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Gazi Mehr (غازي مهر) Profile picture
@GaziSikander
Apr 7, 2022 • 98 tweets • 38 min read • Read on X
*To all new followers & viewers*

Here is a *THREAD OF THREADS* dealing with all my posts on Panjabi history & other Panjabi related matters from an ethnic Muslim Panjabi focus/perspective.

It is arranged in chronological order for your convenience & to facilitate scrolling: Image
The Pre Vedic eon, the Harappans, & the Indus Valley civilisation (centred in Panjab & Sindh) (pre 1500BCE): ImageImage
The fall of the Indus Valley civilisation, the advent of the Aryans to Panjab & the dawn of the Rig Vedic age (1500BCE-1000BC): ImageImageImage
Middle to Late Rig Vedic age (1000BCE-500BCE): Image
The Mahajanapada period of Panjab (inc. Gandhara & Kamboja) (600BCE-345BCE): ImageImage
The Achaemenid conquest of the known world (535BCE): ImageImageImageImage
The Hellenic march for the world’s ending, the Kabul/Kophen campaign, Porus the king over the Jech doab, & the Indo-Greeks (356BCE-10CE): ImageImageImage
The overthrow of Macedonian rule, the expulsion of the Diadochos Seleucus Nicator, & the rise of the Panjab-based Mauryas (322 BCE–184 BCE): Image
The Mahabharata age (300BCE-300AD): ImageImage
The Scythians, Parthians, Alchon Huns & the Kushans
(10AD-600AD): ImageImageImageImage
Panjab & Sindh in the early Islamic age, the ‘Zutts’ (‘Jatts’, a collective term for folk in the Indus Valley (Panjab + Sindh)), & the Tankas:
(700AD-1000AD): ImageImageImage
The Panjab-origin Kabul/Hindu Shahi (822CE-1026CE): ImageImageImageImage
The Ghaznavid era (1026CE-1186CE): ImageImageImageImage
The Ghurids, the constant revolts of the Panjabi Khokhars & the murder of Shihabuddin Ghori by them, the Turkic Delhi Sultanate, & the rise of the Panjabi Muzaffarids in Gujarat (1186CE-1413CE): ImageImageImageImage
The Sayyids, the Timurid scourge, the Khokhars, the brothers Sarang Khan & Mallu Iqbal, & the Lodhis (1398CE-1526CE): ImageImageImage
The Mughal era, Gakhar-Sur war, & the Naderian invasion (1526CE-1752CE): ImageImageImageImage
The tumult & chaos of the 18th & 19th centuries, breakdown of political authority in Panjab, between the hammer & the anvil, the rise of the Sikhs & the Afghans (1752CE-1849CE): ImageImageImageImage
The colonial yoke, the resistance of 1857, British imposition of Urdu in Panjab, western schooling & the formation of the political & intellectual elites of what would become the state of Pakistan (1849CE-1947CE): ImageImageImageImage
The rise of the neo nation states in the east, the withdrawal of the British, the partition of Panjab, the blood-spattered exodus of Muslim Panjabis to their kin in West Panjab, & the formation of the Pakistani republic (1947CE-current): ImageImageImageImage
Mentions of ‘Panjab’, or some such variant, in historical documents from the Mahabharata (300BCE) to Mian Bakhsh (d.early 1900’s) to disprove embarrassingly baseless claim of ‘Panjab’ having no historical basis. In the following it is used for a land, a language, & a people: ImageImageImageImage
Panjabi saqafat/culture, language/linguistics, music, poetry, art, clothing, sports, wrestling, achievements, etc.: ImageImageImageImage
Here I go into more detail about the historical mentions of ‘Panjab’:
The diet of the Aryans of Panjab. The diet of modern Panjabi, esp. those in the rural areas, has little changed from their ancestors’ despite millennia between them:
Similarity in maintaining long hair between the Rig Vedic Aryans of Panjab & the Panjabi Dogars:
According to the Rig Veda, the first of all the Vedas, the Harappan natives the Aryans assaulted on entry into Panjab were phallic worshippers: ImageImageImage
Panjabi (Muslim) Wattoos, likely with some Panjabi Joiyas, of Pakpattan slay the Sikh misldar Hira Singh of the Nakkai misl, one of twelve, when the latter tried to invade Pakpattan:
Rise of Inayatullah Khan Sial in the unrest of the 18th century:
A contemporary (16th cen.) Portuguese illustration of what the Panjabi king of the Gujarat Sultanate (either Bahadur Khan or Mahmud Shah III) may have looked like:
The need for government funding to keep Panjabi kushti alive. Russia was successfully able to patronise & fund the martial arts in the Caucasus region thereby allowing common Caucasus folk to excel & make it to the world stage.
A Panjabi equestrian plays with the spear before the game begins:
On the likely origin of the Panjabi Barha ‘Syeds’ who were known for their valour, desiring to fight only in the van (front line) of the army:
An interesting account on the conversion to Islam of the Panjabi Chibs:
On the 400 year old proud Panjabi community in Delhi. They settled in Delhi in the 1600’s & quickly became an important part of the city’s social fabric:
Recent & clearer pictures of the cemetery of the Qaum e Panjabiyaan. Only ethnic Panjabis are admitted to be buried:
Panjabi culture day being celebrated in Sargodha, Panjab:

