islam-in-india

"In a statement, the Kerala Nadvathul Mujahideen (KNM) said it was unacceptable to strip away the rights granted by the Constitution to the socially disadvantaged Muslim minority community under any pretext. "The government should not feign ignorance when the Muslim quota is reduced due to the inclusion of new, less privileged communities in the quota system," it said. The Sangh Parivar has already made its agenda clear during the election campaign to end the Muslim reservation, it said. "The state government should not be helping the communal forces that are trying to sabotage the Muslim reservation assured by the Constitution," KNM said."

"The government had earlier eaten into the Muslim reservation by assigning the turns of Muslims to persons with disabilities, KNM said. "Muslims are suffering a big loss because their turns are being assigned to other weaker sections," the organisation said. "This is a serious matter," the organisation said."

"One thing remained constant throughout the reign—the investments of Hajj. On average, around 15,000 pilgrims visited Mecca annually to perform Hajj during the Tīmūrid (distorted as Moghūls) era. The official Tīmūrid records tell us that the Tīmūrids sponsored the pilgrimage at public expense with gold, goods and rich presents merely with the desire to stand out as defenders of Islam. The major sponsorship began with the period of Abu’l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar when he conquered Gujarat in AD 1573. This victory had given him access to the port of Surat."

"This, my friends, is the Jaziya that non-Muslims pay in "free" India, one governed by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Hajpayee."

"The traveling expenses of anybody who might intend to perform the pilgrimage to the Sacred Places should be paid."

"What this means is, that the Waqf can lay claim to and recover any property it wishes to without having to worry about the passage of time. The Waqf, as you would have realised by now, is a parallel government, wholly sanctioned by our own government. It has, through its overarching board, its own legislature; through its surveyors and estate and compliance officers its own executive; and through its tribunal its own judiciary. And through this Act, through its application, a message"

"“When the Constitution was drafted in 1950, the term ‘waqf’ was not even included. The Waqf Act was created in 1954 under the pretext of protecting the land of Muslims who migrated to Pakistan after the partition. According to an amendment made in 1995, the waqf can claim any land it considers its own. Other communities residing there for years cannot file a complaint in any court and can only rely on the waqf tribunal, which consists solely of Muslim members,” Minister Karandlaje said adding that in 1954, the Waqf Board had not more than 10,000 acres of land but now it has nearly 3.8 million acres."

"It is this message that allows Muslims, even rational, logical and educated Muslims, to claim that the Gyanwapi Mosque built atop the grand Kashi Vishwanath temple is on Waqf land.72 So, was the grand Kashi Vishwanath Temple demolished by Aurangzeb and as confirmed through his own certified biography, Masir-e-Alamgiri, also on Waqf land? It is this message that allows Muslims to claim that the 1,500-year-old iconic Manendiyavalli Chandrashekhara Swami Temple in Tamil Nadu is on Waqf land.73 I ask you—how can a 1,500-year-old Hindu temple be adjudged by Waqf to be on Islamic land when Islam is only 1,300 years old?"

"We must consider briefly the advantages and disadvantages of the institution. The religious motive of waqf is the origin of the legal fiction that waqf property belongs to Almighty God; the economic ruin that it brings about is indicated by the significant phrase The Dead Hand.’ Waqf to some extent ameliorates poverty, but it has also (another) side. When a father provides a certain income for his children and descendants, the impulse to seek education and the initiative to improve their lot gradually decrease."

"‘Subject to the provisions of this Act and the rules made thereunder, the District Magistrate or in his absence an Additional District Magistrate or Sub-Divisional Magistrate of a District in the State shall be responsible for implementation of the decisions of the Board, which may be conveyed through the Chief Executive Officer, and the Board may, wherever it considers necessary, seek directions from the Tribunal for the implementation of its decisions.’"

"Charitable aid often keeps people away from industry, and lethargy breeds degeneration. Furthermore, some people who desire fame by making foundations and endowments obtain property by shady means, amounting even to extortion and exploitation. Agricultural land deteriorates in the course of time; no one is concerned with keeping it in good trim; the yield lessens, and even perpetual leases come to be recognised. In India, instances of the mismanagement of waqfs and of the destruction of waqf have often reached the courts."

