Awan (tribe)


Awan is a tribe living predominantly in northern, central, and western parts of Pakistani Punjab, with significant numbers also present in Khyber, Azad Kashmir, and to a lesser extent in Sindh and Balochistan.

History

, a Pakistani lawyer and politician, notes that the Awans believe themselves to be of Arab origin but that there is little to support the claim. He notes that other tribes in the region of the Indus make similar claims as an assertion of their superiority but that there is no evidence of a historic migration of Arabs into the region, nor any obvious racial connection between the Semitic Arabs and these tribes, whose stock seems to be Central Asian or aboriginal. He also doubts how the lineage from so few putative Arab descendants could have expanded in the intervening time to become the vast number of people who now constitute these tribes. The claim is also noted by Jamal J. Elias, who records that they believe themselves to be descended from Ali ibn Abu Talib and that the claim of Arab descent gives them "high status in the Indian Muslim environment".
Christophe Jaffrelot says:
People of the Awan community have a strong presence in the Pakistani Army and a notable martial tradition. They were listed as an "agricultural tribe" by the British Raj in 1925, a term that was then synonymous with classification as a "martial race".

Notable people