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The Muslim Kayastha (Urdu: مسلمان کائستھ), also known as Siddiqui, are a community of Muslims, are related to the Kayastha of northern India, mainly modern Uttar Pradesh, who converted to Islam during the rule of the Islamic empires in India.

History and origin

Origin

They consider themselves part of the Shaikh community, and claim to be the descendants of Abu Bakr, the first Sunni Caliph, who was a companion of and the father-in-law of Muhammad.

History

The Kayastha community has historically converted to Islam and held the occupations of land record keeping, administration and accounting. They speak Urdu, although they are also fluent in Hindi in India. In Pakistan they also speak Sindhi and Punjabi.

The Muslim dynasties recruited individuals from different Hindu castes by merit and trained them to become civil servants and members of the Kayasth caste. They successfully adapted as scribes and functionaries under Islamic rule, then the British. In the reign of the Mughals, a number of educated upper caste Hindus with sharp intellects attained administrative positions through rapid adaptation to the Persian language and culture of these new rulers of South Asia. These influential upper caste Hindus formed the Kayastha, whose secular viewpoint and adaptability allowed them to succeed.

Most South Asian kingdoms and princely states valued Kayasthas as desired citizens or immigrants in the second millennium. They treated the Kayasthas more as a community than a Hindu caste, because they developed expertise in Persian (the state language in Islamic India), and learned Turkish and Arabic, economics, administration and taxation. This gave them an edge over the Brahmins, the priestly Hindu caste) who traditionally reserved the study of Sanskrit shastras for themselves. Muslim Kayastha outnumber the Hindu Kayastha even today. They adapted to change, such as the advent of the British Raj. They learned English, and the more affluent sent their children to school in the United Kingdom. They became civil servants, tax officers, junior administrators, teachers, legal helpers and barristers, and rose to the highest positions accessible to natives in British India.

Distribution

India

The Muslim Kayasth live in the northern Indian states of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and also in other states: Jharkhand, West Bengal, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. There is also a portion of Kayasth community in Delhi, capital of India. In Uttar Pradesh, the Muslim Kayasth live in the urban and semi-urban centers of the state.

Pakistan

After the independence in 1947, many Muslim Kayasthas migrated and settled in the provinces of Sindh and Punjab in Pakistan. In Sindh province, they are mainly settled in the urban centers especially in Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur. In Punjab province, they have settled in Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan and Faisalabad. There is also large community also in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.

See also

• Shaikhs in South Asia
• Siddiqui
• Muhajirs

References

1. ^ Jahanara (1 January 2003). "The Muslim Kayasthas of India". The Oriental Anthropologist. 3 (1): 48–51. doi:10.1177/0976343020030106. ISSN 0972-558X. S2CID 220082119.
2. Khanam, Azra (30 August 2013). Muslim Backward Classes: A Sociological Perspective. SAGE Publications India. ISBN 9788132116509. Archived from the original on 3 February 2022. Retrieved 5 September 2017.
3. Sharma, Satish Kumar (1987). Reform, Protest, and Social Transformation. Ashish Publishing House. p. 224. ISBN 978-81-7024-098-3. They are converts from Kayastha caste among the Hindus but today they claim to be the descendants of Abu Bakr Siddiqui.
4. Gupta, Dipankar (1992). Social Stratification. OUP India. p. 223. ISBN 978-0-19-563088-6.
5. Venkatesh, Karthik (14 September 2016). "How Hindi Fought a Tough Battle to Emerge as an Official Language". TheQuint. Retrieved 8 November 2024.
6. Ling, Trevor (1980). Karl Marx and Religion in Europe and India. Macmillan Press. p. 112. ISBN 978-0-333-27683-9. It is significant that wherever they could the Muslim rulers appear to have made appointments to local administrative posts from the Kayastha caste rather than from the Brahmans.
7. Endogamy and Status Mobility among Siddiqui Shaikh in Social Stratication edited by Dipankar Gupta
8. Muslim Kayasthas of India by Jahanara KK Publications ISBN 978-81-675-6606-5

Notes

1. Jahanara (2003-01-01) The Muslim Kayasthas of India Journal. The Oriental Anthropologist. pp. 48 volume_3 (Issue 1)

• Muslim communities of Uttar Pradesh
• Social groups of Uttar Pradesh
• Muslim communities of Pakistan
• Shaikh clans
• Kayastha