Hinduism in Sindh

Hinduism, as in other areas of South Asia, was the earliest religion predominantly practised in the Sindh region in modern Pakistan. Sindh has historically been, and still is, home to the largest community of Hindus in Pakistan. The Sindh region became predominantly Muslim due to missionary Sufi saints whose dargahs dot the landscape of Sindh. After the independence of Pakistan in 1947, many Sindhi Hindus (Sindhi: سنڌي هندو‎) migrated to India where their population is estimated to be 3 million. There are also sizable Sindhi Hindu communities elsewhere in the world, sometimes termed the Sindhi diaspora. Following the Muslim conquest in the 8th century, Islam spread throughout the region and became the faith practised by the majority of Sindhi people. The Islamic religion, coupled with traditional influences and exposure to and interaction with Hinduism, has shaped the diverse Sindhi culture.

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Sindhi

Sindhi (سِنڌِي) may refer to:

In culture

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Sindhi language

Sindhi /ˈsɪndi/ (سنڌي, सिन्धी, ) is an Indo-Aryan language of the historical Sindh region, spoken by the Sindhi people. It is the official language of the Pakistani province of Sindh. In India, Sindhi is one of the scheduled languages officially recognized by the federal government. It has influences from Balochi spoken in the adjacent province of Balochistan.

Most Sindhi speakers are concentrated in Pakistan in the Sindh province, and in India in the Kutch region of the state of Gujarat and in Ulhasnagar region of the state of Maharashtra. The remaining speakers in India are composed of the Hindu Sindhis who migrated from Sindh, which became a part of Pakistan and settled in India after the independence of Pakistan in 1947 and the Sindhi diaspora worldwide. Sindhi language is spoken in Sindh, Pakistan and Kutch, India as well as immigrant communities in India, Hong Kong, Oman, Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, UAE, UK, USA, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka.

There are 46 million Sindhis living in Pakistan, with 44 million in Sindh, and over 2 million living in other provinces, Mostly in Balochistan. About 16% of the population of Sindhis in Pakistan are Hindus. Most of them live in urban areas like Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Mirpur Khas, Dadu, Larkana and Jacobabad. Hyderabad is the largest centre of Sindhi Hindus in Pakistan with 100,000-150,000 people.

Hindu

Hindu ( pronunciation ) has historically been used as a geographical, cultural or religious identifier for people indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. In contemporary use, Hindu refers to anyone who regards himself or herself as culturally, ethnically or religiously adhering to aspects of Hinduism.

The historical meaning of the term Hindu has evolved with time. Starting with the Persian and Greek references to India in the 1st millennium BCE through the texts of the medieval era, the term Hindu implied a geographic, ethnic or cultural identifier for people living in Indian subcontinent around or beyond Sindhu (Indus) river. By the 16th-century, the term began to refer to residents of India who were not Turks or Muslims.

The historical development of Hindu self-identity within the Indian population, in a religious or cultural sense, is unclear. Competing theories state that Hindu identity developed in the British colonial era, or that it developed post-8th century CE after the Islamic invasion and medieval Hindu-Muslim wars. A sense of Hindu identity and the term Hindu appears in some texts dated between the 13th- and 18th-century in Sanskrit and regional languages. The 14th- and 18th-century Indian poets such as Vidyapati, Kabir and Eknath used the phrase Hindu dharma (Hinduism) and contrasted it with Turaka dharma (Islam). The Christian friar Sebastiao Manrique used the term 'Hindu' in religious context in 1649. In the 18th-century, the European merchants and colonists began to refer to the followers of Indian religions collectively as Hindus, in contrast to Mohamedans for Mughals and Arabs following Islam. By mid 19th-century, colonial orientalist texts further distinguished Hindus from Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains, but the colonial laws continued to consider all of them to be within the scope of the term Hindu until about mid 20th-century. Scholars state that the custom of distinguishing between Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs is a modern phenomenon.

Hindu, Hiiu County

Hindu is a village in Emmaste Parish, Hiiu County in northwestern Estonia.

Hindu (disambiguation)

Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent.

Hindu may also refer to:

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