The Med are an indigenous fishermen and historically seafaring community from the coastal areas of Makran in Balochistan, Pakistan. [1]
Although there is some ambiguity regarding the origins of the Med community, it is certain that they are of non-Baloch extraction and pre-date Baloch migration into Makran. [1] [2] Meds can be possibly identified with the Ichthyophagi (lit. "fish-eaters"), who are stated by Arrian to be inhabitants of the coast of Makran in the 4th century BCE. [1] They were mentioned in the early Muslim historiography as seafarers; some of them carried piracy as Bawarij in the Indian Ocean from their harbors in Debal, Kutch and Kathiawar, to as far as the mouth of river Tigris and Ceylon. The incident in which they captured two treasure ships coming from Ceylon to Basra became casus belli for the 7th century Umayyad invasion of Sindh. [3]
Arabs fought several wars against Meds to subdue them, including a naval expedition to Kutch in the 9th century. Meds were often in conflict with the Muslim governors at Mansura and the Zuṭṭ, a rival tribe. They were described by Muslim historians al-Idrisi and Ibn Hauqal as nomads living in a vast region between river Indus and Makran, and André Wink concludes from these geographical accounts that during this period Meds were mainly pastoral people, living on the "fringes of the settled Muslim kingdoms of Multan and Mansura". [4] After the 11th century, Meds came to live in their present homeland in Las Bela and Makran. [4]
A majority of coastal population of Makran consists of Meds. They speak medī, a dialect of Balochi language, and tend to live in their own congested quarters known as medānī pāṛa. The Meds are divided into four original clans: the Chilmarzai, the Jalarzai, the Gazburr, and the Ormari. All are named after their progenitors except Ormari, which denotes someone from Ormara. In Gwadar, a well-known Med group is that of Kummāṛī which engages solely in seamanship. [5] According to Brian J. Spooner, Meds are now only part of Makrani population which "look toward the sea rather than inland, and are mainly fishermen". [6]
In modern times med has mostly become an occupational term associated with fishery instead of its historical ethnic connotation. Hence anyone from the coast, engaged in fishing and following Sunni Islam, is called a med. While those Meds who are Zikris are always identified as Baloch. Conversely, the fishermen from other tribes such as Rind, Bizenjo and Mengal are also known as Meds. [7]
Makran, also mentioned in some sources as Mecran and Mokrān, is the southern coastal region of Balochistan. It is a semi-desert coastal strip in the Balochistan province in Pakistan and in Iran, along the coast of the Gulf of Oman. It extends westwards, from the Sonmiani Bay to the northwest of Karachi in the east, to the fringes of the region of Bashkardia/Bāšgerd in the southern part of the Sistan and Baluchestan province of modern Iran. Makrān is thus bisected by the modern political boundary between Pakistan and Iran.
The Baloch or Baluch are a nomadic, pastoral, ethnic group which speaks the Western Iranic Balochi language and is native to the Balochistan region of South and Western Asia, encompassing the countries of Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. There are also Baloch diaspora communities in neighbouring regions, including in Central Asia, and the Arabian Peninsula.
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Zikrism is a Mahdist minority Muslim group or sect found primarily in the Balochistan region of western Pakistan. The name Zikri comes from the Arabic word Dhikr.
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Soomro, Soomra,Sumrah or Sumra is a tribe having a local origin in Sindh. They are found in Sindh, parts of Punjab especially bordering Sindh, Balochistan province, and the Kutch district of the Indian state of Gujarat and also Rajasthan. The Soomras ruled throughout the Sindh and Multan regions.
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Jat Muslim or Musalman Jat, also spelled Jatt or Jutt, are an elastic and diverse ethno-social subgroup of the Jat people, who are composed of followers of Islam and are native to the northern regions of the Indian subcontinent. They are found primarily throughout the Sindh and Punjab regions of Pakistan. Jats began converting to Islam from the early Medieval era onward and constitute a distinct subgroup within the diverse community of Jat people.
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The Soomra dynasty was a late medieval dynasty of Sindh ruled by the Soomro tribe of Sindh, and at times adjacent regions, located in what is now Pakistan.
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