A pre-Islamic Hindu society

Andrew W Forbes, a scholar of Islamic research, famous that “there can be little doubt that the first settlers on the Lakshadweep islands were Malabari sailors, quite possibly castaways” (‘Sources towards the history of the Laccadive islands’, 2007). This can be echoed in oral traditions amongst islanders, although the specifics of the legends are troublesome to validate.

Forbes wrote there’s robust proof to recommend {that a} wave of immigration befell through the seventh century CE, however it’s inconceivable to pinpoint when precisely it started. However, these immigrants had been largely Malabari Hindus.

“The existing caste structure of the Lakshadweep islands probably dates to this period, as does the prevailing marumakkathayam matrilineal system of inheritance,” he wrote (extra on that later). Apart from caste, the existence of a pre-Islamic Hindu society within the islands might be deduced from the invention of quite a few buried idols, and the existence of a number of conventional island songs in reward of Ram and alluding to snake worship.

Why the islanders transformed to Islam

Forbes believes that islanders transformed to Islam over an prolonged time frame, via common contact with Arab retailers and sailors travelling between Arabia and the Malabar coast.

Notably, Islamic affect within the Lakshadweep got here via the Arabs relatively than via the Mappila neighborhood of Malabar. “Lakshadweep islanders speak Malayalam with a greater admixture of Arabic than the mainland Mappilas, and write Malayalam in the Arabic rather than Malayali script,” Forbes famous.

“Unlike north India, introduction of Islam in the Indian Ocean including the Lakshadweep islands, Kerala, Tamil Nadu was accompanied by significantly less political contest,” historian Mahmood Kooria advised The Indian Express in 2021. “Islam was introduced in these areas mainly through commercial interactions,” he added.

Insulated from mainland, tradition develops in another way

In the sixteenth century, the islands got here beneath the management of the Arakkal kingdom of Kannur, the one Muslim dynasty to have dominated in Kerala.The kingdom was incessantly at loggerheads with European powers, and controlling Lakshadweep was a matter of status.

“The Portuguese made strong efforts to take over the island, and in the mid-sixteenth century there was a massacre of hundreds of locals by them,” historian Manu Pillai advised The Indian Express in 2021. “However, because the Portuguese came to terms with mainland rulers like the Kolathiri and Arakkal, the islands would eventually enjoy a degree of protection.”

This safety translated to a level of insulation, which continued throughout British rule. While the Arakkal kingdom was compelled to give up most of its land in Malabar, they retained part of Lakshadweep until 1908, in return for tribute to the East India Company, and later the Crown.

Lakshadweep’s geographic isolation together with comparatively much less affect of colonialism meant that its tradition and society developed very in another way than the remainder of India. In truth, as Kooria defined, nobody cultural affect dominated the islands — that’s the reason it has as many as three essential languages: Malayalam, Jazari and Mahl.

A matrilineal society

What actually makes Lakshadweep’s Islamic society distinctive is the custom of matriliny — the place descent and property is traced via the mom’s line.

“Perhaps nowhere would a social system appear so incompatible with the ideology of Islam and demand so much adjustment and accommodation as in a matrilineal society,” anthropologist Leela Dube wrote in Matriliny and Islam: Religion and society within the Laccadives (1969).

Pillai pointed to Lakshadweep’s connections to Kerala to elucidate its matrilineal custom. “Amini, Kalpeni, Andrott, Kavaratti, and Agatti are the oldest islands that were inhabited, and certain families here claim to be descendants of converts to Islam from Nair and Namboodiri Brahmin families on the mainland. Matriliny was practised by Nairs and several other castes, and was part of Kerala’s cultural pattern,” he mentioned.

Kooria, nevertheless, mentioned that the observe of matriliny can’t be seen in reference to Kerala alone, since it’s generally discovered amongst Muslims of the Indian Ocean area like in Mozambique, Indonesia, Malaysia, Tanzania and so on. In truth, he mentioned that “the islanders believe their practice of matriliny is not despite of Islam but because of it.”

“They believe that the Prophet lived with his first wife, Khadija in a matrilocal system. This is the religious sanction for their matrilineal practice,” Dr N P Hafiz Mohamad, head of Sociology in Calicut University advised The Indian Express in 2021.

A cause for the continued existence of matriliny in Lakshadweep is its relative isolation. Not solely did it keep away from severe colonial affect, it additionally didn’t come beneath the affect of standard Islamic concepts from different elements of the Muslim world, just like the reformist Mujahid motion in south-west India within the Thirties.

This is an up to date model of an article first revealed in 2021.