ABSTRACT

The history of the Muslim settlers of Calicut and the importance of their role in the political scene of South India hardly needs emphasis. The town is well known for being for several centuries the focus in the struggle with the Portuguese, and throughout this period the Muslims remained close allies of the powerful Hindu Rajas known to the Portuguese as “Zamorin” (fig. 6.1) and to the Muslims as “Sāmirī (from Sanskrit samudrī: sea-lord). Calicut seems to have developed as a trading port only in the 12th and 13th centuries and was unknown to the 10th century Muslim traders, 1 but by 742–3/1341–3, when Ibn Baṭṭūṭa visited Calicut, the trade of the town was firmly in the hands of the Muslims. Ibn Baṭṭūṭa 2 describes Calicut as a major port on the Malabar coast, governed by a Hindu ruler, and inhabited by various ethnic groups coming from places as far to the east as China, Java and Ceylon, as well as from the west — the Yemen and Persia (fārs). At the time of his visit the chief merchant of Calicut was one Ibrāhīm, from Bahrain, with the title of shāh bandar (the port master or chief of the harbour), 3 while the qāḍī (religious judge and arbitrator) was one Fakhr al-dīn ‘Uthmān. The hermitage (zāwiya) of the town was in the hands of a descendant of Shaikh Abū Isḥāq Kāzirūnī, Shaikh Shahāb al-dīn, and was visited by Muslim devotees from India and China. This family was apparently in a position of some influence in Malabar, and Ibn Baṭṭūṭa records that Shaikh Shahāb al-dīn’s son was at that time in charge of the zāwiya of Kaulam. 4 In Quilon the name of another member of the family, Amir Aḥmad b. Abu’l-Fatḥ Kāzirūnī, has been found in an inscription 5 dated 726/1325–6. Vasco da Gama at the audience of the Zamorin of Calicut (from Marjay, original in the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Lisbon). https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315016191/71ab0b34-07f6-4744-a0f0-c41fb2a6e42b/content/fig6_1_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>