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Islam in Sri Lanka

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Islam in Sri Lanka is practiced by a group of minorities who make up 9.7% of the population of Sri Lanka. 1967227 persons adhering Islam as per the census of 2012.[1][2] The Muslim community is divided into three main ethnic groups: the Sri Lankan Moors, the Indian Muslims, Tamil Muslims and the Malays, each with its own history and traditions. The attitude among the majority of people in Sri Lanka is to use the term "Muslim" as an ethnic group, specifically when referring to Sri Lankan Moors.

The green band on the Sri Lankan flag represents Islam and the Moorish ethnic group
The Jami Ul Alfar mosque in pettah area one of the oldest mosques in Colombo
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History of Islam in Sri Lanka

Distribution of Islam in Sri Lanka based on 2001 and 1981 (cursive) census
File:Ummu zavaya.jpg
Ummu zavaya at Lafir mawatha,Colombo the head Quarters of Shazuliyya sufi order

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. 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 - were persecuted.The Sinhalese ruler King Senarat of Kandy gave refuge to the Muslims in the central highlands and Eastern Province, Sri Lanka.[3]

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 Shia Islam and the Hanafi school of thought into Sri Lanka, however although most Muslims on the island still adhere to the traditional practices of Sunni Islam.

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 10% of Sri Lankans adhere to Islam; and there are approximately 5,000 mosques, with every mosque having a committee to lookafter the community affairs. Muslims of Sri Lanka, mostly from the Moor and Malay ethnic communities on the island with smaller numbers of converts from other ethnicities, such as the Tamils.

A significant Tamil-speaking Muslim population exists in Sri Lanka; however, unlike Tamil Muslims from India, they are not culturally linked with ethnic Tamils, they are therefore listed as a separate ethnic group in official statistics.[4][5] The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community was established in Sri Lanka in 1915. But the other Muslim Communities consider Ahamadiyya as a separate non-Muslim religion.[6]

Sinhalese-Muslim Riots of 1915

1915 Major Sinhala-Muslim riot took place. In June, Sinhala Budhist-Muslim riots in Ceylon. Riots spread from the central province to the western and northwestern provinces.There were heavy casualities amongst the Muslims. According to available records, 146 Muslims were killed and 405 Muslims were injured and 62 Muslims women have been raped by major Sinhalese. Nearly 85 mosques were damaged and more than 4,075 Muslin-owned shops were looted by the Sinhala rioters.

Muslims and Sri Lankan Civil War

Main article: Expulsion of Muslims from the Northern province by LTTE

The Sri Lankan Civil War was a 26 year conflict fought on the island of Sri Lanka between government and separatist militant organisation Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (the LTTE, also known as the Tamil Tigers). In this civil war Sri Lankan Muslim were targeted by LTTE and tens of thousand Muslims died {cn}, hundreds of thousand were expelled from their homes and their property was destroyed [citation needed].

The expulsion of the Muslims from the Northern province was an act of ethnic cleansing [7][8] carried out by the Tamil militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) organization in October 1990. In order to achieve their goal of creating a mono ethnic Tamil state[9][10] in the North Sri Lanka, the LTTE forcibly expelled the 95,000 strong Muslim population from the Northern Province.[11] The allegations are disputed by the LTTE.

The expulsion still carries bitter memories amongst Sri Lanka's Muslims. In 2002, the LTTE militant leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran formally apologized for the expulsion of Muslims from the North. There has been a stream of Muslims travelling to and from Jaffna since the ceasefire. Some families have returned and the re-opened Osmaniya College now has 60 students enrolled. Two Mosques are functioning again. According to a Jaffna Muslim source, there is a floating population of about 2000 Muslims in Jaffna. Around 1500 are Jaffna Muslims, while the rest are Muslim traders from other areas. About 10 Muslim shops are functioning and the numbers are thought to have grown.[12]

Sri Lankan Moors

Main article: Sri Lankan Moors
Typical early 20th century Moor gentlemen

The Sri Lankan Moors make up almost 92% of the Muslim population and 9.7% of the total population of the country. They are predominantly Sunni Muslims of Shafi School. The Moors trace their ancestry to Arab traders who settled in Sri Lanka some time between the seventh and eighth centuries. The Arabic language 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 as their mother tongue, though this is also extinct as a spoken language. Currently, the Moors in the east of Sri Lanka use Tamil as their primary language which includes many loan words from Arabic. Moors in the west coast are fluent in Sinhala, an Indo-European language spoken by the Sinhalese majority in Sri Lanka, but use English within the community. Thus, the Moors are a multilingual ethnic and religious group, lacking linguistic cohesion.

