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In the 18th century, the Qing dynasty conquered the Junggar Basin (Dzungaria) and the Tarim Basin (Southern Xinjiang), uniting them under the name Xinjiang. Qing rule in Xinjiang is said to have negatively affected the position of women in the society of Turkic Muslims now known as the Uyghurs.
There were eras in Xinjiang's history where intermarriage was common. "Laxity" led Uyghur women to marry Chinese men and not wear veils after Yaqub Beg's rule ended. Uyghurs also believe that they have Han Chinese ancestry from historical intermarriage (see around 10th century), such as those living in Turpan. From 1911-1949 when the Kuomintang ruled, many Uyghur girls approached Han soldiers for relationships. [1]
Although banned in Islam, a form of temporary marriage from which the man could easily terminate and ignore the traditional contract was created. It was called "marriage of convenience" by Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang. However such marriages were repeatedly conducted by an Emam between Ughlug Beg's great granddaughter Nura Han and Ahmad Kamal. [2] : 192
 | This section relies largely or entirely on a single source .(April 2022) |
The Uyghur women were also not subjected to any legal binding to their Chinese husbands so they could make their Chinese husbands provide them as much money as she wanted for her relatives and herself since otherwise the women could just leave. Moreover, the property of Chinese men was left to their Uyghur wives after they died. [3] : 83 [3] : 196 Uyghur women who intermarried considered Uyghur men to be inferior husbands to Chinese and other foreigners. Because they were viewed as "impure" Islamic cemeteries banned the Uyghur wives of Chinese men from being buried within them. The Uyghur women got around this problem by donating to shrines and buying graves in other towns. Besides Chinese men, others in Xinjiang such as Afghans, Hindus, Armenians, Jews, Russians, and Badakhshanis intermarried with local Uyghur women. [3] : 84
Le Coq reported that in his time, Uyghurs sometimes distrusted Tungans (Hui Muslims) more than Han Chinese, so that a Tungan would never be given a Uyghur woman in marriage by her father, while a (Han) Chinese men could be given a Uyghur woman in marriage by her father. [3] : 75 In Kashgar 1933 the Chinese kept concubines and spouses who were Turkic women. [4]
| | This section relies largely or entirely on a single source .(April 2022) |
Xinjiang temporary marriage, marriage de convenance , was called "waqitliq toy" in Uyghur. It was one of the prevalent forms of polygamy, "the mulla who performs the ceremony arranging for the divorce at the same time." The women and men married for a fixed period of time, several days to a week. While temporary marriage was banned in Russian Turkestan, Chinese-ruled Xinjiang permitted the temporary marriage where it was widespread. [3] : 266
As a result, Chinese merchants and soldiers, and some foreigners like Russians, foreign Muslims, and other Uyghur merchants all engaged in temporary marriages with Uyghur women. Since a lot of foreigners lived in Yarkand, temporary marriage flourished there more than it did in areas towards Kucha's east. [3] : 267
The basic formalities of normal marriages were maintained as a facade even in temporary marriages. [3] : 278 Prostitution by Uyghur women due to the buying of daughters from impoverished families and divorced women was recorded by Scotsman George Hunter. [3] : 258 Mullahs officiated temporary marriages; and both the divorce and the marriage proceedings were undertaken in the same ceremony if the marriage was only to last for a certain arranged time. There was also a temporary marriage bazaar in Yangi Hissar according to Nazaroff. [3] : 259 [5] Temporary marriages especially violated Sunni Islam Sharia. [3] : 301
| | This section relies largely or entirely on a single source .(April 2022) |
The local society accepted the Uyghur women and Chinese men's mixed offspring as their own people despite the marriages violating Sharia. Uyghur women also conducted "temporary marriages" with Chinese men such as nearby Chinese soldiers temporarily stationed for tours of duty. After these marriages the Chinese men returned to their own cities and "sold" their mixed daughters and Uyghur wives to his comrades. They took their sons with them if they could afford it but otherwise left them behind. [3] : 85
Valikhanov claimed that the mixed children of Turkistan were referred to as çalğurt. Uyghur women were criticized for having "negative character" by a Kashgari Uyghur woman's Tibetan husband. Racist views of each other's ethnicities between partners in interethnic marriages still persisted at times. During this era it was mostly Uyghur women marrying foreign men with a few cases of the opposite occurring. [3] : 86
Turkic Muslims in different areas of Xinjiang held derogatory views of each other such as claiming that Chinese men were welcomed by the loose Yamçi girls. [3] : 89
