page_title: Dungan people
section_title: Migration from China
hierarchical_section_title: Dungan people / History / Migration from China
caption_attribution_description: English: The front gate of the Dungan Mosque in Karakol, Kyrgyzstan. Upper text on the sign is a partially Uyghurized rendering of the mosque's Kyrgyz name into the Uyghur Arabic alphabet: Isiq-köl oblasttiq Qaraqol sharindaghi Ibrahim Haji atindaghi borborduq mäsjid. Lower text is Kyrgyz in Cyrillic script: Ysyk-Köl oblasttyk Karakol shaaryndagy Ibrakhim Ajy atyndagy borborduk mechit—'Central Mosque in the name of Ibrahim Hajji in the city of Karakol, Issyk-Kul oblast'. Кыргызча: Ысык-көл областтык Каракол шаарындагы Ибрахим ажы атындагы борбордук мечит. Русский: У ворот дунганской мечети в г. Каракол, Кыргызстан. 中文: 吉尔吉斯斯坦卡拉克勒(Karakol)市的东干(回)人清真寺前门.
context_page_description: Dungan is a term used in territories of the former Soviet Union to refer to a group of Muslim people of Hui origin. Turkic-speaking peoples in Xinjiang Province in Northwestern China also sometimes refer to Hui Muslims as Dungans. In both China and the former Soviet republics where they reside, however, members of this ethnic group call themselves Hui because Dungans are descendants of Hui that came to Central Asia.
  In the censuses of the now independent states of the former Soviet Union, the Dungans, who are enumerated separately from Chinese, can be found in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia.
context_section_description: In the Ferghana Valley, the first Dungans to appear in Central Asia originated from Kuldja and Kashgar, as slaves captured by raiders; they mostly served in private wealthy households. After the Russians conquered Central Asia in the late 19th century and abolished slavery, most female Dungan slaves remained where they had originally been held captive. Russian ethnographer Validimir Petrovich Nalivkin and his wife said that "women slaves almost all remained in place, because they either were married to workers and servants of their former owners or they were too young to begin an independent life". Dungan women slaves were of low status and not regarded highly in Bukhara.
  Turkic Muslim slave-raiders from Khoqand did not distinguish between Hui Muslim and Han Chinese, enslaving Hui Muslims in violation of Islamic law. During the Afaqi Khoja revolts Turkic Muslim Khoja Jahangir Khoja led an invasion of Kashgar from the Kokand Khanate and Jahangir's forces captured several hundred Dungan Chinese Muslims (Tungan or Hui) who were taken to Kokand. Tajiks bought two Chinese slaves from Shaanxi; they were enslaved for a year before being returned by the Tajik Beg Ku-bu-te to China. All Dungans captured, both merchants and the 300 soldiers Janhangir captured in Kashgar, had their queues cut off when brought to Kokand and Central Asia as prisoners. It was reported that many of the captives became slaves. Accounts of these slaves in Central Asia increased. The queues were removed from Dungan Chinese Muslim prisoners and then sold or given away. Some of them escaped to Russian territory where they were repatriated back to China and the accounts of their captures were recorded in Chinese records. The Russians record an incident where they rescued these Chinese Muslim merchants who escaped, after they were sold by Jahangir's Army in Central Asia and sent them back to China.
  The Dungan in the former Soviet republics are Hui who fled China in the aftermath of the Hui Minorities' War (also known as the "Dungan Rebellion") in the 19th century. According to Rimsky-Korsakoff (1992), three separate groups of the Hui people fled to the Russian Empire across the Tian Shan Mountains during the exceptionally severe winter of 1877/78 after the end of the Hui Minorities' War:
  The first group, of some 1000 people, originally from Turpan in Xinjiang, led by Ma Daren (马大人, 'the Great Man Ma'), also known as Ma Da-lao-ye (马大老爷, 'the Great Master Ma'), reached Osh in Southern Kyrgyzstan.
  The second group, originally from Didaozhou (狄道州) in Gansu, led by ahong Ma Yusuf (马郁素夫), also known as Ah Ye Laoren (阿爷老人, 'the Old Man O'Granpa'), were settled in the spring of 1878 in the village of Yrdyk (Russian: Ирдык or Ырдык) some 15 km from Karakol in Eastern Kyrgyzstan. They numbered 1130 on arrival.
  The third group, originally from Shaanxi, led by Bai Yanhu (白彦虎; also spelt Bo Yanhu; often called by his followers "虎大人", 'The Great Man Hu (Tiger)', 1829(?)-1882), one of the leaders of the rebellion, were settled in the village of Karakunuz (now Masanchi), in modern Zhambyl Province of Kazakhstan. It is 8 km north from the city Tokmak in northwestern Kyrgyzstan. This group numbered 3314 on arrival. Bai Yanhu's name in other romanizations was Bo-yan-hu or Pai Yen-hu; other names included Boyan-akhun (Akhund or Imam Boyan) and Muhammad Ayyub.
  The next wave of immigration followed in the early 1880s. In accordance with the terms of the Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1881), which required the withdrawal of the Russian troops from the Upper Ili Basin (the Kulja area), the Dungan (Hui) and Taranchi (Uyghur) people of the region were allowed to opt for moving to the Russian side of the border. Many chose that option; according to Russian statistics, 4,682 Hui moved to the Russian Empire under the treaty. They migrated in many small groups between 1881 and 1883, settling in the village of Sokuluk some 30 km west of Bishkek, as well as in a number of locations between the Chinese border and Sokuluk, in Southeastern Kazakhstan and in Northern Kyrgyzstan.
caption: The gate of the Dungan Mosque in Karakol, Kyrgyzstan. The upper text on the sign is a partially Uyghurized rendering of the mosque's Kyrgyz name into the Uyghur Arabic alphabet: Isiq-köl oblasttiq Qaraqol sharindaghi Ibrahim Haji atindaghi borborduq mäsjid. The lower text is Kyrgyz in the Cyrillic script: Ysyk-Köl oblasttyk Karakol shaaryndagy Ibrakhim Ajy atyndagy borborduk mechit—Central Mosque in the name of Ibrahim Hajji in the city of Karakol, oblast of Ysyk-Köl.
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