Bangladeshis in the Maldives are a part of the

Bangladeshi diaspora The Bangladeshi diaspora ( bn, প্রবাসী বাংলাদেশী) are people of Bangladeshi birth or descent who live outside of Bangladesh. First-generation migrants may have moved abroad from Bangladesh for various reasons in ...

, consists people of

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

i descent who have immigrated to or were born in another country. In most cases, first generation migrants may have moved abroad from Bangladesh for better living conditions, to escape poverty, or to send money back to families in Bangladesh. Till now, most Bangladeshis in the

Maldives Maldives (, ; dv, ދިވެހިރާއްޖެ, translit=Dhivehi Raajje, ), officially the Republic of Maldives ( dv, ދިވެހިރާއްޖޭގެ ޖުމްހޫރިއްޔާ, translit=Dhivehi Raajjeyge Jumhooriyyaa, label=none, ), is an archipelag ...

are first generation

immigrants Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, a ...

. The 14th-century Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta identified Sultan Salahuddin Salih as a

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

and credited him for the establishment of a new dynasty in the Maldives including his son Omar I and a granddaughter,

Khadijah Khadija, Khadeeja or Khadijah ( ar, خديجة, Khadīja) is an Arabic feminine given name, the name of Khadija bint Khuwaylid, first wife of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. In 1995, it was one of the three most popular Arabic feminine names in th ...

. Other records have also mentioned a granddaughter of

Alauddin Husain Shah Ala-ud-din Husain Shah ( bn, আলাউদ্দিন হোসেন শাহ (1494–1519)Majumdar, R.C. (ed.) (2006). ''The Delhi Sultanate'', Mumbai: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, pp.215-20 was an independent late medieval Sultan of Bengal, who ...

being a queen in the Maldives too. According to the Maldivian foreign ministry some 80,000 Bangladeshi are now (2021) working in the Maldives, a nation of only around 400,000 people, with one-third having no valid documents or registration This is a major portion among all the foreign workers in the Maldives.

References

Bangladesh–Maldives relations Ethnic groups in the Maldives {{Maldives-stub