Masud Sabri

Masud Sabri
  • 麥斯武德·沙比爾
  • مەسئۇت سابرى
Governor of Xinjiang
In office
21 May 1947 – 31 December 1948
Preceded byZhang Zhizhong
Succeeded byBurhan Shahidi
Personal details
Born1886 (1886)
Ili, Xinjiang, Qing China
Died1952 (aged 65–66)
Xinjiang, People's Republic of China
PartyCC Clique of the Kuomintang
EducationUniversity of Istanbul
Military service
Allegiance Republic of China
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese麥斯武德·沙比爾
Simplified Chinese麦斯武德·沙比尔
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinMàisīwǔdé Shābì'ěr
Uyghur name
Uyghurمەسئۇت سابرى‎
Transcriptions
Latin YëziqiMes'ut Sabri

Masud Sabri (1886–1952) was a politician of the Republic of China who was appointed by Chiang Kai-shek as the first Uyghur governor of Xinjiang. He served as governor during the Ili Rebellion. Sabri received education at Kulja and Istanbul and was a Pan-Turkist.

Education

After attending University of Istanbul and learning medicine, Sabri returned to Xinjiang to become a pharmacist.

Career

Governor of Xinjiang Yang Zengxin jailed Masud Sabri for pan-Turkist activities and then deported him from the province.

Masud supported the First East Turkestan Republic while based at Aqsu with Mahmud Sijan. After it was crushed by the 36th Division (National Revolutionary Army), Masud fled to British India and then to Nanking, where he joined the Kuomintang Republic of China government. The Central Military Academy and Central University accepted some of his relatives as students in Nanking after he joined the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang.

In 1942, Masud Sabri served as one of 36 members of the State Council (Chinese National Political Council) and one of two Muslim members along with the Hui general Ma Lin.

Bai Chongxi, the Defence Minister of China and a Muslim, was considered for being appointed Governor of Xinjiang but the position was given to Masud Sabri. He replaced Zhang Zhizhong. Ehmetjan Qasim, the Communist Uyghur Ili leader, repeatedly demanded that Masud Sabri be sacked as governor.

Masud Sabri was an opponent of the Soviet-sponsored Second East Turkistan Republic in Ili during the Ili Rebellion, opposing all efforts to negotiate with Ehmetjan Qasim along with others like the Hui Wang Tseng-shan who was the KMT commissioner of Civil Affairs in the Xinjiang Coalition Government from 1946–47. Masud Sabri was a CC Clique member, as was the Tatar Burhan Shahidi and the Han general Wu Zhongxin. He led the Xinjiang coalition government from 1948-1949 Masud Sabri formed a group of pan turkists with Muhammad Amin Bughra and Isa Yusuf Alptekin to join the Kuomintang Republic of China coalition government in Xinjiang, opposing the Uyghur Communist Ili regime in the Second East Turkestan Republic.There were 3 Effendis, (Üch Äpändi) (ئۈچ ئەپەندى) Aisa Alptekin, Memtimin Bughra (Muhammad Amin Bughra), and Masud Sabri. The Second East Turkestan Republic attacked them as Kuomintang "puppets". Ehmetjan Qasim's government in Ili attacked Isa Yusuf Alptekin, Muhammad Amin Bughra, and Masud Sabri as supporters of the Kuomintang and puppets of imperialism.

Masud Sabri and fellow Jadidist East Turkestan Independence activist Muhammad Amin Bughra rejected the Soviet imposition of the name "Uyghur people" upon the Turkic people of Xinjiang. They wanted instead the name "Turkic ethnicity" Chinese: 突厥族; pinyin: Tūjuézú to be applied to their people. Masud Sabri viewed the Hui people as Muslim Han Chinese and separate from his own people. The names "Türk" or "Türki" in particular were demanded by Bughra as the real name for his people. He criticised Sheng Shicai for his designation of Turkic Muslims into different ethnicities which he believed would sow disunion among Turkic Muslims.

In 1948 Sabri turned down the proposal of being appointed ambassador to Iran from China.

In January 1949, Burhan Shahidi succeeded Masud Sabri as the chairman of Xinjiang Provincial Government.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) placed him under detention and imprisoned him in 1951. He died in 1952, still incarcerated. Alternatively, according to Xinjiang and Ukraine specialist Sean R. Roberts, the CCP had Sabri executed in 1951.

Notes

  1. ↑
  2. ↑ As a pan-Turkist, Sabri did not consider himself Uyghur or approve of the term.

References

  1. ↑ David D. Wang (1999). Clouds over Tianshan: essays on social disturbance in Sinkiang in the 1940s. NIAS Press. p. 28. ISBN 87-87062-62-3. Retrieved 2010-06-28.
  2. 1 2 Howard L. Boorman; Richard C. Howard; Joseph K. H. Cheng (1967). Biographical Dictionary of Republican China. Columbia University Press. pp. 23–. ISBN 978-0-231-08957-9. ma lin muslim.
  3. ↑ Ondřej Klimeš (8 January 2015). Struggle by the Pen: The Uyghur Discourse of Nation and National Interest, c.1900-1949. Brill. pp. 197–. ISBN 978-90-04-28809-6.
  4. ↑ "UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPTS TO RESEOLVE POLITICAL PROBLEMS IN SINKIANG; EXTENT OF SOVIET AID AND ENCOURAGEMENT TO REBEL GROUPS IN SINKIANG; BORDER INCIDENT AT PEITASHAN" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2011-03-17.
  5. ↑ Andrew D. W. Forbes (1986). Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: a political history of Republican Sinkiang 1911-1949. Cambridge, England: CUP Archive. pp. 199, 247, 253. ISBN 0-521-25514-7. Retrieved 2010-06-28.
  6. ↑ Hsiao-ting Lin (2010). Modern China's Ethnic Frontiers: A Journey to the West. Taylor & Francis. p. 101. ISBN 978-0-415-58264-3. Retrieved 2010-06-28.
  7. ↑ Kamalov, Ablet (2010). Millward, James A.; Shinmen, Yasushi; Sugawara, Jun (eds.). Uyghur Memoir literature in Central Asia on Eastern Turkistan Republic (1944-49). Studies on Sinkiang Historical Sources in 17-20th Centuries. Tokyo: The Toyo Bunko. p. 260.
  8. ↑ Ondřej Klimeš (8 January 2015). Struggle by the Pen: The Uyghur Discourse of Nation and National Interest, c.1900-1949. Brill. pp. 197–. ISBN 978-90-04-28809-6.
  9. ↑ Ondřej Klimeš (8 January 2015). Struggle by the Pen: The Uyghur Discourse of Nation and National Interest, c.1900-1949. Brill. pp. 241–. ISBN 978-90-04-28809-6.
  10. ↑ David D. Wang (January 1999). Clouds Over Tianshan: Essays on Social Disturbance in Xinjiang in the 1940s. NIAS Press. pp. 28–. ISBN 978-87-87062-62-6.
  11. ↑ C. X. George Wei & Xiaoyuan Liu 2002, p. 181
  12. ↑ Millward 2007, p. 209
  13. ↑ Benson 1990: 155
  14. ↑ Andrew D. W. Forbes (1986). Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: a political history of Republican Sinkiang 1911-1949. Cambridge, England: CUP Archive. p. 247. ISBN 0-521-25514-7. Retrieved 2010-06-28.
  15. ↑ Sean R. Roberts (2020). The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign Against a Muslim Minority. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-691-20218-1.