Sindhi people

**Sindhis** (; Sindhī) are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group originating from and native to Sindh, a region of Pakistan, who share a common Sindhi culture, history, ancestry, and language. Today Sindhis mostly practice Islam, but historically they practised Buddhism and Hinduism also a large minority of them still do today. The original inhabitants of ancient Sindh were believed to be aboriginal tribes speaking languages of the Indus Valley civilization around 3000 BC. This population then mixed with the Aryans that arrived later on which created the modern Sindhi ethnic group.

In the book Kitab-ul-Hind, the Persian scholar Abū Rayhān Bīrūnī (Al-Beruni) declared that even before the advent of Islam into Sindh (711 A.D.), the Sindhi language was prevalent in Sindh.

## Religion

Sindh was the first place in the Indian subcontinent to be conquered by a Muslim state and the first to have a significant Muslim population.  Islam arrived in Sindh after the Umayyad conquest and annexation of Sindh in the year 711 AD led by the Arab general Muhammad ibn Qasim.  Sindh became the easternmost province of the Muslim Caliphate. The second significant religion of the Sindhis is Hinduism which is the historical religion of Sindhi people as it was practised before the Muslim conquest.  Today, Sindhi Hindus make up about 20% of the total ethnic Sindhi population worldwide.  Sindhi Hindus also revere the Sikh gurus and especially the first Sikh guru, Guru Nanak.

Every year for 30 years during the early 20th century, Sikh missionary groups were sent to work among Sindhis.  Because of this, the number of Sindhi Sikhs increased from 1000 in 1901 to over 39,000 in 1941.  During the Partition of former British India in 1947, many Sindhi Hindus and Sindhi Sikhs left for India.  They settled in Mumbai, New Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat.  Later, a small number of them decided to settle in the Punjab State of India.  Their main centers of pilgrimage are Sadhu Bela, an Udasi sect shrine built in 1823 in Sukkur District.  They also visit the Sikh shrines of Nankana Sahib, Panja Sahib, and Dehra Sahib in Punjab Province of Pakistan.  Today, there is still a large Sindhi Hindu minority in the Sindh province of Pakistan. However, the majority of Sindhi Hindus live in India as their forefathers migrated there during partition.

## Infobox (ethnic group)

- **group**: Sindhi
- **native name lang**: sd
- **image**:
- **image caption**: Map of Sindhi diaspora
- **total source**: census
- **region1**: *  Sindh
*  Balochistan, Pakistan, Balochistan
- **pop1**: 34,252,262
- **pop2**: 3,810,000
- **pop6**: 38,760
- **pop7**: 33,000
- **pop5**: 51,015
- **pop4**: 94,620
- **pop3**: 180,980
- **pop11**: 12,065
- **pop8**: 20,000
- **region9**: (Sindhis in Afghanistan)
- **pop9**: 15,000
- **pop10**: 15,000
- **pop12**: 11,860
- **pop13**: 10,000
- **pop14**: 3,300
- **pop15**: 3,168
- **pop16**: 2,635
- **pop17**: 1,508
- **pop18**: 1,000
- **pop19**: 1,000
- **pop20**: 825
- **pop21**: 700
- **pop22**: 616
- **pop23**: 600
- **pop24**: 500
- **pop25**: 266
- **pop26**: 200
- **pop27**: 116
- **pop28**: 100
- **pop29**: 91
- **pop30**: 86
- **pop31**: 66
- **pop32**: 41
- **pop33**: 21
- **languages**: Sindhi language, Sindhi

- **rels**: **Majority**:
 Islam: 80%

**Minority**:

- **related groups**: Other Indo-Aryan people