Pdewan: Pdewan moved page Rajput: Tribes Chanab to Rajput Tribes: Chanab without leaving a redirect

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Pdewan moved page Rajput: Tribes Chanab to Rajput Tribes: Chanab without leaving a redirect

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‎=Rajput: Tribes Chanab

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This article is an extract from
PANJAB CASTES
SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I.
2014-04-29T08:45:26Z

Created page with " {| class="wikitable" |- |colspan="0"|<div style="font-size:100%"> This article is an extract from PANJAB CASTES SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. <br..."

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{| class="wikitable"
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|colspan="0"|<div style="font-size:100%">
This article is an extract from 

PANJAB CASTES 

SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. 

Being a reprint of the chapter on 
The Races, Castes and Tribes of 
the People in the Report on the 
Census of the Panjab published 
in ''' 1883 ''' by the late Sir Denzil 
Ibbetson, KCSI 

Lahore : 

Printed by the Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, 

1916. 
''Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor disagrees '' 
''with the contents of this article.''
</div>
|}
[[Category:India|R]]
[[Category:Communities|R]]

==Rajput: Tribes Chanab=
''' The Hiraj (No. 7)'''

The Hiraj is a Sial clan which
holds a tract on the banks of the Ravi just aliove its junction with the Chanab. It is possible that
some of the clan have returned themselves as sial simply, and are therefore not represented in the
figures. The Hiraj oi Multan have returned themselves as Sial Hiraj to the number of 3,380, and
are shown in both columns.

''' The Sial (No. 8) ''' — The Sial is politically one of the most important tribes of the Western
Plains. As Mr. Steedman observes, the modern history of the Jhang district is the history of the
Sial. They are a tribe of Punwar Rajputs who rose to prominence in the first-half of the 18th
century. Mr. Steedman writes : They were till then probably a pastoral tribe, but little given to
husbandry, dwelling on the hanks of river, and grazing their cattle during the end of the cold and
the first mouths of the hot weather in the low lands of the Chanab, and during the rainy season in
the uplands of the Jhang bar. The greater portion of the tract now occupied by them was prob
ably acquired during the stormy century that preceded the conquest of Hindustan by the
Mughals. During this period the country was dominated from Bhera, and sometimes from
Multan. The colletion of revenue from a nomad population inhabiting the fastnesses of the bar
and the deserts of the ihal could never have been easy, and was probably seldom attempted. Left
alone, the Sial apphed themselves successfully to dispossessing those that dwelt in the land — the
nols, Bhangus, Mangans, Marrals, and other old tribes — amusing themselves at the same time with
a good deal of internal strife and quarrelling, and now and then with stiffer fighting with the
Kharrals and Biloches.

Then for 200 years there was peace in the land, and the Sials remained quiet subjects of the
Lahore Subah, the seats of local government being Chiniot and Shorkot. Walidad Khan died in
1747, one year before Ahmad Shah Abdali made his first inroad and was defeated before Dehli.
It is not well known when he succeeded to the chieftainship, but it was probably early in the
century ; for a con.siderable time must have been taken up in the reduction of minor chiefs and
the introduction of all the improvements with which Walidad is credited. It was during
Walidad's time that the power of the Sials reached its zenith. The country subject to Walidad
extended fi-om Mankhera in the Thai eastwards to Kamalia on the Ravi, from the confluence of the
Ravi and Chanab to the ilaka of Pindi Bhattian beyond Chiniot. He was succeeded by his
''nephew Inayatula, who was little if at all inferior to his uncle in administrative and military
ability. He was engaged in constant warfare with the Bhangi Sikhs on the north, and the
chiefs of Multan to the south. His near relations, the Sial chiefs of Rashidpur, gave him constant
trouble and annoyance. Once indeed a party of forty troopers raided Jhang, and carried off the
Khan prisoner. He was a captive for six months. The history of the three succeeding chieftains
is that of the growth of the power of the Bhangis and of their formidable rival the Sukarehakia
misl, destined to be soon the subjugator of both Bhangis and Sials. Chiniot was taken in 1803,
Jhang in 1806. Ahmad Khan, the last of the Sial Khans, regained his country shortly after in
1808, but in 1810 he was again captured by the Maharaja, who took him to Lahore and threw him
into prison. Thus ended whatever independence the Sial Khans of Jhang had ever enjoyed.

