Islam in Sri Lanka - History of Islam in Sri Lanka

History of Islam in Sri Lanka

With the arrival of Arab traders in the 8th century, 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 converting to Islam. By the 15th century, Arab traders had controlled 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 their descendants - the Sri Lankan Moors - were persecuted.The Sinhalese ruler King Senarat of Kandy gave refuge to the Muslims in the central highlands and Eastern Province, Sri Lanka.

During 18th and 19th centuries, Javanese and Malaysian Muslims bought over by the Dutch and British rulers contributed to the growing Muslim population in Sri Lanka. Their descendants, now the Sri Lankan Malays, adapted 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 Shia Islam and the Hanafi school of thought into Sri Lanka, however although most Muslims on the island still adhere to the traditional practices of Sunni Islam.

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. Today, about 10% of Sri Lankans adhere to Islam; and there are approximately 5,000 mosques, with every mosque having a committee to lookafter the community affairs. Muslims of Sri Lanka, mostly from the Moor and Malay ethnic communities on the island with smaller numbers of converts from other ethnicities, such as the Tamils.

A significant Tamil-speaking Muslim population exists in Sri Lanka; however, unlike Tamil Muslims from India, they are not culturally linked with ethnic Tamils, they are therefore listed as a separate ethnic group in official statistics. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community was established in Sri Lanka in 1915. But the other Muslim Communities consider Ahamadiyya as a separate non-Muslim religion.