Islam in South Asia

Islam is the second-largest religion in South Asia, with more than 650 million Muslims living there, forming about one-third of the region's population. Islam first spread along the coastal regions of the Indian subcontinent and Sri Lanka, almost as soon as it started in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Arab traders brought it to South Asia. South Asia has the largest population of Muslims in the world, with about one-third of all Muslims living here. Islam is the dominant religion in half of the South Asian countries (Pakistan, Maldives, Bangladesh and Afghanistan). It is the second largest religion in India and third largest in Sri Lanka and Nepal.

On the Indian subcontinent, Islam first appeared in the southwestern tip of the peninsula, in today's Kerala state. Arabs traded with Malabar even before the birth of Muhammad. Native legends say that a group of Sahaba, under Malik Ibn Deenar, arrived on the Malabar Coast and preached Islam. According to that legend, the first mosque of India was built by the mandate of the last King of Chera Perumals of Makotai, who accepted Islam and received the name Tajudheen during the lifetime of the Islamic prophet Muhammad (c. 570–632). On a similar note, Tamil Muslims on the eastern coast also claim that they converted to Islam in Muhammad's lifetime. According to Qissat Shakarwati Farmad, the Masjids at Kodungallur, Kollam, Madayi, Barkur, Mangalore, Kasaragod, Kannur, Dharmadam, Panthalayini, and Chaliyam, were built during the era of Malik Dinar, and they are among the oldest Masjids in Indian Subcontinent. Historicaly, the Barwada Mosque in Ghogha, Gujarat built before 623 CE, Cheraman Juma Mosque (629 CE) in Methala, Kerala and Palaiya Jumma Palli (630 CE) in Kilakarai, Tamil Nadu are three of the first mosques in South Asia.

The first incursion occurred through sea by Caliph Umar's governor of Bahrain, Usman ibn Abu al-Aas, who sent his brother Hakam ibn Abu al-Aas to raid and reconnoitre the Makran region around 636 CE or 643 AD long before any Arab army reached the frontier of India by land. Al-Hakim ibn Jabalah al-Abdi, who attacked Makran in the year 649 AD, was an early partisan of Ali ibn Abu Talib. During the caliphate of Ali, many Hindu Jats of Sindh had come under the influence of Shi'ism and some even participated in the Battle of Camel and died fighting for Ali. According to popular tradition, Islam was brought to Lakshadweep islands, situated just to the west of Malabar Coast, by Ubaidullah in 661 CE. After the Rashidun Caliphate, Muslim dynasties came to power. Since 1947, South Asia has been largely governed by modern states.

Origins
Islamic influence first came to be felt in the Indian subcontinent during the early 7th century with the advent of Arab traders. Arab traders used to visit the Malabar region to trade even before Islam had been established in Arabia. Unlike the coasts of Malabar, the northwestern coasts were not as receptive to the Middle Eastern arrivals. Hindu merchants in Sindh and Gujarat perceived the Arab merchants to be competitors.

According to Historians Henry Miers Elliot and John Dowson in their book The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians, the first ship bearing Muslim travelers was seen on the Indian coast as early as 630 CE. The first Indian mosque is thought to have been built in 629 CE, purportedly at the behest of an unknown Chera dynasty ruler, during the lifetime of Muhammad (c. 571–632) in Kodungallur, in district of Thrissur, Kerala by Malik Bin Deenar. In Malabar, Muslims are called Mappila.

Henry Rawlinson, in his book Ancient and Medieval History of India (ISBN 81-86050-79-5), claims the first Arab Muslims settled on the Indian coast in the last part of the 7th century. This fact is corroborated, by J. Sturrock in his South Kanara and Madras Districts Manuals, and also by Haridas Bhattacharya in Cultural Heritage of India Vol. IV.

The Arab merchants and traders became the carriers of the new religion and they propagated it wherever they went. It was, however, the subsequent expansion of the Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent over the next millennia that established Islam in the region.

According to Derryl N. Maclean, a link between Sindh and early partisans of Ali or proto-Shi'ites can be traced to Hakim ibn Jabalah al-Abdi, who traveled across Sind to Makran in the year 649AD and presented a report on the area to the Caliph. He supported Ali, and died fighting on his behalf alongside Sindhi Jats.

During the reign of Ali, many Jats came under the influence of Islam. Jats fought against the Muslims in the battle of Chains in 634 and later also fought on the side of Ali in the Battle of the Camel in 656 under their chief, Ali B. Danur. After the Islamic conquest of Persia was completed, the Muslim Arabs then began to move towards the lands east of Persia and in 652 captured Herat.

Conversions
The Islamic ambitions of the sultans and Mughals had concentrated in expanding Muslim power and looting, not in seeking converts. Evidence of the absence of systematic programs for conversion is the reason for the concentration of South Asia's Muslim populations outside the main core of the Muslim polities in the northeast and northwest regions of the subcontinent, which were on the peripheries of Muslim states.

The Sufis did not preach egalitarianism, but played an important role in integrating agricultural settlements with the larger contemporary cultures. In areas where Sufis received grants and supervised clearing of forestry, they had the role of mediating with worldly and divine authority. Richard M. Eaton has described the significance of this in the context of West Punjab and East Bengal, the two main areas to develop Muslim majorities. The partition was eventually made possible because of the concentration of Muslim majorities in northwest and northeast India. The overwhelming majority of the subcontinent's Muslims live in regions which became Pakistan in 1947.

These nominal conversions to Islam, brought about by regional Muslim polities, were followed by reforms, especially after the 17th century, in which Muslims integrated with the larger Muslim world. Improved transport services in the nineteenth century brought Muslim masses into contact with Mecca, which facilitated reformist movements stressing Quranic literalism and making people aware of the differences between Islamic commands and their actual practices.

Islamic reformist movements, such as the Faraizi movement, in the nineteenth century rural Bengal aimed to remove indigenous folk practices from Bengali Islam and commit the population exclusively to Allah and Muhammad. Politically the reform aspect of conversion, emphasizing exclusiveness, continued with the Pakistan movement for a separate Muslim state and a cultural aspect was the assumption of Arab culture.

Demographics
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and the Maldives are Muslim-majority countries. The Muslim population in India is 14.5%, which still makes it the largest Muslim population outside the Muslim-majority countries.