[21][22] Another defunct variety of the language was historically spoken in Lahore for centuries before the name "Urdu" first began to appear.

[24] The language developed at the time of Sultans of Dehli due to the mixture of people, likely to be soldiers, from Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Afghan and Indian background.

[34] The lingua franca spoken in the army was a form of Urdu referred to in colonial usage as "military Hindustani".

[36] The mutineers made for Delhi, where its garrison revolted, massacring its British population, and installed Bahadur Shah Zafar as its nominal leader.

[42] The Biradari, a term of Persian origin literally translating to "brotherhood",[43] is the word used for a social unit based on kinship such as tribe or clan.

[45] Despite their tribal geneaologies tracing to foreign regions, these elites embellished rural seats and traditions within India, developing a sense of pride in home (watan).

[49] The Bilgrami Sayyids were supporters of the Indo-Muslim Shaikhzada faction of Munim Khan II during the reign of the Emperor Bahadur Shah I.

[53] Due to their reputation for bravery, to the point of recklessness, the Barah tribe held the hereditary right to lead the vanguard of the Army of the Mughal Empire in every battle.

[4][59] The Alvis (the term derived from the Arabic term al-Alawi, meaning 'of Ali') are those who claim descent from the 4th Rashidun caliph, Ali ibn Abi Talib (the cousin, son-in-law, and companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad), through his wives whom he married after the death of Fatima, the prophet's daughter.

[61] The Ansaris who claim origin from the descendants of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari (the stand-bearer of the Islamic prophet, in Medina), mainly through the 13th century Khwaja Abdullah Pir Haravi, inhabited the town of Panipat.

[62] Prominent Ansaris in the pre-modern era include Lutfullah Khan Sadiq, the governor of Shahjahanabad under the Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah.

His brother Sher Afkan Panipati possessed an armed train composed solely of Indian Muslims or Hindustanis.

[72] In the War of 1857, Abdul Latif Khan of Khanpur, the head of the Barah Basti Pathans raised the standard of revolt against the East India Company,[73] writing a petition to the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar promising to come to the Dehli court, and to bring some elephants with him, representing that he had been unwell.

[74] Nawab Walidad Khan of Malagarh occupied Aligarh and Khurja and attracted to his standard the fanatic Muslims of Barah Basti community from which many of the sowars of the Irregular Cavalry were recruited, along with the Sayyids of Shikarpur,[75] and his 'near relation' Ismail Khan, who was the kotwal of Meerut and had served in the Skinner's Horse.

[79] Mir Muhammad Baquar Ali Khan was the Raja Of Pindrawal while Nawab Saeed-ul-Mulk Chhatari, the last Prime Minister of the Nizam of Hyderabad, was one of the most prominent politicians of the All-India Muslim League.

[85][86] Being few in number, the bulk of Muhammad Khan's soldiers were elite slaves known as 'disciples', primarily Hindu Rajputs and sometimes Brahmins who were adopted, converted to Islam and submitted to a regime of religious, literary and military training which was focused on the transformation of the recruit's identity, who played a significant role as a kind of artificial family in-group attached to their patron.

[87] 1.5 million residents in the regions of Moradabad, Amroha and Sambhal, belonging to an Indian Muslim brotherhood descending from Turks, primarily from the era of the Delhi Sultanate.

According to Professor Abhay Singh, these community originate from the era of the Turkan-e-Chahalgani, the Corps of Forty Turkic slave emirs, whose power was broken up by Ghiyas ud din Balban, and as a result they fled and settled down in the different villages of Katehr, near Badayun which was an important centre of the empire.

The delinquent is severely ostracised which in their parlance, the man punished is not respectable enough to smoke the same Huqqa or drink from the same bowl as the honourable Biradari.

If the offender repends and expresses a desire to retrieve his guilt, he must atone by means of a grand feast to the community.

He gave constant support to the Aligarh Movement and to Sayyid Ahmad Khan, and was instrumental in the establishment in the first Girls School at Lahore.

Among these was Shaikh Farid Murtaza Khan, the Indian Muslim of Delhi who was the Mir Bakhshi of Akbar and Jahangir.

[113] Characteristic ingredients of this cuisine include onions and garlic, spices such as cloves, cardamom, nutmeg, mace, back pepper and cinnamon, and use of yoghurt, cream and butter.

[116] The Urdu-speaking community is also present in other parts of the subcontinent with a historical Muslim presence, such as the Deccanis, the Biharis[20] and Dhakaiyas (who speak Dhakaiya Urdu) in Bangladesh,[117] the Urdu-speaking members of the Madheshi community in Nepal,[118] some Muslims in Sri Lanka[119] and a section of Burmese Indians.