Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Write a short note on caste in Muslims (200 Words)

Caste was for a long time regarded as a structural and cultural phenomenon of Hinduism as the Indology dominated the sociological research.But now with more and increasing emphasis on empirical findings sociologist have recorded castes among many other religions as well with Muslims also.

Earlier when Muslim attacked India due to the egalitarian prophesy of Muslim religion the lower rung castes converted in to Muslims.And as NK Bose suggested they continued to adhere to caste-patterned endogamy and hereditary traditional occupation and thus carried the basics of castiesm into Muslim rungs.

A renowned Muslim scholar Yoginder Sikand wrtites, “The vast majority of the Indian Muslims are descendants of converts from what is today called ‘Hinduism’ and further repeated Bose’s status that they carried endogamy and other basics to Muslims.

Indian Muslims have been known to stratify their society according to Quoms. These Muslims practise a ritual-based system of social stratification. The Quoms who deal with human emissions are ranked the lowest. Studies of Bengali Muslims in India indicate that the concepts of purity and impurity exist among them and are applicable in inter-group relationships, as the notions of hygiene and cleanliness in a person are related to the person's social position and not to his/her economic status. Muslim Rajput is another caste distinction among Indian Muslims. Some of the backward or lower-caste Muslim caste include Kunjra, Dhobi and Halalkhor. The upper caste Muslim caste include Qureshi, Shaikh Ansari, Syed, Pathan, Turk, Sheikh and Malik. Genetic data has also supported this stratification.

It seems that four layered caste system (varna system) in strict sense is not observed by ordinary Muslims. Existance of caste among Muslims can be understood by looking at the practice of endogamy within caste, nature of social interaction and representation at religious, social and power places. In Indian Muslim society, it is basically Ashraf (upper caste) or non-Ashraf (lower caste). At some places, categorisation of three levels is also mentioned, namely, Ashraf (equivalent to upper caste), Ajlaaf (equivalent to OBCs) and Arzaal (equivalent to SCs/STs). Sachar Committee Report clearly mentioned the above three categories.