Amannisa Khan

Who was Amannisa Khan?

Āmānnisā Khan Nāfisi, also known as Amanni Shahan was a concubine of Abdurashit Khan or Abdurashid Khan of the Yerqiang kingdom. She is credited with collecting and thereby preserving the Twelve Muqam, which is today considered a musical style of the Uyghur people of northwest China. The Muqam of Xinjiang has been designated by UNESCO as part of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

Amannisa Khan was born on the banks of the Tizanafu River in an area inhabited by the pre-Uyghur Dolan people, modern-day Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County. Her father, Muhamode, was a forester. When she was thirteen years old, Abdurashit Khan burst into her father's shack and demanded to hear a song. She dedicated a ghazal to his benevolence, and he was so impressed that he paid her father the bride price to take her. She became Queen of the Yarkand Khanate, composing Muqams and other musical works for which her husband supposedly took credit. She experienced maternal death at age 34, and her remains were buried in Royal Cemetery Park near Yerqiang.

The only known source mentioning her by name is the 1854 History of Musicians by Mu'jiz. That manuscript was translated into the modern Uyghur language by the Nationalities Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1982.