Piracha
| Piracha | |
|---|---|
| Family name | |
| Meaning | Originally meant butterfly |
| Region of origin | Persia |
| Related names | Piracha, Peracha, Pracha, Paracha, Ferasha |
Piracha (Urdu: پراچہ ; Punjabi: ਪੀਰਚਾ) (also known as Peracha, Pracha, Paracha) is a community in Pakistan. They are native to the hilly Potohar region of north Punjab and areas near the Punjab-NWFP border.[1]
History
This tribe/clan is believed to have traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan from Iran, mostly in the north which is why there are speculations of them being related to Alexander the Great. Others settled in Makhad in the 12th Century. In Pakistan, they are known as the Pirachas. It is believed the clan settled in what is presently northern Pakistan although a lot have moved into southern Pakistan in areas such as Karachi.
In A Glossary of Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province (1911), Horace Arthur Rose, a British bureaucrat serving in the British colonial government in India, devotes an entire section to the history of the Pirachas.[1] It quoted some elders of the tribe saying that the Piracha tribe migrated from Persia as Zoroastrians and became Buddhists in India. They then converted to Islam sometime in the 11th century.[1] This version of the community's origin has been corroborated by Ahmad Hasan Dani in Pakistan through the Ages (2007). In the book, he mentions the names of some of the tribes which accompanied the Kushans, who established an empire in Afghanistan and north-western Pakistan between the first and third centuries.[1] According to Dani, the Kushan were a syncretic people in Persia and Central Asia.[1] They were followers of a faith which was a hybrid of Zoroastrianism and classical Greek mythology.[1] During the rule of Kanishka, the empire became entirely Buddhist.[1] One of the tribes which accompanied the Kushans into what today is Pakistan, was called Pirache which later became Paracha and/or Piracha.[1]
Although there are many theories as to how the Pirachas came to be, none have been proven and are just considered rumors among people. Information seems to be passed along generations upon generations and the basis as to how the Pirachas came to be is still a mystery. Various people from all over Pakistan and Afghanistan named Pirachas all seem to believe in different theories.
The most popular theory is that the Pirachas are descended from Ali Yamani, who was responsible for the preparation of Prophet Muhammad seating area. As per this theory, the Pirachas originally were called the Ferashas meaning butterfly but as the name seeped into the Persian culture and after a man named Abul Aas married a Persian princess the name was transformed into Paracha to suit the Persian language better as the Persian princess could not pronounce the name properly..
Today, the Pirachas are scattered all over the world, and follow the various professions which are mainly business, trading, journalism, and politics. Pirachas (known by the individual prefixes of the seven groups) are wealthy traders of Pakistan and Afghanistan.