| Total population | |
|---|---|
15,0000 ~ 2000,000 [1]
| |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Haryana, Rajasthan | |
| Languages | |
| Mewati, Haryanvi, Kauravi, Rajasthani, Urdu | |
| Religion | |
 Islam |
Meo (pronounced: mev or may-o) (also spelled Mayo or occasionally, Mewati) are a Muslim ethnic group originating from the Mewat region of north-western India. [4] [5]
The term "Meo" semantically correlates with the historical region of Mewat, which consists of the Nuh district of Haryana and some parts of adjoining Alwar and Bharatpur districts of Rajasthan and parts of western Uttar Pradesh. The term Mewati, in terms of use for ethnic classification, is also interchangeable with Meo. Although, not every Mewati is necessarily an ethnic Meo as the term is a general demonym for someone from Mewat.
Meos consider themselves as a mainly Rajput caste. According to one theory of origin they were Hindu Rajputs who converted to Islam between the 12th and 17th century, [6] [7] [5] until as late as Aurangzeb's rule. Over the centuries, they have maintained their age-old distinctive cultural identity. According to S. L. Sharma and R. N. Srivastava, Mughal persecution had little effect on the strengthening of their Islamic identity, but it reinforced their resistance to Mughal rule. [8] Though the general claim of Kshatriya Rajput descent may be true, some of them may be descendants of other castes who might have laid claim to this ancestry after converting to Islam to enhance their social standing. The names of many gots (gotra) or exogamous lineages of Meos are common with other Hindu castes as Meena, Ahir and Gujjar who live in their vicinity. While the kinship structure is closer to Jat system prevalent in Punjab and Rajasthan. It thus seems possible that the Meos belonged to many different castes and not just to the Rajputs; [9] [10] [11] this phenomenon is also seen in other Rajput communities and is not limited to the Meos. [12] [13]
Meos speak Mewati, a language of the Indo-Aryan language family, [1] although in some areas the language dominance of Urdu and Hindi has seen Meos adopt these languages instead. [14]
Hindu inhabitants of Mewat, although belonging to the same Kshatriya castes to which the Meos belonged before conversion to Islam, are not called Meo. Thus the word Meo is both region-specific and religion-specific. According to many, Meos come from many Hindu clans who converted to Islam and amalgamated as the Meo community, however there is no solid basis for this claim. [10]
Meos profess Islam but the roots of their ethnic structure are in Hindu caste society. Meos share most of their culture with their Hindu counterparts from neighboring areas in Haryana and Rajasthan.
Like Hindus of the north, the Meo do not marry within their own gotras although Islam permits marriage with cousins. Solemnization of marriage among Meos was not complete without both nikah and saptapadi, although the latter has been mostly abandoned with the advent of Islam. [15] Some gotras of the Meos believe that they are direct descendants of Krishna and Rama. [5] [16]
Meos were divided into three vansh, thirteen pals and fifty-two gotras by RanaKaku Balot Meo in the 13th century. [17] [18] Meos have twelve pals including a thirteenth inferior pal. [19]
| Agnivanshi | Chandravanshi | Surajvanshi (5 total) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pawar (3 total) | Chauhan (10 total) | Tomar (18 total) | Jado (16 total) | |
| Khokkar | Chaurasia | Kangar (Kanga) | Nai (Bhamdawat) | Dehangal |
| Malik | Jamaliya | Tanwar (Mangaria-Surohiya) | Chhokar | Sengal (Badgujar) |
| Pawar (Mewal) | Jonwal | Bilyana | Bhati | Kalisa (Pahat) |
| Chauhan | Ratawat | Veer | Godh | |
| Kalsia | Sukeda | Bhabla | Gomal | |
| Kanwaliya (Kamaaliya) | Gehlot | Jhangala | ||
| Mark (Mandar) | Karkatiya | Silania | ||
| Pahat | Lamkhara | Kholdar (Untwaal) | ||
| Sapolia | Nanglot | Sodola | ||
| Saugun | Matyavat | Dulot | ||
| Sagadawat | Chhirkalot | |||
| Jatlawat | Bhegot | |||
| Balot (Bugla) | Naharwad | |||
| Kataria | Demrot (Boridha) | |||
| Bodhiyan | Poonglot (Sekhawat) | |||
| Ludawat or Baghodia | Gorwal (Khanzada) | |||
| Majilawat-Jhelawat-Kadawat, Dhatawat-Lalawat | ||||
Meos generally do not follow the Muslim law of inheritance and so among them, like various other communities in the region, custom makes a younger cousin marry the widow of the deceased by a simple Nikah ceremony. [20]
Despite pressure to do so from the regional princely states of Alwar and Bharatpur, ruled by Gorwal Khanzada Meo's, the Meo Rajput community decided not to migrate to Pakistan during the Partition of India. [17] During 1947, Meo were displaced from Alwar and Bharatpur districts and there was significant loss of life in intercommunal violence. [16] : 191 The population of Meos drastically decreased in Alwarand and Bharatpur. [16] : 191 However, many old mosques from pre-independence era are still present there.
