IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS)

Volume 22, Issue 1, Ver. 6 (Jan. 2017) PP 08-13

e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845.
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Mappila: Identity and semantic narrowing

Joseph Koyippally Joseph

Abstract:- Mappila, the generic name for the Kerala-settled West Asian diaspora which gradually got integrated
with the indigenous community, has undergone semantic narrowing to meanthe Muslims of North Kerala (Illias
436 fn. 4)since thetwentiethcentury. However, neither all Muslims of North Keralaare mappilas nor is North
Kerala the only place of Muslim mappilas. Moreover, there are also non-Muslim mappilas in Kerala. The West
Asian trade settlements which came up in the southern, central, and northern Kerala established communities in
those regions through marital alliances with the local community, and are qualified by words referring to their
religious affiliations such as Jewish(Yuda mappila), Christian (Nasrani mappila) and Muslim (Jonaka
mappila) (Malieckal 300; upanov 99).The meaning of the term got narrowed when the Muslim mappilas began
asserting their identity due to political reasons that threatened their identity.
Etymological explanation of the word mappilais sociologically illuminating. The meaning of the
word, a combination of ma and pillai(Logan 191; Mayaram, Pandian and Skaria; Miller, Mappila 30-32; K. P.
Menon 534-37; Thurston 458; Miller, Encyclopaedia VI.45), is not yet satisfactorily explained.Although pillai
[son] is generally accepted asa term of endearment and intimacy, an honorific title, and a title of Nairs, the
meaning of mais debated. Ma has different meanings in the source languages of Malayalam. In Sanskrit, its
meanings could be mother [mothers son] or great as abbreviation of maha [great son], and not [not
son i.e., son in law, probably a foreigner in matrilineal Kerala]. In the first sense, mappila is a child born to
Arab fathers in local costal woman, as mother, ma, was to take care of the child, pillai, as the fathers never
claimed for the children (Day, 1863: 366). As a title of honour it was used by the Nayars and Christians in
Travancore and probably by the early Muslim immigrants (Logan, 1951: 191). The Dravidian word mappila
meansbridegroom (Moore, 1870: 13), who to the community of the bride is not son, but an endeared one.
Tamil retains this sense and it connotesa maritalrelation, and got to mean the descendants of west Asian traders
who married local women (Miller, Hindu-Christian Dialogue 50).It was extended to the locals who accepted
customs of the migrants. The editor ofThe Travels of Ludovico d Varthomaregards mappila as a derivation
ofthe Arabic colloquial ma fellah [not farmer]. It highlights the west Asians occupation as trading as distinct
from agriculture (Badger 1890: 123).
The term also has religious connotations. The word, as a corruption of marga pilla could be derived
from Sanskrit and Pali wheremargameant path i.e., Buddhism, the popular faith of the pre-eighth century AD
Kerala and was founded on the eight-fold path (ashtangamarga). Those who joined the new marga[path]were
derisively called marga vasi, even after the arrival of Western Christian missionaries in the sixteenth century. It
is also said that mappila is derived from mahapillai[distinguished Pillai],a distinguishing title meant to
integrate the west Asian traders into the caste-ordered Hindu society of Kerala. Castea birth-bestowed
categorization of people into different occupational classes and associated privilegeswas a socio-political
necessity in Kerala, since the advent of the Brahmins in Kerala in the eighth century. As understood from
Keralaopathi, the Brahminical migration was a part of the Hindu assertion against the Buddhist and the Jain
egalitarian social order, which was by then popular in Kerala (Alexander). As the Brahmin missionaries ended
Buddhist supremacy and enforced Brahminical social order, they had to coopt local ruling class as Kshatriyas,
the pliable locals as Sudras, and brand rebels as outcastes. As they had annihilated the Buddhist and Jain trading
class, they were forced to bestow the Vaishya status to the West Asian traders even as they were kept them away
from power. The West Asian merchants needed more operational space in the host-landand pragmaticlocal
traders found the religion of the less oppressive West Asian traders as means to outmaneuver Brahmanical
persecution. This view is strengthened by the use of palli,the Pali word for Buddhist place of worship for
Christian and Muslim places of worship; the local beliefs like Kailasa vasthukkal asuddhamayal, Paulosu
thottal athu shudhamakum [Pauls touch depollutes temple wares]; the practice of having Christian families
living next to major temples to touch and cleanse the oil brought to the temple by low-caste oil-producers
(Varghese K 898); localized Christian and Muslim collaboration with temple festivals etc. Yet another Christian
interpretation is that mappila was derived from ma-palli (mother church).
