Iqbal was born on 9 November 1877 in an ethnic Kashmiri family in Sialkot within the Punjab Province of British India (now in Pakistan).[16] His grandfather's name was Sheikh Mohammad Rafique. His ancestors were Kashmiri Brahmins of the Sapru clan and had converted to Islam around 200 years ago in the time of Bud Shah.[citation needed] The first ancestor to convert to Islam has been identified as Haji Lal, a Sufi mystic.[17] In the 19th century, when the Sikh Empire was conquering Kashmir, his grandfather's family migrated to Punjab. Iqbal often mentioned and commemorated his Kashmiri lineage in his writings.[18][12]
Iqbal's father, Sheikh Noor Muhammad (died 1930), was a tailor, not formally educated, but a religious man.[19][20] Iqbal's mother Imam Bibi, a Punjabi Muslim from Sialkot, was described as a polite and humble woman who helped the poor and her neighbours with their problems. She died on 9 November 1914 in Sialkot.[21][22] Iqbal loved his mother, and on her death he expressed his feelings of pathos in a poetic form elegy.[19]