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SOURCE : WIKIPEDIAThere are many top Muslim Business Man Business Man in India such asM. A. Yousuf Ali (Non-resident Indian businessman hailing from Nattika in Thrissur district of Kerala. He is the Managing Director of Abu Dhabi-headquartered EMKE Group of companies that owns the Lulu Hypermarket chain in Middle East.)Yusuf Khwaja Hamied (Chairman, Cipla)Azim Premji (Chairman, Wipro)B. S. Abdur Rahman (Billionaire. Vice-Chairman of Dubai based ETA Star Group, Chancellor of B.S. Abdur Rahman University, founder of Buhari Group, Chairman - Buharia Holding (P) Ltd, Chennai, Chairman - ABR Enterprises (P) Ltd, Chennai, Chairman - West Asia Maritime Ltd, Chennai, Chairman - West Asia Exports & Imports Pvt Ltd, Chennai, Chairman - East Coast Constructions & Industries (P) Ltd, Chennai, Chairman - Sethu Investments Pvt Ltd, Chennai)SOURCE 17 Indian Muslim Entrepreneurs Whose Stories Will Amuse YouThough entrepreneurship knows no boundaries of faith, we’re presenting to you a list of the top Muslim entrepreneurs in India (listed alphabetically).1. Ayaz Basrai Founder, The BusrideThe dream of an idea is often sweeter than its reality. Not so much for Ayaz Basrai. A pass out of the National Institute of Design (Ahmedabad), Ayaz graduated in Industrial Design and specialized in product design.After working in studios like Ideaspice Design Studio (Dubai), Lokus Design, and XHeight Design studio, he moved on and founded The Busride, an independent design studio, which seems to have touched almost every field you could think of: office spaces (Sony music studio, Channel V studio), retail spaces (The Shantanu Nikhil Gallery, The Turtle Retail Stores), houses (one at Ranwar and one at Tutikorin), and even films (Krrish, Chandni Chowk to China). Apart from Busride, Ayaz also runs The Gypsy Kitchen. He is passionate about Bandra and organizes Bandra Walks.2. Azhar Iqubal Co-Founder and CEO, InshortsToday everyone is busy. Either they are busy with work or in their daily chores. Seldom people make time to read a news. But it's essential for everybody to stay updated about the happenings in and around the world. Wouldn’t it be amazing if the news were filtered and shortened for you? Azhar Iqubal, an IIT Delhi dropout started up with News in Shorts along with Anunay Arunav of IIT Delhi, and Deepit Purkayastha of IIT Kharagpur in 2013.This young entrepreneur has turned our dreams into a reality by creating the app, News in Shorts. The app provides an experience, of knowing it all, without reading it all. The app curates news from all the sources, handpicks the best articles, and provides the gist of those stories in just 60 words.3. Farhan Azmi CEO, Infinity Hotels Pvt. Ltd.There are places you don’t want to be put in, and then there are places you do. Farhan Azmi gives to you the latter. The politician cum hotelier finished his schooling at The Scholar High School and studied commerce at Jai Hind and Sydenham College.What started as a hangout place for friends has metamorphosed into Infinity Hotels Pvt. Ltd., which is the parent company of Koyla, Café Basilico, Basilico House, and ChaiCoffi. Each is unique in its concept and the audience it looks to serve. All these have proved to place people want to be seen in. All throughout, Farhan has carefully carved himself a niche keeping in mind what he calls ‘space-starved’ Mumbaikars. Farhan evidently has grand expansion plans for Infinity Hotels and he’s juggling politics and business well.4. Faisal Farooqui Founder & CEO, MouthShut.com and Dealface.comWant to talk tireless? Talk Faisal Farooqui. Faisal graduated as a Bachelor in Science as well as in Finance from The State University of New York, Binghamton. He, unlike many in his stead, returned to India after the completion of his course and founded Consumer reviews on Movies, Cars, Bikes, Mobile Phones, Music, Books, Airlines, Restaurants, Hotels & more, an online customer feedback, and interaction portal. As of now, it has recorded over six million users a month and counting.Faisal also co-founded Zarca Interactive, an online survey software. He has received various awards and titles, like the Manthan Award by Govt. of India - Best Youth Website (2006), Indian Digital Media Awards - Best Web Portal of the Year-Gold (2011), etc. In addition to the awards, he was named Top Entrepreneur by the Entrepreneur Magazine in 2012 and one of the Top 100 Digital Icons of India 2012. When he isn’t busy receiving awards, he’s giving talks at prestigious institutions such as the American University in Dubai, IIM Ahmedabad, and IIT Mumbai. He published a paper on “Application of Market Research Towards Proactive Customer Relationship Management” in 2003. What's more, he also pioneered auto rickshaw advertising.5. Gulrez Alam Global COO, ResultrixSocial media and e-commerce are essential weapons for the success and sustenance of companies. Without SEO and SEM, they would be as good as a gun without bullets. Gulrez Alam has spent more than a decade of making social media and e-commerce useful to his clients.Gulrez, an MBA from IILM New Delhi, founded Resultrix in 2008. It is a leading service provider of search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), affiliate and social media marketing. They are certified partners with Google AdWords and Google Analytics. Resultrix has also been listed as a Microsoft adExcellence Company. In a matter of six years of its formation, it has been acquired by Publicis Group. If you do want to catch him while he’s in Mumbai and make it look accidental, try the Sunday Farmer's Market at Bandra.6. Habil Khorakiwala Chairman, Wockhardt GroupWockhardt group is the first true healthcare group from India, and Dr. Habil Khorakiwala has been the captain of this ship. He steers it and has built it sturdy. Dr. Khorakiwala majored in Pharmacy from the L M College in Ahmedabad and later acquired a Masters Degree in Pharmaceutical Science from Purdue University, USA. He was the only international non-American to have been given the title of ‘Distinguished Aluminous’ by the Purdue University. Thereafter he studied in an Advanced Management Programme at the Harvard Business School in Boston, USA.He returned to India and took over what was a small firm that made OTC (Over-The-Counter) medications. It has now blossomed into a giant MNC, making him a pharma tycoon in its true sense. As of today, Wockhardt is a USD 841 million (and counting) pharmaceutical company. The firm engages in an endless list of CSR activities and has a workforce of 7500 people from 14 nations. The Government of India has nominated Dr. Habil Khorakiwala for various committees and councils. He is quite the family man, and an avid reader and philanthropist.7. Irfan Alam Founder, SammaanIrfan Alam was fond of comics as a child and is now an entrepreneurial superhero for over five million rickshaw operators. As a twelve-year-old, Irfan studied the stock market and helped his father make investment decisions. By the age of fifteen, he launched Matins, a portfolio management firm that managed over Indian INR 60 lakhs (nearly USD 14,000). As an older man, the Harvard graduate identified an opportunity that would ease out the life for rickshaw operators as well as their clients and carried extensive research for the same at IIM Ahmedabad. In 2006, he participated in a competition announced by a television channel for entrepreneurs to showcase their business ideas. He won the contest and was titled “Business Bazigaar”.Irfan declined to accept the investment, in a very hero-like move, over the investors’ demands of the firm being for-profit and their demand to hold a majority of stakes in it. He structured a model that ensured that he and the community (with the community owning a majority) will together hold at least 51 percent of the stakes in Samman, which organized the most scattered income generating sector in India - the rickshaw operators. It doesn’t stop there. The rickshaws that are part of Samman are also a selling point for various products and services. The rickshaw operators and their families have been made “full economic citizens” by Irfan’s efforts to build channels for essential services such as banking, individual access to credit, and health for them. He was invited for Presidential Summit, 2010 at Washington by the US President Barack Obama. He has won himself various titles and awards. All he needs now is a cape!8. Irfan Razack Managing Director, Prestige GroupBread, clothing, and shelter are our basic needs. The Razack Sattar family deals in the latter two. Irfan Razack is Mr. Sattar’s eldest son. He studied commerce and graduated from St. Joseph’s College (Bangalore University) and was also awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by St. Joseph’s Old Boys Association. Later on, he completed a course in Jordan by the United Nations University International’s Leadership Academy (UNU/ILA).Irfan established Prestige in 1986, which is now a public company, with over 90 million square feet of commercial, retail, and residential properties gracing its profile so far. His love for extreme adventure is reflected in the goals he sets for Prestige and the velocity at which the company is expanding. He guided it for INR 4300 crore, which amounts to about 8 million square feet for the financial year 2014. Mr. Sattar has received many awards, including Real Estate Excellence Award (2008) and the Best Developer Award (2009) by Karnataka State Town Planning Development. He has also held important posts like Honorary secretary of Al-Ameen Educational Society, President of Bangalore Commercial Association (BCA) and Chairman of CREDAI.9. Javed Akhtar CEO, TravelportThe obvious direct relationship between employee productivity and employee satisfaction demands that corporates give as much attention to their internal audience as they do to their external audience. Javed Akhtar, a graduate from St. Georges College, Heena J. A., and Bhavin Parekh witnessed the plight of these corporates and identified the tremendous opportunity that comes with it. They fit together all the elements of loyalty and promotions programs, and Travelport was born.They started off in a small office at Dharavi in 2002. 12 years on, they have expanded and ventured into the rewards and recognition programs as well. Rewardport, as they call it, serves over 250 clients with a team of 150 professionals, with a turnover of over INR 100 crore. This taste of success seems to have made Javed crave for more! Already having covered a strong market share in both corporate travel plans and corporate reward plans, he’s now tapping the potential in the travel market for non-corporate individuals. Javed has also come up with the idea of opening travel offices in malls, adding convenience to quality.10. Jawed Habib Managing Director, Jawed Habib Hair and Beauty Ltd (JHHBL)Jawed’s grandfather, Nazir Ahmed, cut the hair of almost all the heavyweights among Indian and British politicians of the likes of Jawaharlal Nehru and Lord Mountbatten. Jawed, a graduate in French Literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University, is undoubtedly romantic- but for hairdressing. He completed a nine-month hairdressing course at Morris International School in London post graduation. Soon after, he was hired by Sunsilk and he gave the firm a good nine years of service before returning to India.Here in India, Jawed started units in remote places and trained a handful of students at a time. The trained students were then encouraged to go back to their hometown and gather a group of five people for his lecture. Then he’d start a salon with them! This soon formed a chain. Today, JHHBL has 207 saloons and 41 academies across India, and one in Malaysia. He now intends to diversify and offer to his clients all that is related to haircare and beauty. Shampoos, serums, makeup cosmetics, hair clips, razors, spas, (saloon) chairs, cups, electronic hair appliances - you name it and it’s on his mind already.11. Jazeel Badur Ferry Co-founder, Eventifier"Never let success get into your head and never let your failure get to your heart". These are the wise words dominating Jazeel’s Facebook page cover photo. The 23-year-old completed an undergraduate degree in computer science and engineering from Mangalore. He and his friends failed at impressing the jury of The Startup Centre hackathon with their idea to build an app related to stock market integrating the SMS feature.A year later, though, they floored the jury with their idea of Eventifier, which was born out of a seemingly casual observation that there was no online portal to archive the pictures and social media discussions threads that were formed while the event was on. Eventifier’s incubation at The Startup Centre hackathon was the starting point of the ride the three friends were getting onto. It was listed as one of the 7 most interesting social media startups at the Web Summit, Ireland. The startup has now been funded with USD 5,00,000 by Accel Partners and Kae Capital.12. Mohammad Hisamuddin Co-Founder, Innoz Technologies and QuestWhile the world is busy going gaga over the internet, Mohammad and two of his friends were busy unlocking the treasures of SMS apps. Mohammad graduated from Lal Bahadur Shastri College of Engineering, Kerala. The idea of Innoz was formed in a hostel room while the startup itself was jointly incubated at IIM Ahmedabad and Technopark Trivandrum.Quest is an Android and iOS based application that function as a search engine where people answer questions posed by other people. Innoz has been recorded the largest offline search engine, 2013, in the Limca Book of Records. It has also has won a number of awards, including Nasscom top 8 emerging technology companies in India 2010, top 10 mobile application developers in India 2010, and top 10 emerging product companies 2011. In addition, they won MIT-TR35 for 2010 and were shortlisted for the GSMA global mobile Awards 2012. Mohammad Hisamuddin follows football, cricket, and tennis and likes to read non-fictions books. With so many things on his plate, we wonder where this gets all the time for it.13. Navaj Sharief Founder, Ammi’s BiryaniWhat’s better than a traditional, homemade biryani? A traditional homemade biryani packed in a box and delivered to you! Meet the guy who brought this about - Navaj Sharief. He completed his schooling from Baldwin Boy’s School and moved on to pursue his BBA and MBA from the Banglore University. Navaj left the comfort of a well-established, family owned business to start Ammi’s Biryani in 2008.He believes in building the city before building the fort. It comes as no surprise, then, that he single-handedly built the company from scratch first, transcending from one role to another whenever required. The building of a strong management and HR team around it came later, with stabilization. This strategy has worked wonders for him. Today, Ammi’s Biryani has over 30 outlets spread across Bangalore and Chennai. It has been applauded for its flawless packaging and its appealing quality of food on various blogs. Navaj bagged the Best Entrepreneur Award at the Maeeshat Awards ceremony, 2013.14. Shahnaz Husain Founder, Shahnaz Husain GroupIf sheer grit and independence could be a woman, it would be Shahnaz Husain. She was schooled at La Martiniere, Lucknow, and was married by the tender age of 15. Shahnaz accompanied her husband to his posting in Tehran. There, beauty treatments intrigued her more than ever and she made up her mind to study cosmetology. Driven by her will to be independent, she supported her education by writing articles for the Iran Tribune. She worked with some of the leading institutions in the world, like Swarzkopf, Helena Rubinstein, Lancome, Christine Valmy, and Lean of Copenhagen. The occurrences of chemical damage due to beauty treatments inspired her to look for a safer, more dependable alternative.She found Ayurveda, and there has been no looking back ever since. Now a mother, she started her business in the comfort of her home, with an initial investment of INR 35,000 from her father. Soon, she was elected Chairman of the I.T.E.C. International Beauty Congress in 1981 and later in the year represented India at the Cosmetics Fair at Brighton, UK. The sale of her products broke the cosmetics sales record at Selfridge, and there was no looking back after. As of today, Shahnaz Husain has expanded her business to over 100 countries, branching into various segments like salons, spas, and shops.15. Syed Mohammed Beary CMD, Beary’s GroupSyed Mohammed Beary started off as a real estate consultant in 1981. Within three decades, Beary’s Group has grown into a giant empire, offering solutions for everything, from design, development, construction, management, coordination to marketing and advisory services. Today, Beary’s is involved in total reality, property development, and turnkey solutions, infrastructure and construction engineering, shariah as well as education. Syed spent his childhood in the picturesque hilly region of Chikmagalur.His love for nature forms an integral part of all the projects his group takes up. The entire Beary Group is supported on three pillars - Entrepreneurship, Environment, and Education. The BGRT is India’s first sustainable green building research park. They have as many as 16 educational institutes across the coastal towns of Karnataka. The group has won multiple awards over the years.16. Sirajuddin Qureshi CMD, Hind IndustriesSirajuddin Qureshi was born an entrepreneur. As a child, he supported his education by buying small goods and selling them on the roadside. He graduated from the University of Delhi and pursued Law after. Hind Industries saw its inception with Mr. Qureshi’s first consignment - an order of meat worth Rs. 17,000 to Dubai. Today, Hind Industries has its presence in 50 countries, with interests in agro-processing, abattoirs, livestock development, engineering, education, hospitality, and power. In 2010, Sirajuddin Qureshi was invited by US President Barack Obama for an entrepreneurial summit in Washington.Mr. Qureshi is also president of the Indian Islamic Culture Centre. Having realized the importance of education very early on in life, Mr. Qureshi has taken upon himself to help scores of youngsters from the minority sections of the society and educated them through the Noble Education Foundation of IICC. He also bears all the expenses towards the education provided. Mr. Qureshi has been honored with several awards and recognitions from the Government of India for his contributions to the export industry.17. Zoher Khorakiwala Chairman, MonginisIn the times when cakes were a luxury affordable only to the highest class, Monginis gave the common man reason to ‘Go ahead, celebrate!’