Hawzah News Agency-The Chhipa community in the city celebrated the Chhipa Day, on Saturday, to mark their ancestors' embrace of Islam 663 years ago in Rajasthan. Chhipas comprise perhaps the only community in Ahmedabad that commemorates the day on which its members became Muslims. This is largely due to the old Hindu tradition they have retained - of maintaining lineage records - even after their conversion.

A Chhipa Samast Jamat Committee member, Yasin Pipadwala, said: "The celebrations are not full of pomp. The community hall and few mosques in Jamalpur are lit." He said the community members will read the Quran in the community centre, mosques, and at their homes after the last prayer of the evening.

Hindu Balwas have been recording the family lineages of the Chhipas for ages. A few families of Balwas, settled near Nagaur in Rajasthan, have been maintaining family trees of 14 sub-castes of the Chhipas. Interestingly, they continued to maintain family records and history of all Chhipa families even after their conversion to Islam and their migration to different places such as Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra.

The conversion of 14 sub-castes like Tank, Molani, Devda, Bhati on April 16, 1353, was recorded by the Balwas in their books. The conversion took place in front of Delhi's Sultan Firoz Shah Tughlaq, when he was camping near Nagaur. One of his guards, Tilaji from Molani Chhipa community, was so impressed with the emperor that he persuaded leaders of 13 other sub-castes to embrace Islam in the presence of the royal.

The Balwa Pothis of all Chhipa families are maintained by four Balwas. There are four such books and they run into more than 56,000 pages. One record keeper, Motilal Balwa, expressed sadness a few years ago over the Ahmedabad Chhipas' loss of interest in updating their family records. Ahmedabad has the largest population - nearly 50,000 members - of the Chhipa community and most of them live in a ghetto in Jamalpur, known as Chhipawad.