Aral

Between 622 and 750, the Islamic Caliphate conquered the entire Arabian Peninsula, Mesopotamia, and North Africa, reaching the Indus river to the east, the Iberian Peninsula to the west, and the Black, Caspian, and Aral seas to the north.

This picture from 2015 shows how the Aral Sea in Central Asia has shrunken in size dramatically as demand for water grows.

On a local level, the Poplar Research Institute in Korla and the Tarim University in Aral City have to be added to the list of scientific institutes.

The Uyghur Online website (Uyghurbiz.net) said the students were taken away from Tarim University by police from nearby Aral (in Chinese, Ala'er) city in early May, adding that one of them, identified as Ibrahim, was detained after being accused of "having overseas contacts."

In some of the videos, Han migrants say that any single person below the age of 35 who moves to the sub-prefecture-level cities of Aral (in Chinese, Ala'er) in Aksu (Akesu) prefecture or Tumshuk (Tumushuke) in Kashgar (Kashi) prefecture will be provided with a house and a job, while a family of three will receive a two-bedroom home, free utilities for a year, and 40 mu (6.5 acres) of land, tax-free.[…] Aral was built by the XPCC on an existing Uyghur village beginning in the 1950s and as of 2015, 167,697 of the city’s 179,214 residents were Han, while 6,036 were Uyghur, and 5,481 were from other ethnic groups, according to the XUAR’s Bureau of Statistics.[…]“Everyone who is coming to Aral is Han—there are no Uyghurs here and they can’t move here even if they want to,” she said, adding that “it’s a requirement that [people coming here] are Han.” “Aral is safe. There are checkpoints every 500 meters (1,640 feet). Additionally, Aral is a place that leader Xi Jinping is specially developing. Safety is good here. If we call the police, they arrive in just one minute.”

In a video recruitment advertisement for the Bingtuan 1st Division in Aral City, Aksu, where more than 99 per cent of the population is Han, the narrator stresses the local population is scarce and the need for labour input is urgent and necessary (see Advertisement No. 25).