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EspañolISLAM IN SRI LANKA
(Redirected from Sri Lankan Moors)
'Islam in Sri Lanka' is practiced entirely by 'Sri Lankan Muslims', who make up approximately 8% of the population, comprise a group of minorities practicing the religion of Islam in Sri Lanka. The Muslim community is divided into three main ethnic groups; the 'Sri Lankan Moors', the 'Indian Moors', and the 'Malays', each with its own history and traditions. The attitude among the majority of non-Muslims in Sri Lanka is to use the term '"Muslim" as an ethnic group, specifically when referring to Sri Lankan Moors.
Etymologically, the term "Moor" was first applied by the Portuguese, who labeled all Muslims after their enemies, the Moors, whom they fought in Iberia for centuries. For example, Filipino Muslims are called Moros because of the similar Spanish usage of the term, even though Filipino Muslims had no historical contact with Moors. The Sri Lankan Moors make up 93% of the Muslim population and 7% of the total population of the country (1,404,534 people in 2005). They are predominantly Sunni Muslims of Shafi School. They trace their ancestry to Arab traders who moved to Sri Lanka some time between the eighth and fifteenth centuries. The Arabic language bought by the early mercenaries are no longer spoken by the Moors, though various Arabic words and phrases are still employed in daily usage. In the past, the Moors employed Arwi as their mother tongue, though this is also extinct as a spoken language. Currently, the Moors of Sri Lanka use Tamil as their primary language which includes many loan words from Arabic. The Moors are also fluent in Sinhala, an Indo-European language spoken by the Sinhalese majority in Sri Lanka.
The Sri Lankan Moors lived primarily in coastal trading and agricultural communities, preserving their Islamic cultural heritage while adopting many Southern Asian customs. During the period of Portuguese colonisation, the Moors suffered from persecution, and many moved to the Central Highlands, where their descendants remain.
On the east coast, Sri Lankan moors are primarily agriculturalists, fishers and traders. Their family lines are traced through women, as in kinship systems of the southwest Indian state of Kerala, but they govern themselves through Islamic law. Kmaraikayar
The Tamils of Sri Lanka, throughout history, have attempted to categorize the Sri Lankan Moors as belonging to the Tamil race. It is claimed that this has been mainly for selfish reasons in a bid to eliminate the minority Muslim community from having its own unique identity. The Government of Sri Lanka, however, treats the Muslims as of Arab origin and as a distinct ethnic group from the Tamils. The Muslims and Sri Lanka
The manner in which Islam developed in Sri lanka is very closely similar to that on the Malabar coast of India. Tradition has recorded that Arabs who had settled down on the Malabar coast used to travel from the port of Cranganore to Sri lanka on piligrimage to pay homage to what they believed to be the foot-print of Adam on the top of a montain, which, until today, is called Adams Peak
kmaraikayar.
Ibn Batuta, the famous 14th. century Arab traveler, has recorded many facets about early Arab influence in Sri Lanka in his travelogues.
Before the end of the 7th. century, a colony of Muslim merchants had established themselves in Ceylon. Fascinated by the scenic splendor and captivated by the traditions associated with Adams Peak, Muslim merchants arrived in large numbers and some of them decided to settle in the island encouraged by the cordial treatment they received by the local rulers. Most of them lived along the coastal areas in peace and prosperity, maintaining contacts, both cultural and commercial, with Baghdad and other Islamic cities.
According to Tikiri Abeyasinghe in his ''Portuguese Rule in Ceylon, 1594-1612'', Colombo (1966), Lake House Investments Ltd., p 192, tradition has it that,
It is perhaps reasonable, therefore, to assume that the Arabs, professing the religion of Islam, arrived in Sri Lanka around the 7th./8th. century A.D. even though there was a settled community of Arabs in Ceylon in pre-Islamic times.
The circumstances that helped the growth of Muslim settlements were varied. Most of the majority Sinhalese depended more on agriculture than trade, thus trade wide open to the Muslims. The Sinhalese Kings considered the Muslim settlements favorably on account of the revenue that they brought them through their contacts overseas both in trade and in politics. The religious tolerance of the local population was also another vital factor in the development of Muslim settlements in Ceylon.
