Arabi-Malayalam: Linguistic Cultural Traditions of Mappila Muslims of Kerala

This work is a socio-linguistic study of a locally devised language called Arabi-Malayalam of Mappila Muslims of Kerala, which is on the verge of extinction. Besides covering many interesting linguistic issues, this work documents a vast array of oral and written traditions in this language. There are a number of rituals, life-cycle events and performative occasions in which the oral literary tradition in Arabi-Malayalam finds its expression. One of the major concerns of this work is to analyze the pragmatic working of language and literary genre adjusted structurally to such occasions. The development of literature in Arabi-Malayalam reflects a trade and faith-induced cosmopolitanism with its effects spread across far-flung regions like Southern Yemen, East Africa and South East Asia. This work is, therefore, an attempt to reposition the history of Arabi-Malayalam with a thoughtful consideration of movements of peoples, cultures and goods across boundaries of space and culture. Within the realm of 'secular-national' literature there was a pronounced skepticism towards Arabi-Malayalam literary works which have often been seen associated with the less prestigious genre of 'religious literature' or 'vernacular community literature'. This work also makes an enquiry into why Arab- Malayalam literature was gingerly accepted or held out at an arm's length by the literary theorists.

M.H. Ilias is Professor at the India-Arab Cultural Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia. Areas of his research interest include South Asian Islam, Society and Culture in the Gulf States, Hadrami migration on the Malabar Coast and film and popular culture in West Asia. Ilias' recent publications include India-West Asia Relations: Understanding Cultural Interplays (co-edited); Space Memory and Jewish National Identity; Society and Change in the Contemporary Gulf (co-edited) and Off-Campus Orientalism: Western University Branch Campuses in the Gulf. Shamshad Hussain K.T. is Associate Professor at the Department of Malayalam, Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kerala. Her research, teaching and writing focused on Islamic Feminism, Feminist Theories, South Asian Islam and History of De-Colonization Movement in Malabar. Shamshad' s most recent works are Between Feminism and Minority Status and Neither Islam nor Women.

Arabi-Malayalam: Linguistic-Cultural Traditions of Mappila Muslims of Kerala is the outcome of a research project which was carried out under the programme, Confluence of Traditions and Composite Cultures of the Janapada Sampada Division of Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA). One of the major concerns of this programme is to study the processes that characterize creative transcendence of diverse religious identities and cultural symbioses through interactions in the realm of arts. Setting composite cultures as the major area of enquiry, this programme keeps keen interest in exploring the multi-layered nature of Indian cultural heritage created through intricate patterns and webs of interconnectedness.

Mappila community of Kerala embodies a cultural hybridity as their identity offers an interesting mix of regional and Arab. Although their faith remains largely Islamic, Mappila Muslims are the inheritors of mainly two different traditions; Islam and Kerala. Though tracing their inheritance to the Arabs, who came to the region and married local women, Kerala Muslims have imbibed native culture, customs and manners, making certain variations to the newly accepted religious faith. This cultural blend, according to the authors, has been the hallmark of art and literature of the community.

The evolution of Arabi-Malayalam language, the chief medium for the creative expressions of the community, also represents some cosmopolitan moments which can be comprehended only by understanding the movements of peoples and exchange of cultures, ideas and materials spanning across a wider region. The overwhelming presence of Arabi-Malayalam caused not only the poor growth of Urdu but also resulted in the lesser influence of the Indo-Persian brand of Islam in Kerala. Mappila community's isolation from the rest of India is more significant as they have by-passed not just the political sway and tradition of it, but the cultural heritage and theological affinity as well.

What this work does is a reconceptualization of history of the community and its linguistic and cultural orientations which are otherwise understood as a practice or a set of practices pertaining only to given set of actors within specific territorial unit. The significance of this work lies in such a reconceptualization, describing the particular cosmopolitan moments that the history of the community stands for, which, of course, has not been written about adequately by local or international scholarship. Along with this work, Janapada Sampada Division has also carried out an audio-visual documentation of Arabic-Malayalam language and various art forms, cultural performances, rituals and liturgical practices of Mappila community which are the theatres of literary expression for this language.

I was literate and well-read in Arabi-Malayalam, a locally devised language of Mappila Muslims of Kerala and the chief medium of instruction at madrassa in Malabar...[Most ironically, when 'modern' education got the prominence and people turned to it, I became illiterate'. As a part of their effort to make Kerala a state with hundred percent literacy in the early 90s, volunteers of Sakshratha Mission, the state agency assigned with the purpose, identified me illiterate and offered 'remedial classes. I sadly remember the painful experience, struggling to write corresponding Malayalam letters for the Arabi-Malayalam alphabets which were sentimentally attached to me. The state sponsored Total Literacy Campaign has done cruelties of similar sort to many in the Malabar region.

The poignant story of Kunji Beevathumma as shared with the authors demonstrates well, how the painful transition from Arabi-Malayalam to Malayalam took place during the early 1990s for many who were literate in the former in Malabar. Historically, Muslim women whose education was confined to Arabi-Malayalam were the major victims of this stereotyping; they were portrayed 'marginalized' in most of the modern-secular narratives depicting them as illiterate and uneducated.

Arabi-Malayalam language was otherwise an immensely rich language with a number of scientific, philosophical, and literary works and a large number of Mappilas were highly literate in this tradition in spite of the fact that they were considered illiterate by 'modern' standards. Mappilas lived in an environment where Arabi-Malayalam texts were read and learnt by-heart and histories were told publicly through the genres of songs, ballads and other modes of narration. The public recital of texts or poems meant that its message reached many listeners simultaneously.

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