Central Asia is, without a doubt,one of the least covered topics on this forum. Even considering the fact that Europe is extraordinarily disproportionately represented, Central Asia appears less than the rest of Eurasia, the Americas, or even Africa. So here’s an attempt at a timeline centered on Central Asia. I am East Asian and generally much more acquaintanced with China and Korea than Central Asia, so please point out any mistakes I might make, especially regarding Islamic terminology (note that I don’t have the slightest idea about the Persian language nor any Turkic language). Nevertheless, the specific point of divergence is intentional to incorporate East Asia as much as possible.
If you haven’t already left out of boredom, here’s a short introduction. Since the late 1750s the Great Qing (the Chinese Empire to many foreigners) had ruled the largely Islamic area of East Turkestan, now within the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. But the “infidel” Qing had never truly held legitimacy there, and with the general decline of the Qing state in the 19th century, Beijing’s control over Kashgharia began to deteriorate. In June 1864, everything finally came tumbling down. Every corner of East Turkestan rose in revolt, albeit without any organization linking the disparate rebel groups. Chaos ensued, as various rebel factions succeeded Qing rule. Only Ya’qub Beg, a foreigner of Uzbek origin, managed to consolidate the area, and by 1872 Ya’qub controlled all East Turkestan and had established a highly centralized state that established relations with Russia, Britain, and the Porte.
But in 1877 the Qing managed to destroy his state. How? Ya’qub believed that the Qing could be convinced to abandon Central Asia and even gave his soldiers orders to not fire on the Chinese to placate Beijing. This was a blunder that led to falling morale and desertions to the Chinese side. Then he suddenly died, most likely of a stroke. This immediately led to a succession crisis in the midst of Qing invasion, and the state that Ya’qub had so meticulously built simply fell apart. Of course, his legacy remained. Xinjiang was now a province of China, and sinicization ensued. Today, the “Uyghur Autonomous Region” is over 40% Han Chinese. And the Muslim population too was transformed; many khwajas and other religious leaders were dead or discredited, and nationalism and other modern ideologies entered the mix.
What if Ya’qub Beg had succeeded? But his state, as powerful as it may superficially have seemed, actually had quite a few problems. The government was dominated by foreigners, for one. But more importantly, Central Asia simply was economically underdeveloped to the point the Qing had repeatedly failed to make its garrisons there self-subsistent. Yet Ya’qub’s state demanded an immense army simply to survive. The financial needs of the state caused great strain on the population, and indeed one young Kashgharian would say on the Chinese: “I hate them. But they were not bad rulers. We had everything then. There is nothing now.”
With this in mind, this timeline will feature an earlier Muslim rebellion in the first place as well as an indigenous consolidation of the rebellion. This requires a strong and motivated leader with a large base of regional support, and such a figure was lacking in actual history. Here I have created such a character named Muhammad Wang Beg who will lead an anti-Qing revolt beginning in the 1850s (this is the POD). As for the format, it will primarily be in a memoirs format by one of the fictional characters à la the
Baburnama (edit: On further research I have changed Muhammad Wang Beg to Ahmad Wang Beg, an actual person who lived from 1793 to 1864).
I will try to write from a primarily Central Asian perspective, partly as a challenge for me and partly because I feel popular conceptions of the 19th-century “Great Game” between Russia and Britain reduce actual Central Asians to pawns on a chessboard. My main source for this will be Holy War in China: The Muslim Rebellion and State in Chinese Central Asia, 1864–1877, which is the only real book-length discussion on Yaqub’s state. I will also reference the Qur’an a lot, and the translation will almost always be Oxford World Classics’
The Qur’an: A New Translation by Abdel Haleem. Of course all quotations from the Qur’an or otherwise will be with quotation marks.
So here goes nothing.
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From the memoirs of Rashidin Khan:
Praise to God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful. There is no god but He, and Muhammad is His apostle. Beyond Him there is nothing. He is the Avenger and the Bringer of Justice. His hand has guided the Muslims both Turk and Tungan throughout this great enterprise of holy war, and by His blessing we have raised high the foundations of Islamic faith and laid low the fortress of infidel rule. Indeed, “the evildoers were wiped out: praise be to God, the Lord of the Worlds!”[1] And let there be prayers for the Seal of the Prophets - Peace be upon him! - and for his house and companions, and let there be prayers for the Caliph in Rome, Commander of the Faithful and Shadow of God.
