Thorough exploration of the distinct culture of the Mappila Muslims of Kerala, India. This book provides a comprehensive account of the distinct culture of the Mappila Muslims, a large community from the southern Indian state of Kerala. Although they were the first Muslim community in South Asia, the Mappilas are little-known in the West. Roland E. Miller explores the Mappilas’ fourteen-century-long history of social adaptation and their current status as a successful example of Muslim interaction with modernity. Once feared, now admired, Kerala’s Mappilas have produced an intellectual renaissance and renewed their ancient status as a model of social harmony. Miller provides an account of Mappila history and looks at the formation of Mappila culture, which has developed through the interaction of Islamic and Malayali influences. Descriptions of current day life cycles, religion, ritual, work life, education, and leadership are included.

This book provides a comprehensive account of the distinct culture of the Mappila Muslims, a large community from the southern Indian state of Kerala. Although they were the first Muslim community in South Asia, the Mappilas are little-known in the West. Roland E. Miller explores the Mappilas' fourteen-century-long history of social adaptation and their current status as a successful example of Muslim interaction with modernity. Once feared, now admired, Kerala's Mappilas have produced an intellectual renaissance and renewed their ancient status as a model of social harmony. Miller provides an account of Mappila history and looks at the formation of Mappila culture, which has developed through the interaction of Islamic and Malayali influences. Descriptions of current day life cycles, religion, ritual, work life, education, and leadership are included.

Between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries, a distinct form of Islamic thought and practice developed among Muslim trading communities of the Indian Ocean. Sebastian R. Prange argues that this 'Monsoon Islam' was shaped by merchants not sultans, forged by commercial imperatives rather than in battle, and defined by the reality of Muslims living within non-Muslim societies. Focusing on India's Malabar Coast, the much-fabled 'land of pepper', Prange provides a case study of how Monsoon Islam developed in response to concrete economic, socio-religious, and political challenges. Because communities of Muslim merchants across the Indian Ocean were part of shared commercial, scholarly, and political networks, developments on the Malabar Coast illustrate a broader, trans-oceanic history of the evolution of Islam across monsoon Asia. This history is told through four spaces that are examined in their physical manifestations as well as symbolic meanings: the Port, the Mosque, the Palace, and the Sea.

The Muslims of Kerala, primarily in the northern region of the state called Malabar, are referred to as Mappillas. This book is a study of the social and institutional changes of the Malabar Muslims during the colonial period. It presents the Mappilla community in a wider Indian context and analyses its social, economic, religious, theological, political and educational aspects in detail. Particular emphasis has been laid on their women who are socially more powerful than their counterparts in the rest of the subcontinent. The Mappilla tharavaadus, which are matrilineal joint families, and kaarnotis, the female matrilineal heads of these families, are central to the understanding of the social history of this community. The British colonial system disrupted this traditional social order. The book argues that Mappillas do not per se represent a monolithic community, but show inter- and intra-regional variations and social hierarchies. The position and status of the Mappilla community in the twenty-first century has been compared with its Muslim counterparts in the other regions of the country. The book would be of interest to academics, researchers and graduate students of South Asian History and Sociology. NGOs working on the social welfare of minorities and general readers interested in the Islamic community of the west coast of India will find this book useful.