"Meanwhile, BJP MP and chairman of the JPC committee on Waqf (Amendment) Bill, Jagdambika Pal highlighted that this bill is for the betterment of Waqf. “This will end the row. Kerala’s thousands years old church was declared as Waqf. Properties of many places were given to Waqf. The new parliament was declared as Waqf property. So, it means that this bill will end this controversy,” he emphasised. “While many Muslim clerics are supporting this bill, All India Muslim Personal Law Board is objecting to it. On the day of ‘Alvida Namaz’ they asked people to wear black arm bands in protest against this bill, and even today, on Eid, they have appealed to people to protest against it. But why,” he questioned. “First, let the amended law come. Today, Muslims are thanking PM Modi for Saugat-e-Modi. While we are talking of ‘Sabka saath, sabka vikas’ Congress, Owaisi and AIMPLB are looking at Muslims as a vote bank, doing appeasement. 1.25 crore people have sent their representation on this bill. We even heard people from all over the country, including Jammu and Kashmir’s Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. The bill will be tabled on the date BAC (Business Advisory Committee) gives,” Pal noted."

"“This was done because the West Bengal government inexplicably gave OBC certificates to Muslims, only for the Muslim vote bank. This vote bank politics, this politics of appeasement, is crossing every limit,” the prime minister stated. He further added: “They say that Muslims have the first right on the country’s resources. These people are continuously giving government lands to the Waqf Board and asking for votes in return. These people want to reserve 15% of the country’s budget for minorities. They also want to give loans from banks and government tender based on religion. These people are opposing CAA to please their vote bank.”"

"This government will not allow Waqf to be used as a political tool anymore."

"The importance of the institution will be better understood if we take into consideration the enormous extent of waqf/land or, the possessions of the Dead Hand, in the various countries of Islam. In the Turkey of 1925, three-fourths of the arable land, estimated at 50,000,000 Turkish pounds, was endowed as waqf."

"Waqf is an institution for religious and charitable purposes. Muslims have the constitutional right to manage their own religious affairs because Waqf property belongs to Allah."

"The land mafia is anxious about the loss of encroached properties, while the secular mafia fears losing their manufactured monopoly over Muslim votes. It almost felt like the entire country was being declared Waqf property and handed over to a few clerics."

"‘Removal of encroachment from Waqf property(1) Whenever the Chief Executive Officer considers whether on receiving any complaint or on his own motion that there has been an encroachment on any land, building, space or other property which is Waqf property and, which has been registered as such under this Act, he shall cause to be served upon the encroacher a notice specifying the particulars of the encroachment and calling upon him to show cause before a date to be specified in such notice, as to why an order requiring him to remove the encroachment before the date so specified should not be made and shall also send a copy of such notice to the concerned mutawalli. (2) The notice referred to in sub section (1) shall be served in such manner as may be prescribed. (3) If, after considering the objections, received during the period specified in the notice, and after conducting an inquiry in such manner as may be prescribed, the Chief Executive Officer is satisfied that the property in question is Waqf property and that there has been an encroachment on any such Waqf property, he may, make an application to the Tribunal for grant of order of eviction for removing such encroachment and deliver possession of the land, building, space or other property encroached upon to the mutawalli of the Waqf. (4) The Tribunal, upon receipt of such application from the Chief Executive Officer, for reasons to be recorded therein, make an order of eviction directing that the Waqf property shall be vacated by all persons who may be in occupation thereof or any part thereof, and cause a copy of the order to be affixed on the outer door or some other conspicuous part of the Waqf property: Provided that the Tribunal may before making an order of eviction, give an opportunity of being heard to the person against whom the application for eviction has been made by the Chief Executive Officer. (5) If any person refuses or fails to comply with the order of eviction within forty-five days from the date of affixture of the order under sub-section (2), the Chief Executive Officer or any other person duly authorised by him in this behalf may evict that person from, and take possession of, the Waqf property.’"

"The Waqf Amendment Bill, 2024... Bill was, in effect, bulldozed through. Our party’s position is clear. The Bill is a brazen assault on the Constitution itself. It is very much part of the BJP’s deliberate strategy to keep our society in a state of permanent polarisation."

"Once Waqf, always Waqf."

"No suit or other legal proceeding shall lie in any civil court in respect of any dispute, question or other matter relating to any Waqf, Waqf property, or other matter which is required by or under this Act to be determined by a Tribunal.’"

