I think I have, throughout my previous three articles "The Story of Islam in China", "Resource-rich East Turkestan" and "Communist China and Muslim Turkestan", spot light on the painful story of a dear Muslim country undergoing persecution and bias against their religion. I dare say it is currently the severest crisis a country in the world experiences.

Nevertheless, mere words and knowledge are not sufficient and of no avail. Actually, Muslims have to take such a positive actions to solve their great causes as may satisfy Allah and His Messenger. Although I know that the Ummah's hot issues grew much in number and that sincere Muslims have to consider tens or hundreds of other important issues, I stress the fact that there are still many roles we can play to help our brothers here and there. Were we in their place, we would, undoubtedly, wish that the whole Muslim world stand by us. In fact, no one knows who will be next to suffer adversities!

 Three important issues

 Undoubtedly, most of those who are conversant with events know that it is difficult to give them any help, bearing in mind that the oppressing country is the giant Chinese dragon, a country of great capabilities. However, let us have a brief glimpse of this point in order to draw the attention of dear readers to three important issues before dealing in length with the means of helping Muslims in Turkestan.

 The first issue: The true victory we aspire for is from Allah. Allah, the Exalted, said, "And there is no victory except from Allah." [Al 'Imran, 126]. Moreover, victory is conferred by Allah upon believers who committed themselves to Allah's Shari'ah (Islamic law), followed His path, showed willingness to sacrifice their lives for His sake and sold their souls in return for Paradise. In this regard, Allah said, "O you who believe! If you help (in the cause of) Allah, He will help you, and make your foothold firm." [Muhammad, 7]. He also said, "Allah has purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise)" [Al-Tawbah, 111]. This means that sincere male and female believers should devote times and intellects for Islamic work. Once we, Muslims, show sincerity and work properly, Allah will then confer His victory upon us in the manner He likes and at the time He deems fit. Only then, China's power will avail it nothing and America's navies will do it no benefit.

 Examples of Allah's victory conferred upon believers

Actually, history is the acid support of my preposition. In this context we should understand the victory achieved by the very powerless Muslims against the two mighty states of Romans and Persians, Muslims victory over Crusades, Muslims conquest of Europe in Andalusia and Constantinople and their victory over hugely powerful Tatars.

Such and similar victories have to be understood in one sense, i.e. Allah willed that Muslims gain victory seeing their seriousness in defending their religion and causes. However, it should not be argued that modern day war is different from that of past times, for China is many times as powerful as Persia. Actually, one who argues as such has never understood Allah's law of conferring victory. No doubt, Allah, who defeated polytheists in the first century AH, is capable of defeating them in the 15th century. Moreover, Allah, who granted powerless Arabs victory over the great powers of that time, is able to grant them victory over modern day great powers. What we are required to do is just doing our best. Allah, the Exalted said, "On no soul doth Allah Place a burden greater than it can bear." [Al-Baqarah, 286]. As a matter of fact, there are too many things within the scope of our capacities to be imagined. Embarking on an attempt to sincerely solve a certain issue through employing some mechanisms and means, we might be guided by Allah towards tens of new mechanisms that may achieve unimaginable success and positive results.

This was the first issue I liked to highlight before embarking on talking about roles to be played by Muslims in order to support Muslim Turkestan.

 The second issue: If someone vehemently seeks to work out solutions for a given problem, he will be guided by Allah to do so even if he were a polytheist. Thus, sincere believers of a sound creed are, with greater reason, worthier of Allah's support.

 Taiwan challenges China

An evidence supporting this idea is the case of Taiwan. Taiwan consists of a group of small islands opposite to the giant Chinese monster. It is about 36,000 sq km with a population of 23 millions the majority of whom are adherents of Buddhism and other blasphemous creeds. Nevertheless, the Taiwanese have been confronting China since Taiwan was founded in 1911. (Please, bear in mind that it equals 4% of China and that its population is 1.8% of the Chinese population.)

We need not mention the great difference between Chinese and Taiwanese military, economical and political capacities. Actually, China has not succeeded till now to subdue Taiwan. Although we are certain that Taiwan is supported, sometimes openly and sometimes
 secretly, by Westerners, especially the USA, Taiwan's power is essentially inspired by the Taiwanese themselves. Aiming at remaining on the world map, the Taiwanese people produced internal organizations on the political, economical and scientific levels and could establish external strong ties making use of the ideological global conflict between the East and the West. In fact, Taiwanese arrangements have been ever successful.

How come then that such a microscopic country as Taiwan achieves success while Muslims, the inhabitants of about one-fourth of the Earth and who constitute one-fifth of the total world population, do not achieve it?!