The early Muslim settlements were set up mainly around ports on account of the nature of their trade. It is also assumed that many of the Arab traders may not have brought their womenfolk along with them when they settled in Ceylon. Hence they would have been compelled to marry the Sinhalese and Tamil women of the island after converting them to Islam. The fact that a large number of Muslims in Sri Lanka speak the Tamil language can be attributed to the possibility that they were trading partners with the Tamils of South India and had to learn Tamil to successfully in order to carry out their business. The integration with the Muslims of Tamil Nadu, in South India, may have also contributed to this. It is also possible that the Arabs who had already migrated to Ceylon, prior to Islam, had adopted the Tamil language as a medium of communication in their intercourse with the Tamil speaking Muslims of South India. The Muslims were very skillful traders who gradually built-up a very lucrative trading post in Ceylon. A whole colony of Muslims is said to have landed at Beruwela (South Western coast) in the Kalutara District in 1024 A.D.
The Muslims did not indulge in propagating Islam amongst the natives of Ceylon even though many of the Sinhalese and Tamil women they married did convert.
There is also a report in the history of Sri Lanka of a Muslim Ruler, Vathimi Raja, who reigned at Kurunegala (North Central Province) in the 14th. century. This factor cannot be found in history books due to their omission, for reasons unknown, by modern authors. Vathimi Raja was the son of King Bhuvaneka Bahu I, by a Muslim spouse, the daughter of one of the chiefs. The Sinhalese son of King Bhuvaneka Bahu I, Parakrama Bahu III, the real heir to the throne was crowned at Dambadeniya under the name of Pandita Parakrama Bahu III. In order to be rid of his step brother, Vathimi Raja, he ordered that his eyes be gouged out. It is held that the author of the ''Mahavamsa'' (ancient history of Ceylon) had suppressed the recording of this disgraceful incident. The British translator, Mudaliyar Wijesinghe states that original Ola (leaf script) was bodily removed from the writings and fiction inserted instead. The blinded Vathimi Raja (Bhuvaneka Bahu II or Al-Konar, abbreviated from Al-Langar-Konar, meaning Chief of Lanka of Alakeshwara) was seen by the Arab traveller Ibn Batuta during his visit to the island in 1344. His son named Parakrama Bahu II (Alakeshwara II) was also a Muslim. The lineage of Alakeshwara kings (of Muslim origin) ended in 1410. Although all the kings during this reign may not have been Muslims, the absence of the prefix -Shri Sangha Bodhi- (pertaining to the disciples of the Buddha) to the name of these kings on the rock inscriptions during this hundred year period may be considered as an indicator that they were not Buddhists. Further during Ibn Batuta's visit a Muslim ruler called Jalasthi is reported to have been holding Colombo, maintaining his hold over the town with a garrison of about 500 Abyssinians.
In spite of this the Mulsims have always been maintaining very cordial relationships with the Sinhalese Royalty and the local population. There is evidence that they were more closer to the Sinhalese than they were to the Tamils. The Muslims relationship with the Sinhalese kings grew stronger and in the 14th. Century they even fought with them against the expanding Tamil kingdom and its maritime influence.
By the beginning of the 16th. century, the Muslims of Sri Lanka, the descendants of the original Arab traders, had settled down comfortably in the island. They were every successful in trade and commerce and integrated socially with the customs of the local people. They had become an inseparable, and even more, an indispensable part of the society. This period was one of ascendancy in peace and prosperity for the Sri Lankan Muslims.
The Indian Moors are Muslims who trace their origins to immigrants searching for business opportunities during the colonial period. Some of these people came to the country as far back as Portuguese times; others arrived during the British period from various parts of India. Majority of them came from Tamil Nadu and Kerala states, and unlike the Sri Lankan Moors, are ethnically related to South Indians. The Memon, originally from Sindh (in modern Pakistan), first arrived in 1870; in the 1980s they numbered only about 3,000, they mostly follow the Hanafi Sunni school of Islam.
The Dawoodi Bohras and the Khoja are Shi'a Muslims came from northwestern India (Gujarat state) after 1880; in the 1980s they collectively numbered fewer than 2,000. These groups tended to retain their own places of worship and the languages of their ancestral homelands.
