Hyderabadi Muslims

Hyderabadi Muslims, also referred to as Hyderabadis are a community of Deccani people, who are part of a larger ethnic group of Urdu-speaking Muslims, from the area that used to be the princely state of Hyderabad in the regions of Marathwada, Telangana, and Kalyana-Karnataka.

While the term "''Hyderabadi''" commonly refers to residents in and around the South Indian city of Hyderabad, regardless of ethnic origin, the term "''Hyderabadi Muslims''" more specifically refers to the native Urdu speaking ethnic Muslims of the erstwhile princely state. The collective cultures and peoples of Hyderabad Deccan were termed "''Mulki''", (countryman), a term still used today. The native language of the Hyderabadi Muslims is Hyderabadi Urdu, which is a dialect of the Deccani language.

With their origins in the Bahmani Sultanate and then the Deccan sultanates, Hyderabadi culture and cuisine became defined in the latter half of the reign of the Asif Jahi Dynasty in Hyderabad. The culture exists today mainly in Hyderabad, Aurangabad, Parbhani, Nanded, Raichur, Bidar, Gulbarga, and among the Hyderabadi Muslim diaspora around the world, in particular, Pakistan, the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, USA, Canada and the United Kingdom.

History

The Deccan plateau acted as a bulwark sheltering South India from the invasions, political turmoil, that affected North India. This allowed the Muslim-ruled state of Hyderabad to develop a distinctive culture during the Qutb Shahi dynasty, brief Mughal rule and later the Asaf Jahi dynasty of the Nizams.

According to ''Time'', the seventh Nizam was the richest man in the world during the late 1940s, and fifth richest person of all time according to ''Forbes'' magazine after adjustment for inflation and currency purchasing power parity.

The Nizam was the Muslim ruler of the vast princely Hyderabad State. The capital city of Hyderabad was primarily Urdu-speaking Muslim until the incorporation of Hyderabad into India and the subsequent rise to dominance of the native Telugu-speaking Hindu people of Telangana. The state's economy was agrarian, and Hyderabad was primarily a government and administrative hub, run mostly (but far from exclusively) by Muslims. The aristocracy, '' jagirdars'' and ''deshmukhs'' (wealthy landowners), and even minor government officials, could afford to hire servants, usually also Muslims, in a social order similar to the class system of Victorian England. The Nizam allied himself with the British early on, with ensuing political stability.

After the fall of the Mughal Empire in 1857, many Muslim writers, poets, scholars, musicians and other eminent personalities migrated from Delhi to Hyderabad in hope of seeking patronage of the Nizam or the nobility. Muslims continued to emigrate to the state seeking employment in the Nizam's court, army, Hyderabad Civil Service or educational institutions. Among those who spent significant time in Hyderabad are writers Dagh Dehlvi, Fani Badayuni, Josh Malihabadi, Ali Haider Tabatabai, religious scholar Shilbi Nomani and classical musicians Tanrus Khan and Bade Ghulam Ali Khan.

After Indian independence from the British Raj, Hyderabad State, under the rule of the seventh Nizam lasted for a year, until 18 September 1948, when the Indian Army launched Operation Polo Hyderabadi military forces who wished for Hyderabad State to remain independent. The Indian army soon decided to intervene. The liberation inadvertently resulted in the massacre of thousands of Muslims.

Hyderabadi Muslims Identity after Integration

The Integration of Hyderabad, into the dominion of India, other than the shock of the controversial massacre took a turn of an identity crisis for the Hyderabadi Muslim people. Thousands of Hyderabadi Muslims emigrated from the then integrated Indian state of Andhra Pradesh to Pakistan, the UK, the U.S. and Canada, resulting in a large diaspora.

The people who migrated to Pakistan were now placed under a new term called Muhajir, along with other Urdu speaking immigrants from present day India. The Muhajir people began to dominate politics and business mainly in the metropolitan city of Karachi but their unique Hyderabadi Muslim Identity was lost, and has now evolved into a result of Karachi's booming cosmopolitan scene. The Hyderabadi Muslims who stayed in the integrated Andhra Pradesh were faced with new language issues, and a wave of immigration of more Telugu people from the coastal areas as well as other Indian states, especially after 1956.

After the Indian reorganization of 1956, with states being divided on linguistic lines, Hyderabadi Muslims, in Telangana, Marathwada, and Kalyana-Karnataka were faced with the learning and emerging dominance of the indigenous Telugu, Marathi, and Kannada languages respectively, and their native language Dakhini became a home language while Urdu