History of the Uyghur people
The history of the Uyghur people, as with the ethnic origin of the people, is an issue 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 Turgun 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. Chinese historians however generally traced the origin of the Uyghurs to the Tiele, some to the Dingling as well as other people mentioned in ancient Chinese texts such as the Guifang. Official Chinese view asserts the Uyghurs to be of Tiele origin, 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 that they claimed were there since the Han Dynasty. Many modern Western scholars however do not consider the modern Uyghurs to be of direct linear descent from the old Uyghur Khaganate of Mongolia, rather they are descendants of a number of people, of which the ancient Uyghurs are but one.
Uyghurlar
Uyghurlar (in English: "The Uyghurs") is a book by historian Turghun Almas on the history of the "6,000 year history" of the Uyghur ethnic group of the Xinjiang region of China. It was published in the People's Republic of China in 1989, at a high point of liberalization of academic freedom and ethnic minority policy in China. It was one of the books of the period that presented an "alternative Uyghur history", based on Soviet historiography during the Sino-Soviet split, that advanced the thesis that the Uyghurs are the historical owner of Xinjiang and should have an independent state. It was also one of the first books to publicize the term East Turkestan, which suggests a kinship to a "West Turkestan" in the independent Central Asian states. In contrast to the official Chinese history of Xinjiang, which states that the region was an integral part of China since the Han dynasty, the book takes a nationalist view, saying that many "Uyghur" states throughout history were independent of, or even dominant over, China.