41st Dogras. Raised 1900.
Comprises 8 companies of Dogras.
Uniform.—Scarlet, facings yellow.
The Baluchis are said to come of Arab stock. Their legends and traditions attribute their origin to Hamzah, an Arab of the Koreish tribe, which claimed the honour of including the prophet Mahomet as one of its number. Mahomet is said to have been Hamzah's nephew. Notwithstanding the fact that some Mahomedan peoples are in the habit of employing elaborate fiction in their claims to close connection with their prophet, it still remains that there is much evidence in favour of the general tradition existing among the Baluchis as to their Arab origin.
The traditional Hamzah, progenitor of the Baluchi race, is regarded as one of the most important of the early Mahomedan chiefs. He is pictured as a mighty warrior, a man of Herculean strength and high courage; hence his romantic and classical sobriquet, "Lion of God." The tradition runs that Hamzah was killed at the battle of Ohod in 625 a.d. His descendants and adherents settled about Aleppo, whence they were driven by Yezid, son and successor of Muavia, and first Omeyeid Kalif. It seems that the reason for this expulsion was that Hamzah and his tribe had given assistance to Hössein, grandson of the prophet, in his attempt to oust Yezid from the position which he had occupied.
Being driven forth into the desert, the tribe migrated eastward as far as Persia, where, as pastoral nomads, they wandered and lived and multiplied to such an extent as to cause considerable alarm to the Persian monarch. It is to this sojourn that the Baluchis attribute their obvious admixture of Persian blood and characteristics. As their rapid increase in numbers promised trouble to the Persian kingdom, steps were taken to expel them, and they ultimately descended into an uninhabited tract south-east of Mekran—a country to which no one laid any definite claim. From this point they gradually spread over the whole of the country now known as Baluchistan, driving before them all the peoples who had so far emigrated to that region. It will be seen from this that the probabilities are decidedly in favour of the Arab origin of the Baluchis. Yet it has been contended by some that they are a race of Turkish stock, since certain of their rites and customs seem to be drawn from that source; nevertheless it is more probable, from all the available facts, that the Turcoman and Persian characteristics and survivals are merely the result of a temporary admixture.
Very little is known of the early history of the warlike Baluchis beyond what can be drawn from tradition, unsupported by any written historical records. One of their chief traditions is that Jalal Khan, who led them out of Persia, had four sons, named Rind, Hot, Lashari, and Korai; and a daughter named Jato. At the present day there are five distinct tribes which still bear the names of these five children of Jalal Khan; but of these tribes the Rind and Lashari soon acquired, by reason of their superior force of character, a predominant influence, so that, as the people multiplied and split up into an ever-increasing number of tribes, all these fell under the domination of the Rind or the Lashari. Gradually in this way all the Baluchi race came to be divided under two great heads, the Rind and the Lashari—a division which has been determined, not by descent, but by political sympathy.
The Rind division possess a great traditional hero, Mir Chakar, who is supposed to have lived in the sixteenth century, and to have been a powerful dependent of the Moghul Emperor Humayun, giving him great assistance in his re-conquest of the Delhi throne. In return for this Humayun bestowed upon Mir Chakar a large tract of land on the frontier, and it is more than probable that the Baluchis' settlements on the southern frontier were founded in this way.