 Salar Turkmens in Xi'an China celebratingSabantuy | |
| Total population | |
| 165,159[1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| China (Qinghai,Gansu,Xinjiang) | |
| Languages | |
| Salar,Mandarin,Amdo Tibetan | |
| Religion | |
| Sunni Islam | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Turkmens, otherTurkic people |
| Part of aseries on Islam in China | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||||
| ||||||
 Islam portal • China portal | ||||||
TheSalar people are aTurkicethnic minority in China who speakSalar, aTurkic language of theOghuz sub-branch.[2][3][4][5][6] They numbered 165,159 people in 2020, according tothat year's national census.[1]
The Salars live mostly in theQinghai–Gansu border region, on both sides of theYellow River, namely inXunhua Salar Autonomous County andHualong Hui Autonomous County of Qinghai and the adjacentJishishan Bonan, Dongxiang and Salar Autonomous County of Gansu.[7] There are also Salars in some parts ofHenan andShanxi, as well as in northernXinjiang, in theIli Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture. They are apatriarchal agricultural society and predominantlyMuslim.
According to Salar tradition and Chinese chronicles, the Salars are the descendants of theSalur tribe, belonging to theOghuz Turk tribe of theWestern Turkic Khaganate. During theTang dynasty, the Salur tribe moved within China's borders and have lived since then in the Qinghai-Gansu border region.[8][9] Over the centuries, they mixed with neighboringTibetans,Hui,Han Chinese andDongxiangs, developing the distinctive modernSalar language and culture.[10]
According to a legend, two brothers named Haraman and Ahman, possibly forefathers of the present day Salar tribe, lived in theSamarkand area. They were highly ranked at local Islamic mosques, which led to persecution from local rulers. The two brothers fled along with eighteen members of the tribe on a white camel with water, soil and aQuran before heading east. The group trekked through the northern route of theTian Shan range into theJiayu Pass, passing through what is nowGansu (Jiuquan,Ganzhou, Zhangye;Ningxia,Qinzhou, Tianshui, andGangu County), eventually stopping at the presentXiahe County. Later, another forty people fromSamarkand joined the group. The group passed through the southern route of the Tian Shan and enteredQinghai. They arrived at the presentGuide County and twelve of them settled there.[11][12]
TheQuran the two brothers brought on their journey to China is to this day still preserved inXunhua Salar Autonomous County at Jiezi Grand Mosque inHaidong, Qinghai[13] TheNanjing Museum has repaired the Quran to protect it from decaying.[14]
The Salar clan leaders voluntarily capitulated to theMing dynasty around 1370. The chief of the four upper clans around this time was Han Baoyuan and the Ming government granted him office of centurion, it was at this time the people of his four clans took Han as their surname.[15] The other chief, Han Shanba, of the four lower Salar clans got the same office from the Ming government and his clans were the ones who took Ma as their surname.[16] The ethnogenesis of the Salar started from when they pledged allegiance to the Ming dynasty under their leader Han Bao.[17] Han Bao's father was Omar and Omar's father was Haraman, who led the Salars on their journey from Central Asia to China.[18]
According to Salar oral history, Tibetan women were the original wives of the first Salars to arrive in the Qinghai region. Supposedly, they were only permitted to marry the women after a compromise between the Tibetan ruler of Wimdo Valley and the newcomers. He demanded that the Salars installprayer flags, which are aTibetan Buddhist practice, on the four corners of their homes, that they pray withprayer wheels withmantras on them, and to bow before statues ofBuddhas. The Salars initially refused the demands based on their religion but eventually compromised on the flags by placing stones on the corners of their houses instead, which is still practiced to this day. For this reason, Salars are often bilingual inAmdo Tibetan[19][20][21] and the two groups often use the term "maternal uncle" to refer each other, referencing the Salars' Tibetan ancestry. Many Salar customs and practices have been influenced by Tibetan culture[22] and there are numerous Tibetan loanwords in the Salar language.
In eastern Qinghai and Gansu, there were cases ofTibetan women who remained Buddhists while marryingHui men; they had sons who would be Buddhist or Muslim. The Buddhist sons becamelamas while the other sons were Muslims.[23][a] TheKargan Tibetans, who live next to the Salar, have mostly become Muslim due to their influence.
