Caste in Muslims 1-2

Muslims are segmented into different status categories on the basis of income, occupation, education and lineage.

The most familiar approach to understand Muslim stratification is by dividing the community into ashraf (Muslims of foreign lineage) and ajlaf (local converts).

The ashrafare regarded as the superior group and are mainly endogamous, while the ajlaf are considered to be inferior.

Some scholars use another category, arzal, to denote Muslims who converted from the lowest strata of Hindu society.

 Azra Khanam estimates that Muslim OBCs constitute more than 80 per cent of the total Muslim population. She mainly looks at the ajlaf category, which constitutes the middle category of Indian Muslims. The author establishes the backwardness of Indian Muslims when compared with members of other communities before discussing the politics and history of reservation for OBCs in India. “…although the notion of purity and pollution among Muslims is absent, a certain degree of distance and affinity is found among them on the basis of the cleanliness of occupation, because occupations are hierarchically arranged….” 

provide them with the commensurate reservation. Sachar report 2006. Status of general Muslims lower than Hindu OBC. 

Vinod. K. Jairath. Muslim communities that have been studied in this book should not be seen as isolated ones.

Among the various communities examined in this work are the Muslim Jatts of Kutch in Gujarat, the Irani Shias of Hyderabad, the Sidis of Gujarat who are Indians of African descent, and the Borewale Muslims of Andhra Pradesh. The working of the All India Jamiatul Quresh, or the “butchers’ association”, is also examined.

P.R.G. Mathur argues that the “…Muslim caste system is part of the overall caste system in Kerala rather than a separate Muslim caste system”.

onthe Borewale Muslims of Andhra Pradesh, S.A.A. Saheb not only indicates the presence of social stratification among Muslims but also says that the “…Muslim system of social stratification lacks the ideological basis of the Hindu varna system, and hence it is neither rigid nor elaborate”.