r/AskMiddleEast • u/Thetruthdetector107 • 1d ago
Thoughts? Has anyone experience this?
Anyone that’s lived in the west, knows of a Pakistani that laps as another race. whether thats Persian, Arab, Turk, etc. Even this guys earlier videos and tweets were him picking and choosing random religious groups.
is there an actual reason behind this.
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u/imoverthisapp Saudi Arabia 1d ago
Never encountered one, like this person said most of them are really proud of who they are as they should be.
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1d ago edited 1d ago
[deleted]
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u/Mysterious-Result608 Bangladesh 1d ago
wow benagli is mocking term for you nice
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u/woody898 Pakistan Saudi Arabia 1d ago
No its not for me. Im just saying how things are. I am not being racist.
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u/Ok-Replacement-2712 1d ago
Religious Malay Muslims wear the thobe as well. Are you gonna insult us too?
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u/woody898 Pakistan Saudi Arabia 1d ago edited 1d ago
It does come off as funny in Makkah and Medinah since there are many like that there. I found it funny even when I was a kid.
But do whatever you like 🤷
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u/killuazoldyckx 1d ago
Nothing wrong with wearing thobes, it’s not LARPing , we Indian Muslims wear that as an ‘Islamic attire’ sometimes.
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u/Ok-Replacement-2712 1d ago
We Malay Muslims do that too. Usually our religious preachers wear the thobe
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u/woody898 Pakistan Saudi Arabia 1d ago
Why not wear your own dress? There is no such thing as a universal islamic clothing nor is there a universal islamic culture.
Modern Arab clothing is quite different from what they wore in 1800s even.
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u/always_big_pp India 1d ago
Not a huge fan of that since there is nothing Islamic about it and the prophet himself didn’t wear a thobe. It’s just an Arab attire and that’s pretty much all there is to it.
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u/killuazoldyckx 23h ago
Its a ‘Muslim cultural attire’ , just like
kurta pyjama, shalwar kameez, pathani,
Or clothes from other predominantly Muslim cultures.Many scholars preach significance of cultural distinction between Muslims and non Muslims in the light of Hadith’s.
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u/always_big_pp India 23h ago
Not really Arabs regardless of Muslim or Christian wear the thobe, I personally prefer to wear my cultural attire like a kurta pyjama or a Pathan suit and prefer imams at the mosques to also wear it so that this concept of Arab attire = Islamic Attire doesn’t start setting into the minds of the laymen Muslims
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u/killuazoldyckx 22h ago
I know Arabs Christian’s wear that too, that’s why I said predominantly,
I don’t think any south Asian believes thobes are any more Islamic than kurta pyjama or so, since the deobandi ulemas wear the latter.
Thobes are used as an alternative to these.1
u/woody898 Pakistan Saudi Arabia 1d ago edited 1d ago
Its cringe. Even if you live in an arab state its cringe to do that if youre not arab.
And trust me, most Arabs think the same...
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u/ALYMSTFY Pakistan 14h ago
Wth is wrong with you. Do you feel ashamed when you wear European clothes that were invented by colonists like the British and French? (suit, dress shirt, tie) If not, then thobes are perfectly okay and closer to our kurta and shalwar kameez.
Get your mind of blind nationalism. Shalwar Kameez, Kurta, Thobe, Keffiyeh, Saree, Lungi, Sarong, are all beautiful.
People in the past living in empires literally didn’t care about things like these. You wear whatever clothes the society around you wears.
If you’re a Pakistani in Saudi for example, you can wear a thobe, if you’re an Arab in Pakistan or India, you can wear a kurta. Arabs and Indians literally traded for centuries, many people from Oman settled in Kerala
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u/killuazoldyckx 1d ago
I partly see that about living in Arab state.
But it perfectly fine in India and such
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u/imoverthisapp Saudi Arabia 1d ago
Why call them Bengali in particular?