#punjabcultureday #punjab #Pakistan
The tomb of the Panjabi hero Rai Ahmad Khan Kharral who died fighting the British:
Panjabi MMA fighter, Ahmad Mujtaba Awan from Talagang, Panjab:
Panjabis dancing their traditional ‘luddi’ dance:
The British war machine attesting to Panjabi gallantry in their resistance to them:
Early Greek sources stating Chandragupta was a native of Panjab, like his vizier & the mastermind behind the founding of the Mauryan empire, Kautilya/Chanakya:
The turbulence of the Panjabi Kathia tribe who were more unruly than the Kharral tribe, & who joined Ahmad Khan in his revolt against the British:
Kabaddi raid:
Biruni paying poetic tribute to the Shahis:
The Panjabi Khokhars under the Shahis brutalise the Ghaznavid army:
Mian Muhammad Bakhsh mentions ‘Panjabi’ as both his language & the people he comes from. This should be an eye opener for the overwhelming majority of the folk in AJK of their ethnic identity:
The high esteem of the Jhang dialect of Panjabi we should all keep in mind:
The Panjabi Tankas being on friendly terms with Muslims:
The alliance of the Panjabi Gujjar chief of Gujrat, Alakhana, & the Hindu Shahi king, Lalliya:
The various etymologies of the Panjabi city of ‘Taxila’:
Alexander’s Kophen campaign & the war with the Kamboja/Kamboh:
Chanakya, the Panjabi mastermind behind the foundation of the Maurya empire, stating in his ‘arthashastra’ which horse breeds are best to purchase:
The Pashtuns who migrated to UP during the Mughal era were collectively known as ‘Rohilla’, a term derived from the Panjabi language to mean ‘one from a mountain/hill’:
Marriage custom of the Panjabi Gujjars of Jalandhar:
Mahabharata’s references to Panjab:
Different Panjabi tribes of the Mahabharata age. The Takkas/Tankas would survive till the early Islamic era (900’s CE) before likely being absorbed by the Jatts, whose probable parent group the ‘Jartikas’ was associated with the Tankas & Madras:
The Panjabi diet during the Mahabharata age:
Interesting development of religion inside Panjab & then beyond the Satluj river with the writing up of the other three Vedas:
The similarity between Prophetic ﷺ dress & traditional rural Panjabi garments:
The female companion from Panjab of the Buddha. Every Buddha is thought to have two chief male companions & two chief female companions. Khema, a princess of the Panjabi Madra tribe, was one of the Buddha’s two chief female companions:
The Panjabi Joiya tribe take on Arjuna & his force in the Kurukshetra war with mortal results:
The Panjabi Joiyas remain unaltered in their geographical positioning since the Mahabharata era to the present day:
The realisation of Pakistan’s nuclear program & Pakistan becoming a nuclear state is largely due to Panjabi scientists like Riazuddin:
A Panjabi ‘alim from a poor household finds himself ardently invited to the Delhi court of the Mughals by the emperor due to sheer talent & his breadth of knowledge & learning:
The intractable restless Panjabi Khokhars of the High Middle Ages:
The Panjabi Gakkhar-Pashtun Sur saga:
The Panjabi Khokhars brought the Tughluq dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate to power by defeating the army of the pretender, Khusrow Khan, in a series of engagements. The following Farsi is translated from the original primary text on the valour of the Khokhars:
The Panjabi Dogar tribe’s establishment of a chieftaincy in Ferozepur, Panjab & their successful resistance to the Khalsa state under Ranjeet Singh:
The radical disunity prevailing among Muslim Panjabis during the tumult of the 18th & 19th centuries which failed to make them big players like the Sikhs & Afghans, ultimately failing to allow them to combat either:
The naming of Pakpattan from the original name of the city, ‘Ajodhan’, which referred to the Panjabi ‘Joiya’ tribe whose region it is:
West of the Ravi river, most Panjabi tribes had likely converted to Islam in a majority before the 1500’s:
Panjabi Gujjars & Jatts attacked Babur’s baggage trains & later sacked his Turkic garrison at Sialkot on his entry to Panjab:
