Militants and Mgirants: Fun and Urban Violence in Pakistan - pg. 44

To some extent, the distinction between the educate and the uneducated revives an older divide between the high caste of pure Muslim descent (ashraf) and the low caste of indigenous converts (ajlaf). The ashraf -- plural of sharif, meaning cultured, noble, soft-spoken -- were the groups occupying high positions in the Moghul Empire. They included subcastes or zat like the Syed, Siddiqi, Qureshi, or Sheikh, who claim a foreign and fully Muslim genalogy. In contrast, the ajlaf -- plural of jilf, meaning vulgar, or rude, low -- belong to occupational groups such as cobblers (mochi) or buthchers (qasai).