Book Review

Muslim Identity, Print Culture and the Dravidian Factor in Tamil Nadu


Orient Longman, Hydera-bad Rs. 550, 329 pages


Technology does not always lead to human progress, though it does take the people technically forward. It is amenable to uses that are conditioned by the human mind. Often it leads to further reinforcing historical and cultural identities, accentuates divisions and raises barriers.


The above conclusion forms the essence of the book under review by author J B P More. It is both a chronicle and analysis of history of two million strong Tamil speaking Muslims of South India. It is a sort of reconstruction of history of Tamil Muslims in the last two centuries and analysis as reflected mainly through community owned Tamil print media.

Muslims in India reflect as much diversity as perhaps any other religious community. What however distinguishes them is the central thread of Islamic doctrine that binds them together. Tamil Muslims were never part of conquistadors who entered India from the Central Asia. Till 13th century the Muslim sultanates in Delhi had no knowledge of Muslim enclaves on Malabar and Coromandel (in Arabic Maabar) coast. It was only around the era of Alauddin Khilji that North Indian Muslim armies discovered the Muslims in Tamil country and identified them as ‘half Muslims’ due to their Islamic creed and close cultural identification with the Tamil masses. Madurai’s Pandyan king Sundarapandian had even an Arab named as Takiuddin for deputy prime minister. Coastal towns had several Arab merchants who were importing as many as 10,000 Arabian and Persian horses annually and were in the process of ‘Tamilisation’ due to intermarriage with locals. Marakkars, originally Malayalam speaking merchants from Cochin, were also in trade with coastal Tamilians. They later settled all along the Maabar coast and added the Shafii strand to the Tamil Muslim identity. (Generally, the Tamil Muslims were following Hanafi maslak). They later came to be known as ‘Marakkayars’.


Italian explorer Marco Polo also noted the presence of Tamil Muslims. But the literary production from Tamil Muslims do not seem to have begun earlier than 16th century. First work of Tamil Muslim authorship is said to be Aayira Masala Venru Vazhankum Adisaya Puranam by Seyku Issaku in 1572.


Till 1866 all Tamil writings by Muslims were on religious subjects. The first work that can be identified as secular was on cookery in 1866. It was a translation from Persian. Second was an Urdu-Tamil vocabulary. Though secular in character, they were dictated by the needs of the Muslim community. Up to 1920, only 40 books could be identified that were on secular subjects such as mathematics, hypnotism, mesmerism, fiction, humour. Most medical works too were on Unani medicine. Only one by Yakubo Sithar was on Sidha, the medicinal system typical to Tamil Nadu. Till 1866 the Muslim works were in the genre of biographies of historical personalities of religion, legends, tales, poems, elegies, law, ethics, theology, rituals etc. Mystics like Masthan Sahib too did a lot of writing on Sufism, though some accuse him of bringing in Hindu influences. Even the dramas, fiction, stories had Muslim characters and were set in the backdrop of Muslim countries. Thus it can be said that majority of Muslim literary production was fundamentally Islamic in character. Even while writing on secular subjects, the authors had Muslim readers in mind and their works were heavily laced with Arabic and Persian words which are principally Islamic languages. It is only of late that authors like K M Shariff have taken to writing in chaste Tamil which is understandable to Hindus.


The author does not seem to have a high opinion about the literary worth of the Tamil Islamic literary works, with adequate substantiation of course. Most writers used ‘Arab-Tamil’ (Tamil written in Arabic script) hence inaccessible to general Tamil masses. More says it was basically motivated by the need to camouflage the inadequate knowledge of Tamil and was an ideal cover for lack of confidence in their capacity to write standard Tamil.


It is said globalisation owes a debt to gunpowder, compass and printing press. Though Chinese had invented printing at least 1000 years before Johann Gutenberg invented it in Europe, the Arab merchants never bothered to learn it from Chinese during their maritime expeditions. The Christian missionaries from Europe brought the first presses in India and the first book to be printed was a Bible in Tamil. Had Arabs learnt it from Chinese, their sway over the world could have extended far enough to retain their hold on parts of Europe.


It was only after the advent of printing technology around 1835 that Muslim literary talents began to blossom. But the core of the Muslim writings was fundamentally Islamic.


Even writings by reformists were directed at bringing the community in conformity with Quranic norms. Only for a brief while there were voices of support for modern policies like birth control and contraception. One essential difference the print media made was that it undermined the authority of the ulema as the sole custodian of interpretation and transmission of Islam. Scope for mass writing and mass diffusion lent voice and the medium to everyone, hence the spurt in writings. A number of Tamil journals appeared on the scene and a bevy of writers began to write, wage campaigns against the ulema and social evils.


A few myths too have been debunked. Late adoption of printing technology by Tamil Muslims was not owing to any religious inhibition. It was basically because the printing technology was introduced here by Christian missionaries who did not provide access to it to the natives. Moreover the British barred the use of printing presses by the locals. The ban was lifted only in 1835 by viceroy Lord Metcalf.


The popularity of Khilafat Movement of 1920s, emergence of the Muslim League, support by Tamil Muslims for the demand of Pakistan, survival of rump Muslim League in the post 1947 period and its fluctuating flirtations with either the DMK, its offshoots and the Congress, but always with the Muslim interest in mind, also go to prove that Tamil Muslim media strengthened the socio-cultural and political identity of Muslims.


Print media came handy all through the independence struggle and self respect movement by E. V. Ramaswamy Periyar and DK movement for Muslims to express their individuality and stress their identity. They minced no words in sympathizing with political stances of these atheistic movement even while shunning its anti-religious overtones. Political intimacy with them extended as far as it served political interests but where the ideological lines between the non-Brahmin movement and Islam got fused or blurred and threat loomed for cultural identity of the Tamil Muslim, the latter used the printed word to bring it to a broad relief.


The essence of the study lies in the fact that modern technologies have their own dynamics and can be used for reinforcing historical and religious identities and continual redrawing of frontiers between communities.


The author provides a compendium of Tamil printed works by Muslim authors between 1835 and 1920. It is a monumental work and must be lauded for all its painstaking effort.