Sheikh Sarwari are a

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 Abrah ...

community found in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. While in Pakistan they have settled in Karachi. They are a sub-group within the larger Faqir

ethnic group An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

of North India, and are also known as Peerahi, while in Punjab, they are known as

Bharai Bharai are a Muslim community found in India and Pakistan. They are settled in the states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab in India, and in Punjab province and Karachi in Pakistan. They are also known as Parahin and in Uttar Pradesh, the Bharai ar ...

. The Bharai were traditionally priests of the Sultani sect, a syncretic sect with combined elements of Hinduism and Islam. The Sultanis were followers of the Sufi saint Sultan Sakhi Sarwar of Dera Ghazi Khan in what is now Pakistan. Most Sultanis were members of the Hindu Jat community, but the Bharai were always Muslim, and belonged either to the Muslim Jat or Muslim Rajput castes. The Jat Bharai in the central Punjab claim descent from one Garba Jat, a Hindu attendant at the shrine of Sakhi Sarwar, who said to have been instructed by Sakhi Sarwar to convert to Islam in a dream. There are various theories as to the origin of the word Bharai. Horace Rose, the early 20th-century ethnologist of the Punjab made castes such as the Dogar, Habri, Rajput, Gujar, Tarkhan and last, but not least, Jat joining the Bharai brotherhood. Like other Faqir groups, the Sarwari started off as a

Sufi Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, ...

order, the

Sarwari Qadiri The Qadiriyya (), also transliterated Qādirīyah, ''Qadri'', ''Qadriya'', ''Kadri'', ''Elkadri'', ''Elkadry'', ''Aladray'', ''Alkadrie'', ''Adray'', ''Kadray'', ''Kadiri'', ''Qadiri'', ''Quadri'' or ''Qadri'' are members of the Sunni Qadiri ta ...

yya. The word ''sarvar'' means ‘leader’, ‘chief’, and ‘master’ in the Persian language, and the Sarwari order was said to be founded by

Sultan Bahoo Sultan Bahu ( pa, , ਸੁਲਤਾਨ ਬਾਹੂ ; also spelled Bahoo; 17 January 1630 – 1 March 1691), was a 17th-century Punjabi Sufi mystic, poet, scholar and historian. He was active in the Punjab region (present-day Pakistan) dur ...

, the famous

of Punjab.Abun-Nasr, Jamil M. "The Special Sufi Paths (Taqiras)." Muslim Communities of Grace: The Sufi Brotherhoods in Islamic Religious Life. New York: Columbia UP, 2007. 86-96. Over the time, the Sarwaris have evolved into a distinct

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 cultura ...

grouping, bound by the rules of endogamy. They are attendants of sakhi sarwar and thats their occupation. In terms of distribution, they are concentrated in the western districts of Uttar Pradesh such as Moradabad,

Jyotiba Phule Nagar Amroha district is one of the 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh state in northern India. Amroha town is the district headquarters. According to the Government of India, the district is one of the Minority Concentrated Districts on the basis of the ...

Bijnor Bijnor is a city and a municipal board in Bijnor district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, IndiaRampur and Bareilly. The Sarwari live in multi-caste villages, but occupy their own distinct quarters. They speak both Urdu and the Khari Boli dialect, and are entirely

Sunni Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word '' Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disagr ...

References

{{Reflist Social groups of Pakistan Muslim communities of Uttar Pradesh

See also

References