The Moors of

Kilakarai Kilakarai (alternatively spelled Kilakkarai or Keelakarai) is a municipality in Ramanathapuram district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. As of 2011, the town had a population of 38,355. Kilakarai is one of the Taluka in Ramanathapuram Distri ...

( ta, கீழக்கரை முஸ்லிம்கள்) are a

Tamil Muslim Tamil Muslims are Tamils who practise Islam. The community is 5.7 million in India, primarily in the state of Tamil Nadu where 70% of the Muslim community identified themselves as Tamils. The Tamil-speaking Muslims are descendants of marriage ...

community who form the largest

ethnic group An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

comprising 80% of the towns total population. The Moors of Kilakarai are Marakkars. They are predominantly followers of

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...

tracing their ancestry to

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

traders mostly from

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate. ...

and

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

who settled in Kilakarai some time between 8th-15th century. The Kilakarai Moors lived primarily as coastal trading and agricultural communities, preserving their Islamic

cultural heritage Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by soci ...

while adopting many Southern Asian customs. During the period of Portuguese colonisation of

Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

, a small population of

Sri Lankan Moors Sri Lankan Moors ( ta, இலங்கைச் சோனகர், translit=Ilaṅkaic Cōṉakar; si, ලංකා යෝනක, translit=Lanka Yonaka; formerly Ceylon Moors; colloquially referred to as Sri Lankan Muslims) are an ethnic minorit ...

settled down in

as they suffered widespread

persecution Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group. The most common forms are religious persecution, racism, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these term ...

Language

The

Arabic language Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

brought by the early merchants is no longer spoken, though many Arabic words and phrases are still commonly used. Until the recent past, the Moors employed

Arwi Arwi or ArabuTamil (Arabic: , ; ta, அரபுத்தமிழ் ) is an Arabic influenced dialect of the Tamil language, Tamil language written with an Arabic Extended-A, extension of the Arabic alphabet, with extensive Lexicon, lexical a ...

as their native language, though this is also extinct as a spoken language. Moors today use

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

as their primary language with influence from Arabic. Many Arabic and Arabized words exist in the form of Tamil spoken by Kilakarai moors. Among many examples, greetings and blessings are exchanged in Arabic instead of Tamil, such as ''Assalamu Alaikum'' instead of Sandhiyum Samadanamum, ''Jazakallah'' instead of Nandri and ''Pinjhan/Finjan'' for Bowl/Cup.There are also words which are unique to Kilakarai Moors and a few other

communities such as ''Laatha'' for elder-sister, ''Kaka'' for elder-brother, ''Umma'' for mother and ''Vappa'' for father. There are also words derived from Sinhala such as ''Mattapa'' for terrace. There are also words from

Purananuru The ''Purananuru'' (, literally "four hundred oemsin the genre puram"), sometimes called ''Puram'' or ''Purappattu'', is a classical Tamil poetic work and traditionally the last of the Eight Anthologies (''Ettuthokai'') in the Sangam literatu ...

era such as ''Aanam'' for Kulambu and ''Puliaanam'' for rasam or soup.

Gallery

Image:Kilakarai_Arabic_tombstone.jpg,

Arabic tombstone in oldest mosque of India ( The Old Jumma Masjid of Kilakarai)

Arabic script

References

{{Reflist Islam in India by location

Language

Gallery

See also

References