KOCHI: About 10 years ago, a clutch of scholars embarked on an ambitious project to unravel the Islamic way of life by documenting and digitising its storied legacy. This work is now complete and available for public viewing at the Islamic Heritage Museum set up on the premises of Cheraman Juma Masjid at Kodungallur.
The project was not confined to unravelling just the centuries-spanning history, but also the lifestyles, literature, cuisine, art and culture. The archive is a treasure trove and contains information on customs, religious rituals, astronomy and navigation, mathematical findings and computation.
To facilitate this, over one lakh documents — texts, sounds, videos and photographs — were analysed by a team spearheaded by the Muziris Heritage Project.
While the data gathered came from all corners of the state, the epicentre was indeed the Kodungallur masjid. Established in 629 CE, it is the earliest mosque in Kerala.
Beyond the colonial lens
Though the contributions of Muslims or Mappila, as they are known in Kerala, are widely recorded, much of it is through a colonial lens. “Of late, historians have been at work to break this norm, shift the practice of tracing history from a land-based approach to encompass our rich maritime heritage. Today, trade documents are also taken into account,” says H M Ilias, an MG University professor and an instrumental member of the team.
As equally important are community lives and the history they tell us, points out P A Muhammad Saeed, another team member. “Documents were collected from families, masjids and madrassas, and private collections of individuals. They provided crucial findings which helped broaden the idea of Islam’s origin in Kerala,” he explains.
The vast collection, which is recorded in four languages — Arabic, Arabi-Malayalam, Malayalam and Persian, also contains the history of migration, the nuances of Sufism and insights into the medical practices of Muslim communities in Kerala.