 Ketchimalai Mosque, one of the oldest mosques | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 1,967,523 (2012)[1] 9.7% of its total population | |
| Religions | |
 IslamSunni Islam
| |
| Languages | |
| Tamil andSinhala |
Islam is thethird largest religion inSri Lanka, with about 9.7 percent of the total population following the religion.[3][a] About 1.9 million Sri Lankans adhere to Islam as per the Sri Lanka census of 2012.[4][3] The majority of Muslims in Sri Lanka are concentrated in theEastern Province of the island. Other areas containing significant Muslim minorities include theWestern,Northwestern,North Central,Central andSabaragamuwa provinces. Muslims form a large segment of the urban population of Sri Lanka and are mostly concentrated in major cities and large towns in Sri Lanka, likeColombo.[5] Most Sri Lankan Muslims primarily speakTamil, though it is not uncommon for Sri Lankan Muslims to be fluent inSinhalese.[5] TheSri Lankan Malays speak theSri Lankan Malaycreole language in addition to Sinhalese and Tamil.
Islam in Sri Lanka traces its origin back to the arrival ofMiddle Eastern merchants in theIndian Ocean. By the 16th century, Middle Eastern traders' were the main traders ofspice in Sri Lanka, with networks extending to the Middle East. The descendants of these merchants are commonly believed to be theSri Lankan Moors.
With the arrival of Arab traders in the 7th century A.D.,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 having them converted to Islam. By the 8th century A.D.,Arab traders had taken control of much of the trade on theIndian Ocean, including that of Sri Lanka. Many of them settled down on the island in large numbers, encouraging the spread of Islam. However, when thePortuguese arrived during the 16th century, many of these Arab traders' descendants – now called theSri Lankan Moors – were the main traders in spice, with networks extending to theMiddle East. ThePortuguese colonists attacked, persecuted, and destroyed the Sri Lankan Moor settlements, warehouses, and trading networks. Many defeated Moors sought refuge from persecution by escaping to the interior of Sri Lanka. The population of Sri Lankan Moors declined significantly during thePortuguese colonial rule due to thepogroms against the Moors. The Sinhalese ruler KingSenarat of Kandy gave refuge to some of the Muslims in the central highlands andEastern Province, Sri Lanka.[6]
During the 18th and 19th centuries,Javanese andMalaysian Muslims brought over by theDutch andBritish rulers contributed to the growing Muslim population in Sri Lanka. Their descendants, now theSri Lankan Malays, adopted severalSri 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 andSouth Indian Muslims have introducedShafi'i and theHanafi school of thought into Sri Lanka.[citation needed] Most Muslims on the island adhere to the traditional practices ofSunni Islam.[citation needed]
Muslims generally follow Sufi traditions. TheFassiya ashShazuliya tariqa, which has its headquarters in Ummu Zavaya in M.J.M. Laffir mawatha, Colombo, supported by theAl-Fassi family in the 1870s, is the most prevalent Sufi order among the Sri Lankan Muslims followed by Aroosiyathul qadiriya. The Deobandi Tablighi Jamaat, jamathe islame and thawheed jamath etc. also have centers in Colombo.[7] Sunni scholarMuhammad Abdul Aleem Siddiqi built Hanafi Masjid in Colombo for Sri Lankan Muslims.[8]
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. Muslims of Sri Lanka, mostly continue to derive from theMoor andMalay ethnic communities on the island with smaller numbers of converts from other ethnicities, such as theTamils.
In recent years, Sri Lankan Muslims have become more affected by the growing influence ofSalafism; due to investment fromSaudi Arabia, Sri Lankan Sufi Muslims have been wary of increasingWahhabism among Sri Lankan Muslims.[9] The brutal2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings revealed that the radicalNational Thowheeth Jama'ath, a Salafi influenced organization, was behind the bombings, leading to increasing censorship of the Salafi movement in Sri Lanka.[10]
In April 2020, the Sri Lankan government made COVID-19 cremations mandatory, saying that burying bodies could contaminate groundwater and spread the disease. Islam prohibits cremation and Muslims make up 10% of the population in Sri Lanka.[11]
In late February 2021, after intense objections from human rights groups, including Amnesty International and the United Nations, the Sri Lankan government decided to allow burials to take place for Muslims. They were to be done onIranathivu island, a remote island in the Gulf of Mannar. It lies 300 km (186 miles) away from the capital, Colombo, and was chosen because of its low population density.[12]
| Census | Population | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 1881 | 197,800 | 7.17% |
| 1891 | 212,000 | 7.05% |
| 1901 | 246,100 | 6.90% |
| 1911 | 283,600 | 6.91% |
| 1921 | 302,500 | 6.72% |
| 1931 Estimate | 354,200 | 6.67% |
| 1946 | 436,600 | 6.56% |
| 1953 | 541,500 | 6.69% |
| 1963 | 724,000 | 6.84% |
| 1971 | 901,785 | 7.11% |
| 1981 | 1,121,717 | 7.56% |
| 2012 | 1,967,523 | 9.66% |
The districts ofAmpara (43%),Trincomalee (42%) andBatticaloa (26%) inEastern Province have the highest share of Muslims in Sri Lanka, followed byPuttalam (20%),Mannar (17%),Kandy (14%) andColombo (12%).