Hui and Salar often intermarry due to their cultural similarities and shared religion, especially after the Ming Dynasty established control over the Xunhua Salars in 1370 and gave control to Hezhou officials. Many Hezhou Hui began to migrate to the region afterwards On the other hand, there are comparatively few Han-Salar marriages. The Salars do use Han surnames, however. Compared to Salar men, few Salar women married outside; the sole exception is Hui men taking Salar women as their wives while Tibetan women make up the majority of the spouses of Salar men who marry outside their ethnicity and it has been reported that Salars have a total avoidance of marriages with Han.[24] As a result, Salars are heavily mixed with other ethnicities.[25][b]
%2c_Qinghai%2c_1932.jpg)
Salars in Qinghai live on both the northern and southern banks of the Yellow River; northern Salars are called Hualong or Bayan Salars while southern Salars are called Xunhua Salars.[citation needed] The northern region is a mix between discontinuous Salar and Tibetan villages while the southern region is more solidly Salar, as the Hui and Salars pushed out the Tibetans prior.[citation needed]
After moving in, the Salars originally practiced the sameGedimu variant of Sunni Islam as the Hui did and adopted Hui practices, such as Hui Islamic educational practices, which were derived from Yuan Dynasty era Arabic and Persian primers.[citation needed] One such Salar primer was called the "Book of Diverse Studies" (雜學本本).[citation needed]
Salars were often multilingual, having knowledge of Salar, Mongol, Chinese, Tibetan due to historically trading on the Yellow River in Ningxia and Lanzhou in Gansu.[26] The Salars were permitted an enormous amount of autonomy and self-rule by the Ming dynasty, which gave them command of taxes, military and the courts.[27] The Ming and Qing dynasties often mobilized Salars into their militaries as soldiers, with the Ming government recruiting them at 17 different times for service and the Qing government at 5 different times.[28]
TheKangxi Emperor incited anti-Muslim sentiment among the Mongols ofQinghai in order to gain support against theDzungarOirat Mongol leaderGaldan. Kangxi claimed that Chinese Muslims inside China, such as Turkic Muslims in Qinghai, were plotting withGaldan, who he claimed had turned his back on Buddhism and the Dalai Lama in favor of Islam. According to Kangxi, Galdan was plotting to invade in conspiracy with Chinese Muslims and wished to install a Muslim as ruler of China.[29]
In the 1670s, theKashgarianSufi masterĀfāq Khoja (and possibly his fatherMuhammad Yūsuf) preached to the Salars and introducedSufism into their community.[30] In the mid-18th century, one of Āfāq Khoja'sspiritual descendants,Ma Laichi, began to spread his teachings, known asKhufiyya among the Salars, as well among theirChinese-speaking andTibetan-speaking neighbors.[31]
Throughout the 1760s and 1770s, another Chinese Sufi master,Ma Mingxin, was spreading his version of Sufi teaching, known asJahriyya throughout the Gansu province (which then included Salar's homeland in today's Qinghai). Many Salars became adherents of Jahriyya or the "New Teaching", as the Qing government officials dubbed it (in opposition to the "Old Teaching", i.e. both the Khufiyya Sufi order and the non-SufiGedimu Islam). While the external differences between the Khufiyya and the Jahriyya would look comparatively trivial to an outsider (the twoorders were most known for, respectively, the silent or vocaldhikr, i.e. invocation of the name of God), the conflict between their adherents often became violent.[32]
Sectarian violence between the Jahriyya and Khufiyya broke out repeatedly until the major episode of violence in 1781.[33] In 1781, the authorities, concerned with the spread of the "subversive" "New Teaching" among the Salars, whom they (perhaps unfairly) viewed as a fierce and troublesome lot, arrested Ma Mingxin and sent an expedition to the Salar community ofXunhua County to round up his supporters there.[34] In theJahriyya revolt sectarian violence between two suborders of theNaqshbandi Sufis, the Jahriyya Sufi Muslims and their rivals, the Khafiyya Sufi Muslims, led to a Jahriyya Sufi Muslim rebellion which theQing dynasty in China crushed with the help of the Khafiyya Sufi Muslims.[35]
TheJahriyya Salars of Xunhua, led by theirahong (imam) nicknamed Su Sishisan ("Su Forty-three",苏四十三), responded by killing the government officials and destroying their task force at the place called Baizhuangzi and then rushed across theHezhou region to the walls ofLanzhou, where Ma Mingxin was imprisoned.[34] When the besieged officials brought Ma Mingxin, wearing chains, to the Lanzhou city wall, to show him to the rebels, Su's Salars at once showed respect and devotion to their imprisoned leaders. Scared officials took Ma down from the wall and beheaded him right away. Su's Salars tried attacking the Lanzhou city walls, but, not having any siege equipment, failed to penetrate into the walled city. The Salar fighters (whose strength at the time is estimated by historians to be in 1,000–2,000 range) then set up a fortified camp on a hill south of Lanzhou.[34] SomeHan Chinese,Hui andDongxiang (Santa) joined the Salar in the rebellion against the Qing.[36]
