A Historical Overview of Islam in South Asia

For long centuries, India, in a memorable phrase, was “on the way to everywhere” (Abu Lughod 1989). Trade brought Arabs to India’s southern seacoasts and to the coasts of Sri Lanka, where small Muslim communities were established at least by the early eighth century. These traders played key economic roles and were pa­tronized by non-Muslim kings like the Zamorin of Calicut (Kozhikode) who wel­comed diverse merchant communities.

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