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Gakhars (also Gakkhar or Ghakhar or Ghakkar) are a Punjabi community living in India with an ancient recorded history , originally belonging to the areas of West Punjab which now fall in the territory of Pakistan. Gakhars are found among Hindus and Sikhs in India and also among Muslims, and a large section of Muslim Gakhars are settled in Pakistan.

The Gakhars are an ancient tribe settled in Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Jhelum, Kashmir, Gilgit, Baltistan (Tibet), Chitral, and Khanpur regions in modern day Pakistan and India.

Before the independence of Pakistan, the Gakhar Hindus shared their ancestral homes with the rest of the tribe. After independence the Gakhar Hindus moved to India and they now live in various parts of north India.

Conversion to Islam

After the arrival of Islam into the South Asia a predominant section of Gakhars converted to Islam. The Muslim Gakhars in Pakistan are a prominent community in that country.

Ferishta records the conversion of the Gakhars to Islam by Muhammad of Ghor:

This barbarous people continued to make incursions on the Muslims till in the latter end of this kings reign, their chieftain was converted to the true faith when a captive. After becoming a proselyte he procured his release from the king, who endeavored to persuade him to convert his followers.

Ferishta goes on to record about the conversion of the Gakhars and other local people at the hands of Muhammad of Ghor -

most of the infidels who inhabited the mountains between Ghazni and the Indus were also converted, some by force and others by persuation

Hindu Marriage customs are recorded prevalent among Muslim Gakhars as late as the 18th century in the district gazetteer of Rawalpindi

old religious customs, obviously of Hindu origin are still observed by the Gakhars, or were until within a very short period, such as customs at marriage of lawa-pherna and Khari par baithana, and the Kazi and the Brahman are both present on such occasions. Further it is curious that their headmen always call themselves Raja and not by any other distinctively Musalman title. The name Gakhar too , seems to partake more of a Hindu than of Persian or Arabic form".

According to S A A Rizvi

the motives of Muizzuudin's conquests were no different from those of Mahmud of Ghazni. Both were in need of plunder from India to maintain their slave armies and to attract the wandering bands of Islamicized mercenaries known as "ghazis" to their forces. The Islamicization of India was not their main objective, although some tribal leaders such as the Gakkhars were encouraged to embrace Islam".

While a significantly large majority of Gakkhars did convert to Islam from Hinduism, during the medieval period many Gakhar Hindus did not convert and continued to live in their traditional homelands of Jhelum, Kashmir, and West Punjab (which now falls in the Pakistan Punjab).

Ferishta s account of Gakkhars

Ferishta 's account of the Gakhars as a tribe of wild barbarians, without either religion or morality, practicing polyandry and infanticide, is a literal translation from the Arabic of Ibn -i-Ansar, an earlier historian, who was there, however, writing of the wild tribes in the hills to the wast of Peshawar,and not of the Gakhars :the chapter in Ibn -i-Asir immediately following deals with the murder of Shahab-ud-din by the Gakhars :hence perhaps the mistake :or Ferishta may have borne a grudge against the Gakhars, who are said by him to have maltreated an ancestor of his own Hindu Shah (Ibn-i-Asir, page 82, Elliot, XII, Ferishta, P242)

Muhammad Ghori killed by Gakhars

Various Muslim historians record the encounter of Muhammad Ghori with the Gakkhurs and him being killed by the Hindu Gakhars. Some sources attribute his killing to the Khokhars another ancient clan. Hasan Nizami in his book the Taju-L-A'Sir has recorded the Kokars (Gakhar)s killing Ghori in the chapter The Return of Muhammad Ghori from Khwarzim and his war against the Gakkhurs and the Death of the Sultan of Sultans, Muhammad Sam

Genealogical records and clan histories of the Gakhars at Pehowa and Kankhal

The pandas or record keeping pandits of the Gakhars are located in Pehowa near Kurukshetra and Kankhal near Haridwar, both places in India, which are visited for spiritual reasons as well as to complete religious ceremonies after death. These are primary sources for the clan histories of the Gakhars. Often these Pandas are able to shed considerable light on Muslim clans as well converted from Hindus. It is also well known that gakhars are strong community in Punjab, Rajasthan & Delhi region.

External links

References

History of the rise of the Mohomedan Power in India –translated by John Briggs from the original Persian of Mohomed Kasim Ferishta – Vol1 Page104
History of the rise of the Mohomedan Power in India –translated by John Briggs from the original Persian of Mohomed Kasim Ferishta – Vol1 Page104
Gazetteer of the Rawalpindi District 1893-94, Punjab Government, 2001 Sang-e-Meel Publications, Lahore. Page 114
The wonder that was India II on page 22. Picador
A glossary of the tribes and castes of the Punjab and North -West provinces, compiled by H A Rose , vol II Page 275
Tarikh -I-Guzida of Hamdu-lla-Mustaufi. Page 140 and 269 from The History of India told by its own Historians H M Eliot and Dowson Volume 2
http://www.scribd.com/doc/420279/The-History-of-India-Vol-II

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Gakhars (Hindu)