Yuda mappila or the Jewish traders of Kerala were classified after their settlements at Kadavumbagam,
Thekkumbhagam, Parur, Chendamangalam, and Mala. This small community, which never insisted on the title,

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 Mappila: Identity and semantic narrowing
was nevertheless called mappila. As they have left for Israel after the formation of the Jewish state, only a few
of their synagogues remain as reminders of the Yuda mappilas of Kerala. Although in the past, the Syrian
Christians of Kerala insisted on the privilege of using the surname Mappila, now few Syrian Christians use it as
a surname. However, Malabar Muslims, who also do not use it as personal surname, use it as generic name to
assert their political identity.Their identity struggle dates from their contact with the Persian-originated North
Indian Muslims since the days of the Madurai conquest by the Delhi Sultanate under commanders like Malik
Kafur (1311), Khusrav Khan (1314), and Ulugh Khan (1323), and later, to their opposition to western
colonization that threatened their occupation as traders. It is also interesting to note that the Muslims of
Lakshadweep who belong to the same stock as the mappilas of Malabar, do not refer to themselves mappilas as
they do not need to assert their identity since they are in a majority there. Neither Tuhfat al-Mujahidin of
Zainuddin Maqdoom [1530-83] norFathul Mubeen of Qazi Mohammad [1616-], the two early texts of the
Mappila community, use it to refer to local Muslims. It is also not found in early Arabic literary work or in
Arabimalayalam literature as referring exclusively to Kerala Muslims. In Arabia, they are still known as
Malabari, [person from Malabar], a name for Kerala.
GundertsMalayalam Dictionary defines mappila as West Asian Semitic migrant settlers in Kerala. It is
probable that the West Asian community of Kerala got split into different religious groups between the eighth
and the eleventh centuries, when Islam became prominent and controlled the trade through Arabia, with which
they traded. The absence of mappila Christians in the north Kerala could be attributed to the dominance of the
Muslims in Malabar society and trade. Other thanArabs and Persians, people ofmany other nationalities also
have settled in Keralaforming inter-racial communities. Keralas coastal population is formed by
diasporicGreek, Roman, and Chinese maritime traders (Mathur 1),Sri Lankan Buddhists, Ahichchatra Brahmins,
and Dravidians. A fourteenth century Malayalam poem, Unnuniyadi Charithamnotes the presence of people
from Gujarat, Malva, Andhra, Orissa, Barbara, Chola country, Pandya country, Karnataka, Greece, China,
Turkey, etc. in a local market. However, the title mappila is claimed only by the west Asian communities.
This trade diasporawith separate religious identitiesclaimedfurther legitimacy through the legend of the
conversion ofking Cherman Perumal into their faith.Here, the earlier similar Buddhist claim becomes relevant in
the background of their conversion to these mappila communities. Although some historians ascribethis
conversion to 1122 AD (M. Narayanan 76), Muslims claim it to have taken place in 822 AD (Maqdoom 39;
Logan 192-95). Keralolpathiexplicitly mentions that it was not Cherman Perumal, but Palli Bana Perumalwho
went to Mecca after embracing Buddhism(Gundert 29). This tradition was first recorded by the Portuguese
writer Durate Burbosa in the early 16th century, and it was accepted by Berros,the official Portuguese historian.
It accepts the tradition of the mappilas but identifies Mecca with Buddhism, by which it only meant the holy
land of the religion that was not Brahminical. Syrian Christians maintain that they were bestowed with the
honorific title mappila by the Chera king Vallabhan Kotha, whose Chengannoor edict known as Mampalli
Sasanam in 149 KE [1051 AD], calls Persian Christians ma-palli-kkar (people of the mother church). The
Persian Christians who fled persecution (AD 717-822), reached Quilon in AD 822, established mother churches
under Bishops Sapir Eso at Kodungalloor and Proth at Quilon. They claim that Ayyanadikal, the ruler of Venad
gave Sapir Eso two Copper edicts, and with the kings permission, they constructed mother churches (ma-pally)
including the one at Chengannur.The document, now preserved by the Orthodox Church at Kottayam and by the
Marthoma Church at Thiruvalla,contains some Arabic signatures. Whether these witnesses were Arab Muslims
as Illias (Mappila Muslims and the Cultural Content of Trading Arab Diaspora on the Malabar Coast 442-
43)claims, is debatable since Arab Christians also had similar names and language at that time.
