The Meken, sometimes also spelt Maikan or even Meikan, are a tribe of Jat status. They claim descent from the Panwar (Parmar) Rajputs, and spring from the same ancestor as the Dhudhi tribe. The tribe claims to have settled in the Thal, after the end of Arab rule in Sindh, when the Hindu king of Kanauj, a Parmar Rajput took possession of the Thal region, and settled his kinsmen, the Mekan. They then established a state based in the town of Mankera, now in Bhakkar District, which covered much of the Thal, and lasted for five hundred years, until the state was destroyed by invading Baloch. According to one of their traditions, the Mankera state was founded by a Raja Singh, who belonged to the royal house of Kannauj, and said to have accepted Islam during the time of the Sultan of Delhi, Ghias-ud-din Balban, courtesy of Baba Farid Ganj Shakr. Towards the 12th century, the Baloch from Makran flocked into the country in and around Mankera, and subsequently ruled this state for the next three hundred years. The Mekans that settled in the Kirana Bar, and became pastoralist, like the other tribes of the Bar. They, occupied a compact territory in the Kirana Bar, lying to the west of Gondal territory, although a smaller number are also in Jhelum and Gujrat districts. There present territory now forms part of Sargodha, Khushab, and Mianwali districts, although as already mentioned, there are smaller broken settlements in Jhelum, Gujrat, and Mandi Bahauddin districts. In Pothohar, in Jhelum / Chakwal region, the Mekan form an important tribal community.