Book review: The Tribute to the Strugglers
Posted January 24th, 2008 by kashif
* Articles
* Indian Muslim
Reviewed by Yoginder Sikand
The Tuhfat al-Mujahidin or 'The Tribute to the
Strugglers' is one of the earliest extant historical
treatises about the southern Indian state of Kerala.
Its author, the sixteenth century's Shaikh Zainuddin
Makhdum, hailed from the renowned Makhdum family from
the town of Ponnani in Malabar, in northern Kerala.
This family traced its descent to migrants from Yemen,
who played a leading role in the spread of Islam in
southern India.
Following in the footsteps of many of his forefathers,
Shaikh Zainduddin rose to become a leading Islamic
scholar. He spent ten years studying in Mecca, where
he also joined the Qadri order of Sufism. On his
return to his native Malabar, he spent almost four
decades teaching at the central mosque in Ponnani,
then a major centre for Islamic studies in southern
India. He also served as the envoy of the Zamorins,
the Hindu rulers of Calicut, to Egypt and Turkey.
Name of the Book: Tuhfat al-Mujahidin (translated
from Arabic by S. Muhammad Husayn Nainar)
Author: Shaykh Zainuddin Makhdum
Year: 2006
Pages: 139
Publisher: Islamic book Trust, Kuala Lumpur
(www.ibtbooks.com) & Other Books, Calicut
(otherbooks@post.com)
Other Books,
P.B.No.620, 13/776,
I Floor, New Way Building,
Railway Link Road,
Calicut-673002,
Kerala,India.
Ph: +91 495 2306808
Price not mentioned
The Tuhfat is one of Shaikh Zainuddin's several works,
and is the best known among them. A chronicle of the
stiff resistance put up by the Muslims of Malabar
against the Portuguese colonialists from 1498, when
Vasco Da Gama arrived in Calicut, to 1583, it
describes in considerable detail events, many of which
that the author had himself witnessed and lived
through. It was intended, as Shaikh Zainduddin says,
as a means to exhort the Malabar Muslims to launch a
struggle or jihad against the Portuguese invaders. The
book thus extols the virtues of jihad against
oppressors, and, at the same time, also provides
fascinating details about the history of Islam in
Malabar, the relations between Muslims and Hindus in
the region and the customs and practices of both.
Islam's first contact with India is said to have taken
place in Malabar, and Shaikh Zainuddin offers a
popularly-held account of this. He writes of how the
Hindu ruler of Malabar, impressed with a group of
Muslim pilgrims on their way to Ceylon, converted to
Islam and accompanied them back to Arabia. There,
shortly before he died, he instructed them to return
to Malabar. They did as they were told, and the king's
governors welcomed them, allowing them to settle along
the coast and establish mosques. Gradually, he writes,
the Muslim community began expanding through the
missionary efforts of Sufis and traders.
Relations between Muslims and the Hindus of Malabar,
Shaikh Zainudin observes, were traditionally cordial.
The rulers of Malabar, all Hindus, treated the Muslims
with respect, one reason being that the Muslims played
a vital role in the region's economy because of their
control of the trading routes linking Malabar to other
lands by sea. Hindu rulers even paid salaries of the
muezzins and qazis and allowed the Muslims to be
governed in personal matters by their own laws. Hindus
who converted to Islam were not harassed, and, even if
they were of 'low' caste origin, were warmly welcomed
into the Muslim community. This was probably one
reason for the rapid spread of Islam in the region.
Shaikh Zainuddin's observations about the Hindus of
Malabar are remarkable for their sense of balance and
sympathy. Of the Hindu rulers, he says, 'There are
some who are powerful and some comparatively weak. But
the strong, as a matter of fact, will not attack or
occupy the territory of the weak'. (This, Shaikh
Zainuddin suggests, might be a result of the
conversion of one of their kings, referred to earlier,
to Islam 'and of his supplications to this effect to
God'). He also adds, '[The] people of Malabar are
never treacherous in their wars'. At the same time, he
notes with disapproval the deeply-rooted caste
prejudices among the Malabari Hindus. So strict is the
law of caste, he writes, that any violation of it
results in excommunication, forcing the violator to
convert to Islam or Christianity or become a yogi or
mendicant or to be enslaved by the king. Even such a
minor matter as a 'high' caste Hindu woman being hit
by a stone thrown by a 'low' caste man causes her to
lose caste. 'How many such detestable customs!",
Shaikh Zainuddin remarks after recounting some of
them. 'Due to their ignorance and stupidity, they
strictly follow these customs, believing that it is
their moral responsibility to uphold them', he adds.
'It was while they were living in these social
conditions that the religion of Islam reached them by
the grace of Allah', he goes on, '[a]nd this was the
main reason for their being easily attracted to
Islam'.
Of all the Hindu rulers of Malabar, the most powerful,
and also the most friendly towards the Muslims, were
the Zamorins of Calicut, who claimed descent from the
king who is said to have converted to Islam and died
in Arabia. The Tuhfat describes how the Zamorins
turned down bribes offered by the Portuguese to expel
the Muslims, and of how they, along with Nair Hindu
and Muslim forces, engaged in numerous battles with
the Portuguese, who are said to have singled out the
Muslims for attack and persecution. Shaikh Zainuddin
is at pains to note the contrast between the response
of the Hindu Zamorins to the plight of the Malabar
Muslims with that of several Muslim Sultans in other
parts of India, who were approached for help in
expelling the Portuguese. 'The Muslim-friendly
Zamorin', he writes, 'has been spending his wealth
from the beginning' for the protection of the Malabari
Muslims from the depredations of the Portuguese. On
the other hand, he rues, 'The Muslim Sultans and
Amirs—may Allah heighten the glory of the helpful
among them—did not take any interest in the Muslims of
Malabar'.
The Portuguese conquests, resulting in their wresting
the monopoly over the Malabar spice trade from the
Muslims, caused a rapid decline in Muslim fortunes,
reducing the community to abject poverty. Shaikh
Zainduddin describes the reign of terror unleashed on
the Malabari Muslims, by the Portuguese, who were
fired with a hatred of Islam and
Muslims—indiscriminate killings of Muslims, rapes of
Muslim women, forcible conversions of Muslims to
Christianity, enslaving of hundreds of Muslims,
destroying mosques and building churches in their
place and setting alight Muslim shops and homes.
In appealing to the Malabari Muslims to launch jihad
against the Portuguese, Shaikh Zainuddin makes clear
that this struggle is purely a defensive one, directed
at only the Portuguese interlopers and not the local
Hindus or the Hindu Zamorins, for whom he expresses
considerable respect. Nor is it, he suggests, a call
to establish Muslim political supremacy and control.
Jihad, then, for Shaikh Zaiuddin, was a morally just
struggle to restore peace in Malabar and expel foreign
occupiers, to return to a period when Muslims and
Hindus in the region lived together in harmony.
This treatise is an indispensable source of Malabari
history and would be invaluable to those interested in
the history of Islam in South Asia. Much that Shaikh
Zainuddin says with regard to the legitimacy of
struggle against foreign occupation and oppression
finds powerful echoes today.
Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye
Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye
The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping
The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping
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