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MUSLIMS
The Muslims are not evenly distributed over the state. They are found in
western divisions of Meerut, Agra and Rohilkhand and in the eastern districts in
the terai area, in Gonda and Bahraich, in Azamgarh, Jaunpur and Ghazipur.
The fertile plains of Uttar Pradesh offered an ideal habitat for the early
Muslim settlers who came in the wake of the establishment of Turkish rule in
India. The hostility was confined mainly within the ruling classes - The Rajas,
Rawats, Rais and the original village echelons and the muqtis and their
subordinates. Years before the Ghurid conquest of northern India, the Muslims
had settled in Badaun, Bahraich, Kannauj, Unnao and Bilgram. Muslim
concentration in towns was primarily due to their socio-political organizations,
their exclusive racial and religious complexion. Muslims have always had an
influential upper class consisting of Nawabs, Rajas and Chaudhries because of
their historical antecedents. Included in this class, before zamindari
abolition, was a large retinue of personal staff and hangers-on (musahibs) who
maintained the airs of their aristocratic masters and liked to be classified
along with them.
The middle class, comparatively thin among Muslims, is engaged in the
traditional trades like leather, timber (in the terai area), tobacco and perfume
(in Lucknow). There is only a sprinkling of Muslims in the services and
professions. Commerce and trade was not a Muslim forte.
Muslims have overwhelmingly large lower class, appallingly poor,
conservative and hide-bound. It consists of artisans, petty traders, weavers,
carpet makers, labourers, butchers, hide-flayers, vegetable-settlers and the
like. They have no independent thinking and are guided solely by their religious
leaders. The Muslims are stratified into four broad divisions. There were Sayyid,
Shaikh, Mughal and Pathan.
These four broad divisions and their further sub-divisions are besides the
two principal sects in which Muslims can be classified - Sunnis and Shias. The
Shias form a fractional minority and are concentrated mostly in Lucknow, Jaunpur
and Amroha. Their number is less than that of Sunnis. The former Nawabs of Avadh
and Rampur were Shias. Only in Lucknow the Shias form an influential minority
among Muslims.
The caste system among Muslims has outgrown its rigidity. Intermarriages
among Shias and Sunnis take place, not to speak of intermarriages among Sunni
castes themselves and there are no inter-dining or pollution taboos. A process
of raising of caste status is prevalent among the Muslim. The term 'Ashrafization'
has been coined for the process of elevation of lower ranks on the Ashraf
pattern. The purdah or seclusion of women had become a common practice. With the abolition of
Zamindari, the upper class - the landed aristocracy -
has vanished into thin air.
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