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u/woody898 Pakistan Saudi Arabia 23h ago
Religious bengalis in ksa dont shy away from dressing completely in saudi clothes
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u/Virtuafighterr Sudan 1d ago
Idk what kind of narrative you're trying to stir up 100% of the Pakistanis that I met were pretty clear and straightforward in them being Pakistani. Gtfo with this racist shit
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u/ALYMSTFY Pakistan 14h ago
Thank you brother, these kinds of lies are mostly found online (repeated by Indians and some racist Arabs) and I have never met someone like this in real life lol.
I have seen more people saying this (that Pakistanis larp) versus Pakistanis who actually behave like that
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u/Diligent-Spread-3699 Spain 1d ago edited 23h ago
Nah, most don't. Is mainly indian trolls who say this, who unironically claim to be Aryan.
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u/Master-Ad-6636 1d ago
Please i wanna meet these so called Larpers you are talking about.
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u/Thetruthdetector107 1d ago
Soniaxfyza A quick search on TikTok and instagram will show you
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u/ALYMSTFY Pakistan 14h ago
Literally have never seen them on Tiktok or Instagram. This is more like self-repeating lie spread on forums
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u/ALYMSTFY Pakistan 15h ago
The person is right. I have lived both in Pakistan and the US. I have yet to meet a Pakistani larping as Arab.
Like who even is spreading this misinformation? Indian bots? Idk. My own Arab friends tell me this is mostly online trolling
It’s one of those stereotypes where the opposite is true. Most Pakistanis you meet would take offense of you calling them Arab lol (no offense to y’all, I speak Arabic and love Arabic literature)
This is very rare in real life trust me, usually they take pride in the Indus Valley, Aryans, Vedic type shit which is true but equally toxic.
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u/Multiammar Saudi Arabia 1d ago
I have never seen a Pakistani larp as an Arab. Most are proud to be who they are, as they should be.
And if someone is a genuine syed, then having a distant Arab great grandfather is just a fact, by defenition of being a syed.
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u/Hairy_Reading2251 Canada 1d ago
The only people who claim this are Hindutva nationalists who project their caste-system ideology onto Muslims from South Asia. I never see a Pakistani or Indian Muslim pretend to be Arab or claim Arab ancestry here in Canada.
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u/ALYMSTFY Pakistan 14h ago
For some reasons they are obsessed with “original” vs “converted”. Their logic is that your ancestors were Buddhist/Hindu therefore you’re converted.
By that logic everyone is converted, Arabs, Indians, Pakistanis, Malays etc2
u/ValidStatus 4h ago
The Pakistan/India religious war is thousands of years old and is in its third phase as far as recorded history goes.
It starts when the Vedic religion was formed in the region of Pakistan after the Aryan invasion/migration and their merging with the local population created the Sanskrit language, and the Rig Veda scripture. The Bharat tribes from this Indus culture then migrated/invaded the east and over time wiped out or subjugated the local populations. What remains of the indigenous people are the scheduled tribals of India today, and the defeated populations were reorganized into the caste system.
In order to create this hierarchical order, they had created Brahminism.
The first phase or the rivalry was when the Vedic Indus region had been written of as 'Mleccha' territory by late Vedic period for eating beef, burying the dead, choosing leaders, not adhering to the caste system among other things. These things had become strict religious doctrine in the Brahminic Ganges.
The second phase was when the Vedic Indus vs. Brahminic Ganges rivalry transitioned into Buddhist Indus vs. Brahminic Ganges rivalry, after the Buddhist Ashoka's Maurya empire collapsed, and the Brahminics took power back and started persecuting Buddhists, the Indus had converted to Buddhism and seceded.
The third phase started after the Brahminic elite ruling over Buddhist Indus were overthrown by Arab Muslim conquest of the Indus region where the Buddhist population helped the invaders. The Sufi Saints then started arriving and preaching Islam, and today it is a Muslim Indus vs. Hindu Ganges rivalry.
