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Caste system among South Asian Muslims

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Although Islam does not recognize any castes, Muslim communities in South Asia apply a system of social stratification. It developed as a result of ethnic segregation between the foreign conquerors (Ashraf) and the local converts (Ajlaf).

Quotes

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  • Similarly, Ashraf—who sees Islam as a religion of ‘equality and fraternity’ and that it opened doors to low-caste Hindus for rising higher in society—found, based on mostly Islamic sources, that ‘With his conversion to Islam, the average Muslim did not change his old environment, which was deeply influenced by caste distinction and general social exclusiveness.’
    • Ashraf KM (1935), Life and Condition of the People of Hindustan (1220–1550 A.D.), Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal, Letters, p. 191.
  • They were known by the generic term Turks and they insisted on monopolizing all key posts and important positions, and maintaining their racial and exotic identity. This attitude was also shared by their children and children’s children, who though born in India, psychologically felt that they were Turks of foreign stock. On the other hand the foreign Muslims treated the Indian Muslim converts with contempt. … Conversion to Islam did not change their status, and foreign Muslims looked down upon them. The foreigners especially were not prepared to treat them on equal terms at all. To add insult to injury, the chronicler Ziya Barani, a confirmed believer in the racial superiority of the so-called Turks and baseness of the Indian Muslims, recommends:
    “Teachers of every kind are to be sternly ordered not to thrust precious stones down the throats of dogs… that is, to the mean, the ignoble, the worthless. To shopkeepers and the low born they are to teach nothing more than the rules about prayer, fasting, religious charity and the Hajj pilgrimage along with some chapters of the Quran and some doctrines of the faith without which their religion cannot be correct and valid prayers are not possible. They are to be instructed in nothing more. They are not to be taught reading and writing for plenty of disorders arise owing to the skill of the low-born in knowledge…” “The low-born, who have been enrolled for practising the baser arts and the meaner professions, are capable only of vices…” Indeed all neo-Muslims were called by the generic but contemptuous term julaha. Surely all the converts could not have come from the weaver caste, but the word julaha became synonymous with the despised low-born Indian Muslim convert. On the other hand the foreign Muslims (or Turks) “alone are capable of virtue, kindness, generosity, valour, good deed, good works, truthfulness, keeping of promises… loyalty, clarity of vision, justice, equity, recognition of rights, gratitude for favours and fear of God. They are, consequently, said to be noble, free born, virtuous, religious, of high pedigree and pure birth. These groups, alone are worthy of offices and posts in the government… Owing to their actions the government of the king is strengthened and adorned.” On the other hand the “low-born” (Indian) Muslims are capable only of vices - immodesty, falsehood, miserliness, misappropriation, wrongfulness, lies, evil-speaking ingratitude,…shamelessness, impundence… So they are called low-born, bazaar people, base, mean, worthless, plebian, shameless and of dirty birth”. …
    • Ziauddin Barani, quoted from Lal, K. S. (1990). Indian muslims: Who are they.
  • It is material to remark that the Great Mogol is a Mahometan, of the sect of the Sounnys, who, believing with the Turks that Osman was the true successor of Mahomet, are distinguished by the name of Osmanlys... The court itself does not now consist, as originally, of real Mogols; but is a medley of Usbecs, Persians, Arabs, and Turks, or descendants from all these people; known, as I said before, by the general appellation of Mogols. It should be added, however, that children of the third and fourth generation, who have the brown complexion, and the languid manner of this country of their nativity, are held in much less respect than new comers, and are seldom invested with official situations: they consider themselves happy, if permitted to serve as private soldiers in the infantry of cavalry.
    • Bernier, Francois, Travels in the Mogul Empire AD 1656-1668, Second edition revised by Vincent A Smith, Low Price Publications, 1994, First Published 1934. quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books. Volume III Chapter 16
  • In theory all Muslims are equal; in practice some have always been more equal than the others. Foreign Muslims tried to dominate over Indian Muslims. At the top were the Ulema or the learned, nobles and army commanders. They were all foreigners or descended from migrant Muslims. It was from the Ulema class that the high officers, of government as well as religious institutions were chosen. .... It was through these men that the regime systematized the religious and social life of the Muslim community just as it organized the extension and administration of Muslim dominions in India through the nobility.
    • Lal, K. S. (1990). Indian muslims: Who are they.
  • Turks of pure lineage and Tajiks of noble birth could not tolerate … the tribes of Hind to rule over them.
