Al Arabiya
China's Muslim ethnic minority, the Uighurs, have been in the news over the past few years after being sent to the U.S. "terrorist" detention camp in Guantanamo and clashing in their home region with ethnic Han Chinese. Who are the Uighurs?
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Homeland The Uyghur language has 13 dialects. - The Uigur people, pronounced wee-ger, are an ethnic group living mostly in Xinjiang, what used to be known as East Turkistan.
- The U.S. and Adelaide in Australia are respectively the 2nd and 3rd most populated areas with Uighurs.
- Located at the heart of Asia, Xinjiang is approximately 1.6 million square kilometers (6.1 square miles), four times the size of California.
- Official records say East Turkistan originally had 1,8 million square kilometers (6.8 square miles) of land but the territories were annexed by the Chinese provinces of Qinghai and Gansu after the 1949 communist invasion.
- According to records, Uigurs' history in East Turkistan goes back to more than 4000 years ago. |
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Culture The Uighir culture revolves around strong families ties - Located at the center of the historic Silk Road routes which ran through what was then East Turkistan, the Uighur culture became a mix of various influences such as China, Europe, North Africa and Russia.
- Their lifestyle promotes strong families ties. Music and dance are important cultural factors and their architecture, especially religious architecture, is refined and representative of their past.
- Because of the many Eastern and Western influences, their religion evolved over the years. In A.D 934, during the Karahanid Kingdom, the Uighurs settled on Islam. Kashgar, East Turkistan's capital, became one of the biggest learning centers of Islam. |
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Uighurs and China Uighurs make up about eight million of the 19 million people in Xinjiang - The Islamic Uigur Kingdom of East Turkistan was renamed Xinjiang in 1884 after losing its independence and territories to the Manchu Empire's invasion.
- Since then, Uigur's power, statute and culture declined drastically.
- The Uighurs tried to free themselves from foreign dominance twice, once in 1933 and 1944. Their independence was short-lived, overthrown with Soviet help.
- According to the latest Chinese survey, there are approximately 11 million Muslims in East Turkistan of which 8.68 million are Uigurs.
- Uigur sources say their population is over 15 million.
- The people of East Turkistan are Turks of Central Asia, not Chinese, given that historically the region is part of Central Asia. |
