Retracing my Indian ancestral roots

[Al Bhatti]

Who the hell did an iraqi person get so deep inside India?? (Bihar). I can understand the coast, but...

There are many Arabs living in non-Arab countries since generations and same is the case with Non-Arabs in Arab countries. For example there is a famous Yemeni singer from the last century born around 1901 in Yemen and brought up in Hadhramaut. His name was Muhammad Juma'a Khan محمد جمعة خان. His father was brought to be the ruler's Personal Body Guard where he married a local Yemeni girl. Muhammad Juma'a Khan sang songs in Hadharmi Dialect and almost all his songs were hits in his time. He was called the Shaikh of Hadhrami songs شيخ الاغاني الحضرمية. He once sang a song and used the word شاباش in the lyrics, this word became a hit in Yemen after the song.

Also there are many Hindus from Kutch and other Indian / Pakistani areas in Yemen, but most of them are concentrated in Aden living for generation, some have converted to Islam. They carry the Yemeni nationality.

If anyone of you knows an old Yemeni man ask him about this singer. one of his hits was a song he sang when Oil was found in Yemen in 40s or 50s. Also if anyone wants to listen to his songs i am ready to post some of Muhamamd Juma'a Khan's songs ( the songs are in Arabic though).

Then again, there is another Arab poet his name was Muzaffar Al Nawab مظفر النواب. His family was once ruling one of the Indian states. His family was originally from the arabian peninsula then they settled in Baghdad.. He was from the linage of an imam who died of poisoning during the time of the caliph Haroon Al Rasheed. So the family migrated to India towards the northern states : Punjab - Lucknow - Kashmir and due to their lineage and their educational fame they became the rulers of these states at some stage for some time.

After the Britishers took over India, the family expressed the spirit of direct opposition towards the British occupation causing the British ruler in India to resent towards the opposing family which was hostile towards the occupation and the British dominance. After suppressing the national Indian revolution the Britishers offered the notables of the family political exile and to choose a country which they would like to go to. So they decided to go to Iraq their old home.


Muzaffar Al Nawab was born in Baghdad in 1934 and he like his family was kept running; due to political reasons. He moved from Iraq to Ahwaz (the southern part of Iran now, this was an Arab sheikhdom which was annexed by the Persians, stretching for almost all the south of Iran.) due to the political situation in Iraq He was arrested by the Persians and given to the Iraqi government after torturing him. The Iraqis sentenced him to death and put him in a prison form where he ran away escaping to Beirut and finally settling in Damascus where he passed away.

This is how life goes on, moving and moving and moving

 

[redgriffin]

VIBS those doing that are idiots imho. Proving your patriotism, does not require rubishing your ancestery.
But don't doubt the patriotism of the ones detailing their ancestary here either.
I know that after listening to my late grandparent's tales of the horrors inflicted on them by hindus and sikhs, after hearing from my late paternal grand uncle how my great grandmother hid him in the hay loft when sikhs and hindus were rampaging through their muslim majority village. How she was martyred by the bastards while reciting the Quran (he kept that blood stained Quran with him all his life) as he watched helpless.
How my ancestral land which was a muslim majority area contigous with and supposed to be a part of Pakistan was dubiously given to India.
After knowing all this I will never come to love India or hindus or sikhs ever. Neither do my family/ extended wether in Pak or abroad. And I'll make sure neither do my prospective children in the future because I've learnt all that was told to me by heart and I'll make sure that they get to know all this by heart too.
Me and people like me will come to terms with the Indian kind, live alongside them, work alongside them but will never respect them or love them. Peace yes, Bhai Bhai over our collective dead bodies.

 

[SQ8]

Since we are all discussing ancestry..
My father's side.. Grandfather joined IN in 45(chose PN at partition).. hailing from Radoli .. apparently according to the shajrah(which I haven't really gone through because the Quran on which it is written on is with some relative) the line goes through Kashmir , Afghanistan .. and then all the way to the prophet.
Grandmother is from kakori.. her father was a staunch Congress supporter, ran a local newspaper.. and close friends with the Nehru's.