Andijani (Kokandi) Turkic Muslim merchants (from modern Uzbekistan), who shared the same religion, similar culture, cuisine, clothing, and phenotypes with the Altishahri Uyghurs, also frequently married local Altishahri women. The name "chalgurt" was also applied to their mixed race daughters and sons. The daughters were left behind with their Uyghur Altishahri mothers while the sons were taken by the Kokandi fathers when they returned to their homeland. [3] : 18
The Qing then banned Khoqandi merchants from marrying Kashgari women. Due to 'group jealously'; religious, ethnic differences; and sex; disputes broke out due to Chinese and Uighur. The Uighur locals also viewed fellow Turkic Muslim Andijanis as competitors for "their own women." A Uyghur proverb said "Do not let a man from Andijan into your house." [3] : 87
The lack of Han Chinese women in Xinjiang led to Uyghur Muslim women marrying Han Chinese men. Moreover, Unmarried Muslim Uyghur women married non-Muslims like Chinese if they could not find a Muslim husband. These women sometimes faced hostility from their families. In 1917 the Swedish Christian missionary J. E. Lundahl said that the local Muslim women in Xinjiang married Chinese men because of a lack of Chinese women, and that the relatives of the woman and other Muslims reviled the women for their marriages. [6]
Among Uyghurs it was thought that God designed women to endure hardship and work, the word for "helpless one", ʿājiza, was used to call women who were not married while women who were married were called mazlūm among Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang. However, the actual position of Uyghur women in society varied considerably and was determined by economic and political factors. Divorce and remarriage was facile for the women. [7]
Women of Khotan, Yarkand, and Kashgar usually married at ages 14 – 15; [8] [3] : 260 sometimes it was even 12 years for girls and 13 for boys. [3] : 235 Cousin marriages were practiced by the wealthy. There was no marriage between adherents of the Artish located pro-China Black Mountain and the Kucha located anti-China White Mountain sects. [3] : 237 Marriages were arranged and arbitrated with financial and religious obligations from both parties. [3] : 240 Less complicated arrangements were made for widows and divorcees who wanted to marry again. [3] : 249 Wives were often judged according to how many children they could bear. [6] Ceremonies were held after the birth of a child. [3] : 281 Public shaming was arranged for adulterers. [3] : 272 Women called to Allah to grant them marriage by the shrines of saints. [3] : 240 [6]
Child marriages for girls was very common and the Uyghurs called girls "overripe" if they were not married by 16 or 18 years old. [3] : 238 Marriages were arranged, and husbands were sought out for suitable matches by parents. [3] : 278 The high number of "child marriages" at an extreme young age led to high divorce rates. [3] : 264
| This section relies largely or entirely upon a single source .(February 2020) |
Traveller Ahmad Kamal writes an account in Land without Laughter , which describes his trip to Xinjiang during the Kumul Rebellion . In the streets of the bazar of Ürümqi Uyghur women did not veil unlike southern Xinjiang's Muslim bazars where women veiled in public. [2] : 298 [2] : 123 Nomadic women did not wear the face veil and neither did peasant women. Only urban rich did. Kamal saw an unveiled peasant woman Jennett Han. [2] : 85 The face veil was only allowed to be taken off in the house and were worn just for their husbands and fellow women to see. [2] : 204 When Kamal and his companions spied on a boudoir in a Uyghur garden, the young women dropped their veils whereas the "older hags" were angry (at the peeping Toms). [2] : 302
Face covering veils with caps of otter were worn in the streets by women in public in Xinjiang. In order to properly mount her stirrup with her foot, one Uyghur woman had to temporarily lift her veil to see better. [2] : 105–111 Ahmad Kamal's girlfriend Nura Han covered her face with the veil but then removed it after marrying him. [2] : 101–103, 276
One saying was that:
"Muslim maidens wear the red that bespeaks a virgin, and the transparency of their veils reveals a desire to change their raiment's hue." [2] : 43
Uyghur prostitutes were encountered by Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim who wrote they were especially to be found in Khotan. [9] [10] He commented on "venereal diseases". [11]
Different ethnic groups had different attitudes toward prostitution. George W. Hunter (missionary) noted that while Tungan Muslims would almost never prostitute their daughters, Uyghur Muslims would, which was why Uyghur prostitutes were common around the country. [12]
The Uyghurs, alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia. The Uyghurs are recognized as the titular nationality of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China. They are one of China's 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities. The Uyghurs are recognized by the Chinese government as a regional minority and the titular people of Xinjiang.
