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Hindu Gakhars (also Gakkhar or Ghakhar or Ghakkar) form the Hindu branch of the Gakhar clan.

The Gakhar clan is an ancient clan now located in Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Jhelum, Kashmir, Gilgit, Baltistan (Tibet), Chitral, and Khanpur regions in modern day Pakistan and India (in the latter case the majority are Hindu). According to the Gakhar legends, they are an Aryan clan (a racial designation first used by Darius the Great) of Persian descent.

Before the partition of India, the Gakhar hindus shared their ancestral homes with the rest of the clan. However, at the time of the partition in 1947 the Gakhar Hindus were uprooted from their ancestral homes and moved to India on account of the communal exchange of populations. They now live in various parts of North India .

Conversion to Islam

After the arrival of Islam into the subcontinent a predominant section of Gakhars converted to Islam from Hinduism, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism (of which they were traditional followers). The Muslim Gakhars in Pakistan are a prominent community in that country.

Hindu Marriage customs are recorded prevelant 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).

See also

• Gakhars
• Punjabi Muslim tribes from Hindu Lineage
• Shri K.L Gakhar Memorial Trust

References

1. Gazetteer of the Rawalpindi District 1893-94, Punjab Government, 2001 Sang-e-Meel Publications, Lahore. Page 114
2. The wonder that was India II on page 22. Picador

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