Caste System Among South Asian Muslims
Muslim communities in South Asia apply a system of religious stratification. It developed as a result of ethnic segregation between the foreign conquerors/ Upper caste Hindus who converted to Islam (''Ashraf'') (also known as ''tabqa-i ashrafiyya'') and the local lower caste converts (''Ajlaf'') as well as the continuation of the Indian caste system among local converts. Non-Ashrafs are converts from Hindu lower caste. The neologism Pasmandas include Ajlaf and Arzal Muslims, and Ajlafs' statuses are defined by them being descendants of converts to Islam and are also defined by their ''pesha'' (profession). The Biradari System is how social stratification manifests itself in Pakistan, and to an extent also India. Ashrafism, Syedism, Zatism, Sharifism, Biradarism, and the Quom System are aspects of the caste system among Muslims in South Asia. Concepts of "paak" (pure/clean) and "naapak" (religiously impure/unclean/polluted, which is also used to refer to infidels) are found in Sou ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abraham (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the main Islamic prophet. The majority of Muslims also follow the teachings and practices of Muhammad ('' sunnah'') as recorded in traditional accounts (''hadith''). With an estimated population of almost 1.9 billion followers as of 2020 year estimation, Muslims comprise more than 24.9% of the world's total population. In descending order, the percentage of people who identify as Muslims on each continental landmass stands at: 45% of Africa, 25% of Asia and Oceania (collectively), 6% of Europe, and 1% of the Americas. Additionally, in subdivided geographical regions, the figure stands at: 91% of the Middle East–North Africa, 90% of Central Asia, 65% of the Caucasus, 42% of Southeast As ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Siyasatnama
''Siyāsatnāmeh'' (Persian: سیاست نامه, "''Book of Politics''"), also known as ''Siyar al-mulûk'' (Arabic: سيرالملوك, i.e.: The Lives of Kings), is the most famous work by Nizam al-Mulk, the founder of Nizamiyyah schools in medieval Persia and vazier to the Seljuq sultans Alp Arslan and Malik Shah. Nizam al-Mulk possessed "''immense power''" as the head administration for the Seljuq empire over a period of 30 years and was responsible for establishing distinctly Persian forms of Islamic government and administration which would last for centuries. A great deal of his approach to governing is contained within the Siyasatnameh which is in a tradition of Persian-Islamic writing known as the "Mirrors for Princes". Written in Persian and composed in the eleventh century, the Siyasatnameh was created following the request by Malik Shah that his ministers produce books on government, administration and the troubles facing the nation. However, the treatise compiled b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Vizier
A vizier (; ar, وزير, wazīr; fa, وزیر, vazīr), or wazir, is a high-ranking political advisor or minister in the near east. The Abbasid caliphs gave the title ''wazir'' to a minister formerly called ''katib'' (secretary), who was at first merely a helper but afterwards became the representative and successor of the ''dapir'' (official scribe or secretary) of the Sassanian kings. In modern usage, the term has been used for government ministers in much of the Middle East and beyond. Several alternative spellings are used in English, such as ''vizir'', ''wazir'', and ''vezir''. Etymology Vizier is suggested to be an Iranian word, from the Pahlavi root of ''vičir'', which originally had the meaning of a ''decree'', ''mandate'', and ''command'', but later as its use in Dinkard also suggests, came to mean ''judge'' or ''magistrate''. Arthur Jeffery considers the word to be a "good Iranian" word, as has a well-established root in Avestan language. The Pahlavi ''viči ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Sharia
Sharia (; ar, شريعة, sharīʿa ) is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on the sacred scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the Hadith. In Arabic, the term ''sharīʿah'' refers to God's immutable divine law and is contrasted with ''fiqh'', which refers to its human scholarly interpretations. In the historical course, fiqh sects have emerged that reflect the preferences of certain societies and state administrations on behalf of people who are interested in the theoretical (method) and practical application (Ahkam / fatwa) studies of laws and rules, but sharia has never been a valid legal system on its own. It has been used together with " customary (Urf) law" since Omar or the Umayyads. It may also be wrong to think that the Sharia, as a religious argument or belief, is entirely within or related to Allah's commands and prohibitions. Several non-graded crimes are ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Fatwa
A fatwā ( ; ar, فتوى; plural ''fatāwā'' ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (''sharia'') given by a qualified '' Faqih'' (Islamic jurist) in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist issuing fatwas is called a ''mufti'', and the act of issuing fatwas is called ''iftāʾ''. Fatwas have played an important role throughout Islamic history, taking on new forms in the modern era. Resembling ''jus respondendi'' in Roman law and rabbinic ''responsa'', privately issued fatwas historically served to inform Muslim populations about Islam, advise courts on difficult points of Islamic law, and elaborate substantive law. In later times, public and political fatwas were issued to take a stand on doctrinal controversies, legitimize government policies or articulate grievances of the population. During the era of European colonialism, fatwas played a part in mobilizing resistance to foreign domination. Muftis acted as independent s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Delhi Sultanate
The Delhi Sultanate was an Islamic empire based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for 320 years (1206–1526).Delhi Sultanate Encyclopædia Britannica Following the invasion of by the , five dynasties ruled over the Delhi Sultanate sequentially: the Mamluk dynasty (1206–1290), the Khalji dynasty (1290–1320), the [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Ziauddin Barani
