Qazi is a Kashmiri Pandit clan or surname,[1] native to the Kashmir Valley in Jammu and Kashmir, India.
Last names in Kashmir were created and taken on, on the basis of tribal (caste) backgrounds.[2] The Brahmins in the region were tribally divided further into 103 gotras.[2] Each gotra was further divided into distinctive krams. A kram is often the relic of a nickname applied to the ancestor of the subdivision.[2] These krams later became surnames in the Kashmiri naming system.
Some local Brahmins were holding spheres of influence[2] in the valley, even after the advent of Islam in Kashmir, by owning different jobs and positions of higher status.[2] One of these influential Brahmin krams was Qazi.[2] The name Qazi was used by those Brahmins who decided cases, i.e., worked as judges under the Muslim rulers.[3]