Islam in Sri Lanka

Islam is a minority religion in Sri Lanka. 9.7%[1] of the Sri

Lankan population practice Islam. 1,967,227 persons
adhere to Islam as per the census of 2012.[1] Islam in Sri
Lanka existed in communities along the Arab coastal
trade routes in Ceylon as soon as the religion originated
and had gained early acceptance in the Arabian Peninsula.

The green band on the Sri Lankan flag

Contents represents Islam and the Moorish ethnic

group

History of Islam in Sri Lanka

Population
Sri Lankan Moors
Education
East Coast Moors
West Coast Moors
The Malays
Indian Muslims (Memons, Bohras, Khojas)
Ex-Muslims
See also The Jami Ul-Alfar Mosque in
Pettah area is one of the
Notes oldest mosques in Colombo
References

History of Islam in Sri Lanka

With the arrival of Arab traders in the 7th century A.D., 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 having them converted to Islam. By the 8th century A.D., Arab traders had taken
control of 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 these Arab traders' descendants - now called
the Sri Lankan Moors - were the main traders in spice, with networks extending to the Middle
East. The Portuguese colonists attacked, persecuted, and destroyed the Sri Lankan Moor
settlements, warehouses, and trading networks. Many defeated Moors sought refuge from
persecution by escaping to the interior of Sri Lanka. The population of Sri Lankan Moors declined
significantly during the Portuguese colonial rule due to the pogroms against the Moors. The
Sinhalese ruler King Senarat of Kandy gave refuge to some of the Muslims in the central highlands
and Eastern Province, Sri Lanka.[2]
During the 18th and 19th centuries, Javanese and Malaysian Muslims brought over by the Dutch
and British rulers contributed to the growing Muslim population in Sri Lanka. Their descendants,
now the Sri Lankan Malays, adopted 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
Shafi'i and the Hanafi school of thought into Sri Lanka. Most Muslims on the island adhere to the
traditional practices of Sunni Islam.

Muslims generally follow Sufi traditions. The Fassiya ash Shazuliya tariqa, which has its
headquarters in Ummu Zavaya in M.J.M. Laffir mawatha, Colombo, supported by the Al-Fassi
family in the 1870s, is the most prevalent Sufi order among the Sri Lankan Muslims followed by
Aroosiyathul qadiriya. The Deobandi Tablighi Jamaat, jamathe islame and thawheed jamath etc.
also have centers in Colombo.[3] Sunni scholar Muhammad Abdul Aleem Siddiqi built Hanafi
Masjid in Colombo for Sri Lankan Muslims.[4]

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. Muslims of Sri Lanka, mostly continue to derive from the
Moor and Malay ethnic communities on the island with smaller numbers of converts from other
ethnicities, such as the Tamils.

In recent years, Sri Lankan Muslims have become more affected by the growing influence of
Salafism due to investment from Saudi Arabia, Sri Lankan Sufi Muslims have been wary of
increasing Wahhabism among Sri Lankan Muslims.[5] The brutal 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings
revealed that the radical National Thowheeth Jama'ath, a Salafi influenced organization, was
behind the bombings, leading to increasing censorship of the Salafi movement in Sri Lanka.[6]

Population
Census Population Percentage

1881 197,800 7.17%

1891 212,000 7.05%

1901 246,100 6.90%

1911 283,600 6.91%

1921 302,500 6.72%

1931 Estimate 354,200 6.67%

1946 436,600 6.56%

1953 541,500 6.69%

1963 724,000 6.84%

1971 901,785 7.11%

Distribution of Islam in Sri Lanka
1981 1,121,717 7.56%
based on 2001 and 1981
2012 1,967,523 9.66% (cursive) census
 Islam in Sri Lanka 2012 Census

The districts of Ampara (43%), Trincomalee (42%) and Batticaloa (26%) in Eastern Province have
the highest share of Muslims in Sri Lanka, followed by Puttalam (20%), Mannar (17%), Kandy
(14%) and Colombo (12%).

Sri Lankan Moors

The Sri Lankan Moors are mostly native speakers of the
Tamil language while a few of them speak Sinhala as
primary language, and follow Islam as their religion. Sri
Lankan Moors comprise 9.30% (2012 Census) of Sri
Lanka's population, and constitute the largest ethnic
group within the Muslim community in the country.[7]

Islam was spread to Sri Lanka by contacts with the

merchant ships operated by the Moor traders between
Serendib (Old Persian / Arabic name for Sri Lanka), and
various ports in the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa.
As per scholars, Sri Lankan Moors are descendant of the
Marakkar, Mappilas, Memons and Pathans of South
India.[8]

Education
Typical early 20th century Moor gentlemen
There are 749 Muslim schools in Sri Lanka, 205 madrasas
which teach Islamic education, and an Islamic university
in Beruwala (Jamiya Naleemiya). Al Iman Schools in Colombo (https://web.archive.org/web/2014
1216184014/http://alimanschools.org/) was the first organization of Islamic schools of its kind,
teaching an integrated Islamic curriculum since 2008. In the early 20th century there were few
Muslim professionals in accounting, medicine, engineering, etc., but at present they are exceeding
the national average. Due to the lack of opportunity in Sri Lanka, many Muslim professionals are
emigrating to get jobs abroad, such as to the Middle East, United States, Canada, Australia, and
Europe. The Moors have had better social and economic mobility, thanks to the historic head start
they had in getting education and government jobs under the British colonial rule.[9]
East Coast Moors
In the eastern provinces 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.[2] East coast Sri Lankan Moors are primarily farmers, fishermen, and traders.
According to the controversial census of 2007, the Moors are 5% (only Moors, not the entire
Muslim population 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.[10]

