Fig. 5). Unlike the Chinese Ming dynasty (1368-1644) before them, the Manchu Qing (1644- 1911) were more interested in trade with Central and Inner Asia, Copyright © Daniel C. Waugh 1996 Fig. 3. The Kashgar Sunday bazaar. and the Emperor Qian Long extended Chinese rule through produced by the Uyghur people Throughout the period of (Fig. 4). Sufism also gained many Mongol rule the region prospered followers among the Sunni as an important overland trade Muslims, with mostly Central center in the midst of the peace Asian Yasawi and later insured by the Pax Mongolica. It Naqshbandi tarikats finding was after this period that Islam followers. Inter-ethnic and continued to flourish, especially religious rivalries increased until in the southern region, with the the region came under the establishment in Kashgar of the Mongol rule through Chagatai, great Idgah Masjid (the Festival the son of Genghis Khan, until Mosque), in 1444, where Muslims Tamerlane’s army was able to still gather in the main square for reclaim Kashgar for a brief period Qurban and Ramadan holidays. in the mid-fourteenth century. On these days, Uyghurs dance The Persian historian Ala-ad-Din the “sama” in the square, recite Ata-Malik Juvaini in his visit to the the great Uyghur Mukharum region during the mid-thirteenth epics, and celebrate the unity of century reported that Mongolian Islam in the region. The rise of rule was a “divine mercy,” actually the Sufi inspired Khojas (from the felt by local Eastern Turkestani’s Persian Khwaja, “master”), and to reduce intra-religious fac- their internecine struggles for Copyright © Daniel C. Waugh 1995 tionalism in the region. power that raged between Fig. 5. Interior of Apak Khoja mausoleum, Kashgar.

powerful military and economic integration of the region. Chinese rule was disrupted, however, by the rise of the Kashgar ruler, Yakub Beg, who from 1866-1877 established a Uyghur Muslim kingdom in the region. Yakub Beg took advantage of shifting power struggles in the region during the period of the so-called Great Game, when Russian, British, and

Copyright © Daniel C. Waugh 1995 Chinese empires competed for control over the strategic Fig. 4. Village mosque on road to Kashgar from the Torugart Pass.

5 overland routes that ran through through national education, Xinjiang, coming to an end in telecommunications, and political 1884 when Chinese rule was development. It is for this established and the term reason that Mao Zedong, after “Xinjiang” became widely used his troops “liberated” Xinjiang, for the first time to refer to the agreed upon the legal desig- entire region as a “new dominion” nation of special governance of of Qing imperial control. Until this the region, under the title time, the region was generally “Xinjiang Autonomous Region.” refered to as “Eastern Turkes- This makes Xinjiang one of five tan” or “Chinese Turkestan,” and Autonomous Regions in China, even “High Tatary” in Owen including Tibet, Ningxia, Inner Lattimore’s words. With the Mongolia, and Guangxi (in overthrow of the in southern China). It is also 1910, the region was once again significant that Mao’s own a site of intense competition for brother died during efforts to control, particularly between the wrest Xinjiang from Nationalist expanding Soviet penetration of rule. So for many reasons Central Asia and the attempts of Xinjiang has always posed an the Chinese Nationalist Kuomin- enormous challenge to Chinese tang to retain the old Qing rule, whether Communist, boundaries of China, that Nationalist, or Imperial, providing included Tibet and Xinjiang. a legacy fraught with danger, but promising enormous wealth. As Kuomintang Chinese rule in Xinjiang eroded during the 1930s China’s integrationist and and 1940s, several Uyghur-led educational policies since 1949 rebellions broke out. Two “East have enormously expanded the Turkestan Republics” sought to ranks of the Turkic urban establish separate Muslim states, intelligentsia in Xinjiang. Turkic, both influenced strongly by the mainly Uyghur and Kazakh, threat of the neighboring USSR. intellectuals advanced in many Intensive maneuvering enabled fields but also encountered the first to survive from 1931 to impediments as well. Whether Copyright © Daniel C. Waugh 1995 1934 and the second from 1944 or not they considered them- to 1949. It is tempting to dismiss selves Uyghur prior to their Fig. 6. Official promotion of “Uyghur” these abortive states or Yakub encounters with the Han Chinese heritage at the Kashgar tomb of Yusup Khass Hajib, the 11th century Beg’s brief rule in the previous establishment in Xinjiang, many “father” of Turkic Islamic literature. century as mere adventures. But came to think of themselves as it is clear that Mao Zedong took Uyghur afterwards. By such a them seriously, detecting in them process that directly recalls what schools that teach in the local the presence of powerful took place earlier in the Soviet minority languages up through centripetal forces that could republics of Central Asia, the university. In addition, minority seriously undermine Communist ethnic and national policies of a government officials are actively rule. Civil war, inter-ethnic Communist state fostered the recruited in order to promote a conflicts between Hui Chinese development, if not the creation, sense of participation in Muslims, Uyghur and Han of new ethnic national con- governance. Nevertheless, the Chinese, despotic nationalist rule sciousnesses (Fig. 6). In Chinese Communist Party, which under , and fear of Xinjiang, as well as other has many fewer minorities and is Russian expansion, led Xinjiang minority areas of China, official generally the final authority in citizens weary of war and civil minority nationalities receive areas of governance, continues strife to welcome the “peaceful special benefits, such as to exercise the greatest power liberation” of the region by exemption from the one-child in the region. People’s Liberation Army soldiers birth program (minorities are In addition, one cannot in 1949. By 1957, Urumqi was a generally allowed two or three minimize the role of improved key city in the newly formed children, and in very poor areas, communications and transpor- Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous even more), special scholarships tation in the creation of a region- Region, and the PRC government to secondary and higher wide consciousness among sought to further integrate the educational institutions, tax Xinjiang’s Turkic peoples. The region into People’s China relief, and bi-lingual education ability to travel easily by truck,