The Malays of Sri Lanka originated in Southeast Asia and today consist of about 50,000 persons. Their ancestors came to the country when both Sri Lanka and Indonesia were colonies of the Dutch. Most of the early Malay immigrants were soldiers, posted by the Dutch colonial administration to Sri Lanka, who decided to settle on the island. Other immigrants were convicts or members of noble houses from Indonesia who were exiled to Sri Lanka and who never left. The main source of a continuing Malay identity is their common Malay language ''(Bahasa Melayu)'', which includes numerous words absorbed from Sinhalese and Tamil, and is spoken at home. In the 1980s, the Malays made up about 5 % of the Muslim population in Sri Lanka.
Most Sri Lankan Muslims, relatively, have not been active in spreading Islam among the majority population and have remained quite insular.
However, there is now steady rise in the number of converts. These converts mostly come from the Sinhalese Buddhist, Tamil Hindu and Roman Catholic communities. Many newspapers contain the names of converts on an almost daily basis.[1]
1. 30-Days Muslim Prayer Focus
★
★ Victor C. de Munck. Experiencing History Small: An analysis of political, economic and social change in a Sri Lankan village. History & Mathematics: Historical Dynamics and Development of Complex Societies. Edited by Peter Turchin, Leonid Grinin, Andrey Korotayev, and Victor C. de Munck, pp. 154-169. Moscow: KomKniga, 2006. ISBN 5484010020
★ Pieris, Kamalika. The Muslims and Sri Lanka.[1].Mission Islam, 2006.
★ Community portal of Sri Lanka Muslims
★ Sri Lankan Muslim Community Website
★ Sri Lankan Muslims Online News Website
★ Sri Lankan Islamic Website
★ History Of Muslims In Sri Lanka
★ The Story Of Sri Lanka's Malays
★ Sri Lankan Malays and their coexistence
'Islam in Sri Lanka' is practiced entirely by 'Sri Lankan Muslims', who make up approximately 8% of the population, comprise a group of minorities practicing the religion of Islam in Sri Lanka. The Muslim community is divided into three main ethnic groups; the 'Sri Lankan Moors', the 'Indian Moors', and the 'Malays', each with its own history and traditions. The attitude among the majority of non-Muslims in Sri Lanka is to use the term '"Muslim" as an ethnic group, specifically when referring to Sri Lankan Moors.
| Contents |
| Sri Lankan Moors |
| East coast Moors |
| Arabs in Sri Lanka: The Sri Lankan Moors |
| Indian Moors |
| The Malays |
| Conversions |
| Notes |
| References |
| External Links |
Sri Lankan Moors
Etymologically, the term "Moor" was first applied by the Portuguese, who labeled all Muslims after their enemies, the Moors, whom they fought in Iberia for centuries. For example, Filipino Muslims are called Moros because of the similar Spanish usage of the term, even though Filipino Muslims had no historical contact with Moors. The Sri Lankan Moors make up 93% of the Muslim population and 7% of the total population of the country (1,404,534 people in 2005). They are predominantly Sunni Muslims of Shafi School. They trace their ancestry to Arab traders who moved to Sri Lanka some time between the eighth and fifteenth centuries. The Arabic language bought by the early mercenaries are no longer spoken by the Moors, though various Arabic words and phrases are still employed in daily usage. In the past, the Moors employed Arwi as their mother tongue, though this is also extinct as a spoken language. Currently, the Moors of Sri Lanka use Tamil as their primary language which includes many loan words from Arabic. The Moors are also fluent in Sinhala, an Indo-European language spoken by the Sinhalese majority in Sri Lanka.
The Sri Lankan Moors lived primarily in coastal trading and agricultural communities, preserving their Islamic cultural heritage while adopting many Southern Asian customs. During the period of Portuguese colonisation, the Moors suffered from persecution, and many moved to the Central Highlands, where their descendants remain.
East coast Moors
On the east coast, Sri Lankan moors are primarily agriculturalists, fishers and traders. Their family lines are traced through women, as in kinship systems of the southwest Indian state of Kerala, but they govern themselves through Islamic law. Kmaraikayar
Arabs in Sri Lanka: The Sri Lankan Moors
The Tamils of Sri Lanka, throughout history, have attempted to categorize the Sri Lankan Moors as belonging to the Tamil race. It is claimed that this has been mainly for selfish reasons in a bid to eliminate the minority Muslim community from having its own unique identity. The Government of Sri Lanka, however, treats the Muslims as of Arab origin and as a distinct ethnic group from the Tamils. The Muslims and Sri Lanka
The manner in which Islam developed in Sri lanka is very closely similar to that on the Malabar coast of India. Tradition has recorded that Arabs who had settled down on the Malabar coast used to travel from the port of Cranganore to Sri lanka on piligrimage to pay homage to what they believed to be the foot-print of Adam on the top of a montain, which, until today, is called Adams Peak
kmaraikayar.