. Zoher Khorakiwala grew up to a constant cycle of wooden trays filled with fresh cakes and puffs entering the bakery and getting exhausted within minutes. He joined the family business in 1972. Since then, much has changed and much has stayed the same. The cake shop of the common man has adapted itself to local tastes as it built franchises all over the world. The evergreen favorites like the black forest cake and the pineapple pastry, though, have remained untouched.Monginis has kept up with the dynamic technological advancements, entering into e-commerce and even offering varieties like ‘photo’ cakes. Not to forget the packaged moist cakes have gained popularity. Zoher Khorakiwala has strategized the expansion of Monginis in such a way that they consolidate their presence in the places where they already have stores. We think these are grand, deserving plans. After all, who hasn’t heard of Monginis?Edit: As per commentsHow a coolie's son set up a Rs 100 crore company http://www.rediff.com/getahead/report/how-a-coolies-son-set-up-a-rs-100-crore-company/20151216.htm

I quote below some excerpts from my book, “Harappa Civilization: Who are the Authors?” which throw light on Sarasvati River. The excerpted texts speak for themselves: the Sarasvati River is not the Ghaggar and its original namesake is found in Afghanistan. It is a mythical river.The references to the river Sarasvati found in the oldest literature, the Rig Veda come in handy for the adherents of Vedic-Harappa going even to the extent of changing the nomenclature of the Harappa or Indus civilization to Sarasvati civilization, knowing full well that it goes against established archaeological norms or practices. This act of some scholars reflects their intention to tame historical records to suit the prevalent political, social and religious weather of the country. It is customary to name an archaeological complex by the name of the first excavated site and therefore the civilization that lay buried for millennia is named after Harappa but when subsequent excavations at sites like Mohenjo-daro and Mehrgarh revealed cultural affinities to Harappa some scholars to avoid confusion call the complex as Indus, as all these sites are located on the vast Indus basin.Generally it is referred to as Harappa civilization. While some in India refer to it as Sarasvati civilization, people in Pakistan term it as Hakra culture, exhibiting a clear understanding of the difference between culture and civilization. The refreshing news is that the scholars in Pakistan without religious or national connotation distinguish Harappa civilization from Hakra culture marginally. The civilization, that rose gradually grew tremendously and disappeared suddenly, is being viewed with a microscope of religious and regional bias now. The Harappans, some of them, after the decline of their civilization dispersed to the north, east and to south during which time, that is, around 1900 BCE, the Indo-Aryans entered present day Afghanistan. From there they migrated to the sapta sindhva area which period coinciding with the composition of the RV is conventionally dated to 1500-1200 BCE.Still other writers claim that the Aryans could not have entered the Sindh region not earlier than 1000 BCE. This date does not evoke much controversy but for the few, who on the basis of unreliable astronomical data place it before the evolution of mature Harappa period, say 3000 BCE. For some writers it is necessary that the Aryans were autochthons of India because it renders easier of bridging the gap between the Hindu masses divided ethnically as the Aryans, the Dravidians, the Australoids and the Mongoloids and to pit them against the other religious minorities who can be labelled as intruders. Past history is being tailor-made to fit the present political compulsions. G.L.Possehl, an archaeologist, postulates that the migration of the Aryans happened 1000 years after the decline of Harappa.It is probable that the stay in Afghanistan might have lasted for a longer period, for the RV well exhibits knowledge of the geography of the region. It refers to Kabul (kubha), Kurrum (krumu), Swat (suvastu), Saryu (hairud), Sarasvati (haraxaiti), Gomal (gomti) etc. Though differences are there among scholars in fixing the dates they are unanimous in that the Aryans had come to India from the northern steppes. To counter this consensus and to covet the authorship of Harappa for the Aryan immigrants the issue of the river Sarasvati is brought in. The word Sarasvati means `she with many pools` and the term also cognates with Greek swamp and German sumpf,water-logged ground which to a greater extent pictures the state of the river in ancient as well present times if the status of the river with which it is associated is any indicator.Some suggest a meaning of `to run` banking upon the meaning of the root word sara but Mayrhofer does not think that a connection exists between the two words and suggests sarasi, stagnant pool from a reference in the RV (…as on a dry skin lying in the pool`s bed…-7.103.2). Prof. Ashoke Mukherjee of Calcutta University sees the term Sarasvati as an adjective ‘qualifying something as being full of water’ which need not necessarily mean a river but any water body. Witzel says that Sarasvati is the feminine form of Sarasvant which name occurs in the RV as the keeper of heavenly waters (RV 7.96.4/ 10.66.5). In 1927 Hermen Lommel had first speculated that Sarasvati is cognate to Haraxaiti, as Iranian H corresponds to Vedic S. He referred to an Avestan mythological river, sura anahita, which points to an already proto-Indo-Iranian myth of a cosmic river Sarasvati. In the later Avesta Haraxaiti is identified with a region infested with rivers and the early Persian cognate Harahuvati was identified with the Helmand river system. The reference to a region rich in rivers fits well both to the Helmand system and to sapta sindhva system of the northwest. Other meaning of the term Sarasvati renders `praise utterance` signifying eulogy. This cannot mean a river, can possibly refer to goddess. In the fourth book alone there are no referral verses on Sarasvati; all other books contain verses on Sarasvati. Seventy two references are there in the Rig Veda. However, barring a few, it is not clear if the hymns praise the river Sarasvati or goddess Sarasvati, it is inexplicably merged.Ambitame, naditame, devitame SarasvatiAprasasta iva smasi prasastim amba naskrita (RV 2.41.16)“O, Sarasvati, you the best of mothers, the best of rivers, the best of Gods! Although we are of no repute, mother, grant us distinction.” Though it is perceived by some as a praise of a river, it is manifestly evident that it extols goddess Sarasvati viewing her as best of mothers, best of rivers and best of gods. The river, note, is not personified as god but the opposite- goddess is personified as a river, any river not just the river in discussion. Therefore the river may mean the Indus or Sutlej or any other river one wishes to consider holy. Now let us see some of the verses that give a description of the river Sarasvati. The loudly roaring Sarasvati flow “swelling with volume of their water” (RV 7.36.6), “bursting with her strong waves the ridges of the hills” (RV 6.61.1) and moving swiftly “with a rapid rush comes onward with tempestuous roar” (RV 6.61.8).It is described as flowing “swifter than the other rapid streams” (RV 6.61.13). It is also described as a river “pure in her course from mountains to the sea” (RV 7.95.2) which raises a debate over the term used to refer to sea, samudra- whether it really means sea at the time when the RV was composed. Witzel remarks it was not so and gives the meaning splitting the word as sam and udra, water in a jar, small pool, large lake, etc. He also cites the Rig Vedic hymn addressed to Indra-Soma (6.72.3) – “Ye urged to speed the currents of the rivers and many samudra, have ye filled full with waters”- in support of his claim that samudra means a terminal lake or confluence of rivers. On etymological ground, according to Macdonell, samudra in the Rig Veda means “collection of waters”.He further remarks that “…indeed the word sindhu (river) itself in several passages of the RV has practically the sense of samudra”, that is, a vast body of waters. Even the natives of the Indus region, in his times, he reports, speak of the river as the `sea of Sindh`, for if a ship sails in the middle of the river it could not be seen from the banks; the river is so wide as to make it appear a samudra (p.143. A history of Sanskrit literature by AA.Macdonell;2004, Kessinger Publishing). As far as Monier Williams is concerned samudra primarily means `gathering together of waters` which point to the fact that the term in Rig Vedic times did not mean ocean. G.V.Davane has however understood the term as meaning a terrestrial ocean, a dry-land lake. He says that the term<em> samudra</em> is used to refer to lakes in arid areas which even today have parallels in Tamilnadu where names of places like Ravanasamudram, Petralsamudram, and Kalasamudram abound in.The word salt finds no mention in the Rig Veda which supports the logical argument that the term samudra refers not to the sea. Madhav Deshpande thinks that the word means a river with waves, which is not palatable to many scholars although it fits quite well with what Sindh, was referred to a century or two before. At times the word, samudra seems mythological - “the sea under and the sea above us” (RV 7.6.7) and “…his home in eastern and in western sea” (10.136.5).Therefore it is understood that at the time when the term samudra was conceived it actually meant a vast body of waters. Why so much semantic warring over a word? The answer is tied to the condition of the river Sarasvati; the Vedic river is altogether effaced from the earth as indicated in the later literature and the geography and at the same time some associate it with an ephemeral river Ghaggar which instead of draining into the sea drains itself into a marshy land in Bahawalpur district of Pakistan. It is believed that Vasishta the author of the words, “pure in her course from mountains to the sea” was from eastern Iran where the Haraxaiti discharges all its waters into the Hamun Lake called as samudra. Remembering this geological feature, explains Michael Witzel (Autochthonous Aryans, EJVS-7/3. 2001) that Vasishta extols Sarasvati, a namesake of Haraxaiti, as running into samudra, a lake.Though it may seem a far-fetched assumption it stands well with recent geological findings about which we shall see in another context. The unfailing Witzel cites a reference from Vadhula Brahmana (4.75) wherein the lower Sarasvati, Hakra is referred to as parisaraka and parisravati (the area surrounded by Sarasvati) words denoting delta like formations, samudra. However as stated earlier most of the references to Sarasvati are clothed in ambiguity: whether they refer to the river or the goddess? In RV (6.49.7), Sarasvati grouped with Visvedevas is described as “hero`s consort” and in another verse (6.50.12) she is invoked as a goddess besides Rudra from whom gifts and blessings are sought. In the next verse (6.50.13) “God Savitar, the Lord of the offspring of water, pouring down his dew” is extolled.But there is no link to Sarasvati and Savitar. In the verse (6.52.6), Sarasvati is referred to as one “who swells with rivers” which implies a terminal lake that receives the waters of rivers; rivers are only responsible for increase in water level which could happen only in the case of a lake. Or else it could mean a big river like the Indus which receives the waters of many tributaries. Witzel considers that the verses (6.61.1-7) indicating both a river and a goddess are not specific about geographic location and therefore it can be located anywhere, either in Afghanistan or on the night sky (Autochthonous Aryans, EJVS-7/3. 2001).If we take into consideration the fact that the Rig Veda was not composed by one sage and also the fact that it was not composed at a particular period of time, much of the hazy references to the Sarasvati can be understood as belonging to not just one river. Its composition could have extended to more than two hundred years. Therefore the references in the earlier books (say books 3 and 6) are to be treated as that of the Haraxaiti and the reference to the Sarasvati in the nadistuti is to be treated as distinct from the references in the earlier books. The later day Vedic poets fed with oral tradition of Haraxaiti in their erstwhile home identified some other river that flowed between the Yamuna and the Sutlej with the Sarasvati, the namesake of Haraxaiti that flowed in the Punjab region. It could be Tons or Sarsuti.In the nadistuti the river Indus is referred to as the “…mighty river surpassing all the streams that flow” and as a river “… rushing like a bellowing bull”. It is also referred to as the “…most active of the active”. Here the river Sarasvati is found mentioned but not extolled. We are therefore right in postulating that the references to Sarasvati do not actually belong to one river only; the references belong to more than one river and at times to even an imaginary river. The Rig Veda which extols both the river Sarasvati and the goddess Sarasvati does not contain any reference to the extinction of the river which comes in handy for some writers to declare that the RV antedates the extinction of Sarasvati and thereby Harappa which subject we shall take up lastly for discussion. Around the subject of extinction of Sarasvati whose existence itself was a matter of conjectures, new imaginative stories were spun. Jaiminiya Brahmana (2.249) reports that the river had gone under the ground. Tandya Brahmana names the place at where the river had gone under the ground as `vinasana`.However in Mahabharata which was composed nearly 1000 to 1500 years after the Veda links the disappearance of the Sarasvati to the then emerging caste divisions; it is said there that the Sarasvati unwilling to enter the land of the low-caste Nishadas and Abhiras hid herself under the earth. R.N. Iyengar, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore questions the veracity of the statements of poets by taking up references to Sarasvati in the Ramayana. In the Ayodhya Khand (chapter 71) it is reported that the rivers Ganga and Sarasvati were flowing side by side and in Yudh Khand (Chapter 22) it is stated that because of the curse of Rama angered by the southern sea, the land of the Abhiras in the northwest turned barren (It is in the land of the Abhiras the river Sarasvati went missing from the earth).In another context while tracing the western coastline of India and probable location of Dwaraka, Iyengar cites references to