[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by roshan

Hi guys! A couple of notes on people of ethnic Sindhi origin in Las Bela and also in Oman!!!

Many of the business community in Oman are of Sindhi origin. There is a language spoken in Oman called Luwati which is an offshoot of the Sindhi language. Today though many of the Luwatis have assimilated amongst the Arabs.

https://www.ethnologue.com/language/luv

Many Arab business people from Oman and surrounding areas funnily enough have surnames typical of Sindhi Hindu business communities: Mohammed Al Barwani, Hussain Sajwani, Al Vaswani and so on.

More information of Luwatis:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Lawatia

Wikipedia also notes that many descendants of Sindhi sailors in Oman speak Baluchi as a language.

Regarding Las Bela - not only is Baluchi spoken in the region, but also the Lasi dialect of Sindhi, most likely spoken by the Jams, who descended from earlier Sindhi speaking Rajput or Jat tribes in the region:

https://www.ethnologue.com/language/lss

Furthermore, all the surnames used by the Baluchi Jamot are also subclans of the Soomra and Samma Rajputs of Sindh, who were the historical rulers of Sindh during the period after the Arab conquests. Jamot itself is listed as one of the Samma clans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samma_(tribe)

Note that "Jam" itself is a Sindhi word for local chieftains, many folk figures of Sindh have this title such as "Jam Tamachi" and so on, and you find places named after Jam all throughout the Sindhi realm - Even in Gujarat proper, you have places named such as Jamnagar due to the historical settlement of Sindhi speaking tribes.

Furthermore, the Jadgali language spoken in Makran coast as far as Iran is also an offshoot of Sindhi:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jadgali_language
https://www.ethnologue.com/language/jdg

In short - Lots of migrations, assimilations and very complex intertwined ethnic backgrounds in the Baluchistan-Sindh-Kutch-Gujarat-Oman area.

Your reply is interesting and I appreciate your final point about the assimilation in The Indian Ocean. My view in trying to link who did what focuses upon the main sea traders at the time..which were Khojas and with Zanzibar and Muscat (and Sur) a main trade group of hubs or trade centres...it is likely that the Khojas were the main traders dealing with such items. I appreciate, however, that it could have been others..I have not yet been able to pinpoint a Royal Workshop in Oman making swords for the Ruler or VIPs as it would probably be through such a conduit that high class weapons like these would move.
Please see http://www.everyculture.com/South-Asia/Khoja.html