    • Minhaj Jurjani, quoted from K.S. Lal, Indian Muslims, who are they (2012)
  • In the medieval period, heredity and lineage were taken into account in the selection of officers and nobles, and as far as possible low-born Indian Muslims were not appointed to high offices. Foreign Muslims were generally preferred, not only in the Sultanate of Delhi or the Mughal Empire, but also in the independent kingdoms of Gujarat and Malwa and the Adil Shahi and Qutbshahi kingdoms of the Deccan. ... With this background, it needs no reiteration that, by and large, Muslim administration drew neither on India’s native tradition nor on native manpower and the development of Muslim administrative system and its implementation and execution in India owed much to foreign elements. ... The administration of the Sultanate and Mughal Empire was bureaucratic throughout. Over long periods this administrative system was dominated by immigrants from abroad, mainly West Asia and North Africa and this gave it much of the character of foreign and Islamic rule. Commenting on the list of mansabdars in the Ain-i-Akbari, Moreland says that while about 70 percent of the nobles were foreigners belonging to families which had either come to India with Humayun or had arrived at the court after the accession of Akbar, of the remaining 30 percent of the appointments which were held by Indians, rather more than half were Moslems and “rather less than half Hindus.”
    • Moreland, India at the Death of Akbar, pp.69-70 quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 4
  • The population of Indian Muslims grew rapidly through enslavement. This rapid growth gave rise to new problems. One was a tussle for power between foreign slave-Amirs and Indian slaves some of whom also attained to the position of nobles.... [Minhaj Siraj describes:] “The Maliks and servants of the Sultan’s Court were all Turks of pure lineage” (Turkan-i-pak) writes he, and Taziks of noble birth (Tazikan-i-guzida was). “Imad-ud-Din Rayhan (who) was castrated and mutilated, and of the tribe of Hind, was ruling over the heads of lords of high descent, and the whole of them were loathing that state, and were unable to suffer any longer that degradation.”... The language of Ziyauddin Barani is not less vituperative. He was a staunch believer in the racial superiority of the Turks and the baseness of Indian Muslims. He recommended that “Teachers of every kind are to be sternly ordered not to thrust precious stones down the throats of dogs… that is, to the mean, the ignoble, the worthless… To the low-born they are to teach nothing more than the rules about prayer, fasting, religious charity and the Hajj pilgrimage along with some chapters of the Quran and some doctrines of the faith… They (Indian Muslims) are not to be taught reading and writing for plenty of disorders arise owing to the skill of the low-born in knowledge… the low-born are capable only of vices… so they are called low-born, worthless, plebeian, shameless and of dirty birth.” ... The fate and fortune of the black Africans was not that good....the majority of them were treated as lesser Muslims.
    • Minhaj Siraj quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 7
  • Muslim ‘community’ in India had remained sharply divided into two mutually exclusive segments throughout the centuries of Islamic invasions and rule over large parts of the country. On the one hand, there were the descendants of conquerors who came from outside or who identified themselves completely with the conquerors - the Arabs, the Turks, the Iranians, and the Afghans. They glorified themselves as the Ashrãf (high-born, noble) or Ahli-i-Daulat (ruling race) and Ahl-i-Sa‘adat (custodians of religion). On the other hand, there were converts from among the helpless Hindus who were looked down upon by the Ashrãf and described as the Ajlãf (low-born, ignoble) and Arzãl (mean, despicable) depending upon the Hindu castes from which the converts came. The converts were treated as Ahl-i-Murãd (servile people) who were expected to obey the Ahl-i-Daulat and Ahl-i-Sa‘adat abjectly. Shah Waliullah (1703-62) and his son Abdul Aziz (1746-1822) were the first to notice this situation and felt frightened that the comparatively small class of the Ashrãf was most likely to be drowned in the surrounding sea of Hindu Kafirs. ... They had to turn to the neo-Muslims. The neo-Muslims, however, had little interest in waging wars for Islam. They had, therefore, to be fully Islamized, that is, alienated completely from their ancestral society and culture. That is why the Tabligh movement was started.
  • Muhammad Tughlaq always preferred foreign Muslims to Indians for appointment as officers. The rebellion of Ain-ul-mulk Multani (1339) during his reign was a symptom of the resentment felt by the India-born nobles against this policy of prejudice.... Foreign nobles looked down upon Indian Muslim nobles, and considered them as ‘lowborn’, although not all foreign Muslims were of high lineage.
    • Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 5
  • “Would our aristocracy like that a man of low caste or insignificant origin, though he be a B.A. or M.A., and have the requisite ability, should be in a position of authority above them and have power in making laws that affect their lives and property? Never! Nobody would like it.”