The Hui people are an East Asian ethnoreligious group predominantly composed of Chinese-speaking adherents of Islam. They are distributed throughout China, mainly in the northwestern provinces and in the Zhongyuan region. According to the 2010 census, China is home to approximately 10.5 million Hui people. Outside China, the 170,000 Dungan people of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, Panthays in Myanmar, Hui Chin Haws in Thailand are also considered part of the Hui ethnicity.
Dungan is a term used in territories of the former Soviet Union to refer to a group of Muslim people of Hui origin. Turkic-speaking peoples in Xinjiang Province in Northwestern China also sometimes refer to Hui Muslims as Dungans. In both China and the former Soviet republics where they reside, however, members of this ethnic group call themselves Hui because Dungans are descendants of historical Hui groups that migrated to Central Asia.
The Dungan Revolt (1862–1877), also known as the Tongzhi Hui Revolt or Hui (Muslim) Minorities War, was a war fought in 19th-century western China, mostly during the reign of the Tongzhi Emperor of the Qing dynasty. The term sometimes includes the Panthay Rebellion in Yunnan, which occurred during the same period. However, this article refers specifically to two waves of uprising by various Chinese Muslims, mostly Hui people, in Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia provinces in the first wave, and then in Xinjiang in the second wave, between 1862 and 1877. The uprising was eventually suppressed by Qing forces led by Zuo Zongtang.
The Turkic Islamic Republic of East Turkestan (TIRET) was a breakaway Islamic republic centered on the city of Kashgar, located in the far west of China's Xinjiang Province. It is often described as the First East Turkestan Republic to differentiate it from the Second East Turkestan Republic (1944–1946), but "first" was never a part of its official name.
Traditional Chinese marriage is a ceremonial ritual within Chinese societies that involves not only a union between spouses but also a union between the two families of a man and a woman, sometimes established by pre-arrangement between families. Marriage and family are inextricably linked, which involves the interests of both families. Within Chinese culture, romantic love and monogamy were the norm for most citizens. Around the end of primitive society, traditional Chinese marriage rituals were formed, with deer skin betrothal in the Fuxi era, the appearance of the "meeting hall" during the Xia and Shang dynasties, and then in the Zhou dynasty, a complete set of marriage etiquette gradually formed. The richness of this series of rituals proves the importance the ancients attached to marriage. In addition to the unique nature of the "three letters and six rituals", monogamy, remarriage and divorce in traditional Chinese marriage culture are also distinctive.
Xinjiang is historically consisted of two main geographically, historically, and ethnically distinct regions with different historical names: Dzungaria north of the Tianshan Mountains; and the Tarim Basin south of the Tianshan Mountains, currently mainly inhabited by the Uyghurs. They were conquered by the Qing dynasty in the 18th century, and after the Dungan Revolt (1862–1877) the Qing reconquered both regions and integrated them into one province named Xinjiang in 1884.
Chinese Tajiks are ethnic Pamiris who live in the Pamir Mountains of Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County, in Xinjiang, China. They are one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the Chinese government. Most Chinese Tajiks speak an Eastern Iranian language; the vast majority speak Sarikoli while a minority speak Wakhi.
Khoja Niyaz, also Khoja Niyaz Haji, was a Uyghur independence movement leader who led several rebellions in Xinjiang against the Kumul Khanate, the Chinese governor Jin Shuren and later the Hui warlord Ma Zhongying. He is best remembered as the first and only president of the short-lived Islamic Republic of Eastern Turkestan from November 1933 until the republic's defeat in 1934.
Nur Ahmad Jan Bughra was an Uighur Emir of the First East Turkestan Republic. He was the younger brother of Muhammad Amin Bughra and Abdullah Bughra. He commanded Uighur and Kirghiz forces during the Battle of Kashgar (1934) against the Chinese Muslim 36th Division. The Chinese Muslims were loyal to the Republic of China government and wanted to crush the Turkic Muslim Uighurs and Kirghiz in revenge for the Kizil massacre, in which Nur Ahmad Jan Bughra had taken part. He was killed on April 16, 1934, at Yangi Hissar by Chinese Muslim troops under generals Ma Zhancang and Ma Fuyuan. All of Nur Ahmad Jan's 2,500 Uighur and Kirghiz fighters were exterminated by the 10,000 strong Chinese Muslim army.
The Battle of Kashgar was a military confrontation that took place in 1934 during the Xinjiang Wars. Turkic Muslim Uyghur and Kirghiz fighters under Emir Abdullah Bughra and other Turkic separatists began four separate attacks over a six-day period on Hui and Han Chinese soldiers led by Gen. Ma Zhancang, trapping them inside Kashgar. Khoja Niyas Hajji joined the attack with his own Kumul Uyghur fighters after a 300-mile trek from Aksu - from which he was driven out by a force of Chinese Muslims — appearing at the walls of Kashgar on 13 January. The Chinese Muslim and Chinese forces repulsed the Turkic fighters, inflicting severe casualties upon them.
