Uighurs
Uighurs (or Uygurs) are the largest of the Turkic groups in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China, with an estimated population in the region of 8 million in 1997. Uighurs account for 46.7 percent of the population of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, with Han Chinese accounting for
38.4 percent and members of other minority ethnicities accounting for the remaining 14.9 percent. For most of the past ten centuries, these people have lived under the control of the Mongolian peoples. The Uighurs make their living in the Tian Shan mountain range as nomads (though the nomadic population is decreasing), herding sheep, goats, cows, horses, and camels. In oases near the Taklimakan Desert, they engage in farming with the aid of irrigation canals or underground waterways to run meltwater. Wheat, corn, cotton, and fruit (grapes, watermelons, and muskmelons) are popular crops. Trading is actively carried out across borders in the southwestern cities, where people weave traditional carpets.
At present they are Sunni Muslims, but earlier in their history they inclined to Manichaeanism (since the eighth century) and Buddhism (since the tenth century), and originally they adhered to shamanism and believed that Heaven (tengri) gave order, power, and wisdom to mankind. Fragments of many kinds of texts on Buddhism, Manichaeanism, and Nestorian Christianity have been uncovered at archaeological sites in Uighur areas. Islam came to Uighur lands along the Silk Road, and almost all Uighurs had become Muslims by the end of the fifteenth century. Since 1978, the Chinese government has maintained an appeasement policy with regard to religious expression, supporting the revival of religious activities, including reconstruction of mosques and religious school, as well as supporting publication of books in Uighur, in an effort to promote reform and an open-door policy. This is in an attempt to mend the damage done by the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), in which much of the culture of the pre-Communist period was destroyed. Muslims are hopeful that these policies will lead to a resurgence of ethnic and religious autonomy, but their optimism is guarded. They are quite afraid that their ethnic and cultural sovereignty will be overwhelmed by the area's growing Han Chinese population. China, for its part, is very sensitive about matters affecting its sovereignty over the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
Further Reading
Allsen, Thomas T. (1983) "The Yuan Dynasty and the
Uighurs of Turfan in the 13th Century." In China Among Equals. The Middle Kingdom and Its Neighbors, 10th–14th Centuries, edited by Morris Rossabi. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 243–280. Gansu Province Statistical Bureau, ed. (1998) Gansu Yearbook: 1997. Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe. Mackerras, Colin. (1990) "The Uighurs." In The Cambridge
History of Early Inner Asia, edited by Denis Sinor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 320–342.
Warikoo, Kulbhushan. (1998) "Ethnic Religious Resurgence in Xinjiang." In Post-Soviet Central Asia, edited by Touraj Atabaki and John O'Kane. Leiden, the Netherlands: Tauris Academic Studies, London, New York in association with the International Institute for Asian Studies, 269–282.
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Statistical Bureau, ed.
(1998) Xinjiang Statistical Yearbook: 1997. Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe.
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