Unlike Muslims, the Syrian Christians had been using it as a surname. A relevant litigation (No. 498 on 1 July
1912) filed by some Nair leaders at Chavakkad Munsif Court defending their removal of the title mappila from
the name of some Syrian Christians of Pavaratti Church was dismissed by the Musif MR Sankara Iyer who ruled
that Christians are traditionally called mappila or maha-pilla. The review petition [642 of 1913] at Calicut
District Court was also dismissed with the note that it was like removing of the surname Nair from a Nair. The
second appeal [1533 of 1915] was also dismissed by the Madras High Court.However, it appears that the Syrian
Christians have given up using this upper-caste denoting term to refer to themselves when Muslim generic use
of the term became common. This seems to have happened in the wake of the British oppression of the Moplah
rebellion and the term gathered negative connotation about it. When Christians dissociated with it, Muslims
asserted it. Local Christians who dropped it preferred to be called generically as Nasrani, Christian. Officially,
they were first designated Syrian by the Dutchwho used it in order to distinguish the Syriac-using traditional
Christians from the newly evangelized Christians who used Latin as their liturgical language.
Muslims regard mappila as the first community to come to the fold of Islam because they were more closely
connected with the Arabs than others (Randathani, Genesis). Although Arab merchants are regarded as "the
progenitors of the Moplahs" (Swai 61), this patrilineal, non-Urdu-speaking community who brought Islam first

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 Mappila: Identity and semantic narrowing
th
to India in the 7 century AD, were largely ignored by the Indian Muslim historians (Dale, Hadrami Diaspora;
Dale, Mappilas; Miller, Mappila; Panikker). It is probably because the mappilas, who followed the Shafi school
of Sunni Islam, are culturally and genetically closeer to Arab Muslims than tothe Indo-Persian political and
theological perceptions of the North Indian Muslims.Genetically, theologically and politically, the mappilas are
related to the Arabian Muslims of Hadramawth, Hejaz, Hormuz, Egypt, Maghrib, and Levant. Illias classifies
mappilas into: Malabaris (composed of indigenous Muslims majority of whom are local converts) and
Pardesis (consisting of Thangals [constituted mainly of Saiyids of Hadrwmawt], Pathans, Kutchi Memons,
Bohras, Rawthers [Tamil trading Muslims], and others who are believed to have come from outside Kerala
(Illias 446). They included Arab settlers, the descendantsof Arab men and local women, as well as converts to
Islam from lower Hindu castes (Innes 26). Kerala Muslims of Byari, Keyi, Dakhni, Labbay, Rawuther,
Thulukkar, Marakkar, Koya, Ossan, Pusalan communities etc. are not directly related to the mappilas. Islam
spread rapidly among the low caste-people in the inland areas of south Malabar (Hitchcock 9), and among
tenants who lived in poverty cultivating the land of landlords (Swai 61). The traditions like matrilineal
succession (Kurien, Colonialism 402), veneration of Hindu saints, temple-shaped mosques, use of tali pendant
by married women (Miller, Mappila), and their 'nercca' rituals (Burman 1214) which combine Islamic and local
folk traditions betray the local roots of mappila Muslims. the People of Malabar wear munduwith Muslims tying
it on the left,unlike the Hindus who tie it on the right, and kept it in position using a waist string and Muslim
women worea loose white blouse, coloured munduwhich they secured in place with a broad belt, covered heads
with scarf(Miller, Mappila 251).
It appears that the title mappilahad not been not popular among the Muslims until the British used it (as in
Mappila Rebellion, Mappila Outrageous Act, Mappila School, Mappila Range Inspector etc.). The
Muslims accepted it as a previlege. The title of the Mappila Review started by Muhammad Sahib, a London-
educated District Educational Officer, bears testimony to it. Gradually, not only Malabar Muslims themselves,
even Kerala Christians started describing Malabar Muslims as mappila. For example, Prema Kurien, a Syrian
Christian herself, who collected materials for a study during 1989-90 identifies Christians as Nazranis and
Muslims as mappilas(Kurien, Colonialism 402). Had the use of the word mappila been not popular among
Muslims until the British used it, it was not until the Dutch used it that the Syrian Christians became Syrian.
