| Thathal تھتھال Rajput & Jatt Clan |
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| Distribution | Punjab (Pakistan) Punjab (India) Jammu Kashmir |
| Descended from: | Suryavanshi Rajputs |
| Branches: | None |
| Religion | Islam & Hindusim & Sikhism |
| Languages | Punjabi, Pothohari, and Hindi |
| Surnames: | Thathal, Thothal, Thathar, Thothar, Tharar, Thatal, Thathial, Raja, Chaudhry |
Thathal (pronounced [t̪ʰət̪ʰaːl ]), also referred to as Thothal (pronounced [t̪ʰoːt̪ʰaːl ]) and Thathiyal (pronounced [t̪ʰət̪ʰiːaːl ]), is a Rajput/Jatt clan of the area between Salt Range, Gujrat, Rawalpindi, Sialkot, Narowal district, Kharian Pubbi and Azad Jammu and Kashmir in Pakistan. Thathals are also found in Hoshiarpur and Himachal Pradesh, India. According to their clan traditions and bards they are said to be the descendants of an Indian king named Raja Karan Singh. Karan singh was a Raja of Kashmir. Thathals claim the Suryavanshi branch of Rajput ancestry from Raja Karan Singh through his son Raja Thathu whose other son Naru founded the Narma/Narwa clan.[1] A section of Thathals claims to belong to the Rajput clan while the other section prefer to stick to the Jatt identity.
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Due to many dialects of the Punjabi/Hindi language the pronunciation of Thathal differs according to locality. In Potowar/Mirpur it is pronounced Thothal. In Gujrat district it is written Thathal or Thathiyal. Other variations of the name in Pakistan and India include Thathar, Tharar and Thorar.
Main section of the clan accepts "Thathal" as the correct name. But there is a considerable section who claim that the correct name is "Thothal". This argument is based on the claim that the name of Karan singh's son was not "Thathu" but "Thotho". Thotho was the one who first converted to Islam. There is no documented proof of this claim. It is based on the story passed through generations and told by the elders of the clan. After a few generations, the descendants of Thotho were called Thotho-al. Al (pronounced [ˈaːl ]: (Urdu:آل) is an Arabic word which means descendent. Thotho-al means, the descendents of Thotho. With the passage of the time, Thotho-al became Thothal.
According to the Thothals, majority of the clan members call themselves "Thathal", because either they speak carelessly or they really don't know the correct name of the clan. An interesting example to justify their claim is the people from village Mehmand Chak, Tehsil Kharian of district Gujrat, Pakistan. People of Mehmand Chak call themselves "Thathal", while in the record of Tehsil Kharian, they are registered as "Thothal". A group of the clan also call themselves as "Thathiyal".
Indian History revolves mostly about kings, their battles, conquest, defeats etc. Therefore it is not easy to find the history of a clan. The only reliable source of information about a clan is to be "A glossary of the tribes and castes of the Punjab and North-West" by Edward Maclagan & H.A. Rose. In this book, we find a "genealogical tree of the Narwa/narma" the cousin tribe of Thathals.
A group of Thathals claim to belong to Jatt clan while the other claim to be Rajputs. According to A Glossary of the Tribe and casts of the Punjab and North-West Frontier Provinces by E.D. Maclagan and H.A. Rose, "Thuthal, A tribe of Muhammadan Jatts found in Gujrat. It claims Surajbansi (Suryavanshi) origin by descent from Thathu, son of Raja karn singh, whose other son Naru, founded the narwa".[1] The explanation of the different section of the same clan is that at a certain time in history, Thathals lost their power. Which forced them to leave their age old warrior profession and turn to the cultivation for their survival. This transformation has also taken place in other Rajput groups too, which eventually led them being labeled as Jatts instead of Rajputs.
Nowadays those Thathals who call themselves Rajputs use "Raja" as their royal title while the Jatt section use "Chaudhry" as a royal title.
There are some villages in India and Pakistan with Thathals concentration Like Khambi, Mehmand Chak, Hoshiarpur (India). Include some villages of Azad Kashmir and Potohar region include Chakwal, Dheri Thothal, Rawat, Jatli, Mora Thathal and Tarlai Kalan. Mirpur has a large concentration of Thathals as does Chakswari.
Tarlai Kalan (quite a big town nowadays, comes under the rural areas of Islamabad (the Capital Territory of Pakistan) is considered to be an origin of all those Thathals who had moved to Azad Kashmir and other villages around the Potohar Plateau. The ancestor of Thathals who belonged from Tarlai Kalan was "Rai Dalia Singh". All Thathals have been recorded in a family tree since the time of "Rai Dalia Singh", but the exact date is unknown. This family tree is still maintained and is up to date, where more than 15 generations can be found.
Moreover, Khambi Kaleechpur is a large village of the Tehsil Sarai Alamgir, Gujrat District, Pakistan. Mainly the Thathal and Chib families live there.
Sahan Kalan is a village in Tehsil Kharian, in the Gujrat District of Pakistani Punjab, 4 km southeast of Kotla Arab Ali Khan and 35 km north of Gujrat. The name Sahan Kalan comes from Persian words meaning Big Strong man. The main tribe in the village is the Thathal Jatt.
There are some villages owned by Thathals in Pakistan and India like:
Sardar Hari Singh of Wahali of Jhelum is mentioned in Sir Robert Montgomery's Punjab Chiefs 1890 as a person of rank.
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