What drove a few thousand men from the deserts of western China to the front lines of Syria’s war? In Our Hearts Burned for Home, journalist Emily Feng unearths the untold story of Uyghur exiles who fled China’s expanding police state—only to become a pivotal force in the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. At the heart of this narrative is a startling paradox: Beijing’s repression, meant to crush dissent, instead scattered and radicalized a generation.

Tracing the journey from the crushed student protests of 1990s Xinjiang to the Islamist battlegrounds of Idlib, this book reveals how a campaign of surveillance and cultural erasure helped give rise to a Uyghur militant movement far from home. Through vivid reporting and rare access to fighters and families, Feng explores how these men became both victims and agents of global jihad—and how their stateless revolution now shapes Syria’s fragile future.