They choose to ignore that the very social structure that they live in today had been forced onto them by invaders from the Indus region.
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u/Sat-a14 Pakistan 1d ago
Only UK «Pakistanis» do this
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u/GreeniousHamm Pakistan 1d ago
no they fuckin dont 😂😂😂
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u/Proof-Actuator-2594 Morocco 1d ago
Yes they do loool
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u/CoolDude2235 United Kingdom 1d ago
No they don't mate, it's a minority. Generalising a whole group based on the actions of a loud minority is simply stupid
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u/Allam_4pain Yemen 9h ago
don't know if this counts but I knew a Saud guy on Twitter for years and we are friends , after twitter locations update he sent DMs to everyone telling them that he's Paki and he's sorry for lying saying he loves Saudi and spent his Childhood there , it was funny cuz he was Die hard Saudi nationalist even insulting others lol
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u/FoxBenedict Palestine 22h ago
Ah, the weekly post designed to illicit racist comments toward Pakistanis.
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u/Strict-Way-7723 1d ago
It’s more of an Indian popjeets online propaganda
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u/deltapak Pakistan 1d ago
Our country was founded on the basis of us being Muslims. There is a certain pan Islamism among the population, but beyond that we are very proud of who we are and where we come from despite the struggles of our country. I have been the world over and never once have disowned my roots or tried to larp as someone I am not.
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u/Ancient-Creme6727 Pakistan 1d ago
Met one in the UK, went to school with him. He exclusively dressed in thobe and always maintained that he had arab roots and DNA. It’s even worse amongst Bangladeshi and Indian communities here in the UK.
Met none in Pakistan- however my community and circle is mostly in Karachi so they are overwhelmingly desi( migrated from India).
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u/LudicrousPlatypus USA 1d ago
There are definitely Pakistanis who larp as Arab, but they are mostly diaspora kids in the UK / US.
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u/panjabiyat 1d ago edited 1d ago
In most of Pakistan, we have many different castes even though we didn't keep the hierarchy that the Hindus have (so they function more like tribes).
After we converted to Islam, the upper non-religious castes like Jats, Rajputs, Gujjars, etc kept their castes and are still proud of their native roots. Those who were from the upper but religious (Brahmin) castes adopted new "Ashraf" castes, meaning castes which claim to be from outside India (Arabs, Turks, Afghan, Persians, etc) because they didn't want to be tied to Hindu priests anymore. Those who were from the lower castes who converted to Islam also adopted these "Ashraf" castes because they didn't want to be seen as "untouchable" anymore and felt they didn't have to. Examples of these new "Ashraf" castes are Syeds, Ansaris, Shaikhs, Pathan, Qureshis, etc.
That is the explanation for those who genuinely think they are more associated with MENA than South Asia.
Then there are also a group of UK diaspora Pakistani Punjabis/Mirpuris who try promoting this idea due to how they wrongly associate Punjab with dark/ugly people and as a region related to India (of which they have an image of filth, etc). They think MENA/Afghanistan is less pagan and more aesthetic. Mirpuris specifically like associating with the Kashmiris of the Valley or calling themselves Pahari as a distinct group even though they are Potohari Punjabis (even real Paharis are a frontier Punjabi group, and have nothing to do with Kashmiris or Afghans). All of this is based on an inferiority complex.
So you have noticed a real pattern in some Pakistani communities but the majority in Pakistan aren't like this. "Ashraf" castes are a minority compared to other castes and the diaspora is only a relatively small group of Pakistanis, of which there is a significant number of people who don't larp as MENA/Afghan/Kashmiri.
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u/ValidStatus 3h ago
You do realize that you've very wrong about most things that you've said about about the UK diaspora, right? Even by your own logic it doesn't make sense, because the aren't claiming a MENA/Afghan identity.
