Uyghurs
The history of the Uyghur people, as with the ethnic origin of the people, is a matter of contention between Uyghur nationalists and the Chinese authority. Uyghur historians viewed the Uyghurs as the original inhabitants of Xinjiang with a long history. Uyghur politician and historian Muhemmed Imin Bughra wrote in his book "A History of East Turkestan", stressing the Turkic aspects of his people, that the Turks have a 9000-year history, while historian Turghun Almas incorporated discoveries of Tarim mummies to conclude that Uyghurs have over 6400 years of history, and the World Uyghur Congress claimed a 4,000-year history in East Turkestan. However, the official Chinese view asserts that the Uyghurs in Xinjiang originated from the Tiele tribes and only became the main social and political force in Xinjiang during the ninth century when they migrated to Xinjiang from Mongolia after the collapse of the Uyghur Khaganate, replacing the Han Chinese they claimed were there since the Han Dynasty. Many contemporary Western scholars, however, do not consider the modern Uyghurs to be of direct linear descent from the old Uyghur Khaganate of Mongolia. Rather, they consider them to be descendants of a number of peoples, one of them the ancient Uyghurs.
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.