However, as the community had already split under the Portuguese as pro and anti-Roman, the term disappeared
from their identity politics especially as the pro-Roman faction emphasized a more universal identity in the early
part of the twentieth century. This is quite unlike the case with Keralas Muslims who apparently use it despite
the pan-Islamic cry to erase local identities.
The Kerala Mappila Kala Akademi [Academy for Kerala Mappila Arts] set up in 2001 defines
mappilapattu[mappila songs] as a folk Muslim song genre rendered to lyrics in colloquial mappila dialect of
Arabic-laced Malayalam, by the mappilas of Malabar (Vallikkunnu and Tharamel 7-14), appropriating the term
mappila as Muslim.Artistically and emotionally mappilapattu punctuate the rhythm of the everyday social life
of the Malabar Muslims. Its songs enrich mappila folk art forms like kolkali, oppana, aravana, daffumuttu, and
mappilapattu etc. The community also promotes Arabi MalayalamMalayalam language written in Arabic
scriptas a marker of its identity. Just as with the case of the use of the term in negative light by the British in
the latter half of the nineteenth century, here also it bears the tag of a poem composed for Muslims.The Muslims
accepted the challenge and asserted their cultural identity and used it for social transformation, communal
solidarity, and anti-European struggle, and as an essential part of identity politics.
As seen from Tufhatul Mujahiddeen, Muslims enjoyed some autonomy, prestige and economic power under the
Zamorins of Calicut till the advent of the Portuguese in the late fifteenth century. The Portuguese violently
suppressed the mappila traders opposition and defeated the combined Muslim forces of the traders of Malabar,
Basra, Damascus, Tunis and Egypt to break the Arab-mappilamonopoly over the international spice trade
(Shokoohy 144; Subrahmanyam 293-94). This made themappilas move towards interior Malabar as agricultural
tenants, low in status and desperately poor (Dale, Mappilas 54-82), giving sense to the ma fellah identity
formation under colonial oppression. Although it was primarily their anti-Portuguese sentiment that made them
support the Malabar invasion of Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan since 1765 (Elgood 164ff), the desire to assert their
political identity also played its part. It si also evident that the brutal assertion that wreckedthe socio-political
economy Malabar went overboard at times, as described by aMuslim officer in the Mysore army:
Nothing was to be seen on the roads for a distance of four leagues, nothing was found but only
scattered limbs and mutilated bodies of Hindus. The country of Nairs was thrown into a general
consternation which was much increased by the cruelty of the Mappilas who followed the invading
cavalry of Hyder Ali Khan and massacred all those who escaped without sparing even women and
children; so that the army advancing under the conduct of this enraged multitude Mappilas instead of

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 Mappila: Identity and semantic narrowing
meeting with continued resistance, found villages, fortresses, temples and every habitable place
forsaken and deserted. (Varma 508)
The mappilaswho were tenants under the Portuguese benefitted from Hyder-Tipu invasion as they became
owners of the property left behind by the land-owning upper-caste Hindus who fled to Travancore(Narayanan
and Veluthat 275). Low-caste Hindus who were converted to Islam escaped caste oppressions (Kunju 79)and
also became property owners. As tenants defied the few Hindu landowners who remained or came back by
remitting land tax directly to the government(Dale, Mappilas), the Hindu dominance of Malabarcollapsed. As
Travancore was salvaged itself with the help of the East India Company (EIC) army, the wronged upper caste
Hindus aligned themselves with the British. There have been efforts to read the mappila rebellions in British
Malabar which culminated in the Mappila Revolt of 1921differently. TL Strange Report [1852] ascribesthese to
fanatic and ambitious priests and his recommendations led to the Moplah outrages Act XXIII and XXIV of 1854
and a special police force for Ernad (Logan 570-71). The District Collector Conolly called it a fanatical
outbreak, and others as outcome of the use of religion in Indian nationalist movement (Hitchcock; Tottenham;
M. Nambutiripad; K. Nair; G. Nair; K. Menon), violent expression of communal agrarian discontent and
grievances propelled by anti-British feeling (Gangadharan; Logan; E. Nambutiripad; Dhanagare; Hardgrave Jr.;
Wood; Panikker) and a political move to establish an Islamic kingdom (Dale, Mappilas). Panikkar callsthese as
peasant unrest caused by the British who hadwrecked mappila economyby imposing heavy rent and tenurial
contract, and by abolishing tenant rights(Panikker 1-48). By 1921, nearly one-million Malabar mappilas (Miller,
Mappila 40-45), lived along the coast of the urban centres of Ernad, Valluvanad and Ponnani taluks of the south
British Malabar. The mappila region is known in British records as fanatical zone and the British
identifiedpoverty, agrarian discontent and fanaticism, of which the last is probably the chief (Innes 89) as the
three main causes of the revolt.
