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TheNawayath (also spelled asNavayath andNawayat and also calledNait,Naiti,Naithee andNaita) are an Indian community and a subgroup ofKonkani Muslims. They speak theNawayathi dialect ofKonkani.
The term, as described byQanoon-e-Islam,Mark Wilks andThe Imperial Gazetteer of India, means "new comers" in Persian, referring toArab emigrants in India.[1]
Indian historianOmar Khalidi says they are one of three groups of Indian Muslims who have used the Nawayath name. These groups have common origins inArabia andYemen andPersian Gulf andIran andIraq regions, where they were mariners and merchants. One group is based mainly inBhatkal,manki,Tonse,Malpe,Shiroor,Gangolli,Sagar,Kumta,Kandlur andMurdeshwar villages inKarnataka, while another is found inChennai inTamil Nadu. The third group are generally known today asKonkani Muslims, after the region in which they live.[2]
Nawayats are migrants predominantly from Yemen and Persia, who married into another trading community of India, theJains who had been converted toIslam more than 1,000 years ago.[3][4] With this a new caste system emerged, as the Nawayats marrywithin the community.[5]
Saadatullah Khan I, a Nawayat Konkani Muslim was theNawab of the Carnatic under the Mughal Empire.[6]
Nawab Saadatullah Khan, son of Muhammad Ali, son of Ahmad, was born in Bijapur on Wednesday the 17th Jamadi I in the year 1061 A.H. = 1651 A.D. in a respectable family of Nawayits