  • It is true that Balban also made detailed enquiries about the families of all his officers. He refused to grant audience to a low-born officer (Amir-i-Bazariyan) for “granting him an interview would reduce the status of the king in the eyes of the common people and diminish the prestige of the throne”.
    • Lal, K. S. (1990). Indian muslims: Who are they.
  • Muslim ‘community’ in India had remained sharply divided into two mutually exclusive segments throughout the centuries of Islamic invasions and rule over large parts of the country. On the one hand, there were the descendants of conquerors who came from outside or who identified themselves completely with the conquerors - the Arabs, the Turks, the Iranians, and the Afghans. They glorified themselves as the Ashrãf (high-born, noble) or Ahli-i-Daulat (ruling race) and Ahl-i-Sa‘adat (custodians of religion). On the other hand, there were converts from among the helpless Hindus who were looked down upon by the Ashrãf and described as the Ajlãf (low-born, ignoble) and Arzãl (mean, despicable) depending upon the Hindu castes from which the converts came. The converts were treated as Ahl-i-Murãd (servile people) who were expected to obey the Ahl-i-Daulat and Ahl-i-Sa‘adat abjectly. Shah Waliullah (1703-62) and his son Abdul Aziz (1746-1822) were the first to notice this situation and felt frightened that the comparatively small class of the Ashrãf was most likely to be drowned in the surrounding sea of Hindu Kafirs. ... They had to turn to the neo-Muslims. The neo-Muslims, however, had little interest in waging wars for Islam. They had, therefore, to be fully Islamized, that is, alienated completely from their ancestral society and culture. That is why the Tabligh movement was started.
  • In fact, their contempt for the native converts was deeper than that for their Hindu subjects. They had all along looked down upon the native converts as Ajlãf (low-born) and Arzãl (base-born) as compared to the Ashrãf (exalted) which distinctive designation they had reserved for themselves..... It was at this critical juncture that the frustrated fraternity of foreign Muslims took a very strategic step. They started swearing by a solidarity with the native Muslims whom they had despised so far. They let loose on the native Muslims an army of mercenary Mullahs recruited, mostly from their own ranks. These Mullahs went about broadcasting the message that ‘Islam was in danger’, and that ‘Hindus were out to enslave and exploit the Muslim minority’. It was in this manner that the residues of Islamic imperialism managed to ‘merge’ themselves with the native converts, and to present themselves at the head of a strong phalanx pitted against whatever historical forces threatened their unjust privileges. Hitherto, the haughty Ashrãf had stood strictly aloof from the abject Ajlãf and the despised Arzãl. Now all of a sudden the latter became the former’s ‘brothers in faith’. This was a tremendous transformation of the political scene in the second decade of the 20th century.
  • The principle of ranking finds a vigorous application. Those who claim foreign ancestry are the aristocracy, the Ashraf. They have their own ranking: Sayyids, Sheikhs, Moghuls and Pathans. They are divided into subsidiary categories, generally all endogamous. The local converts constitute the plebeian class and are frankly called Ajlaf and Arzal, Arabic words which mean the wretched, the ignoble, the mean, the triflings. … They are further divided literally into hundreds of castes, most of them strictly endogamous.
    • Ram Swarup: Woman in Islam. also quoted in Decolonizing the Hindu Mind (2001) by Koenraad Elst Ram Swarup: Woman in Islam, p. 11. also quoted in Decolonizing the Hindu Mind (2001) by Koenraad Elst
  • The Muslim shares to a very high degree sensitivity about rank which is so characteristic of the Middle Ages. Not only is he rank conscious, but he is keenly concerned with expressing social distinctions .... Questions of precedence are of considerable importance. Mankind was divided into four orders.... 1. King, 2. Wazir, 3. Aristrocracy of Wealth, 4. The middle class... The rest of the population counted for nothing.
    • Gustave Grunebaum, Medieval Islam, in Lal, K. S. (2001). Historical essays. New Delhi: Radha.(II.145)
  • The Ashraf caste are the highest and claim to be descendants of Prophet Muhammad, or other Arab chiefs, or Turks, or Persians. The Ajlaf are people of Indian origin who got converted by Islamic invasions; the Arzal are the lowest castes among Muslims. The Urdu word, quam , refers to caste and is commonly mentioned in matrimonial advertisements in Pakistan. In theory, caste is ostensibly banned in Islam, and so the politically correct interpretation of quam is ethnicity or community with common heritage. There are communities that identify themselves as Dalit Muslims.
    • Malhotra, R. & Viswanathan V. (2022). Snakes in the Ganga : Breaking India 2.0.
