Editing Uyghurs (section)

===Islamization===
{{Main|Turkic settlement of the Tarim Basin}}
{{Islam and China|groups}}

In the tenth century, the [[Karluks]], [[Yagma]]s, [[Chigils]] and other Turkic tribes founded the [[Kara-Khanid Khanate]] in [[Jetisu|Semirechye]], Western [[Tian Shan]], and [[Kashgaria]] and later conquered [[Transoxiana]]. The Karakhanid rulers were likely to be Yaghmas who were associated with the [[Toquz Oghuz]] and some historians therefore see this as a link between the Karakhanid and the Uyghurs of the Uyghur Khaganate, although this connection is disputed by others.<ref name="Millward2007"/>

The Karakhanids converted to Islam in the tenth century beginning with [[Sultan Satuq Bughra Khan]], the first Turkic dynasty to do so.<ref name="sinor">{{citation|last = Golden|first = Peter. B.|contribution = The Karakhanids and Early Islam|year = 1990|title = The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia|editor-last = Sinor|editor-first = Denis|page = 357|publisher = Cambridge University Press|isbn = 0-521-2-4304-1}}</ref> Modern Uyghurs see the Muslim Karakhanids as an important part of their history; however, Islamization of the people of the Tarim Basin was a gradual process. The Indo-Iranian [[Sakas|Saka]] Buddhist [[Kingdom of Khotan]] was conquered by the Turkic Muslim Karakhanids from Kashgar in the early 11th century, but Uyghur Qocho remained mainly Buddhist until the 15th century, and the conversion of the Uyghur people to Islam was not completed until the 17th century.

[[File:Chagatai Khanate (1490).png|thumb|left|[[Chagatai Khanate]] ([[Moghulistan]]) in 1490]]

The 12th and 13th century saw the domination by non-Muslim powers: first the [[Kara-Khitans]] in the 12th century, followed by the [[Mongol Empire|Mongols]] in the 13th century. After the death of [[Genghis Khan]] in 1227, Transoxiana and Kashgar became the domain of his second son, [[Chagatai Khan]]. The [[Chagatai Khanate]] split into two in the 1340s, and the area of the Chagatai Khanate where the modern Uyghurs live became part of [[Moghulistan]], which meant "land of the Mongols". In the 14th century, a Chagatayid khan [[Tughlugh Timur|Tughluq Temür]] converted to Islam, Genghisid [[Mongolian nobility|Mongol nobilities]] also followed him to convert to Islam.{{citation needed|date=January 2025}} His son [[Khizr Khoja]] conquered Qocho and Turfan (the core of Uyghuristan) in the 1390s, and the Uyghurs there became largely Muslim by the beginning of the 16th century.<ref name="Millward2007">{{harvnb|Millward|2007|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=8FVsWq31MtMC&pg=PA69 69]}}</ref> After being converted to Islam, the descendants of the previously [[Kingdom of Qocho|Buddhist Uyghurs in Turfan]] failed to retain memory of their ancestral legacy and falsely believed that the "infidel Kalmuks" ([[Dzungar people|Dzungars]]) were the ones who built Buddhist structures in their area.<ref name="GibbLewis1998">{{cite book|author1=Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb|author2=Bernard Lewis|author3=Johannes Hendrik Kramers|author4=Charles Pellat|author5=Joseph Schacht|title=The Encyclopaedia of Islam|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PJPrAAAAMAAJ|year=1998|publisher=Brill|page=677|access-date=21 August 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160101193741/https://books.google.com/books?id=PJPrAAAAMAAJ|archive-date=1 January 2016|url-status=live}}</ref>

From the late 14th through 17th centuries, the Xinjiang region became further subdivided into Moghulistan in the north, [[Altishahr]] (Kashgar and the Tarim Basin), and the Turfan area, each often ruled separately by competing Chagatayid descendants, the [[Dughlats]], and later the [[Khoja (Turkestan)|Khojas]].<ref name="Millward2007"/>

Islam was also spread by the [[Sufis]], and branches of its [[Naqshbandi]] order were the [[Khoja (Turkestan)|Khojas]] who seized control of political and military affairs in the Tarim Basin and Turfan in the 17th century. The Khojas however split into two rival factions, the ''Aqtaghlik'' ("White Mountainers") Khojas (also called the [[Afaq Khoja|Afaqiyya]]) and the ''Qarataghlik'' ("Black Mountainers") Khojas (also called the Ishaqiyya). The legacy of the Khojas lasted until the 19th century. The Qarataghlik Khojas seized power in Yarkand where the Chagatai Khans ruled in the Yarkent Khanate, forcing the Aqtaghlik Afaqi Khoja into exile.