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Sindhi people

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sindhi
سنڌي
Map of Sindhi diaspora
Total population
c. 37 million[1] (census)
Regions with significant populations
 Pakistan 34,252,262[2]
 India3,810,000[3][a]
 Saudi Arabia180,980[source?]
 United Arab Emirates94,620[4]
 United Kingdom51,015[5]
 United States38,760[6]
 Philippines33,000
 Hong Kong20,000
 Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (Sindhis in Afghanistan)15,000
 Bangladesh15,000
 Canada12,065
 Singapore[7]11,860
 Indonesia10,000
 Kenya3,300[8]
 South Africa3,168
 Australia2,635[9]
 Bahrain1,508
 Sri Lanka1,000[10]
 Saint Martin1,000
 Kuwait825
 Oman700[11]
 Tanzania616
 Malaysia600
 Gibraltar500[12]
 Mozambique266
 Mauritius200
 Madagascar116
 Belize100
 Turkey91
 Fiji86
 Yemen66
 Qatar41
 Malawi21
Languages
Sindhi
English, Hindi–Urdu (Sanskrit/Arabic as liturgical languages) and numerous other languages widely spoken within the Sindhi diaspora
Religion
Majority:
Islam: 80 %
Minority:
Related ethnic groups
Other Indo-Aryan peoples

Sindhis (Sindhi: سنڌي; Sindhī) are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of people originating from the Sindh province of Pakistan. Today Sindhis mostly practice Islam, but historically they practised Buddhism and Hinduism also a large minority of them still do today. The original inhabitants of ancient Sindh were believed to be aboriginal tribes speaking languages of the Indus Valley civilization around 3000 BC. This population then mixed with the Aryans that arrived later on which created the modern Sindhi ethnic group.[14][15][16]

In the book Kitab-ul-Hind, the Persian scholar Abū Rayhān Bīrūnī (Al-Beruni) declared that even before the advent of Islam into Sindh (711 A.D.), the Sindhi language was prevalent in Sindh.

Religion

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Sindh was the first place in the Indian subcontinent to be conquered by a Muslim state and the first to have a significant Muslim population. Islam arrived in Sindh after the Umayyad conquest and annexation of Sindh in the year 711 AD led by the Arab general Muhammad ibn Qasim. Sindh became the easternmost province of the Caliphate. The second significant religion of the Sindhis is Hinduism which is the historical religion of Sindhi people as it was practised before the Muslim conquest. Today, Sindhi Hindus make up about 20% of the total ethnic Sindhi population worldwide. Sindhi Hindus also revere the Sikh gurus and especially the first Sikh guru, Guru Nanak.

Every year for 30 years during the early 20th century, Sikh missionary groups were sent to work among Sindhis. Because of this, the number of Sindhi Sikhs increased from 1000 in 1901 to over 39,000 in 1941. During the Partition of former British India in 1947, many Sindhi Hindus and Sindhi Sikhs left for India. They settled in Mumbai, New Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat. Later, a small number of them decided to settle in the Punjab State of India. Their main centers of pilgrimage are Sadhu Bela, an Udasi sect shrine built in 1823 in Sukkur District. They also visit the Sikh shrines of Nankana Sahib, Panja Sahib, and Dehra Sahib in Punjab Province of Pakistan. Today, there is still a large Sindhi Hindu minority in the Sindh province of Pakistan. However, the majority of Sindhi Hindus live in India as their forefathers migrated there during partition.

Notes

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  1. ↑ Includes those who speak the Sindhi language. Ethnic Sindhis in India who no longer speak the language are not included in this number.

References

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  1. ↑ 30.26 million in Pakistan (2017 census), 1.68 million in India (2011 census).
  2. ↑ "Pakistan". 17 August 2022. Archived from the original on 22 March 2021. Retrieved 11 August 2022.
  3. ↑ "Scheduled Languages in descending order of speaker's strength – 2011" (PDF). Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India. 29 June 2018. Archived (PDF) from the original on 14 November 2018. Retrieved 10 July 2019.
  4. ↑ "Unknown" (PDF). 21 April 2021. Archived from the original (pdf) on 21 April 2021.
  5. ↑ "UK Government Web Archive". webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 1 June 2022. Retrieved 7 March 2023.
  6. ↑ "Explore Census Data". Archived from the original on 26 November 2020.
  7. ↑ "Sindhis". Encyclopedia.com. Archived from the original on 7 May 2021. Retrieved 10 June 2022.
  8. ↑ "Sindhi in Kenya people group profile | Joshua Project". Joshua Project. Archived from the original on 19 March 2023. Retrieved 19 March 2023.
  9. ↑ "SBS Australian Census Explorer". www.sbs.com.au. Archived from the original on 30 January 2023. Retrieved 2023-01-30.
  10. ↑ "Sindhi in Sri Lanka". Joshua Project. Archived from the original on 13 February 2023. Retrieved 2023-02-13.
  11. ↑ "Sindhi in Oman group profile". Joshua Project. 23 April 2023.
  12. ↑ "About | The Hindu Community of Gibraltar". Hindu Community Gib. Archived from the original on 13 January 2023. Retrieved 13 January 2023.
  13. ↑ "Kashmiri: A language of India". Ethnologue. Archived from the original on 11 January 2012. Retrieved 2 June 2007.
  14. ↑ "Baloch and Sindhis share historic ties". 26 May 2017.
  15. ↑ SARAO, K. T. S. (2017). "Buddhist-Muslim Encounter in Sind During the Eighth Century". Bulletin of the Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute. 77: 75–94. JSTOR 26609161 – via JSTOR.
  16. ↑ "Sindh History - Government of Sindh". Archived from the original on 2018-05-07. Retrieved 2024-01-09.


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