  • Evidence that Indian Muslims have strong caste prejudices among them is compelling. Early Muslim historians of medieval India like Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani and Ziauddin Barani (thirteenth-fourteenth century ce) denigrated the Indian converts to Islam. Barani advocated that the sultans should employ only those persons in government service that had aristocratic backgrounds by birth. He advised that children of low caste Hindu converts to Islam should not be admitted into madrassas because this education would qualify them for government jobs. Sultan Ghiyasuddin Balban (r. 1266-87 ce) made noble birth a prerequisite for state service and rejected candidates for official positions if they were low caste converts to Islam. It is also notable that when Sir Syed Ahmed Khan founded the Aligarh Muslim University in 1875, it banned admission to low caste Muslims.
    • Malhotra, R. & Viswanathan V. (2022). Snakes in the Ganga : Breaking India 2.0.
  • An overwhelming majority (seventy-five percent) of the present Indian Muslim population is called Dalit Muslims. Caste and untouchability are a lived reality for Muslims in South Asia, and untouchability is the community’s worst-kept secret. Many studies have claimed that concepts of ‘purity and impurity’; ‘clean and unclean castes’ definitely exist among Muslim groups. A 2009 study found there was not one ‘Dalit Muslim’ leader in any of the prominent Muslim organizations, which were dominated essentially by upper caste Muslims. In another 2015 study of seven thousand Dalit Muslim households across fourteen districts in Uttar Pradesh, many testified that they are seated separately at Muslim feasts. Respondents also confirmed that they eat only after the upper caste Muslims. Many said they are served food on separate plates. Around eight percent reported that their children are seated in separate rows in classes and also during school lunches. Similarly, at least a third of them stated that they are not allowed to bury their dead in an upper caste Muslim burial ground. They are told to go elsewhere or provided a corner of the main ground.
    • Malhotra, R. & Viswanathan V. (2022). Snakes in the Ganga : Breaking India 2.0.
  • These are the phenomena that account for the enormous increase in the number of those whom we today know of as Scheduled Castes and Tribes. Hardly any Muslim chronicler and historian of the period asserts that the ‘lower castes’ were embracing Islam because some high caste was oppressing them. On the contrary several of them record how different castes lived together, and peaceably. One after the other among them pours special venom on the ‘lower castes’ for being the most determined resisters to the spread of Islam. All this is evident from the memoirs of the emperors themselves, from the accounts of Islamic historians themselves. Yet, our judges repeat the cliches.
    Nor is it the case that Islam enabled those who converted to enter some egalitarian Utopia. Quite the contrary. And we do not have to look farther than the judgments themselves. What is the ‘reason’ these very judgments give for extending reservations to Muslims, for instance? What is the reason they give for overturning so central a theme of the Constitution and its maker – that such concessions shall not be given along communal fault lines? The ‘reason’ the judges give is that castes continue among Muslims to this day. Is this also because of Hinduism? Or because, as K.S. Lal shows, Islamic rule never aimed to, nor did it in fact, catapult people into some egalitarian Utopia?
    • Arun Shourie - Falling Over Backwards (2012)
  • Mr. Beverley’s opinion, that even a low-caste Hindu, on his conversion to Islam, attains to a position of equality with the generality of Musalmans, simply betrays his ignorance of the customs of the Musalmans. From a religious point of view, of course, all Musalmans stand on a footing of equality. But according to usage and customs the social position and the family rank of a man do not become altered by the change of religion. .In fact the social position of a Musalman convert exactly corresponds to the station he held previous to his conversion, and he can associate with only such Musalmans as belong to the same station as he himself ; a low-caste person on his embracing Islam, is not allowed to hold familiar intercourse or claim equality with high-born Musalmans, nor can a Hindu of superior caste, upon his conversion to Islam, marry into a respectable Musalman family. Rigid and scrupulous regard has ever been paid by the Musalmans to social position and family dignity.
    • The origin of the Musalmans of Bengal : being a translation of "Haqiqate Musalman-i-Bengalah... "by Rubbee, Khondkar Fuzli [1]
  • Wise witnessed in Bengal that some Bediya outcastes of the Hindu society had converted some thirty years ago (c. 1850) and become practising Muslims, ‘but they cannot enter the public mosque or find a place in the public graveyard. From a social point of view they are still aliens with whom no gentleman will associate or eat. The treatment of the Chandal by the Sudra is in no respect more rigorous or harsh than that of the Bediyas by the upper ranks of Muhammadans.’
    • Wise J (1894) The Muhammadans of Eastern Bengal, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. 63, 3:1, p. 61

See also

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