Sa’adullah Khan, a Panjabi of the Jatt tribe, becomes grand vizier of the Mughal empire at its zenith under Shah Jahan. European ambassadors noted how the Turko-Persian court felt immense jealousy over his appointment:
Young Panjabi boy of the Tarar clan spears a tent peg in the Bar of Panjab:
The customs & positioning of the Panjabi Khatris (or alternatively the Panjabi Kathia tribe) during Alexander’s entry to Panjab. They were known for being fierce & violent. Alexander is said to have razed their city Sagala out of rage for the losses he sustained in the campaign:
The ancient custom of eugenics prevalent among the Panjabi Kathia tribe (or alternatively the Khatris). The men & women are said to have been very beautiful since they did not raise what they believed to be physically defective or ugly children.
Introduction to ‘kabaddi’, a form of Panjabi wrestling:
A sincere message to Panjabis to speak their own language (whatsoever their particular dialect maybe: Potohari, Jhangvi, Shahpuri, Multani, Majhi, etc) & not to indulge their epidemic level identity crisis by continuing to larp as Hindi-Urdu speaking Hindustanis.
Last stand of the Panjabi figure Nusrat Khokhar against Timur’s vast horde:
The brothers Sarang & Mallu engaging the forces of Timur. Very likely Panjabi Bhattis.
Malik Shaikha, another Panjabi, likely a Khokhar, charges suicidally into Timur’s frontline with a hundred or so men:
The Panjabi custom of providing food for the poor & weary (often called ‘langar’ with a religious connotation) is likely the continuation of the following practice observed by a Chinese traveller in 7th century Panjab:
Early conversion to Islam in the late 600’s of some ‘Zutts’, a collective term for people from the Indus Valley region (Panjab + Sindh). ‘Zutt’ is an Arabisation of ‘Jatt’.
Ibn Batutta, the globetrotter extraordinaire, actually visited Panjab & even made mention of ‘Panjab’ in his work, the ‘Rihla’:
Mahmud al-Kashgari (d.1102) makes mention on his map of ‘bilaad az Zutt’ ‘the country of the Zutts/Jatts’, i.e. the Indus Valley (Panjab + Sindh). See the blue circle on the map:
A man from the Panjabi Vahika tribe bemoans having left Panjab & his lover for a few days in Kurujangala, much to the chagrin of the tale-recounting Brahmin:
Attire in Panjab during the Achaemenid age:
The loss of historically Jatt dominated DG Khan, Panjab to the Baloch during the British era:
The contemporary British sources on the character of the Panjabi hero, Rai Ahmad Khan Kharral:
The Panjabi Gakkhars making the Potohar region of Panjab impassable for Mongol armies:
Bahadur Shah, the Muzaffarid Sultan, forces a conversion on finding Muslim women in the harem of a Hindu chieftain:
The Panjabi origin of the Muzaffarid dynasty of Gujarat:
Murad Fatiana, the Panjabi commander of the resistance after Ahmad Khan’s death, killed the British commander, Berkeley, after intercepting his detachment:
The Panjabi Tafak/Tanka kingdom mentioned by the Arab traveller Sulaiman al Taajir.
The Panjabi Bhattis defeat a British force & kill their commander in 1803 at the battle of Sirsa town:
Adina Beg, the Panjabi commander, is able to unite & form a composite Panjabi army drawn from numerous tribes & clans, & bring them into action against the Rohillas at the battle of Satluj where the large Rohilla host is annihilated & its commanders, Jamal & Qutb Khan slain:
The foundational role played by Shahbaz Khan, a Panjabi Muslim of the Kamboh tribe, in the formation of the Mughal empire & the damnatio memoriae that followed, largely on account of his staunch adherence to the Sunni creed:
The ‘nishan e haider’ is the highest military honour awarded to personnel of the Pakistani armed forces. It has only been given awarded 11 times. 9 of which was to ethnic Panjabis for their valour & sacrifice on the field of battle:
The Greek fascination with the tall heights of Panjabi men (who ‘surpassed in stature & bearing all other races of Asia’) & their attestation of never having fought braver or more skilled warriors in their eight years of constant warfare: Image

