Xinjiang

Xinjiang means, in Chinese, 'New Frontier;' It is a term that has been in use since the C18th to describe what is known by others as Inner Mongolia, Southern Mongolia, Eastern Turkestan, Chinese Turkestan or a number of other terms.

The area - which is now designated as an autonomous region - is three times as large as France. It is bedevilled by earthquakes and by the detrimental effects of extreme and variable climatic conditions. The Tianshan or Tenghritagh mountains (Mountains of Heaven) and the Taklamakan Desert further conspire to render the area difficult to occupy and hence have kept the population at low levels.

North of Tibet and south of Mongolia, with the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to the west, as well as borders with Afghanistan and India, Xinjiang occupies an important strategic location, notwithstanding the many difficulties of living there.

From the time of the Han Dynasty (206BCE-221CE), when Chinese forces drive westward to expand Han territory, Xinjiang came under the sphere of influence of the Chinese. However, the degree to which effective control was maintained over the region was limited. The people of the area were mostly nomadic horsetribespeople who were quite capable of moving on to avoid unwanted external control. Tribes from Mongolia migrated westwards for hundreds of years, conquering and destroying the intervening people along the way before settling in Europe. The Bulgars, Magyars, Huns and Khazars, for example, all descended on the sedentary world from the vast steppes.

The birth of Islam led to an outpouring of armies from the Arabian peninsula bent on the conquest and conversion of the world. After finally overcoming fierce opposition from the Iranian peoples, as well as others, Arabian armies pushed into the Tarim Basin region of what is now Xinjiang. There, in 751, a battle was fought between the Arab army and the Chinese army under the Korean-born general Gao Xinzhi at the Talas river in the Ferghana valley. The Arabs triumphed and this defeat, combined with additional Chinese reverses elsewhere, were able to extend their influence throughout Central Asia as the Chinese withdrew from the area. Subsequently, the slow process of the Islamisation of the people began.

Islam in Xinjiang is characterized for many people by a devotion to Sufism, which is generally regarded as a mystical form of worship that does not sit well with the revivalist creeds such as Wahhabism that has been exported from Saudi Arabia in the twentieth century. The local content and adaptation to local conditions of Islam in the region assisted adherents to resist the continued censorship and persecution of Russian, Chinese and Communist administrations.

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