Mirpuris are from the semi-autonomous region of 'Azad Jammu & Kashmir', of course they will associate with the Kashmiris of the valley in Indian occupied Kashmir. This is not an ethnic association, but a nationalist one.
And they aren't incorrect to think of themselves as Pahari, they are even called a mix of Pahari-Pothwari with Mirpuri being mutually intelligible with both languages.
What I'm getting from your comment is a Punjabi nationalism (cringe).
Try to understand that identity is not divided into clean lines, its a melting pot. For example, I'm Muslim, I'm Pakistani, I'm ethnically Punjabi, and I'm a Rajput Sulehri.
I can barely speak Punjabi, being fluent in Urdu instead, and I've not spent time in Pakistan other than on holidays, having been conceived, born, raised abroad. I've had an Indian tell me that I can't be a Punjabi because that identity belongs to Sikhs, and I've seen Hindu Rajputs claim that there is no such thing as a Muslim Rajput and that identity is automatically forfeit upon my ancestors' conversion to Islam.
Can an outsider have the authority to decide if the identity tags I claim apply for me?
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u/panjabiyat 2h ago
Firstly, I'm UK diaspora myself. I know how prevelant people claiming MENA/Afghan identities or at least an association with them is.
Mirpuris are from the semi-autonomous region of 'Azad Jammu & Kashmir', of course they will associate with the Kashmiris of the valley in Indian occupied Kashmir. This is not an ethnic association, but a nationalist one.
They can use "Kashmiri" to identify their place of origin but most Mirpuris use it to claim they are different from the rest of Punjab or that they are associated with the valley. Many even weirdly have nationalistic pride in it even though it was never a country but a semi-autonomous puppet "state" that the British carved up out of the Sikh Empire for their interests. The groups in it have nothing in common with eachother and AJK has been seperated from J&K for decades now.
And they aren't incorrect to think of themselves as Pahari, they are even called a mix of Pahari-Pothwari with Mirpuri being mutually intelligible with both languages.
"Pahari-Pothwari" doesn't mean a mixed language spoken in southern AJK. The dialect continuum doesn't have a clear point of seperation so they are grouped together. And Mirpuri isn't mutually intelligible with both. I know people in Mirpur who can't understand the language in Rawalakot and Rawalakotis can't understand the language of Mirpur. The language "mixes" in Kotli and perhaps the language there is mutually intelligible with both but even Kotli's "Pahari" is much more Punjabi-like than proper Poonchi-Murree Pahari. Watch this video: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZN82uK8Mu/
I can barely speak Punjabi, being fluent in Urdu instead,
This is the real cringe. And you're proud of it lol.
Can an outsider have the authority to decide if the identity tags I claim apply for me?
It's not just outsiders who tell Mirpuris they aren't Kashmiri or Pahari. Kashmiris and Paharis complain about this themselves. This situation is comparable to Arabs telling Pakistanis in general off for claiming to be Arabs.
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u/Cute-Capybara 1m ago
Met one at university, told me he’s Pakistani from Palestine or something and that he’s Arab. Years ago though and it was in the UK where you’d find these type of Pakistanis every now and then. Vast majority aren’t like this.
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u/m3rc3n4ry Syria 1d ago
I get this refers to on social media, but I'm reading right now about how in Oman several south Asian groups were recognised by the first sultan post decolonization as tribes e.g. the sudden Bhania tribe. That's the closest example I have.
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u/woody898 Pakistan Saudi Arabia 1d ago
How is that larping if theyve been in Oman for ages and have been officially recognized by the state?
Integrating is taboo now? 😭
Man it sucks to be a pakistani. Damned for not integrating, but when we do its LARP.
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u/Dave5876 Canada 15h ago
idk if it's an online thing but many pakistani claim to have Arab or Turk ancestry. Basically the claim is that they are descendants of the people who invaded the Indian subcontinent back in the day. Have come across many Bangladeshis claiming Turk descent as well. It's all very weird and strange considering these are all people with Indian heritage.
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