TheSri Lankan Moors are mostly native speakers of theTamil language while a few of them speak Sinhala as primary language, and followIslam as their religion. Sri Lankan Moors comprise 9.30% (2012 Census) of Sri Lanka's population, and constitute the largest ethnic group within the Muslim community in the country.[13]
Islam was spread toSri Lanka by contacts with the merchant ships operated by the Moor traders between Serendib (Old Persian / Arabic name for Sri Lanka), and various ports in theArabian Peninsula andNorth Africa. As per scholars, Sri Lankan Moors are descendant of theMarakkar,Mappilas,Memons and Pathans ofSouth India.[14]
There are 749 Muslim schools in Sri Lanka, 205 madrasas which teach Islamic education, and an Islamic university in Beruwala (Jamiya Naleemiya). Al Iman Schools in Colombo was the first organization of Islamic schools of its kind, teaching an integrated Islamic curriculum since 2008. In the early 20th century there were few Muslim professionals in accounting, medicine, engineering, etc., but at present they are exceeding the national average. Due to the lack of opportunity in Sri Lanka, many Muslim professionals are emigrating to get jobs abroad, such as to theMiddle East,United States,Canada,Australia, andEurope. The Moors have had better social and economic mobility, thanks to the historic head start they had in getting education and government jobs under the British colonial rule.[15]
In the eastern provinces of the country Muslims are predominant. These Muslims were settled on land given by the Sinhalese KingSenarat of Kandy after the Muslims were persecuted by thePortuguese.[6] East coast Sri Lankan Moors are primarily farmers, fishermen, and traders. According to the controversial census of 2007, the Moors are 5% (only Moors, not the entire Muslim population of the eastern province).[citation needed] Their family lines are traced through women, as in kinship systems of the southwest Indian state ofKerala, like theNairs and someMappilas, but they govern themselves throughIslamic law.[16]
Many moors in the west of the island are traders, professionals or civil servants and are mainly concentrated inColombo,Kalutara,Beruwala,Dharga Town,Puttalam,Jaffna,Kandy,Matale,Vavuniya andMannar. Moors in the west coast trace their family lines through their father. Along with those in the Central Province, the surname of many Moors inColombo,Kalutara andPuttalam is their father's first name, thus retaining similarity to the traditionalArab and middle eastern kinship system.
TheMalays of Sri Lanka originated inSoutheast Asia and today consist of about 50,000 persons.[citation needed] Their ancestors came to the country when both Sri Lanka andIndonesia were colonies of theDutch.[16] Most of the early Malay immigrants were indentured labours, posted by the Dutch colonial administration to Sri Lanka, who decided to settle on the island.[16] Other immigrants were convicts or members of noble houses from Indonesia who were exiled to Sri Lanka and who never left.[16] The main source of a continuing Malay identity is their commonMalay language(Bahasa Melayu), which includes numerous words absorbed fromSinhalese and theMoorish variant of the Tamil language.[16] In the 1980s, the Malays made up about 5% of the Muslim population in Sri Lanka[16] and, like theMoors, predominantly follow theShafi school of thought withinSunni Islam.[citation needed]
The Indian Muslims are those who trace their origins to immigrants searching for business opportunities during the colonial period.[16] Some of these people came to the country as far back as Portuguese times; others arrived during the British period from various parts of India.[16] The majority of them came fromTamil Nadu andKerala states, and unlike the Sri Lankan Moors, are ethnically related to South Indians and number approximately 30,000.[citation needed] TheMemon, originally fromSindh (in modernPakistan), first arrived in 1870; in the 1980s they numbered only about 3,000.[16] They mostly follow theHanafiSunni school of Islam.[citation needed]
TheDawoodi Bohras and theKhoja areShi'a Muslims who came from western India (Gujarat state) after 1880; in the 1980s they collectively numbered fewer than 2,000.[16] These groups tended to retain their own places of worship and the languages of their ancestral homelands.[16]
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