Saand
Saand or also spelled as “sand”,(Sindhi: ساند), is a Sindhi-Muslim surname or caste. Saands are concentrated mostly in center, Southern and south-eastern region of Sindh province of Pakistan. The population spread starts from Sangahr (central Sindh) to south (Badin) and south east (Tharparkar). Major cities and townships saands are fmcjdkdcknown to be living in are Sanghar, Tando Adam, Khipro, Mirpur Khas, Umarkot, Tando Allahyar, Hyderabad, Matiari, Hala, Nasarpur, Tando Jam and Jamshoro, Naushahro Feroze.
History
Sindhis can roughly be classified into three broad categories, with regards to their roots and origin, which are,
- Sammat
- Baroch,
- Arabs & Persians.
Surnames and castes play a big role in classifying Sindhi into aforementioned categories. A person living in Sindh who is well aware of the culture and has grown up in familiar environment can easily tell from some one’s caste or surname the origin or decadency of a person. For example, saand is a caste of sammat group, Marri is caste of Baroch group and Alvi or Shah is a caste of Arab & Persian group. Therefore, in the light of above highlighted historical overview, Chief of Saand Tribe is Sardar Shafi Muhammad Saand who is settled in Naushahro Feroze, Saands fall in the sammat group of castes or surnames. Sammat castes are said to be of on of the Sindhi Rajput clan of Rajput (one of the 36 royal castes of Indian sub-continent) decadency. Rajputs who converted to Islam formed their own sub-castes from the major clan and that’s how Saand, along with other major Sindhi-Muslim castes like, Junejo, Samma, Soomro, Kalhoro, Kharl and others came into being. Other categories are Baroch- people who migrated from Baluchistan and started settling in Sindh, at the same time assimilating into Sindhi culture and traditions. Major castes of Baroch group are Talpur, Jalbani, Qaisrani, Rind, Lund and others. The third group of Sindhi castes is Arabs and Persians, as the name imply they were the immigrants who came with Muslim invaders from Arabia and Central Asia and settled in parts of Sindh and finally evolved into local culture. Main castes from this group are Shah, Syed and Alvi.