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824 URDU-SPEAKING PEOPLES
merchants and soldiers who entered the subcontinent in small numbers as early
as the eighth century A.D. Others descended from Turks, Persians and Pushtun
who came as conquering armies beginning in the eleventh century and who
established political dominance in the area lasting from the thirteenth to the
eighteenth centuries. Among these immigrant groups were both Sunni and Shia
Muslims, adding a sectarian dimension to their diversity. The Turkish sultans
of Delhi, the Moghul emperors who succeeded them and smaller regional princes
patronized the emigre Muslim culture in all its heterogeneity: Islamic jurists of
the Hanafi school, Persian literati who were Ithna Ashari Shias and Sufis of
several orders, including Chishti, Qadiri and Naqshbandi. The Sufi orders were
particularly instrumental in converting Indian Hindus to the new faith.
Indian converts to Islam ultimately outnumbered immigrant Muslims and were
similarly diverse in origin. Conversions came from among both high and low
Hindu castes, were made for reasons varying from conviction to convenience
and continued from the earliest period of contact with Islam down to the present.
Sunnis generally outnumbered Shias, although there were concentrations of Shia
populations in areas where the princely ruler was Shia (such as Lucknow).
Ismailism was embraced by entire castes of coastal merchants such as the Khojas
and Bohras, who came into contact with Islam through the Indian Ocean trade.
Such merchant groups, while Gujarati speakers, often used Urdu as their language
of commerce (see Gujaratis). Another element of diversity among north Indian
Muslims was the phenomenon of incomplete conversion, such as the persistence
of Hindu rituals and caste identities even after formal acceptance of Islam.
Ethnic diversity has been offset somewhat over time by intermarriages among
the different groups and by periodic reform movements aimed at Islamizing ritual
practice and spreading knowledge and observance of Islamic personal law.
Nevertheless, endogamous groups remain today among the Urdu-speaking Muslims
who identify themselves according to their claimed immigrant origins:
Sayyids (descendants of Muhammad or his family), Shaikhs (Arabs or Persians),
Moghuls (Central Asian Turks) and Pathans (Pushtun).
Members of these four groups are known as ashraf (nobles), and their claimed
foreign origin places them at the top of the Indo-Muslim social ladder. Nobility
(sharafat) implies not only noble lineage but also cultivation in the cultural
sense. Hence a man may acquire ashraf status if he maintains a certain style of
life and is a magnanimous host, charitable towards those less fortunate, pious—
but not to a fault—and able to sprinkle his conversation with extemporaneous
Urdu couplets.
Beneath the ashraf are ranged the ajlaf, Indian convert groups which retain
their Hindu caste or occupational names. Headed by the Rajputs (warriors and
landholders who, because of their high status in Hindu society, often successfully
claim ashraf status), they include other occupational groups such as the Momin
Julahas (weavers), Qassabs (butchers), Darzis (tailors) and many more, with
Muslim "untouchables" at the bottom (see Maharashtrians). These Muslim
groups function in society very much as Hindu caste groups. They are endo-