Sarasvati from the Mahabharata. In the Vana parva, he writes that Sarasvati appears along with Lake Pushkara, River Narmada, and Prabhasa. Here the allusion is that the river Sarasvati joins the sea. At another place the confluence of a river with the sea is given without any specific place. After about another fifty verses, vinasana, the place where the Sarasvati River went underneath the desert, is mentioned (Journal geological society of India, Vol.66,- RN.Iyengar, September, 2005). Then are we to infer that the Sarasvati that disappeared at vinasana reappeared in Gujarat to join the sea? Conversely can we presume that the river after disappearance as stated in the Brahmanas resurfaced and ran beside the Ganga only to die fourteen years (banishment period of Rama) later in the east and to die again to make the northwest barren?The poets are also humans and they also do err. If it is conceded that the Sarasvati and the Ganga ran next to each other, what had happened to Yamuna? Was it that the Sarasvati joined the Yamuna contrary to popular belief that Yamuna was a tributary of Sarasvati and that it shifted to the east deserting Sarasvati? Or was it that Yamuna seemed to be the holy river Sarasvati to the poet? Another of one such confusing statement from the Varaha Purana: Vasishta unbearable with the loss of his son tried to commit suicide. He jumped into the river Sutudri, Sutlej to kill himself but the river knowing his greatness turned itself into small ponds so that Vasishta survive swirling currents of the river. This stands in contradistinction to the messages delivered in the Rig Vedic verses 3.33.1 (Like two bright mother cows who lick their youngling Vipas and Sutudri speed down their waters…) and 10.75.4 (…so, Sindh unto thee the roaring rivers run…) wherein the river Sutlej is referred to as flowing quietly and not dissipating into pools. The tenth book of the Rig Veda succeeds Vasishta and the third book is contemporaneous. There is another mythological explanation for the disappearance of the river Sarasvati. In the Chaitraratha parva of Mahabharata, it is reported that sage Kavasa Ailusa, on being insulted by fellow sages as dasiputra and was excommunicated, had become angry and walked away with the river Sarasvati.Kuiper and Witzel suggest that this Kavasa Ailusa seem on linguistic grounds to be a Dravidian. A non-Aryan sage was made responsible for the loss of Sarasvati. The contradictory nature of stories reveal the importance accorded to a mythical river and the very predominant nature of mythical characterization raises doubts over the very existence of the river. With an imaginary character a writer can play havoc but with a real character he has no such luxury. It is claimed that the Indo-Aryans transporting themselves from eastern Iran to northwestern India transported names of rivers too. Haraxaiti is represented by Sarasvati, Harayo (hairud) is by Sarayu and Gomal is by Gomti. Sarayu and Gomti are the rivers in the Gangetic plains where the entry of the Aryans happened very much later. The French scholar Burnouf was the first to identify common origin for names Haraxaiti and Sarasvati and for the other two names as well. He observed the district of Harayo mentioned in the Vendidad where the river Harayo or Hairud flows is identical with the river name Sarayu in India and that Harayo is the most ancient form of the word as far as vowels are concerned and remarked that the Aryans moved into India from the northwest (Indian Caste by John Wilson, p. 84/85, 2000 Elibron Classics).This etymology of the river Harayo again proves that the migration of the Aryans took place from the west to the east and not otherwise as sought to be proved by some writers. The river Haraxaiti has been a favorite of the Aryans and so even after their migration to the northwest of India, they, finding some resemblance with a river here - that of losing itself in the marshy lands-name it as Sarasvati for it etymologically means a lake (Indian Caste by John Wilson, p. 84, 2000 Elibron Classics).). It may also be a coincidence that an imaginary or mythical river namely Sarasvati, a reminiscent of Haraxaiti, corresponds with an ephemeral river Ghaggar that debouches into the desert of Cholistan. Or did they actually name a small river Sarsuti, a corrupt form of Sarasvati, after their life-giving river the Haraxaiti of Afghanistan?The Rig Veda is quite familiar with the geography of the eastern Iran, that is, present day Afghanistan which is very revealing in the description of the river Sarasvati as at times one is confused if it is referred to Afghan Sarasvati or Indian Sarasvati. Hans Hock, professor of linguistics in Illinois University, U.S.A., has remarked that though the references to river Sarasvati in the Rig Veda can to some extent be ascribed to the river Sarasvati of India, it also seems at times that it relates to the Haraxaiti of Afghanistan. He writes that references in Vajasaneyi Samhita (34.11) to about five rivers joining the Sarasvati do not seem to indicate to the Sarasvati of India but its namesake the Haraxaiti. Sarsuti or Ghaggar are not fed by five tributaries.Asko Parpola in an essay on human sacrifice quotes the approximate date of the Vajasaneyi Samhita as around 700 BCE and according to him it is distanced from the Rig Veda later by about 500 years (P.158. The Strange World of Human Sacrifice by Jan E. Bremmer; 2007, Peeters Publishers). Therefore one cannot be certain of things said in the ancient books; they could be based on hearsays or on traditional knowledge handed down by ancestors or purely of imaginary accounts but certainly based not on first-hand knowledge. If it were the information handed down by ancestors then it could be of a description on the Haraxaiti of Afghanistan as suggested by Hock. We are not sure of it; however the fact that the poets had gone wild with imagination is beyond doubt. Prof. Irfan Habib lists the five rivers that join the Helmond strengthening the suggestion of Hock as found in Vajasaneyi Samhita: the Rasa, Kubha, Swastu, Krumu and Gomal. When Sarasvati is associated with seven rivers as sapta svasa, `with seven sisters` (RV 6.61.10 /12), it seems that it also does not fit with the Sarasvati river of India but matches well with the seven rivers of the Avesta listed in the text of Yast (19.66-69) namely Xastra, Hvaspa, Fradada, Haraxaiti, Ustavaiti, Urva, Erezi and Zarenumati, totaling eight legitimizing the epithet, sapta svasa, with seven sisters. But in the nadistuti, Sarasvati is clubbed with nine other rivers (RV 10.75.5).And in a hymn of an earlier period (3.23.4) it is clubbed with Drishadvati and Apaya. Therefore the epithet `with seven sisters` is foreign to the Sarasvati of India whether they mean tributaries, distributaries or co-runners. Apaya is not identified; according to John Wilson “it may be the Vipapa mentioned in the Mahabharata along with Drishadvati and Vipasha” and he reports that in the RV, Viput is mentioned as equivalent to Vipasha of Mahabharata which is the Beas now (Indian Caste by John Wilson, p. 85, 2000 Elibron Classics).). If it is so the Sarasvati referred to here (3.23.4) is none other than the Sutlej which is referred to as flowing together with the Beas in a Rig Vedic hymns (3.33.1/3). The nostalgia of the Haraxaiti lingers on and the Aryans see the Sarasvati or Haraxaiti in every river. The fact that the Aryans even after their departure for some centuries had not forgotten their erstwhile home of Afghanistan is brought out by the mention of Afghan river names in the tenth book also which is younger in age. A nostalgic faint memory, a highly creative yet an imaginary appreciation of a river and an on the spot description of a new river in the new found land summarize the picture of the Sarasvati in the RV.Dr. Rajesh Kochhar who is of the opinion that major part of the Rig Veda was composed in Afghanistan advocates that transfer of river names of Afghanistan to Indian rivers indicates movement of the Aryans carrying solemn memories from the west to the east. He cites a parallel in support of his contention; the people of the Gangetic plains on reaching Assam named a tributary of Brahmaputra as Yamuna. Some protagonists of Out of India Theory suggest the movement of the Aryans of India from the east to the west on the basis of supposed Aryan cultural settlements on the banks of the river Sarasvati. Kochhar however negates the suggestion by bringing out the fact that the oldest sites of Harappa are to be found in Baluchistan followed by sites of next stage on the lower basin of the Indus. The sites on the lower course and on the western side of the river bed of Ghaggar are classified as belonging to mature or post Harappan period. This chronological inconsistency eliminates the possibility of movement from the east to the west in case if we were to consider the civilization as that of the Aryans. Actually it serves to discredit the contention that Harappa culture is Aryan. Though the confusion as to where the river Sarasvati had flowed is not resolved to everyone`s satisfaction, it is reasonable to conclude that the references to the said river suggest both the Afghan and Indian rivers.The Afghan original of Sarasvati, the Haraxaiti is now known as Helmond, nobody doubts it as the literary and historical records attest to it. Therefore Kochhar, Witzel and others who contend that the names of rivers in Afghanistan travelled along with the Aryans to India seem to be on solid ground. Yet it is indiscernible if the Sarasvati means an actual river, a lake or any great perennial rivers like the Ganga, the Yamuna, the Sutlej or the Indus. The satellite images of certain paleochannels found in the Ghaggar basin lend new impetus to the identification of the river Sarasvati. The satellite images taken by Landsat (USA), IRS (India), Spot (French) and radar images from European Remote Sensing Satellites were first analyzed to find ground water resources of the arid tracts of Rajasthan which then were used as tools to trace the lost river Sarasvati because some symptomatic signatures of the rivers were sensed.After this development political and religious scholars had entered the scene to divert the research into one of singing the glory of the supposed lost river. Some of the geological scientists interpret the images as palaeo-channels of lost river, Sarasvati while some express serious doubts over this diagnosis of the images. In the rediscovery of river Sarasvati, Ghaggar comes to occupy the place of Sarasvati. Up to Ottu barrage in India it is known as Ghaggar and beyond that it is known as Hakra-Nara in Pakistan. It is an ephemeral rain-water river now. Yash Pal of Geological Survey of India, Bangalore comes out with his findings that associate the Ghaggar with the Sarasvati; he almost takes it for granted that the paleochannels represent the lost river. In his scheme of things as he takes the Rig Vedic verses as wholly true, the Sutlej once flowed into the present Ghaggar River and at some point of time the Sutlej had taken a westward turn near Ropar in Haryana indicating a diversion in its course.Near Shatrana the wide bed of Ghaggar was supposed to have received the waters of another big river and near Suratgarh the small river Chautang (Drishadvati) joins the Ghaggar. He was highly receptive to the suggestion that the Yamuna also flowed into Ghaggar at the time of the Vedas. The Ghaggar branches off near Anupgarh and both the channels come to a sudden end at Marot and Beriwala (Bahawalpur district of Pakistan) and it is supposed that the Ghaggar extends from there, through Hakra channel, to Kutch. These interpretations of the satellite images by Yash Pal evoke varied responses from historians, geologists, archeologists etc. While one set of scholars who are bent on bringing back the nostalgia of the supposed extinct river Sarasvati and are enthusiastic on renaming the Harappa civilization as Sarasvati civilization welcome it as a proof of the Vedic basis for the culture of the Harappans; however there are also saner scholars who are not carried away by national and religious fervor who question the validity of the interpretations.R.C.Thakran of Delhi University observes that the satellite pictures seem to represent impressions of water pools rather than paleochannels. The supposed paleochannels begin in the north, move towards Rajasthan and get lost beyond that; had it been the image of an extinct river buried under the earth, it would have reached up to the sea as Sarasvati is reported to have run from the mountains to the sea, without any breaks. On the contrary if we consider that it is really the paleochannel of the river Sarasvati it is inconceivable to think that how such a great river, naditama, could not cut through the marsh and reach the sea. It is most unlikely that while the other mighty river, Sindh could have a confluence with the sea but the Sarasvati which is also a great river according to the poets of the Rig Veda could not do so.Therefore one is not inclined to accept the contention that it was the buried flow route of the river. He also says that remote sensing could not reveal the antiquity of the images found in the satellite pictures. Mr. Sharma, Remote Sensing Service Centre of ISRO, Jodhpur who waxed eloquent on the images identifying it with the river Sarasvati remarked as a foot note that “the ISRO scientists do not subscribe to the theory that Sarasvati is flowing as a subterranean river”. Radioactive tracer studies have shown that the flow in buried channels is measured in few tens of cubic meters per year suggesting that the flow of water is too slow to have a link with the Himalayan sources. (The Hindu dated 28.7.2002, http://Hinduonnet.com, 10.9.11).Isotope composition of fresh water in buried channels also does not reveal any signatures of glacial origin. An environmental isotope study carried out by the scientists of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai along the buried course of a river that lie extended in the NE-SW direction in the Jaisalmer district of Western Rajasthan, “…showed that its expected headwater connection with present day Himalayan sources to be very remote.” This result contradicts the contention of V.M.K.Puri and Verma who state in an article that the river Vedic Sarasvati has ‘scientific signatures on its origin from the glaciated Himalayas’. B.K.Bhadra et al raised doubts over the contention that the Ghaggar formed a powerful drainage system in the past and served as the main channel eulogized by the Vedic Aryans and stated that the present day topography, rainfall, and drainage of the region do not support the hypothesis of Puri and Verma (p.273–288. Sarasvati nadi in Haryana……….ground based information, 2009 by Bhadra et al).Moreover it is found by the scientists of BARC that the waters in the aquifers were recharged by rains during the Holocene epoch. The scientists correlating the data obtained from a study conducted in the area across the border in Pakistan covering the dry bed of Ghaggar with the data obtained from the ground waters of the buried channel in India come to the conclusion that the ground waters of the buried channel do not seem to have originated from the Ghaggar which again discounts the possibility of Ghaggar being a perennial river in the remote past. M.A. Geyh and D.Ploethner in a paper published in Geological Society of London have stated that the fresh ground water found in a pocket in the Cholistan Desert of Pakistan, “… was indirectly recharged during flash floods in low lands during the last pluvial period” rather than directly replenished by the waters of the glaciated mountains far in the east (p.99–109, Origin of a fresh groundwater body in Cholistan, Geological society of London, vol.288. Bu MA.Geyh and D.Ploethner).Therefore the Himalayan origin of the river Sarasvati and the buried channels are to be established anew if at all there is any evidence apart from the Rig Veda. As connection with the Ghaggar to the buried channel is also ruled out, the paleochannel could not have been a part of not only the Ghaggar but also the Sarasvati with which the Ghaggar is identified. While discussing about the river Sarasvati, one would come across names like C.F. Oldham, R.D. Oldham, Raikes, Wilhelmy, Aurel Stein etc. In 1874, C.F. Oldham of the Survey of India wrote that Sutlej had discharged its waters in the bed of the Ghaggar and in 1886, R.D. Oldham of Geological Survey of India stated that the river Yamuna in the recent geological times (during Pleistocene or 1.7 million years ago) and the river Sutlej later on (during Holocene or 10000 yrs. BP) fed the Ghaggar. However satellite images disprove the Yamuna theory.In 1932, Whitehead, an archeologist stated that