Ziauddin Barani (1285–1358 CE) was a Muslim political thinker of the Delhi Sultanate located in present-day Northern India during Muhammad bin Tughlaq and Firuz Shah's reign. He was best known for composing the ''Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi'' (also called ''Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi''), a work on medieval India, which covers the period from the reign of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq to the first six years of reign of Firoz Shah Tughluq and the ''Fatwa-i-Jahandari'' which promoted a hierarchy among Muslim communities in the Indian subcontinent, even if historian M. Athar Ali says that it's not on a racialist basis or even like the caste system, but taking as a model Sassanid Iran, which promoted an idea of aristocracy through birth and which was claimed by Persians to be "fully in accordance with the main thrust of Islamic thought as it had developed by that time", including in the works of his near-contemporary Ibn Khaldun. Life Barani was born in 1285, to a Muslim family native to Baran. His f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Louis Dumont
Louis Charles Jean Dumont (11 August 1911 – 19 November 1998) was a French anthropologist. Dumont was born in Thessaloniki, in the Salonica Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire. He taught at Oxford University during the 1950s, and was then director of the ''École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales'' (EHESS) in Paris. A specialist on the cultures and societies of India, Dumont also studied western social philosophy and ideologies. Works His works include '' Homo Hierarchicus: Essai sur le système des castes'' (1966), ''From Mandeville to Marx: The Genesis and Triumph of Economic Ideology'' (1977) and ''Essais sur l'individualisme: Une perspective anthropologique sur l'idéologie moderne'' (1983), in which he contrasts holism with individualism. Dumont died, aged 87, in Paris. See also *Alliance theory The alliance theory, also known as the general theory of exchanges, is a structuralist method of studying kinship relations. It finds its origins in Claude Lévi-Straus ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Hindu Caste System
The caste system in India is the paradigmatic ethnographic example of classification of castes. It has its origins in ancient India, and was transformed by various ruling elites in medieval, early-modern, and modern India, especially the Mughal Empire and the British Raj. It is today the basis of affirmative action programmes in India as enforced through its constitution. The caste system consists of two different concepts, '' varna'' and '' jati'', which may be regarded as different levels of analysis of this system. Based on DNA analysis, endogamous i.e. non-intermarrying Jatis originated during the Gupta Empire. Our modern understanding of caste as an institution in India has been influenced by the collapse of the Mughal era and the rise of the British colonial government in India. The collapse of the Mughal era saw the rise of powerful men who associated themselves with kings, priests and ascetics, affirming the regal and martial form of the caste ideal, and it also re ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Muslim Conquests On The Indian Subcontinent
The Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent mainly took place from the 13th to 17th centuries. Earlier Muslim conquests include the invasions into what is now modern-day Pakistan and the Umayyad campaigns in India in eighth century and resistance of Rajputs to them. Mahmud of Ghazni, who was the first Sultan, and preserved an ideological link to the suzerainty of the Abbasid Caliphate, invaded and plundered vast parts of Punjab and Gujarat, starting from the Indus River during the 11th century. After the capture of Lahore and the end of the Ghaznavids, the Ghurid ruler Muhammad of Ghor laid the foundation of Muslim rule in India. In 1206, Bakhtiyar Khalji led the Muslim conquest of Bengal, marking the easternmost expansion of Islam at the time. The Ghurid Empire soon evolved into the Delhi Sultanate, ruled by Qutb ud-Din Aibak, the founder of the Mamluk dynasty. With the Delhi Sultanate established, Islam was spread across most parts of the Indian subcontinent. In the 1 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Caste
Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultural notions of purity and pollution. * Quote: "caste ort., casta=basket ranked groups based on heredity within rigid systems of social stratification, especially those that constitute Hindu India. Some scholars, in fact, deny that true caste systems are found outside India. The caste is a closed group whose members are severely restricted in their choice of occupation and degree of social participation. Marriage outside the caste is prohibited. Social status is determined by the caste of one's birth and may only rarely be transcended." * Quote: "caste, any of the ranked, hereditary, endogamous social groups, often linked with occupation, that together constitute traditional societies in South Asia, particularly among Hindus in India. Althoug ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
South Asian
South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geography, geographical and culture, ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; Topographically, it is dominated by the Indian subcontinent and defined largely by the Indian Ocean on the south, and the Himalayas, Karakoram, and Pamir Mountains, Pamir mountains on the north. The Amu Darya, which rises north of the Hindu Kush, forms part of the northwestern border. On land (clockwise), South Asia is bounded by Western Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is an economic cooperation organization in the region which was established in 1985 and includes all eight nations comprising South Asia. South Asia covers about , which is 11.71% of the Asian continent or 3.5% of the world's land surface area. The population of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |