Regions with significant populations | |
---|---|
Languages | |
Hindustani (Urdu-Hindi), Punjabi, Bangla Persian (formerly) | |
Religion | |
Islam | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Pakistani people, Indian people and Bangladeshi people |
The Mughals (also spelled Moghul or Mogul) is a Muslim corporate group from modern-day North India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. [1] They claim to have descended from the various Central Asian Mongolic, [2] [3] Turkic, Persian and Arab (Sayyids) peoples that had historically settled in the Mughal India and mixed with the native Indian population. [1] The term Mughal (or Moghul in Persian) literally means Mongol. [4]
In Pakistan, Mughal people are mostly settled in the provinces of Azad Kashmir, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. [1]
The Mughals commonly use "Mirza" as their surname. [5] They are also sometimes referred to as Chughtais or Chagatai Türks named after Chagatai Turkic language spoken by the Barlas and other Central Asian tribes. But one of the social groups that are claim to as the Ashraaf. [6] [ full citation needed ]
The Sambhal, who claim Turkic descent, identify as a Biradari, literally translating to "brotherhood", which is the word used for a social unit based on kinship such as tribe or clan. [7] The chief of the Biradari is the "Sardar", who is usually an elder man annually elected as the greatest man in the Biradari. Decisions on important matters are taken only after consulting the Biradari, and once taken binding on every member. [8]
The community had traditionally served as soldiers in the armies of the various Indo-Muslim dynasties which ruled the Indian subcontinent. They were and still are a community of small to medium-sized farmers. A good many are also traders. Like other Gujarati Muslims, they have a caste association known as the Jamat, which acts both as a welfare organization and an instrument of social control. [9] In North India, the term Mughal refers Gürkani or Timurids.
Babur was the founder of the Mughal Empire in the Indian subcontinent. He was a descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan through his father and mother respectively. He was also given the posthumous name of Firdaws Makani.
Khan is a historic Turkic and Mongolic title originating among nomadic tribes in the Central and Eastern Eurasian Steppe to refer to a king. It first appears among the Rouran and then the Göktürks as a variant of khagan and implied a subordinate ruler. In the Seljük Empire, it was the highest noble title, ranking above malik (king) and emir (prince). In the Mongol Empire it signified the ruler of a horde (ulus), while the ruler of all the Mongols was the khagan or great khan. It is a title commonly used to signify the head of a Pashtun tribe or clan.
The Barlas were a Mongol and later Turkicized nomadic confederation in Central Asia. With military roots in one of the regiments of the original Mongol army, the Barlas spawned two major imperial dynasties in Asia: the Timurid Empire in Central Asia and Persia; and its later branch, the Mughal Empire in the Indian subcontinent.
The Timurid Empire was a late medieval, culturally Persianate, Turco-Mongol empire that dominated Greater Iran in the early 15th century, comprising modern-day Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, much of Central Asia, the South Caucasus, and parts of contemporary Pakistan, North India, and Turkey. The empire was culturally hybrid, combining Turkic, Mongolic, and Persian influences, with the last members of the dynasty being "regarded as ideal Perso-Islamic rulers".
The Chagatai Khanate, also known as the Chagatai Ulus, was a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate that comprised the lands ruled by Chagatai Khan, second son of Genghis Khan, and his descendants and successors. At its height in the late 13th century the khanate extended from the Amu Darya south of the Aral Sea to the Altai Mountains in the border of modern-day Mongolia and China, roughly corresponding to the area once ruled by the Qara Khitai.
Mirza is a multi-ethnic name of Persian origin. It is used as a surname or prefix to identify patriarchal lineage. It is derived from the term Mirzadeh.
The Turco-Mongol or Turko-Mongol tradition was an ethnocultural synthesis that arose in Asia during the 14th century among the ruling elites of the Golden Horde and the Chagatai Khanate. The ruling Mongol elites of these khanates eventually assimilated into the Turkic populations that they conquered and ruled over, thus becoming known as Turco-Mongols. These elites gradually adopted Islam, as well as Turkic languages, while retaining Mongol political and legal institutions.
Arain are a large Punjabi Muslim agricultural community with a strong political identity and level of organisation.
Tughlugh Timur Khan (1312/13–1363) was the Khan of Moghulistan from c. 1347 and Khan of the whole Chagatai Khanate from c. 1360 until his death. Esen Buqa is believed to be his father. His reign is known for his conversion to Islam and his invasions of Transoxiana.
