Burhan Shahidi was born in 1894 in the Russian Kazan Governorate to a family whose ancestors had fled from Aksu, an oasis town in Southern Xinjiang, after a failed peasant uprising during the Qing dynasty.
His family was poor and he received little schooling in his early years.
In 1912, after the Qing Dynasty was overthrown, he accompanied Tatar merchants to Dihua (now Ürümqi) in Xinjiang and worked as an apprentice and store-clerk.
 In 1914, he was able to apply and receive Chinese citizenship from the Republic of China on account of his family's ancestry.
He spoke Uyghur, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Turkish and some Arabic and acted as the interpreter for Yang Zengxin, the leader of Xinjiang at the time Jadid leader Ismail Gasprinski inspired Burhan Shahidi.

In 1929, he was sent to Weimar Germany by Xinjiang's next leader Jin Shuren and studied political-economy in Berlin.
He returned to Xinjiang in 1933 and held a number of roles in the provincial government including manager of a land development company.
He played a key role in the Xinjiang Nationalities Congress of 1934.
 At this Congress, the ethnonym Uyghur was adopted to describe the majority Turkic Muslims in the oases of the Tarim Basin.
Burhan Shahidi was born in 1894 in the Russian Kazan Governorate to a family whose ancestors had fled from Aksu, an oasis town in Southern Xinjiang, after a failed peasant uprising during the Qing dynasty. His family was poor and he received little schooling in his early years. In 1912, after the Qing Dynasty was overthrown, he accompanied Tatar merchants to Dihua (now Ürümqi) in Xinjiang and worked as an apprentice and store-clerk.  In 1914, he was able to apply and receive Chinese citizenship from the Republic of China on account of his family's ancestry. He spoke Uyghur, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Turkish and some Arabic and acted as the interpreter for Yang Zengxin, the leader of Xinjiang at the time Jadid leader Ismail Gasprinski inspired Burhan Shahidi.
In 1929, he was sent to Weimar Germany by Xinjiang's next leader Jin Shuren and studied political-economy in Berlin. He returned to Xinjiang in 1933 and held a number of roles in the provincial government including manager of a land development company. He played a key role in the Xinjiang Nationalities Congress of 1934.  At this Congress, the ethnonym Uyghur was adopted to describe the majority Turkic Muslims in the oases of the Tarim Basin.
Burhan Shahidi