Xinjiang

In 1006, the Muslim Kara-Khanid ruler Yusuf Kadir (Qadir) Khan of Kashgar conquered Khotan (modern-day Xinjiang), ending Khotan’s existence as an independent state. The war was described as a Muslim Jihad (holy war) by the Japanese Professor Takao Moriyasu. The Karakhanid Turkic Muslim writer Mahmud al-Kashgari recorded a short Turkic language poem about the conquest:

English translation:

We came down on them like a flood, We went out among their cities, We tore down the idol temples, We shat on the Buddha’s head!

In Turkic:

kälginläyü aqtïmïz kändlär üzä čïqtïmïz furxan ävin yïqtïmïz burxan üzä sïčtïmïz

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamization_and_Turkification_of_Xinjiang and https://twitter.com/tiinexile/status/1295717484545236992

Sindhi Hindus were trading across Central Asia (Bukhara, Khiva) all the way to the Astrakhan Tatars in Russia for ages. They managed the finances of Khans, Emirs and were wealthier than the local Muslims. The 1917 Russian revolution ended the long-reigning Romanov dynasty and with them the Emirs and Khans who were their vassals. Afghanistan and Xinjiang weren’t touched by the revolution at that point. The Sindhi Hindus in Xinjiang were working as moneylenders. They traced their origin to Shikarpur, Sindh. The city of Aksu fell in March 1933 where its Hindu and Chinese residents got slaughtered. Prior to that, the Uyghurs hated the Hindus and would start riots if they engaged in religious processions + slaughter cows to offend them.

One of the prime reason for the massacre was that Uyghur women married non-Muslim men to get away from their oppressive men some of who even sold their own children. This made them hate the Hindus even more. They were also jealous of the financial success of the Hindus. The Sindhi men had Uyghur mistresses which hurt the pride of the Uyghur men. Uyghur men were also in heavy debt to the Hindus who were lending them the money. The humiliation made them loathe the Hindus. The Uyghurs tortured, murdered, and attacked all the non-Muslims they could, including the Hindus that they could without recrimination.

Sources:

1. https://twitter.com/porbotialora/status/1275301229967470593
2. “Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan” - M. Aurel Stein
3. “Xinjiang and the Expansion of Chinese Communist Power: Kashgar in the Early Twentieth Century” - Michael Dillon
4. “Mission and Revolution in Central Asia: The MCCS Mission Work in Eastern Turkestan 1892-1938” - John Hultvall
5. “The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750–1947: Traders of Sind from Bukhara to Panama” - Claude Markovits
6. “Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia” - Andrew D. W. Forbes, LLC Forbes

“Wild West China: The Taming of Xinjiang” - Christian Tyler

1. “Community Matters in Xinjiang: 1880-1949: Towards a Historical Anthropology of the Uyghur” - Ildikó Bellér-Hann

2. “Doğu Türkistanʼdaki harp beyleri: Doğu Türkistanʼın, 1911-1949 arası siyasi tarihi” - Andrew D. W. Forbes