Moghulistan, also called the Moghul Khanate or the Eastern Chagatai Khanate, was a Mongol breakaway khanate of the Chagatai Khanate and a historical geographic area north of the Tengri Tagh mountain range, on the border of Central Asia and East Asia. That area today includes parts of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and northwest Xinjiang, China. The khanate nominally ruled over the area from the mid-14th century until the late 17th century.
Sultan Said Khan ruled the Yarkent Khanate from September 1514 to July 1533. He was born in the late 15th century in Moghulistan, and he was a direct descendant of the first Moghul Khan, Tughlugh Timur, who had founded the state of Moghulistan in 1348 and ruled until 1363. The Moghuls were turkicized Mongols who had converted to Islam.
Muslim communities in South Asia have a system of social stratification arising from concepts other than "pure" and "impure", which are integral to the caste system in India. It developed as a result of relations among foreign conquerors, local upper-caste Hindus convert to Islam and local lower-caste converts (ajlaf), as well as the continuation of the Indian caste system by converts. Non-ashrafs are backward-caste converts. The concept of "pasmanda" includes ajlaf and arzal Muslims; ajlaf status is defined by descent from converts to Islam and by pesha (profession). These terms are not part of the sociological vocabulary in regions such as Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh, and say little about the functioning of Muslim society.
Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat Beg was a Chagatai Turco-Mongol military general, governor of Kashmir, and a historian. He was a Mughal Dughlat prince who wrote in both Chaghatai and Persian languages. Haidar and Babur were cousins on their mother's side, through the line of Genghis Khan. Unlike Babur, Haidar considered himself more of an ethnic Mongol of Moghulistan.
The Dughlat clan was a Mongol clan that served the Chagatai khans as hereditary vassal rulers of several cities in western Tarim Basin, in modern Xinjiang, from the 14th century until the 16th century. The most famous member of the clan, Mirza Muhammad Haidar, was a military adventurer, historian, and the ruler of Kashmir (1541–1551). His historical work, the Tarikh-i Rashidi, provides much of the information known about the family.
Timur, also known as Tamerlane, was a Turco-Mongol conqueror who founded the Timurid Empire in and around modern-day Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia, becoming the first ruler of the Timurid dynasty. An undefeated commander, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest military leaders and tacticians in history, as well as one of the most brutal and deadly. Timur is also considered a great patron of art and architecture, for he interacted with intellectuals such as Ibn Khaldun, Hafez, and Hafiz-i Abru and his reign introduced the Timurid Renaissance.
Muslim in Uttar Pradesh is the second largest religion in the state with 38,483,967 adherents in 2011, forming 19.26% of the total population. Muslims of Uttar Pradesh have also been referred to as Hindustani Musalman. They do not form a unified ethnic community, but are differentiated by sectarian and Baradari divisions, as well as by language and geography. Nevertheless, the community shares some unifying cultural factors. Uttar Pradesh has more Muslims than any Muslim-majority country in the world except Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Egypt, Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Persian people were one of the major ethnic groups, who accompanied the ethnic Turco-Mongol ruling elite of the Mughal Empire after its invasion of the Indian subcontinent. Throughout the Mughal Empire, a number of ethnic Persian technocrats, bureaucrats, traders, scientists, architects, teachers, poets, artists, theologians and Sufis migrated and settled in different parts of the Indian Subcontinent.
The Yarkent Khanate, also known as the Yarkand Khanate and the Kashghar Khanate, was a Sunni Muslim Turkic state ruled by the Mongol descendants of Chagatai Khan. It was founded by Sultan Said Khan in 1514 as a western offshoot of Moghulistan, itself an eastern offshoot of the Chagatai Khanate. It was eventually conquered by the Dzungar Khanate in 1705.
The Hazāra of Muḥammad Khwāja is one of the major tribes of the ethnic Hazara, originating and inhabiting mainly from Ghazni, Afghanistan.
Native speakers of Urdu are spread across South Asia. The vast majority of them are Muslims of the Hindi–Urdu Belt of northern India, followed by the Deccani people of the Deccan plateau in south-central India, and most of the Muhajir people of Pakistan. The historical centres of Urdu speakers include Delhi and Lucknow. Another defunct variety of the language was historically spoken in Lahore for centuries before the name "Urdu" first began to appear. However, little is known about this defunct Lahori variety as it has not been spoken for centuries.