My mother's side.. both my grandmothers(paternal and maternal) are sisters..
My mother's father was from Shahjanpur.. his mother a Yousufzai.. they too have a shajrah(saw this one, was as old as I had heard it was.. needed some restoration but alas.. people dont listen)..

My curiosity is with my Grandmother's father .. specifically the paper he ran.. it was a prominent publication in Lucknow and its surroundings.
Interestingly .. I may mentioned this before.. Jawaharlal Nehru was a regular visitor at the "manzil" of my great grandfather and from all testimonies. As accomplished in literature and language as reputed. Spoke immaculate Urdu, good persian and was well versed in poetry from three languages. Urdu,some sanskrit and English.

 

[Vibs]

VIBS those doing that are idiots imho. Proving your patriotism, does not require rubishing your ancestery.
But don't doubt the patriotism of the ones detailing their ancestary here either.
I know that after listening to my late grandparent's tales of the horrors inflicted on them by hindus and sikhs, after hearing from my late paternal grand uncle how my great grandmother hid him in the hay loft when sikhs and hindus were rampaging through their muslim majority village. How she was martyred by the bastards while reciting the Quran (he kept that blood stained Quran with him all his life) as he watched helpless.
How my ancestral land which was a muslim majority area contigous with and supposed to be a part of Pakistan was dubiously given to India.
After knowing all this I will never come to love India or hindus or sikhs ever. Neither do my family/ extended wether in Pak or abroad. And I'll make sure neither do my prospective children in the future because I've learnt all that was told to me by heart and I'll make sure that they get to know all this by heart too.
Me and people like me will come to terms with the Indian kind, live alongside them, work alongside them but will never respect them or love them. Peace yes, Bhai Bhai over our collective dead bodies.

I've heard the same version from Hindu's and Sikhs who ran away from Pakistan to India. It worked both ways. There's a reason it was called a bloody partition. I am sure the descendants from either side will hate the other country. But that does not mean you discredit where you came from.

 

[SQ8]

Actually I meant to refer to those of us Muslims who have Hindu ancestry. Maybe you don't. But an avrage Muslim with hindu ancestry is indifferent to their hindu past.

He is indifferent..
but there is no harm for anybody to mention it.
Nor is it a crime to do so.

There is probably Buddhist, Jain. and other ancestry mixed in too.
That does not mean that its not worth searching about.. nor to be discouraged.
Curiously.. what is a Hindu past??
was it the ancestor's fault that there he was born a Hindu?? or perhaps that Islam had not reached that location?

 

[BelligerentPacifist]

Very informative thread. A lot of Pakistanis originally from parts of India and vise versa. Interesting

.They might be over-represented over here, maybe because this forum attracts patriotic types.

 

[somebozo]

The part of Indian subcontinent which is in today's Pakistan was conquered by Islamic-Arab armies of Mohammed bin Qassim and then became a part of various Islamic caliphates ruled by different dynasties. It is only natrual that being a part of Islamic khilafat, many Muslims of different ethnicity went and settled there. There is Bibi Pak Daman graveyard in Punjab, which is said to have women of Hazrat Ali family buried in there. As the Muslim influence increase, the Hindus feeling culturally isolated fled to other parts of Indian subcontinents.

It is only logical that after 14 centuries of direct association with Islam, there could be many Pakistanis claiming Arab, Persian, Mongol, Turk and other ancestries from traditional Islamic gun-power countries..

Why are some Indians burning their curry over this and feeling insecure that we are not proud of having Indian ancestry but rather Arab or foreign?
This is just part of "India super power" syndrome which many Indians suffers at best.

 

[Infiltrator]

Syeds-Qureshis and god knows what else, are not ethnic groups in Pakistan. Syed-Qureshi are nothing more than a name and title, used by groups who lost their true name and identity over the years.

I agree with most of your post.

