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Islam’s Invisible
Frontier: The Muslims of Chinese-Occupied East
Turkestan
Tuyuq Mazar Mosque, East Turkestan
By Haroon Moghul
If I were to announce that a Muslim country, slightly
smaller than the size of Iran – but still three times
the size of France – blessed with bountiful oil
reserves, a rich culture and a long attachment to
Islam, was suffering brutal torment, one would justly
be disturbed. Perhaps all the more so because one
might not know which country I refer to. That, indeed,
is the greatest tragedy of Chinese-occupied East
Turkestan, bounded to the east by China, the south by
Tibet, and the west by Pakistan and the
newly-independent Central Asian states, emerging from
Russian domination.
We hear, perhaps day in and day out, of the treatment
accorded indigenous peoples in lands such as Tibet –
for a variety of reasons, including the preponderance
of celebrity advocates and Muslim and Arab sympathies.
Inexcusable, though, is the ignorance over East
Turkestan. Because of a century of communist control
over Central Asia, a great blanket of ignorance veils
this part of the Ummah from many Muslims.
Muslim Central Asia: A Background
The Eurasian steppe is a formidable belt of rolling
grassland, almost flat land stretching over five
thousand miles, from Manchuria, China, and ending at
the fringes of Hungary, another nation newly freed
from the communist curtain. From these plains have
arisen some of the mightiest warriors of history: the
Turkic Huns, who plagued Rome under Attila; the
Scythian Iranians, who dominated Caucasia; and the
Mongol Hordes (from where we get the word “Urdu”), who
nearly overthrew the Islamic world – until they were
stopped by the Muslim rulers of Egypt, the Mamluks,
fittingly, also horsemen of the Eurasian steppe.
However, though the steppe has birthed Hungarian,
Mongol and Iranian (relatives of the Persians in
modern-day Iran) peoples, the dominant group of the
last millennium and a half has been the Turkic one,
who emerged by displacing or conquering the native
Iranians – their remnants found today in the only
non-Turkic Central Asian state, Tajikistan – whose
language is remarkably close to Persian. Nevertheless,
considering the great spread of Turkic peoples, and
common confusion over their relation to Turks in
modern day Turkey, it would do us well to look a
little further at these peoples’ history.
Around 522, the Turks appeared on the world stage,
establishing an empire that stretched from Mongolia (Turks
and Mongols are closely related) to the Black Sea. Out
of this empire grew the many tribes of the Turkic
people, some moving into Russia, but more towards the
Muslim southeast. Indeed, what binds the Turkic people
together is not language or culture, but Islam.
To better understand the Turkic role in the universal
Islamic civilization, one must divide them into
Western and Eastern halves. In the West, Seljuk Turks
established dominance over the Middle East around the
10th century. As they pushed into Anatolia, Turkic
farmers and merchants followed behind them, spreading
Islam wherever they went. One of the small states that
was founded by these pioneers was a principality ruled
by a khan (leader) named ‘Uthman. The famous traveler
Ibn Battuta met ‘Uthman, noting that he was a
particularly unique leader – and concluding that great
things were in store for ‘Uthman’s children. Little
did he know how right he was.
From ‘Uthman’s line rose the Ottoman Empire: in 1453,
the Ottomans took Constantinople, making it their
capital. The current Turkish flag, featuring the
crescent and star design, commemorates this victory:
the crescent represents the armies of Islam, while the
star represents Constantinople, which is being
conquered. At its height, the Ottoman Empire stretched
from Algeria to the Caspian Sea, south to Yemen and
north to Austria. Their navies fought the French and
British in the Atlantic Ocean, and even helped the
Indonesians resist Portuguese and Dutch forces as far
as the East Indies. The Ottoman dynasty was also the
longest-lasting in history, but its decision to fight
against America, Britain and Russia in World War I led
to its collapse in 1924. The last khalifa, an Ottoman,
was exiled to Madina, where he died in the 1940’s.
As for the Eastern Turks: they have had a similarly
splendid history, though much of it remains unfamiliar
– perhaps because they formed many ethnic groups, such
as the Kazak, Uzbek, Uighur (East Turkestani) and
Volga Bulgar (Tatar). The idea of ethnic nationalities,
as developed in Europe and the Americas, never existed
in so rigid a form in the Muslim world until
colonization. Thereafter, tolerance and acceptance of
diversity were replaced with totalitarianism,
authoritarianism, and a desire for uniformity.
