 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(March 2023) |
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| India | |
| Religion | |
| Islam | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Shaikh |
The Shaikh are a Muslim community found in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(March 2023) |
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| India | |
| Religion | |
| Islam | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Shaikh |
The Shaikh are a Muslim community found in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India.
Shaikh is a word or honorific term in the Arabic language that literally means "elder." It is commonly used to designate an elder of a tribe, a revered wise man, or an Islamic scholar. Some members of Brahmins, Rajputs and Khatri community also converted to Islam. Some Muslim Khatris, Brahmins and Rajputs use shaikh and khan as their surnames, and consider themselves belonging to the Shaikh community. [1] [ full citation needed ]
A community of early Shaikh colonists are the Qidwai, whose ancestor was claimed to be Qazi Qidwa, a son of the Sultans of Rum, in what is now modern Turkey. The Qazi is said to have been sent to the Awadh region to spread Islam, where he is said to have won over fifty local villages to Islam. These fifty villages were later awarded to him, and the region became known as Qidwara. The converts of these fifty villages were called Qidwai. [2] According to another tradition, Kazi Kidwa is said to have defeated a local ruler in the Awadh region by the name of Raja Jagdeopur. This Raja was said to have belonged to the aboriginal Tribal community. The original settlement of the tribe was Juggaur in Lucknow district, from where they spread to Barabanki District. These early colonists were often required to make converts, and these converts often adopted the clan name of those at whose hand they accepted Islam, and this led to a substantial growth in the Shaikh community.[ citation needed ]
The Qidwais recruited in the household cavalry of Shuja-ud-Daula, which was mainly composed of the Sheikhzadgan. [3] [4] [ page needed ]
Historically, the Siddiqui, Hashmi and Farooqui shaikhs of Awadh and Rohilkhand (Budaun and Bareilly) were substantial landowners, often zamindars, taluqedar and jagirdar. In the urban townships, Shaikh families served as priests, teachers and administrators, with the British colonial authorities given the community a preference in recruitment as soldiers and civil officers. [5] [ full citation needed ]
Notable People from Shaikh Community:
Awadh, known in British historical texts as Avadh or Oudh, is a historical region in northern India, now constituting the northeastern portion of Uttar Pradesh. It is roughly synonymous with the ancient Kosala region of Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain scriptures.
The Muzaffarid dynasty, also called the Muzaffarids, and sometimes, the Ahmedabad dynasty, was an Indian royal family that ruled the Sultanate of Gujarat in western India from 1391 to 1583. The founder of the dynasty was Zafar Khan who was governor of Gujarat under the Delhi Sultanate. When the Sultanate was weakened by the sacking of Delhi by Timur in 1398, and Zafar Khan took the opportunity to establish himself as sultan of an independent Gujarat. His Grand son, Ahmed Shah I established the capital at Ahmedabad. The dynasty ruled for almost 200 years, until the conquest of Gujarat by the Mughal Empire in 1572. The sultanate reached its peak of expansion under Mahmud Begada, reaching east into Malwa and west to the Gulf of Kutch.
Rohillas are a community of Pashtun heritage, historically found in Rohilkhand, a region in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. It forms the largest Pashtun diaspora community in India, and has given its name to the Rohilkhand region. The Rohilla military chiefs settled in this region of northern India in the 1720s, the first of whom was Ali Mohammed Khan.
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.
Shaikh usually refers to:
Sheikh is an Arabic word meaning the elder of a tribe, a revered old man, or an Islamic scholar.
Qanungoh Shaikhs are a clan of Muslim Shaikhs in Punjab, other parts of Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The Qanungoh were the employees of the court and judicial systems in South Asia during the period of Muslim rule; the title Qanungoh literally referring to an "expounder of law" or the Qanun. These included judges; qazi who were styled sahib or sahibzada, lawyers and a wide variety of other legal functionaries, who would form the principal officers in district or regional courts of investigation, in criminal matters and in offences of a "spiritual nature". On a state level Qanungoh Shaikhs were hereditary government agents and “permanent repositories of information concerning the revenue receipts, area statistics, local revenue rates and (the) practice and customs” of local areas and municipalities, across the various empires that existed in the subcontinent. As land administrators they maintained a monopoly in the possession of esoteric and often ancient information and in this context, were considered at best the “refuge of the husbandmen” and at worst; corrupt high officers of empire who manipulated records to their remunerative advantage. Qanungoh Shaikhs today are the descendants of families who held the hereditary office of ‘’Qanungoh’’ during the Muslim period.
The Kakori Shaikh are a Muslim community found in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. They are also found in the province of Sindh in Pakistan, particularly the city of Karachi.
The Muslim Kayastha, also known as Siddiqui, are a community of Muslims, are related to the Kayastha of northern India, mainly modern Uttar Pradesh, who converted to Islam during the rule of the Islamic empires in India.
The Qidwai or Kidwai are a community of Muslim Shaikhs in South Asia. They are mostly settled in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India and Karachi, Pakistan.
The Khanzada or Khan Zadeh are a cluster community of Muslim Rajputs found in the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. A notable community is the Khanzadas of Mewat, the descendants of Raja Nahar Khan, who are a sub-clan of Jadaun. They refer to themselves as Muslim Rajputs. After the Partition of India in 1947, many members of this community migrated to Pakistan, forming a part of the Muhajir community.
The Rajgonds are the ruling class of the Gonds. The region of Gondwana consisted of neighbouring kingdoms. To the south was the Kingdom of Chanda and to the north was the powerful Garha-Mandla kingdom. In the 16th century, the Kingdom of Deogarh rose as a powerful state with the Kherla Kingdom in its western past.
The Thakurai are a Muslim Rajput community found in the state of Bihar in India. They are mostly concentrated around East and West Champaran District and the surrounding region. A small number are also found in the Terai region of Nepal.
The Nagar Muslims are a Muslim community found in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. They are Muslim converts from the larger Nagar Brahmin community. The Nagar are also known as Nagar Shaikh.
Shaikh, also rendered as Sheikh, Sheik, Shaik, Shaykh, Shaikh, Shekh, Cheikh, Šeih, Šejh, Şeyh and other variants, is a title given to many South Asian Muslim castes. It originally was a word or honorific term in the Arabic language that commonly designated a chief of a tribe, royal family member, Muslim religious scholar, or "Elder". However in Northern India, Shaikh was used as an ethnic title, by those claiming Arab descent & Upper caste coverts to Islam like Khatris, Brahmins & Rajputs etc, particularly from prominent Muslim figures such as the Rashidun Caliphs, majority of these.
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.
The Nashya Shaikh or Nashya Sekh is a Muslim community found in northern parts of the state of West Bengal in India. They are culturally and linguistically similar to both people of northern Bangladesh and Goalpara of Assam. A small number of the community are also found in the neighboring state of Bihar, where they are known as the Bengali Shaikh. The group is descended from a set of tribals which were collectively referred to as Koches, who converted to Islam as they were unable to find a favourable position in Hindu society and came to be known as the Rajbanshi Muslims. They are homogeneous with the Koch people and are bilingual, speaking both Bengali and Surjapuri.
Yadgar-i-Bahaduri is an Indian Persian language encyclopaedia of history, geography, science and art. Edited by Bahadur Singh, it was completed in 1834 CE in Lucknow.
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.