Sorry, I meant for my first sentence to be seen as sarcasm and I suppose I didn't make it clear. Anyways, it's extremely doubtful that hundreds and thousands of people spread across the Middle East, Central Asia and South Asia have a common ancestor from the Arab world. So I seem them as honorific titles like you described.

 

[Infiltrator]

Another interesting fact is that Persian make hardly 40% of Iranians population. A large percentage of Iranians are actually Azeri and Turks.
So people who claim Afghani or Persian ancestry should dive deeper since both of the regions are multi-ethinic.
Pakistan also has a large concentration of Aryans on its northern side..Any Pakistani here claiming Aryan ancestry??
Also many Punjabis are ethinically rajput, aryan, persian and azeri.

Aryan ancestry? Didn't know Aryan was an ethnic group.

 

[aakash_2410]

lool It's funny how Pakistanis are going back before Indus Valley Civilisation in order to prove they are not Indians and Aryans came from Central Asia but then so did other 850 million Indians.

If you're going that back in the day then you might say You're Africans since human race was born in Africa?? lool

 

[Infiltrator]

Since you are not a Punjabi, who are you to make claims like this about Punjabis. There is very little Arab, Persian, Turk contribution to the Punjabi gene pool.

Those Punjabi who claim descent from invaders should be ashamed of themselves. They lost their names and identity over the centuries, and that is nothing to be proud about.

Punjabis do have admixture from other populations like many other ethnic groups but most of it is ancient. Other admixture is due to the Punjab region's geographical location which led to many invasions. Though, that admixture is likely very little. In terms of genetics, they have West Asian and European admixture other than the expected South Asian which is a mix of Ancestral North Indian (more related to Eurasian populations) and Ancestral South Indian. What this means is that many Punjabis likely shared a common ancestor with West Asian and European populations thousands of years ago before migrating into different directions. They are still ethnically Punjabi and these admixtures are pretty normal for the average Punjabi.

Anyways, that's how I see it based on the studies I've read. Now, claiming a recent ancestor from foreign lands is another story and could be proven or disproven through genetic tests.

 

[aakash_2410]

'This study also found that roughly 42% of genetic markers in the Punjab were of West Asian origin, the highest amongst the sampled group of South Asians.[dubious – discuss] Another study also showed that there has been limited gene flow in and out of north India, but the highest amount of genetic inflow from the west showed up in the Punjab region:
Broadly, the average proportion of mtDNAs from West Eurasia among Indian caste populations is 17% (Table 2). In the northern States of India their share is greater, reaching over 30% in Kashmir and Gujarat, nearly 43% in Indian Punjab.'

Punjabi people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So according to this Punjabis, Sindhis, Kashmiris and Gujaratis share the same ancestral roots.

 

[Infiltrator]

'This study also found that roughly 42% of genetic markers in the Punjab were of West Asian origin, the highest amongst the sampled group of South Asians.[dubious – discuss] Another study also showed that there has been limited gene flow in and out of north India, but the highest amount of genetic inflow from the west showed up in the Punjab region:
Broadly, the average proportion of mtDNAs from West Eurasia among Indian caste populations is 17% (Table 2). In the northern States of India their share is greater, reaching over 30% in Kashmir and Gujarat, nearly 43% in Indian Punjab.'

Punjabi people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So according to this Punjabis, Sindhis, Kashmiris and Gujaratis share the same ancestral roots.

There is genetic relations between the 4 populations but I think certain populations migrated to northern parts of the subcontinent later than other populations and that is what led to the differences between them.

 

[DARKY]

The whole of North India was occupied by Vedic Aryans way back in 2000 BC.......and they the Vedic religions was what they followed before the arrival of Jainism and Buddhism.......even after their arrival it was the native Indians which proffered them most and Aryans generally continued with Hinduism in Vedic form which according to me is the best form of Hinduism.

During the peak time in Buddhist age it were the central Asians who came and settled in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Kashmir and Punjab........so if any one who says Rajputs were Aryans are wrong they were mostly the central Asians.

 

[DARKY]

Gandhara grave culture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swat_culture