"At the end of the 19th century, one-half of the cultivable land in Algiers was dedicated. Similarly, in Tunis one-third and in Egypt one-eighth, of the cultivated soil was ‘in the ownership of God’. But it was already realised by the beginning of the 20th century, first by France and later in Turkey and Egypt, that the institution of waqf was in some respects a challenge to the natural growth and development of the national economy."

"‘Decision if a property is Waqf property-(l) The Board may itself collect information regarding any property which it has reason to believe to be Waqf property and if any question arises whether a particular property is Waqf property or not, or whether a Waqf is a Sunni Waqf or a Shia Waqf, it may, after making such inquiry as it may deem fit, decide the question. (2) The decision of the Board on a question under sub-section (1) shall, unless revoked or modified by the Tribunal, be final. (3) Where the Board has any reason to believe that any property of any trust or society registered in pursuance of the Indian Trusts Act, 1882 or under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 or under any other Act, is Waqf property, the Board may, notwithstanding anything contained in such Act, hold an inquiry in regard to such property and if after such inquiry the Board is satisfied that such property is Waqf property, call upon the trust or society, as the case may be, either to register such property under this Act as Waqf property or show cause why such property should not be so registered provided that in all such cases notice of the action proposed to be taken under this sub-section shall be given to the authority by whom the trust or society had been registered. (4) The Board shall, after duly considering such cause as may be shown in pursuance of notice issued under sub-section (3), pass such orders as it may think fit and the order so made by the Board, shall be final, unless it is revoked or modified by a Tribunal.’"

"‘Act 36 of 1963 will not apply for recovery of Waqf properties. Nothing contained in the Limitation Act, 1963 shall apply to any suit for possession of immovable property comprised in any Waqf or for possession of any interest in such property.’"

""The issue of Waqf land has been affecting people across communities. I feel pained to see eminent Christian leaders having to express their anguish in this manner. I assure them that their grievances will be addressed," Rijiju wrote on September 28. He also expressed confidence in the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC)."

"The High Court described the Kerala Waqf Board’s actions as “land-grabbing tactics”, which resulted in the livelihoods of the resident families being affected. “We shall be holding that the notification dated 25.09.2019 notifying the subject property as waqf is ultra vires the provisions of The Waqf Act, 1954, as also The Central Waqf Act, 1995 and nothing less than a land grabbing tactics of KWB which has affected the bread and butter, livelihood of hundreds of families and bonafide occupants who had purchased tranches of land decades prior to the notification of the waqf property,” the High Court noted in its judgment. “The manner in which the KWB has acted is nothing more than land-grabbing tactics after almost 7 decades, affecting fundamental rights, and the livelihood of hundreds of helpless citizens, who have been left with no choice, but to come down on the roads to launch protests, stage dharnas and agitations, which is what compelled the State Government to take the drastic step of setting up an IC. The brazen manner in which the KWB has acted in the case at hand shows reckless disregard of not only the provisions of the Waqf Act, but also the fundamental rights of a large number of citizens whose livelihood is dependent as bona fide purchasers and occupants on land under dispute”, the Court added."

"‘Waqf is a voluntary, permanent and irrevocable dedication of a portion of one’s wealth, in cash or kind, to Allah. Once a Waqf, it never gets gifted, inherited or sold. It belongs to Allah and the corpus of the Waqf always remains intact. The fruits of the Waqf may be utilised for any shariah-compliant purpose.’"

"Waqf is the third-largest landowner in India, after Defence and the Railways, with much of its landholding, rather amusingly, pre-independence—an endowment of the insidious give and take between the British and the Muslims they desired to pacify. Indeed, many of the Waqf landholdings go as far back as 1857. Seventy-seven percent of Delhi is on Waqf land, including the Delhi High Court. Central Vista, which has recently been renovated, and on whose hallowed turf new government buildings will shimmer and glisten, is on Waqf land. CGO Complex and Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium are on Waqf land. Only three things are certain in an Indian’s life—death, taxes, and that, knowingly or unknowingly, he ends up walking every day on Waqf land."

"Jinnah introduced the Muslim Waqf Act in 1911, and until 1954, it was referred to as ‘Jinnah Law.’ The existence of separate legal systems for Hindus and Muslims contributed to the partition of the country."