the Sutlej could not have moved 70-80 miles east to feed the Ghaggar. M.H. Panhwar, a ground water expert from the Sindh province of Pakistan, stated in 1963 that there was no sweet water along the course of Nara (lower section of Ghaggar) right up to Sindhri in the Rann of Kutch which proves according to him that no perennial rivers ever flowed into the Nara or Nara had ever been a perennial river. The Nara received only occasionally spill waters from the Indus and the Sutlej. He further emphasized that “during mid and late Pleistocene the Sutlej was an independent river”. (Muhammad Hussain Panhwar (M. H. PANHWAR) Welcome to Panhwar.com- 14.9.2011). It is quite likely that had the Sutlej or the Yamuna flowed into the Ghaggar it would have reached the sea cutting past the desert which was not the case. Suraj Bhan states that neither the Yamuna nor the Sutlej did ever flow as tributaries of Ghaggar. Therefore the probability of linkages between the Sutlej and Ghaggar does not arise. Before proceeding any further it would be in place to see what Thakran says. He attributes two characteristics to the perennial rivers: The perennial rivers carry large quantities of sands on their beds and potable water under the ground which gets replenished through seepage. He further remarks that the pastoralist Aryans would not have known the technique of taming a big river and so chose to live on the banks of a small river and hail it as a great river as the poetic convention demands. (http://www.hindunet.org/sarasvati/riddle.htm).As far back as in 1968, Raikes stated that the river Yamuna was alternatively captured by the Indus and the Ganges systems and Wilhelmy in 1969 contended that the Yamuna shifted westwards and flowed into the western Yamuna canal and was known as Drishadvati. Wilhelmy unaware of the recent origin of Western Yamuna Canal had formulated such a theory which is debunked now. The Western Yamuna Canal was in fact constructed by Firoze Shah Tuglaq who was the Sultan of Delhi between 1351 CE and 1388 CE. Later on, while studying the river system of the Drishadvati, Kar and Ghose showed that there is no evidence to suggest that “the Yamuna formerly flowed westward”(P.221–229, The Drishadvati nadi system…new findings. The geographical journal, vol.150. no.2 July 1984 by A.Kar and B.Ghose). Furthermore, a recent study of the stratigraphy and geomorphology of the Yamuna canals has drawn attention to the fact that the Yamuna River has been confined within its meandering course and flood plain throughout the Holocene epoch and that it could not have flowed westward to feed into the Ghaggar River as postulated by some workers (p.123–130, Late quaternary geomorphic significance of terminal fan. Journal of the Indian society of remote sensing, 34, 2006-G.S.Srivastava et al). Also the presence of Yamuna Fault along the west bank of the river Yamuna discredits the possibility of westering. Farooq Ahmed, Dept. of Geology, University of Lahore, in his doctorate thesis paper on ‘Socio-Economic dimension and ecological destruction in Cholistan’ affirms that the river Sutlej had never supplied waters to the Ghaggar-Hakra which remains a rain-fed river since millennia and had received only spill waters from the Indus at the tail end of the stream which is known as Nara.Had there been in existence any such union between the Ghaggar-Hakra and the Sutlej then sweet waters would have been there in the basin of the Ghaggar-Hakra, as pointed out by Panhwar. With regards to the supposed linkage of the Sutlej with the upper Ghaggar in Late Pleistocene to Mid-Holocene epochs, no any large paleochannel befitting the Sutlej to the west of the upper Ghaggar is evidenced to show that it traveled southwards instead of turning westward near Ropar. Suvrat Kher, a sedimentary geologist writes in a blog that the alluvial fan belt between the rivers Yamuna and Sutlej was built by depositions of ephemeral streams from the Sivaliks and there is no evidence of any large trunk of a river having ever flowed through the fan. He further says that the satellite images do not reveal any link between the Ghaggar and the Sutlej through any of the palaeo channels (Rapid uplift by Suvrat Kher, 21 January 2010). The satellite images as well as the sediment studies do not indicate a link between the present bed of the Sutlej and the upper Ghaggar. If the linkages of Ghaggar-Hakra with the Sutlej and the Yamuna are to be firmly established one sure factor to be considered is the alluvium. The rivers Sutlej and Yamuna originate in the glaciated Himalayas whereas the Ghaggar originates in the Sivalik Hills, a mountain range that rises to about 600-1200 mtrs that lie south of the Lesser Himalayas which again lie south of the Great Himalayas.Therefore the differences in the constitution of the alluvium would indicate whether the G-H had ever a union with the rivers Sutlej and Yamuna. Let me cite some scientific analytical reports here. Prof. Irfan Habib in his famous essay, “Imagining River Sarasvati: A defense of commonsense”, has cited a report of explorations of the hydrology of the Ghaggar by an Indo-French team. The exploratory team headed by Marie Agnes Courty reported that the alluvium of a large river was not found on the bed of the Ghaggar up to a depth of eight meters. This shows that there have been no flows from major rivers like the Sutlej or the Yamuna into the Ghaggar. Further evidence for the non-perennial character of the river Ghaggar comes from the geological findings of A.B. Roy and S.R. Jakkar who citing the findings of Rajaguru and Badam concludes that the river Ghaggar was never a mighty perennial river during the Harappan times and that there is no evidence that it ever had a flow pattern matching the Rig Vedic Sarasvati.The width, running from three kilometers to eight kilometers at certain places, of the river Ghaggar is, they think, over stressed for in actuality flood-drain channels are usually wider as they have to compensate the lack of depth. They also contend that the apparent consensus among some scholars on the recognition of the river system Ghaggar-Hakra-Nara as the relic courses of the Vedic Sarasvati “represent a case of mistaken identity”(Late quaternary.extinction the vedic Sarasvati. Current science vol.81, no.9; 10.11.2011 by AB Roy). Suraj Bhan maintains that the morphology and Landsat images of the Ghaggar-Hakra indicate no linkage with the stream Nara and Rann of Kutch. Actually Hakra disappears near Beriwala and Marot in Cholistan. The name of the town Derawar where the river Nara flows at ground level without any banking bounds actually means taraiaru, ground-river in Tamil which got corrupted as Derawar. This is yet another evidence for the existence of the Dravidians in the northwest in the period of the Indus civilization. Dorian Fuller of Institute of Archeology, University college of London who studied the climatic aspect for the decline of the Harappa civilization has come out with some startling revelations. He says that the river Ghaggar was losing a consistent year round water supply during the Harappa times itself and that the “Harappa urbanism emerged on the face of a prolonged trend towards declining rainfall”.Therefore climate cannot be a cause for the collapse of Harappa. It is therefore unacceptable the view of some scholars that there prevailed “climatic and environmental stability since the mid-Holocene in the region”. Mid-Holocene wet phase came to an end by the time of the establishment of the Mature Harappan civilization of the second half of the third millennium BCE. In the report the authors, Madella and Fuller cite McKean with respect to the climate of Balakot, a Harappan site west of Karachi, who stated that “there is nothing in the Balakot pollen data which might suggest that the climate during the protohistoric period in the Las Bela was decidedly wetter than at present” (Palaeocology and the Harappan civilisation…..Quaternary Science Reviews, 25 .2006-by Marco Madella and Dorian Fuller).Therefore there is nothing to show that the rivers played a crucial role in the development of the Harappan civilization. The arguments that the Sarasvati with full flow had made it possible for the Harappans raise an urban civilization go without any basis. Even Raikes who had suggested the capture of the Yamuna by the Ganges and the Indus alternatively, claimed that the climate of Baluchistan and the Indus Valley were not materially different today from those of the past. Courty also reveals that ‘climatic conditions have actually fluctuated very little since the proto-historic period and have therefore remained semi-arid’ (P. 289, Scandinavian institute of Asian studies, Occasional papers no.4, London, 1989- by VMK.Puri et al). So the contention that a perennial river like the Sarasvati only enabled a civilization to take birth, grow and mature becomes very tenuous and the euphoria created over such possibility turns futile. It also turns out that the river Sarasvati neither could have been a great river nor could have lost its glorious water-run days in the remote past. Either it was a minor river or a mythical one. Francfort, a member of the 1992 expedition team formed to conduct studies on the irrigation system and peopling of Asia, considers the Rig Vedic hymns on Sarasvati as mythic-religious and asserts that “…when the proto-historic peoples settled in this area, no large river flowed there for a long time”.He also reveals that the palaeochannels have been there in existence since the beginning of the Holocene epoch or even earlier which fact reinforces the statement of Fuller that the Harappan urbanism germinated, grew, matured and withered in spite of the dried-up river Ghaggar (p.168–169. The quest for the origin of vedic culture-Edwin Bryant, 2004,Oxford University Press). And the palaeo channels, as claimed by the protagonists of the Vedic-Sarasvati hypothesis could not be paleo channels of the Sarasvati River which, as they claim, became extinct some two thousand years ago. So this argument of `Sarasvati sustained the Harappan Urbanism` does not hold water and further equating the Vedic Aryans with the Harappans is totally unacceptable and to say the least, off the truth. These findings also highlight the fact that we should not attach much significance and exalted meaning to the Rig Vedic hymns than what they, poetry, deserve. The knowledge of geography, flora and fauna of the Vedic people was meager.Another study, carried out by J.K. Tripathi of School of Environmental Sciences, JNU and colleagues, presents findings which embarrass those who propose an origin in the glaciated peaks for the Ghaggar to make it appear as a perennial river. The team analyzed isotopic characteristics of the sediment samples dug out from a depth of 1-9 meters deposited between 2000 to 20000 years from the river beds of the Ghaggar, the Yamuna and the Ganges. Also the sediments of dune sands and loessic (fine windblown soil) sediments of northeastern part of the Thar Desert, through which the Ghaggar flows, were also analyzed. The isotopic data do not support the suggestion of a glacial source for the Ghaggar and also the assertion that the Yamuna and the Sutlej had once flowed into the Ghaggar.The data also revealed that there was no change in the source area for the Ghaggar from a glaciated region to rainfall region which means that the Ghaggar has been flowing for the past 20000 years in the same channel-course originating from the Sivalik Hills. It is also found that the modern aerosols originating from the Thar Desert and the dust deposits are also isotopically similar to the Ghaggar and Thar sediments indicating their consanguinity. The researchers suggest that “…Harappan civilization was a true river valley civilization supported by monsoonal rainfall in the sub-Himalayan catchment, the reduction of which was responsible for the extinction of the river and the associated civilization” (Is river Ghaggar Sarasvati? Geochemical constraints. Current Science vol.87, no.8, 2004-JK.Tripathi et al).B.P. Radhakrishna, Geological Survey of India, Bangalore who has edited a book on `Vedic Sarasvati` and who along with K.S.Valdiya lends the supposed scientific base for the identification of the river Sarasvati with the present Ghaggar River, comes down on Tripathi and his team sans any research data to counter them and hints that the data of Tripathi team should have made available and analyzed for a period before 3000 BCE which fact thoroughly exposes him for he, it seems has not gone through the paper full well because the research paper details the fact that the sediments up to a period of 20000 years BP have been analyzed. Tripathi replies that the deep seated sediments could be likely older than 20000 years. He further says if the deeper sediments of the Thar Desert represent deltaic sediments of the extinct river, then the sediments could be even older than 125000 years (Is river Ghaggar Sarasvati? Reply. Current Science vol.88, no.6, 2005-JK.Tripathi et al).A team headed by Sanjeev Gupta (Geologist of Imperial College, London) carried out sediment dating near Kalibangan, located on the bank of the Ghaggar to determine when the river Ghaggar-Hakra was last an active river and “found that the river sediment deposits ceased after approximately 14000 BCE, long before the Indus Culture”. Hideali Maemoku of Hiroshima University found that the sand dunes limiting the Hakra are older than 10000 years which indicates that any river present had long since dried up by that period of time. From these studies we learn that the Ghaggar identified as the river Sarasvati was not a perennial one long time before the birth of the Indus civilization. Its perennial character and as well its Himalayan origin are not established at all.The protagonists of Vedic Sarasvati suggest that as long as the river was in full flow the emergence of the Thar Desert was not a reality there; only with the desiccation of the river the whole of its basin turned barren and became a desert. Nothing can be more far from the truth than this statement. The gravel spreads in the Thar Desert had elicited opinions from Oldham, Ghosh and Bakliwal that `mighty rivers once flowed in the desert’. However a study carried out by S.N. Rajaguru of Deccan College, Poona et al demonstrates that the gravel spreads are not due to any fluvial activity. They are all weathered lags derived from conglomerate beds with in the Lathi and Jaisalmer formations of Mesozoic Age. They are all pre-Quaternary in age (p.53–58, Science Direct, Journal of arid environments, vol.32, Jan, 1996- SN.Rajaguru).Analyzing the aeolian sedimentation of the Thar Desert, A.K. Singhvi and A. Kar disclose that “the Harappan settlements in the desert appear to be more a case of human adaptation to declining rainfall than that of improved hydrological or precipitation events”. They also show that the desert had emerged over hundred thousand years (>150 Ka) ago putting to rest the argument that the Thar Desert arose subsequent to the desiccation of the river Sarasvati. This study again negates flow of any perennial rivers in the past through the Thar Desert which has been remaining a desert since millennia with intermittent wet periods (p.371–401, The aeolian sedimentation record of Thar Desert. Earth Planet Science, 113, no.3, September 2004).Some writers say that the river Hakra joined the sea and some suggest it drained into the Berivala Lake in Marot. However it seems that these suggestions are made, without any evidence, to complement the literary references. Marot is a town in the Bahawalpur district of the Punjab province of Pakistan which is far, about 900 kms, away from the sea and there is no evidence of any palaeo-seacoast. It is estimated that around the beginning of Holocene epoch, the seas had crossed the shores but Marot escaped the fury of the sea as it is situated too far away from the sea. From about 7000 BCE, the sea has been in its place as now. This fact is confirmed by the researches of Paolo Biagi on ‘Changing the pre-history of Sindh and Las Bela coast’. Writing in a book on World archaeology he reveals that people started inhabiting the northern coast of the Arabian Sea stretching from Las Bela to Indus delta before 7000 BCE. This fact by implication means that there has been no change in the coastline which remained the same as now. Near the Fort Derawar, the single bed of the Hakra breaks up into a kind of inland delta of tiny dry channels spread out like a fan. This makes it impossible for the river to have reached up to the sea. The Ghaggar as evidenced by the geological findings did not reach the sea but lost itself in the desert. As Prof. Ashoke Mukherjee of University of Calcutta points out mighty rivers of perennial character do run through the deserts and reach the sea.The river Nile runs through the Sahara Desert for 1600 kilometers and reaches the sea without getting stagnated in the desert. Likewise the Colorado River of the USA runs for 250 kilometers in the Sonoran Desert, the hottest desert of the world before emptying into the Gulf of California. If these rivers could traverse long distances in the deserts without getting lost, why then it was not possible for the mighty river, naditama, to run through the younger and weaker desert like the Thar and meet the sea? Did any cataclysmic events have ever forced the extinction of the river Sarasvati? It is a questionable suggestion because when all other rivers have been extant why the Sarasvati alone should have become extinct?