MUHAJIR

MUHAJIRIS

ORIGIN AND ANCESTRAL RULE

The Urdu speaking people of Pakistan and India has diverse roots. Many Sufi missionaries from Middle East and Central Asiamigrated and settled in South Asia. Many natives converted to Islam due to the missionary Sufi saints whose dargahs dot the landscape of South Asia. The Delhi Sultanate and later Mughal Empire ruled the northern India region. During the Delhi Sultanate and later Mughal Empire attracted Muslim refugees, nobles, technocrats, bureaucrats, soldiers, traders, scientists,architects, artisans, teachers, poets, artists, theologians and Sufis from the rest of the Muslim world and they migrated and settled in the South Asia. During the reign of Sultan Ghyasuddin Balban (1266-1286) thousands of Central Asian Muslims sought asylum including more than of 15 sovereigns and their nobles due to the Mongol invasion of Khwarezmia and Eastern Iran. At the court of Sultan Iltemish in Delhi the first wave of these Muslim refugees escaping from the Central Asian genocideperpetrated by the barbaric hordes of Genghis Khan, brought administrators from Iran, painters from China, theologians fromSamarkand, Nishapur and Bukhara, nobles from Khwarezm, divines and saints from all Muslim lands, craftsmen and men and maidens from every region, doctors adept in Greek medicine, philosophers from everywhere. The Muslims from various provinces such as Hyderabad Deccan, Kerala, Balochistan, Sindh, Punjab, Gujarat, Kashmir and other parts of South Asia also moved to capitals of Muslim empire in Delhi and Agra. Millions of natives converted to Islam during the Muslim rule. After the Battle of Panipat (1526) Mughal Emperor Babur defeated the Lodi dynasty with Tajik, Chagatai and Uzbek soldiers and nobility. Theses Central Asian Turk soldiers and nobles were awarded estates and they settled with their families in the northern India. Safavi Emperor Shah Tahmasp provided financial aid, 12,000 choice of cavalry and thousands of infantry soldiers to Mughal Emperor Humayun to regain his Empire. Persians nobles, technocrats and bureaucrats, also joined Mughal Emperor Humayun. Theses soldiers were awarded estates and they settled with their families in the northern India. These diverse ethnic, cultural and linguistic groups merged over the centuries to the form the Urdu speaking Muslims of South Asia.