The Eastern Turks
In the 1300’s, the Eastern Turks, as well as members
of the Muslim Mongol Golden Horde, ruled over Moscow
and its environs. In the Volga River valley, the Tatar
established a sultanate called Volga Bulgaria, with
its capital at Kazan. At its peak, Volga Bulgaria was
a prosperous, powerful land, famed for Islamic
erudition. In fact, when Muslim Spain fell to invading
Christian forces, many Andalusian scholars and
scientists arrived in Volga Bulgaria, where they were
eagerly welcomed. Up until the early 1900’s, Kazan was
a major center for Muslim scholarship and reform.
To the south, a warrior named Uzbek was the khan of
another Turkic tribe. He converted to Islam (his
people, converting en masse after him, named
themselves Uzbek in his honor) and established a
powerful dynasty in Central Asia, known for fostering
many Islamic disciplines. Al-Biruni, the great
geologist, linguist and sociologist of India, was from
Central Asia; and Ulugh Beg, the highly regarded
astronomer, was also Turkic. Following after Uzbek
Khan came another of this tribe, named Shayban, who
established a second dynasty to the south, in the
early 16th century. At one time, the Uzbek (close
relatives of the Uighur) and the Ottomans contemplated
building canals between the Black and Caspian Sea, to
connect their empires. This, however, was never
realized.
Divisions in the ranks made the Turkic Muslim lands a
tempting target for a resurgent Russia. In 1552, Volga
Bulgaria was stormed by Russian forces. The Kazak, who
only converted to Islam in the 1700’s, were next. By
the 1800’s, all the Muslim steppe people, excluding
the Ottomans (who were never colonized), were under
foreign rule. The situation took a turn for the worse
in the 1920’s, as much of Muslim Central Asia found
itself not under a distant Czar in Moscow, but under
the powerful thumb of an aggressive Communist Party,
bent on the destruction of Islam. East Turkestan was
at his time under Chinese rule, separated by the
powers of the day from their ethnic and religious kin,
and in 1949, East Turkestan suffered China’s similar
switch to Communism. The Soviet Union quickly
collapsed in on itself, leading to independence for
much of Central Asia. The Uighur of East Turkestan,
however, remain under occupation – and are perhaps
forgotten because of this.
The Uighur of East Turkestan
In 751, the Muslims and the Chinese met on the
battlefield for the first time, at Talas River. Local
Tibetan and Uighur tribes, which were at the time
Buddhist, allied themselves with the Muslims – the
resulting victory allowed the Uighur peaceful
relations and expansion in eastern Central Asia. In
934, the Uighur leader, Satuk Boghra Khan, accepted
Islam. Many fellow Uighur followed, though conversion
was not forced. The Uighur ruled an independent
kingdom, mixing Muslim and Buddhist populations, that
stood until 1759, when the Manchu Chinese invaded and
destroyed it. A fate similar to Tibet in the south, a
Buddhist region with an important Muslim minority also
brought under unfortunate foreign domination.
In 1864, the Uighur revolted against foreign rule,
with some help from the distant Muslim Ottomans.
Although they won, their independence was short-lived.
The Chinese returned with more force in 1884,
conquering the land yet again – this time renaming it
“Xinjiang”: the New Dominion, the name by which the
region is commonly referred to today. The Uighur,
however, refused to bow. One of their many revolts
succeeded in 1945, leading to the independent Republic
of East Turkestan. At this time, there were few other
independent Muslim nations excepting Afghanistan and
Turkey.
But once more, independence did not last. The people
of East Turkestan were invaded in 1949 by a new China,
a communist one. This was to prove a more destructive
occupying regime than any previous, principally
because communism has been, since its inception,
uncomfortable with Islam because of its potential for
creating an alternative social system and for
inspiring spirited resistance, as it did with the
Central Asian Basmachi fighters who held out against
Russian communism for over a decade.