 Peoples are the Addressees

 The third issue: By this article I do not address governments; rather, I address peoples knowing that governments of the Muslim world do not take into consideration Muslim public issues and problems. I further think that most of such governments perhaps support China in combating the so-called "separatist movements", which are, in fact, attempts to liberate from occupation. Hence, I will give no reference to the government-related roles, such as mobilizing armies, suspending diplomatic relations and halting economical transaction.

I would rather deal with roles to be played by the public, feeling certain that there are many other duties that will be suggested by brothers pursuing events. I am also certain that, if we perform such roles and duties, Allah will bless our efforts and guide us to further means leading at the end to liberating the whole Muslim Turkestan.

 Duties to be carried out by Muslim peoples to support Turkestan

 Below is a list of duties I believe to be crucial at the situation at hand:

First: Pursuing Turkestan news relentlessly and deliberately. Actually, mass media deals with the Turkestan issue only when events aggravate, which also motivates us into active action following the media activity to be soon cooled down again. However, such should not be the case while dealing with an occupied Muslim territory, liberating which is obligatory on Muslims even if they are to sacrifice their property and souls in such a cause. Actually, the Muslim Ummah is one body and it is thus unacceptable at all that we do not at least pursue the news of such a Muslim people suffering intensive Chinese oppression.

No doubt, regularly pursuing the Turkestan news will have the effect of inciting a powerful desire to support it. Moreover, knowledge in itself is a power, in the sense that knowledge we acquire can wide-open the door for unimagined means of support. We can pursue Turkestan news through visiting their websites; actually, there are many Arabic and English websites for them. Moreover, we may pursue their news through different mass media plus searching for books giving account of their story.

Publicizing Turkestan news

A piece of information a certain person receives should not be limited to him; it has to be passed to other people here and there.

Thus, such a person has to pass the information to his friends, brothers and acquaintance and publicize it through every possible means such as newspapers, magazines, school or university wall magazines, internet blogs or even through usual public conversations. In fact, I felt very happy to know that some brothers and sisters print these articles and distribute them to their friends and some others send it to mail list contacts. Through such and similar ways, we can keep the issue alive so that Muslims might not forget such an important country. Through comments on the previous articles I could clearly have the idea that many of commentators did not know that China occupies any Muslim country. However, such is an improper negligence ignorance about which is not a valid excuse, bearing in mind that we know a lot of information about much less important issues.

Second: Contacting the Turkestani people.

I know that it is difficult to perform such a duty on account of language difference and lack of information about methods of contacting them. However, regular pursuit of their news, stressed in the previous section, will provide us, if Allah so wills, with contact mechanisms either through signing up their blogs or corresponding with them via email or postal mail.

It is even easier to contact Turkestani community living in different parts of the world. Actually, some of them study in some Islamic universities while others are immigrants here and there. No doubt, contacting them strengthens and assists them and even open the door for further kinds of help we do not know at the moment. Moreover, it gives us accurate information about the actual situation in Turkestan, which is in the benefit of the cause.

 Third: Contacting different human rights organizations spreading all over the world in order to arouse their concern for the cause of Turkestan.

Actually, the Amnesty International 1998 report aroused a widespread controversy all over the world causing people to talk about the issue of Turkestan. As a matter of fact, this may exert pressure on China, bearing in mind that the world is now governed by globalization, which leaves no room for China's media and information blackout. Furthermore, China is an industrial country in the first place and thus concerns first of all with having good relations with different countries of the world and for joining universal commercial organizations. Therefore, a negative report of human rights committees might have a bad impact on economical development.

It is well-known that human rights organizations will not actively react to events if they receive one or two emails on the issue. On the other hand, many of their balances will change in case they receive thousands or millions of emails indicating a public opinion issue.

 Fourth: Visiting the Turkestan province.

This duty might seem somehow strange to many people, while it is, in fact, very realistic. During the last decade, visits paid by Muslim businessmen, and even medium-class merchants, to China increased notably in number due to the increasing commercial activity and to conclude economical agreements.

All what we ask them to do is adding two or three days to their journey to visit the Turkestan province, known in China as Xinjiang, where they can communicate with Muslims if possible. If not possible, suffice it to have a general idea of the situation there and later tell other people the story of the visit. It will be very good also to offer prayer in mosques there, visit a school or give a Mus-haf (Arabic copy of the Qur'an) to a Muslim child.

Not only merchants can do so, but also all Muslims who visit China for business, travel, sports or other purposes. I further adjure wealthy Muslims, who organize tourist journeys to Europe and other places, to make China the destiny of their next journey dedicating one or two days of its program for visiting Turkestan. If Allah so wills, they will enjoy the journey and, in addition, will be rewarded by Allah for the intention of  having knowledge about occupied parts of the Muslim world.

 Fifth: Granting educational scholarships to Turkestani students.