To deal with the rebels,Imperial CommissionersAgui andHeshen were sent to Lanzhou. Unable to dislodge the Salars from their fortified camp with his regular troops, Agui sent the "incompetent" Heshen back to Beijing and recruitedAlashan Mongols andSouthern Gansu Tibetans to aid the Lanzhou garrison. After a three months' siege of the rebel camp and cutting off the Salars' water supply, Agui's joint forces destroyed the Jahriya rebels; Su and all his fighters were all killed in the final battle.[34] Overall, it is said that as much as 40% of their entire population was killed in the revolt.[citation needed]
As late as 1937, a folkballad was still told by the Salars about the rebellion of 1781 and Su Sishisan's suicidal decision to go to war against theQing Empire.[c]
The Qing government deported some of the Salar Jahriyya rebels to the Ili valley which is in modern-day Xinjiang. Today, a community of a few thousand Salars speaking a distinct dialect of Salar still live there. Salar migrants from Amdo (Qinghai) came to settle the region as religious exiles, migrants and as soldiers enlisted in the Qing army to fight rebels in Ili, often following the Hui.[37] The distinctive dialect of the Ili Salar differs from the other Salar dialects because the neighboring Kazakh and Uyghur languages in Ili influenced it.[38] The Ili Salar population numbers around 4,000 people.[39] There have been instances of misunderstanding between speakers of Ili Salar and Qinghai Salar due to the divergence of the dialects.[40] The differences between the two dialect result in a "clear isogloss".[41]
From the 1880s to the 1890s, sectarian strife was rife in the Salar community of Xunhua again. This time, the conflict was among two factions of theHua Simenhuan (order) of theKhufiyya and in 1895 the local Qing officials ended up siding with the reformist faction within the order. Although the factional conflict was evident not only in Salar Xunhua but inHuiHezhou as well, the troops were first sent to Xunhua – which again precipitated a Salar rebellion, which spread to many Hui andDongxiang communities of Gansu too.[42][43] It turned into theDungan Revolt (1895), which was crushed by a loyalistHui army.
The later Qing dynasty and Republic of China Salar General Han Youwen was born to a Tibetan woman named Ziliha (孜力哈) and a Salar father named Aema (阿額瑪).[44][45]
TheHui people, also known as the "white capped Hui", used incense during worship, while the Salar, also known as "black capped Hui", considered this to be a heathen ritual and denounced it.[citation needed]
Salars served in generalDong Fuxiang'sKansu Braves army against the foreign western and Japanese Eight Nation Alliance in the Boxer rebellion.[44][46][47] Other Muslims like Dongxiang,Bonan and Hui also served in the Kansu-Tibetan Braves.
Like other Muslims in China, the Salars served extensively in the Chinese military. It was said that they and theDongxiang were given to "eating rations", a reference to military service.[48]
During theSecond Sino-Japanese War, Salar troops and officers served in the Qinghai army of the Muslim generalMa Biao and they battled extensively in bloody battles against theImperial Japanese Army inHenan province. In 1937, during theBattle of Beiping–Tianjin the Chinese government was notified by Muslim GeneralMa Bufang of theMa clique that he was prepared to bring the fight to the Japanese in a telegram message.[49] Immediately after theMarco Polo Bridge Incident, Ma Bufang arranged for a cavalry division under Ma Biao to be sent east to battle the Japanese.[50] Salars made up the majority of the first cavalry division which was sent by Ma Bufang.[51] The Qinghai Chinese, Salar, Chinese Muslim, Dongxiang and Tibetan troops Ma Biao led fought to the death against the Japanese or committed suicide refusing to be taken as prisoner. In September 1940, when the Japanese made an offensive against the Muslim Qinghai troops, the Qinghai ambushed them and killed so many of the Japanese soldiers that they were forced to retreat. The Japanese could not even pick up their dead, they instead cut an arm from their corpses limbs for cremation to send back to Japan. The Japanese did not dare make an offensive like that again.[52]
Han Youwen, a Salar general in theNational Revolutionary Army and member of theKuomintang (Nationalist Party), directed the defense of the city ofXining during air raids by Japanese planes. Han survived an aerial bombardment by Japanese planes in Xining while he was being directed via telephone from Ma Bufang, who hid in an air raid shelter in a military barracks. The bombing resulted in human flesh splattering aBlue Sky with a White Sun flag and Han being buried in rubble. Han Youwen was dragged out of the rubble while bleeding and he managed to grab a machine gun while he was limping and fired back at the Japanese warplanes. He later defected to the CommunistPeople's Liberation Army, serving in numerous military positions and as vice chairman ofXinjiang. He had led Chinese Muslim forces against Soviet and Mongol forces in thePei-ta-shan Incident.[citation needed]