"Thus, after the Meenakshipuram mass conversion to Islam in 1981, non-converted villagers reported: ‘Of course, there have been marriages between Hindu harijans and the converts. Whether it is the bride or the groom, the Hindu is expected to convert to Islam.‘"

"The intellectual decline of the Muslims was hastened by the peculiar position of the faithful in India: They had made India their permanent home; many of them were Indians by race; and all had become so in their personal appearance, thoughts, manners and customs. And yet their religious teachers urged them to look back to ancient Arabia and draw their mental sustenance from the far-off age of the Prophet. The language of their religion must be Arabic, which not one in a hundred fully understood ; their cultural language was Persian, which a few more learnt with difficulty and used with an impurity that excited the laughter and acorn of the Persian born. The greatest Indo-Persian poet was Amir Khusrau, but even he was ranked with third-class poets among the natives of Persia. Faizi, our second best, was held to be still inferior. Witness the scorn poured by Babur and Shaikh Ali Hazin alike on the Persian style of the Indian Muslims."

"Persians often sneered at Mughals and Indians as semi-barbarians; they snickered at the Indian efforts to speak and write Persian, and ridiculed the Indian imitations of Persian courtly manners as vulgar, very much in the same way in which the British would later privately mock Anglicized Indians. Persians, says Bernier, often indulged in much ‘satirical merriment’ about Indians; Manucci says that Persians often called Indians ‘slaves’ or ‘blacks’."

"Thus the Mappillas (Malayalam Mapila\ Tamil Mappilla, a contrac­tion of maha, ‘big’ and pilla, ‘child’, hence ‘big children’) grew as a foreign community mixed with the lowest castes of Malabari natives, emerging in about the thirteenth century as the privileged intermediaries of trade with the Islamic world. As Muslims they began to differentiate themselves from the Jewish and Christian business enterprises from the eleventh century, when the Colas sacked Quilon, disrupted the organi­zation of the trade guilds, and redirected the trade to the smaller ports. In terms of their social function, therefore, the Mappilla Muslims were merely the latest group of outsiders who came to dominate the overseas commerce of Malabar, taking over the role of the Greeks and Romans and their successors, the Nestorian Christians and the Jews. Since anti­quity, in fact, maritime activity had largely been in the hands of for­ eigners. On the other hand, the stereotype ritual isolation and the unusually rigid caste barriers and concepts of pollution of Malayali society were a relatively novel phenomenon, traces of which do not ap­pear before the eighth century. Such ‘brahmanization’ of the social order as occurred in the early medieval period adversely affected the still relatively open maritime orientation of Malabar in the earlier centuries, when Buddhism and Jainism held strong positions. It was in the period of the Kulashekhara of Mahadayapuram, in the eighth to twelfth cen­turies, that the natives of Malabar became almost exclusively agrarian-oriented and brahmans rose to dominance who fostered an increasingly obsessive thalassophobia among the caste Hindus, while permitting the Jews and the Muslims to seize the overseas trade.23 It is no coincidence that the implantation of Muslim communities becomes better visible the more caste prohibitions against trans-oceanic travel and trade seem to obtain a hold on the Hindu population and turns it to agrarian pursuits and production, away from trade and maritime transport. This, at least, is what the Tuscans and Venetians observe in the thirteenth century."

"The Mappillas and other South-Indian Muslims, whatever their date of first settlement, emerged from obscurity several centuries after the rise of Islam. Probably they originally inserted themselves in local society by a special Islamic institution which was particularly vigorous among certain tribes of South Arabia and is still in vogue to­ day among the Muslims of the Maldives and Calicut, and which was called m utca, a ‘temporary marriage’.22 By this means they may have ensured themselves of a spouse in the harbours which they frequented, and this was of extra importance in Malabar on account of the strong taboos on commensality which developed here among the Hindus. The women with whom such marriages were contracted were often, if not always, of low fishermen and mariner castes. Their offspring multiplied in the harbour towns and belonged to the mother, in conformity to the matriarchal custom of Malabar, but was raised in Sunni Islam."

"The Mappillas, then, developed intimate ties with Hindu kings and with Hindu society, but in spite of such ties they made vigorous at­ tempts to prove the pure Arab origin of their religion and thereby to enhance their status vis-a-vis other Muslim groups, particularly the descendants of the Afghan and Turkish invaders of North India. As Buchanan noted in the early nineteenth century: ‘Being of Arabic ex­ traction, they look upon themselves as of more honourable birth than the Tartar Mussulmans of North India who of course are of a contrary opinion’.37 Some Mappillas say they have ancestors who escaped from the terror"

"The former group [North Mapiillas] was seen as relatively more upwardly mobile whereas the latter group [south Mapillas], according to Robert Hardgrave, was: ... entirely separate from those of the rest of Malabar ... The low state of their intelligence, the subservience in which they had hitherto lived, and the absence of any men of learning to instruct them in their new religion, even were they capable of understanding, all tended to provide a race which would prove an easy prey to fanaticism and lawlessness."