(Ashoke Mukherjee- Rig vedic Sarasvati: Myth and Sarasvati Breakthrough, vol.9, no.1, Jan 2001)M.A.Geyh and D.Ploethner of Germany in a paper presented on arid zone hydrology in Vienna stated that the paleo hydrological aspects of the Hakra river in Pakistan had revealed that there could have been no tectonic movements after 4000 yrs. BP causing the disappearance of the river Hakra as concluded by Wilhelmy in 1969 and held that ‘the disappearance of the old Hakra River is more likely due to the shift of the monsoon belt southwards’. Geyh attributes his conclusion of non-happening of any tectonic upheavals to the age and constitution of the underground waters and considers the waters as fossil (p.119-127, An applied……cholistan desert, Pakistan. IAHS publication, no.32, 1995-MA. Geyh et al). Panhwar also stated that the earthquakes would not have resulted in as even a plain as obtained now in Pakistan. Geyh upholds the view that the Ghaggar River did flow in its course for the past 15000 years without any change which implies that there had been no lost-courses for it.Other than possible explanations for the extinction of the Sarasvati offered by some scholars there is no such report of any upheaval under the earth for the last 10000 years. Also is it not surprising that all the rivers of the northwest and the Gangetic plains retain their original names except the Sarasvati? The lifeline of the Aryans, the Sarasvati which name occurs around 70 times in the Rig Veda, alone fails to retain its name but rather loses it to a ‘local desanscritized drab title of local dialect’. The supposed river Sarasvati is at present represented, as some writers want it to be, by the name Ghaggar in India and Hakra and Nara in Pakistan which seems quite odd considering the importance the Rig Veda accords to the mythical Sarasvati. Could it ever happen or would the Aryans who named small rivers in Bengal and Gujarat as Sarasvati would ever allow it to happen?The man, C.F. Oldham, who first talked of the extinct river Sarasvati, spoke of also the impossibility of its being a river having its origin in the glaciated Himalayas: “Between the Sutlej and the Yamuna there is no opening in the Himalayas through which a large river could have entered the plains” (Ashoke Mukherjee- Rig vedic Sarasvati: Myth and Sarasvati Breakthrough, vol.9.no.1, Jan 2001). The fact is that the Ghaggar was never known as Sarasvati; it was a river on whose bed and banks the dasas and the dasyus of the Harappa were flourishing even when the river was not flowing to brim. If it were to be that the Ghaggar-Hakra-Nara had ever reached the sea, the paleo channels would have extended up to the coast. Therefore as Thakran contends these supposed paleochannels that are missing after their entry into the Thar Desert are mere subterranean water signatures.According to H.S. Saini et al, the linkages with the upstream and downstream of the isolated, segmented palaeo channel of the supposed Sarasvati River, found between Fatehabad and Hoshanga, in the northwestern plains of Haryana are elusive, hinting that the postulation of Yash Pal is untenable, that is, there is no evidence of even any palaeochannels from the Himalayas down to the Ghaggar. The paleochannel remain isolated like a submerged lake without any linkages with any river courses which is essential to establish it as a palaeochannel of the lost Sarasvati River. The scholars identify three phases of fluvial activity in the area including the present. The oldest fluvial activity is dated to an age between 28 Ka and 30 Ka. To this age belong the three buried channels in the NW-SE section in the northwestern plains of Haryana. The second fluvial activity is represented by a palaeo channel which Saini et al marked as F-2 and dated between 6000 and 2900 years BP. The last phase is connected to the present Ghaggar (Reconstruction of buried channel…..to the vedic Sarasvati. Current science, vol.97.no.1; 10.12.2009.-HS. Saini et al). It is evident from the studies of Saini et al that in Haryana there was a strong fluvial regime in the period before the Last Glacial Maximum and any fluvial activity after that period is not recognizable very well. We therefore infer that the Ghaggar has been running in the proto-historic period as a rain-fed dry river as now. There is no evidence for the perennial flow and extinction of the river Sarasvati in the past 10000 years; if so does the Rig Veda lie about its existence?May be or may not be, the problem with us is that we give too much credence to the poetic description of a river to mythical proportions and build up a huge edifice upon it saying that the tribe of Aryans has had a marvelous cultural life on the banks of the river Sarasvati and were sustained by the waters of it. We take the words of the Veda to illogical end. As Prof. Ashoke Mukherjee would say that for the Vedic poets ‘…in order to sustain the myth of the existence of the river Sarasvati in face of its non-reality, it was necessary to generate another complementary myth which would explain away the visible non-existence of the river’. The poets give birth to an idea and kill the very same idea later to cover-up their fallacy.B.K.Bhadra et al doubt whether the Ghaggar could ever have formed a powerful river system in the past and served as the main channel of the Vedic Sarasvati. “The present day topography, rainfall and drainage of the region do not support the hypothesis provided by Puri and Verma” that the Ghaggar, read Sarasvati was a mighty river once. Now let us analyze another possibility. If the images really indicate a buried river, then when did the river go under the earth? John F. Shroder while discussing about the capture history of Himalayan Rivers like Soan and Ghaggar remarks that these events could have taken place in the Cenozoic age, that is, from about 65 million years before present (p.24. Himalaya to the sea: Geology, geomorphology and quaternary- John F, Schroeder; 1993, Routledge Taylor & Francis). This fact is further corroborated by Dr. Amal Kar, senior geomorphologist at the Central Arid Zone Research Institute, Jodhpur who estimates that the river flowed through the desert between one million and forty thousand years ago. However the carbon dating of the waters from the buried channels reveals that they are just 4000 years old indicating the pluvial activity for its creation(p.246. Legend of Ram: Antiquity to Janmabhumi debate by Sanujit Ghose. 2004, Bibliophile South Asia). The non-matching of dates lend the whole theory untenable. We have seen before that the isotopic studies of the waters from buried channels do not indicate any Himalayan source.The availability of ground waters indicates a prolonged wetter period 4000 years BP. The hypothetical paleo channels in fact are not flow marks of dead rivers but signatures of available ground water that remain untapped for four millennia. In the time span we come across, for the probable disappearance of the river Sarasvati, there could have been no Aryans in India because even the votaries of `pre-Harappa age for the Rig Veda` and `the association of Harappa civilization with Vedic-Sarasvati culture` do not contemplate on seeking a higher antiquity than that of say 6000-8000 BCE. People obviously fail in their attempts to make the Harappan civilization chronologically compatible with the culture of the Vedic Aryans.The adherents of the existence of the river Sarasvati cite the Rig Vedic hymn (10.75.5) which lists rivers from the east to the west starting with Ganges, Yamuna, Sarasvati, Sutlej, Ravi, Chenab, Maruvridha, Jhelum and Arjikiya in that order. Of these rivers, only the Sarasvati is not to be seen flowing terrestrially (some writers identify the river Maruvridha as a tributary of Chenab while the identification of the Arjikiya is still elusive); therefore it is conjectured that the Ghaggar could be the Sarasvati river of the Vedic period since Ghaggar is the only big river that lies dry between the Yamuna and the Sutlej rivers. Writers like Frawley, Kak, Elst and Kalyanaraman run the battle of Sarasvati for Ghaggar. These writers argue that the Vedic culture flourished from around 6000 BCE to around 1900 BCE on the banks of the river Sarasvati and met its nemesis along with the demise of the river Sarasvati. They embark, as Prof. Ashoke Mukherjee remarks, on a peculiar argument that Hakra river settlements do not constitute Harappa Civilization of non-Aryan heritage but constitute settlements of the Vedic Aryans; but if questioned how one associates these settlements with the Aryans, they would say it is because they are in the basin of Sarasvati. If you probe further that how one would ascertain that the river is the Sarasvati, the answer would gush out that it is the Sarasvati because Vedic settlements are there. Mukherjee asserts that if the Ghaggar had been the Sarasvati (as big as the Sindh or the Ganges) there would have been very few pre-iron age settlements there; instead there were a large number of sites.Harappans, in the Chalcolithic period, would not have been able to clear dense forests nurtured by perennial rivers as the Harappans were vested with stone and copper implements only. Therefore they sensibly chose to settle away from the river banks and in this case in the basin of a very weak river as the Ghaggar which was not carrying waters throughout the year and as such could not nurture dense vegetation. As such there is no logic of it being called the Rig Vedic Sarasvati. As it is proved beyond any doubt that the mature Harappan civilization had emerged, prospered and declined amidst the arid conditions which preclude the necessity of any full-flowing river, the talk of the Sarasvati supplying ‘milk and fat’ to Harappans is only a dreamy conjecture.The present and the past flow and course history of the Ghaggar do not make it eligible to occupy the seat or name of the Rig Vedic mythical Sarasvati. If we assume the Ghaggar to be the Sarasvati, then as R.S.Sharma avers, Kalibangan in Rajasthan alone can lay claim to Vedic culture. Even that possibility has been eliminated from consideration by the finding of Sanjeev Gupta about which we have seen earlier. Had the nomadic Vedic tribes really developed the Kalibangan site or for that matter the entire gamut of Harappan civilization, how is that they could not build a similar urban settlement during the intermittent 1500 years between the collapse of the Harappan civilization and the beginning of the Magadha Empire, so questions Mukherjee? Nevertheless if we apply the C-14 date of 800 BCE arrived at by D.P.Agarwal and Kusumgar for the entry of the Aryans into Rajasthan, that possibility of calling Kalibangan a Vedic site also vanishes into thin air.Malvan located on the banks of the river Tapti belongs to Late Harappan period not only that, the hundreds of sites located on the flood plains of Ghaggar also belong to Late Harappan period. Kunal site, according to R.S. Sharma is not associated with Harappa. It is to be noted with interest that Harappa located on the bank of the Ravi, MJD, Amri and Chanhudaro located on the banks of the Indus, Sutkagendor on the bank of Dast River in Baluchistan, Dholavira and Surkotada located in the Kutch and lastly the Lothal situated on the Bhogua river bank are in fact the true representatives of the Harappa civilization. The excavated sites at Mehrgarh, Kot Diji and Nausharo, situated in the Baluchistan province of Pakistan belong to pre or Early Harappa period which is rightly dated to 7000 BCE or even earlier. These sites can be termed as forerunners to the Harappan civilization.Having said these how one can justifiably argue for the sites on the Ghaggar as belonging to the Aryans. The entry of the Aryans was from the north; in that case, the sites on the Ghaggar basin could not be construed as that of the Aryans which are younger to Mehrgarh. However there is no sign of any Aryan cultural legacies found in Mehrgarh, the earliest of the Harappan sites. If it is assumed that the Aryans had spread out from the east to west and northwest the younger sites on Ghaggar cannot be ascribed to the Aryans- a tree cannot take birth without a seed or sapling; the seeded sites are located on the west. (If in case the origin and evolution of the Harappan civilization do belong to the Aryans as claimed by some writers).As said earlier these sites located on the bed of the river stand as stumbling block in the way of the people who claim authorship of Harappa for the Aryans. How could people like the Aryans, for whom water is divine, live on the dry beds of rivers and how could one simultaneously claim that waters flowed once in the extinct river which could have washed away the settlements situated on the bed altogether? It was Prof. M.R. Mughal who identified around 400 sites on the Hakra river basin in Pakistan as belonging to Harappa civilization which are cited as evidence for the domicile of the Aryans on the banks of the river Ghaggar-Sarasvati. He in fact termed it as Hakra culture. R.S. Sharma quoting Mughal remarks that around fifty late Harappa sites in Cholistan reveal Cemetery-H related materials and these contents “…symbolize the coming of new people”.A cultural site can only be a part of a great civilization and as such it is no different from Indus. It is claimed that more than thousand sites are identified along the river basin of the Ghaggar on Indian side; however none of it can be termed as belonging to Mature Harappa period, they all belong to pre or late Harappa period. Witzel highlights that all these sites where kapalas, pot-shards are found on the river-bed itself bring to mind the armaka, arma and vailasthana of the deserted places of the people like the dasas and the dasyus of the Rig Veda. It also shows that the Ghaggar-Hakra has never been a perennial river either during the birth and growth of Harappa civilization or at the time of decline when the Aryans had entered the northwest of India. As Ghaggar is a relict river it preserves sites located on its bed whereas the rivers like the Sindh, the Ravi etc. are perennial and so the periodic floods in the rivers and streams could have obliterated almost most of the sites in their basins. An excavation, carried out by Vasant Shinde and colleagues from Maharashtra at sites of supposed Hakra culture in Haryana found that “some of the sites are right in the middle of the course of the river Ghaggar” which indicates that the river went dry before the times of the Harappans. This corroborates the conclusion of Witzel.The question of the Ghaggar, the hypothetical Sarasvati, ever being a perennial river is put to rest. Do we have any evidence from the literature for the possible junction of Sutlej with Sarasvati on one hand and Sarasvati with Yamuna on the other? A Rig Vedic hymn (3.33.1/3) describes the flowing together of the rivers Sutlej and Beas as “…licking as it were their calf the pair of mothers flow”. In the nadistuti hymn (10.75.5), the river Sarasvati is placed between Yamuna and Sutlej. Therefore when the Aryans saw the river it was not aligned either with the Sutlej or with the Yamuna. If at all any such union of rivers had taken place when it could have happened? Possibly in the Cenozoic age. Asif Inam et al in an essay in a book speculate, on the sudden increase of radiogenic sediment, that the capture of the Punjabi tributaries into the Indus River shortly after 15 million years ago could be the cause of it (p.333-348, Large rivers: Geomorphology and Management. 