You can bind data to jqGrid using array.
For this purpose you will need to include the array driver and make the select command
After this you manipulate it like SQL table. Refer to PHP code to see how this can be achieved.
<?php 
require_once '../../../tabs.php';
?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html>
  <head>
    <title>jqGrid PHP Demo</title>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="../../../themes/redmond/jquery-ui-1.8.2.custom.css" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="../../../themes/ui.jqgrid.css" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="../../../themes/ui.multiselect.css" />
    <style type="text">
        html, body {
        margin: 0;            /* Remove body margin/padding */
        padding: 0;
        overflow: hidden;    /* Remove scroll bars on browser window */
        font-size: 75%;
        }
    </style>
    <script src="../../../js/jquery.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <script src="../../../js/i18n/grid.locale-en.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript">
    $.jgrid.no_legacy_api = true;
    $.jgrid.useJSON = true;
    </script>
    <script src="../../../js/jquery.jqGrid.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <script src="../../../js/jquery-ui-1.8.2.custom.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
  </head>
  <body>
      <div>
          <?php include ("grid.php");?>
      </div>
      <br/>
      <?php tabs(array("grid.php"));?>
   </body>
</html>
grid.php.
<?php
//ini_set("display_errors","1");
require_once '../../../jq-config.php';
// include the jqGrid Class
require_once ABSPATH."php/jqGrid.php";
// include the driver class
require_once ABSPATH."php/jqGridArray.php";

// create the array connection
$conn = new jqGridArray();
// Create the jqGrid instance
$grid = new jqGridRender($conn);
// Create a random array data
for ($i = 0; $i < 1000; $i++)
{
    $data1[$i]['id']    = $i+1;
    $data1[$i]['foo']    = md5(rand(0, 10000));
    $data1[$i]['bar']    = 'bar'.($i+1);
}

// Always you can use SELECT * FROM data1
$grid->SelectCommand = "SELECT id, foo, bar FROM data1";

$grid->dataType = 'json';
$grid->setPrimaryKeyId('id');

$grid->setColModel();
// Enable navigator

$grid->setUrl('grid.php');

$grid->setGridOptions(array(
    "rowNum"=>10,
    "rowList"=>array(10,20,30),
    "sortname"=>"id"
));

$grid->navigator = true;
// Enable search
$grid->setNavOptions('navigator', array("excel"=>false,"add"=>false,"edit"=>false,"del"=>false,"view"=>false,"csv"=>true, "pdf"=>true));
// Activate single search
$grid->setNavOptions('search',array("multipleSearch"=>false));
// Enjoy

$grid->renderGrid('#grid','#pager',true, null, null, true,true);

?>