"About a fourth part of the inhabitants of Malabar are Moplahs, or Mahomendans, descended from the Moors and Arabians, who have settled there at different times, and married Malabar women: they are the principal merchants in the country, both for foreign and home trade: many are proprietors of trading vessels, navigated by Mahomedan commanders and seamen, in which they make an annual voyage to the Persian and Arabian Gulfs; and after disposing of pepper, cassia, cardamoms, cotton-cloth coir-ropes, and other productions of Malabar, they return with coffee, drugs, dates, and dried fruits. Those on the sea-coast use a corrupt language between the Arabic and Malabar: the Koran and the few books they possess are written in Arabic. The Moplahs engaged in commerce, and enjoying an intercourse with other people, are tolerably courteous and orderly; these in the interior, who are too proud to work or engage in agricultural pursuits, are generally an idle worthless race; parading about the country with a broadsword, or murdering time, in one of the swings already mentioned. These are of a most turbulent revengeful spirit, prone to mischief, especially against the Nairs, whom they consider as infidels, proud and haughty as themselves. When intoxicated with bhang, or opium, they frequently run amuck, and in a dreadful state of phrenzy, murder every person they meet, until they are overpowered and destroyed. The Nairs are at constant variance with the Moplahs; and the king of Travencore, jealous of their ambitious revengeful temper, keeps them in great subjection, and levies frequent contributions on their property; to which they reluctantly submit, from knowing they would experience the same treatment from other governments."

"It is therefore highly probable that Muslim traders, who frequented the coastal regions, near the important ports, lived there for long or short periods, and some of them might even have settled there on more or less permanent basis. But there is no reliable evidence to show, as has been maintained by some, that they settled in Malabar coast in large numbers in the seventh century A.D. Such a theory is mainly based on the traditions current among the Moplahs, Navayats, and Labbes of South India, but these are on a par with similar traditions current among Christians in the same region which have been rejected by almost all students of history. ... These are all very late traditions and cannot, in any case, be regarded as evidence for large Muslim settlements in Malabar in the seventh century, as contended by some Francis Day, who has recorded some of these traditions current in Malabar and studied the history of the Moplahs, is of opinion that the ‘“Muhammadans obtained no great footing until the ninth century A.D.” (456-7)"

"Deflating the peasant rebellion theory, Wood too says:29 Almost without exception, every British official concerned with interpreting the Moplah outbreak was prepared to concede that all was not well with landlord–tenant relations in Malabar, and the grievance over insecurity of tenure was repeatedly stressed by them. However, explaining outbreaks as anti-jenmi (anti-landlord) manifestations posed difficult problems with which those Malabar Collectors most responsive to tenant grievance grappled with only very partial success. In particular, since Hindu tenants and labourers admittedly suffered quite as much, if not more, from the great power of the big jenmi, why were outbreaks confined to the Muslim community? Moreover, why should some of the assaults have been directed against Hindus who were not only not landlords, but members of the slave caste at least as vulnerable to the exercise of jenmi power as many of the assailants themselves? Failure by those who stressed the agrarian explanation for outbreaks adequately to answer such questions undermined their case for legislation to grant occupancy rights to tenants, a measure they urged as essential if the Moplah problem were to be solved."

