Recently, I was going through a book which shares research about the origin of many castes and tribes of Pakistan.
The book contains two pages with the title ‘Muhajir’ discussing castes of people who migrated to Pakistan from different areas of India. The book say that most of the people who migrated from India, didn’t adapt or continue with their castes and instead they came up with new phenomenon of recognising themselves with the city they belonged and hence we came up with recognitions like Ludhyanwi, etc.
I later discussed this with my colleague (whose family also migrated from Bihar and his mother kept on missing everything of Bihar all her life but couldn’t visit her half family who chose to stay in India ) . He agreed to this research and said that there are ginnin chunni castes like Syed, Siddiqui, Qureshi, Bukhari in Urdu speaking community and his mother’s side family uses Syed and father side uses Siddiqui, but he himself don’t believe on this shajra.
So question arises, whether people living in UP, Bihar, Delhi didn’t have any caste system which could not be carried after migration? I remember Delhiwalas got a distinction like Ashrafiya and non-ashrafiya.
Is the caste system a phenemenon of tribal society only?
Can any Indian poster can confirm, what are the castes in Indian Muslims living in cities like Ludhyana, Meerath, Lucknow, etc?
Ashraf and non ashraf is same in up and bihar too..
In maharashtra majority muslim dont have any caste...i remember my teacher used to write musalman in column for caste
even here in south india i never heard of caste system for muslims
may be they follow in kerala
Now thats getting interesting and indicating that caste system is the property of tribal areas. I think Muslim who migrated from Punjab might got castes and castes which are shared with Hindus and Sikhs
Noted scholar Zarina Bhatti says: “Muslims in India are sharply divided into two categories, Ashrafs and Ajlafs. The former have superior status derived from their foreign ancestry. The Ashrafs, or those who claim a foreign descent, are further divided into four castes, Syeds, Sheiks, Mughals and Pathans, in that order of rank. The non-Ashrafs are alleged to be converts from Hinduism, and are therefore drawn from the indigenous population. They in turn, are divided into a number of occupational castes.”
Ansari’s experience illustrates the basic truths in the seminal study “Hindustan Mein Zaat-Paat Aur Musalman” (Casteism in India and Muslims) written by the Lucknow-based scholar Masood Alam Falahi in 2008. Falahi traced the origin of caste practices among Muslims and named the noted ulema who winked at it. He said the caste system took root among Indian Muslims after Qutbuddin Aibak founded the Delhi Sultanate in the 13th century. Sultanate scholars divided Muslims into Ashraaf and Ajlaaf.
The Ashraaf are Syed, Shaikh, Mughal and Pathan and the Ajlaaf are Qasai (butcher), Nai (barber), Julaha (weaver). The very lowest Ajlaafs were Arzaals (sweepers, shoe-makers, etc). Hundreds of years later, the Sultanate’s categorization would be given extra legitimacy by respected 20th century clerics such as Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, who extolled the supremacy of Syeds.
In fact, Muslims’ caste-consciousness runs so deep Allama Iqbal reprimanded them in a couplet: “Yun to Syed bhi ho, Mirza bhi ho Afghan bhi ho/Tum sabhi kuchch ho batao ke Musalman bhi ho (You are Syed, Mirza and Afghan/You are everything but Muslim)”.
The paradox of Muslim casteism can give rise to extraordinary situations. Falahi recalls Muslim speakers asking dalit Hindus in Azamgarh to embrace Islam a few years ago because “everyone is treated equally here. But a man stood up and said ‘there might be no castes in Islam, there are castes among Indian Muslims’. The speakers had no answer to that.”
There are Muslims in UP still. The people of punjab who migrated into Pakistan kept their castes, barring a few who changed them to become higher caste. :)
) . He agreed to this research and said that there are ginnin chunni castes like Syed, Siddiqui, Qureshi, Bukhari in Urdu speaking community and his mother’s side family uses Syed and father side uses Siddiqui, but he himself don’t believe on this shajra.
shukar hai Maleech nahin likha (j/k)
Ludhyanwai, Lakhnawi, Lahori is tongue twister