Origins. The historian and political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot believes that the Arain are displaced farming communities who moved to Punjab from Sindh and Multan as Arab Muslim armies encroached; they originally practised Hinduism but many later converted to Islam.

The Arain are a Punjabi agricultural tribe in India and Pakistan. Originally, they had agricultural roots but in later times some of them shifted to towns and cities and became famous in many areas. A famous Arain family in the Indian subcontinent is the Mian Family of Baghbanpura, in Lahore.

Pakistani Punjab Zamindars are considered a dominant caste and tend to be village and town leaders. Urban social, political, and economic affairs are dominated by Zamindars, and land is controlled by them; Kammis are socially marginalized. Kammis and Zamindars intermarry.

Colonial accounts suggest that members of the Arain tribe almost exclusively followed the Sunni Muslim tradition and adhered to the Hanafi madhab, although there were small populations who followed the Hindu or Sikh faiths.