"…the principal Mosquee…is conspicuous at a great distance, being situated on the top of a rock in the centre of the town. The surface of the rock was previously levelled, and around it a space is cleared sufficiently large to form a handsome square, where four fine long streets terminate, opposite to the four sides of the Mosquee; one, opposite to the principal entrance, in front of the building; a second, at the back of the building; and the two others, to the gates that are in the middle of the two sides. The ascent to the three gates is by means of five-and-twenty or thirty steps of beautiful and large stones, which are continued the whole length of the front and sides. The back part is cased over, to the height of the rock, with large and handsome hewn stone, which hides its inequalities, and tends to give a noble appearance to the building. The three entrances, composed of marble, are magnificent, and their large doors are overlaid with finely wrought plates of copper. Above the principal gate, which greatly exceeds the others in grandeur of appearance, there are several small turrets of white marble that produce a fine effect; and at the back part of the Mosquee are seen three large domes, built also of white marble, within and without. The middle dome is much larger and loftier than the other two. The end of the Mosquee alone is covered: the space between the three domes and the principal entrance is without any roof; the extreme heat of the climate rendering such an opening absolutely necessary. The whole is paved with large slabs of marble. I grant that this building is not constructed according to those rules of architecture which we seem to think ought to be implicitly followed; yet I can perceive no fault that offends the taste; every part appears well contrived, properly executed, and correctly proportioned. I am satisfied that even in Paris a church erected after the model of this temple would be admired, were it only for its singular style of architecture, and its extra-ordinary appearance. With the exception of the three great domes, and the numerous turrets, which are all of white marble, the Mosquee is of a red colour, as if built with large slabs of red marble: although it consists of a species of stone, cut with great facility, but apt to peel off in flakes after a certain time."

"That at least for a hundred years before the Moplah Outrage of 1921 the region witnessed frequent acts of fanaticism by the Moplahs was observed as follows by a three-judge special tribunal constituted in Calicut to prosecute the offenders of the Moplah Outrage of 1921: For the last hundred years at least, the Moplah community has been disgraced from time to time by murderous outrages. In the past these have been due to fanaticism. They generally blazed out in the Ernad Taluk (county), where the Moplahs were, for the most part, proselytes drawn from the dregs of the Hindu population. These men were miserably poor and hopelessly ignorant, and their untutored minds were particularly susceptible to the inflammatory teaching that Paradise was to be gained by killing Kufirs. They would go out on the warpath, killing Hindus, no matter whom, and seek death in hand-to-hand conflict with the troops. In some cases they may have been inspired by hatred of a particular landlord, but no grievance seems to have been really necessary to start them on their wild careers."

"... I would say that the Hindu coolies of the Mohammedan tenants of the Brahmin and Nair landlords are worse off than their employers. I have nowhere seen such abject servility as in the Cherma of Malabar."

"Characteristically, the preparations for an outbreak involved the intending participants donning the white clothes of the martyr, divorcing their wives, asking those they felt they had wronged for forgiveness, and receiving the blessing of a Tangal, as the Sayyids or descendants of the Prophet are called in Malabar, for the success of their great undertaking. Once the outbreak had been initiated openly, by the murder of their Hindu victim, the participants would await the arrival of Government forces by ranging the countryside paying off scores against Hindus they felt had ill-used them or other Moplahs, burning and defiling Hindu temples, taking what food they needed, and collecting arms and recruits. Finally, as the Government forces closed in on them, a sturdy building was chosen for their last stand. Often the mansion of some Hindu landlord (frequently the residence of one of their victims) was selected, but Hindu temples, mosques, and other buildings were also used, the main criterion being, apparently, to avoid being captured alive. As a Moplah captured at Payyanad temple in 1898 put it, it was decided to die there ‘as it was a good building and we were afraid lest we would be shot in the legs and so caught alive’. By the time the Government forces had surrounded them, the outbreak participants had worked themselves into a frenzy by frequent prayers, shouting the creed as a war-cry and singing songs commemorating the events of past outbreaks, especially that of October 1843 in which 7 Moplahs armed mainly with ‘war knives’ scattered a heavily-armed detachment of sepoys with their charge. The climax of the drama came when they emerged from their ‘post’ to be killed as they tried to engage in hand-to-hand combat. Divergences from this ideal pattern were frequent, but the essence of the Moplah outbreak, demarcating it from other forms of violence, resided in the belief that participation was the act of a shahid or martyr and would be rewarded accordingly. As one outbreak participant (who receded at the last moment and was captured) said in explanation of why he and his associates ‘went out’ (i.e. participated in the outbreak): ‘I have heard people sing that those who ... fight and die after killing their oppressors, become shahids and get their reward. I have heard that the reward is “Swargam” (Paradise).’ The pattern of the Moplah outbreak was dictated by the fact that participants had no intention of evading the heavy hand of justice. On the contrary, their objective was to compass their own destruction by hurling themselves in a suicidal charge against the forces sent to deal with them. In the words of a wounded Moplah captured at Manjeri temple in 1896: ‘We came to the temple intending to fight with the troops and die. That is what we meant to do when we started.’ The defining characteristic of the Moplah outbreak was devotion to death."

