Saraiki culture is the culture of the Saraiki people, residing in Pakistan and outside Pakistan.
The traditional dress of Saraiki People is the Shalwar kameez; This is also the national dress of Pakistan. Traditional Sajarak is an important part of Saraiki male and female dress.
Mango is a seasonal fruit of the region during summers. [1] Sohan halwa is a traditional speciality of southern Punjab, particularly Multan. [1] The southern Punjab cities of Dera Ghazi Khan, Bahawalpur, Uch Sharif and Mailsi are also known for their sohan halwa products. [1] Multani Chaamp is a meat dish consisting of lamb chops prepared with various flavours and spices, placed on sewers and grilled over charcoal. [2]
The region of Saraikistan is renowned for its Sufi heritage. The city of Multan is known as the city of saints. [3] It has the shrines of Baha-ud-din Zakariya, Shah Rukn-e-Alam and Shah Yousef Gardez. Similarly, Uch Sharif has been the centre of Qadiriyya Sufi order.
Jhumar or Jhoomar (also called Ghumbar in Sandalbar area) [4] is a traditional Saraiki and Baloch dance in Pakistan. [5] [6] It is also popular in the Sandalbar areas of Punjab. [7] It is slower and more rhythmic form. [8] The word "Jhumar" comes from Jhum/Jhoom, which means Swaying. Jhumar is performed at the wedding ceremonies usually. [9] The dance is also performed in circle, to the tune of emotional songs. [9] Ataullah Khan Esakhelvi and Shafaullah Rokhri are considered the main singers of Saraiki music. [10]
The language, partly codified during the British Raj, derived its emotional attraction from the poetry of the Sufi saint, Khawaja Ghulam Farid, who has become an identity symbol. [11] His poems, known as Kafi are still famous.
Shakir Shujabadi (Kalam-e-Shakir, Khuda Janey, Shakir Diyan Ghazlan, Peelay Patr, Munafqan Tu Khuda Bachaway, and Shakir De Dohray are his famous books) is a very well recognized modern poet. [12]
The Department of Saraiki, Islamia University, Bahawalpur was established in 1989 [13] and the Department of Saraiki, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan [14] was established in 2006. Saraiki is taught as a subject in schools and colleges at higher secondary and intermediate. [15] [16] Saraiki is also taught at degree level at the Allama Iqbal Open University at Islamabad, [17] and the Al-Khair University at Bhimbir have Pakistani Linguistics Departments. They offer M.Phil. and Ph.D in Saraiki. The Associated Press of Pakistan has launched a Saraiki version of its site, as well. [18]
Saraiki alphabet |
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آ ا ب ٻ پ ت ٹ ث ج ڄ چ ح خ د ڈ ݙ ذ ر ڑ ز ژ س ش ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ک گ ڳ ل م ن (ں) ݨ و ہ ھ ی ے |
Extended Perso-Arabic script |
Saraiki is written using the Arabic-derived Urdu alphabet with the addition of seven diacritically modified letters to represent the implosives and the extra nasals. [19] [a] In Sindh the Sindhi alphabet is used. [20] The calligraphic styles used are Naskh and Nastaʿlīq. [21]
Historically, traders or bookkeepers wrote in a script known as kiṛakkī or laṇḍā, although use of this script has been significantly reduced in recent times. [22] [23] Likewise, a script related to the Landa scripts family, known as Multani, was previously used to write Saraiki. A preliminary proposal to encode the Multani script in ISO/IEC 10646 was submitted in 2011. [24]
Saraiki is an Indo-Aryan language of the Lahnda group, spoken by around 28 million people in central Pakistan, especially the areas of South Punjab, Southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Northern Sindh and Eastern Balochistan and the cultural region of Derajat. It was previously known as Multani, after its main dialect.
Khawaja Ghulam Farid was a 19th-century Sufi poet and mystic from Bahawalpur, Punjab, British India, belonging to the Chishti Order. Most of his work is in his mother tongue Multani, or what is now known as Saraiki. However, he also contributed to the Punjabi, Urdu, Pashto, Sindhi, Hindi and Persian literature. His writing style is characterized by the integration of themes such as death, passionate worldly and spiritual love, and the grief associated with love.
Uch, frequently referred to as Uch Sharīf, is a historic city in the Pakistan's Punjab province. Uch may have been founded as Alexandria on the Indus, a town founded by Alexander the Great during his invasion of the Indus Valley. Uch was an early stronghold of the Delhi Sultanate during the Muslim conquest of the subcontinent. It is also known as the home for the Naqvi/Bukhari's after the migration from Bukhara. Uch was a regional metropolitan centre between the 12th and 17th centuries, and became refuge for Muslim religious scholars fleeing persecution from other lands. Though Uch is now a relatively small city, it is renowned for its intact historic urban fabric, and for its collection of shrines dedicated to Muslim mystics (Sufis) from 12th to 15th centuries that are embellished with extensive tile work, and were built in the distinct architectural style of southern Punjab.
