…based on the Uighur alphabet, is still in use among the Mongols today.

In 507 a Chinese family, the Ch'iu, replaced the Juan-juan dynasty as rulers in Turfan; and under them the aristocracy adopted Chinese customs; and the form of Buddhism was entirely Chinese. In 640 direct Chinese rule was extended here, and even the Uighur Turkish conquest did not end this Chinese character in the eighth century.

An Uighur boy steps forward, carrying an instrument, a rahab. He sings a ballad: “We follow Chairman Mao.”

By the sword or by diplomacy, through terror or persuasion, Temüjin had subdued or enslaved a hundred peoples. Merkid, Xixia, Naiman, Kirghiz, Tatar, Georgian, Chinese, Khitan, Uighur, Bulgar, Persian - all, shamanist, Moslem, Buddhist or Nestorian Christian, all trembled at the mere mention of his name.

The beer festival happened in a village in Niya County in the deep south of Xinjiang, which is overwhelmingly populated by the Muslim Uighur people who call Xinjiang home. Muslims are not meant to consume alcohol, according to the Koran.

The Chinese government has reportedly detained more than a million Muslims in reeducation camps. Most of the people who have been arbitrarily detained are Uighur, a predominantly Turkic-speaking ethnic group primarily from China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang.

The tiny Uighur settlement of Tongguzbasti, 170km (102 miles) north of Keriya beside the rapidly diminishing Keriya Dariya, must rank as one of the most remote places in Xinjiang. It is said to stand on the ruins of the lost city of Keladun, and artefacts dating from the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 222) have been found here. Today about 100 families of Keriya Uighur live here in almost complete isolation.

These days Yarkant is a market town for low-income Uighurs, Islamic farmers and herders who have lived here for more than a millennium, and a strategic base for China's domestic security forces. With some of the lowest annual incomes in China, these ethnic-minority farmers and herders scratch out a living based on the trickle of moisture that flows from the Kunlun mountain range to the near south.

Chinese authorities continue to deny the abuse of Uighurs and other minorities, asserting that the camps are actually voluntary reeducation programs against extremism. Independent reporting suggests, however, that over the past three years, authorities have sent as many as 1.8 million people to prisons and internment camps in Xinjiang.

Uighur

Meaning

Noun

Adj

Name

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