Sudhan
A Pakistani tribe of Afghan Pashtun origin
Sudhan are a tribe of the Poonch Division of the Pakistan-administered Azad Kashmir region, with their population primarily concentrated in the districts of Poonch and Sudhanoti, and smaller populations in the neighbouring areas of Bagh and Kotli. According to oral traditions, the Sudhans allegedly originated from Pashtun areas, and are regarded as the founding tribe of the Sudhanoti region, which bears their name.
History and origins
The tribe claims an Afghan ancestry. Alastair Lamb, a British historian and ethnographer wrote that there is a significant Pathan influence in Poonch and that the Sudhans, a major group claim to be of Afghan descent. According to Syed Ali, Sudhans have a Pashtun descent and moved to the Poonch district of Kashmir region some centuries ago. Sardar Ibrahim Khan, the first president of Azad Kashmir and himself a Sudhan wrote that Sudhans belong to the Sudhazai tribe of Pashtuns and migrated from Afghanistan via Dera Ismail Khan. Sudhans consider themselves to be Sudhozai or Saddozai Pathans (Pashtuns). Their claim to a Pashtun heritage is considered to be alleged. Scholar Iffat Malik of the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad writes:
The Sudhans claim their origin from Afghanistan and they consider themselves to be descendants of a common ancestor Jassi Khan, who was an Afghan chief and had earned the name of Sudhan (from Sanskrit, meanings "justice, fair and honest") as a compliment to his valour as he 500 years or so ago landed in Western parts of Poonch and fought for their existence, but the local people dominated them in this period, they multiplied quickly and emerged into a strong and powerful tribe. According to them, they are same as the Sudhazai tribe of high class Afghans.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sudhan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.