The Mayi were a clan of

Muslim Rajputs Muslim Rajputs are the descendants of Rajputs of Northern regions of the Indian subcontinent who are followers of Islam. They converted from Hinduism to Islam from the medieval period in India onwards, retaining historically Hindu surnames suc ...

which controlled the Narhat-Samai chieftaincy in modern-day

Nawada district Nawada district is one of the thirty-eight districts of the Indian state of Bihar. Nawada is its administrative headquarters. The district is the easternmost district of the Magadh division, one of the nine administrative divisions of Bihar. The ...

Bihar Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Be ...

History

The progenitor of the Mayi clan was Nuraon Khan whose family arrived in South Bihar in the 17th century from

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

. Following the families conversion to Islam, they retained their original clan name. Nuraon Khan had two sons, Azmeri and Deyanut who worked for a

Rajput Rajput (from Sanskrit ''raja-putra'' 'son of a king') is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Ra ...

King King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

of Sisodiya clan as revenue farmers. Kamgar Khan waged war on neighbouring zamindars and seized their land. However, he was a staff of the

Deo Raj Deo Raj, was a zamindari (estate) situated in what is now Aurangabad district of Bihar. The Deo Raj family were notable for being the protectors of Deo Sun shrine (Deo Surya Mandir). Origins In the 14th and 15th century, there was a migration of ...

who was also expanding his chieftaincy. Despite the Mayi's owing much of their power to the Rajput and the Mughals, Kamgar Khan frequently defied them and attempted to assert the Mayi's independence. Eventually,

Afghan Afghan may refer to: *Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia *Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity ** Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pas ...

mercenaries had to be used to put down the rebellions of Kamgar Khan. Kamgar Khan's descendant was Akbar Ali. Under his rule, Narhat Samai was owed a large amount of unpaid revenue to the

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

. To escape his debts, he participated in the 1781 revolt where certain zamindars attempted to rid themselves of British rule. Akbar Ali's attempt to gain independence failed however, and his estate was confiscated and he fled to Delhi.

References

{{reflist Rajput clans of Bihar