Native speakers of Urdu are spread across South Asia. The vast majority of them are Muslims of the Hindi–Urdu Belt of northern India (though North Indian people of many faiths, including Hindus, spoke Urdu prior to the mid-19th century), followed by the Deccani people of the Deccan plateau in south-central India (who speak Deccani Urdu) and the Muhajir people of Pakistan. The historical centres of Urdu speakers include Delhi and Lucknow, as well as the Deccan, and more recently, Karachi. Another defunct variety of the language was historically spoken in Lahore for centuries before the name "Urdu" first began to appear. However, little is known about this defunct Lahori variety as it has not been spoken for centuries. History Mughal Empire As early as 1689, Europeans used the label "Moors dialect", which simply meant "Muslim", to describe Urdu, the language associated with the Muslims in North India, such as John Ovington, who visited India during the reign of Aurangzeb: The language of the Moors is different from that of the ancient original inhabitants of India, but is oblig'd to these Gentiles for its characters. For though the Moors dialect is peculiar to themselves, yet it is destitute of Letters to express it; and therefore in all their Writings in their Mother Tongue, they borrow their letters from the Heathens, or from the Persians, or other Nations. Fall of the Mughal Empire Indian Muslim qasbas that developed in clusters in the rural areas around the centers of Muslim power in the Upper Doab and Rohilkhand were dominated by a literate and homogenous elite, who embraced a distinctive Indo-Persian style of culture. This service gentry, performing both clerical and military service for the Mughal empire and its successor states, also invested in the land. Their cultural and literary patronage meant that urban places continued, even after the political decilne, to act as preservers of Indo-Persian traditions and values. The end of Muslim rule saw a large number of unemployed Indian Muslim horsemen, who were employed in the army of the East India Company. Thus 75% of the cavalry branch of the British army was composed of a social group referred to as the "Hindustani Mahomedans". This included Indian Muslim Baradaris of the Urdu-Hindustani Belt such as the Ranghar(Rajput Muslims), Sheikhs, Sayyids, Mughals, and Indianized Pathans. British officers such as Skinner, Gardner and Hearsay had become leaders of irregular cavalry that preserved the