In this post I shall look at three tribes, namely the Mahra, Shajra and Waiha or Vehas, that are found mainly in South Punjab. I would recemend the reader to look at the Multan Gazetteers, which has more information on the tribes. They all have traditions of migration from Rajasthan, leaving the desert of the Thar and settling in the valley of the Indus or Sutlej. The Jats and Rajputs of this region are said to have came from Rajputana and Jaisalmer and converted to Islam in the reign of Feroz Shah Tughlak (ruler 1351 to 1388). According to tribal traditions, as the Bhati rulers of Jaiselmer extended their control, they extinguished the independence of the various Jat of the what was then known as the Jangal Desh. As the tribes moved west towards the valley of the Sutlej, they encountered a Sufi saint who converted them to Islam. One of the Sufi often referred to in the conversion story was Jalaluddin Surkh-Posh Bukhari (1199–1291), which conflicts with the migration story under Tughlak. In Punjab, a claim of conversion at the hands of Sufi often adds prestige, therefore it is possible the migration occured latter under Tughlak, but the Sufi story was added later. One more point I wish to make that in Southern Punjab, the word Jat refers to any tribe that does not claim to be Saiyads, Baloch, Pathan and Qureshis and is somehow connected with agriculture. Therefore, according this definition, all these tribes are Jat.
Mahra
I start off by looking at the Mahra. According to tribal traditions, the Mahra were descended from a group of Chaghtai Mughals who were orignally settled in Delhi. However misfortune struck these group of Chaghtais, and in a feud, the entire tribe was slain, save a young boy. As he was found lying among the corpses, he was named Mars or Mehra, literally the dead one in Sindhi. He and his descendants migrated to the banks of the Indus. Here they contracted marriages with locally settled Jat tribes, and became Jat. However, despite this claim of Mughal origin, its worth mentioning that there are still several communities of Hindu Mahra Jats in Nagaur district such as Silanwad suggesting that the Mahra like the Naich and Waiha are also immigrants from the Jangal Desh.
They are still found along the banks of the Indus in Rajanpur District on the west bank and also in larger numbers in Alipur tehsil of Muzaffargarh District.Their main villages include Kot Mahra in Multan District, Bahadur Mahra, Mahra Faraz and Mahra Sharqi in Muzaffargarh District, Hazrat Wala in Rajanpur District, and Shaidani Sharif in Rahim Yar Khan District. A small number of Mahra are also found in northern Sindh.
Shajra
The Shajra, or sometimes spelt Shujra, are a tribe of Jat status, found both in Sindh and Punjab. To clarify, there is a Jat tribe called Chhajra, with whom the Shajra have no connection. Like other tribes already referred to in and other posts, the Shajra have several traditions. What is interesting is that older traditions of Hindu ancestry are being replaced by claims of Arab origins. British sources in the early part of the twentieth Century recorded the following origin; the Shajra claim descent from Mahli, who is said to be a Suryavanshi Rajput. This Mahli is said to have four sons, Shajra being one of them, the other three being Bhutta. Naich and Langah, from whom descend the Bhutta, Naich and Langah tribes. Interestingly, although the Bhutta and Naich claim Suryavanshi descent, they have no tradition connecting them with the Shajra.
However, more recently claims of Arab ancestry have been made. Their ancestor Shajra, now is a Yemeni Arab, who was a soldier in the army of Mohammad Bin Qasim, the Arab conqueror of Sindh. Interestingly, the word shajra in Arabic means a tree, and it could be possible that it was a nickname of an ancestor. The Shajra might be of Arab origin, however after centuries of intermarriage, they have merged with the other Jat clans of south Punjab. In Punjab, the tribe speaks Seraiki, while in Sindh it speaks Sindhi. The Shajra of Sindh also have a chief, who resides in Ghotki and the current one is Muzafar Ali Shujra.
Waiha / Veha
The last tribe I will look at this in this post are the Waiha or sometimes written as Veha.
They trace their origin to Jaisalmer and according to tribal traditions that in the 4th century of the Hijra (913 CE – 1009 CE) the Raja of that State gave Rurar, the modern Tajgarh, in dower to his daughter Huran, and that the place was named after her. This region is now part of the arid region of Cholistan, a region that was part of the Bhati state of Jaisalmer until the arrival of the Daudpotras from Sindh in the 18th Century. At the close of the 10th CE, the Sufi saint Sayyid Ahmad Billauri settled in the this part of Cholistan in a place now called Amingarh close to Rurar which is now found in the modern Rahim Yar Khan District. The Sayyid began to preach Islam among the tribes of this desert region. This region was then ruled by Raja Bhunak Bhati who became a convert to Islam. Therefore, by ancestry the Waiha are Bhati Rajputs.
There are a number of traditions as to why these the Raja and his family acquired the name Waiha. One of the tradition point to a change in their name on conversion, for one derives Veha from vih, the Seraiki word for twenty, as it was that leading members of the tribe having been converted with Raja Bhunak. Another derives the name from wahi cultivation, because the Raja of Jaisalmer, Bhunak’s overlord as well as kinsman, confiscated their lands on their conversion, and the Sayyid told them to take to cultivation. A third fanciful etymology derives Veha from wah, because their conversion was applauded by the Sayyid’s followers. The Waiha were largely pastoralist, but most of their homeland now has a network of canals, and they are now settled farmers.
Most Waiha villages are located near the town of Allahabad, in Liaqatpur Tehsil of Rahim Yar Khan District. Two other clusters are found in Tulamba near Multan and in Dera Ismail Khan District in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
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