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Jat Muslim or Musalman Jat also spelled Jutt (Template:Lang-ur) (also spelled Jatt or Jutt; Punjabi pronunciation: [d͡ʒəʈːᵊ]) are an ethnoreligious group and a sub-group of the Jat people, who are followers of Islam and are primarily native to the northern regions of the Indian Subcontinent. They are found primarily throughout Sindh and Punjab regions of Pakistan. Jats began converting to Islam from the early Middle Ages onward, and constitute a distinct sub-group within the diverse community of Jat people.

Origin

Muslim Jats are the descendant of Jat people who converted to Islam during the Muslim period in the Indian subcontinent. It is known that they were pastoralists who had migrated from the lower Indus river valley of Sindh and Balochistan to the north during the Middle Ages.

Introduction of Islam

When Arabs entered Sindh and other Southern regions of current Pakistan in the seventh century, the chief tribal groupings they found were the Jats and the Med people. These Jats are often referred as Zatts (Template:Lang-ar) in early Arab writings. The Jats were the first external converts to Islam, and many were employed as soldiers by the new Arab Muslim administration in Sindh. The Muslim conquest chronicles further point at the important concentrations of Jats in towns and fortresses of Lower and Central Sindh.

Between the 10th and the 13th Century, there was large immigration of Jat groups northwards to Punjab and eastwards towards what is now Rajasthan. Many Jat clans initially settled in a region known as the Bar country, which referred to the country between the rivers of Punjab, thinly populated with scanty rainfall which accommodated a type of pastoral nomadism which was based primary on the rearing of goats and camels. Between the 11th and the 13th centuries, the Jats became essentially a farming population, taking advantage in the growth of irrigation. As these Jats became farmers, they started accepting Islam. Most Jats clans of western Punjab have traditions that they accepted Islam at the hands of many famous Sufi saints of Punjab, Shaikh Faridudin Ganj Shaker of Pakpattan, Ahmad Sirhindi of east Punjab and Baha-ud-din Zakariya of Multan, Lal Shahbaz Qalandar of Sindh, Jalaluddin Surkh-Posh Bukhari of Bahawalpur area. Critically, the process of conversion was said to have been a much slower process by .

It is still uncertain when the Jats embraced Islam, but when Babur invaded India in 1525 A. D. he found that in the Salt Range they had been subdued by the Awans, Janjuas and other Jat tribes, which had adopted the Muslim religion; we may conclude therefore that they may have been Muslims before this period. Punjabi Muslim Jats have been, and still are, democratic in their tribal arrangements.

Social organization

In the plains of Punjab, there are many communities of Jat, some of whom had converted to Islam by the 18th century, while others had become Sikhs. Those clans that converted to Islam remained in what is now Pakistani Punjab after Partition. In Pakistan, most Jats are land-owning agriculturalists, and they form one of the numerous ethnic group in Sindh.

Jats, together with the Rajputs and Gujjars, are the dominant ethnically-Punjabi and religiously-Islamic tribes settled in the regions comprising eastern Pakistan. They exert considerable influence in various mainstays of Pakistani society, including the realms of the judiciary, agriculture industry, private sector, academia, and military.

References

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2. Jairath, Vinod K. (3 April 2013). Frontiers of Embedded Muslim Communities in India. Routledge. p. 1. ISBN 978-1-136-19680-5.
3. Jat caste on Encyclopedia Britannica website Retrieved 9 November 2020
4. ^ Jaffrelot, Christophe, ed. (2002). A History of Pakistan and Its Origins. Translated by Gillian Beaumont. London: Anthem Press. pp. 205–206. ISBN 9781843310303. OCLC 61512448.
5. Khanna, Sunil K. (2004). "Jat". In Ember, Carol R.; Ember, Melvin (eds.). Encyclopedia of Medical Anthropology: Health and Illness in the World's Cultures. Vol. 2. Dordrecht: Springer Science+Business Media. pp. 777–783. ISBN 9780387299051. OCLC 473757308.
6. ^ Wikeley, M (1970). Punjabi Musalmans (PDF). Lahore: Muhammad Saeed Sheikh. pp. 8–9.
7. Wink, André (2002). Al-Hind, The Making of the Indo-Islamic World: Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam, 7th-11th Centuries. Vol. 1. Boston: Brill. pp. 154–160. ISBN 9780391041738. OCLC 48837811.
8. "Zuṭṭ | people". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 12 May 2021.
9. Wink, André (2002). Al-Hind, The Making of the Indo-Islamic World: Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest, 11th-13th Centuries. Vol. 2. Boston: Brill. pp. 241–242. ISBN 9780391041745. OCLC 48837811.
10. Sumaira Jajja (29 December 2013). "When it comes to 'I do', the cult of clans matter". Dawn (newspaper). Retrieved 9 November 2020.
11. Christophe Jaffrelot, ed. (2004). A history of Pakistan and its origins. London: Anthem Press. ISBN 1-84331-149-6. OCLC 56646546.
12. Al Nahyan, Mansoor Bin Tahnoon; Jamal Hussain; Asad ul Ghafoor (2019). Tribes of Pakistan. Newcastle upon Tyne. ISBN 978-1-5275-3439-1. OCLC 1101186560.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

External links

Jat (caste) on Encyclopedia Britannica

• Punjabi tribes
• Jat
• Jat clans of Punjab
• Jat clans of Jammu and Kashmir
• Jat clans of India
• Jat clans of Pakistan