East Turkestan’s Strategic Importance
Before going on to highlight the gross human rights
violations committed in East Turkestan (again, what
China calls Xinjiang, or alternatively Sinkiang), one
must understand why China is so aggressive in its
policies towards the region. Firstly, East Turkestan
is simply enormous; it is 1/6th of the land area of
China. As if this was not enough, the occupied nation
borders five newly-independent Central Asian countries.
Should East Turkestan become independent, it is
conceivable that it may, in the long-term, unite with,
or create some form of economic bloc, with its kin
countries to the west. This would form a territory
quite nearly the size of China itself. This is
especially dangerous to the strategic interests of not
only China, but Russia and other powers, because each
of these Central Asian nations, including East
Turkestan, is blessed (one might say, from a
historically Islamic perspective, cursed) with vast
reserves of oil and gas, a common cultural background
and an Islamic faith, however currently weak. For
these reasons, China cannot afford to let go of East
Turkestan. It would mean the end of its energy
independence and the possibility, however distant, of
the creation of a check to its expansion into Asia. In
the same manner as Western nations practice divide and
conquer with the Middle East, so too Russia and China
with Islamic Central Asia.
The one thing China does have is a huge population, in
comparison to a sparsely settled East Turkestan. In
order to control East Turkestan’s territory, China has
decided to pursue a two-pronged policy. On the one
hand, it will do whatever it can to sap Uighur
strength, weakening their identity and culture.
Significantly, this means an assault on Muslim values.
On the other hand, China is importing huge settler
populations, to create “facts on the ground” that
cannot be reversed. By virtue of China’s enormous
demographic advantage, hundreds of thousands of
Chinese can annually be entered into the territory,
changing a Muslim region into what will soon be –
unless something stops them – a Chinese one. Then, the
region’s oil and resources will be in “local” hands.
Essentially, this is the same policy Israel has tried
to us in the West Bank and Gaza, but Israel has too
few people to successfully attain its goals.
Chinese Human Rights Violations in East Turkestan
In light of September 11th, things have only become
more difficult. America has cooperated with China, in
the “War on Terrorism,” by freezing the assets of
Uighur resistance movements, most of whom have nothing
to do with terrorism. Further, with the world’s
attention drawn to Iraq and previously to Afghanistan,
China has been freer to do what it wants without a
spotlight, however feeble its shine. Prior to 9/11,
the Uighur were already suffering an occupation that
was perhaps among the worst, if not the worst, in the
Ummah. Now, as difficult as it seems to imagine,
things are surely worse. I have listed below only
several of China’s most severe violations of human
rights and dignity, to give the reader a taste of the
darkness blanketing East Turkestan.
• As of 1996, the Chinese government has detonated
forty-four nuclear devices in East Turkestan, using
the country as an experiment in permanent radioactive
pollution. In other words, it is a policy of rendering
huge regions of an occupied territory uninhabitable.
The result has been a sickeningly high incidence of
cancer among Uighur; Uighur children also have a
disturbing occurrence of debilitating birth defects.
• As mentioned, China imports ethnic Chinese settlers
to drown out the local population. In 1949, when it
lost its independence, East Turkestan was 93% Muslim;
today, it is only 50% Muslim. To ensure their plan
succeeds beyond settlement colonialism (a la Israel),
the Chinese government forces a number of Muslim
families to practice abortions.
• As part of their drive to destroy Uighur culture,
the Chinese have attempted to switch Uighur to the
Latin script. However, the Uighur have refused,
sticking to their Arabic-based script, thus making
them the only Turkic people still using this alphabet.
As a result of such resistance, Uighur are denied
access to education, such that their illiteracy rate
is now a disastrous seventy percent. Considering the
high number of Chinese settlers, competition for jobs
is ever more fierce by the year, and Uighur, who are
already heavily discriminated against and unlikely to
get any jobs, have even less chance with their
diminished technical and literary skills.
• Uighur can be jailed for refusing to eat during
daylight hours in Ramadan, part of an orchestrated
campaign to oust from the Uighur their identity and
values. This policy was instituted only a few years
ago – and few Muslim countries paid any attention.
• There has even been an attempt at creating a
Communist Islam: China demands that Uighur mosques
display pictures of Communist leaders, while Imams
must speak favorably of atheist Communism in their
sermons!