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More from @GaziSikander

Gazi Mehr (غازي مهر) Profile picture
Mar 17, 2022
Qaum e Panjabiyān (Muslim Panjabis) are an interesting community from Panjab that in the 1600’s, settled in Uttarakhand, &, much like the later Pashtun Rohillas, in Delhi & western UP.
They would later actively participate in the 1857 rebellion in Delhi:

*THREAD*

(1/12) ImageImage
The Qaum e Panjabiyān were Panjabis from, among others, Bhera, Chiniot, & Sargodha mostly of the Khatri tribe/braderi who came to Delhi as traders (hence why they are also called ‘Panjabi saudagaran’). By their own family tradition they were converted in the 1200’s to…

(2/12) Image
…Islam by the Sufi Sunni master, Shamsuddin Sabzwari, who established himself in the Panjabi city of Multan. Some members of this community actually use ‘Shamsi’ as their surname in Sabzwari’s honour. Many still retain their original Panjabi clan names:

(3/12) ImageImageImage
Read 11 tweets
Gazi Mehr (غازي مهر) Profile picture
Dec 27, 2021
Did you know:

The Panjabi city of Pakpattan in which Baba Farid (d. 1266 CE) (رحمه الله) is buried was originally called ‘Ajodhan’, likely in reference to the frontier Panjabi Joiya clan. ‘Joiya’ itself being derived from its earlier form, ‘Yaudheya’.

(1/4) ImageImage
It’s pleasantly shocking how remarkably unchanged the tribe’s positioning has been for almost the last millennium:

(In the census of 1901, they are still shown to be a principal clan in the region that compromised modern Pakpattan, Sahiwal, & Okara districts)
(2/4) ImageImageImage
I imagine Joiya conversion to Islam must have been relatively early considering their proximity to the city:
(3/4)
Read 4 tweets
Gazi Mehr (غازي مهر) Profile picture
Oct 16, 2021
The verse you have used here is a later interpolation or corruption of the original verse, and is most definitely not the work of Waris Shah, the original verse is actually asking God to spare his city from Abdali & his marauding army!!… (continued)
…the original verse is:

"Ahmed Shah azgeb thin aan pausi, Jandiala os thin rab bachasia ni"

‘Abdali will attack from some unknown place, but God will save my Jandiala (his birthplace) from him.’

Waris Shah is pretty contemptuous of Abdali, (continued)
…whom he calls ‘the rabid dog of Kabul’ & his maurading Pashtun force ‘rabid kabuli dogs’.

Furthermore the Jandiala you’ve mentioned is incorrect Waris Shah is talking about the Jandiala of Sheikhupura, his birth place. Not Amritsar.
(Continued)
Read 6 tweets

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