The Salar had their own unique kinship clanships.[53] Matchmakers and parents arrange marriages among the Salar.[54] The Salar are an entrepreneurial people, going into multiple businesses and industries.[55] They practice agriculture and horticulture. They cultivate chili and pepper in their gardens.[56] Buckwheat, millet, wheat and barley are among the crops they grow.[9] Other important crops include melons, grapes, apples, apricots and walnuts. A few Salar raise livestock and the local timber industry is also another source of income for some villages.[57]
Hui generalMa Fuxiang recruited Salars into his army, and said they moved to China since the Tang dynasty. His classification of them is in two groups, five inner clans, eight outer clans. Ma said the outer group speaks Tibetan, no longer knowing their native language. Salars only married other Salars. Uighurs have said that they were unable to understand the Salar language.[58]
Ma and Han are the two most widespread names among the Salar. Like the Hui, Ma is meant to substitute for Muhammad; however, many Salars also have the surname Ma due to intermarriage with the Hui.[59][60] The upper four clans of the Salar assumed the surname Han and lived west of Xunhua.[61] One of these Salar surnamed Han was Han Yimu, a Salar officer who served under GeneralMa Bufang. He fought in theKuomintang Islamic Insurgency in China (1950–1958), leading Salars in a revolt in 1952 and 1958.[62][63] Ma Bufang, enlisted Salars as officers in his army by exclusively targeting Xunhua and Hualong as areas to draw officers from.[64]
18.69 years was the average first marriage age for Salar women in 2000, while Tibetan women were married at 23.8 years on average in 1990.[65]
The typical clothing of the Salar is very similar to theHui people in the region. The men are commonly bearded and dress in white shirts and white or black skullcaps. The traditional clothing for men is jackets and gowns.[66] The young single women are accustomed to dressing in Chinese dress of bright colors. Married women utilize the traditional veil in white or black colors.
Singing is part of Salar culture.[67][68] A style of singing called Hua'er is shared among the Han, Hui, Salar and Tibetans in Qinghai province. They have a musical instrument called theKouxuan. It is a string instrument manufactured in silver or in copper and only played by the women.
The people of China and Salar themselves regard theSalar language as aTujue language (Turk language) (突厥語言).[citation needed] TheSalar language has two large dialect groups. The divergence is due to the fact that one branch in Xunhua county ofQinghai province and Gansu province was influenced by theTibetan languages andChinese and the other branch inIli Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture by theUyghur andKazakh languages.[69]
In the late 1990s, it was estimated that out of the some 89,000 Salars, around 60,000 spoke the Salar language.[70]
Most Salar do not use any written script for the Salar language,[56] instead they use Chinese characters for practical purposes.[68][71][72][73] Salar serves as their spoken language, while Chinese serves as a both spoken and written language.[74] Many of the current generation of Salars are fluent inChinese andTibetan.[75][76]
The Salar language spoken inAmdo Tibet (Qinghai) is a language of Turkic origin that has been heavily influenced by the Chinese and Tibetan languages. Around 20% of the vocabulary is of Chinese origin and 10% is of Tibetan origin.[77]Morphological andsyntactic structures have been fully borrowed from these latter languages.[77] Yet, according to authorWilliam Safran, linguistic works published in China treat Salar as if it has fewloanwords from these languages, omitting most Chinese and Tibetan features.[77] The Salar mostly use theChinese writing system, although Latin and Arabic alphabets are used on occasion. The Salar language has taken loans and influence from neighboringChinese varieties.[78] It is neighboring variants of Chinese which have loaned words to the Salar language.[79] In Qinghai, many Salar men speak both the Qinghai dialect of Chinese and Salar. Rural Salars can speak Salar fluently while urban Salars often assimilate into the Chinese-speaking Hui population.[80]
In Ili Salar, the i and y high front vowels, when placed after an initial glide, are spirantized with j transforming into ʝ.[81] Qinghai and Ili Salar have mostly the same consonantal development.[82]
Salars profess Sunni Islam and follow the Hanafi school of law. In addition to their traditional places, they live in cities, mainly inhabited by other Muslims likeHui. Islamic Education Received at Gaizi Mişit Madrasah in Jiezi Village.[83]
