History of Islam in Sri Lanka

With the arrival of Arab traders in the 8th century, Islam began to flourish in Sri Lanka. The first people to profess the Islamic faith were Arab merchants and their native wives, whom they married after converting to Islam. By the 15th century, Arab traders had controlled much of the trade on the Indian Ocean, including that of Sri Lanka's. Many of them settled down on the island in large numbers, encouraging the spread of Islam. However, when the Portuguese arrived during the 16th century, many of their descendants- the Sri Lankan Moors. The Moors trace their ancestry to Arab traders who settled in Sri Lanka some time between the eighth and fifteenth centuries...

- were persecuted, thus forcing them to migrate to the Central Highlands and to the east coast of the country.

During 18th and 19th centuries, Javanese and Malaysian Muslims bought over by the Dutch and British rulers contributed to the growing Muslim population in Sri Lanka. Their descendants, now the Sri Lankan Malays , adapted several Sri Lankan Moor Islamic traditions while also contributing their unique cultural Islamic practices to other Muslim groups on the Island.

The arrival of Muslims from India during the 19th and 20th centuries has also contributed to the growth of Islam in Sri Lanka. Most notably, Pakistani and South Indian Muslims have introduced the Hanafi school of thought into Sri Lanka, however although most Muslims on the island still adhere to the traditional practices of Sunni Islam (Sunni Islam is the largest denomination of Islam. It is also referred to as Ahl as-Sunnah wa’l-Jamā‘ah or Ahl as-Sunnah for short...)

In modern times, Muslims in Sri Lanka are handled by the Muslim Religious and Cultural Affairs Department, which was established in the 1980s to prevent the continual isolation of the Muslim community from the rest of Sri Lanka. Today, about 8% of Sri Lankans adhere to Islam; mostly from the Moor and Malay ethnic communities on the island with smaller numbers of converts from other ethnicities.)(The Sri Lankan Moors are the third largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka comprising 9.7 % of the country's total population . They are predominantly followers of Islam. The Moors trace their ancestry to Arab traders who settled in Sri Lanka some time between the eighth and fifteenth centuries)

(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.)

(The Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...)

Sri Lankan Moors
The Sri Lankan Moors make up almost 95% of the Muslim population and 8% of the total population of the country. They are predominantly Sunni Muslims of Shafi School. The Moors trace their ancestry to Arab.

(Arab people or Arabs are an ethnic group whose members identify along linguistic, cultural or genealogical grounds...)

traders who settled in Sri Lanka some time between the eighth and fifteenth centuries.

The Arabic language


(Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people) as...

brought by the early merchants is no longer spoken, though various Arabic words and phrases are still employed in daily usage. Until the recent past, the Moors employed Arwi

(Arwi or Arabic-Tamil is an Arabic-influenced dialect of the Tamil language written with an extension of the Arabic alphabet, with extensive lexical and phonetic influences from the Arabic language. Arwi was used extensively by the Muslim minority of Tamil Nadu state of India and Sri Lanka)

as their mother tongue, though this is also extinct as a spoken language. Currently, the Moors in the east of Sri Lanka use Tamil language.

Tamil Language


Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in India, Sri Lanka and Singapore. Tamil is also spoken by significant minorities in Malaysia, Mauritius and Réunion as well as emigrant communities around the world...

as their primary language which includes many loan words from Arabic. Moors in the west coast are fluent in Sinhala, an Indo-European languages
(The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, Iran, and northern India, and historically also predominant in Anatolia and Central Asia...)

language spoken by the Sinhalese is Sinhala
(The Sinhalese are the main ethnic group of Sri Lanka, constituting 70.19% of the population. They speak Sinhala an Indo-Aryan language, and number approximately 14 million.-Origin...)majority in Sri Lanka
but use English within the community. Thus, the Moors are a multilingual ethnic and religious group, lacking linguistic cohesion.

(English is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...)

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 colonization, 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 farmers, fishermen, and traders. Their family lines are traced through women, as in kinship systems of the southwest Indian state of Kerala
(Kerala , is a state located in southwestern India. The state was created in 1956 on linguistc basis, bringing together those places where Malayalam formed the principal language...)

but they govern themselves through Islamic law.

West Coast Moors
Many moors in the west of the island are traders, professionals or civil servants and are mainly concentrated in Colombo.

(Colombo is the largest city and commercial capital of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, the capital city of Sri Lanka. Colombo is a busy and vibrant city with a mixture of modern life and colonial buildings and ruins and a city...)

Beruwala 
Beruwala, is a small resort town in the south western coastal belt of Sri Lanka. The name Beruwela is derived from the Sinhalese word Beruwela . It marks the spot for the first Muslim settlement on the island, established by Arab traders around the 8th century AD.

Mannar 
Predominantly make a living as prawn farmers, and fishermen. Moors in the west coast trace their family lines through their father. Along with those in the Central Province, the surname of many Moors in Colombo.

Kalutara 
Kalutara is a resort town located approximately 40km south of Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital.- Overview :Once an important spice-trading center, the city's name is derived from the Kalu Ganga River . In the 11th Century, the town was temporarily made a capital on the orders of a South Indian Prince...

( Overview :The history of this dry zone district goes back to the arrival of North Indian Prince Vijaya, 2500 years ago in Tammanna in the coastal belt above Puttalam. This happened when his vessel was washed ashore. Thonigala the homeland of Kuweni is deep in the district..)is their fathers first name, thus retaining similarity to the traditional Arab)

Arab people or Arabs are an ethnic group whose members identify along linguistic, cultural or genealogical grounds...and middle eastern kinship system.

The Malays
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.

The Malays originated in Southeast Asia
Manila
Bangkok
Ho Chi Minh City
Kuala Lumpur
Singapore
Yangon
Bandung
Hanoi
Surabaya
Taichung
Kaohsiung
Medan

The Republic of Indonesia is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia comprises 17,508 islands. With an estimated population of around 237 million people, it is the world's fourth most populous country, with the world's largest population of Muslims.Indonesia is a republic, with and
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 Malay (Bahasa Melayu), which includes numerous words absorbed from Sinhalese and the Mariachis Lankan Moors.(The Sri Lankan Malay is an Austronesian language formed through a unique mixture of the Sinhalese language and the Tamil language with Malay...)

Indian Muslims (Memons, Bhoras, Khojas)

The Indian Muslims are those 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)(Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai . Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by Puducherry , Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh...states, and unlike the Sri Lankan Moors, are ethnically related to South Indians and number approximately 30,000.

The Memon
Memon an ethnic group tracing their roots largely to Sindh, Kutch and Kathiawar and are sometimes seen as transitional between the two regions. A Sunni Muslim group, Memons predominantly adhere to Hanafi Sunni Islam although some are Maliki. Historically Memons are a mercantile community..in modern Pakistan.Originally from Sindh.

Sindh , is one of the four provinces of Pakistan and historically is home to the Sindhis. Different cultural and ethnic groups also reside in Sindh including Urdu-speaking Muslim refugees who migrated to Pakistan from India upon independence as well as the people migrated from other provinces after...

(Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located at the crossroads of South Asia, the Middle East, and Central Asia...)

first arrived in 1870; in the 1980s they numbered only about 3,000, they mostly follow the Hanafi) Sunni school of Islam
The Hanafi school is one of the four schools of law or jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. The Hanafi madhhab is named after Abu Hanifa an-Nu‘man ibn Thābit , and his legal views were preserved primarily by his two most...

The Dawoodi Bohras and the Khojas
(The Khwajahs or officially Khojas are an ethno-religious community that are mainly concentrated in South Asia, but due to migrations over the centuries have spread to many parts of the globe..).