Hum Genet. 2006 Sep 2;
A shared Y-chromosomal heritage between Muslims and Hindus in India.

* Gutala R,
* Carvalho-Silva DR,
* Jin L,
* Yngvadottir B,
* Avadhanula V,
* Nanne K,
* Singh L,
* Chakraborty R,
* Tyler-Smith C.

Department of Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center,
San Antonio, TX, USA.

Arab forces conquered the Indus Delta region in 711 AD: and,
although a Muslim state was established there, their influence was
barely felt in the rest of South Asia at that time. By the end of the
tenth century, Central Asian Muslims moved into India from the
northwest and expanded throughout the subcontinent. Muslim communities
are now the largest minority religion in India, comprising more than
138 million people in a predominantly Hindu population of over one
billion. It is unclear whether the Muslim expansion in India was a
purely cultural phenomenon or had a genetic impact on the local
population. To address this question from a male perspective, we typed
eight microsatellite loci and 16 binary markers from the Y chromosome
in 246 Muslims from Andhra Pradesh, and compared them to published
data on 4,204 males from East Asia, Central Asia, other parts of
India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Iran, the Middle East, Turkey, Egypt and
Morocco. We find that the Muslim populations in general are
genetically closer to their non-Muslim geographical neighbors than to
other Muslims in India, and that there is a highly significant
correlation between genetics and geography (but not religion). Our
findings indicate that, despite the documented practice of marriage
between Muslim men and Hindu women, Islamization in India did not
involve large-scale replacement of Hindu Y chromosomes. The Muslim
expansion in India was predominantly a cultural change and was not
accompanied by significant gene flow, as seen in other places, such as
China and Central Asia.