• However, the Communization of Islam has certainly
failed to some degree, as evinced by China’s attempt
to simply destroy Islam outright: More than 29,000
mosques have been shut down or destroyed; some are
even converted into pig farms.
• Imams are regularly persecuted, often for no reason
other than their attachment to religion. Some are
forced to clean sewers, stables and pig farms.
• Young men are often kidnapped by the government,
never to be seen again. This is especially the case
with young men who show an interest in their religion
and/or culture. China makes the pitiful excuse that
these young men are terrorists. In fact, they are
youth who are sick and tired of suffering the
indignities of a brutal occupation and thus are a
potential threat to despotism and dictatorship.
• And finally, as a result of Chinese occupation, at
least 300,000 Uighur have died (out of a population
that today equals only ten million, this is a
frighteningly high percentage).
What Can Be Done: Three Proposals
So what is to be done? Below, I have three proposals,
of varying intensity, as suggestions for handling this
conflict in a reasonable and legitimate manner.
Firstly, we need education as an Ummah, so that we and
our future generations are aware of the many branches
of the Muslim Nation, the better to increase awareness
and call attention to injustices. For Islamic schools
and mosques, this could mean organizing teach-ins,
lectures, special programs, and so on, to familiarize
ourselves with the Uighur and their plight (please see
the resources at the end of this article).
Secondly, there are more ambitious options for the
many promising Muslims interested in academia and
linguistics. They may want to consider taking courses
in this region of the world, or even specializing in
Eurasian studies. In the coming decades, as the
petrochemical wealth of this region becomes more
significant, demand will skyrocket for specialists,
thinkers, writers and the like, much as high demand
has been established for the Muslim Middle East.
Options are also available to Muslims with an interest
in languages: One may wish to consider learning Uighur
or other Central Asian languages. Indiana University,
with a website link below, has an excellent summer
program for Uighur, with large federal grants and
scholarships also available.
Consider the effect of only a handful of committed
Muslims learning such a language. The Uighur have been,
for quite some time, prevented from learning Arabic.
Thus much of their religion is out of reach. Armed
with the knowledge of local languages, specialists can
translate important books and resources; furthermore,
easy-to-access websites could be created, offering
essential Islamic resources and news which would be
gradually disseminated. As poor as the Uighur are, the
Chinese cannot stop the benefits of the Internet and
mass media from reaching their controlled state. There
should also be translations of the Qur’an, books on
prayer, etiquette, manners and virtues, etc. Such
action on our part would also prevent the influence of
extremist groups, which capitalize on people’s
deficient knowledge of Islam, peddling erroneous and
dangerous beliefs (some groups are even fronts for
missionaries; in Albania, after the fall of Communism,
some fringe Christian groups sold Bibles labeled “The
Holy Qur’an”).
Thirdly, we can take an overtly political role. If the
goal of Operation Iraqi Freedom was Iraq’s freedom,
then why does East Turkestan not even receive a
mention in speeches and policy direction, let alone
the kind of ridiculous attention lopped onto Iraq in
the run-up to the (ultimately unjustifiable) war? One
should never underestimate the power of political
pressure. This also means we must involve the American
community at large, moving outside the boundaries of
our religious groups and organizations, so as to
create the largest possible effect. There is a great
potential for alliance with those who trumpet the
similarly just cause of Tibet, a vast groundswell of
support for action. Thus the oppressed are always
wronged, and always seeking allies in a proactive and
appropriate fight to change their situation.
For now, however, East Turkestan struggles almost
entirely on its own. It is our responsibility not to
leave them as such. Our efforts, resources and prayers
must make an invisible people visible again.
Resources for more information:
Maps, news, history and more: Uighur American
Association
Learning Uighur:Indiana University Language Program
Information on East Turkestan in Arabic and English:
Uygur.org
Haroon Moghul is the author of My First Police State,
available through most major bookseller websites, such
as Barnes and Noble, Borders and Amazon.com. He writes
for a variety of newspapers, Islamic media and
journals, and invites your commentary, criticism and
curiosity. Email him at HSMoghul@aol.com
Copyright © 2003-2004 Muslim WakeUp! Inc.
The World's Most Popular Muslim Online Magazine
http://muslimwakeup.com
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