2007, John Wiley & Sons ltd- Avijit Gupta). This fact also discounts the possibility of Sutlej having ever flowed into the Ghaggar. Then why the protagonists of Sarasvati civilization raise so much ado about the joining of rivers Ghaggar, Yamuna and Sutlej and bank on outdated and scientifically disproved theory of river piracy in the recent past, say four millennia back? They are forced to find a river in between the Yamuna and the Sutlej to match the great rivers like the Indus and the Ganges and to accord credibility to the Rig Vedic hymns.Finding no such big river, they bend science to serve them; the satellite images which are taken to identify ground water potentials are used to build up a case for the extinct river Sarasvati. It is common knowledge that subsoil palaeo channels possess stored water; but it is highly debatable if this ground water is a running channel under the earth. Some of the scientists instead of working as scientists proper become Vedic Pundits throwing all facts to winds. Instead of assessing and highlighting the ground water availability, they misrepresent the fact as if a great river Sarasvati is flowing under the ground waiting for us to redeem it and make it appear again on the face of the earth.A colossal campaign has been organized to project the Ghaggar-Hakra-Nara stream as the Vedic river Sarasvati and to misappropriate credit for the Harappan Civilization. Radiocarbon dates assign 1900 BCE as the probable date for the decline and disintegration of the Indus Civilization and the entry of the Indo-Aryans in the northwest of India are estimated at 1500 BCE-1200 BCE on the basis of linguistic studies. Therefore a period of five hundred years separates the Aryans from the declined civilization of the Harappans, postulating the impossibility of the Aryans ever having nurtured the Indus civilization.If the Ghaggar cannot be considered as the Vedic Sarasvati, then what river could be accorded the status of the Sarasvati? If we consider the later age of the tenth mandala of the Rig Veda wherein the nadistuti hymn places the Sarasvati between the Yamuna and the Sutlej, then the place of Sarasvati could be given to the river Sarsuti. References to Sarasvati River in other mandalas could be postulated as reminiscences of the Haraxaiti of their erstwhile domicile. Considering the practice of the Aryans that wherever they go they name a river in the new land after a river of their previous land, it is but natural that they named the Sarsuti after Sarasvati. As referred earlier that if we treat the Ghaggar as the Sarasvati, the loss of name poses a problem. In the whole of the northwest, the names Ghaggar, Hakra and Nara alone are not of Vedic language or not attested in the Vedas which is inconceivable to have happened to the naditame that is Sarasvati.On the contrary it is quite logical to conclude that the Aryans finding the river dry left it unnamed and uncared for as the river basin was host to the dasas and dasyus. They named a small river as Sarasvati now corrupted to Sarsuti. Viewing the occurrence of the name Sarasvati with respect to small rivers in Bengal and Gujarat it is quite appropriate to suggest that the Sarsuti was the original Sarasvati of nadistuti hymns as it also flows between the Yamuna and the Sutlej. The nadistuti hymn (10.75.5) groups the tributaries of the Indus and the Ganges without naming the great river Indus and however the tributaries of the Indus are not as great as the Yamuna and the Ganga. When these rivers are grouped together as great rivers, the Sarsuti of present times is also eligible to be grouped and that is what exactly the poets did. The Sarsuti which also originates in the Sivaliks and appears in the plains of Ad-Badri in Ambala is considered by many writers as the remnant Sarasvati.It is also a monsoonal river flowing southeast and joined by a stream called the Markanda. A study has concluded taking into consideration the satellite images and ground data that the small rain-fed river, Sarsuti had never any linkages with the Yamuna. Some suggest that the river Tons could be the lost Sarasvati because its source lies in the 20720 ft. high Bandarpunch glacial mountain and is one of the major perennial rivers which join the Yamuna below Kalsi near Dehradun. It is speculated that the river Tons was the upper portion of the river Ghaggar. However as we have shown earlier with the results of scientific studies that the Ghaggar bed does not carry any sediments of the glaciated peaks the last nail on the coffin of the theory, that the Sarasvati was fed with the waters of the Sutlej and the Yamuna, so also the Tons now, is driven.

A very, very, silly question. Let’s look at Wikipedia’s list of prominent Muslims in the UK.Actually before we do, let me point out that this is an incredibly long list, it includes politicians, judges, lawyers, authors, journalists, MPs, peers, policemen, military personnel, actors and even fictional Muslim characters on TV, film, stage and book, ( just to show that Muslims play such an important role in UK life that they inevitably get portrayed in the arts too just like everyone else), scientists, and business men. The list is not complete by any means. It includes 9 mayors, not just Sadiq Khan the mayor of London.It does not include all the people who everyday treat our children, teach our children, do our accounts, fix our teeth, drive our planes, ships, taxis, trains and buses, who fix our cars and computers, who just happen to be Muslim too.We in the UK are very proud to have had a Muslim population for so long that there is not a walk of life in which they are not represented, in which Muslims are not playing an I portabt role in maintaining the fabric of our nation. That them being Muslim is not an issue when it comes to them being a useful member of our society.Our healthcare system would just collapse without them for instance.Oh and Muslim children bring yet more joy to our happy laughing schools playgrounds and parks.It is impossible to imagine a UK in the twenty first century without this dynamic, caring community in our midst. We embrace our Muslim brethren. We are all British. First and foremost. Britain is a better place for having lots of Muslims. That diversity is a source strength and hope. That diversity is our future.We have so many important Muslims here in the UK, they win awards, earn medals, deserve praise, get respect. What more do you want? They are integral to the UK, so integral that no one seems to notice and despite that you are concerned about being taken over. Taken over by what? Taken over by all these nice people doing wonderful things just like their fellow Brits who just might happen to be atheist, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Mormaon, and the indifferent.What happens when people immigrate to Britain is like a magic wand is waved, within a few years or generations, everyone is thoroughly British. All you need to be able to do, to be British, is have a laugh. Once you start laughing at daft jokes you have passed the test.So the only people who are ever going to take over the UK are the ones who tell the best jokes.Here is the list at long last, and it is long, don't say I didn’t warn youAcademia and educationEditAli Ansari – university professor at the University of St Andrews[1]Abbas Edalat – university professor at Imperial College London[2]Ali Mobasheri – associate professor and reader at UniversityAsh Amin – Head of Geography at Cambridge University[3]Tipu Zahed Aziz – professor of neurosurgery at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford; lecturer at Magdalen College, Oxford and Imperial College London medical school[4]Azra Meadows OBE – honorary lecturer in the Institute of Biomedical and Life Sciences at The University of Glasgow[5]Dilwar Hussain – research fellow at The Islamic Foundation in Leicester; co-authored the 2004 book British Muslims Between Assimilation and Segregation; is on the Home Office's committee tackling radicalisation and extremism[6]Ehsan Masood – science writer, journalist and broadcaster; editor of Research Fortnight and Research Europe;[7] teaches International Science Policy at Imperial College London[8]Haroon Ahmed – Emeritus Professor of Microelectronics at the Cavendish Laboratory, the Physics Department of the University of Cambridge[9]Ghayasuddin Siddiqui – academic and political activist[10]Ghulam Sarwar – Director of the Muslim Educational Trust;[11] writer on Islam in English, wrote the first English textbook, Islam: Beliefs and Teachings, for madrasah students in Britain, which is used worldwide in religious education classes, especially in British schools[12]Jawed Siddiqi – professor emeritus of software engineering at Sheffield Hallam University and political activist[13]Kalbe Razi Naqvi – British Pakistani physicist, who has been ordinarily resident in Norway since 1977, working as a professor of biophysics in the Norwegian University of Science and Technology[14]Khizar Humayun Ansari – academic who was awarded an OBE in 2002 for his work in the field of race and ethnic relations.[15]Mohammed Ghanbari – professor at the University of Essex[16]Mohammad Hashem Pesaran – academic, economist, professor of economics at Cambridge University, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge[17]Mona Siddiqui – University of Edinburgh's Professor of Islamic Studies and Public Understanding; regular contributor to BBC Radio 4, The Times, Scotsman, The Guardian, and The Herald[18]Reza Banakar – professor of socio-legal studies at the University of Westminster, LondonSaeed Vaseghi – professor at Brunel University[19]Salman Sayyid – Professor of Social Theory and Decolonial Thought at the University of Leeds[20]Sara Ahmed – Professor of Race and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths[21] and academic working at the intersection of feminist theory, queer theory, critical race theory and postcolonialismTariq Modood – Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy at the University of BristolZiauddin Sardar – scholar, writer and cultural critic[22]Business and financeEditAbdul Latif – restaurateur known for his dish "Curry Hell"[23]Afzal Kahn – Bradford-based entrepreneur; owns a specialist car design company; broke records in 2008 for paying £440,000 for a distinctive "F1" number plate;[24] previously showed an interest in purchasing Newcastle football club[25]Aktar Islam – restaurateur, curry chef and businessman;[26] in 2010, his restaurant Lasan won the Best Local Restaurant category on Channel 4's The F Word;[27] in 2011, Islam won the Central regional heat to reach the final of the BBC Two series Great British Menu[28][29]Ali Parsa – former chief executive officer of private healthcare partnership Circle[30]Alireza Sagharchi – principal at Stanhope Gate Architecture[31]Aneel Mussarat – property millionaire; his company, MCR Property Group, rents apartments to university students in Manchester and Liverpool[32]Sir Anwar Pervez – Pakistan-born businessman; 6th richest Asian in Great Britain and the richest Muslim; founder of the Bestway Group[33]Asim Siddiqui – chairman and a founding trustee of The City Circle[34]Atique Choudhury – restaurateur;[35] his restaurant Yum Yum won Best Thai Restaurant in London at the 2012 Asian Curry Awards[36]Bajloor Rashid MBE – businessman and former president of the Bangladesh Caterers Association[37][38]Enam Ali MBE – restaurateur; founder of the British Curry Awards and Spice Business Magazine[39]Farad Azima – industrialist, inventor and philanthropist[40]Farhad Moshiri – energy investor; part owner of Arsenal F.C.[41]Farshid Moussavi – founder of Foreign Office Architects[42]Gulam Noon, Baron Noon – founder of Noon products, manufacturing chilled and frozen ready meals[43]Husna Ahmad – Bangladeshi-born British humanitarian; chief executive officer of the Faith Regen Foundation; sits on the Advisory Board to the East London Mosque;[44][45] previously sat on the Department for Work and Pensions' Ethnic Minority Advisory Group[46]Iqbal Ahmed OBE – entrepreneur, chairman and chief executive of Seamark Group'; made his fortune in shrimp; the highest British Bangladeshito feature on the Sunday Times Rich List (placed at number 511 in 2006)[47]Iqbal Wahhab OBE – entrepreneur, restaurateur, journalist, publisher; founder of Tandoori Magazineand multi-award-winning restaurant Cinnamon Club[48]James Caan – businessman and entrepreneur; formerly a part of Dragons' Den [49]Javed Ahmed – chief executive of Tate & Lyleplc,[50] – a FTSE 250 company which is one of Britain's oldest brands;[51]Kaveh Alamouti – head of Global Macro Citadel LLC; chief executive officer of Citadel Asset Management Europe[52]Mahmoud Khayami, KSS – industrialist; founder of Iran Khodro[53]Mo Chaudry – born in Pakistan, he was raised in England and went on to become a millionaire businessman in the West MidlandsMohammad Ajman 'Tommy Miah' – internationally renowned celebrity chef, award-winning restaurateur,[54][55] founder and promoter of the Indian Chef of the Year Competition[56]Moorad Choudhry – managing director, Head of Business Treasury, Global Banking & Markets at Royal Bank of Scotland plc[57]Mumtaz Khan Akbar – founder and owner of the Mumtaz brand[58]Muquim Ahmed – entrepreneur; became the first Bangladeshi millionaire at the age of 26,[59] due to diversification in banking, travel, a chain of restaurants with the Cafe Naz group, publishing and property development[60]Naguib Kheraj – vice-chairman of Barclays Bank;[61] former boss of JP Morgan Cazenove[62]Chairman of the Aga Khan Foundation based in KarachiNasser Golzari – principal at Golzari (NG) Architects[63]Leepu Nizamuddin Awlia – car engineer and coachbuilder who converts rusty old cars into imitation supercars in a workshop on Discovery Channel reality television programme Bangla Bangers/Chop Shop: London Garage[64]Ragib Ali – industrialist, pioneer tea-planter, educationalist, philanthropist, and banker[65]Ruzwana Bashir – British businesswoman, founder and CEO of Book Amazing Activities, Tours, and more | Peek, travel company based in San Francisco, California[66]Shelim Hussain MBE – entrepreneur, founder and managing director ofEuro Foods (UK) Limited[67]Siraj Ali – restaurateur and philanthropist;[68]recipient of the 2011 British Bangladeshi Who's Who "Outstanding Contribution" Award[69]Sultan Choudhury – businessman; managing director of the Islamic Bank of Britain[70]Syed Ahmed – entrepreneur, businessman, and television personality; candidate on BBC reality television programme The Apprentice series two in 2006[71]Tahir Mohsan – founder of Time Computers, Supanet, Tpad; manages several investment companies from his base in Dubai[72]Wali Tasar Uddin MBE – entrepreneur, restaurateur, community leader, and chairman of the Bangladesh-British Chamber of Commerce[73][74]Waliur Rahman Bhuiyan OBE – managing director and Country Head of BOC Bangladesh Limited, one of the first British companies to invest in Bangladesh in the 1950s to produce and supply industrial and medical gases[75]Zameer Choudrey – Chief Executive of BestwayGroup[76]EntertainmentEditAbdullah Afzal – actor and stand-up comedian[77]Adnan Sami – singer, musician, pianist,[78][79] actor and composer[80][81]Afshan Azad – actress best known for playing the role of Padma Patil in the Harry Potter film series[82]Ahmad Hussain – singer-songwriter, executive, producer and founder and Managing Director of IQRA Promotions[83][83]Ahsan Khan – film and television actor, host and performer[84]Ahmed Salim – award-winning British producer, known for 1001 Inventions[85]Akram Khan MBE – dancer and choreographer;[86]named Outstanding Newcomer 2000, Best Modern Choreography 2002, and Outstanding Male or Female Artist (Modern) 2005 at the Critics' CircleNational Dance Awards[87]Alyy Khan – film and television actor and host[88]Ali Shahalom – comedian who hosts the comedy YouTube channel Aliofficial1[89]Annie Khalid – English-Pakistani musician and model[90]Aqib Khan – actor; played Sajid Khan in the movie West is West[91]Art Malik – Pakistani-born British actor who achieved fame in the 1980s through his starring and subsidiary roles in assorted British and Merchant-Ivory television serials and films[92]Ayub Khan-Din – actor and playwrightAziz Ibrahim – musician best known for his work as guitarist with Simply Red, The Stone Roses(post-John Squire)[93]Babar Ahmed – British/American writer/director of Pashtun and Pakistani descent; according to the BBC[94]Babar Bhatti – actor; played Punkah Wallah Rumzan in the BBC sitcom It Ain't Half Hot Mum, his first role[95]Badi Uzzaman – television and film actor[96]Bilal Shahid – singer and rapper[97]Boyan Uddin Chowdhury – former lead guitarist of rock band The Zutons[98]Delwar Hussain – writer, anthropologist and correspondent for The Guardian; in 2013, published his first book, Boundaries Undermined: The Ruins of Progress on the Bangladesh-India Border[99]Dino Shafeek – actor and comedian who starred in several sitcoms during the 1970s and early 80s; played Char Wallah Muhammed in It Ain't Half Hot Mum and Ali Nadim in Mind Your Language[100]Eenasul Fateh (Aladin) – cultural practitioner, magician and live artist; named International Magician of the Year in 1991; winner of the 1997 Golden Turban Award from the Magic Academy of Bangalore in India[101]Hannan Majid – documentary filmmaker whose films have been exhibited at international film festivals including Emirates, Cambridge, Durban, and Leeds[102]Jamil Dehlavi – London-based independent film director and producer of Pakistani-French origin.