6 bus, or railroad enables people higher elevation to the winter reports condemning China’s of modest means to form pastures along the lower- harsh treatment of those contacts with Turkic speakers elevation steppe zones. This accused of separatism. Par- hundreds of miles from home. nomadic pastoralist lifestyle was ticularly bloody confrontations Radio and television broadcasts severely curtailed during the occurred at the town of Baren in in the Uyghur language and more radical Maoist periods of 1990 and in Yining in 1997. The improved telephone connections the 1960s and 1970s, but under government was quick to blame also facilitate interaction over the Deng Xiaoping reform era, these outbreaks on separatists distances. Taken together, these began to return in a vibrant (called “splittists”), Muslim very different developments fashion. Under the market radicals, or terrorists, and have fueled an unprecedented economy, pastoral products have designed its indelicately named growth of national consciousness increased in demand to the “Strike Hard! Maximum among the Uyghur Turks of extent in many areas, herd sizes Pressure!” campaign explicitly to Xinjiang, which in turn gives rise have increased beyond the counter them. The “Strike Hard” to a nationalist force that is natural carrying capacity of the campaign officially ended in 2004, different in kind and strength grasslands. The government and there have not been any from any that had existed in the has attempted to resolve this violent clashes in the region since past. conflict through sedentarization the late 1990s. Nevertheless, the policies that have had mixed government has continued to The social base of this new results. In addition, traditional restrict public gatherings and any consciousness does not competition for scarce resources activities, religious or otherwise, correspond precisely to the (farmland versus grazing land) that might be regarded as borders of Xinjiang. The northern has led to ethnic conflict between supporting separatism. Kazakhs remain somewhat pastoralists (Kazakh and Kyrgyz) In a rather post-modern twist disengaged, perhaps because of and farmers (mainly Uyghur, Han, along the ancient Silk Road, their own rivalries with the and Hui). Uyghur and the rise of an China’s so-called “war on independent , and terrorism” has been increasingly most of the other large ethnic Beijing has based its waged against a group of non- groups, such as the Hui, Kyrgyz, approach to regional governance state actors, primarily living and Xinjiang Han, see their best on principles of standardization, outside of China for at least two chances in cooperating with centralization and assimilation. to three generations, largely Chinese rule rather than Given this, it was probably organized through the Internet objecting to it. Traditional divides inevitable that this some Uyghurs (in what I have termed cyber- between traditionally agrarian who had hoped for greater separatism), for whom radical and urban Muslim populations autonomy would clash with Islam has only recently begin to (Uyghur and Hui), and the policies of the Peoples’ Republic grow in appeal. Interestingly, formerly nomadic Muslim of China in many areas. Many this diasporic ethnoreligious populations (Kazakh and Kyrgyz), Uyghurs, especially younger identity has helped land 22 of continue to this day. Not unlike urban males, have reacted to them in the interrogation/ Western American rivalries Beijing’s “top down” style of rule detention cells at Guantánamo between ranchers and farmers, with covert and overt shows of Bay, Cuba, caught up in the net the agrarian Uyghur and Hui are resistance. Some support of those accused of fighting for concentrated in the oases and ecological causes, greater the Taliban and al-Qaida in towns, whereas the Kazakh and religious freedoms, native Afghanistan. Not unlike Tibet, a Kyrgyz are based in the higher- language training, programs to place that has also seen elevation mountainous regions of prevent and treat AIDS, or even religiously-motivated terrorism the Pamir, Tianshan, and Altai anti-alcohol campaigns, and yet against the Chinese state, their ranges. Although the majority of others actively engage in illegal rationale for violence can only be the Kazakh and Kyrygz no longer activities, such as drug- understood as ethnoreligious, derive their primary incomes from smuggling and acts of violence. combining land with liberation herding, there are still nearly As a result, perhaps of China’s from a nation-state system that thirty percent of their populations more “open door” policy of Deng has wrested their religious who are registered as Xiaoping and his successors, the homeland away from them, which “pastoralists” (mu min), and level of civil unrest increased they refer to as Eastern maintain a fairly nomadic lifestyle, dramatically during the 1990s. Turkestan or even Uyghuristan, moving their entire families with Chinese government sources but which the Chinese state has their mixed herds (sheep, cattle, enumerate almost daily incidents referred to as “Xinjiang” (or “New camels, horses, and even yaks) of violence, and Amnesty Territory”) only since 1884. We from the summer pastures in the International released a series of must recall that the region has

