The Hindustani Muslims of British Guiana were very diverse like their brethrens in the motherland.”¹⁰ And events of 1947, the division of the subcontinent along religious lines had serious repercussions for Muslims in British Guiana. Muslims overwhelmingly gave financial, political and moral support to the Pakistan movement. To understand this phenomenon we must first look at the origin of the Hindustani Muslims of British Guiana.

From 1838 to 1917 about 240,000 North Indians from the United Provinces (Uttar Pradesh), Bihar and Bengal migrated to British Guiana. Among them were Sunni and Shia Muslims, who numbered about twenty percent and were predominantly from the United Provinces and Oudh (now Uttar Pradesh), and Bihar. A small number came from the Bengal. Small batches also came from Karachi in Sind, Lahore, Multan and Rawalpindi in the Punjab, Hyderabad, in the Deccan, Srinagar in Kashmir, and Peshawar, Mardan in the Northwest Frontier (Afghan areas), and Baluchistan bordering Iran. They came from Hindustan, the name that Muslims accorded India and back them Hindustan bordered Iran, Central Asia and Afghanistan.

Hindustani Muslims spoke Urdu, Avadi, Brijbasha, Mateili, and Bhojpuri; in addition, a handful spoke Farsi and Pashto, among other North Indian languages.¹¹ Under caste Muslims were identified as Musulman, Sheik, fakirs, ghosis, hajams, Julahas, Mahomedaan, Syeds, Mughuls, and Pathans.¹² The majority of Muslim women bore names like Nasimun, Ameerun, Rashidan, Kariman or Aseeman which became corrupted after many generations, and today due to the lost of their Urdu language, these names among many others have become-Nasimoon, Karimoon, Ameeroon, Rashimoon, Aseemoon, or Nazmoon.¹³ Most men bore three to four names and most common were the suffix Uddin, example: Alimuddin, Zahiruddin, Shahabuddin or Kamaluddin.