Saraiki literature refers to works written in Saraiki, an Indo-Aryan language predominantly spoken in the southern regions of Punjab, Pakistan. Written in the Arabic script, similar to Urdu and Punjabi, Saraiki is spoken by millions across districts such as Multan, Bahawalpur, and Dera Ghazi Khan.
Baha-ud-din Zakariya, also known as Baha-ul-Haq, was a Punjabi Sunni Muslim scholar, saint and poet who established the Suhrawardiyya order of Baghdad in medieval South Asia, later becoming one of the most influential spiritual leaders of his era.
Jhumar or Jhoomar is a traditional Saraiki dance in Pakistan. The word "Jhumar" comes from Jhum/Jhoom, which means to sway in Saraiki. Jhumar is usually performed at wedding ceremonies in South Punjab. The dance is also performed in circle, to the tune of emotional songs.
The Punjabi dialects and languages or Greater Punjabi are the varieties of the Punjabi language, a Northwestern Indo-Aryan language of the Indo-European language family, widely spoken in the Punjab region and neighbouring areas of South Asia, split between Pakistan and India. They constitute a dialect chain of mutual intelligibility and have sometimes been referred to as the Greater Punjabi macrolanguage. Punjabi may also be considered as a pluricentric language with more than one standard variety.
The Saraikis are a multi-ethnic community native to central Pakistan, unified by their use of the Saraiki language and a shared regional identity that transcends tribal and ethnic affiliations.
Anwaar Ahmad is an Urdu short story writer, scholar and academic from Pakistan. Presently, he is serving as the Director General at University of Gujrat's Sialkot Campus. He has been associated with Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, and Government College University, Faisalabad as an academic, researcher, and departmental head (Urdu) for over 35 years. He has also served as a visiting professor at Ankara University in Ankara, Turkey and the Urdu department at Osaka University of Foreign Studies in Osaka, Japan.
Riasti is a term used for a group of Lahnda varieties spoken in the Cholistan Desert along the banks of the river Sutlej in the southern Punjab, Pakistan. Its definition is imprecise, and is usually taken to refer to the central (Multani) and southern dialects of Saraiki which were spoken in the former riasat (transl. state) of Bahawalpur, in what are now the Bahawalpur and Rahim Yar Khan districts, respectively. The southern dialect, also known as Bahawalpuri, is spoken in the southern parts of Dera Ghazi Khan as well.
South Punjab, also proposed as Bahawalpur-South Punjab;Bahawalpur Janoobi Punjab, or Saraikistan; are the names for the proposals to create a new province in Pakistan, out of the southern regions of Punjab. The region comprises the Bahawalpur, Multan and Dera Ghazi Khan divisions. The proposed province would form about 52 percent of the total area and almost 40 percent of the population of the current Punjab province. It has also been proposed to create instead two provinces in South Punjab.
The Saraiki diaspora refers to the dispersing of ethnic Punjabi from Punjab's Saraiki speaking to other parts of the world.
Thaḷī is a dialect within the Lahnda group spoken in parts of the Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is classified by some linguists as a northern dialect of Saraiki language, although it has also been described as transitional between Multani and Shahpuri. Its name derives from the Thal Desert, in which it is spoken.
Saraiki cuisine refers to the native cuisine of the Saraiki people in central Pakistan. It is one of the key part of the Pakistani and South Asian cuisines. The style of cooking is present in the Saraiki-speaking region of southern Punjab, as well as parts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, northern Sindh and northeastern Balochistan. Saraiki food comprises many unique local dishes, and also shares influences with neighbouring regional cuisines. The metropolitan city of Multan is a hub of Saraiki cooking.
Dr. Shakir Shujabadi is a prominent Saraiki-language poet in Shujabad, a small city near Multan, Pakistan.
Multani is a Unicode block containing characters used for writing the Multani alphabet, a Brahmic script used in the Multan region of Punjab and in northern Sindh in Pakistan. The script is now obsolete, but was historically used to write the Saraiki language.
There are two types of Saraiki shalwar suits which originate in the southern area of Punjab, Pakistan. These are the Bahawalpuri shalwar suit and the Multani shalwar suit. The two main suits from that area.
The Shrine of Bahauddin Zakariya is a 13th-century shrine located in Multan, Punjab, Pakistan. The tomb is dedicated to the Punjabi Muslim mystic Bahauddin Zakariya, founder of the Suhrawardiyya order of Sufism. It considered to be one of the most important shrines in the wider Punjab region, and is the prototype for Multan's classical architectural style.
Jatki, Jadgali, and other related terms have sometimes been used to refer to one or another of the Indo-Aryan languages spoken in Balochistan and neighbouring parts of Sindh and Punjab.
The Langah Sultanate was a late medieval sultanate based in the Punjab region in the western Indian subcontinent between the 15th and 16th centuries. It was the dominant power of the lower Doab tract with Multan at its centre. The Langah Sultanate was annexed in 1527 but had autonomous authority until its merger with the Mughal Empire in 1530.