Muslim identity, challenged in the wake of the Portuguese who took away their trade and attacked the kingdom
of Calicut, became strengthened as a form of resistance and through indoctrination.Even after the Portuguese
left, they had to engage western powers like the Dutch, the French and the English. It was in this process of
assertion of their identity that the mappila title became synonymous withasocio-political assertionin Malabar.
The mappilas, threatened with eviction at the hands of Hindu janmis and the British courts, came together
Mappila Revolt of 1921 to established the Moplah Caliphate of Eranad and Valluvanad (Gopal 103). This also
brought identity question to the center of the discourse. This largely ignored term acquired new importance as a
mark of identity for the subaltern mappila as it united the community against imperial Britain. The British called
this localised movementwhich culminated in a police raid on Tirurarangadi mosque on 20 August 1921 which
left 2337 rebels killed and 45,404 imprisoned, as MappilaRevoltand its leaders as mappila Muslims. Nearly
10,000 people were killed and many more were sent to the prisons in Port Blair (Kurien, Kaleidoscopic
Ethnicity 51) and many migrated to Karachi and live there as Malabari mappilas. The British intelligence must
have read this rebellion in the light of the Wahabi Ihkwan movement that helped Abdulaziz Ibn Saud to capture
Nejd, Hijaz and Hail around that period, and divide Arabia Felixinto several small convenient principalities.
This identification was further strengthened as mappilas opposed the British who suppressed the Revolt of 1921
which came to be read in the backdrop of the pressure-politics of the North Indian Muslim Leagues demand for
Pakistan. The mappila-backed Muslim League of Kerala which started in Malabarin 1930s, supported the
Pakistan Movement (More and Manickam), and even proposed a separate Muslim majority province in South
Malabar called Moplastanin 1947 in the Madras Legislative Assembly. However, this ideadoes not figure in
National Muslim Leagues proposal for Pakistan. However, some mappilas did migrate to Pakistan when it was
formed(Miller, Mappila). Mappilas, who had more in common with the Muslims of far-flung Hadramawt or
Sumatra than those of North India (Illias 436),later carved out Malappuram district in 1979from the proposed
Mappilastan area (Nossiter 251252) much to the chagrin of the Hindu fundamentalists (Chiriyankandath).
Although the idea of Mappilastan was rejected, bolstered by the Mappila Revolt and the politics of the Muslim
League, mappila identity led to the formation of Malappuram even as Mappilastan is kept alive in the demand
for statehood for mappila-dominated Malabar (Kurien, Colonialism 399).
Similarity in the customs and habits of the mappila Christians and Muslimsthe first nativised community of
Christians and Muslims in South Asiasuggesttheir West Asian origin.Local stories of both these communities
have stories of Cheraman Perumal converting to their religion, and the legendary Uppukootan of theParayipetta
Panthirukulam[The pariah-born dozen](Randathani, Mappila Muslims 207), and have similar mother tongues,
customs, and culture as evident in their traditional songs and art forms. Syriac language of the Syrian Christians
is very near to the language of the Arab Muslims, and many of their localized religious terms are also similar as
inMuslimskafirand Christiankavyar foundin the Canons of Synod of Diamper[1599]. These antedate the forced
conversion of Christians during the invasion of Tipu Sultan in Central Kerala.

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 Mappila: Identity and semantic narrowing
The term also hides as much alienation as integration. Even if the term was first used to bestow a caste on West
Asian traders, its subsequent sense as not son clearly demarcated the boundaries beyond which it could not
integrate. They were permanently marked asother even as they asserted their otherness. They have been richer
economically and even politically dominant at times as the case of Muslims under Tipu and Christians under
western colonial rule. They did not have to assert their identity until they felt subjugated, as was the case of the
Muslims under the Portuguese. Unlike the Kerala-settled Marwari community which has acquiesced itself to the
Brahmanical order of Indian society, the mappilas remain not-son and remain outside the Hindu-mainstream.
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