In 1947, Mahatma Gandhi visited Ghasera, a village in present-day Nuh district to urge the Muslims living there not to leave, calling the Meos "Iss desh ki reed ki haddi" or 'the backbone of the country', India. Due to this, the people of Ghasera still celebrate Mewat Day. [21] [22]
Although on the whole the community did not migrate, there were a number of gotras of the Meos who, on an individual basis, did decide to relocate to Pakistan during partition. They were mostly settled in Pakistani districts of Sialkot, Lahore, Karachi, Narowal, Dera Ghazi Khan, Sheikhupura, Gujranwala, Multan, Haiderabad and Kasur, among others. [17]
According to the 2023 Pakistani census, there are around 1.1 million Mewati speakers in Pakistan, virtually all of them in Punjab. [23] While the estimated population of Meos is over 2 million. [24]
Resisting Regimes is the first political anthropological and social-historical study detailing the Meos. [25]
Rajasthan is a state in northwestern India. It covers 342,239 square kilometres (132,139 sq mi) or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern side, where it comprises most of the wide and inhospitable Thar Desert and shares a border with the Pakistani provinces of Punjab to the northwest and Sindh to the west, along the Sutlej-Indus River valley. It is bordered by five other Indian states: Punjab to the north; Haryana and Uttar Pradesh to the northeast; Madhya Pradesh to the southeast; and Gujarat to the southwest. Its geographical location is 23°.3' to 30°.12' North latitude and 69°.30' to 78°.17' East longitude, with the Tropic of Cancer passing through its southernmost tip.
Alwar is a city located in India's National Capital Region (NCR) and the administrative headquarters of Alwar District in the state of Rajasthan. It is located 150 km south of Delhi and 150 km north of Jaipur.
Mewat is a historical and cultural region which encompasses parts of the modern-day states of Haryana, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh in northwestern India.
Muslim Rajputs or Musalman Rajpoots are the descendants of Rajputs in the northern regions of the Indian subcontinent who generally are followers of Islam. They converted from Hinduism to Islam from the medieval period onwards, creating various dynasties and states while retaining Hindu surnames such as Chauhan. Today, Muslim Rajputs can be found mostly in present-day Northern India and Pakistan. They are further divided into different clans.
Gurgaon district, officially known as Gurugram district, is one of the 22 districts of Haryana in northern India. The city of Gurgaon is the administrative headquarters of the district. The population is 1,514,432. It is one of the southern districts of Haryana. On its north, it is bounded by the district of Jhajjar and the Union Territory of Delhi. Faridabad district lies to its east. To its south lie the districts of Palwal and Nuh. To the west lies Rewari district.
Nuh district, formerly known as the Mewat district, is one of the 22 districts of the northern Indian state of Haryana. The district is known for having the largest Muslim population in Haryana. It lies within the National Capital Region as well as the historical Mewat region and Braj region of India.
Nuh is a city and administrative headquarters of the Nuh district, located in the state of Haryana within the National Capital Region of India.
Tijara is a city and a municipality in Khairthal-Tijara district of the Indian state of Rajasthan. Tijara comes under the NCR area and is situated 55 km to the northeast of Alwar. The nearest railway station to Tijara is Khairthal. Bhiwadi is a census town in Tijara. It is the biggest industrial area of Rajasthan and part of the historical Ahirwal Mewat region. Tijara is dominated by Ahir and Meo community. The new political map has not erased the ancient Ahirwal-Mewat boundaries.Ahirwal was a post-Mughal principality ruled by Ahirs or Yadavs.
