malik

plural maliks

1. A tribal chieftain in certain areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, especially among the Pashtuns.

   These outsiders introduced the idea that certain maliks in the nang areas, like the khans in the qalang areas, could receive special privileges in representing the jirga to the outside world. ¶ The notion of paying favored maliks in the FATA for their cooperation did not begin with the British.

   2012, Kimberly Marten, Warlords: Strong-Arm Brokers in Weak States, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, →ISBN, page 41

2. A tribal chieftain in modern Assyrian society.

   The leader of this party was Khoshaba, one of the chiefs, though not the real malik of the Lower Tiyari clan.

   1935, Ronald Sempill Stafford, The Tragedy of the Assyrian Minority in Iraq

plural maliks

1. An upper-caste landlord in the southern part of Bihar in eastern India.

   1 more example

   […] the essay interprets the oral traditions of the outcaste Bhuinyas who have traditionally worked as the kamias or dependent labourers of maliks or upper-caste landlords in the southern part of Bihar in eastern India. […] But the kamias' ties with the maliks predated the designation of the relationship as bondage in the nineteenth century.

   1991, Gyan Prakash, “Becoming a Bhuinya: Oral Traditions and Contested Domination in Eastern India”, in Douglas Haynes, Gyan Prakash, editors, Contesting Power: Resistance and Everyday Social Relations in South Asia, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, →ISBN, page 145

plural Maliks

1. A male given name from Arabic.
2. A surname from Arabic.