Muslim Communities in Medieval Konkan (610-1900 A.D.)

An Attempt is made to study the Muslim Communities in Medieval Konkan dating from the earliest known arrivals of foreign Muslims on the Western coastland in the Konkan littoral, until the end of the nineteenth century. The present study seeks to identify the socio-intellectual and politico-religious roles played by them on the stage of history; and to appreciate their contribution to various other aspects of culture co-related to this, are the assessments made of the commercial activities and progressions of the early Perso-Arab traders by placing them within the periphery of religious geography. The Project involves in its construction a study of the rudiments of Islamic culture and its interaction over the year with the indigenous acculturation through a series of cultural symbols and synthesisation. It initiates a discussion on the group claiming foreign origin, class relationship and ethnic identities. The souces at our disposal help us the construction of Muslim ethnic communities which persisted in different phases emerging from the Middle Eastern cultural setting sharing basic cultural values of early Islamic society. This book will be of great interest not only for historians but sociologists, as well as economists and others.