STRIKING A FALSE NOTE

The song Manikya Malaraya Poovi, featuring Malayali actor Priya Varrier, has been in the eye of a storm for its lyrics about the Prophet and his first wife. But this old, popular song is part of the culture of a Muslim community known for its syncretic tr

There is, in Kerala, a fascinating legend featuring the Hindu sage Vararuchi and a Pariah girl who bore him twelve children. The story is rich in metaphor, and to this day there are families along the coast that claim descent from one or another of their fabled offspring. The eldest, for instance, was raised a Brahmin, while the youngest, who had no mouth, is venerated as a temple deity. One son was a celebrated carpenter, tales connecting him to shrines across Kerala, while another was a madman whose chief delight lay in rolling a boulder uphill, only to watch it tumble down, over and over. Yet another brought to his esteemed Brahmin brother’s feast beef to eat, while one more of Vararuchi’s tribe settled as a trader. And in a tale that weaves together Brahmins and Nairs, a deity as well as a Dalit, it is this sibling, Uppukoottan, who introduces a final interesting identity; for Uppukoottan, son of Vararuchi, is believed to have been raised a Mappila, adhering not so much to his father’s Hindu traditions but to the word of the Prophet Muhammad.

ON A SONG

While to some, the presence of a Muslim in a popular Hindu legend might seem outlandish, to Malayalis – currently bewildered by those taking offence at a years-old Mappila folk song gone “viral” – the story is by no means unusual. After all, across the length and breadth of Kerala, history and legend are united in featuring Muslims (and Christians) prominently in a shared, syncretic cultural universe. Arabs had mastered the seas even before the Prophet was born, and soon after its dawn, Islam was delivered to Kerala through longstanding channels of commerce. The oldest mosque in the region, for instance, is said to have been established in the lifetime of the Prophet himself, in 629 CE, though archaeologists quibble about the exact age of the structure. By 849 CE, at any rate, Muslim traders were consequential enough to witness a royal grant (made, incidentally, to Christians), their signatures inscribed in archaic Arabic. When the Moroccan Ibn Battuta came here in the course of his travels, he saw men from Persia too in settlements along the coast, and one of the most beautiful mosques in Calicut (now Kozhikode), the turquoise blue Mishkal Palli, was founded soon afterwards by a particularly prolific merchant who began his life and career in faraway Yemen.

BLENDING IN

The influence of the Mappilas, born from the union of Arabs with local women as well as from subsequent conversions, quickly found reflection in Kerala’s already diverse culture. Some of the principal officials of the Zamorin of Calicut were Muslims, and in the great Mamankam festival at Tirunavaya – the most important religious gathering in Kerala till the 18th century – Muslims participated in the colourful revelries as much as they did in formal royal ceremonies. At Sabarimala, where hundreds of thousands converge to worship the Hindu god Ayyappa, homage is also paid to Vavar, the deity’s Muslim friend whose name sounds (painfully to some) like Babur.

The language of the Mappilas, meanwhile, developed into a unique blend of Malayalam sound and Arabic script, influenced over time by Persian as well as by Tamil and Kannada. Their architecture too absorbed Kerala’s indigenous style – the oldest mosques feature no domes or minarets, bearing instead the gables and tiled roof that crown temples and even Christian churches from this era. The nerchchas of the Mappila community, celebrating saints and divines, resemble Hindu festivals – the tall brass lamp, the elephants, bright parasols, and fireworks, all integral to the temple pooram as much as to these Muslim commemorations. There is even, in fact, a Mappila Ramayana, featuring Ravana as a Sultan and where Surpanakha’s proposition to Rama seeks sanction in the Sharia.

Indeed, even prominent Hindu lineages embraced Islam – legend has a king actually going to Mecca himself, while a Nair nobleman founded the Muslim dynasty of Arakkal. His line would come to rule over the Lakshadweep Islands, forging links with Tipu as well as the Ottomon Sultan, but retaining through the centuries, the matrilineal system of succession that allowed women to rule, unencumbered by purdah or seclusion.

Such, in fact, was the mass of sea-faring Muslims in the coastal towns and ports of Kerala that Ma Huan, the Chinese traveller, was convinced in the 15th century that most of the region’s dwellers must be adherents of the Quran. One of the Hindu princes of Calicut certainly commanded every fisherman in his realm to bring up one son for Islam – this would enable them to sail the seas, man the royal navy, and contribute to the prosperity of a land where commerce was everything. And, as it happened, it was when the terms of that trade began to suddenly change that the story of the Mappila community itself encountered its first chapter of decline.

A SEA CHANGE

The Portuguese who arrived in 1498 quickly took control of the seas, marrying commercial rivalry with religious bigotry, expelling Arabs who had reigned supreme for a thousand years. As one authority recorded, the Europeans, with their guns and prejudice, “forbade the Muslims to trade in pepper and ginger, and then later cinnamon, cloves and other commodities…They prevented Muslims from making commercial voyages to Arabia, Malacca, Achin and Damao.” Mappila ships were burned, pilgrimages obstructed, and mosques were destroyed

AT SABARIMALA, ALONG WITH THE WORSHIP OF THE HINDU GOD AYYAPPA, HOMAGE IS ALSO PAID TO VAVAR, THE DEITY’S MUSLIM FRIEND