Uyghurs
Rian Thum explored the concepts of identity among the ancestors of the modern Uyghurs in Altishahr (the native Uyghur name for eastern Turkestan or southern Xinjiang) before the adoption of the name "Uyghur" in the 1930s, referring to them by the name "Altishahri" in his article "Modular History: Identity Maintenance before Uyghur Nationalism". Thum indicated that Altishahri Turkis did have a sense that they were a distinctive group separate from the Turkic Andijanis to their west, the nomadic Turkic Kirghiz, the nomadic Mongol Qalmaq, and the Han Chinese Khitay before they became known as Uyghurs. There was no single name used by them to refer to themselves, the various native names Altishahris used to refer to themselves were Altishahrlik (Altishahr person), yerlik (local), Turki, and Musulmān (Muslim), the term Musulmān in this situation did not signify religious connotations, because the Altishahris would exclude other Muslim peoples like the Kirghiz when referring to themselves as Musulmān. Dr. Laura J Newby has also noted that the sedentary Altishahri Turkic people felt themselves as a separate group from other Turkic Muslims since at least the 19th century.
History of the Uyghur people
The Uighur Idiqut, Barchukh, voluntarily submitted Genghis Khan (r.1206-1227) and was given his daughter, Altani (ᠠᠯᠲᠠᠨ) in 1209. From the 1260s onwards, they were directly controlled by the Yuan Dynasty of the Great Khagan Kublai (r.1260-1294). Starting from the 1270s, Mongol princes, Qaidu and Duwa, from Central Asia repeatedly launched raids into Uighurstan to take the control from the Yuan. Most of the Uighurs including the ruling dynasty fled to Gansu (under Yuan Dynasty) due to the conflict between the Mongols. The Uighur troops served the Mongol war machine in Central Asia, China and the Middle East. Because they were one of the many highly developed nations under the Mongols, the Uighurs held high-positions at the Mongol court. Tata-tunga was the first scribe of Genghis Khan and mastermind behind the Uighur-Mongolian script that the Mongols used till now. The founder of the Eretna (1335–1381) in Anatolia was an Uighur commander of the Ilkhanate.