West Coast Moors

Many moors in the west of the island are traders, professionals or civil servants and are mainly
concentrated in Colombo, Kalutara, Beruwala, Dharga Town, Puttalam, Jaffna, Kandy, Matale,
Vavuniya and Mannar. 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
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 Mosque in Galle, Sri Lanka
Malay immigrants were
indentured labours,
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),
Sri Lankan Malay Father and
which includes numerous words absorbed from Sinhalese and the
Son, 19th century
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.

Indian Muslims (Memons, Bohras, Khojas)

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. The
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
15,000, they mostly follow the Hanafi Sunni school of Islam.

The Dawoodi Bohras and the Khoja are Shi'a Muslims who came from western 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.

Ex-Muslims
Some Sri Lankans who were raised as Muslims, or converted to Islam in later life, have left Islam.
Due to the social taboo on apostasy, the Council of Ex-Muslims of Sri Lanka (CEMSL) was founded
in secret in 2016. Members of the organisation hold meetings in hiding. In June 2019, Rishvin
Ismath decided to come forward as spokesperson for the Council in order to denounce
government-approved and distributed textbooks for Muslim students which stated that apostates
from Islam should be killed. Ismath subsequently received several death threats.[11]

See also
Sri Lankan Moors
Sri Lankan Malays
Indian Moors
Sri Lankan Memons
List of mosques in Sri Lanka
Expulsion of Muslims from the Northern province by LTTE
Kattankudi mosque massacre
Tamil Muslim
Islam in South Asia

Notes
1. "Census of Population and Housing of Sri Lanka, 2012 – Table A3: Population by district,
ethnic group and sex" (http://www.statistics.gov.lk/PopHouSat/CPH2011/Pages/Activities/Repo
rts/FinalReport/Population/Table%20A3.pdf) (PDF). Department of Census & Statistics, Sri
Lanka.
2. "Archived copy" (https://web.archive.org/web/20130524101459/http://www.lankasrinews.com/vi
ew.php?22bdBmmAdacc3QMAA444eacYY5Bd003eXlOO4cddd3mOll1220eT55Y4cee40mIM
C04caa4YmBBp02). Archived from the original (http://www.lankasrinews.com/view.php?22bdB
mmAdacc3QMAA444eacYY5Bd003eXlOO4cddd3mOll1220eT55Y4cee40mIMC04caa4YmBB
p02) on 2013-05-24. Retrieved 2012-08-27.
3. Gugler 2011
4. "Roving Sufi Ambassadors of Islam" (http://sunnirazvi.net/topics/ambassadors.htm).
5. "The Wahhabi Invasion of Sri Lanka" (https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/the-wahha
bi-invasion-of-sri-lanka/). 27 March 2013.
6. "I24NEWS" (https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/asia-pacific/1555947073-analysis-sri
-lanka-attacks-show-that-the-salafi-jihadist-threat-continues-to-cast-a-global-shadow).
7. "Census of Population and Housing 2011" (http://www.statistics.gov.lk/PopHouSat/CPH2011/in
dex.php?fileName=pop42&gp=Activities&tpl=3). www.statistics.gov.lk. Retrieved 2017-12-17.
 8. Holt, John (2011-04-13). The Sri Lanka Reader: History, Culture, Politics (https://books.google.
com/books?id=Kj_aWm4DeFEC&pg=PA416&dq=sri+lankan+moors#v=onepage). Duke
University Press. p. 429. ISBN 978-0-8223-4982-2.
9. "Analysis: Tamil-Muslim divide" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2070817.stm). BBC
News World Edition. 27 June 2002. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
10. "Kmaraikayar" (http://www.rootsweb.com/~lkawgw/kmaraikayar.html). Retrieved 2007-07-02.
11. Hella Camargo (17 January 2020). "Sri Lanka: Apostaten in Lebensgefahr" (https://hpd.de/artik
el/sri-lanka-apostaten-lebensgefahr-17624). Diesseits (in German). Humanistischer
Pressedienst. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
References
This article incorporates public domain material from the Library of Congress Country
Studies website http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/ (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/).
Victor C. de Munck. Experiencing History Small: An analysis of political, economic and social
change in a Sri Lankan village. History & Mathematics: Historical Dynamics and Development
of Complex Societies (http://edurss.ru/cgi-bin/db.pl?cp=&page=Book&id=53185&lang=en&blan
g=en&list=Found). Edited by Peter Turchin, Leonid Grinin, Andrey Korotayev, and Victor C. de
Munck, pp. 154–169. Moscow: KomKniga, 2006. ISBN 5-484-01002-0
Pieris, Kamalika. The Muslims and Sri Lanka.[1] (http://www.missionislam.com/knowledge/srila
nka.htm).Mission Islam, 2006.

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