I think you carry some gross misunderstandings about me, chief among them being that I am an advocate for Muslims. I am passionate about the study and travel in Xinjiang, that’s it.

Of course, on my side I admit to developing possible misunderstandings about you. You seem to hold a grudge against the minorities in Xinjiang, especially Uyghur. Did you have negative experiences with them while you lived here?

If you want to continue this conversation damo I encourage you to have the guts to email me back, otherwise I refuse to fight with you on a public stage and I have no problem deleting your comments if they serve no other purpose than to try to tear me down.

or would it be that you are only going back 300 or 400 years into the history of Xinjiang.Which dates back thousands of years.

Anything before the Uyghurs you don’t want to know about.

“In the 10th to 11th centuries, the Kingdom of Kashgar, centered on where the current city of Kashgar and Shule County in Xinjiang is located, started a war against its neighboring country, the Kingdom of Khotan, centered on where the city of Hetian in Xinjiang is located. The Kingdom of Khotan, where Buddhism was the predominant religion, was destroyed.”

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90782/90873/7114410.html

I’m not sure there are tons more relics in Gansu than Xinjiang, but for argument’s sake I’d say the reason would be that the White Russians never made it that far and the Gansu province never went through the political upheavals (not ethnic or religious) that Xinjiang went through. Also, I’d venture a guess that having their caves and carvings up on the side of mountains worked in their favor for preservation. All of Xinjiang’s were on ground level!

1) White Russians fleeing through Xinjiang after the Revolution in the early 1900′s.
2) Farmers who used the paint from the Buddhist paintings as a magic fertilizer
3) Archeologist who cut out many of the paintings.

I think it’s also important to note that Buddhism hasn’t been an important religion in Xinjiang for almost half a millennium – it’s understandable that their more temporary structures are no longer standing.

I don’t doubt that there might have been some friction between religions during the transition period into Islam, but there’s no indication that a widespread ejection or religious extermination took place.

History and archaeology in the region confirm that even under early Muslim rule, many other religions including Manicheanism and Confusionism were mostly tolerated, not tortured.

Still, I could easily be wrong. Please pass along any citations that could clear the air a bit.

I was led to believe that the Xinjiang Muslims forcefully ejected the Buddhist’s out of Xinjiang.