In the 1933 Battle of Kashgar, Gen. Ma Zhancang signed a secret agreement with the daotai of Kashgar, Ma Shaowu, and his Chinese Muslim troops joined the Han Chinese garrison inside the yamen in Kashgar and helped them repulse Uighur and Kirghiz attacks led by Abdullah Bughra. Turkic Uighur and Kirghiz forces led by the Uighur Timur Beg had been attacking Chinese Muslim villages and pillaging them. During the fighting Timur Beg was shot and then beheaded by Ma Zhancang's forces, his head being put on display at the Idgah mosque. When more Chinese Muslim troops arrived, they reinforced the Chinese garrison inside Kashgar. Osman Ali, the Kirghiz rebel, attempted to attack the yamen, but was driven back with heavy losses. He then proceeded to loot the city.
In 1937 an Islamic rebellion began in southern Xinjiang. The rebels were 1,500 Uighur Muslims commanded by Kichik Akhund, who was tacitly aided by the New 36th Division, against the pro-Soviet provincial forces of the puppet Sheng Shicai.
The Kumul Rebellion was a rebellion of Kumulik Uyghurs from 1931 to 1934 who conspired with Hui Chinese Muslim General Ma Zhongying to overthrow Jin Shuren, governor of Xinjiang. The Kumul Uyghurs were loyalists of the Kumul Khanate and wanted to restore the heir to the Khanate and overthrow Jin. The Kuomintang wanted Jin removed because of his ties to the Soviet Union, so it approved of the operation while pretending to acknowledge Jin as governor. The rebellion then catapulted into large-scale fighting as Khotanlik Uyghur rebels in southern Xinjiang started a separate rebellion for independence in collusion with Kirghiz rebels. The various groups of rebels were not united. The main part of the war was waged by Ma Zhongying against the Xinjiang government. He was supported by Chiang Kai-shek, the Premier of China, who secretly agreed to let Ma seize Xinjiang.
Migration to Xinjiang is both an ongoing and historical movement of people, often sponsored by various states who controlled the region, including the Han dynasty, Tang dynasty, Uyghur Khaganate, Yuan dynasty, Qing dynasty, Republic of China and People's Republic of China.
Altishahr, also known as Kashgaria, is a historical name for the Tarim Basin region used in the 18th and 19th centuries. The term means "Six Cities" in Turkic languages, referring to oasis towns along the rim of the Tarim, including Kashgar, in what is now southern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China.
The Manchu-led Qing dynasty of China ruled over Xinjiang from the late 1750s to 1912. In the history of Xinjiang, the Qing rule was established in the final phase of the Dzungar–Qing Wars when the Dzungar Khanate was conquered by the Qing dynasty, and lasted until the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1912. The post of General of Ili was established to govern the whole of Xinjiang and reported to the Lifan Yuan, a Qing government agency that oversaw the empire's frontier regions. Xinjiang was turned into a province in 1884.
The Qing reconquest of Xinjiang was the event when the Qing dynasty reconquered Xinjiang after the Dungan Revolt in the late 19th century. After a century of Qing rule, the Uzbek adventurer Yakub Beg conquered almost all of Xinjiang during the revolt, but was eventually defeated by the Qing General Zuo Zongtang. Furthermore, Qing China recovered the Gulja region through diplomatic negotiations with the Russian Empire and the Treaty of Saint Petersburg in 1881. Xinjiang was converted into a province in 1884.
Tunganistan is an exonym for the territory in southern Xinjiang administered by the New 36th Division of the National Revolutionary Army from 1934 to 1937, amidst the Chinese Civil War in China proper. The New 36th Division consisted almost exclusively of Hui Muslim soldiers and was led by the Hui Muslim warlord Ma Hushan. At the time, the Hui were known as the "Tunganis" in Western literature, hence the name "Tunganistan".
Yettishar, also known as Kashgaria, was a Turkic state that existed in Xinjiang from 1864 to 1877, during the Dungan Revolt against the Qing dynasty. It was an Islamic monarchy ruled by Yakub Beg, a Kokandi who secured power in Kashgar through a series of military and political manoeuvres. Yettishar's eponymous seven cities were Kashgar, Khotan, Yarkand, Yengisar, Aksu, Kucha, and Korla.