Many Salar adhere to theNaqshbandi Sufi order, which spread throughout the region in the 17th and 18th centuries.[84]
TheY-DNA haplogroups and therefore thepaternal genetic lineages of the Salar people, exhibit a mix of West Eurasian and East Asian haplogroups. Theirmaternal lineages are overwhelmingly East Asian.[85][86] About 24–30%Y chromosomes of Salar belong to the East Asian specific haplogroupO3-M122, while theCentral Asian,South Asian andEuropean prevalentY chromosomal lineage R-M17 comprises only 17%. Other Y-DNA haplogroups among the Salars are D1 and C3.[85] Another study showed that thehaplogroup O1b1a1a1b2 was also present in Salars.[87]
An autosomal genetic study (Maet al. 2021) estimated thatWest Eurasian-related admixture (represented by ancientAndronovo samples) among Salars was at ~9.1% to ~11.8%, with the remainder being dominantEast Eurasian ancestry; might derive from "Yellow River Basin farmers" (YR_LBIA) or "Liao River farmers" (WLR_LN) at ~88.2 to ~90.9%. The study also showed that there is a close genetic affinity among ethnic minorities inNorthwestern China (Uyghurs,Huis,Dongxiangs,Bonans,Yugurs and Salars) and that these cluster closely with otherEast Asian people, especially with otherChinese Turkic,Mongolic andTungusic speakers, indicating the probability of a shared recent common ancestor of "Altaic speakers".[88]
This article incorporates text fromThe Geographical journal, Volume 3, by Royal Geographical Society (Great Britain), a publication from 1894, now in thepublic domain in the United States. This article incorporates text fromThe Geographical journal, Volume 3., a publication from 1894, now in thepublic domain in the United States. This article incorporates text fromThe Catholic encyclopedia: an international work of reference on the constitution, doctrine, discipline, and history of the Catholic Church, Volume 3, by Knights of Columbus. Catholic Truth Committee, a publication from 1913, now in thepublic domain in the United States. This article incorporates text fromThe Moslem World, Volume 10, by Christian Literature Society for India, Hartford Seminary Foundation, a publication from 1920, now in thepublic domain in the United States. This article incorporates text fromEncyclopædia of religion and ethics, Volume 8, by James Hastings, John Alexander Selbie, Louis Herbert Gray, a publication from 1916, now in thepublic domain in the United States.The Sa-la (also known as Salar) live in Hsun-hus Salar county of Tsing-hai, Hua-ling Hui Autonomous County of Tsing-hai, Lin-hsia ... Language group: Tibetan. ... Married women are mourned only by their husband's family, never by their own.
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) (Volume 51, Issue 4 of new series, American Philosophical Society Volume 51, Part 4 of Transactions Series Volume 51, Part 4 of Transactions of the American Philosophical Society new ser v. 51, no. 4) (Original from the University of California){{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) (Volume 51, Issue 4 of new series, American Philosophical Society Volume 51, Part 4 of Transactions Series Volume 51, Part 4 of Transactions of the American Philosophical Society new ser v. 51, no. 4) (Original from the University of California)... 146, 151n36; between Muslim tradesmen and local women, 149n15; oral history of the first matrimonial alliances between Salar men and Tibetan women, ...
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: others (link)The Salar did and do not fully exclude intermarriage with other ethnic groups. ... reached that allowed Salar men to marry Tibetan women (Ma 2011, 63).
Tibetans south of the Yellow river were displaced much earlier by Salar and ... intermarried extensively with local Tibetan women , under the condition that ...
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link){{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link){{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) (Volume 51, Issue 4 of new series, American Philosophical Society Volume 51, Part 4 of Transactions Series Volume 51, Part 4 of Transactions of the American Philosophical Society new ser v. 51, no. 4) (Original from the University of California)... while ethnic minorities such as Mongolian, Tibetan, and Uyghur people can ... In 2000, the average ages at first marriage for Salar and Uyghur women ...
Most Salar people can also speak Chinese and Tibetan.
| Sino-Tibetan |
| ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Austroasiatic | |||||||||||
| Austronesian | |||||||||||
| Hmong-Mien | |||||||||||
| Mongolic | |||||||||||
| Kra–Dai | |||||||||||
| Tungusic | |||||||||||
| Turkic | |||||||||||
| Indo-European | |||||||||||
| Others | |||||||||||
| Related | |||||||||||
Underlined: the 56 officially recognised ethnic groups ranked by population in their language families according to2020 census | |||||||||||
