The Sindhi Jats (Sindhi: سنڌي جت/جاٽ) are the Sindhi community, who are the indigenous population of Sindh.[1][2][3][4]
Languages | |
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Sindhi (different dialects). | |
Religion | |
Islam | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Jats |
All the Jats of Sindh are muslims except one tribe of "Jātia" which is a hindu tribe of Thar desert.[5] The Jats of Sindh are mainly divided into three sections:
The Jats are one of the ancient Sindhi tribes, many Arab, Persian, and Greek historians have written about Jats, and ancient Hindu texts have also mentioned them. The Arab historians like Al-Biladuri and Ibn Hawqal mentions two Sindhi tribes "Zutts (Jats) and 'Meds".[12][13]
The Persian written Chachnama mentions the Sama, Sahita, Channa, Lohana, Meds and Jats as the ancient indigenous people of Sindh.[14] There is probably also the mention of Sindhi jats in Hindu epic Mahabharata, in which Jats are mentioned as inhabitants of Sindh, and they were associated with sea and river occupations.[15]
The Sindhi Jats were pastoralists in lower Sindh, the original homeland of the Sindhi Jats was the lower Indus valley of Sindh. They were nomadic pastoralists who had migrated from the lower Indus river valley of Sindh to the northern parts of Sindh (including present-day Multan) and later to Punjab and other north Indian regions.[16][17][18] Some of these Sindhi Jats migrated as far as Iraq,[19] Middle East and in Persian Gulf countries. There are also many Sindhi Jats living in Bandar Abbas in Iran.[5] They were originally Hindus by religion and were the earliest people of Indian subcontinent who had interaction with the pre-islamic inhabitants of Iran and Middle East, multiple trading communities of Jats existed in the pre-Islamic Arabia.[20] They were referred as Zutts (Arabic: الزُّطِّ, romanized: Az-Zutt) by arabs in early Arab writings, and as (Jat-an or Jaat) by Persians.[9] The arabs also called them Al Asawera, Al Siyabij, Al Andargar, Madan, etc.[5] They were also present in Mesopotamia and Syria.[1]
During the Arab conquest of Sind in 711 AD, Sindhi Jats underwent resettlement orchestrated by al-Ḥajāj to a comparable riverine setting in Lower Iraq, referred to as the Baṭāʾiḥ. Subsequently, both al-Walīd I and Yazīd I oversaw the relocation of additional Jat groups to northwestern Syria, accompanied by water buffaloes suitable for the region's warm coastal plains. Nevertheless, a notable portion of the Jat populace chose to remain in Iraq.[21]
Sindhi Jats were the first people of the Indian subcontinent who embraced Islam during the Prophet Muhammad era,[22] they fought on the side of Ali in the Battle of the Camel in 656 under their chief, Ali B. Danur.[23] The Sindhi Jats of Arabia helped Muhammad bin Qasim in the conquest of Sind in the eighth century.[24][5] All the Jats (Zutt) of the world have origins in Sindh.