[103]Farook Shamsher – alternative dub/dance music DJ and record producer; received the Commitment to Scene award at the UK Asian Music Awards2006[104]Hadi Khorsandi – comedian[105]Hajaz Akram – British Pakistani actor[106]Humza Arshad – actor and comedian; producer of the YouTube series Diary of a Badman[107][108][109]Ian Iqbal Rashid – award-winning poet, screenwriter and film director, known for the series This Life and Leaving Normal, and the feature films Touch of Pink and How She MoveIdris Rahman – clarinettistImran Sarwar – game designer and producer on the Grand Theft Auto series of video games[110]Jan Uddin – actor best known for his roles as Jalil Iqbal in BBC soap opera EastEnders and Sweet Boy in the film Shank[111]Jay Islaam – award-winning stand-up comedian,[112][113] broadcaster[114] and journalist.[115][116][117]Jeff Mirza – stand-up comedian and actor[118]Jernade Miah – singer, songwriter; signed to 2Point9 Records (Doh Point Nau); won Best Newcomer at the UK Asian Music Awards2011[119][120]Kamal Uddin – Nasheed singer, songwriter,[121]imam, and teacher[122]Kaniz Ali – makeup artist and freelance beauty columnist;[123] named Best Make-Up Artist at the 2011International Asian Fashion Awards[124]Kayvan Novak – actor; star of Fonejacker[125]Kishon Khan – pianist and bandleader of Lokkhi TerraKatrina Kaif – Model, Film-actressLucy Rahman – singer[126]Mani Liaqat – Manchester-based British Asianactor and comedian, known for his bizarre rants, portly figure, witty voice and mixture of Punjabi/Urdu/Hindi and British everyday-humour[127]Munsur Ali – film producer, screenwriter and director; in 2014, he wrote, directed and produced Shongram, a romantic drama set during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War;[128] first time a British film was simultaneously written, produced and directed by a British Bangladeshi[129]Mazhar Munir – television and film actor; before co-starring in the 2005 movie Syriana, he appeared in three British television shows: The Bill, Mile High, and DoctorsMenhaj Huda – film and television director, producer and screenwriter; directed and produced Kidulthood in 2006[130]Mina Anwar – British actress; played Police Constable Maggie Habib in the sitcom The Thin Blue Line[131]Mo Ali – Somali-British film director[132]Mohammed Ali – street artist; combined street artwith Islamic script and patterns, as "Aerosol Arabic";[133][134] in January 2009, he won Arts Council England's diversity award[135]Muhammad Mumith Ahmed (Mumzy Stranger) – R&B and hip-hop singer, songwriter; first musician of Bangladeshi descent to release a single, "One More Dance";[136] namedBest Urban Act at the UK Asian Music Awards 2011[137]Murtz – television and radio presenterNabil Abdul Rashid – comedian of NigeriandescentNadine Shah – singer, songwriter and musician[138]Natasha Khan – known by her stage name as "Bat for Lashes"; half Pakistani half English singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalistNaz Ikramullah – British-Canadian artist and film producer of Pakistani origin[139]Nazeel Azami – Nasheed singer-songwriter signed to Awakening Records[140]Nazrin Choudhury – screenwriter; actress in drama serials;[141] her critically acclaimed radio play "Mixed Blood"[142] won the Richard Imison Award2006Prince Abdi – Somali-born British stand-up comedianRani Taj – dhol player dubbed as "Dhol Queen" after her YouTube video went viral[143]Rita Ora – singerRiz Ahmed – actor who played Omar in the movie Four Lions and Changez in The Reluctant FundamentalistRowshanara Moni – singer and actress[144]Ruhul Amin – film director; has made 13 films for the BBC and Channel 4 including 1986 TV feature film drama A Kind of English;[145] most of his works are documentaries and experimental dramas[146]Runa Islam – film and photography visual artist, nominated for the Turner Prize 2008[147][148]Sadia Azmat – stand-up comedian[149]Sanchita Islam – artist, writer and filmmaker;[150] in 1999, she founded Pigment Explosion, which has branched out into projects including film, painting, drawing, writing and photography[151]Sadik Ahmed – film director, cinematographer, and writer;[152] wrote and directed international award-winning short film Tanju Miah, which was the first Bangladeshi film in the Toronto, Sundance, and Amsterdam film festivals in 2007[153]Saifullah 'Sam' Zaman – DJ and producer associated with the Asian Underground movement, recording as "State of Bengal"[154]Sakina Samo – award-winning actress, producer and director[155]Sami Yusuf – musician[156]Sanober Hussain – British Pakistani; became the first UK Miss Pakistan World 2011Shabana Bakhsh – actress who has appeared in soaps such as River City and Doctors[157]Shahid Khan – known as "Naughty Boy"; British-born Pakistani songwriter, record producer and musician[158]Shahin Badar – singer and songwriter, best known for vocals on The Prodigy's single "Smack My Bitch Up", which earned her a Double Platinum award[159]Shefali Chowdhury – actress best known for playing the role of Parvati Patil in the Harry Potterfilm series[160]Shazia Mirza – comedian from Birmingham, England, whose act revolves around her Muslim faith[161]Shehzad Afzal – writer, director, producer and game designer born in Dundee, Scotland[162]Sohini Alam – singer for Lokkhi Terra and Khiyo bandsSophiya Haque – actress, singer and video jockey;[163][164] played Poppy Morales in Coronation Street, 2008–2009[165][166]Suleman Mirza – lead dancer of Signature, runner-up on Britain's Got Talent 2008[167]Suzana Ansar – singer, actress and television presenter based in the UK and Bangladesh; released her debut band album Suzana Ansar with Khansar in 2009[168]Yusuf Islam[169]Zahra Ahmadi – actressZayn Malik – former member of the British-Irish boy band One Direction[170] and is from Bradford[171]Zeekay – singer, songwriter and performer of Pakistani and Afghan descentFictionalEditAnwar Kharral – fictional British Pakistani character in the teenage television series Skins;[172]portrayed by Dev Patel, who is of Gujarati descentFaiza Hussein Excalibre British Pakistani from the Marvel ComicsSaeed Jeffrey British Bangladeshi/English from Eastenders. Among the first Asian, mixed and Muslim characters in EastendersNaima Jeffrey British Bangladeshi from Eastenders. Among the first Asian and Muslim characters.Ali Osman British Turkish Cypriot from Eastenders. Among the first Muslim and West Asian characters in Eastenders.Hassan Osman British Turkish Cypriot from Eastenders. Among the first Muslim and West Asian characters in Eastenders.Mr Khan British Pakistani from Citizen Khan. Portrayed by British Pakistani/Kenyan Muslim Adil RayBadman British Pakistani from Diary of a Badman web series. Portrayed by British Pakistani Muslim Humza ArshadMalik Begum British Bangladeshi from Cornershop show. Portrayed by British Bangladeshi Muslim Islah Abdur-Rahman.The Karim family British Bangladeshi family in Eastenders consisted of Father Ashraf, Mother Sufia, Daughter Shireen and Son Sohail Karim. Related to the Jeffrey family and first full Asian and Muslim family in Eastenders.The Masood/Ahmed family British Pakistani family in Eastenders. Third Asian family and second Muslim family in the show.Masood AhmedZainab MasoodSyed MasoodShabnam MasoodTamwar MasoodKamil MasoodYasmin MasoodAJ AhmedThe Nazir Family British Pakistani family from Coronation Street.Kush Kazemi British Iranian/English. Portrayed by British Iranian Muslim Davood Ghadami. First West Asian and mixed raced Asian character since the Osman family.Shaki Kazemi British Iranian/English. Portrayed by British Iranian/Welsh Shaheen Jafargholi.Tariq Siddiqui from Waterloo Road. Portrayed by British Pakistani Muslim Naveed Chaudhry. One of the first Asian main student in the series.Trudy Siddique from Waterloo Road. One of the first Asian main student in the series.Naseema Siddique from Waterloo Road. Third Asian main student in the series. Abdul Bukhari Pakistani born British raised Asian from Waterloo Road. Portrayed by British Iranian Armin Karima.Shifty British Pakistani from film Shifty portrayed by British Pakistani Muslim Riz Ahmed.Sweetboy British Bangladeshi from film Shank portrayed by British Bangladeshi Muslim Jan Uddin.Journalism and mediaEditSheikh Abdul Qayum – chief imam of the East London Mosque; former lecturer at the international International Islamic University Malaysia; television presenter on Peace TV Banglaand Channel S[173]Sheikh Abdur Rahman Madani Shaheb – writer, khatib of Darul Ummah Mosque, Islamic scholar and TV presenter on Islamic programs on Channel S[174][175]Sheikh Abu Sayed Ansarey – Chairman and Imam of West London Mosque; television presenter on Channel S; lawyer[176][177]A. N. M. Serajur Rahman – journalist, broadcaster, and Bangladeshi nationalist[178]Aasmah Mir – BBC presenter and former columnist for the Sunday Herald[179]Abdul Gaffar Choudhury – writer, journalist, and columnist for Bengali newspapers of Bangladesh; best known for his lyric "Amar Bhaier Rokte Rangano", which has become the main song commemorating the Language MovementAdil Ray – British radio and television presenter, for BBC Asian Network[180]Adnan Nawaz – news and sports presenter for the BBC World Service[181]Ajmal Masroor – television presenter, politician, imam,[182] and UK Parliamentary candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow constituency representing Liberal Democrats in the 2010 general election;[183]television presenter on political and Islamic programmes on Islam Channel and Channel S[184]Ali Abbasi – former Scottish TV presenter[185]Anila Baig – columnist at The Sun[186]Arif Ali – regional product director for the Associated Press news agency in Europe, Middle East and Africa[187]Asad Ahmad – BBC journalist and news presenter[188]Asad Qureshi – filmmaker who was kidnapped on 26 March 2010 by a militant group called the "Asian Tigers" in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas[189]Azad Ali – IT worker and civil servant for the HM Treasury; Islamic Forum of Europe spokesman; founding chair of the Muslim Safety Forum; vice-chair of Unite Against Fascism[190]Azeem Rafiq – English cricketer[191]Faisal Islam – economics editor and correspondent for Channel 4 News; named 2006 "Young Journalist of the Year" at the Royal Society of Television awards[192]Fareena Alam – editor of British Muslim magazine Q News;[193] named Media Professional of the Year by Islamic Relief in 2005 and at the Asian Women of Achievement Awards in 2006[194]Faris Kermani – film director based in the UK, now head of production company based in London, Crescent Films[195]Hassan Ghani – Scottish[196][197] broadcast journalist and documentary filmmaker, based in LondonJaved Malik – television anchor; publisher of the UAE's first diplomatic magazine, The International Diplomat; Executive Director of the World Forum; served as Pakistan's Ambassador at Large and Special Advisor to The Prime Minister; close friend of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of PakistanKamran Abbasi – doctor, medical editor, and cricket writer; editor of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine; acting editor of the British Medical Journal; editor of the bulletin of the World Health Organization[198]Kanak 'Konnie' Huq – television presenter, best known for being the longest-serving female Blue Peter presenter[199][200]Lisa Aziz – news presenter and journalist, best known as the co-presenter of the Bristol-based ITV West Country nightly weekday news programme The West Country Tonight;[201] one of the first Asian presenters to be seen on television;[202] won the Ethnic Multicultural Media Academy Best Television News Journalist Award[203][204]Mary Rahman – press and public relations consultant; director of MRPR[205]Maryam Moshiri – BBC News presenter[206]Mazher Mahmood (also known as the "Fake Sheikh") – often dubbed as "Britain's most notorious undercover reporter"; in a GQ survey was voted as the 45th most powerful man in Britain;[207] the News of the World paid his six-figure salary, plus an editorial and technical support budget [208]Mehdi Hasan – senior politics editor at the New Statesman and a former news and current affairs editor at Channel 4[209]Miqdaad Versi – assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, media commentator, and advocate for accurate reporting on Muslims.[210][211]Mishal Husain – anchor for BBC World[212]Muhammad Abdul Bari – Chairman of the East London Mosque; Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain, 2006–2010Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed – environment writer for The Guardian,[213] t[214]Nazenin Ansari – journalist, former correspondent for Voice of America's Persian News Network; Iranian analyst for BBC Radio 4, CNN International, Sky News and AljazeeraNazia Mogra – television journalist for BBC North West Tonight news on BBC One[215]Nima Nourizadeh – film director[citation needed]Nina Hossain – journalist, newscaster, and sole presenter of ITV London's regional news programme London Tonight[216]Nurul Islam – broadcast journalist, radio producer, and presenter best remembered for his work with the BBC World Service[217]Osama Saeed – Head of International and Media Relations at the Al Jazeera Media Network[218]Rageh Omaar – Somali-born British journalist and writerReham Khan – journalist and anchor currently working at Dawn News[219]Riz Lateef – news reader and the BBC Deputy News Manager[220]Rizwan Khan – works for Al Jazeera English; has his own show called Riz KhanSadeq Saba – journalist, head of BBC Persianservice[221]Saima Mohsin – British journalist[222]Saira Khan – runner-up on the first series of The Apprentice, and now a TV presenter on BBC's Temper Your Temper and Desi DNA[223]Sarfraz Manzoor – British writer, journalist, documentary maker, and broadcaster; writes regularly for The Guardian; presents documentaries on BBC Radio 4[224]Shaista Aziz – journalist, writer, stand-up comedian, and former international aid worker[225]Shagufta Yaqub – journalist and commentatorShamim Chowdhury – television and print journalist for Al Jazeera English[226]Shereen Nanjiani – radio journalist with BBC Radio Scotland[227]Syed Neaz Ahmad – academic, writer, journalist, columnist and critic; best known for anchoring NTVEurope current affairs talk show Talking Point[228]Tasmin Lucia-Khan – journalist, presenter and producer;[229] delivered BBC Three's nightly hourly World News bulletins on in 60 Seconds;[230]presented E24 on the rolling news channel BBC News;[231] presents news on the ITV breakfast television programme Daybreak[232]Tazeen Ahmad – British television and radio presenter and reporter[233]Waheed Khan – documentary television director working in British television[234]Yasmin Alibhai-Brown – journalist and author born in Uganda; regular columnist for The Independentand the Evening Standard[235]Yvonne Ridley – journalist and Respect Partyactivist[236]Zarqa Nawaz – freelance writer, journalist, broadcaster, and filmmaker[237]Law and justiceEditJudgesEditDr Fayyaz Afzal OBE – appinted as a District Judge in 2017[238]Khalid Taj Malik – appointed as a District Judge in 2013[239]Khalid Qureshi – appointed as a District Judge (Magistrates’ Courts) in 2006[240]Khatun Sapnara – appointed as a Circuit Judge in 2014[241]Khurshid Drabu CBE – retired judge of the Upper Tribunal in the Asylum and Immigration Chamber[242]Karim Mostafa Ali Ezzat – appointed as a District Judge (Magistrates’ Courts) in 2016[243]Nadeem Khan – appointed as a District Judge in 2010[239]Najma Mian – appointed as a District Judge in 2016[244]Parveen Lateef – appointed as a District Judge in 2013[239]Shamim Ahmed Qureshi – appointed as a District Judge (Magistrates’ Courts) in 2004[240]Shomon Khan – appointed as a District Judge (Magistrates’ Courts) in 2016[245]Tan Ikram – appointed as a District Judge (Magistrates’ Courts) in 2003[246]Queen's CounselsEditAbbas Lakha QC – barrister at 9 Bedford Row, London[247]Abdul Shaffaq Iqbal QC – barrister at Park Square Barristers, Leeds[248]Aftab Asger Jafferjee QC – barrister at 6KBW College Hill, London[249]Ajmalul Hossain QC – barrister at Selborne Chambers, London[250]Akhil Shah QC – barrister at Fountain Court Chambers, London[251]Akhlaq Ur-Rahman Choudhury QC – barrister at 11KBW, London[252]Ali Naseem Bajwa QC – barrister at Garden Court Chambers, London[253]Amjad Raza Malik QC – barrister at New Park Court, Leeds[254]Karim