iqrozen | Uighurs are Muslims. Any child will be
registered Muslim by birth, and the boys will be circumcised soon with
no exception. Uighurs lived in the easternmost edge of the Muslim world.
The Jihads did not bother to pass the Pamir mountains and left it for
Kashgar to convert the whole region, taking 700-800 years.
Some nomadic
Uighurs lived in the deep eastern Tianshan mountains kept their Buddhist
(Lamaist) faith until recent centuries that the furious Qomul Wang had
to send Mollas to convert them. Beyond that is another tribe in Gansu,
out of touch, remained Buddhist, and dismissed from the Uighur list.
They are now called Yugu or Yugur, in a kind of
Chinese misspelling. In fact they were the closest descends of the royal
Uighur Yaghlaqar tribe.
Due to geographical isolation, Uighurs have been kept their Islamic belief in a loose stage, cannot compare with the Hui, but stronger than Kazakh and Kyrgyz for sure. 50 years of communist control almost wiped out the Islam, 2-3 generation lived without practice. Before the open door policy, most Uighur population did no know how to pray. During the open door period, Chinese government allotted millions of dollars to rebuild mosques, fund Hajj pilgrimage, translate Koran, and new masques are now everywhere. This 20 years became the biggest "return" in Uighur Islamic history. But the miracle days did last long, now the anti "Muslim fundamentalist" movement has been shaking the whole region. God knows the best, the life is so confusing.
Totem.
Uighur
totem is wolf as it written in every legend and sources. Today there is
no worship or respect to this animal besides me and some other writers.
It attaks herds, dangerous, and looks scary. The legend said, the Turks
was a son of a wolf lived in eastern Tianshan. (hizmet_uighur.com)