"How did the Thangals and the other religions leaders maintain the solidarity of the Moplah community? What idiom and language did they use in arousing a collective awareness? Did they provoke and incite their illiterate followers into hostility against the landed upper classes between 1830 and 1880? These are very important questions but difficult to answer in the absence of adequate source material. It is, however, certain that some Thangals did provoke some of their followers into physical violence and, in their own interests, tried to turn the anti-jenmi sentiments of the poor Moplah peasants into anti- Hindu sentiment."

"Many analysts have noted that the massive growth in Moplah population is appalling and un-explainable in the ordinary course. According to the statistics given by Miller,(1976 Vol.11,Page 316) it was 42.8% during 1831-1851 and during 1891-1921 when the total population growth was 18% the growth in Moplah population was 35%."

"Here’s a relevant observation from William Logan’s Malabar Manual: Tirurangadi, the adhikari of which was killed, lay close to the residence of the Arab Tangal or High Priest who was generally credited with having incited the Mapillas to commit these outrages. The Tangal died shortly afterwards and was buried at the Mabram mosque situated on the river bank opposite Tirurangadi. Fanatics who intend to commit outrages, and those who committed them do, as a rule even now, proceed to this mosque to pray at the Tangal’s Shrine."

"A group of people “who abandoned their religion” have floated a new organisation called ‘Ex-Muslims of Kerala’, offering a platform and support to those who stopped practising Islam. The organization observed January 9 as ‘Ex-Muslims Day’."

"The trend is catching pace in India too, especially in Kerala. An organisation has recently been formed to provide those who renounce Islam, a platform to express and gather fearlessly. “Ex-Muslims of Kerala” is an attempt by the educated Muslim youth, who thought to exit the religion and become free thinkers. It has declared January 9 as ‘Kerala Ex-Muslim Day’. It is a historic development as many members in the group are active in social media debates attracting more like-minded people to their fold. Kerala, with Islamic radicalization growing unimaginably voluminous in its Malabar region, has become a hotbed of Islamist activities which the state administration is purposefully silent about. Most of the members in the group face economic and social boycotts and sometimes receive violent reactions from the radicals. Excommunication of people who left Islam is normal in the community and thanks to democracy that apostasy is not punishable under the constitution. The movement in Kerala provides social, economic and legal support to the Ex-Muslims."

"In probably a first in India, an organisation has been formed in Kerala to provide a platform to those who are renouncing Islam, a move which has significant socio-political implications. Although there are rationalist movements and religious reformist movements in our country, there was no organisation until now to represent those who leave a religion and want to continue as non-religious, neutral person(s). Now, a group of people who renounced Islam have come together to form ‘Ex-Muslims of Kerala’ and also decided to observe January 9 as ‘Kerala Ex-Muslim Day’. Moreover, considering India’s religious history, the ex-Muslims’ movement of Kerala can be viewed as a unique historical development."

"In Asia, a prominent example of immigration-driven ethnic change is taking place in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam. A Hindu-majority tongue of Indian territory lying north of Muslim Bangladesh, Assam has long been host to large-scale illegal, but peaceful, Bengali immigration. Bengali Muslims grew 30 to 50 percent over the period 1971 to 1991. They now constitute more than 30 percent of Assam’s population and are believed to control the electoral verdict in 60 of Assam’s 126 Assembly constituencies. Numerous battles have taken place over whether large numbers of Muslims have the legal status necessary to add their name to the electoral rolls. Muslim growth has been the catalyst for ugly Assamese attacks against unarmed Bengali workers since the 1980s, and an Assamese political movement demands the deportation of illegal immigrants. This conflict is regional, but on the wider Indian level, the growth of the Muslim population through higher fertility and an often exaggerated degree of illegal immigration has been a red flag for Hindu nationalism. The Muslim population’s fertility advantage over Hindus was 10 percent at partition in 1947, but is now 25–35 percent. Only a fraction of this gap can be explained by relative Muslim poverty. Muslims grew from roughly 8 percent of the Indian total in 1947 to 14 percent today, and are projected to rise to 17 percent by 2050. These are not staggering numbers, yet have proven useful tinder for Hindu nationalists and sparked sporadic violent reprisals against Indian Muslims."