MEHMAN, a Muhammadan sect, numerous about Hyderabad, Sehwan, and Kurachee, in Sind. They are a quiet race, largely engaged in trade. Their name is a corruption of the Arabic word Momin, a true believer, and was given to the people when they were converted from Hinduism to be Muhammadans. The word, in its fullest signification, is applied to two distinct races of people,—to the Khwaja tribe, and to the Mehman Sayyat (i.e. green, from the Sindi sawo) or Achhra (white), who are followers of Abu Hanifeh. Numbers of them are found in Cutch. In Sind they are employed chiefly in agriculture and breed ing camels. Their dress is that of the common Sindi, except that they frequently shave the head, especially when old, and wear the tur band ; sometimes, though rarely, they adopt the peculiar Sind hat. They have produced many very learned men, and have done much to intro duce the religious sciences into Sind. The tribe merits some notice, as it has either abandoned or never adopted the practice common among their brethren in Bombay, viz. that of depriving the females of their pecuniary rights in wills and inheritances. Among the Mehman, the widow and daughter are provided for according to the Koran. Their Pir, or holy men, are the family
called Rashid Shahi (descended from one Mu hammad Rashid Shah), or the Rohri-wara Sayyids, remarkable for nothing but excessive polygamy. Rashid, the founder of the house, took unto himself thirty-two wives (instead of four), and justified the practice by the usual sophistical arguments of the Safi order to which he belonged. The Sindi divines pronounced his tenets to be heretical, and his conduct damnable. The Mehman, however, did not object to it, and still reverence his descendants. The Mehman in Sind has his own handwriting character ; in Cutch he uses the Gujerati. Altogether the Mehman are a respectable race, though they have acquired a bad name by their rapacity in dealing with strangers ; and Wadho Mehman (a great Mehman) in Sindi means a miserly usurer.
In the Kurachee district they take their tribal names as given below, principally from their original places of abode. The Khwaja are of the Shiah sect, and call themselves followers of Khwaja Suliman, Parisi. Their tribal names are —Burton's Scinde, p. 247.