[7] There are also Salars in some parts of Henan and Shanxi, as well as in northern Xinjiang, in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture.

[8][9] Over the centuries, they mixed with neighboring Tibetans, Hui, Han Chinese and Dongxiangs, developing the distinctive modern Salar language and culture.

[10] According to a legend, two brothers named Haraman and Ahman, possibly forefathers of the present day Salar tribe, lived in the Samarkand area.

The two brothers fled along with eighteen members of the tribe on a white camel with water, soil and a Quran before heading east.

The group trekked through the northern route of the Tian Shan range into the Jiayu Pass, passing through what is now Gansu (Jiuquan, Ganzhou, Zhangye; Ningxia, Qinzhou, Tianshui, and Gangu County), eventually stopping at the present Xiahe County.

[16] The ethnogenesis of the Salar started from when they pledged allegiance to the Ming dynasty under their leader Han Bao.

Supposedly, they were only permitted to marry the women after a compromise between the Tibetan ruler of Wimdo Valley and the newcomers.

The Salars initially refused the demands based on their religion but eventually compromised on the flags by placing stones on the corners of their houses instead, which is still practiced to this day.

[26] The Salars were permitted an enormous amount of autonomy and self-rule by the Ming dynasty, which gave them command of taxes, military and the courts.

[29] In the 1670s, the Kashgarian Sufi master Āfāq Khoja (and possibly his father Muhammad Yūsuf) preached to the Salars and introduced Sufism into their community.

[30] In the mid-18th century, one of Āfāq Khoja's spiritual descendants, Ma Laichi, began to spread his teachings, known as Khufiyya among the Salars, as well among their Chinese-speaking and Tibetan-speaking neighbors.

While the external differences between the Khufiyya and the Jahriyya would look comparatively trivial to an outsider (the two orders were most known for, respectively, the silent or vocal dhikr, i.e. invocation of the name of God), the conflict between their adherents often became violent.

[35] The Jahriyya Salars of Xunhua, led by their ahong (imam) nicknamed Su Sishisan ("Su Forty-three", 苏四十三), responded by killing the government officials and destroying their task force at the place called Baizhuangzi and then rushed across the Hezhou region to the walls of Lanzhou, where Ma Mingxin was imprisoned.

The Salar fighters (whose strength at the time is estimated by historians to be in 1,000–2,000 range) then set up a fortified camp on a hill south of Lanzhou.

Unable to dislodge the Salars from their fortified camp with his regular troops, Agui sent the "incompetent" Heshen back to Beijing and recruited Alashan Mongols and Southern Gansu Tibetans to aid the Lanzhou garrison.

[citation needed] As late as 1937, a folk ballad was still told by the Salars about the rebellion of 1781 and Su Sishisan's suicidal decision to go to war against the Qing Empire.

[c] The Qing government deported some of the Salar Jahriyya rebels to the Ili valley which is in modern-day Xinjiang.

[citation needed] Salars served in general Dong Fuxiang's Kansu Braves army against the foreign western and Japanese Eight Nation Alliance in the Boxer rebellion.

The Japanese could not even pick up their dead, they instead cut an arm from their corpses limbs for cremation to send back to Japan.

[52] Han Youwen, a Salar general in the National Revolutionary Army and member of the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party), directed the defense of the city of Xining during air raids by Japanese planes.

Han survived an aerial bombardment by Japanese planes in Xining while he was being directed via telephone from Ma Bufang, who hid in an air raid shelter in a military barracks.

The bombing resulted in human flesh splattering a Blue Sky with a White Sun flag and Han being buried in rubble.

Han Youwen was dragged out of the rubble while bleeding and he managed to grab a machine gun while he was limping and fired back at the Japanese warplanes.

He later defected to the Communist People's Liberation Army, serving in numerous military positions and as vice chairman of Xinjiang.

[57] Hui general Ma Fuxiang recruited Salars into his army, and said they moved to China since the Tang dynasty.

[67][68] A style of singing called Hua'er is shared among the Han, Hui, Salar and Tibetans in Qinghai province.

[77] Yet, according to author William Safran, linguistic works published in China treat Salar as if it has few loanwords from these languages, omitting most Chinese and Tibetan features.

[80] In Ili Salar, the i and y high front vowels, when placed after an initial glides are spirantized with j transforming into ʝ.

[87] An autosomal genetic study (Ma et al. 2021) estimated that West Eurasian-related admixture (represented by ancient Andronovo samples) among Salars was at ~9.1% to ~11.8%, with the remainder being dominant East Eurasian ancestry; might derive from "Yellow River Basin farmers" (YR_LBIA) or "Liao River farmers" (WLR_LN) at ~88.2 to ~90.9%.

The study also showed that there is a close genetic affinity among ethnic minorities in Northwestern China (Uyghurs, Huis, Dongxiangs, Bonans, Yugurs and Salars) and that these cluster closely with other East Asian people, especially with other Chinese Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic speakers, indicating the probability of a shared recent common ancestor of "Altaic speakers".