The Gurjar are an agricultural ethnic community, residing mainly in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, divided internally into various clan groups. They were traditionally involved in agriculture, pastoral and nomadic activities and formed a large heterogeneous group. The historical role of Gurjars has been quite diverse in society: at one end they have been found related to several kingdoms and, at the other end, some are still nomads with no land of their own.
The history of human settlement in the western Indian state of Rajasthan dates back to about 100,000 years ago. Around 5000 to 2000 BCE many regions of Rajasthan belonged as the site of the Indus Valley Civilization. Kalibangan is the main Indus site of Rajasthan, here fire altars have been discovered, similar to those found at Lothal.
Ahirwal is a region spanning parts of southern Haryana, north-eastern Rajasthan, and South-Western Delhi The region was once a small principality based from the town of Rewari and controlled by members of the Ahir community from around the time when the Mughal empire was in decline.
Bharatpur State was an independent kingdom from 1722 to 1826 and a princely state under British suzerainty from 1826 to 1947. It was ruled by the Sinsinwar clan of the Hindu Jats. The state was founded by Maharaja Badan Singh in 1722. Suraj Mal played an important role in the development and expansion of the state. At the time of the reign of Suraj Mal (1755–1763), revenue of the state was 17,500,000 gold coins per annum.
Gandhi Gram Ghasera or Ghasera is a village in Nuh district of Haryana state in northern India. It is dominated by Meos. Gandhi was added to its name after it was visited by Mahatma Gandhi who asked the predominantly Muslim Meos to not migrate to Pakistan.
The Jat people, also spelt Jaat and Jatt, are a traditionally agricultural community in Northern India and Pakistan. Originally pastoralists in the lower Indus river-valley of Sindh, many Jats migrated north into the Punjab region in late medieval times, and subsequently into the Delhi Territory, northeastern Rajputana, and the western Gangetic Plain in the 17th and 18th centuries. Of Hindu, Muslim and Sikh faiths, they are now found mostly in the Indian states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan and the Pakistani regions of Sindh, Punjab and AJK.
Ghasera Fort is a ruined fort in Ghasera village in Nuh district of Haryana state in northern India, which has been notified as a protected monument by the state government. Currently, the majority of the residents of the village are Muslim Meos, though Hindus also live there. Battle of ghasera won by Jats against Rajputs.
Raja Bahadur Nahar Khan was the ruler of Mewat and the progenitor of Khanzada Rajput clan who were themselves a sub-clan of Jadaun Rajputs. His original name was Sambhar Pal. He and his brother Sopar Pal embraced Islam during the era of Firuz Shah Tughlaq. He was also known as Wali-e-Mewat Raja Bahadur Nahar Khan
The Badgujar is a clan of Rajputs. They are also a distinct caste in Maharashtra.
The Mewat State was a sovereign kingdom ruled by the Khanzadas of Mewat. They were a ruling dynasty of Muslim Rajputs from Rajputana who had their capital at Alwar. The Khanzadas were Muslim Rajputs who descended from Raja Sonpar Pal who was a Rajput who converted to Islam during the period of the Delhi Sultanate in India.
Deeg district is a district in Rajasthan state in northwestern India. It is bordered by Haryana to the north, Uttar Pradesh to the east, Bharatpur district to the south, and Alwar district to the west.
Resisting Regimes: Myth, Memory, and the Shaping of a Muslim Identity is a political anthropological account and social history detailing the Meo, an ethnic group native to the Mewat region in north-western India—the birthplace of Tablighi Jamaat. Authored by Shail Mayaram and published by Oxford University Press in 1997, this work is recognized as the first in its genre. Through a combination of archival research and fieldwork, the book scrutinizes the intricate processes of state formation and the evolution of ethnic identity within a dynamic milieu marked by nationalist fervor, ritual sovereignty, pan-Indian and global movements, tensions between Hindu and Muslim organizations, and instances of genocidal violence in the princely states of Alwar and Bharatpur during the twentieth century. The narrative develops through the lens of the Meo oral tradition. The author argues for a liminal identity for the Meos, incorporating elements of Hindu, tantric, and Islamic beliefs. Over time, historical events catalyzed an Islamization process within the Meo community, particularly influenced by the presence of Tablighi Jama'at. This book is an integral component of the author's broader project focused on Meo oral traditions in eastern Rajasthan.
The Meo kinship structure is closer to the Jat system prevalent in Punjab and Rajasthan where the subcaste comprises segmented exogamous intermarrying gots rather than to the Muslim system in which women are retained within the descent group.
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