The Sials are descended from Rai Shankar, a Punwar Rajput, a resident of Daranagar
between Allahabad and Fattahpur. A branch of the Punwars bad previously emigrated from their
native country to Jauupur, and it was there that Rai Shankar was born. One story has it that
Rai Shankar had three sons, Seo, Teo, and Gheo, from whom have descended the Sials of Jhang,
the Tiwanas of Shahpirr and the Ghebas of Pindi Gheb. Another tradition states that Sial was
the only son of Rai Shankar, and that the ancestors of the Tiwanas and Ghebas were only
collateral relations of Shankar and Sial. On the death of Rai Shankar we are told that great
dissensions arose among the members of the family, and his son Sial emigrated during the reign
of Allanddin Ghori to the Panjdb. It was about this time that many Rajput famihes emigrated
from the Provinces of Hindustan to the Panjdb, including the ancestors of the Kharrals,
Tiwanas, Ghebas, Chaddhars, and Punwar Sials. It was the fashion in those days to be converted
to the Muhammadan religion by the eloquent exhortations of the sainted Bawa Farid of
Pak Pattan ; and accordingly we find that Sial in his wanderings came to Pak pattan, and there
renounced the religion of his ancestors. The Saint blessed him, and prophesied that his son's
seed should reign over the tract between the Jhelam and Chanab rivers. This prediction was not

* General Cunningham states that the Sial an; supposed to be descended from Raja Hudi, the
Indo-Seytbian opponent of the Bbatti Raja Rasalu of Sialkot ; but I do not find this tradition
mentioned elsewhere.very accurate. Baba Farid died abont 1264-65. Sial and his followers appear to have wandered
to and fro in the Bechna and Jctch doahs for some time before they settled down with some
degree of permanency on the right bank of the .jelam. It was during this unsettled period that
Sial married one of the women of the country, Sohag daughter of Bhai Khan Mekhan, of Saiwal
in the Shahpur district, and is also said to have built a fort at Sialkot while a temporary resident
there. At their first settlement in this district, the Sials occupied the tract of country lying
between Mankhera in the that and the river Jhelam, east and west, and from Khushab onthe
north to what is now the Garb Maharaja ilaka on the south.

The political history of the Sial is very fully described in the Jhang Settlement Report from
which I have made the above extract, while their family history is also discussed at pages 502 ff
and 520 of Griffin's Panjdb Chiefs. The clans of the Sials are very numerous, and are fully
described by Mr. Steedman in his Jhang Report, who remarks that it is fairly safe to assume that
any tribe (in Jhang only I suppose) whose name ends in ana is of Sial extraction.

The head-quarters of the Sials are the whole southern portion of the Jhang district, along the
left bank of the Chanab to its junction with the Ravi, and the riverain of the right bank of the
Chanab between the confluences of the Jahlam and Ravi. They also hold both banks of the Ravi
throughout its course in the Multan and for some little distance in the Montgomery district, and are
found in small numbers on the upper portion of the river. They have spread up the Jahlam into
Shahpur and Gujrat, and are found in considerable numbers in the lower Indus of the Derajat and
Muzaifargarh. Who the Sials of Kangra may be I cannot conceive. There is a Sial tribe of
Ghiraths ; and it is just possible that some of these men may have returned their caste as Sial, and
so have been included among Rajputs. Mr. Purser describes the Sial as large in stature and of a
rough disposition, fond of cattle and caring little for agriculture. They observe Hindu ceremonies
like the Kharral and Kathia, and do not keep their women in pardah. They object to clothes of
a brown {uda) colour, and to the use of brass vessels.

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-==Rajput:  Tribes Chanab=
+=Rajput:  Tribes Chanab=
 ''' The Hiraj (No. 7)'''

Rajput Tribes: Chanab - Revision history

Pdewan: Pdewan moved page Rajput: Tribes Chanab to Rajput Tribes: Chanab without leaving a redirect

Pdewan: /* =Rajput: Tribes Chanab */