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The Malabar Coast, noted for its spices and other products from time immemorial, had a regular trade with the Greeks, Romans, Mesopotamians and Arabs long before the advent of Islam. Foreigners, traders and scholars were all welcomed and treated with hospitality in Kerala. Islam first came to India through Malabar. A party of Muslims, under Malik Ibn Dinar, reached Kodungalloor where they were most hospitably welcomed and the first Muslim mosque was established there with Malik Ibn Dinar, as the Kazi, which still exists. Intermarriages with the local families were frequent and it was thus that the small band of Muslim settlers grew into the Moplah community of today.
The Moplahs grew in numbers and influence. The people from this community are primarily from the agricultural, labour and fisher folk classes. The lower castes had an inducement to become Muslims as they were treated as equals by their new coreligionists irrespective of wealth and influence.
Vasco da Gama's landing at Kapat near Calicut in 1498 marked a significant turning point in India's history as apart from objectives of trade, the Portuguese wanted to establish a political hegemony which they set about by playing one chieftain off against another.
The Moplahs and the Arab traders waged a relentless and bitter struggle against the Europeans. The Moplahs manned the navy of the Zamorins of Calicut which, under Kunjali Marakkar I and II, the Moplah admirals, inflicted many defeats on the Portuguese, sometimes pursuing them far out into the ocean.
During British rule, Malabar became a single administrative unit under a British collector but Travancore and Cochin continued to remain under Indian rulers. When Mahatma Gandhi linked the Civil Disobedience movement with the Khilafat agitation, the Moplahs took the opportunity to settle old scores with their landlords. Between July 1921 and February 1922 hardly any administration existed in central Malabar. One of the heroes of the rebellion was Variamkunnath Kunhamed Hajee who proclaimed himself king. The reprisals were total and satanic, about four thousand Moplahs being killed and wounded and thirty-eight thousand captured.
(Last Updated on : 08-04-2009)
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