It has been long since calamity has first descended upon the province of Kashgharia. In the year 1091 [1680] the Dzungars invaded this country and broke the forces of the Army of Islam to undertake the destruction of mosques and the slaughter of Muslims. Their infidel yoke upon the hundreds of thousands of Muslims in the country, maintained through the medium of traitors, lasted for many years. Yet these accursed foes were not ousted by the nation of Islam but by the khan of the Chinese, a man yet greater in his blasphemy towards God. One must ask, where were the holy warriors of Islam that day? Has the scent of faith so diminished in these lands? Be as it may, by the year 1172 [1758] the Chinese had established themselves firmly as the lords of these lands, and the people submitted to Beijing and not to Mecca. Islam was thus shut tight in the province of Kashghar.
The deprivations of the Chinese lasted many years, during which many of the Muslims turned apostate. The thousands of khans and begs[2] throughout the country, from Kashghar to Hami, all imitated the infidel customs; they knelt before the Chinese generals, as if venerating them, and prostrated themselves before the idols of the Khan of Beijing, that infidel ruler who had slaughtered so many Muslims. Many of the apostates gained fortunes by extorting the poorest and most defenseless people, and neither the infidels nor the ‘ulama dared stop these acts of appropriation. The apostates “practised outrageous acts that no people before them had ever committed in this land. They lusted after men, waylaid travellers, committed evil in their gatherings. And God’s punishment was brought upon them.”[3] It is with a face red with shame that I admit that my own family was once among the most audacious of apostates. Yet, as shall be mentioned later in this history, the Lord of Mercy and the Giver of Mercy “guided us to the straight path: the path of those He has blessed, those who incur no anger and who have not gone astray.”[4] The merciful hand of God carried such a sinner as me high above to the peaks of faith.
Kashgharia was not atypical, for in recent years infidel nations have gained mastery of the entire world and are extinguishing the lands of Islam. Truly, The Russians seize, one by one, the realms to our west, and day after day the ‘ulama and the sayyids of those provinces say “This country is now haram, for if we are to live here we must submit to Russia. Let us follow the laws and paths of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and migrate to Kashghar as the Muslims of Mecca left for Medina.”[5] So one sees ever greater numbers of foreigners in our western cities such as Kashghar or Yarkand. To the south the Gurkani realm of Hindustan is gone to utter ruin, and the Hindus, then the English, have seized the throne of Delhi. Even the Caliphate found itself imperiled before the infidel advance, and if such a realm was thus endangered what hope would the Muslims of Kashgharia have?
Yet despite the tide of disbelief which rages all around around us, Kashgharia alone has freed itself and opened Islam once more. In this country alone was the goals of holy war achieved, while its fire fizzled out in north and south, in east and west. And throughout this endeavor, it was I who was the commander of the believers. So a holy man told me once, “All around us there is the darkness of China, the blackness of Russia, and the shadow of Britain. And yet Your Highness has reclaimed many thousands for the embrace of Islam, despite these three realms so brazen in their infidelity! Truly Your Highness is an agent of light in the midst of darkness. As the Holy Quran says, ‘God is the ally of those who believe: He brings them out of the depths of darkness and into the light. As for the disbelievers, their allies are false gods who take them from the light into the depths of darkness, they are the inhabitants of the Fire, and there they will remain.’[6] Your Highness is surely destined for Paradise!” And it was at that moment that I resolved to write this history, neither to self-aggrandize nor to complain but simply to record the truth as it happened so that Muslims of posterity could learn how Islam was safeguarded and restored in the land of Kashgharia. Hence I have written only about the events exactly as they happened, with neither adulation nor falsification. May God judge me if I have not been honest here!
This is the brief introduction of Rashidin Khan’s memoirs. Despite his assurances that nothing has been falsified, it is obvious that the memoirs do contain significant omission and fabrication. This is to be expected. The Central Asian genre of the
vaqa’i, or “memoir,” was more akin to a public work recounting the career of the author than a modern, personal biography. Self-legitimization was therefore very much a normal process (as made clear by the khan’s extensive incorporation of Qur'anic quotations) and can be easily demonstrated by cross-examination with other sources. For instance, Rashidin often conceals his more secretive dealings with Europeans and Chinese in an attempt to bolster the validity of his claim as a holy warrior (
ghazi) of the Islamic faith locked in struggle against disbelief. Historians should take care not to overestimate the value of the memoirs and foreign sources should always be consulted, particularly Qing ones.
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[1] Qur'an 6:45
[2] Commander or officer in Central Asia
[3] Qu'ran 29:28-29
[4] Qur'an 1:7
[5] Reworking of primary source in page 148,
Holy War in China (Musa Sayrami's passage on Sayyid Ya'qub Khan's speech to Ya'qub Beg)
[6] Qur'an 2:257