Ibn Batuta, the famous 14th. century Arab traveler, has recorded many facets about early Arab influence in Sri Lanka in his travelogues.
Before the end of the 7th. century, a colony of Muslim merchants had established themselves in Ceylon. Fascinated by the scenic splendor and captivated by the traditions associated with Adams Peak, Muslim merchants arrived in large numbers and some of them decided to settle in the island encouraged by the cordial treatment they received by the local rulers. Most of them lived along the coastal areas in peace and prosperity, maintaining contacts, both cultural and commercial, with Baghdad and other Islamic cities.
According to Tikiri Abeyasinghe in his ''Portuguese Rule in Ceylon, 1594-1612'', Colombo (1966), Lake House Investments Ltd., p 192, tradition has it that,
[...]the first Mohammadans of Ceylon were a portion of those Arabs of the House of Hashim, who were driven from Arabia in the early part of the 8th. century by the tyranny of the Caliph, Abdel Malik bin Marwan, and who proceeding from the Euphrates southwards made settlements in the concan in the southern parts of the peninsula of India, on the island of Ceylon and Malacca. The division of them which came to Ceylon formed eight considerable settlements along the Nort-East, North and Western coast of that island; viz., one at Trincomalee, one at Jaffna, one at Colombo, one at barbareen, and one at Point de Galle.[...]
It is perhaps reasonable, therefore, to assume that the Arabs, professing the religion of Islam, arrived in Sri Lanka around the 7th./8th. century A.D. even though there was a settled community of Arabs in Ceylon in pre-Islamic times.
Distribution of Moors in Sri Lanka based on 2001 and 1981 (''cursive'') census
The circumstances that helped the growth of Muslim settlements were varied. Most of the majority Sinhalese depended more on agriculture than trade, thus trade wide open to the Muslims. The Sinhalese Kings considered the Muslim settlements favorably on account of the revenue that they brought them through their contacts overseas both in trade and in politics. The religious tolerance of the local population was also another vital factor in the development of Muslim settlements in Ceylon.
The early Muslim settlements were set up mainly around ports on account of the nature of their trade. It is also assumed that many of the Arab traders may not have brought their womenfolk along with them when they settled in Ceylon. Hence they would have been compelled to marry the Sinhalese and Tamil women of the island after converting them to Islam. The fact that a large number of Muslims in Sri Lanka speak the Tamil language can be attributed to the possibility that they were trading partners with the Tamils of South India and had to learn Tamil to successfully in order to carry out their business. The integration with the Muslims of Tamil Nadu, in South India, may have also contributed to this. It is also possible that the Arabs who had already migrated to Ceylon, prior to Islam, had adopted the Tamil language as a medium of communication in their intercourse with the Tamil speaking Muslims of South India. The Muslims were very skillful traders who gradually built-up a very lucrative trading post in Ceylon. A whole colony of Muslims is said to have landed at Beruwela (South Western coast) in the Kalutara District in 1024 A.D.
The Muslims did not indulge in propagating Islam amongst the natives of Ceylon even though many of the Sinhalese and Tamil women they married did convert.