Asad Ahmad Khan QC – barrister at Temple Garden Chambers, London[255]Karim Raouf George Ghaly QC – barrister at 39 Essex Chambers, London[256]Kerim Selchuk Fuad QC – barrister at Church Court Chambers, London[257]Khawar Qureshi QC – barrister at Serle Court Chambers, London[258]Mohammed Jalil Akhter Asif QC – barrister at Kobre & Kim[259]Mohammed Khalil Zaman QC – barrister at No5 Chambers, London[260]Muhammed Luthful Haque QC – barrister at Crown Office Chambers, London[261]Naeem Majid Mian QC – barrister at 2 Hare Court, London[262]Nageena Khalique QC – barrister at No5 Chambers, Birmingham[263]Nina Soraya Goolamali QC – barrister at 2 Temple Gardens, London[264]Riaz Hussain QC – barrister at Atkin Chambers, London[265]Sadeqa Shaheen Rahman QC – barrister at One Crown Office Row, London[266]Saira Kabir Sheikh QC – barrister at Francis Taylor Building, London[267]Salim Abdool Hamid Moollan QC – barrister at Essex Court Chambers, London[268]Shaheed Fatima QC – barrister at Blackstone Chambers, London[269]Sam Karim QC – barrister at King's Chambers, Manchester[270]Syed Mohammad Sa'ad Ansarul Hossain QC – barrister at One Essex Court, London[271]Syed Raza Husain QC – barrister at Matrix Chambers, London[272]Tahir Zaffar Khan QC – barrister at Great James Street, London[273]Zafar Abbas Ali QC – barrister at 23 Essex Street, London[274]Zia Kurban Bhaloo QC – barrister at Exchange Chambers, London[275]OtherEditAamer Anwar – Glaswegian solicitor; named as Criminal Lawyer of the Year by the Law Awards of Scotland in 2005 and 2006[276]Amal Clooney – London-based Lebanese-Britishlawyer, activist, and author[277]M. A. Muid Khan – barrister who was selected as the Best Human Rights Lawyer of England and Wales for 2012 by the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives; in September 2012, he was ranked as third in the top five Chartered Legal Executive Lawyers of England and Wales by the Law Society[278]Maya Ali – solicitor and Labour Party councillor in Westwood[279]Mirza Ahmad – attorney at St. Philips Chambers in Birmingham[280] and Chancery House Chambers in Leeds;[281] managing director of a private consultancy , Massachusetts (Law & Governance) Limited[282]Mumtaz Hussain – solicitor and radio presenter; since 2010, she has presented Health and Healing with Mumtaz on RedShift Radio[283]Nazir Afzal OBE – Chief Crown Prosecutor for North West England;[284] one of his first decisions in that role was to initiate prosecutions in the case of the Rochdale sex trafficking gangSadiq Khan – current mayor of London, senior member of the Labour Party; former Chair of the Fabian Society think tank; serving as the Shadow Lord Chancellor[285]Tahir Ashraf is a Barrister in England and Walesand Solicitor-Advocate and Founder of 5 Chancery Lane Commercial Barristers Chambers. first British Muslim man of Pakistani descent to be an Editorial Board Member of the Journal of International Banking and Financial Law . Also the first British Muslim man of Pakistani descent to have established a set of commercial barristers chambers in London, United KingdomLiterature and artEditAamer Hussein – short story writer and critic.[286]Abdur Rouf Choudhury – Bengali diaspora writer and philosopher; numerous literary awards from Bangladesh including the Granthomela award and life membership from Bangla Academy[287]Eenasul Fateh (Aladin) – cultural practitioner, magician and live artist; named "International Magician of the Year" in 1991; winner of the 1997 Golden Turban Award from the Magic Academy of Bangalore, in India[101]Diriye Osman – Somali-British writer and visual artist[288]Mohammed Mahbub "Ed" Husain – author of The Islamist, an account of his experience for five years with the Hizb ut-Tahrir[289][290]Emran Mian – author and policy advisor at Whitehall[291]Ghulam Murshid – author, scholar and journalist; numerous literary awards from India and Bangladesh, including the Bangla Academyaward[292]Idris Khan – artist based in London[293]Imtiaz Dharker – poet and documentary filmmaker[294]Kaniz Ali – makeup artist and freelance beauty columnist;[123] won the "Best Make-Up Artist" category at the 2011 International Asian Fashion Awards[124]Kia Abdullah – novelist and journalist; contributes to The Guardian newspaper[295] and has written two novels: Life, Love and Assimilation[296] and Child's Play[297]Mohsin Hamid – Pakistani writer; novels Moth Smoke (2000), The Reluctant Fundamentalist(2007), and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia(2013)[298]Monica Ali – author of Brick Lane, a novel based on a Bangladeshi woman[299]Moniza Alvi – poet and writer[300]Nadeem Aslam – novelist[301]Nadifa Mohamed – Somali-British novelist[302]Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed – author, lecturer, political scientist specialising in interdisciplinary security studies, and participant of the 9/11 Truth Movement[303]Nasser Azam – contemporary artist, living and working in London[304]Omar Mansoor – London-based fashion designer, best known for his couture occasionwear[305]Qaisra Shahraz – novelist, journalist, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a director of Gatehouse Books[306]Rasheed Araeen – London-based conceptual artist, sculptor, painter, writer, and curator[307]Razia Iqbal – arts correspondent for the BBC; born in East Africa, of Muslim Punjabi origin[308]Rekha Waheed – writer and novelist best known as the author of The A-Z Guide To Arranged Marriage[309]Rezia Wahid MBE – award-winning textile artist whose work has been exhibited both in the UK and abroad[310]Rizvan Rahman – [311]Roopa Farooki – novelist[312]Ruby Hammer MBE – fashion and beauty makeup artist;[313] founder of Ruby & Millie cosmetics bran[314]Ruh al-Alam – Islamic artist, founder of Islamic calligraphic artwork project Visual Dhikr[315][316]Runa Islam – film and photography visual artist, nominated for the Turner Prize 2008[147][148]Rupa Huq – senior lecturer in sociology at Kingston University, writer, columnist, Labour Partypolitician, music DJ and former Deputy Mayoress of the London Borough of Ealing[317]Sanchita Islam – visual media artistShahida Rahman – award-winning author of Lascar, writer and publisher[318]Shamim Azad – bilingual poet, storyteller and writer[319]Shamshad Khan – Manchester-based poet born in Leeds; editor of anthology of black women's poetry; advised the Arts Council of England North West on literature[320][321]Shezad Dawood – artist based in London[322]Suhayl Saadi – literary and erotic novelist and radio/stage playwrightTahir Rashid – British-born poet, manager and entrepreneur in the Islamic media and Nasheed industryTahmima Anam – author of A Golden Age, the "Best First Book" winner of the 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prize[323]Ziauddin Sardar – scholar, writer and cultural critic[22]Military and policeEditAli Dizaei – senior police officer[324]Jabron Hashmi – soldier who was killed in actionin Sangin, Afghanistan on 1 July 2006[325]Amjad Hussain – senior Royal Navy officer. He is the highest-ranking member of the British Armed Forces from an ethnic minority[326]Muhammed Akbar Khan – served as a British recruit in the First World War and an officer in Second World War; first Muslim to become a general in the British Army[327]Tarique Ghaffur – high-ranking British police officer in London's Metropolitan Police Service; Assistant Commissioner–Central Operations[328]Syed abdul Quayum jelani high ranking British police office of Bradford metropolitan police.he was the first pakistani to become a British police officer in 1965.PolicyEditFormer British High Commissioner to Bangladesh Anwar ChoudhuryAbul Fateh – diplomat and statesman;[329][330] first Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh after independence in 1971Anwar Choudhury – British High Commissioner for Bangladesh, 2004–2008; first non-white British person to be appointed in a senior diplomatic post; Director of International Institutions at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office[331]Asif Ahmad – British diplomat who served as the British Ambassador to Thailand from November 2010 until August 2012;[332] since July 2013, he has been British Ambassador to the Philippines[333]Dr Halima Begum – civil servant, international development manager and Director Education of East Asia at the British Council; previously first secretary for development at the Department for International Development[334]Nahid Majid OBE – civil servant, Chief Operating Officer of Regeneration Investment Organisation and Deputy Director within the Department for Work and Pensions[335] the most senior British Bangladeshi Muslim woman in the civil serviceRohema Miah – independent policy adviser and former political adviser for the Labour Party, 1992–2005[336]Saleemul Huq – scientist and Senior Fellow in the Climate Change Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development; recipient of the 2007 Burtoni Award for his work on climate change adaptation[337]Talyn Rahman-Figueroa – director of diplomatic consultancy Grassroot Diplomat.[338]PoliticsEditMembers of ParliamentEditAfzal Khan - Labour MP for Manchester Gorton[339]solicitor and former Labour MEP for North West region; first Asian Lord Mayor of Manchester; currently Manchester City Council's Executive Member for Children's ServicesAnas Sarwar – former Scottish Labour deputy leader and Labour MP for Glasgow CentralFaisal Rashid - Labour MP for Warrington South, elected in 2017.[340] Mayor of Warrington in 2016.[341]Imran Hussain – Labour MP for Bradford EastKhalid Mahmood – Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr[342]Mohammad Sarwar – former Labour MP for Glasgow Central;[343] first British Muslim and Pakistani origin MPMohammad Yasin - Labour MP for Bedford, elected in 2017.[344]Naz Shah – Labour MP for the constituency of Bradford West[345]Nusrat Ghani – Conservative MP for WealdenRehman Chishti – Conservative MP for Gillingham and RainhamRosena Allin-Khan – Labour MP for Tooting[346]Rupa Huq – Labour MP for Ealing Central and Acton constituencyRushanara Ali – Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Bow Labour Party constituency; first person of Bangladeshi origin elected to the House of Commons;[347] one of the first three Muslim women elected as a Member of Parliament[348]Sajid Javid – Conservative MP for Bromsgroveand current Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport[349]Sadiq Khan – Mayor of London, former Labour MP for Tooting and former Shadow Secretary of State for Justice and Shadow Lord Chancellor[350]Shahid Malik – former Labour MP for Dewsbury; Minister for International Development in Gordon Brown's government[351]Shabana Mahmood – Labour MP For Birmingham LadywoodTasmina Ahmed-Sheikh – former SNP MP for Ochil and South PerthshireTulip Siddiq – Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn constituencyYasmin Qureshi – Labour MP for Bolton South EastPeersEditAdam Hafejee, Lord Patel of Blackburn[352]Amirali Alibhai, Lord Bhatia – life peer[353]Arminka Helic, Baroness Helic – Bosnian-born British Special Adviser (SPAD) and Chief of Staff to the Former British Foreign Secretary William Hague[354][355]Gulam Khaderbhoy, Lord Noon MBE – life peer, businessman and Chancellor of the University of East LondonHaleh, Baroness Afshar – Professor in Politics and Women's Studies at the University of York, EnglandKhalid, Lord Hameed – Chairman of Alpha Hospital Group; chairman and chief executive officer of the London International HospitalKishwer Falkner, Baroness Falkner of Margravine – lead Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs in the House of Lords[356]Meral, Baroness Hussein-Ece – Liberal Democrat life peeressMohamed Iltaf, Lord Sheikh – Chairman of Conservative Muslim ForumNazir, Lord Ahmed – Crossbench life peer, formerly Labour[357]Nosheena Mobarik, Baroness Mobarik – Conservative Baroness of Mearns in the County of Renfrewshire; former Chairman of CBI Scotland[358]Manzila Pola, Baroness Uddin – Labour Party life peer, community activist, and first Muslim and Asian to sit in the House of Lords[359]Qurban, Lord Hussain – Liberal Democrat life peer[360]Sayeeda Hussain, Baroness Warsi – Lawyer & British politician for the Conservative Party and a former member of the Cabinet[361]Shas Sheehan, Baroness Sheehan – Liberal Democrat and Baroness of Wimbledon in the London Borough of Merton and of Tooting in the London Borough of Wandsworth [362]Tariq Mahmood, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon – life peerWaheed, Lord Alli – Labour life peerZahida Manzoor, Baroness Manzoor – Liberal Democrat Baroness; former Legal Services Ombudsman; former Deputy Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality[363]Members of the European ParliamentEditAfzal Khan – solicitor and former Labour MEP for North West region;first Asian Lord Mayor of ManchesterAmjad Bashir – Conservative MEP for Yorkshire and Humber; former UKIP Small & Medium Business spokesmanBashir Khanbhai – former Conservative MEP for East of EnglandSajjad Karim MEP – born in Brierfield, Lancashire; qualified as a solicitor before being elected as a Member of the European Parliament in 2007; Conservative Legal Affairs Spokesman; sits on the Industry, Research and Energy CommitteeSyed Kamall – Conservative MEP for LondonWajid Khan - MEP for the North West EnglandEuropean constituency[364]Nosheena Mobarik, Baroness Mobarik – Scottish Conservative MEP[365]Members of Scottish ParliamentEditAnas Sarwar – Labour MSP for the Glasgowregion[366]Bashir Ahmad – former SNP MSP[367]Hanzala Malik – Labour MSP for GlasgowHumza Yousaf – SNP Member of the Scottish Parliament for Glasgow and Minister for External Affairs and International Development[368]Members of Welsh AssemblyEditMohammad Asghar – Welsh politician, representing Plaid Cymru[369]Altaf Hussain – former regional Assembly Member in the National Assembly for Wales from 2015 to 2016[370]MayorsEditChauhdry Abdul Rashid – former Lord Mayor of Birmingham[371]Mohammed Iqbal – former Lord Mayor of Leeds(2006)Karam Hussain – was the mayor of the metropolitan borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England from 2008 to 2009.[372]Jilani Chowdhury – Labour Party politician, councillor in Barnsbury and former Mayor of London Borough of Islington; in 2012, became Islington's first Asian mayor[373]Lutfur Rahman – Cllr, community activist, local Independent politician; became the first directly elected Mayor of Tower Hamlets in 2010; first Bangladeshi leader of the council[374]Mohammed Ajeeb – former Lord Mayor of Bradford; first Asian (Pakistani) Lord Mayor in the UK[375]Muhammad Abdullah Salique – mayor of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets from 2008 to 2009[376]Sadiq Khan – elected Mayor of London in May 2016OtherEditMushtaq Ahmad – Lord Lieutenant of Lanarkshire. He was the first Asian to serve as Provost of a Scottish council[377][377]Anwara Ali – Cllr, Conservative Party councillor in Regent's Park, Cabinet member for health and well-being in Tower Hamlets and General practitioner in Spitalfields Practice[378]Shahnaz Ali – British Muslim woman known for her leadership role in equality, inclusion and human rights in the National Health Service and local government in England[379]Bashir Maan – Pakistani-Scottish politician, businessman and writer[380]Maya Ali – Cllr, Labour Party councillor in Westwood and solicitor[279]Muhammad Abdullah Salique, Cllr – Labour Party member, Councillor for Bethnal Green North ward, Mayor of London Borough of Tower Hamlets for 2008/09 municipal year[381]Munira Mirza - was the Deputy Mayor for Education and Culture of London. Born in Oldham.[382][383]Murad Qureshi – Labour Party politician; Greater London Assembly Member[384]Cllr Nasim Ali – Labour Party politician, councillor in Regent's Park, Cabinet Member for Young People in Camden Council and former Mayor of Camden; in May 2003, at age 34, he became the country's youngest mayor as well as the UK's first Bangladeshi and first Muslim mayor[385]Rabina Khan, Cllr – Labour Party politician, councillor in Shadwell, cabinet member for housing in Tower Hamlets London Borough Council, community worker and author of Ayesha's Rainbow[386]Rohema Miah – Independent policy adviser and former political advisor for the Labour Party between 1992 and 2005[336]Salma Yaqoob – former leader of the left-wing Respect Party and a Birmingham City Councillor[387]Syeda Amina Khatun MBE – Labour Party councillor for Tipton Green in the Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council; first Bangladeshiwoman to be elected in the Midlands region, in 1999[388]And there we must leave the list, but on Wikipedia you can find even more Muslims, prominent in the UK for the following things…ReligionScience and medicineSportOther