This issue can be proposed to specialist Islamic universities and institutions to incite them to action. Moreover, businessmen in the Muslim world should maintain those students in our countries providing for them a good standard of living so that they might have the impression of Muslim world's sympathy for them. Knowing that the Chinese government puts major obstacles in the way of students who want to travel to different Muslim countries, yet we have to do our best asking Allah to help us. Furthermore, Muslim communities in European and American countries should send for those students to be educated and maintained. However, it is not necessary to give them an Islamic education as it will also be in the interest of the cause to produce a Muslim Turkestani doctor, engineer and economist. In this regard, it will be less sensitive to the Chinese government that Turkestani students travel to study in Europe and Japan than traveling to Muslim countries.

 Sixth: Contacting and supporting Uighur leaderships in the world.

Actually, it is a very important role. In fact, many Uighur leaderships have been exiled to different parts of the world, including England, USA, Sweden and other countries. Moreover, there are many Turkestani societies advocating the cause in many countries of the world. No doubt, contacting them will have the effect of  improving their morale, bearing in mind that some of them are under the threat of the Chinese government and most of them are banned from coming back home. Therefore, they are in a dire need for material and spiritual support. Besides, contacting them will lead us to some practical means to support the cause and will make it easy for us to get accurate information about the issue. Furthermore, it will give us a key to some celebrated names inside Turkestan, which makes it possible to contact them. Ultimately, this will lead to arousing a public awareness of the cause, which might move the issue in such a direction as may be beneficial to Turketani Muslims, were they inside or abroad.

 Seventh: Providing Turkestan with financial support through relief committees.

There are many Islamic relief committees widespread all over the world. Unfortunately, most of them do not interact with the issue of Turkestan due to either ignorance about the issue or being restrained by the Chinese government. Either way, we have to arouse the concern of such committees for the issue of Turkestan sending them many letters asking them to have activities in Turkestan. Once this takes place, we should proceed to send them financial and in kind aids as they suffer from extreme poverty and need. Provided with financial support and aid by the Muslim world, Turkestanis will be steadfast to their religion and more attached to their Ummah.

 Eighth: Arousing Muslims awareness of the Chinese peril.

As a matter of fact, unfortunately, most Muslims sympathize with China for many reasons, including being a competitor of the USA, abundant Chinese cheep products on which most of the Muslim world depends and admiring the accelerated Chinese development. Other reasons are falling under the influence of Chinese information system that is interested in issuing publications on China in Arabic, being influenced by Chinese cultural and artistic centers that offer public services and programs and being impressed by Chinese movies and the idealistic society depicted in such movies. In addition, ancient history and deep-rooted civilization of China is another influential factor.

Such and like reasons hid the truth leading Muslims to refuse any criticism to China or rallying to resist it. I have written before an article, "China or America", in which I pointed out the fact that China is much more dangerous than America, which has to be taken into consideration by Muslims so that we may not be attacked by those whose help we seek. Actually, we have to exert much effort and hard work in order to reach such a goal. Accordingly, Muslims attention should be shockingly drawn to this fact and Chinese plans and cards should be exposed.

 Establishing the Islamic government

Ninth: I know that more impressive and positive roles are to be played by governments. Nevertheless, as I said earlier in the article, we do not have much confidence in nowadays governments. Therefore, a duty of paramount importance to Muslims is to seek to establish an Islamic government that is to adopt Muslim internal and external issues. Although requiring a long-way struggle, it is inevitable. Actually, there are many and variant mechanisms to establish an Islamic government, foremost of which is returning to Allah following His Shari'ah as a whole. By Allah, if we establish the Islamic state in our hearts, it will be established on our lands. In fact, rulers are a real product of peoples as the tradition goes, "Your rulers will be as good or bad as you are." Thus, we have to reform our relation to Allah so that He may reform our rulers.

 Tenth: Supplicating Allah to help Turkestani people to remain steadfast to their religion, to make them stand firm in face of Chinese tyranny and to relief the grief of the whole Muslim world. Actually, citing this duty at the end of the list may not indicate a less importance, Allah Forbid! I only put it last in order so that Muslims might not depend on it exclusively and leave other duties.

In this regard, the Prophet (peace be upon him) would make military preparations, put forth plans and at the same time raise his hands toward heavens supplicating Allah to confer victory on believers over their disbelieving enemies. So, let us assign a defined part of our prayers to Turkestani people so that Allah might delight us with helping and supporting them.

So far, I have listed ten complete duties.

Undoubtedly, there are many other roles and duties I did not mention, which will be suggested, if Allah so wills, by the article readers hoping that benefit prevails through contributions of all Muslims to solve this important issue.

Finally, I know that many people expected that boycotting Chinese goods is one means to help Turkestani people and to exert pressure on the Chinese government. However, it is a very extensive file that requires to be dealt with in a separate article, which I will embark on soon, If Allah so wills.

I ask Allah to glorify Islam and Muslims.

Dr. Ragheb ElSergany

https://www.islamstory.com/en/artical/3407502