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 and Eastern Province, where their descendants remain.

Education

There are 749 Muslim Schools in Sri Lanka, and 205 madrasas which teaching Islamic Education, and there is an Islamic university in Beruwala (Jamiya Naleemiya). In early 20th century there are few Muslim professionals in Accounts, Medical, Engineering, etc. But at present they are exceeding the national average. Due to lack of opportunity in Sri Lanka, many Muslim professionals are migrating to get jobs abroad, such as the Middle East, United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe.

East Coast Moors

On the eastern province of the country Muslims are predominant. These Muslims were settled on land given by the Sinhalese King Senarat of Kandy after the Muslims were persecuted by the Portuguese.[3] East coast Sri Lankan Moors are primarily farmers, fishermen, and traders.as per the controversial census of 2007 the moors are 5(only moors,not entire Muslims of the eastern province)Their family lines are traced through women, as in kinship systems of the southwest Indian state of Kerala, but they govern themselves through Islamic law.[13]

West Coast Moors

Many moors in the west of the island are traders, professionals or civil servants and are mainly concentrated in Colombo, Kalutara and Beruwala. Moors in Puttalam and 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 and Puttalam is their fathers first name, thus retaining similarity to the traditional Arab and middle eastern kinship system.

The Malays

Main article: Sri Lankan Malays
File:P3-full.jpg
Sri Lankan Malay Father and Son, 19th century
Mosque in Galle, Sri Lanka

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, who decided to settle on the island. 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 (Bahasa Melayu), which includes numerous words absorbed from Sinhalese and the Moorish variant of the Tamil language. In the 1980s, the Malays made up about 5% of the Muslim population in Sri Lanka and, like the Moors, predominantly follow the Shafi school of thought within Sunni Islam.

Tamil Muslims

A significant Tamil-speaking Muslim population exists in Sri Lanka; however, unlike Tamil Muslims from India, they are not culturally linked with ethnic Tamils, they are therefore listed as a separate ethnic group in official statistics.[4][5] The Tamil Muslim community of Sri Lanka consists of Tamil Muslims migrated from Tamil Nadu region of India and converts from Sri Lankan Tamil community. The Tamil Muslims had better social and economic mobility, thanks to the historic headstart they had in getting education and government jobs under British colonial rule.[14] Tamil Muslims consider themselves as part of the Muslim community of Sri Lanka and have not shared the political aspirations of the majority Hindu Tamils. The militant LTTE attacked Tamil Muslims and tens of thousand Muslims died, hundreds of thousand were expelled from their homes and their property was destroyed.

Indian Muslims (Memons, Bhoras, Khojas)

Main article: Dawoodi Bohra
Main article: Memons in Sri Lanka

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 states, and unlike the Sri Lankan Moors, are ethnically related to South Indians and number approximately 30,000. The Memon, originally from Sindh (in modern Pakistan), first arrived in 1870; in the 1980s they numbered only about 3,000, they mostly follow the Hanafi Sunni school of Islam.

The Dawoodi Bohras and the Khoja are Shi'a Muslims came from northwestern India (Gujarat state) after 1880; in the 1980s they collectively numbered fewer than 2,000. These groups tended to retain their own places of worship and the languages of their ancestral homelands.

Notes

  1. ^ http://www.statistics.gov.lk/PopHouSat/CPH2011/index.php?fileName=pop43&gp=Activities&tpl=3 Background Note: Sri Lanka] US Department of State
  2. ^ Sri Lanka -International Religious Freedom Report 2006
  3. ^ a b [1]
  4. ^ a b de Silva, C.R. Sri Lanka — A History, pp. 3–5, 9
  5. ^ a b Department of Census and Statistics of Sri Lanka. "Population by Ethnicity according to District" (PDF). statistics.gov.lk. Retrieved 3 May 2007.
  6. ^ Ahmadiyya Muslim Mosques. Around the World, pg. 157
  7. ^ http://www.refugeesinternational.org/content/article/detail/765/
  8. ^ "Sri Lanka's Muslims: out in the cold". The Hindu. Chennai, India. 2007-07-31.
  9. ^ http://www.theacademic.org/feature/162395480028024/index.shtml
  10. ^ "Ethnic cleansing: Colombo". The Hindu. Chennai, India. 2007-04-13.
  11. ^ [2]
  12. ^ Hindu On Net. "A timely and prudent step by the LTTE". Retrieved 2006-04-30.
  13. ^ "Kmaraikayar". Retrieved 2007-07-02.
  14. ^ Analysis: Tamil-Muslim divide

References

  • Pieris, Kamalika. The Muslims and Sri Lanka.[3].Mission Islam, 2006.

External links

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