There is also a report in the history of Sri Lanka of a Muslim Ruler, Vathimi Raja, who reigned at Kurunegala (North Central Province) in the 14th. century. This factor cannot be found in history books due to their omission, for reasons unknown, by modern authors. Vathimi Raja was the son of King Bhuvaneka Bahu I, by a Muslim spouse, the daughter of one of the chiefs. The Sinhalese son of King Bhuvaneka Bahu I, Parakrama Bahu III, the real heir to the throne was crowned at Dambadeniya under the name of Pandita Parakrama Bahu III. In order to be rid of his step brother, Vathimi Raja, he ordered that his eyes be gouged out. It is held that the author of the ''Mahavamsa'' (ancient history of Ceylon) had suppressed the recording of this disgraceful incident. The British translator, Mudaliyar Wijesinghe states that original Ola (leaf script) was bodily removed from the writings and fiction inserted instead. The blinded Vathimi Raja (Bhuvaneka Bahu II or Al-Konar, abbreviated from Al-Langar-Konar, meaning Chief of Lanka of Alakeshwara) was seen by the Arab traveller Ibn Batuta during his visit to the island in 1344. His son named Parakrama Bahu II (Alakeshwara II) was also a Muslim. The lineage of Alakeshwara kings (of Muslim origin) ended in 1410. Although all the kings during this reign may not have been Muslims, the absence of the prefix -Shri Sangha Bodhi- (pertaining to the disciples of the Buddha) to the name of these kings on the rock inscriptions during this hundred year period may be considered as an indicator that they were not Buddhists. Further during Ibn Batuta's visit a Muslim ruler called Jalasthi is reported to have been holding Colombo, maintaining his hold over the town with a garrison of about 500 Abyssinians.
In spite of this the Mulsims have always been maintaining very cordial relationships with the Sinhalese Royalty and the local population. There is evidence that they were more closer to the Sinhalese than they were to the Tamils. The Muslims relationship with the Sinhalese kings grew stronger and in the 14th. Century they even fought with them against the expanding Tamil kingdom and its maritime influence.
By the beginning of the 16th. century, the Muslims of Sri Lanka, the descendants of the original Arab traders, had settled down comfortably in the island. They were every successful in trade and commerce and integrated socially with the customs of the local people. They had become an inseparable, and even more, an indispensable part of the society. This period was one of ascendancy in peace and prosperity for the Sri Lankan Muslims.
Indian Moors
The Indian Moors are Muslims who trace their origins to immigrants searching for business opportunities during the colonial period. Some of these people came to the country as far back as Portuguese times; others arrived during the British period from various parts of India. Majority of them came from Tamil Nadu and Kerala states, and unlike the Sri Lankan Moors, are ethnically related to South Indians. The Memon, originally from Sindh (in modern Pakistan), first arrived in 1870; in the 1980s they numbered only about 3,000, they mostly follow the Hanafi Sunni school of Islam.
The Dawoodi Bohras and the Khoja are Shi'a Muslims came from northwestern India (Gujarat state) after 1880; in the 1980s they collectively numbered fewer than 2,000. These groups tended to retain their own places of worship and the languages of their ancestral homelands.
The Malays
The ''Jami Ul Alfar'' mosque in ''pettah'' area one of the oldest mosques in Colombo
The Malays of Sri Lanka originated in Southeast Asia and today consist of about 50,000 persons. Their ancestors came to the country when both Sri Lanka and Indonesia were colonies of the Dutch. Most of the early Malay immigrants were soldiers, posted by the Dutch colonial administration to Sri Lanka, who decided to settle on the island. Other immigrants were convicts or members of noble houses from Indonesia who were exiled to Sri Lanka and who never left. The main source of a continuing Malay identity is their common Malay language ''(Bahasa Melayu)'', which includes numerous words absorbed from Sinhalese and Tamil, and is spoken at home. In the 1980s, the Malays made up about 5 % of the Muslim population in Sri Lanka.
Conversions
Most Sri Lankan Muslims, relatively, have not been active in spreading Islam among the majority population and have remained quite insular.
However, there is now steady rise in the number of converts. These converts mostly come from the Sinhalese Buddhist, Tamil Hindu and Roman Catholic communities. Many newspapers contain the names of converts on an almost daily basis.[1]
Notes
1. 30-Days Muslim Prayer Focus
References
★
★ Victor C. de Munck. Experiencing History Small: An analysis of political, economic and social change in a Sri Lankan village. History & Mathematics: Historical Dynamics and Development of Complex Societies. Edited by Peter Turchin, Leonid Grinin, Andrey Korotayev, and Victor C. de Munck, pp. 154-169. Moscow: KomKniga, 2006. ISBN 5484010020
★ Pieris, Kamalika. The Muslims and Sri Lanka.[1].Mission Islam, 2006.
External Links
★ Community portal of Sri Lanka Muslims
★ Sri Lankan Muslim Community Website
★ Sri Lankan Muslims Online News Website
★ Sri Lankan Islamic Website
★ History Of Muslims In Sri Lanka
★ The Story Of Sri Lanka's Malays
★ Sri Lankan Malays and their coexistence
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