7 always been caught between and telecommunications projects have more opportunities than in great power politics. In an effort have been initiated. President their homeland, or increasingly to prevent the further expansion Hu Jintao has continued with this seek opportunities abroad where of the Russian tsarist empire program, but the huge gaps in they feel they have a better across Central Asia, the Chinese income and social welfare chance at advancement than in emperor sent troops to finally between the west and Urumqi. This brain drain often incorporate the region into China southeast remain. Despite its divests the region from cultivating proper, delineating a border with “Freedom of Religion” policy which its own native elite. At the same Russia near Ili (today’s Yining or is enshrined in China’s con- time, developing cross-border Ghulja in Uyghur), in what the stitution and cultural pre- trade with the new Central Asian late Joseph Fletcher once called servation programs that have states and growing international China’s “First Treaty Port.” sought to preserve minority tourism has once again opened Today, most travelers to the culture, language, and material the region to an array of region report almost no evidence history through giving special multinational influences. One can of civil unrest and attest to the privileges to minorities (including only hope that Uyghur and other fact that it is one of the safest exemption from the one-child local cultures will continue to places to travel in all of Central birth-planning policy, educational flourish and develop in this new Asia, perhaps due to the strong opportunities, and tax relief), the period of globalization. presence of Chinese police in the real threat to local Muslim culture region. may come more from modern- About the Author ization than from Chinese The seventh-century Buddhist assimilation or migration (Fig. 7). Dru Gladney is Professor of Asian monk Xuanzang’s comment still Studies and Anthropology at the rings true today: the oasis cities, University of Hawaii at Manoa. including Hami, Turpan, Aksu, Among his many publications on Kashgar, and Hotan, continue to ethnic and cultural nationalism be green centers for fruit, are Muslim Chinese: Ethnic vegetable, rice, wheat, bean, and Nationalism in the People’s cotton production. Vast energy Republic (Harvard University and mineral resources have Press, 1991) and Dislocating contributed to the region’s China: Muslims, Minorities, and importance to China’s modern- Other Subaltern Subjects ization goals. As an important (University of Chicago Press, part of China’s “Great Western 2004). He is currently finishing a Development” campaign, book-length study entitled launched in 2001, the main Nomadology: Borderline Identities challenge will be to maintain a and Peripheral Perspectives. He cultural and religious continuity may be contacted at with the vibrant institutions and [email protected]. traditions that have made

Xinjiang a diverse and welcoming Copyright © Daniel C. Waugh 1996 References stopping place for the weary Fig. 7. Islam and modernity traveler on the new Silk Road. in the Kashgar bazaar. Samuel Beal, trans. Buddhist The goals of the Great Western Records of the Western World Development campaign have Yet, increasing Han Chinese (London: Trubner, 1884). been to help the poorer Western migration to the region reflects a regions “catch-up” with the more 2000-year history of cross- Owen Lattimore. High Tartary. developed eastern and coastal cultural trade and movement, and Boston: Little, Brown, 1930. regions, which received greater greater opportunities in the central government support region have attracted a growing Mahmud al-Kashgari. Divanü during Deng Xiaoping’s “get rich number of poorer Han Chinese Lugat-it-Türk. Tr. Robert Dankoff quick” campaigns. Under former from the inland regions, as well and James Kelly. 3 vols. President Jiang Zemin, the as skilled laborers and Cambridge, Mass.: 1982-1985. western regions, particularly technicians that often displace Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, Tibet, the local population from gainful Aurel Stein. On Ancient Central- Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, and employment. Conversely, better- Asian Tracks. Chicago and Yunnan were targeted for skilled Uyghur from urban areas London: University of Chicago greater infrastructural and with university educations are Press, 1974. communications investment, to often attracted to the urban the extent that vast road, rail, centers of China where they

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